The TR440 was the only technically competitive mainframe computer manufactured in Germany at its time. In particular, its subscriber operating system was unique worldwide around 1970 – no other computer could offer anything comparable at the time. This predestined it to be the mainframe of choice for university computer centers. A total of about 60 TR440s were installed at a unit price of about DM 15 million.
The first running TR440 was delivered to the computer center of the Ruhr University in Bochum in 1970.
For more than 10 years, thousands of students and scientists enthusiastically worked with this computer in timesharing mode.
Encoding
The central code 1 – ZC 1 – was used for the coding of character strings in the Telefunken computer 440 – TR 440. The ZC l contains all characters of the internationally standardized 7-bit code according to DIN 66 003.
This code was the first 8-bit code to provide different code positions for umlauts and square or curly brackets; thus programs can be formulated in Algol 60 (square brackets) with German-language comments and string literals (strings).
Here, too, the TNS 440 was ahead of its time: the compilers of other manufacturers suffered until the 1990s from the ambiguity of the code positions for the brackets and the other special characters like Ä, Ö, Ü..