Computer History: Building the UNIVAC 1108 Computer, Twin Cities (1965-1968) Sperry Rand, UNISYS

Late 1960's video showing the Sperry UNIVAC data processing facility in Twin Cities, Minnesota, manufacturing the UNIVAC 1108 computer. Great footage of creating a CORE Memory block, and manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards ("PCB"), and the quality assurance lab in action. The original film was a bit rough, but cleaned it up as much as possible. (We are looking for a better copy of the film, so please let us know if you are aware of any.) Run time about 16 minutes. Hope you enjoy this inside look at creating the UNIVAC 1108! (Computer History Archives Project)

Sperry announced the UNIVAC 1108 in the summer of 1964 and delivered the first one in late 1965.
An improved version of the 1107, it used a combination of transistors and integrated circuits.
This film shows a rare look inside the Twin Cities Data Processing Division, Minnesota.
Topics included are
- Wiring Core Memory Planes
- Assembling Printed Circuit Cards
- Hand Assembly Manufacturing Line
- Automated Wire Wrap Machines
- Quality Assurance Testing
- UNIVAC 1108 Console Testing Room
- Peripheral Devices; Magnetic Drum Memory
- an Image Gallery.

For more information on the UNIVAC 1108, see also:

Wiki:

Unisys History Newsletter, Volume 3, Number 2, April 1999 (rev. Mar. 2000)
by George Gray (this link loads slowly)

Adapted from the Sperry UNIVAC film "Electronic Servants" of the late 1960's.
(C) Unisys Corporation

with additional thanks to:

Hagley Museum and Library,

Computer History Museum,

VIP Club - Information Technology (IT) Pioneers
Retirees and former employees of Unisys, Lockheed Martin, and their heritage companies

[davidcarpentier]

I spent many years working at Univac (Unisys) Roseville, MN. 1108’s were the first computer I ever worked on as a tech. Eventuality wrote software for this computer and it’s many variants. I also assembled and tested the very first CRT display on a 1108. My mother in law worked there also and worked stringing those tiny wires through the core memories sitting at a microscope many hours!

[JohnMichaelson]

Watching them painstakingly running a needle and copper thread through the cores or making those little copper-wound donuts _by hand_ is just... wow, I can't imagine more tedious, mentally wearisome tasks.

[ElPasoTubeAmps]

I was a Univac CE starting in January 1970 in Huntsville, AL at MSFC, moving to El Paso, TX in 1976 to continue with the 1108's at WSMR. We also had 1100/80 across the hill at a NASA site (WSTF) and 1100/60 at HAFB during these years into the 1990's. We had eight 1108's at WSMR. The last 1100 series computer at WSMR was the 1100/90, a water cooled computer. Starting with Remington Rand Univac it evolved into, Univac, then Sperry Univac, then Sperry, and in 1986 was purchased by Burroughs and became Unisys. My employment with Univac and Unisys lasted until the summer of 1994 - 24.5 years. A great career and memories. Wish I could do it all over again. I believe the core memories (64K) were $500K each and the 1108 CPU was $750K each. $2.75M for one CPU and four memory cabinets, plus peripherals.

[dwbogardus]

While yet in high school in 1969-70, I taught myself FORTRAN IV on a UNIVAC 1108 at Collins Radio Company in Newport Beach, California, using a book called "Fortran IV, Self-Taught" by Mario V. Farina. I was fortunate to be one of the only ones in our school to have such computer access, more so than any of the teachers. Collins sponsored a Boy Scout technical Explorer Post, and provided access to amazing technical resources. I had 24-hour on-site access to all the computer time I wanted. The actual Univac 1108 was is Dallas, Texas, but connected by high-speed data lines to a Collins-built I/O processing computer that managed the very high speed card reader and line printer. And they had several IBM Model 29 card punches which I used to punch many hundreds of cards for the programs I wrote, and that another fellow scout collaborated on. During the second week of a two-week Christmas respite from school, my friend and I wrote and ran a 500-card Fortran digital logic simulation program. I still have the card stack and the printouts from the 132 column line printer.

