IBM’s NORC

Calculates pi to 3,089 digits in 13 minutes

Today in 1954, the Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) was presented by IBM to the United States Navy at the Naval Surface Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia.

This one-of-a-kind, first-generation vacuum tube computer was built at the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory under the direction of Wallace Eckert. At the presentation ceremony, it calculated pi to 3,089 digits, which was a record at the time, and the calculation took only 13 minutes.