The FACOM M-190 was the first model in Fujitsu’s FACOM M series of mainframes. Developed with a grant from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and announced in November 1974, the FACOM M-190 was a very-large mainframe occupying the flagship position in the FACOM M-100 series of large mainframes. At the November 1975 Japan Electronic Computer Show, many companies unveiled the computers they developed with government grants, but the FACOM M-190 won much of the attention because of its performance and compactness for an LSI computer. Its performance was later hailed worldwide, becoming the cornerstone of the FACOM M series’ success. See the FACOM M-100 series page for more details on the functions of the FACOM M-100 series of large mainframes.
The FACOM M-190, along with its sister model, the Amdahl 470V/6, which was developed at the same time, was the first very-large all-LSI computer in the world. Fujitsu was in charge of the production of the Amdahl 470V/6 for the Amdahl Corporation, (Note 1) a U.S. firm. The very first Amdahl 470V/6 unit was delivered to NASA in 1975, which was big news in both Japan and the United States.
Note 1: At the time, Fujitsu had a capital investment in Amdahl Corporation and the two companies jointly developed very-large computers using LSI circuitry.
