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The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC is considered the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer.〔For example see William H. Calvin letter ''The Missing LINC'', ''BYTE'' magazine April 1982 page 20〕 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. 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).〔 The LINC sold for more than $40,000 at the time. A typical configuration included an enclosed 6'X20" rack, four boxes holding tape drives, a small display, a control panel, and a keyboard. Although the LINC's instruction set was small, it was larger than the tiny PDP-8 instruction set. 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,〔presentations at The Computer Museum, Marlborough, in the hands of its successor, The Computer History Museum〕 for NIH researchers. The LINC's design was literally in the public domain, perhaps making it unique in the history of computers. The number of LINCs and who built them is a minor subject of debate in the 12-bit-word community. One account states that a dozen LINC computers were assembled by their eventual biologist users in a 1963 summer workshop at MIT.〔 Digital Equipment Corporation (starting in 1964) and Spear Inc. of Waltham, MA.〔E.C. Toren, R.N. Carey, G.S. Cembrowski, and J.A. Schirmer, “Computer-Controlled Instrument System for Sequential Clinical Chemical Testing. I. Instrumentation and System Features,” Clin Chem, vol. 19, Oct. 1973, pp. 1114-1121.〕 manufactured them commercially. DEC's pioneer C. Gordon Bell〔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〕 states that the LINC project began in 1961, with first delivery in March 1962, and the machine was not formally withdrawn until December 1969.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, 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). == The control panel == The LINC control panel was used for single-stepping through programs and for program debugging. Execution could be stopped when the program counter matched a set of switches. Another function allowed execution to be stopped when a particular address was accessed. The single-step and the resume functions could be automatically repeated. The repetition rate could be varied over four orders of magnitude by means of an analog knob and a four-position decade switch, from about one step per second to about half of the full speed. Running a program at one step per second and gradually accelerating it to full speed provided an extremely dramatic way to experience and appreciate the speed of the computer. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「LINC」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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