1963 Burroughs Computer History Archives: Datatron, ElectroData, B5000, B270 UNISYS VIPclub

PLEASE JOIN US in Preserving Computer History with a small contribution to our channel. www.paypal.com... Your contribution greatly helps us continue to bring you educational, historical, vintage computing topics. Thank you! ~ Computer History Archives Project
Three-Part Presentation: (1) Intro & 1963 film (19min) on B5000, B200, B270, ElectroData Div.;
(2) 1962 film short on B270;19:28
(3) Image Gallery of very early Burroughs Computers w/some rare pics (5mins). 21:51
Acknowledgments slide: 26:44
(Scroll down for info)
Acknowledgements & Resources, Special Thanks to:
Tony Buglione, Manager of External Communications & Media Relations, Unisys
Very Special Thanks to Lowell A. Benson, Ronald Smith and others at VIPClubMN.org, (Retirees, former employees, etc. of Unisys, and their Twin Cities predecessor companies) www.VIPClubMN.org
Amanda Wick, Archivist, Charles Babbage Institute, Univ. of Minnesota Libraries
Professional Narration: David Melvin
Micah Mabelitini of the Vintage Technology Association (VTA), www.decadecount...
Nixie Tube Info courtesy of Tom Mayer’s vinylsavor.blog...
Burroughs Machines site, by Chris Pickels, picklesnet.com/...
Al Kossow’s, great Bitsavers archives, www.Bitsavers.org
T.J. Sawyer’s Datatron 205 site and the Burroughs 205 & 220 blog
datatron.blogsp...
"Survey of Electronic Digital Computing Systems," 1961, Weik, Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen Prov. Ground, Courtesy of Ed Thelen;
www.ed-thelen.o...
See our other Burroughs Vintage Computer Videos here:
History of Burroughs Computers & Machines to 1956; UDEC, E101
• A History of Burroughs...
1964 Burroughs Computers Computer History (B5000, B280, BUIC, D825)
• 1964 Burroughs Compute...
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About the films:
First film talks about the ElectroData Division of Burroughs, at Pasadena, California in 1963. Various systems are shown including B5000, B200, B270, B280. Mentions installations such as NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama; United Technology Center, Sunnyvale, Community National Bank, and others. Good historical information. Also mentions BIPCO, Nixie, and Burroughs mobile Datavan with B200 on board. Cool stuff.
Film quality is dark in parts and efforts to increase quality brought it back as much as possible. Best viewed when ported to large screen (LCD/LED) TV screen. Image Gallery mentions over 20 different machines, including some very rare photos from 1950's. Hope you enjoy this attempt to preserve some vintage computer history. ~ Mark Greenia, Computer History Archives Project

[@dennisrush1171]

I worked for Burroughs/Unisys from 1968 till 2000. The B283 at citizens gas was one of the first I worked on.

[@rdubb77]

Fact: the space program pushed computing technology (and other domains) far faster and harder than any other endeavor. Those who think space programs are a waste of money should consider this.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

I would have to agree! ~ Hunter, CHAP

[@cornknight]

Even today it looks fantastic! Like a science-fiction movie. Thank you guys, for saving these old films for us. I really appreciate your work!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Oleg, thanks very much. Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, old computers and Sci-Fi seem to go together....

[@lwilton]

Dig around a bit and you can find about five real Hollywood SF movies from the 1950s and 1960s with scenes shot in the "fishbowl" (the demo room) of the Pasadena Plant. I think it might have been Forbidden Planet that used it as the control room of a spaceship. Of course the Burroughs 205 console, often shot in the fishbowl, became a staple of things like Lost In Space. It's a shame that all that's left of Burroughs history are a few bits of marketing literature. At one time 70% of all checks written in the *world* were processed on Burroughs B3500 computers, and later B4700 computers. In the days before ubiquitous credit cards that was really important, but essentially unknown outside the banking community. Nowadays there is almost no information available on Burroughs "Medium Systems" or "V Series" or B2500/B3500/B4700/B4800/B4900 computers (all the same thing), and yet about 30 years ago virtually every bank or credit union in the *world* had at least one.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@lwilton There was only one spaceship in _Forbidden Planet_ , and its interior was a purpose-built set. Have you tried Bitsavers for information on those Burroughs models?

