Developer | Northrop Aircraft Corporation |
---|---|
Release date | 1949 |
Units sold | 6 |
The MADDIDA (Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyzer) was a special-purpose digital computer used for solving systems of ordinary differential equations.[1] It was the first computer to represent bits using voltage levels and whose entire logic was specified in Boolean algebra.[2] Invented by Floyd Steele, MADDIDA was developed at Northrop Aircraft Corporation between 1946 and 1949 to be used as a guidance system for the Snark missile. No guidance system, however, resulted from the work on the MADDIDA, and rather it was used for aeronautical research.[3][4] In 1952, the MADDIDA became the world's top-selling commercial digital computer (albeit a special-purpose machine), six units having been sold.[5] (The general-purpose UNIVAC I delivered its seventh unit in 1954.)