Remington Rand UNIVAC Commercial

An incredible commercial from the early 1950s featuring the Remington Rand UNIVAC System. This clip has some VERY rare footage of a UNIVAC in action in Remington Rand's New York Computing Center with a brief explanation of the major parts of the UNIVAC system. Just wait till you see the input panel they used for a keyboard!

This particular commercial spotlights the UNIVAC's weather forecasting capability using satellite and rocket telemetry data. It also highlights some of the outstanding (for the time) features of this super computer such as magnetic tapes that transfer data at a rate of "12,000 numbers per second" and Memory Tanks with "12,000 additional units of information"... All of which is connected to the Central Computer capable of making "over 2,000 calculations per second."

UNIVAC had no screen for display. It output to a very fast line printer capable of up to 600 lines per minute, which you can briefly see in action in this commercial. You also see the output from a self-diagnostic routine which shows various printed results such as "memory clear", "register ok", "unit 1 ok", "unit 2 ok", "unit 3 ok".

The four basic UNIVAC models available at the time are mentioned... (1) The General Purpose UNIVAC, (2) the UNIVAC Scentific, (3) the UNIVAC File Computer, and (4) the UNIVAC Punch Card Computer. "Each of them capable of literally hundreds of applications, from weather forecasting to complete business control."

This is an amazing video artifact from the days when there were probably less than 100 computers in the entire world!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 1950s
• Remington
• Rand
• UNIVAC
• Commercial
• weather
• forecasting
• early
• computers
• CBS
• Network

[MerleOberon]

I like how they gave it style then, with chrome trim etc. all it needed was tail fins...

[ferociousgumby]

Clack, clack

Went the Univac.

[dekoomers]

@blakegriplingph make that V

[DBSpy1]

You don't need that,just duck and cover and now days also have some duct tape,that's what the law makers and rich do right?

[SNK038]

Notice he says "Memory Tanks" not "Memory Banks". Memory in the 50s wasn't the RAM like today. It was a giant metal tank filled with liquid mercury! They sent an impulse through the slow moving liquid and like a wave in the ocean, it would move slowly through the mercury to the other side, creating a short state of delay memory.

[blakegriplingph]

Yeah, but can it run GTA IV?

[msdos622wasfun]

That's nothing. My overclocked Intel Core 2 Quad system can perform over 25,000 operations per second.

[joshuahardy95]

omfg computer in this day and age just blows my mind

[6motion6]

Hey-I love my UNIVAC laptop. It goes everywhere w/me. Thanks Remington Rand.