1930's: Desire to Develop Original Technology When I joined NEC in 1929, 90% of the telecommunications patents were owned by foreign countries. Japan's material and component industry was very small with most of the important materials imported from abroad. Young engineers including myself tried hard to find ways to change this. From 1930 a trend emerged that a nation's telecommunications infrastructure should not rely on imported technologies, and that equipment should be supplied based on domestic requirements and proprietary technologies. Thus, developing technology became a goal of Japanese engineers.

Perspective of "C&C"

At that time, Dr. Shigeyoshi Matsumae and Dr. Noboru Shinohara of the Ministry of Communications proposed the first non- loaded cable carrier transmission system in the world. I was selected to participate in this development project to lay 1,900 miles of cable circuits between Japan and China. In 1939, after 7 years of work, the project was completed based on the original technology of Japan. I learned that to accomplish a project, whether it may take 10 years or 20 years, if the team settles down to work and uses their own abilities without relying on a quick fix of borrowing things, the road will open up in due course.

The Forerunner of Japan's Computer Development It is said that Japan's computer industry started about 10 years behind the United States. In 1946 when the world's first electronic calculator, ENIAC, was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania, Japan was in a period of turmoil. After the conclusion of the peace treaty in 1952, communications led to the reinvigoration of technology. The development of radar during the war brought progress in pulse technology, and led to the development of digital multiplex systems using pulse-time and pulse-code modulation. Later, this digital technology came to form the basis of computer development. FM radio and television broadcasting began and consumer markets were born. The new word "electronics" presaged the birth of new industries. As research and development intensified, computers and semiconductors came to be considered major products for the future.

Japanese Computers In 1951, a computer project started under the leadership of Professor Hideo Yamashita of Tokyo University with the cooperation of Toshiba Corporation. This was called TAC, Tokyo University Automatic Computer, and is a Japanese vacuum tube computer. After much effort, the 7,000 vacuum tube machine was completed in 1959.

In 1949, Mr. Bunji Okazaki of Fuji Photo Film Co. began the development of FUJIC. Working almost alone, he completed it in 1956. This computer, used for the design of camera lenses, was the very first machine ever manufactured and put into practical use in Japan. It is exhibited at the Science Museum at Ueno in Tokyo. Mr. Okazaki later moved to NEC and participated in the development of computers.

Before FUJIC was developed, relay type mechanical calculators were studied by the Electro-Technical Laboratory of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The resulting ETL Mark I was completed in 1952, and the ETL Mark II, in 1955. The logic formulas adopted for the circuit designs for the ETL Mark I were based on the 1935 Nakashima-Hanzawa theory of switching systems. This research was similar to the 1938 theory of Dr. C. E. Shannon of Bell Telephone Laboratories which attracted worldwide attention in the scientific community. The Japanese theory, however, was not announced overseas.

The invention of the transistor in 1948 by Bell Laboratories was a big shock to us. However, NEC succeeded in the trial manufacture of point contact type transistors in 1953 and then the development of various semiconductor products progressed rapidly.

In 1954 the parametron was invented by Dr. Eiichi Goto `of Tokyo University. The parametron, a kind of solid circuit, was remarkably stable compared to conventional vacuum tubes and was far less expensive than transistors, which were expensive at that time. Because of these merits, the possibility of using this new elements was eagerly discussed because it was an original invention from Japan.

The leading developers of the parametron were the faculty of Tokyo University, engineers at the Electrical Communication Laboratory of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co., Japan's international telecommunications carrier. Under the guidance of Professor Hidetoshi Takahashi at Tokyo University, the PC-1 computer using parametrons was developed in 1958 and the PC-2 in 1960. At NTT Laboratory the MUSASHINO-1 started operation in 1957.

The late Professor Kenzo Jo of Osaka University was another computer pioneer. Under his guidance, research on an ENIAC type model was started in 1947 and completed in 1952.

Computer Development at NEC In the field of communications the parts which limted the performance of multiplex carrier transmission equipment were filters. The design of these filter was extremely difficult, and themethod used was direct experimentation. In 1955 Dr. Hitoshi Watanabe conceived of a new filter design theory that required calculations beyond the capacity of existing computers. As a result, NEC decided to build a computer using the newly invented parametrons. In 1955, research and development was started on the NEAC-1101 followed by prototype manufacture in 1958. This first computer was used not only for the design of filters but also for the development of new technology and products. Figure 1 shows boards that are on display at The Computer Museum. Based on this technology, NEC developed the SENAC-1 jointly with Tohoku University, and named it the NEAC-1102. Later, NEC delivered the NEAC-1103 to the Defense Agency Research Laboratory.

