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MOBIDIC 'B' and 'C' users pushed their systems further than the others. The B computer in its second life at NBS received a disk operating system, remote access techniques, and even learned to speak Dartmouth College's recently developed BASIC. Stewards of MOBIDIC-B were "pleasantly amazed by the viability of the system, and the sophistication of the applications for which it has been used," authors Marshall Abrams and Robert Rosenthal concluded. If its hardware and speed were not obsolete, "MOBIDIC-B would be retained; its capabilities are otherwise equivalent to medium scale, 36-bit word, disc oriented systems on the market today." MOBIDIC-C helped inspire a user group. Its staff at Fort Huachuca, in 1959, led FAST — Fieldata Applied Systems and Techniques. Noted computer scientist and historian Jean Sammet, who worked on MOBIDIC and its COBOL compiler at Sylvania, wrote in the Nov. 1, 1990 issue of IEEE Annals: It might be said that the members of FAST have in common only one thing: a single customer, the U.S. Field Army... These binary machines include a common area of language, such that programs written for any one of them can be executed on any other machine which is higher in the hierarchy, i.e., they are upwardly compatible. Based on the computer's ability to serve general-purpose data processing functions, and also based on its innovate program compiling traits, Sylvania built two more computers called the 9400. These were MOBIDIC designs in a non-mobile commercial configuration with twice the performance. One was for the Pentagon Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where it was installed in a Faraday cage and used for applications such as intelligence analysis and RCA 501 software development. The other was used at Sylvania's own Needham, Mass. Facility for business and scientific data processing. A third order by California's GTE (General Telephone and Electronics) was never filled. |
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