On 05/04/2013 11:36 AM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
On Fri, 3 May 2013 21:13:56 -0500, J. Leslie Turriff wrote:
On 2013-05-03 18:24:07 Phil Smith wrote:
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html
I didn't realize that Eniac was that big... 49-ft high cabinets! Wow!
And:
Also, in a backward step from the ABC computer, the ENIAC
worked with decimal and not binary numbers.
We're still stepping backwards.
-- gil
The IBM 650 in the 1950's, which was the first IBM computer to be a
commercial success, was also a decimal machine, as were the 1401, 1410,
1620, and others I don't all remember. Until the S/360 architecture
united product architectures, IBM produced both decimal "business"
machines (easier to use) and binary "scientific" machines (faster
arithmetic). When one talked about a 1401 with 8K of memory, one
meant storage for 8000 characters or decimal digits (not 8192 storage
positions). Decimal architecture was only a "step backward" when
talking about hardware efficiency and performance; but customers were
also concerned about usability, and character-oriented decimal machines
were seen as a much easier upgrade path from punch-card and decimal
accounting equipment. The success of the IBM 650 and IBM 1401 showed
customers were quite willing to pay more for slower hardware
architectures when that made the equipment more practical to use. Until
better high-level languages, more canned applications, and more
sophisticated operating systems largely removed users and application
programmers from having to think in base 2 to effectively use binary
hardware, slower decimal-oriented hardware was considered "better" than
binary by many business customers.
--
Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected]
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