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THE WEST COAST FAIRE

by Jerry Pournelle

The lord of the Manor visits his favorite computer show.

The West Coast Computer Faire is my favorite computer show; how can a big publishing company like Prentice-Hall put it on the way Jim Warren did?

Of course it can’t and it didn’t, but in justice. Jim Warren wouldn’t have been able to keep it up. either. For better or worse, the micro industry has changed. Oh, sure, there are still some pretty good products for sale in the little booths along the walls, but there were fewer than in the old days for the simple reason that the big outfits also have a lot of incredible new stuff, and it’s a lot harder for a newcomer to compete. Read the rest of this entry »

I love that they put their logo inside a punch card.

A “Giant Brain” that’s Strictly Business

IBM’s new 702 Electronic Data Processing Machine brings to the accounting and record-keeping problems of business the speed and capacity of giant scientific computers.
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The Brain Builders

“At last I came under a huge archway and beheld the Grand Lunar exalted on his throne in a blaze of incandescent blue . . . The quintessential brain looked very much like an opaque, featureless bladder with dim, undulating ghosts of convolutions writhing visibly within . . . Tiers of attendants were busy spraying that great brain with a cooling spray, and patting and sustaining it . . .”

—H. G. Wells,
The First Men in the Moon

Last week, in a pastel blue and grey room on the fifth floor of a St. Louis office building, the newest Wellsian brain in the earthly world was enthroned. This quintessential brain looked like nothing more than a collection of filing cases, stretching in a 60-ft. semicircle about the room. From within the grey metal cases came a faint humming sound; along the light-studded metallic face were scores of twinkling orange sparks, rippling like waves of thought. Read the rest of this entry »

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AUTOMATION

Robot Machines Are Cutting Costs, Boosting Profits and Making Jobs, Bringing More Leisure to Everyone.

THOUGH its history is brief, automation already has its own folklore. One of its most widely told legends concerns C.I.O. President Walter P. Reuther and a Ford executive who were touring Ford’s automated engine plant in Cleveland. As they strode past huge self-operating tools that bored cylinder holes, positioned connecting rods and bolted down manifolds, the Ford executive wisecracked: “You know, not one of these machines pays dues to the U.A.W.” Retorted Reuther: “And not one of them buys new Ford cars, either.”
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FOR THE MATHEMATICIAN who’s ahead of his time

IBM is looking for a special kind of mathematician, and will pay especially well for his abilities.

This man is a pioneer, an educator—with a major or graduate degree in Mathematics, Physics, or Engineering with Applied Mathematics equivalent.

You may be the man.
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Yup, this is a punched card modem.

IBM 1001 DATA TRANSMISSION SYSTEM

… new low cost way to send punched card data… by telephone

This IBM 1001 Data Transmission System lets you send business information in punched card form, from any office, plant or department to your central data processing installation at the cost of a telephone call.

It speeds collection of information concerning inventory, purchases, payroll, production, etc., keeps you continually informed of what’s happening in your business while it’s happening.
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5 NEW IBM PRODUCTS

DELIVER MORE DATA PROCESSING PER DOLLAR WITH IBM BALANCED DATA PROCESSING Out of IBM’s continuing program of research and development, proved by months of rigid testing, come these great new products to serve business, industry and science. And with them, IBM adds new emphasis to the concept of Balanced Data Processing—a standard for all data processing based on measuring the value of data processing in terms of net results, rather than speed of individual units.
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IBM Leadership in action…

Parade with a purpose

Today, an almost endless parade of IBM punched cards serves business, industry, and government in widely varied roles—as vital aids in routine record keeping, as checks and money orders, airline tickets, utility bills, insurance premium notices, and many, many other kinds of accounting documents.

But even more significant than the part they play in your daily life—these millions of IBM punched cards are vital evidence of real progress in better business methods.

They represent the solution to practical business problems.

IBM’s on-the-job experience and continued progress in advanced equipment design are helping American industry work better and faster—at less cost.

International Business Machines Corporation
New York 22, N. Y.

FOR THE MATHEMATICIAN who’s ahead of his time

IBM is looking for a special kind of mathematician, and will pay especially well for his abilities.
This man is a pioneer, an educator—with a major or graduate degree in Mathematics, Physics, or Engineering with Applied Mathematics equivalent.
Read the rest of this entry »

With new Changeable Type Bars

IBM Electric Typewriters really “speak your language”

In your business do you need certain special symbols from time to time for typing letters, manuscripts and reports?
Then what you need is an IBM Electric Typewriter because Changeable Type Bars can be installed in every new IBM!
This revolutionary and exclusive Electric Typewriter development makes it possible to interchange in certain key positions regular and special type bars as needed. The wide selection of optional type characters includes scientific, mathematical, foreign-language •symbols, and many other special characters such as subscripts and exponents.

The switch takes only 30 seconds— you simply unhook the regular key and hook the special key in its place—or vice versa.
Tell us your special needs. We’ll be glad to show you how easily and economically this new IBM feature can serve you.
For additional information write IBM, Dept. SC, 590 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES

Over 2000 multiplications per second!!! What could we ever do with such power?

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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.
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More at Wikipedia.

putting IDEAS to work — research at IBM

•Random Access Memory Accounting: RAMAC®, magnetic-disk memory storage, gives fast access to 5,000,000 characters. IBM Bulletin No. 400.
•Slanting Rain: “Shadows” created on a surface by its irregularities and discontinuities magnified 200,000 times through electron microscopy.

Random Access Memory Accounting
RAMAC, IBM’s newest data processing system, needed a unique memory storage system. Ordinary methods of memory storage—magnetic tape, drums, ferrite cores—couldn’t store enough “bits” of information. It took a research team of ours,withTriggNoyes and Wes Dickinson as key men at IBM’s San Jose Research Labs, to find the answer. The heart of this new idea: magnetic disks, played and replayed like the records in coin-operated music machines!
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