Editing Magnetic amplifier (section)

===Usage in computing===
{{Main|Magnetic logic}}
Magnetic amplifiers were widely studied during the 1950s as a potential switching element for [[Mainframe computer|mainframe]] computers. Like transistors, mag amps were somewhat smaller than the typical vacuum tube, and had the significant advantage that they were not subject to "burning out" and thus had dramatically lower maintenance requirements. Another advantage is that a single mag amp could be used to sum several inputs in a single core, which was useful in the [[arithmetic logic unit]] (ALU) as it could greatly reduce the component count. Custom tubes could do the same, but transistors could not, so the mag amp was able to combine the advantages of tubes and transistors in an era when the latter were expensive and unreliable.

The principles of magnetic amplifiers were applied non linearly to create [[magnetic logic|magnetic digital logic gates]]. That era was short, lasting from the mid-1950s to about 1960, when new fabrication techniques produced great improvements in transistors and dramatically lowered their cost. Only one large-scale mag amp machine was put into production, the [[UNIVAC Solid State]], but a number of contemporary late-1950s/early-1960s computers used the technology, like the [[Ferranti Sirius]], [[Ferranti Orion]] and the [[English Electric KDF9]], or the one-off [[MAGSTEC]].