MUSASINO-1B

Electrical Communications Laboratories of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation started the research as soon as Goto Eiichi invented the parametron in 1954. Kiyasu Zen-iti who was a head of applied electronic laboratory promoted to develop a prototype computer MUASINO-1 using parametrons. The MUSASINO-1, the first parametron computer in the world, was developed by Yamada Shigeharu and Takashima Kensuke under the leadership of Muroga Saburo who had just returned from his foreign studies in the University of Illinois and was operated successfully in March 1957. The architecture of MUSASINO-1 adopted that of ILLIAC I in order to enable use of the huge ILLIAC library. The operation and control unit in MUSASINO-1 were implemented with about 5,400 parametrons and adopted the binary and parallel operation method. MUSASINO-1 was named after place-name of MUSASINO by Kiyasu.

The MUSASINO-1 was used for computation services in the laboratory and then the practical machine MUSASINO-1B was developed in 1960. The machine had exactly the same logical configuration and used eyeglass-type parametrons developed for practical application in electronic exchanges. The machines were manufactured by Fuji Telecommunications Manufacturing (now called Fujitsu) and used until 1967. The same type machines of MUSASINO-1B were later sold by Fuji Telecommunications Manufacturing as the mid-size FACOM 201 for scientific calculation. MUSASINO-1B is now preserved and exhibited in NTT History Center of Technology.