JOHNNIAC 1954 The Rand Corporation, United States The JOHNNIAC was one of seventeen custom-built machines inspired by John von Neumann’s design at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. This design specified a binary, bit-parallel computer optimized for scientific calculation. These first generation computers played a crucial role in convincing IBM and other major manufacturers to move beyond punched card technology and embrace the electronic stored program computer as a commercially viable product. Apart from the original IAS machine, the JOHNNIAC is probably the only one of these machines to have survived. Memory Type: Core Speed: 40,000 Add/s Memory Size: 4K Cost: $470,000 Memory Width: (40-bit)