Photo courtesy of UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
TIME LAPSE
transistor-based computer but far from the
found in your smartphone yet took up an entire
first computer on campus. In 1951, the Univer-
room in the basement of Sherman Hall. As
sity leased the IBM 602A, making UD an early
a student, Dick Dresher ’69 learned how to
leader in computing. According to the comput-
program the NCR 304 B, purchased by UD in
er science department, each magnetic
1960, to run jobs for the UD Research Institute
tape reel held 75 megabytes of data. You’d
computing flight loads for the likes of the
need 218 reels to equal the memory of the
B-52 long-range bomber. It was NCR’s first
smartphone Dresher now carries in his hand.
AUTUMN 2013 VOLUME 6, NUMBER 1
It contained far less computing power than
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AUTUMN 2013
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