With the success of the NEAC-1101, I determined that NEC would develop computers as a new business. This led to the introduction of small-size computers for business use, called the NEAC-1200 series.

Transistor Computers In 1954, Dr. Hiroshi Wada, director of the electronics department of the Electro-Technical Laboratory of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, began developing computers using transistors. The ETL Mark III using point-contact transistors was completed in 1956, followed in 1957 by ETL Mark IV using junction-type transistors.

When I saw the ETL Mark IV, I immediately decided to commercialize it at NEC and introduced this computer one year later in 1958, thanks to energetic efforts of the company's engineers. This computer, the NEAC-2201, was exhibited at the Paris AUTOMATH in June 1959. Soon after that, the IBM 1401 was put on the market, and the age of the second generation of computers, which used transistors, began.

Computer Systems NEC further improved the NEAC-2201 by adding additional memory and input and output equipment to create an "electronic data processing system," the NEAC-2203. Programming efforts were greatly reduced by the early development of a compiler, named NARC. NEC proceeded with the development of complicated numerical calculation routines such as programs for solving transportation problems, optimum path calculations, and linear programming. Through these experiences I came to fully realize the vital importance of software.

Japan's first on-line real-time seat reservation system, based on NEAC-2203 technology, was put into use at the Kinki Nippon Railways in 1960.

In 1967, NEC developed Japan's first time- sharing system using a large-scale NEAC- 2200 model 500 as the main computer. This was the end result of a long process starting with the NEAC-2202, which could be shared by 7 terminals based on the time division principle. Understanding the value of timesharing, NEC followed MIT's project MAC closely and used it as a model. NEC also called it the MAC system. With the first delivery to Osaka University, NEC's computer business evolved from small-scale, to medium-scale, then to large-scale, and from off-line to on-line systems.

Japan's Computer Development Three unique features have channeled the direction of computer development in Japan.

First, Japan's commercial computer industry started with transistor machines jumping over the first generation of vacuum tube-based computers.

Second, Japan's computer industry grew from communications technology utilizing technology, components, and elements which were developed for communications equipment. Thus communications and computers have developed a technologically close relationship in such things as circuit designs, analog to digital conversion, and adoption of solid-state circuitry.

In contrast, most American and European computer manufacturers began as office equipment makers supplying such products as punch-card systems. In their development processes, they converted their machines to electronic systems, and became computer producers.

Third, the Japanese government exerted helpful efforts during the formative period of the electronics industry, promoting telecommunications, consumer electronics, computers, and semiconductor products.

Through the first half of the 1960's, single purpose machines were classified into scientific use and office use. Then the trend shifted to multipurpose computers for general use.

In the mid-1960's, along with the increase in processing volume and diversification of usage, the family series machines became dominant. Manufacturers provided various scales of computers, ranging from small to medium, and later from small to large. All members of a family could share the same software. This was the age of the "line-oriented computer." NEC offered numerous models with the name of the NEAC-2200 series.

This family series had a big advantage over "point-oriented computers" in that software assets could be consolidated based on a consistent system design philosophy. NEC called this the "one machine concept." The vertical integration of the NEAC-2200 series oriented itself to centralized processing systems using large-scale computers. By the latter half of the 1970's, excessive centralization caused the hardware to become very large and complex, and at the same time, made it inevitable that software too must become voluminous and complicated. As a result, system flexibility and reliability were reduced and a remarkable amount of manpower was required for maintenance.

A distributed processing system was conceived to overcome these problems by processing information at the site of its generation and usage. In place of single super large computer, a number of comparatively small-scale computers and intelligent terminals incorporating computer functions are integrated through communications lines. This offsets the demerits of vertical integration and makes systems more economical. The "area- oriented computer" has both vertical and horizontal integration. Based on this conce

pt, NEC developed "DINA", Distributed Information processing Network Architecture, the architecture that incorporates the knowledge and experience gained from NEC's original communications technologies.

