LINC

This article is about the minicomputer. For the programming language, see LINC 4GL. For other uses, see Linc (disambiguation).
LINC
LINC home computer with its software designer, Mary Allen Wilkes, 1965
DeveloperMIT's Lincoln Laboratory
ManufacturerDigital Equipment Corporation and Spear Inc.
TypeMinicomputer
Release dateMarch 1962; 62 years ago (1962-03)
Introductory priceUS$43,600 (equivalent to $439,000 in 2023)
Units sold21 (by DEC)
Units shipped50
Display2 oscilloscope displays
InputKnobs, keyboard
PlatformDEC 12-bit
SuccessorPDP-5, LINC-8, PDP-12
LINC computer at the Computer History Museum

The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit,[1] 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some[2] to be the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the Linc, suggesting the project's origins at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, it was renamed LINC after the project moved from the Lincoln Laboratory.[3] The LINC was designed by Wesley A. Clark and Charles Molnar.

The LINC and other "MIT Group" machines were designed at MIT and eventually built by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Spear Inc. of Waltham, Massachusetts (later a division of Becton, Dickinson and Company).[3] The LINC sold for more than $40,000 at the time. A typical configuration included an enclosed 6'X20" rack; four boxes holding (1) two tape drives, (2) display scope and input knobs, (3) control console and (4) data terminal interface; and a keyboard.

The LINC interfaced well with laboratory experiments. Analog inputs and outputs were part of the basic design. It was designed in 1962 by Charles Molnar and Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts,[4] for NIH researchers.[5] The LINC's design was in the public domain, perhaps making it unique in the history of computers. A dozen LINC computers were assembled by their eventual biomedical researcher owners in a 1963 summer workshop at MIT.[5] Digital Equipment Corporation (starting in 1964) and, later, Spear Inc. of Waltham, MA.[6] manufactured them commercially.

DEC's pioneer C. Gordon Bell[7] states that the LINC project began in 1961, with first delivery in March 1962, and the machine was not formally withdrawn until December 1969. A total of 50 were built (all using DEC System Module Blocks and cabinets), most at Lincoln Labs, housing the desktop instruments in four wooden racks. The first LINC included two oscilloscope displays. Twenty-one were sold by DEC at $43,600 (equivalent to $439,000 in 2023), delivered in the Production Model design. In these, the tall cabinet sitting behind a white Formica-covered table held two somewhat smaller metal boxes holding the same instrumentation, a Tektronix display oscilloscope over the "front panel" on the user's left, a bay for interfaces over two LINC-Tape drives on the user's right, and a chunky keyboard between them. The standard program development software (an assembler/editor) was designed by Mary Allen Wilkes; the last version was named LAP6 (LINC Assembly Program 6).

  1. ^ "Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC)". Office of NIH History (history.noh.org).
  2. ^ For example see William H. Calvin's letter The Missing LINC, BYTE magazine April 1982 page 20
  3. ^ a b Clark, Wesley A. (1986). The LINC was early and small (PDF). ACM Conference on The history of personal workstations. Palo Alto, California, United States: ACM. pp. 133–155.
  4. ^ presentations at The Computer Museum, Marlborough, in the hands of its successor, The Computer History Museum
  5. ^ a b November, Joseph (2012). "The LINC Revolution: The Forgotten Biomedical Origins of Personal Computing". Biomedical Computing: Digitizing Life in the United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1421404684.
  6. ^ Schirmer, James A.; Cembrowski, George S.; Carey, R Neill; Toren, E Clifford (1973). "Computer-Controlled Instrument System for Sequential Clinical Chemical Testing. I. Instrumentation and System Features". Clinical Chemistry. 19 (10): 1114–1121. doi:10.1093/clinchem/19.10.1114. PMID 4741949.
  7. ^ C. Gordon Bell writing in Computer Engineering a DEC View of Hardware Systems Designs (c) Copyright originally held by Digital Press, out of print but available at Bell's web sites, pp 176–177