The UNIVAC Tube Program

This paper presents the history of the tube program evolved for the UNIVAC system. It shows that reliable performance of vacuum tubes in large scale computers can be achieved by an integrated program, starting with design and initial tube selection, and covering pre-installation process-and marginal checking. Performance data on four UNIVACS are used to illustrate the success of the program, with data on UNIVAC # 1 covering 16,000 hours of operation.