Burroughs Corporation

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The Burroughs Corporation began in 1886 as the American Arithmometer (adding machine) Company in St. Louis, Missouri selling an Arithmometer  invented by William Seward Burroughs.
The company moved to Detroit in 1904 and changed its name to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, in honor of Burroughs, who died in 1898. Burroughs grew into the biggest adding machine company in America, although by the 1950s it was selling more than the basic adding machines, including typewriters and computers.

The Company developed a range of adding machines with different capabilities and created the office accounting machine range that began with the Sensimatic, which had a moving programmable carriage to maintain ledgers. It could store 9, 18 or 27 balances during the ledger posting operations and worked with a mechanical adder named a Crossfooter. The Sensimatic developed into the Sensitronic which could store balances on a magnetic stripe which was part of the ledger card. This balance was read into the accumulator when the card was inserted into the carriage. The Sensitronic was followed by the E1000, the E2000, E4000, E6000 and the E8000 which was computer system supporting magnetic tape, card reader/punches and a line printer.

In the late 1960s the D2000, D4000 range was produced - also known as the TC500 (Terminal Computer 500) which had a golf ball printer and a 1K (80 bit) disk memory. These were popular as branch terminals to the B5500/6500/6700 Systems, which sold well in the Banking Sector, where they were often connected to non-Burroughs mainframes.

In 1953 the Burroughs Adding Machine Company was renamed the Burroughs Corporation and began moving into computer products, initially for banking institutions. This move began with the purchase in June 1956, of The ElectroData Corporation in Pasadena, California, originally a division of Consolidated Electrodynamics Corporation, but which had been spun off. ElectroData had built the Datatron 205 and was working on the Datatron 220. The first major computer product that came from this marriage was the B205 Tube computer.
The Burroughs Corporation developed three highly innovative architectures, based on the design philosophy of "language directed design". Their machine instruction sets favored one or many high level programming languages, such as ALGOL, COBOL or FORTRAN. All three architectures were considered "main-frame" class machines.

Burroughs was one of the eight major United States computer companies (with IBM, the largest, Honeywell, NCR Corporation, Control Data Corporation, General Electric, RCA and UNIVAC) through most of the 1960s. IBM's share of the market at the time was so much larger than all of the others, that this group was often referred to as "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs."
Later, this group became known as the BUNCH - (Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR Corporation, Control Data Corporation, and Honeywell)
In September 1986, Burroughs Corporation merged with Sperry Corporation to form Unisys.
 
 

Timeline for Burroughs :

Date Event
21 Aug 1888 William Seward Burroughs patents his calculating machine
27 May 1971 Burroughs introduces L500 Visible Record Model
10 Feb 1972 Burroughs launches L7000 range on UK market
30 Mar 1972 Burroughs launch more 700 family machines
25 May 1972 Burroughs fills ranks of 700 family
15 Jun 1972 Burroughs win £3m order for B1700's
29 Jun 1972 Flat screen terminal introduced by Burroughs
29 Jun 1972 Burroughs flat screen terminal
6 Jul 1972 Burroughs Launch B1700 Computer
26 Oct 1972 Burroughs Launch L8000 Range of Computers
23 Nov 1972 Terminal range boosted by Burroughs TC 3500
7 Dec 1972 UK launch for Burroughs L8000 range
8 Mar 1973 Burroughs fills out range with B700
30 Aug 1973 Burroughs launches new cash dispenser
6 Dec 1973 Burroughs launch conversion aid range
11 Apr 1974 Burroughs win order from Bath University for B1726
30 May 1974 Burroughs introduce two new TCS 1000 terminals
20 May 1976 Burroughs introduce the large B7700 series
May 1980 News Article : World's first 6MB floppy drive


Hardware Products

Burroughs C5306 Calculator

Burroughs C5306 Calculator
Unknown
This electronic calculator dates from 1974.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C2316 Calculator

Burroughs C2316 Calculator
Unknown
This mains-powered electronic calculator has two memories and outputs results directly to a paper spool.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C 7203 Calculator

Burroughs C 7203 Calculator
Unknown
The C 7203 is one of the last calculators produced by Burroughs.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C 3660

Burroughs C 3660
Unknown
Electronic calculator by Burroughs.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs Mechanical Desk Top Calculator

Burroughs Mechanical Desk Top Calculator
1935
In 1886 the American Arithmometer Company was founded in St.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C-3350 Calculator

Burroughs C-3350 Calculator
1967
The Burroughs C-3350 desktop calculator was designed in 1967 but was sold into the early 1970s.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C3260 Electronic Calculator

Burroughs C3260 Electronic Calculator
1971
This is Burroughs' rebranding (OEM copy from) the Sharp QT-8D electronic calculator, which was the first calculator to use MOS LSI (Metal Oxide Semiconductor, Large Scale Integration) integrated circu...

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C 7200 Calculator

Burroughs C 7200 Calculator
1971
The C 7200 is one of the more sophisticated calculators produced by Burroughs.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs C 3316 Electronic Calculator

Burroughs C 3316 Electronic Calculator
1974
Burroughs was one of the first companies in the U.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Calculator

Burroughs B95C Computer

Burroughs B95C Computer
1983
The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Computer

Burroughs B25

Burroughs B25
1983
Our Burroughs B25 was marketed under the Convergent Technology AWS NGEN workstation label.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Computer

Burroughs B26 Computer

Burroughs B26 Computer
1984
The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment.

Manufacturer : Burroughs
Type : Computer


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Burroughs Corporation

 

 

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