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>>506461e7ccb7d84d90b59f0d185c6fb1227bbadf



email1976

1 points

1 year ago*

Built in 1955. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Many more subsequent MIT buildings also designed by SOM.

Original design was to have all of the north part of the building north of 26-100 be up on stilts, like the breezeway is now. A rather California-like design what really would have been silly in New England.

But them IBM offered a free lease of a 704 computer, which would be used by a consortium of area colleges. The design of the building was changed to enclose the rest of the ground floor, which was office space for all the IBM people maintaining the vacuum-tube computer, and the MIT people providing programming support. The all-glass bump-out room on the west side of the building (room 26-152) was the computer room, and the basement under it held the heroic air-conditioning required to keep the computer from melting, and maybe some of the power supply hardware.

The design of the ground floor tried to maintain the "up on stilts" look, which is why the pillars are exposed, and the space between them is blue glazed brick, with windows up high.

Building 26 was also the home of the Digital Equipment PDP-1, and the (post Lincoln Labs) TX-0 (not Tixo as it says in Hackers).

Many interesting things happened on the 704 (and the solid-state replacements) like CTSS and LISP. Interesting things also happened on the PDP-1 and TX-0.

TMRC spent over 50 years in Building 20 (the plywood palace), then moved to building N52.

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