TX-2

TX-2 plug-in module

The TX-2 was an early transistor computer; it was a follow-on to the ground-breaking TX-0 at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

The TX-2's magnetic tape mass storage system, created by Tom Stockebrand, used 1/2" tape, but was block addressable, unlike most magnetic tape systems, which could only write sequentially. He later moved to the LINC project, along with several other TX-2 alumni, where he helped create the descendant LINC tape system; he then moved to DEC, where he helped create DECtape, very similar to LINCtape.

Beginning in 1964 a timesharing system called APEX was put together on the TX-2 computer at Lincoln Lab under the guidance of Larry Roberts using a small number of consoles with graphics capability.

Further reading

• Severo M. Ornstein, "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983" (AuthorHouse, 2002) - Some background about the end of the construction of the TX-2

External links

• Bitsavers TX-2 documents
• C. Gordon Bell, Gerald Butler, Robert Gray, John E. Mcnamara, Donald Vonada, and Ronald Wilson, The PDP-1 and Other 18-Bit Computers, in C. Gordon Bell, J. Craig Mudge, John. E. McNamara, Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Systems Design, Digital Press, Bedford, 1978
• The LINC Was Early and Small - lengthy personal memoir by Wesley Clark; it also mentions the TX-2
• Who invented Timesharing