[@amrkoptan4041]

the work done here is of a tremendous potential, we appreciate the effort placed to document the computer legacy systems. all your videos are great thanks a lot

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Amr, your kind words are much appreciated! Thanks for watching!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

This 1963 film was a bit of a challenge. The original quality was hard to improve, even digitally. Now, if we had the resources of "Industrial Light and Magic" that would have been very helpful. : )

[@RB747domme]

16 MB hard drive in 1963 is impressive.

[@davef1936]

Worked as field engineer for Burroughs 1974 - 1980 after working on Burroughs equipment in the Air Force. Interesting and informative video.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Dave, thanks very much. Can you share what model Burroughs you worked on? (just curious) ~ Victor

[@davef1936]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I worked in the medium systems group at a remote location (Bloomington IN and southern Indiana. I worked on B300-500, B2500-B3700 and B1700 systems. I want to add that Burroughs training was the best...back then we were trained to troubleshoot to the component level - very little board swapping. In the Air Force I worked on the FST2B and the BUIC III systems.

[@kevinjordan2449]

I joined and worked for Burroughs from 1973 till 1994, in South Africa, as a CSE in basic products ( P's, J's, F's, B's and E4000,s, along with calculators, Todd's and terminals), through to EDP. I did an A9/A10 course in the USA, and was surprised to see the specialisation, as there were different techs for each the different products. In SA, you looked after all peripheral products, (CPU, tape units and MEC controllers, disk drives and controllers, printers, DCP's, terminals, etc). So sad to see a once most incredible company, reduced to ?

[@informalzombie2888]

The people at Burroughs never imagined that something that could fit in your pocket like today's cell phone would end transforming into a mini computer, thanks for the video.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Informal Zombie, yes, they had no idea. I guess the next step is to implant smart phone tech right under our skin. That way we never lose or forget to take the phone with us. (sounds creepy though) Thanks! ~ Victor

[@jecelassumpcaojr890]

But they did have mobile computing - they showed their Datavan :-)

[@lwilton]

> The people at Burroughs never imagined that something that could fit in your pocket... Well, I'll respectfully disagree. I remember idly discussing things like that possibly happening in the future in hallway conversations from the early 1970s onward. I suspect the guys and gals (there were quite a few of them) that were around in the 1960s probably were discussing the possibility back then too, but I wasn't around until the early 1970s, so I can't be sure. Of course back then it was just idle chatter. Later on though... One of the last things I worked on before I retired was implementing an A Series mainframe on a computer the size of a credit card. It was a lot faster and a lot bigger than anything shown in this video, including the B7700.

[@lwilton]

@@jecelassumpcaojr890 Later on, the USAF had B3500 computers installed in a pair of vans. You could drive them into a ditch someplace off the side of the road, run a dozen or so cables between the trucks, and have a running mainframe computer out in the weeds in about 15 minutes from putting on the parking brake.

[@Liedaho]

They did, actually.

[@LarryKelly]

My company was a Burroughs shop until 1980 when the company that acquired us mandated a switch to IBM. We actually set up an in house timesharing system with users programming in Burroughs Basic from remote teletypes.

[@Blacmao]

This would be an impressive facility in 1963 or today.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Yes, agreed! -- Victor

[@mjstow]

Thank you so much for making this available. Essential history, and always fascinating.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@alanstrong3295]

Burroughs was seemingly a leader in its days of glory. Merging with Univac may have not been such a good move.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Alan, good point. Burroughs and Sperry Univac systems and methods and software were different animals altogether. ~ Victor

[@loveisall5520]

Burroughs made some great typewriters in the first half of the last century, too.

[@maxpolaris99]

What a soundtrack! I couldn't stop dancing!

[@AmazingArends]

Gotta love the dopey background music they used back then!

[@frankowalker4662]

To think, only a few decades later we are sat in our houses watching this on computers, (or even telephones), with the power to blow these wonderfull machines out of the water.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

The microcontroller in your keyboard has more computational power than these machines.

[@davidpowell3347]

Most of us can't get into the layers of operation in these entertainment machines. Only run whatever harddrive preloaded programs that boot up with the factory configuration.

[@8BitNaptime]

I feel that automatic wire-wrapping machine needs a video of its own.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

24:27 That B205 console should look familiar to fans of SF series such as _Lost In Space_ .

[@Peter-et9cb]

En 1985 yo utilice esta computadora...B20 y B25...Fue muy, muy avanzada para su época...El SO original se llamaba CTOS por Convergen Technologies pero se cambio a BTOS por Burroughs...Su forma modular lo hacia única en su tiempo...La forma de conectar otra terminal era de lo más sencillo...Tenia otros módulos para conectar otro disco de manera muy sencilla y fácil...Tenia una unidad de cinta magnética que era una porquería...No servía y se perdía la información...Era lo mejor de lo mejor...Pero desafortunadamente era muy lenta por su procesador...Después salio la B38 y la B48 que eran más rápidas pero UNIVAC compro a Burroghs en 1988 y se perdió esta excelente maquina en el tiempo...Saludos desde México...11/oct/2022

