But they skipped the 610, and I know Notre Dame received one in Sept 59 that I first programmed, and I had heard that a number of university EE departments also received on, but I have no facts to confirm.
Barry Merrill Herbert W. “Barry” Merrill, PhD President-Programmer MXG Softtware Merrill Consultants 10717 Cromwell Drive Dallas, TX 75229 [email protected] http://www.mxg.com - FAQ has Most Answers [email protected] – invoices/PO/Payment [email protected] – technical tel: 214 351 1966 - expect slow reply, use email fax: 214 350 3694 – prefer email, still works -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joel C. Ewing Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 1:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OE Historical article re: Mainframes 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-hist >>> ory.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] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