"C & C" As computers approach communications, communications is beginning to approach computers. Communications equipment has become digitalized and communications services have developed from the simple transfer of information to higher level services including processing and storage of information. In 1977, succeeding the announcement of "DINA" in the previous year, NEC announced the NEAX-61, the first digital switching system for telephone offices. In that year, I announced the concept of the merger of computers and communications at the Atlanta INTELCOM 77. Then in 1978, at the third U.S.A.Japan Computer Conference held in San Francisco, I announced this concept by using the phrase "C&C," which stands for the integration of computers and communications. Since then I have made "C&C" NEC's corporate identity.

From the technological viewpoint, "C&C" is the integration of computers and communications technologies. From the view point of "C&C"'s influence in social and economical world, it can be summarized in three points.

First, "C&C" can become an information- related infrastructure of worldwide scale.

Second, the constituent elements of this infrastructure will serve as valuable tools for solving various social problems, promoting economic and cultural development, and contributing to international mutual understanding.

Third, the effective use of information resources can overcome the limitations that restrict the optimum utilization of the world's natural resources.

"Man and 'C & C'" In the 1980's, "C&C" entered a new phase. The realizable ideal is that anyone, not just experts, can fully and easily utilize information systems in order to obtain a richer social and cultural life.

Human effort is facilitated by software. Due to the rapid increase in the amount of software required, a software crisis exists. "C&C" can only produce desirable benefits for humanity if software is produced efficiently.

"'C & C' and the World" The activities of AT&T and IBM show that the convergence of Computers and Communications is indeed the actual trend of the industry. AT&T, the world's largest telecommunications company, has entered the computer business. And IBM, the giant of the computer industry, is aggressively trying to enter the communications field.

Even now, the world's industrial map is in the process of being reorganized, centering around information and knowledge and equipment for handling them. NEC has been in the telecommunications business since its establishment over 86 years ago, and in the computer and semiconductor businesses for some 30 years. Because of this, NEC has been able to perceive and respond to major market shifts precisely.

Automatic Interpretation Telephones Throughout my 56 year career at NEC, I have believed it is my mission to create conditions by which anyone can talk to anyone else, at any place and any time. In the world today, mutual understanding between nations is terribly insufficient, and it can only be overcome through the unrestricted flow of information.

I have always thought that automatic interpreting telephone systems would be one of the keys to fully realizing "C&C." When this system is actualized, if the other party speaks to me in English, I can hear those words in Japanese, and vice versa, my words in Japanese will be conveyed to the other party in English.

If this automatic interpretation telephone system comes into wide use, it will not only make daily business extremely convenient, but it also will contribute greatly to the maintenance, of world peace. Because of the development of transportation and communications, people throughout the world have become able to communicate with each other at the grass roots level like never before in history. This means that people of one nation are coming to understand the ways of thinking and life styles of peoples of other nations. As a result, all the people of the world are beginning to recognize that they are all part of one humankind. If the barriers of language are removed by this automatic interpretation telephone system, communications and exchange at the grass roots level will further expand, and world peace may be realized.

Amdahl 470V/6 by Amdahl Corporation, 1975. In 1975 Gene Amdahl, a major contributor to the design of the IBM System 360, announced his own company's first computer, the 470V/6. Amdahl's strategy was to produce computers which would out-perform IBM's top systems, but be completely compatible with them. In this the V/6 was successful, competing with the IBM 370/165 and 168. While selling for approximately the same amount ($4 million), the V/6 was rated at 3.6 million instructions per second with memory expandable up to 16 mega-bytes, making it almost twice as powerful as the 370/168.

The Museum's machine is serial number 2, the second machine produced by the Amdahl Corporation. Originally installed at the University of Michigan, the unit was later bought by American Cyanamid of New Jersey, and then by Major Computer, Inc.

Scelbi 8H, by Scelbi Computer Consulting Inc., 1974. The Scelbi 8H (pronounced Sel- bee) was the first commercially-advertised computer based on a microprocessor. The first advertisement for the Scelbi appeared in March 1974, seven months before the debut of the Altair in January 1975. Nat Wadsworth, the Scelbi's chief designer, thought the computer would be used in scientific, electronic, and biological applications; hence, the abbreviated name Scelbi.

