Chapter 2 – 1956 to 1964

Computing Comes of Age

IBM 1130 1

Introduction

Clerks in offices performed many “busy” tasks- Comptometer (Pg.48)

Common Problem: Needed to store/ retrieve large amounts of data- quickly and easily

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Core Memory – a radical innovation Small, donut shaped materials

threaded together with fine wires See Description- Pg. 49

Hysteresis – from Germany after WWII

Advantages Small – non-volatile Random Access

Began to install in existing computers, e.g. Whirlwind

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Core Development

German fire-control systems Aiken’s Mark IV, 1952 - An Wang ENIAC, 1952 – Burroughs Corp, 2D Whirlwind, 1952 – Jay Forrester, 3D

Made it the “fastest”

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Core Memory

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Air Force SAGE

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Early called “Whirlwind II” – similarity Core Memory 8,192 – 32-bit words 55,000 vacuum tubes per system

Radar+Aircraft+Telephone+Radio+Ships To detect & identify enemy aircraft IBM won contract

Delivered Prototype 1955; 30 more Each system = 2 identical computers Needed hundreds of thousands high-quality core

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IBM and SAGE

½ Billion in revenue for IBM Began producing own core 1956: IBM passed UNIVAC in

Installations of large systems

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In the Meantime…..

While IBM and UNIVAC were leading, others did get in the game Honeywell General Electric (GE) RCA

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Honeywell

Raytheon failed to deliver late 1940’s government bid Joined with Honeywell, 1955

1957- Datamatic 1000 Immediately Obsolete Used Tubes, not transistors

Withdrew; re-entered in 1960’s

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General Electric (GE)

1955- leading electronics firm $3 billion in sales 200,000 employees

1953- OARAC- USAF Sr. Management decided not to

market Why? IBM was GE’s largest

customer of vacuum tubes

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GE (continued)

Late 1950’s –ERMA Electronic Recording Machine Accounting

“1-time project”; transistors + MICR 1958 - Bank of America & Ronald

Reagan unveiling Research excellent but Mgmt. never

committed to computer industry 1970- sold to Honeywell- $200 million

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RCA $940 million sales; 98,000 employees BIZMAC, 1955 (Arnold Spielberg, engineer)

1 full system, few smaller ones Specialized architecture Several Hundred tape drives Specialized processors; sort & search Failure- behind improvements (tube to

transistors) Another specialized failure: UNIVAC File

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Architecture -- Read Pg. 58-64

By end of 1960, approx. 6,000 G.P. computers installed in the U.S.

Word Length: Prior to core memory, fetch 1 Bit 7-12 decimal digits; 30-50 bits

Long words costly & complex Soon various lengths; Variable vs. Fixed 1954: IBM 704-36 bit word length Today - not totally standard

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Architecture Cont.

Registers: Sets of circuits- 1950’s Accumulator; program counter; index

register (pg. 60) 1956 – British, 7 GP registers, 1 PC

Addresses Single address instructions heavily used Then 2 & 3 address schemes 0 address - Stack architecture

Later in calculators14

Architecture Cont.

I/O Channels - processor UNIVAC innovations

Buffer: to help slow I/O Interrupt: I/O when necessary

Channel: separate processor for I/O “Becoming” 2- processor system I/O Channel became defining characteristic of

mainframe Expensive but necessary

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Architecture Cont.

Floating Point Arithmetic Hardware (expensive) vs. Software (slow)

Scientific vs. Commercial – parallel dev.

IBM 360 – combined both components 1st Computers in 1940’s had FP

Hardware (Zuse, Bell Labs) Co-Processors; incorporated into the

486 chip

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Transistor

Bell Labs- early 1950’s Replacement for tubes, not reliable for core Regulated Monopoly, telephone only Released transistor information (small fee)

Philco-surface barrier transistor Mass produced & reliable Leader SOLO: 1st general purpose, transistorized

computer in U.S. (for NSA)- 1956 to 1958

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Transistor (cont.)

TRANSAC; S-2000 (1960) UNIVAC- Solid State 80 Began Second Generation 1962- Ford bought , Philco out of

computer business ** Second Generation 1962- Ford bought Philco

Dropped computer business18

Inventors of Transistor

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Shockley (seated),Bardeen (glasses),Brattain, in 1946

Nobel Prize, 1956

Early Transistors

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IBM

By 1960, dominated computer industry 1952- Justice Dept. alleged anti-trust

violations in punch card business 1956- Consent Decree

Must SELL and rent its computers Third-party vendors bought & leased IBM

Stock soared, in spite of critics Combination: marketing, manufacturing,

& technical innovations21

IBM cont’d

Criticism Took innovations from smaller

companies 704: core, floating-point, FORTRAN was

superior to UNIVAC Sales Force + Manufacturing Techniques

+ Field Service success

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IBM (cont.)

Model 305 Disk Announced 1956; marketed 1957 Pack of 50, 24’’ platters 1200 RPM 5 M characters- Random Access “Boundary Layer”- air RAMAC – Random Access Memory Accounting Machine

1st United Airlines for reservations Watson, Jr. “greatest product day…”

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IBM’s 7094 (early 1960’s)

709 tubes 7090 transistors (USAF) Mainframe: floor, climate 36-bit word, 150 Kb core Console – detailed control Typical Process (p. 73)

Batch Processing Separate 1401 for printing

$1.6 million - $30,000 month24

IBM 1401 & 1620 (Late 1950’s)

Low-end, compact (sold 10K 1401) Made possible

by transistors Stored program Core 1403 Printer

Fastest of its time – 600 lpm

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Conclusion

Second Generation Transition from tubes to transistors Core Memories Disks Business computing applications IBM success

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