Thismachine is the direct ancestor of all personal computers. The Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC), developed at MIT in 1963 by Wesley A. Clark and Dr. Charles E. Molnar, was revolutionary not for its circuitry, but for its new data storage medium: small, portable data tapes, allowing each user to have a personal record of their data and programs. Funded by the NIH and NASA and designed specifically for laboratory use, the LINC allowed scientists to control complex experimental conditions and collect multiple data points in real time, making ever more complicated hypotheses testable.
After the LINC prototype was developed, researchers were invited to apply for a chance to test a free LINC in their laboratory for two years; in return, they would need to spend a month in Boston learning to maintain and program the machine, and they would need to participate in written evaluations of its performance at specified intervals. Out of 72 proposals, 12 labs were chosen to evaluate the LINC. Many of the scientists had no prior training in computer programming or circuitry, but all learned enough over the course of a month to assemble the machines in their labs and operate them without help. The test labs worked on a variety of systems and questions, ranging from blood flow calculations in dogs, to operant conditioning in rats, to activation of single neurons in mice. After two years, all of the test labs agreed that the LINC had greatly enhanced their research, and all were loath to give up the machines loaned to them for the evaluation. Fifty original LINCs were produced and shipped to laboratories around the country at a cost of $35,000 per unit—expensive, but affordable for important laboratory equipment. A typical LINC configuration included the computer and a rack holding the tape drive, a small Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display, a control panel, and a keyboard. In contrast to the large mainframe computers typical of the time, the LINC could fit into eight square feet of space, and its components could be arranged in a variety of ways to make use of small amounts of precious bench space. Later LINC models were produced by private industry, and some of these companies were able to build on the underlying circuitry and programming to produce ever smaller computers for personal use, which eventually evolved into what we think of as personal computers today; however, the original machine, a highly specialized device for a very specific use, would never have been developed without government funding. Read more about the history of the LINC here. [89.0001.014]
