5.1 Bull Gamma 3
The Bull Gamma 3 was one of the early mainframe computers, created by a French company. It was programmed via a switchboard, was based on vacuum tubes, both visible when opened, and had a real engine to provide the clock cycle and move the cards. This type of machine was mainly used for statistical calculations: from the first half of the 1900s, Bull produced electric machines that read punched cards and tabulated the results; for them, the computer was just an accessory that allowed for more sophisticated calculations.