Designed for the hobbyist, the Scelbi 8H was based on the Intel 8008 microprocessor and was available both in kit form and fully assembled. It had 4K of internal memory, cassette tape and teletype interfaces, and a CRT based on an oscilloscope. Later on a combination monitor, editor, and assembler in ROM became available. Starting in April 1975, the company made versions with up to 16K of memory. These models were called Scelbi 8B's, the "B" standing for "business."

Wadsworth, an engineer for General DataComm Industries of Danbury Connecticut, became interested in th idea of a small computer for personal use after attending a seminar given by Intel on the 8008. He and several co-workers decided to build such a computer and in 1973 he left his job to work full-time on the computer. Scelbi Computer Consulting, Inc. of Milford, Connecticut was incorporated in August of that year. The development! of the computer suffered a severe s back when Wadsworth suffered a heart attack in November 1973. The company persisted, however, and announced their product in April 1974. The 8H was first advertised in the ham radio magazine QST because Wadsworth realized that many amateur radio hobbyists were "dyed-in-the-wool electronic enthusiasts." Just as orders started to roll in, Wadsworth had a second heart attack. In all, Scelbi Computer Consulting sold roughly 200 computers, losing $500 per unit.

From his hospital bed Wadsworth wrote a book to accompany the Scelbi 8H, Machine Language Programming for the 8008. The company published the book by offset printing a teletype output. The book was a hit; thousands were ordered. This success prompted Scelbi to concentrate on software for 8008- and 8080-based computers, such as the Altair. This shift in emphasis ultimately made the the company a profitable concern, but meant the early demise of the Scelbi 8's.

Donated by Carlton B. Hensley

[Based on "The Early Days of Personal Computer," by Stephen B. Gray in Creative Computing, November 1984.]

Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81, by Sinclair Research Ltd, 1980. Sinclair Research Limited, founded by Sir Clive Sinclair, announced the ZX80 in February of 1980. Based on the Zilog Z80A microprocessor it had an internal RAM of 1K. A 4K integer version of BASIC was also available in ROM. The machine used a membrane keyboard for input and a domestic TV as its display device. Programs and data could be stored on standard cassette tapes.

The ZX80 sold for under 100 pounds in the UK, $199 in the US-a major price break-through. This compared to about $500 for the TRS-80 and about $1100 for an Apple II with 16k of RAM. Manufacturing cost was kept low by use of the membrane keyboard and the single board design, in which all the circuitry including memory ROM, CPU, a total of 22 chips were mounted on just one printed circuit board.

The ZX81, also introduced in late 1980, had only 5 chips including the ROM, microprocessor, two 512 byte RAM's and the uncommitted logic array (ULA). The use of the largely untried ULA's (also known as gate-arrays) was a novel and bold move. The ULA performed all the functions not carried out by the processor, RAM or ROM, earning it the nickname "dogsbody." It replaced nearly 20 of the ZX80's chips. The ROM had a floating point Basic and, in contrast to the ZX80, the ZX81 could maintain a display on the screen while the processor was performing another task. This made animation possible, a major factor for game-playing users. In 1981 a 16k RAM became available for the ZX81 for just under $100.

At the end of 1981, Timex took over the US marketing of Sinclair's machines. The ZX81 was renamed Timex/Sinclair 1000 and sold for $99.95.

These models brought the computer well within the mass retail consumer market for the first time. Hundreds of thousands of ZX80's and ZX81's were sold-more than any other computer at the time.

Donated by Sinclair Research Limited of Boston.

Sectioned Direct View Storage Tube from Model 564 Oscilloscope by Tektronix Inc., 1962. The direct view storage tube (DVST) was invented by Robert H. Anderson in the late 1950's. First introduced in the Tektronix model 564 oscilloscope, it enabled the display of transient electrical signals. It was soon realised that DVST's could be used as display terminals with computers, and by 1969 Computer Displays Inc., Computek Inc. and Tektronix Inc. were all selling DVST terminals based on Tektronix tubes.

The key feature of the DVST is its ability to store a vector image without the need for constant refreshing. This brought down the price of computer graphic displays from, say $80,000 for the IBM 2250, to under $10,000, causing a vast expansion in the availability and use of computer graphics.

