The UNIVAC full form refers to the line of electronic digital stored-program computers produced by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later, the name was also used by successor organizations such as Remington Rand. It was the first computer system to include software and hardware components. The computer system operated by direct user access, which allowed users to add new programs and perform all computations themselves. However, many people are confused about the meaning of this abbreviation. This article will help you learn the meaning and usage of the UNIVAC term.
UNIVAC, or the Universal Automatic Computer, was the first commercial computer. It was designed by John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, two engineers from the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. The computer was the first commercially available computer to use transistorised circuits. The computer was later surpassed by the ENIAC, which had the same basic principles as the UNIVAC, though it was still limited in its capabilities.
The UNIVAC I was developed to be a commercial data-processing computer. It was intended to replace punch-card accounting machines. It could read up to 7,200 decimal digits per second, but did not use binary numbers. The computer contained around 5,000 vacuum tubes and took up 14.5 square feet of space. The UNIVAC signaled a convergence of academic computational research with the office automation trend of the late nineteenth century.
The ENIAC was an early general-purpose computer. It was a successor to the EDVAC. Its full form is Advanced Disk Catalog, Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, Internal Automatic Computer, and UNIVERSAL Automatic Computer. It is an excellent example of a computer that embodied several important technological advancements. However, this computer didn’t last long. As time went on, more people were using it to solve problems.
In 1969, Remington Rand acquired the Sperry Corporation and its UNIVAC division. The company renamed the division after General Douglas MacArthur was named head of the company. In the 1960s, there were eight major American computer companies. IBM, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Sperry Rand were the seven dwarfs, and the UNIVAC was the Snow White. Despite these changes, it remained a major company in the field of computer technology.
The first Univac machine was the 90/30. It competed with the IBM System 3 and used a disk-based operating system. It had a 300 or 600-line-per-minute printer, a console, and several 1600-BpI tape drives. Later, after Sperry acquired the RCA CSD, the operating system was renamed VS/9.