[martinhaub]

Great video - brings back memories. My first programming experience was on an 1108. Computers used to be so much more fun!

[mikebrinda]

Worked for Sperry Univac 1975 - 1982. Worked on 1108 at Computer Sciences Corporation, El Segundo, California.

[TheTwick]

Love the ‘unit of data’ - 36 newspaper pages in a third of a second. ;-)

[headpox]

Thanks once again, CHA, for presenting these films to us. Seriously appreciated. BTW, that's one serious beehive hair style at 1:00 ! Looks like they are wiring the microcode at 6:34.

[pr]

I was a Univac site engineer on the predecessor to this model - the 1106, which had very similar architecture. We used to do component-level repairs so I remember the tool shown at the end, the card puller, which was often used with a card extender to allow access to the card components while the system was running. Despite the card connectors being gold plated, bad connections would sometimes cause faults that could be cured by simply pulling the card and plugging it back in again. Being a site engineer gave you great experience, as you were expected to fix everything from a Fastrand drum storage system to a punched card reader. I still have some of my old 1106 system manuals that I used way back in the late '70s.

[johnwilliams]

All of the careful attention to detail and those long test cycles really contributed to the bulletproof reputation that so many mainframes (theirs, and others) earned over the years.

[stevew]

I first worked on (dual) 1108s in 1970. Super multiprocessing machine with up to 3 CPUs and a number of independent I/O processors possible. Unfortunately the OS software was still catching up at that time (Exec level 26). Went on to work at several sites with 1108s and when I joined Univac in Roseville, MN in 1980 the slightly updated 1108 CPU was still in use as the 1100/20.

I still have my coffee mug given out on the manufacturing of the 1000th Type 3011 processor (basically the 1108 and its derivatives).

[AjinkyaMahajan]

Wonderful content.
Thanks for Sharing✨
Cheers

[NickT]

The assembler made threading the magnetic core memory look easy!

[gerritvisser]

I worked in that factory for 3 months in early 1975, rebuilding plated wire memory cabinets. First job in 1968 was repairing Univac II at Ontario Hydro, later Univac III and then 1108, 1106, 9200/9300, DCT2000, 1110, CS/P and finally 1100/80 in early 80's. Lots of great memories, troubleshooting down to the IC/transistor.

[PEChgo]

My father worked for Sperry Univac/Unisys and I know he was at the Twin Cities site several times for training - really cool to see this video!

[bwv]

I would give about 80% odds that my uncle shot the footage used in this film. And if so, I almost certainly posses the camera he used. I myself participated in a project to decommission a pair of 1108s with drum storage at RAF Croughton in the UK and replace them with refurbished Univac 1100/60 systems. I wish these films had credits that listed the people that contributed to them, but alas they do not.

[AlexPayneKU]

Супер! Большое спасибо! Очень интересно!
Уникальные кадры!

[frankowalker]

The original opening sequence is priceless. :)
7:40 "Reliability does not just happen, It must be earned."
That's wrong, reliability is made. LOL.

[galnetdor]

A sperry univac was the first computer I ever used back in the early 1970s My father was an executive of a company that made glass printed circuit boards and used a timeshared univac for some of the accounting systems. I, still in my single digits years, would go in to the office on Saturdays with him (probably to give my mother a break) some times the computer operators who ran the system would put me on a paper tty terminal and let me play with it. I think they had something like the early Eliza program running so it would appear to talk to me. Other times it was more of a calculator program (this was at a time when most “adding machines” were still more mechanical than electric.) so having a computer do even very simple math that an 8 year old would understand was a novelty.

[dzee]

Folks these days are long gone, this is when America was Great. We americans built and designed these computers while the rest of the world was still 3rd or 4th world. We did not think of sending off these device to be built in some foreign country. America today is NOTHING like it was during this time period, these folks in this video I am sure was a truly proud American.