Visiting this web site requires a newer version of Netscape Communicator.
Visit Microsoft's Web site to obtain the newest version of Internet Explorer, or visit Netscape's Web site to obtain the newest version of Netscape Communicator.
Visiting this web site without first upgrading your browser may result in unreliable behavior.
General Electric's Computer Department was created in 1956 in Syracuse, NY and moved to Phoenix, Arizona the following year.
The Computer Department was dissolved in 1970 with the formation of Honeywell Information Systems (HIS), a separate corporation consolidated under the books of Honeywell Corporation. This is popularly misunderstood as Honeywell buying GE's Computer Department. In fact, GE funded the venture, buying 10% of Honeywell stock which was held in a mandated non-voting trust and divested after ten years. (Jay's recollection of the facts.) Why did GE chose to leave the business? My secondhand understanding is that it was the result of three disparate business factors. See this discussion thread and add your comments.
General Electric's Bank of America ERMA project, deployed the world's first transistorized commercial computer in the early '60s. Quite a variety of unique computer architectures followed:
ERMA - GE-100 (original)
GE Datanet 30 Communications processors: D30, D355
GE 200 Series, 20 bit architecture, widely sold for banking: GE-215, GE-225, GE-235
GE 400 Series, Medium Systems, 24 bit architecture: GE-415, GE-425, GE-435
GE 600 Series, Large Systems, 36 bit architecture: GE-615, GE-625, GE-635
GE 100 Series (new Small Systems from Olivetti)
In the 200, 400 and 600 series, the x35 processor was the maximum speed product. The x25 and x15 models were derived by slowing the clock by factors of 2 and selling to different price points (with decreased mean time between falure due to the slower speed).
The GE 600 Series was adopted for the MULTICS project at MIT as the GE 655. This was a joint MIT, Bell Labs and GE project. MULTICS was never a commercial success, but was the source of important research on multiuser computer security.
I understand that UNIX, developed at AT&T, Bell Labs, is a pun on Multics.
