【Oki Electric Industry】 OKITAC-4300

The OKITAC-4300 minicomputer was developed and first marketed in 1969. It compactly housed a central processing unit (binary operations) and magnetic core memory unit (16-bit/word, up to 8,192 words built-in) in a cabinet similar to a stereo amplifier, with a height of 29cm, front width of 43cm, and depth of 50cm. It featured high-performance like a mid-size computer, with a memory unit expandable to 32K words using the unit system, circuitry entirely implemented in ICs, and a calculation speed of 260,000 introductions per second. Standard input/output devices for electronic computers could be connected as peripheral equipment, and no special air-conditioning was necessary. Various functions were provided to use application software for real-time systems. At that time, the price was ¥3.6 million for the central processing unit and 4K words of built-in magnetic core main memory, so it was called a $10,000 computer (exchange rate at that time: $1=¥360), and was acclaimed for its high cost performance.

After that, the OKITAC-4300 was continually improved, and developed into a family with 6 models - for example including the E Model, S Model and C model -- and it was used in a wide-range of field including scientific/engineering calculation, process control, instrumentation control and communications control.