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General Motors Research Laboratories

division of General Motors Corporation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ5532052 ↗
Source-derived summary

General Motors Research Laboratories are the part of General Motors responsible for creation of the first known operating system (GM-NAA I/O) in 1955 and contributed to the first mechanical heart, the Dodrill-GMR, successfully used while performing open heart surgery.

See also

Multiple Console Time Sharing System

References

External links

General Motors Research Laboratories site. Domain is one of the first .com domains.

Facts

First true operating systems (mid-1950s)

GM-NAA I/O (1956)

Developed by General Motors Research for IBM computers

First real operating system (batch processing).

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “General Motors Research Laboratories” as division of General Motors Corporation. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around General, Motors and Research.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1956—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with General, Motors and Research providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “General Motors Research Laboratories”, the useful work is to connect “division of General Motors Corporation” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5532052. VIAF identifies the subject as 128993515. The Library of Congress control number is n79084006. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955 and 1956.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “General Motors Research Laboratories”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow General Motors Research Laboratories primary sources, General Motors Research Laboratories archive and General research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “General Motors Research Laboratories”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “General Motors Research Laboratories” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.