© Mark Ollig
Thomas J. Watson Jr., President of IBM, revealed to shareholders on Apr. 29, 1952. the company was constructing “the most advanced, most flexible high-speed computer in the world.”
What later became the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine was first known during its early development as the “defense calculator.”
It was so named because at the start of the Korean War in 1950, IBM’s chairman, Thomas J. Watson Sr., asked the US Government how his company could be of support.
The government replied by asking IBM to build them an advanced computing system capable of designing aircraft, assisting in nuclear development, engineering new armaments, and performing complex calculations.
IBM then literally put pencil to paper and began designing the IBM 701 computer in January 1951.
The US Government, in addition to private industry, would use the new computer.
“We convinced ourselves that by taking a giant step toward this far-out high-performance machine, our customers and we would benefit in many ways,” said Jerrier “Jerry” Haddad, who co-designed and assisted in developing the IBM 701 computer.
Haddad also held an electrical engineering degree from Cornell University.
Constructed in IBM’s Poughkeepsie, NY plant, where its parts were assembled using production-line assembly techniques, the IBM 701 became the world’s first mass-produced computer.
This electronic digital computer had an input and output system, various memory devices, digital arithmetic-processing components, and a well-organized control center.
The IBM 701 computer’s cabinet-bay wiring was neatly cabled using modular pluggable ends. It uses various physical devices for storing and retrieving information.
The computer’s internal processing operations were performed using binary 1’s and 0’s.
I was surprised to learn that the computer used electrostatic glass tubes to hold binary information.
The IBM 701 contained 7 Williams-Kilburn electrostatic data-storage tubes, each capable of holding 1,024 bits of data totaling 73,728 bits with the capacity of storing 2,048 words using 36-bits when the logical wording address system operated with two 18-bit words.
An electrical charge pattern maintained the stability of the data held within the tubes.
The IBM 701’s memory used four magnetic-coated cylinder drums to read and write 8,000 digits per second.
Four cabinet bays, each equipped with magnetic-tape drive units, held more than 8 million digits per individual tape-reel.
The magnetic-tape unit’s read and write speed was 12,500 digits per second.
In addition to vacuum tubes, several thousand germanium-diode electronic components were used inside the IBM 701 computer system.
The data from the IBM 701 was output to a paper printer at a rate of 150 lines per minute.
As far as processing capabilities, for 1952, the IBM 701 computer performed exceptionally well.
Information from IBM’s 701 webpage states this computer could perform an average of 14,000 mathematical operations a second.
An operator managed the IBM 701 by using buttons, keys, and switches from its control center panel to input data instruction entries of the computer’s memory, accumulator, and multiplier-quotient registers. In addition, the operator panel displayed many visual indicator activity lights.
Two power frames and a power distribution unit provided the electricity for the IBM 701 data processing computer.
In April of 1952, an IBM 701 development machine computing model was installed at the IBM office at Poughkeepsie, NY. A photo showed its frame cabinet neatly organized with the cabling hidden from view.
The photo of the IBM 701 in the Poughkeepsie office can be seen here: https://bit.ly/3BOhebn.
Nearly 70 years ago, on May 21, 1952, IBM branch managers were informed the ‘defense calculator’ would now be referred to as the IBM Electronic Data Processing Machine.
Composed of eleven compact and connected units, the IBM 701 Electronic Processing Machine was the first calculator of comparable capacity produced in quantity. In addition, it used three of the more advanced electronic storage or memory devices [including] cathode ray tubes, magnetic drums, and magnetic tapes, IBM said of their new computer.
IBM also advertised the computer as “the first calculator of comparable capacity to be produced in quantity.”
In 1952, one could rent the IBM 701 computer for $12,000 per month, which in today’s dollars would be about $127,312.
Towards the end of 1952, the first commercial production IBM 701 computer shipped to the Technical Computing Bureau at IBM’s World Headquarters in New York, NY.
A total of 19 IBM 701 computers were manufactured. Those acquiring one included the US Navy, the National Security Agency, Boeing, Lockheed, and General Electric.
Jan. 8, 1954, IBM released a press statement about their IBM 701 “electronic brain” translating Russian into English onto a paper printer at the speed of two-and-a-half lines per second.
On Feb. 28, 1955, IBM assembled a 701 computer from spare parts for the US Weather Bureau in Washington, DC. It would be the last shipment of an IBM 701 “defense calculator” and “electronic brain” computer.
Thomas John Watson Sr. died Jun.19, 1956, at age 82, and Jerrier A. Haddad passed away in 2017 at 94.
