IBM NORC

The IBM Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) was a one-of-a-kind first-generation (vacuum tube) computer built by IBM for the United States Navy's Bureau of Ordnance. It went into service in December 1954 and was likely the most powerful computer at the time. The Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC), was built at the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory under the direction of Wallace Eckert.

The computer was presented to the US Navy on December 2, 1954. At the presentation ceremony, it calculated pi to 3089 digits, which was a record at the time. The calculation took only 13 minutes. In 1955 NORC was moved to the Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren, Virginia. It was their main computer until 1958, when more modern computers were acquired. It continued to be used until 1968. Its design influenced the IBM 701 and subsequent machines in the IBM 700 series of computers.

Asteroid #1625 is named after the NORC, see Meanings of asteroid names (1501-2000).

The machine originally used electrostatic tubes (CRT or Williams tube) for memory which stored 2000 words, with an access time of 8 microseconds. Each word consisted of 16 decimal digits, using four bits to represent each digit, plus two modulo-4 error-checking bits. A word could store a 13-digit number with sign and 2-digit index, or one instruction. NORC used four sets of 66 electrostatic tubes in parallel for memory. Each of the tubes in a set of 66 stored one bit of each of 500 words, so each of the four sets of 66 tubes stored 500 words. An upgrade to the addressing circuitry for the Williams tubes allowed memory per tube to be expanded from 500 bits to 900 bits, expanding the total memory to 3600 words without needing to add any more Williams tubes.

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