The New IBM Electronic Data Processing Machines (May, 1953)
Source: Scientific American ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1953
Buy on Ebay
Tags: ibm
Over 2000 multiplications per second!!! What could we ever do with such power?
|
The New IBM Electronic Data Processing Machines
For Science… Industry… Defense
Combining the great storage capacities and speeds of cathode ray tubes, magnetic drums, and magnetic tapes with the tremendous computing speeds of electronic tubes, IBM engineers and scientists have produced in these machines the most flexible and most productive calculating unit ever marketed.
Here is a computer that can add and subtract 16,666 times a second . . . that can multiply and divide 2,192 times a second . . . and can recall factors from storage, or “memory,” in as little as 12 millionths of a second.
This momentous advance in electronic computing gives defense industries, for which this computer was especially designed, a tool of vast power and versatility. For peacetime uses, it will be applied to a wide variety of engineering, research, and scientific problems.The new IBM Electronic Data Processing Machines are the forerunners of data processing machines for business, now under intensive development in IBM laboratories.
3 KINDS OF “MEMORY”
(1) Magnetic drums —any of 81,920 digits* can be stored or recalled in an average of 40/1,000 of a second. (2) Cathode ray tubes —any of 10,240 digits* can be stored or recalled in 12/1,000,000 of a second. (3) Magnetic tapes—any of 2,000,000 digits* can be stored on one tape or recalled from it at the rate of 12,500 a second.
*Expressed in terms of equivalent decimal digitsINTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
590 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.
“Over 2000 multiplications per second!!! What could we ever do with such power?”
……….The same thing we try to do EVERY week, Pinky…..TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!
Comment by jpowell180 — June 5, 2006 @ 9:21 am
Interesting presentation; it looks like half the sales department wanted Motorama-style presentation of their big gray boxes, the other half wanted a “typical” office setting, and after the fourth round of martinis, this was the compromise.
Comment by nlpnt — April 30, 2008 @ 6:00 am