Titan (1963 computer)
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Titan was the prototype of the Atlas 2 computer developed by Ferranti and the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in Cambridge, England. It was designed starting in 1963, and in operation from 1964 to 1973.[1]
History
Titan differed from the original Manchester Atlas by having a real, but cached, main memory, rather than the paged (or virtual) memory used in the Manchester machine. The Titan's main memory had 128K of 48-bit words and was implemented using ferrite core store rather than the part core, part rotating drum-store used on the Manchester Atlas. Titan had more memory than the Atlas, but it was slower at 2.5 microseconds access time.[2] Titan also had two large hard-disk drives and several magnetic tape decks.
As with the Manchester Atlas, it used discrete components, in particular germanium transistors. Some of these components can be seen in the online relics collection of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.[3]
As a prototype it had a reputation for technical excellence; but it was also often highly unreliable, and indeed some wiring anomalies were still being discovered several years after it was first commissioned.
One of Titan's most intensive uses was to compute the inverse Fourier Transforms of data from the One-Mile Radio Telescope.
Titan was the computer on which Peter Swinnerton-Dyer developed the early multi-user time-sharing operating system called Titan Supervisor. This was arguably the world's first commercially sold time-sharing operating system.[1] Other experiments in timesharing, such as CTSS and PLATO in the US were one-of-a-kind research projects.
Ferranti, by then a division of International Computers and Tabulators (ICT), marketed the Titan as the Atlas 2.[4] Although intended to be more affordable than the Atlas, its price was still over £1 million.[5] A second Atlas 2 was built, also in Cambridge, and was installed at the Computer-Aided Design Centre (CADCentre) on Madingley Road. This machine, the last Atlas, was finally switched off on 21 December 1976.
A third Atlas 2 was ordered by the UK's Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. It replaced the faster but much more expensive IBM 7030 Stretch which had been leased from IBM.[2]
References
- ^ a b "The Relics Project: Virtual exhibition". University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. 1999. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- ^ a b "Atlas II Computer for Aldermaston". Press Release. 1 November 1963. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- ^ "Relic Information: Associated machine = Titan". University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. 1999. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- ^ "Ferranti Computing Systems Atlas 2 Brochure". Ferranti Computing Systems. August 1963. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- ^ "Cambridge Atlas". Computing at Chilton: 1961-2003. August 1963. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
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