First commercial machine is probably the UNIVAC I; I think the ERA machines were military and not commercially available until later. The first commercial computer from IBM would be the Defense Research Calculator, AKA 701.
With bit addressable you don't have to worry as much about boundaries, although on some machines a byte can't straddle words. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of Rupert Reynolds Sent: Friday, April 25, 2025 2:45 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: What has IBM ever done for us? (probably more than I know) External Message: Use Caution 1401? That's bitrot on my part, I guess. I wonder what the first commercial stored program digital computer was? I see byte-addressable RAM as an advantage, myself, due to the convenience, rather than the old hassle of working out how many characters we could store in each (36-bit?) word and mangling them in, then later extracting them. Leaving unused bytes to align the next word seems a small price to pay :-) Roops On Fri, 25 Apr 2025, 15:19 Seymour J Metz, <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: > 1401? Neither big nor first. It primarily served two markets: > > Entry level computer for small shops > Offline tape-unit record transfers to support larger machines. > > FORTRAN? Not the first, but the first to gain traction. > > IBM and GE had compatible families before S/360. > > byte-addressable storage? A step back from 7030 (Stretch), CDC 3600 and > DEC PDP-6. "Any size you want as long as it's 8" > > Disk? Yes, it was first. > > DRAM? Do delay lines count? William Tubes? IBM used both, but did not > pioneer. > > long term compatibility? Burroughs B6500, GE 6xx, UNIVAC 1107. > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 > עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי > נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר > > > > ________________________________________ > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of Rupert Reynolds > Sent: Friday, April 25, 2025 8:14 AM > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Subject: What has IBM ever done for us? (probably more than I know) > > > External Message: Use Caution > > > Since it's Friday, would anyone care to contribute an opinion, or just an > item for the list? > > (I've been asked to give an informal talk to a small group of enthusiasts. > The idea is to look at where we've come from, where we are now, and take a > few guesses at what's next). > > Off the top of my head, IBM either innovated, or helped to promote in a big > way, things we take for granted :- > > . 1401, the first big stored program computer > . 1403 a fast chain printer > ' FORTRAN, which I think was one of the first high level language compilers > . s/360 (and family) with its flexible & compatible architecture > . Hard disc drives (was RAMAC the first?) > . DRAM > . byte-addressable storage (rather than only being able to address > word-by-word) > . 8 bits in a byte > . word sizes a power of 2 > . long term compatibility, where a 1970s program will still run and > assemble/compile > . 3270 data stream protocol, an efficient way to drive displays without > flooding the network with unnecessary data, and still used today in tn3270. > . the ATM (Automated Teller Machine, for the avoidance of doubt!). Lloyds > Bank asked, and IBM delivered it (in UK, I think) > > Have I blundered? > > Roops :-) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
