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{{Short description|American minicomputer company}}
'''Computer Control Company, Inc.''' (1953–1966), informally known as 3C, was a pioneering [[minicomputer]] company known for its DDP-series (Digital Data Processor) computers, notably:{{efn|name=Sequence}}<ref name="Confirm"/>
*[[DDP-24]] 24-bit (1963)
*DDP-224 24-bit (1965)<ref name="1967Survey"/>
*[[DDP-116]] 16-bit (1965)<ref name="DDP116" />
*DDP-124 24-bit (1966)<ref name="1967Survey"/> using monolithic ICs<ref name="DDP124" />

It was founded in 1953 by Dr. [[Louis Fein]], the physicist who had earlier designed the Raytheon [[RAYDAC]] computer.<ref>''Background,'' Vol. 7, No. 2 (Aug., 1963), pp. 109–110; published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The International Studies Association</ref>

The company moved to [[Framingham, Massachusetts]], in 1959. Prior to the introduction of the DDP-series it developed a series of digital logical modules, initially based on vacuum tubes.

In 1966 it was sold to [[Honeywell|Honeywell, Inc.]] As the Computer Controls division of Honeywell, it introduced further [[Honeywell 316|DDP-series computers]], and was a $100,000,000 business until 1970 when Honeywell purchased GE's computer division and discontinued development of the DDP line.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.series16.adrianwise.co.uk/history/ccc.html|title=Computer Control Company|publisher=Adrian Wise|author=Adrian Wise|accessdate=2008-06-09}}</ref>

In a 1970 essay, [[Murray Bookchin]] used the DDP-124 as his example of computer progress:
{{cquote|In 1945, [[J. Presper Eckert]], Jr. and [[John W. Mauchly]] of the University of Pennsylvania unveiled the [[ENIAC]] ... it weighed more than thirty tons, contained 18,800 vacuum tubes with half a million connections (the connections took Eckert and Mauchly two and a half years to solder. It often broke down or behaved erratically... Some twenty years later, the Computer Control Company of Framingham, Massachusetts offered the DDP-124 for sale. The DDP-124 is a small, compact computer that resembles a bedside AM-radio receiver. The entire ensemble, together with a typewriter and memory unit, occupies a typical office desk. The DDP-124 performs over 285,000 computations a second. It has a true stored-program memory that can be expanded to retain nearly 33,000 words... Its pulses cycle at 1.75 billion[sic] per second. The DDP-124 does not require any air-conditioning unit. It is completely reliable, and it creates very few maintenance problems.... The difference between ENIAC and DDP-124 is one of degree rather than kind.<ref>Bookchin, Murray, (1970), "Toward a Liberatory Technology," in ''Post-Scarcity Anarchism,'' AK Press, 2004, {{ISBN|1-904859-06-2}}; pp. 57–8</ref>}}

One of the oddest of the DDP series was the DDP 19—of which only three were built on custom order for the U.S. Weather service. Its architecture was based on a 19-bit word structure consisting of six octal bytes plus a sign bit, which in arithmetic operations could create the unusual value of [[Signed zero|"negative zero"]]. One of these machines was donated by the government to the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1972, which included a drum-based line printer and dual Ampex magnetic tape drives. It was used for a limited number of students as an "extra credit project device" for the next 2–3 years, after which it was scrapped to make space for newer equipment. The fate of the other two units is unknown.

==Notes==
{{notelist|refs=
{{efn|name=Sequence|One of the developers of the DDP-124, [[William Poduska]], who later on became one of the founders of [[Prime Computer]], said in a 2002 interview that the 124 came after the 224, which came after the 24.}}
}}

==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="Confirm">{{cite web |url=http://www.ddp116.org/products/ddp124/ddp124.pdf
|title=DDP-124 Microcircuit General Purpose Digital Computer}} Confirms the 24, 224, 124 sequence</ref>
<ref name="1967Survey">[http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/AdamsReport1967Q4-1968Q1.pdf Adams Report 1967, PDF]</ref>
<ref name="DDP124">{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_computersA_7721632/page/n43
|title=DDP-24 Announced by Computer Controls |date=July 1965 |website=Archive.org |publisher=Computers and Automation |access-date=April 1, 2019}}</ref>
<ref name="DDP116">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y0OeBQAAQBAJ&q=%22DDP-224%22%20first%20installed&pg=PA20 |title=The European Computer Users Handbook 1968/69 |publisher=Pergamon Press |series=Computer Data Series |edition=Sixth |last=Zhou |first=Yong |date=1968 |others=Computer Consultants Limited |isbn=9781483146690 |pages=111.20 |lccn=63-25287 |language=en}}</ref>
}}

==External links==
*[http://purl.umn.edu/107284 Oral history interview with Louis Fein] at [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Fein discusses establishing computer science as an academic discipline at [[SRI International|Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) as well as contacts with the University of California—Berkeley, the University of North Carolina, Purdue, [[International Federation for Information Processing]] and other institutions.
*[http://www.ddp116.org The 3C Legacy Project]
*{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123153657/http://3creunion.com/|date=November 23, 2021|title=Computer Control Company Reunion Website}}

{{-}}


{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1953 establishments in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:1966 disestablishments in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:1966 mergers and acquisitions]]
[[Category:American companies established in 1953]]
[[Category:American companies disestablished in 1966]]
[[Category:Companies based in Framingham, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Computer companies established in 1953]]
[[Category:Computer companies disestablished in 1966]]
[[Category:Defunct computer companies based in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Defunct computer companies of the United States]]
[[Category:Defunct computer hardware companies]]
[[Category:Defunct computer systems companies]]
[[Category:Electronics companies established in 1953]]
[[Category:Minicomputers]]

Computer Control Company - Revision history

imported>Cl3phact0: no longer a stub