Just a fun little history for anyone that is interested. UNIVAC was the first commercially available computer. A refined version of ENIAC “the first modern day computer”, it was also called “The Remington UNIVAC”. Why? Well for anyone that has watched an old western you have heard of the Remington Rifle, “the rifle that won the west”. The Remington family became very wealthy thanks to that rifle. So, they invested in an electric razor, further adding to their wealth. So, when they were asked to go in on this computer thing, they figured, what the heck. They wrote the check and a few years later the UNIVAC hit the streets. In total, forty-two were made. The nerve center of UNIVAC was the Supervisory Control” or as we would call it today, a metal desk that is strong enough that you could park a car on it with a keyboard and a three-foot-high panel with a bunch of switches, knobs, and lights on it. As with any great achievement you need to put a nameplate on it and you can’t forget to put the investors name on it. So, on the top center of that switch infested control panel, they placed a red nameplate to let everyone know that thingy-bob is called UNIVAC and that Remington family got in on it.
Today, to the best of my knowledge, only two control panels with their nameplate are still in existence. One can be seen at the computer museum in Boston and the other is on display at the Smithsonian institute. With all that said I would like to show you the only UNIVAC plague that is NOT in a museum. I was hoping to show it on the antique roadshow and tell the story behind it. However I haven’t heard back from them so I thought I would share this with you.
