Forgot your password?
Cyhist Apr 6 1997 B
Document Actions
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 12:42:44 PDT
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "Laurence I. Press" <lpress@ISI.EDU>
Subject: IBM 1401, 1620, 360
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 6 Apr 1997 00:50:40 -0400
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>Does anyone know if the 1620 was a model between the 1402 and the 360?
The 1401 was a very popular machine designed for data processing applications -- it was the workhorse in the transition from unit-record machines -- punch card equipment like accounting machines, sorters, collators, and caluclators -- to computers. Small 1401 configurations had card reader-punhces plus a line printer, and larger ones had tape dirves and a few had disk drives. A 1401 with tape and a line printer also typically served as an off-line I/O machine in support of a large, scientific machine like the 70xx. (Batches of jobs would be copied onto tape and taken to the large machine, which produced output on tape which was taken to the 1401 for printing). It was typically programmed in assembly language, though RPG and FARGO (which has been discussed on this list) were often used also.
The 1401 had a "big brother," the 1410, which had a larger (100 k 6-bit characters vs 16 for the 1401) address space (these were variable word-length, character-oriented machines), I/O interupts, and ran faster. The 1401 was followed by the 1440, which was small and frequently disk-based.
The components of a 1401 system had ID numbers like 14xx. You spoke of the "1402" -- I am not sure, but that may have been the card reader-punch. I believe the 1403 was the line printer and the 1405 the disk drive.
The 1620 was designed more for scientific calculation than for business data processing. It would typically have a typewriter for I/O and not a line printer. It was typically programmed in Fortran (there was a load-and-go interpreter called Gotran from the U of Wisconsin that was popular).
IBM had two divisions at the time - the Data Processing division which concentrated on business applications (the 14xx machines) and the General(?) Systems division which concentrated on scientific applications. The mainstream of the scientific machines were called 701, 704, 709, 7090, 7094, 7044, and they had a single-address, 36-bit word-oriented architecture. (They also had a line of large data processing machines called the 705 and 7080 as I recall, but these were not nearly as popular as the much smaller and cheaper 14xx from DPD).
I believe the 1620 was a DPD product which put it outside of these mainstreams.
The 360 came out in 1964, and it was not a machine, but a line of machines with compatible instruction sets and hardware interfaces. The idea was to unite the 14xx (business) and 70xx lines into one architecture that could do it all (hence 360 -- 360 degrees). The 360 came in many models -- I think there were models 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 at first -- and others were added to fill in technical gaps and extend the line later. They shot for an architecture that could unite all applications and scale widely, and succeeded.
There are many books on the history of IBM which go over this stuff and the people and decision making processes leading up to these machines.
Larry
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "Laurence I. Press" <lpress@ISI.EDU>
Subject: IBM 1401, 1620, 360
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 6 Apr 1997 00:50:40 -0400
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>Does anyone know if the 1620 was a model between the 1402 and the 360?
The 1401 was a very popular machine designed for data processing applications -- it was the workhorse in the transition from unit-record machines -- punch card equipment like accounting machines, sorters, collators, and caluclators -- to computers. Small 1401 configurations had card reader-punhces plus a line printer, and larger ones had tape dirves and a few had disk drives. A 1401 with tape and a line printer also typically served as an off-line I/O machine in support of a large, scientific machine like the 70xx. (Batches of jobs would be copied onto tape and taken to the large machine, which produced output on tape which was taken to the 1401 for printing). It was typically programmed in assembly language, though RPG and FARGO (which has been discussed on this list) were often used also.
The 1401 had a "big brother," the 1410, which had a larger (100 k 6-bit characters vs 16 for the 1401) address space (these were variable word-length, character-oriented machines), I/O interupts, and ran faster. The 1401 was followed by the 1440, which was small and frequently disk-based.
The components of a 1401 system had ID numbers like 14xx. You spoke of the "1402" -- I am not sure, but that may have been the card reader-punch. I believe the 1403 was the line printer and the 1405 the disk drive.
The 1620 was designed more for scientific calculation than for business data processing. It would typically have a typewriter for I/O and not a line printer. It was typically programmed in Fortran (there was a load-and-go interpreter called Gotran from the U of Wisconsin that was popular).
IBM had two divisions at the time - the Data Processing division which concentrated on business applications (the 14xx machines) and the General(?) Systems division which concentrated on scientific applications. The mainstream of the scientific machines were called 701, 704, 709, 7090, 7094, 7044, and they had a single-address, 36-bit word-oriented architecture. (They also had a line of large data processing machines called the 705 and 7080 as I recall, but these were not nearly as popular as the much smaller and cheaper 14xx from DPD).
I believe the 1620 was a DPD product which put it outside of these mainstreams.
The 360 came out in 1964, and it was not a machine, but a line of machines with compatible instruction sets and hardware interfaces. The idea was to unite the 14xx (business) and 70xx lines into one architecture that could do it all (hence 360 -- 360 degrees). The 360 came in many models -- I think there were models 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 at first -- and others were added to fill in technical gaps and extend the line later. They shot for an architecture that could unite all applications and scale widely, and succeeded.
There are many books on the history of IBM which go over this stuff and the people and decision making processes leading up to these machines.
Larry
______________________________________________________________________
