Loading feed…
Hacker News0 Hot0 comments113 min read
Milestones:Parametron, 1954
The Parametron, invented in 1954 by Eiichi Goto at the University of Tokyo, was a logic element using ferrite cores and parametric oscillation. At a time when vacuum tubes cost 1,000 yen and transistors 8,000 yen each, ferrite cores cost just 5 yen, making the parametron dramatically cheaper and more stable. Using 4,200 parametrons, the PC-1 — Japan's first university-built stored-program computer — became operational on March 26, 1958, and was the fastest operational computer in Japan at the time. PC-1 featured innovations including a carry-lookahead arithmetic circuit using majority logic, an AC magnetic core memory, and one of the earliest interrupt mechanisms enabling multitasking. By 1959, nearly half of all Japanese electronic computers in operation used parametrons. The technology also found non-computer applications including Morse-to-Teletype converters used at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and early ARQ error-correction devices. Parametrons were eventually displaced by transistors by the mid-1960s, but their legacy influenced Japan's first generation of computer engineers and scientists. The underlying principle lives on in Adiabatic Quantum-Flux-Parametron (AQFP) research today.
Source: https://ethw.org/Milestones:Parametron,_1954. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.
