On 07/14/2015 06:55 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:
Architecturally, it was pretty much the last of its kind: the last of the BCD decimal arithmetic machines, which also makes it interesting. It has also become much more obscure than the 1401, which it followed, because not nearly as many were made and sold.
Not by a long shot, it was followed by the 7000-series machines, namely the 7070 and 7080 (I have a soft spot for the 1620 myself) and ultimately variable length BCD was included in the S/360 and later series.
Having programmed 1401s, I'll grant that the architecture was pretty different from what we're used to today, but typical for a small machine of the time.
--Chuck
