What kind of computer can be considered a desktop? Apparently, one that is compact enough to be placed on a table. YouTuber Alexander the ok considers this to be the D-17b, which was responsible for guiding the Minuteman 1 ballistic missiles and was later transferred to US universities.
In the late 1960s, computers from decommissioned Minuteman 1 missiles were given to universities and other research institutions for free. By then, the Minuteman 1 missile was being phased out in favor of the Minuteman 2. The computers inside these rockets were nothing like the cabinets that took up the entire room — it could be lifted by one person. It had a cylindrical form factor.
Guidance was the original purpose of these computers. Before the advent of GPS, missiles relied exclusively on inertial navigation, thanks to gyroscopes and accelerometers, whose readings were used in the equations for guidance trajectories, which the D-17b calculated, literally and figuratively, on the fly.
The Minuteman 1 missile was not so big: 17 meters in height and 1.7 meters at its widest point. The diameter of the missile guidance section, which housed the D-17b, was 75 cm across and 80 cm high. Of course, it is larger than a regular desktop PC, but it can definitely be placed on a table.
The computer weighed 28 kg and was mounted in a 54 cm high by 74 cm wide twelve-pack chassis. All logic, synchronization, and I/O were controlled by 75 separate printed circuit boards. All of these were discrete components; there were no integrated circuits. In other words, this computer had no processor. The D-17b contained a small number of transistors and a fairly large number of diodes and resistors. The very concept of a transistor was new at the time, and the desire for reliability dictated the use of the smallest possible number of transistors, about 1500 in total.
Another important component was the magnetic hard disk. The first commercial hard disk drive was the IBM 350, weighing 1 ton, released five years before the D-17b. So the D-17b memory device was an outstanding achievement in miniaturization. It is not known how much data the drive contained.
The D-17b computer was a remarkable achievement in 1962 and was not cheap. At today’s exchange rate, it was worth about $2 million — giving it away for free was unheard of generosity. One D-17b can be seen at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, and another is on display at a museum in Montana.
Sources: Tom`s Hardware, Wikipedia
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