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, <[email protected]> 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: [email protected] > 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 [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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