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

(Google translate says: "In 1985 I used this computer...B20 and B25...It was very, very advanced for its time...The original OS was called CTOS by Convergent Technologies but was changed to BTOS by Burroughs...Its modular form made it unique in its time...The way to connect another terminal was very simple...It had other modules to connect another disk in a very simple and easy way...It had a magnetic tape drive that was crap... It did not work and the information was lost... It was the best of the best... But unfortunately it was very slow because of its processor... Later the B38 and the B48 came out, which were faster but UNIVAC bought Burroughs in 1988 and lost this excellent machine in time...Greetings from Mexico...Oct/11/2022" Thanks very much for your comment and info! ~ VK

[@RBLevin]

That background music...

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

PLEASE JOIN US in Preserving Computer History with a small contribution to our channel. www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LCNS584PPN28E Your contribution greatly helps us continue to bring you educational, historical, vintage computing topics. Thank you! ~ Computer History Archives Project

[@kenunix1863]

I never knew Burroughs was that big. Yes , nixie tubes. AT&T used many of them in TSPS positions.

[@RogerBarraud]

960MB drives in 1963 - definitely impressive.

[@RB747domme]

Roger Barraud 720 MB, but it was a disc (or platter) stack, each platter containing 50 24-inch platters, of 32 MB each. I guess, this isn't out of the question, and would be entirely possible with the technology progressing at the time. This would be very impressive for the day, however I suspect but there is a slight chance of an error being made in the script of this film. More on that in a second. The reason why I suspect this, is because just a few years earlier in 1960, 50 platter stacks of the same diameter 24 inch, such as the IBM m350 series, were only able to hold 5 million 6-bit characters across the entire stack. That is 50 individual platters how to make up a total of of just 3.75 megabytes. This is worked out as such; 5 million 6-bit characters = 3.75MB. And remember, this is cross the entire 50 platters of the stack! I should clarify, that they were using 6-bit characters at that time rather than 8 -bit. So I suspect an error in the script of of this film. Back in the day, script editors were mistaking characters, bits and bytes, interchangeably, all the time. It was prevalent in brochures, documentaries, films, movies whatever you'd like to propose. The reason, simply, is because an audience of that time who had no knowledge of computers would understand a character on a page, and a page full of characters as a block to be described as a memory item. I might be completely wrong, in which case the stack would equate to 720 MB, which would be very impressive. But if I am right, then I suspect what the narrator actually means, is a 960 million individual bits rather than 960 million characters. Remember, memory isn't built of characters, and even at that time, computer technicians didn't measure memory in characters on a page, or characters generally, they measured them in bits and bytes just like any computer engineer. I suspect he was referring to individual bits, rather than 6-bit characters. So if this was the case, the entire platter stack that he was referring to would only be 16 megabytes. This can be worked out, because if, in the case of the IBM m350 series of 1960 mentioned earlier, 5m 6-bit characters equals 3.75 MB, then; We can deduce that there is a slight possibility that the Burroughs stack mentioned in the film is much smaller, hence: 50m 6-bit characters = 37.5 x 19.2 = 16 megabytes; ..which would be much more more in keeping of the time and much more realistic.

[@RB747domme]

Roger Barraud we would have to wait until the 1980s until her gigabyte hard drive came along.

[@lwilton]

@@RB747domme The B5000 had a 48 bit word. The disks were head-per-track (no moving heads and seek time). The tracks were sectored into 180 byte (30 word) sectors on the B5000/B5500/B6500/B6700/A Series machines. On the later B2500/B3500 Medium Systems the same disks were sectored into 100 byte sectors rather than 180. I don't recall for sure the sector size when used on B200/B500 series computers, but I think it was also 180 bytes. If I recall these machines had a fixed word size that was some multiple of 12 bit characters, but addressed memory in terms of 6 bit increments, somewhat like an IBM 1401, which was a competing class of machine to them. The basic storage system structure was to have an Electronics Unit ("EU") which could control up to 5 storage modules. Each storage module had, I forget, something like 4 double-sided 20 or 24 inch platters. You could have up to something like 20 EUs on a single disk control, and on most Burroughs systems you could have multiple disk controls, each with it's own string of EUs and DFUs. I seem to recall that each DFU stored something like 20 MB, and with 5 DFUs on an EU, you got 100 MB. Just keep adding EUs and football-field size machine rooms and you could get as much disk storage as you wanted on a machine. :-)

[@kevinhoward9593]

3:23 its crazy to think that my i7 7700k processor has about 30,000 time the processing capabilities then that ENTIRE room.

