Ferranti Perseus

Perseus was a vacuum tube (valve) computer built by Ferranti, Ltd of Great Britain. It was a development of the Ferranti Pegasus computer for large-scale data processing.[1] Perseus, which was one of Ferranti's computer systems that included Orion and Sirius,[2] was the company's first production machine marketed towards commercial users.[3] The system used the automatic checking method.[1] Two were sold, both to overseas insurance companies in 1959.[4]

Design

Perseus has two components that functioned independent of each other. The first was the central computer - the processing unit that handled data processing and commercial work.[1] The second was the unit for printing from half-inch magnetic tape.[1] The design aim of Perseus was to enable large-scale data-processing, rather than scientific computing. It used the same electronic technology as the Ferranti Pegasus, similarly engineered. The envisaged applications would involve vast amounts of file data for which 1/2" magnetic tape was provided. The word length was 72 bits with 160 words of random-access memory provided by single-word nickel acoustic delay lines. Unlike Pegasus with its magnetic drum, further internal store was provided by 864, 16-word delay lines.[5] Large-scale data input was provided by punched card readers available for both round- and rectangular-hole cards. Data output was via magnetic tape to an off-line unit equipped with 300 lines per minute Samastronic line printers.[6]

gollark: Yes, essays bad.
gollark: I mean, also, I generally am not very good at English stuff. During our mock exams, I really struggled to write some essays in the 2-hour time we had and didn't think they were very good. And they weren't really, I got a 6.
gollark: I mean, GCSE maths isn't very hard. I don't even do that much revision.
gollark: Anyway, sometimes after maths tests and stuff I hear people talking about how they got 25% or something, and I think to myself... *how*?
gollark: I'm only providing vague details. Although they might be enough to uniquely identify me. Oops.

References
  1. Hunt 1959.
  2. Reilly, Edwin D. (2003). Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 98. ISBN 1573565210.
  3. Gandy, Anthony (2012). The Early Computer Industry: Limitations of Scale and Scope. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 175. ISBN 9780230389106.
  4. "Ferranti", Our Computer Heritage Project, Computer Conservation Society, Pegasus, Perseus and Sirius: Delivery List, 2010
  5. Hunt 1959, p. 68.
  6. De Kerf 1959, p. 34.

Bibliography


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.