Route Reference Computer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:42, 26 April 2018

Revision as of 21:11, 6 May 2018

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===Sorting problems===

In the immediate post-war era, Canada experienced explosive growth in urban population as veterans returning from [[World War II]] moved into the cities looking for work in the [[newly industrialized country]]. This created logjams at mail routing offices that handled the mail for what used to be much smaller cities. Whereas the formerly rural population spread out the sorting and delivery of mail, now sixty percent of all the mail was being sorted at only ten processing stations,<ref name=v108>Vardalas, pg. 108</ref> leading to lengthy delays and complaints that reached all the way to the [[Canadian House of Commons of Canada|House of Commons]].

[[File:Mail sorting,1951.jpg|thumb|This image shows a typical manual sorting station, in this case in [[Los Angeles]] in 1951. Mail is separated and cleaned up on the desks closest to the camera, and then sorted in the rows of pigeon holes further away.]]

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===Route Reference Computer===

Levy and Turnbull pressed for development of a production system, while Porter was suggested they move to a [[transistor|transistorized]]ized version of the computer. Porter had made the same proposal to the Navy in order to cure the size and reliability problems they were having the tube-based DATAR, and had signed a contract for a transistorized DATAR in early 1955. Since the Navy was paying for much of the development of the circuitry, the new machine would be inexpensive to develop. Porter offered a $65,000 contract for the new computer, known as the '''Route Reference Computer''', which Turnbull signed in August 1955.<ref name=v115/>

Ferranti had based both proposals on Philco's SB-100 transistor and their Transac logic circuit design. In production both proved to be less developed than hoped. The SB-100 was unreliable, and even working versions varied so widely in performance that the Transac logic circuits were unusable. Making matters worse, in late 1955 the Navy was forced to cancel development of the transistorized DATAR, placing the entire development cost on the Post Office budget. Ferranti burned through the initial $65,000 by early 1956, and several additional rounds of funding followed. Since the Post Office had no other plans on the books to address their problems, these were always forthcoming.<ref>Vardalas, pg. 115-117</ref>

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==See also==

* [[Transorma]]

* [[Multiple Position Letter Sorting Machine]]

==References==

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* Norman Ball and John Vardalas, "Ferranti-Packard: pioneers in Canadian electrical manufacturing", McGill-Queen's Press, 1994, {{ISBN|0-7735-0983-6}}

* David Boslaugh, [https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Mi8MhzheOokC "When Computers Went to Sea"], Wiley, 2003, {{ISBN|0-471-47220-4}}

* Alan Dornian, [https://web.archive.org/web/20040925093915/http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~williams/History_web_site/World%20map%20first%20page/Canada/a2031.pdf "ReserVec: Trans-Canada Airlines' Computerized Reservation System"], ''IEEE Annals of the History of Computing'', Volume 16 Number 2 (1994), pp. 31-42&nbsp;31–42

{{refend}}