[@raul0ca]

Yeah but that piece of junk reconciled bank statements or predicted the crop yields. It's not what you have but what you do with it.

[@mikeklaene4359]

My introduction to Intel 8086 assembler programming was on the B 20 system shown starting at 26:07

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Mike, was wondering what your impression of the B 20 machine was?

[@mikeklaene4359]

It was a good machine - as far as it went. They were made originally by a company called Convergent Technologies. It ran under BTOS (was CTOS) for the operating system which was much advanced compared to MS-DOS. The OS supported networking multiple workstations together (RS-422 based?) and they could share a common larger disk store. Unfortunately it did not have ISAM or file/record locking so we had trouble porting our applications that ran on the Singer/ICL 1500 series hardware. Also there was no offering for a disk backup other than floppy disks. I actually ended up developing a back-up solution that used a tape cartridge via and RS-232 port. The backup software ended up being picked and sold independent of our accounting system. The B20 used the 8086 processor for full 16 bit processing and I think an 8MHz clock - but do not hold me to that. A version of the MicroFocus COBOL compiler was available to assist in application programming. All in all it was a very good system - much better than was the IBM PC in both hardware and software.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Mike, that sounds fascinating. It does sound like a hefty machine, much more than the early PC's in terms of capability. I bet it was good experience. Have never seen one yet, but hope to come across one some day. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[@lwilton]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject The B20s were nice machines. The original design was (partially) shown in the video. There was a desktop unit and keyboard, and a tower unit that went under the desk. I think those machines used 8" floppies, but don't hold me to that, it has been 40 years since the last time I used one of them. The later units were an assemblage of clip-together bricks, all of which sat on your desktop, and had a separate monitor. You could have one or more processor modules, some number of memory modules, some number of hard disk modules, some number of floppy drive (5.25"), etc. Depending on what you wanted the machine could be anywhere from about 4" wide to close to 36" wide! The later Medium Systems machines (about then known as V Series machines) used a B20 as the maintenance computer, which would load the firmware into the processors and control them, as well as being the ODT (Operator Display Terminal). Most of these V Series machines looked about like that A9 shown in the video, since they used basically the same packaging technology. The exception was the V500, which was a considerably larger processor cabinet. But it still used a B20 for a maint processor.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

I did some COBOL programming on a BTOS or CTOS system in 1985. Yes, it did have record locking.

[@chrissmith1521]

Those computers sure had lots of human moving parts.

[@RogerBarraud]

Not for long - bootstrapping was well underway by then.

[@chrisd0407]

@@RogerBarraud My IT career began as a trainee computer operator in 1971 (ICL 1902A) and we didn't have bootstrapping until a year or two later. Everything was still fed in by paper tape and that included the exec (operating system) that was a reel of paper tape about 5" across. Everything was so mechanical that I can still see now ICL engineers doing their preventative maintenance with the use of an oil can! Happy days.

[@BM-jy6cb]

13:30 I wonder if they ever envisaged the likes of pulsed laser molten tin EUV machines used to make the latest processors.

[@bigbadhodad3894]

8:30 the bank is called Community Nations, , so which is it, , is it National or part of the local community? they've got to make up their minds one day.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

18:08 Whoa, get a load of that lapel mic.

[@pascoaiandreta9964]

Very Nice accent for foreign listeners.

[@DanielHaanpaa]

What is the music playing at @23:16?

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

I believe it is from KZbin music library, Blues category, its called "company history",

[@robertlane8465]

Hi😎

[@jvolstad]

Computer operators wearing suits. 😊

[@ztl6711]

flat monitors already,

[@natwhite1679]

Interesting the son of the family became a brilliant novelist.

[@elinorregina]

Little did they know . . .

[@kdkatz-ef2us]

I have a soft spot for Burroughs, the first system I worked on, in the USAF.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Very cool! USAF had lots of Burroughs equipment. It was a great place to gain experience in many different systems and learning how to connect different vendor systems together!

[@mikeklaene4359]

The Burroughs B 20 was the first system on which I had programmed in Intel 8086 assembler. Burroughs had acquired the system from Convergent Technologies. CTOS/BTOS was a far more capable operating system than was MS-DOS.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi MIke, thanks very much. Very good info. Perhaps we will do a video on Convergent Technologies some time in the future. I wonder if there is any good video material from them. They have an interesting history. ~ Victor, at CHAP

[@mikeklaene4359]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I think the Burroughs bought CT in the 1980's. The CT / B20 systems were very good and included a built in way to network two or more systems together. MicroFocus even had a version of their COBOL compiler that worked on them.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Anything would have been a more capable OS than MS-DOS. Unfortunately also a more expensive one.

[@danross4844]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Therein was the problem.