A DVST contains a writing gun, flood guns and a phosphor storage screen. The storage screen has an outer transparent conducting layer and an inner phosphor layer. When the write gun's beam is switched on it creates a postive charge where it strikes the phosphor as a result of secondary electron emission. This attracts the electrons from the flood guns which are on continuously, and causes the areas struck by the write gun's beam to luminesce without the need for refresh. The screen is erased by making the whole target more positive, effectively writing the whole screen and then lowering the potential, erasing the screen.

Donated by Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Oregon

Prototype Von Reppert Calculating Machine. This artifact is truly one of a kind. It is a prototype of a calculating machine built by its inventor Richard von Reppert. Patented in 1918, the von Reppert calculator could perform "the four fundamental calculations, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as other useful commercial work, in a practical manner." Von Reppert sold this and several other patents relating to mechanical office machines to the Underwood Company in 1920.

Over the course of his career von Reppert received over 40 patents either in conjunction with others or on his own. These include two patents issued by the German and French governments, and 8 for floating point arithmetic mechanisms for mechanical calculators. In addition ' to being a solo inventor, von Reppert also worked for the Underwood Company and IBM for many years.

Donated by Erwin ]. and Richard W Reppert

Bill Gates' Teletype tape to input the BASIC interpreter for the Altair. When Harvard students Bill Gates and Paul Allen read about the Altair in the January Popular Electronics, they decided that they might make some money by creating an intrepreter for BASIC on this new microcomputer. With the 8080 instruction manual and the Altair schematics, they produced the code, fitting in less than 4K of memory, within two months. They called Ed Roberts in Albuquerque and he said, that he'd buy from the first person that showed up with one. Paul Allen took the tape to MITS where he found only one machine that had 4K of memory. When he loaded it the teletype replied with "READY." Everyone at MITS was excited: they had never seen the machine do anything. Shortly thereafter Ed Roberts arranged to bring Bill Gates from Harvard to complete the implementation and Bill never returned to school.

The Allen-Gates Altair BASIC was listed in the MITS catalog like every thing else it sold, and each purchase earned the authors royalties. Nevertheless even before the first release a pirated version of Altair BASIC was in free-flowing circulation. Gates, then nineteen, wrote a letter to the Altair Users' Newsletter entitled an "Open Letter to Hobbyists." Gates noted that while he and Allen had received lots of good feedback about the interpreter, most of the people praising it hadn't bought it. Gates asked:

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Eventually the widespread use of the BASIC interpreter was to help Gates. When other computer companies came on line and needed a BASIC, they went to Gates' company. He had created a de facto standard for microcomputers.

Imagine you worked down a two mile-long tunnel half a mile underground. There you were expected to sit for eight hours a day studying the blinking yellow screen of a spotless grey machine in a cement room devoid of decoration and lit only dimly by blue lights. Once you arrived you were not allowed to leave until the end of your shift, when you took a bus back to the barracks you called home, miles from civilization.

This environment was the workplace for radar operators of the Air Force's North Bay Canada SAGE installation. Here operators monitored the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere, on the lookout for Russian bombers and missiles. "The Blue Room," as the radar center was called, was studiously designed to minimize the fatigue of the operators: the lighting was indirect blue flourescent, to cut down on eye strain from the blinking yellow radar scopes; electric lighters and ash trays were built into the consoles; and the color of the equipment was a neutral battleship grey. To ensure efficiency, personnel were required to keep their consoles clear of clutter. In fact, the only extraneous object visible in the room was a large cardboard vampire bat attached to the ceiling, in deference to the room's cave-like qualities. However, as the Museum later discovered, this was not the only individual expression the operators allowed themselves.

When the equipment from th North Bay SAGE installation arrived at The Computer Museum, cleaning revealed interesting evidence of how the operators viewed their job. Each console has several knobs covering recessed switches. When these knobs were unscrewed the backs were foun to be covered with graffiti written b the operators. The hidden message ranged from the banal to the unpublishable. While ostensibly observing the rigid regulations regarding a spotless work area, the operators still managed to express themselves clandestinely.

Here is a selection of the messages left by the operators hidden in their consoles:

"Put this back"
"HELP"
"Art Clark 1979"
"Bravo Crew is the pits"
"Look on the other knob"
"Superbowl XXII"
"Send the Cowboys to the superbowl"
"Don't you feel useless"
"$25"
"Hi Jack"
"Help I'm trapped in here"		 
"No step take off Hey"
"1 May '79"
"I can't stand it"

Return to List of Reports