The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer and its first series production mainframe computer, which was announced to the public on May 21, 1952. It was invented and developed by Jerrier Haddad and

Nathaniel Rochester Nathaniel Rochester (February 21, 1752 – May 17, 1831) was an American Revolutionary War soldier, and land speculator, most noted for founding the settlement which would become Rochester, New York. Early life Nathaniel Rochester was born ...

based on the

IAS machine The IAS machine was the first electronic computer built at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. It is sometimes called the von Neumann machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

. The IBM 701 was the first computer in the

IBM 700/7000 series The IBM 700/7000 series is a series of large-scale (Mainframe computer, mainframe) computer systems that were made by IBM through the 1950s and early 1960s. The series includes several different, incompatible processor architectures. The 700s ...

, which were IBM’s high-end computers until the arrival of the

IBM System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...

in 1964. The business-oriented sibling of the 701 was the

IBM 702 The IBM 702 was an early generation tube-based digital computer produced by IBM in the early to mid-1950s. It was the company's response to Remington Rand's UNIVAC—the first mainframe computer to use magnetic tapes. As these machines ...

and a lower-cost general-purpose sibling was the

IBM 650 The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the first ...

, which gained fame as the first mass-produced computer in the world.

History

IBM 701 competed with Remington Rand's

UNIVAC 1103 The UNIVAC 1103 or ERA 1103, a successor to the UNIVAC 1101, was a computer system designed by Engineering Research Associates and built by the Remington Rand corporation in October 1953. It was the first computer for which Seymour Cray was cred ...

in the scientific computation market, which had been developed for the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

, so it was held secret until permission to market it was obtained in 1951. In early 1954, a committee of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...

requested that the two machines be compared for the purpose of using them for a Joint Numerical Weather Prediction project. Based on the trials, the two machines had comparable computational speed, with a slight advantage for IBM's machine, but the UNIVAC was favored unanimously for its significantly faster input-output equipment. Nineteen IBM 701 systems were installed. The first 701 was delivered to IBM's world headquarters in New York. Eight went to aircraft companies. At the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

, having an IBM 701 meant that scientists could run nuclear explosives computations faster. "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" is often attributed to Thomas Watson Sr., chairman and CEO of IBM, in 1943. This misquote may stem from a statement by his son,

Thomas Watson Jr. Thomas John Watson Jr. (January 14, 1914 – December 31, 1993) was an American businessman, political figure, Army Air Forces pilot, and philanthropist. The son of IBM Corporation founder Thomas J. Watson, he was the second IBM president (195 ...

at the 1953 IBM annual stockholders' meeting. Watson Jr. was describing the market acceptance of the IBM 701 computer. Before production began, Watson visited with 20 companies that were potential customers. This is what he said at the stockholders' meeting, "as a result of our trip, on which we expected to get orders for five machines, we came home with orders for 18”. ''

Aviation Week ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviatio ...

'' for 11 May 1953 says the 701 rental charge was about $12,000 a month; ''American Aviation'' 9 Nov 1953 says "$15,000 a month per 40-hour shift. A second 40-hour shift ups the rental to $20,000 a month". The successor of the 701 was the

index register An index register in a computer's CPU is a processor register (or an assigned memory location) used for pointing to operand addresses during the run of a program. It is useful for stepping through strings and arrays. It can also be used for hol ...

-equipped

IBM 704 The IBM 704 is a large digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. It was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The IBM 704 ''Manual of operation'' states: The type 704 Electronic Data-Pro ...

, introduced 4 years after the 701. The 704 was not compatible with the 701, however, as the 704 increased the size of instructions from 18 bits to 36 bits to support the extra features. The 704 also marked the transition to

magnetic core memory Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or, informally, core. Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magneti ...

Social impact

In 1952 IBM paired with language scholars from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

to develop a translation software for use on computers. On January 7, 1954, the team developed an experimental software program that allowed the IBM 701 computer to translate from Russian to English. The Mark 1 Translating Device, which was developed for the US Air Force, was able to produce its first automated Russian-to-English translation in 1959 and was shown to the public in 1964. In 1954, a group of scientists ran millions of simulated hands of blackjack on an IBM 701 looking to determine the best playing decision for every combination of cards. The result of the study was the set of correct rules for hitting, standing, doubling or splitting in a blackjack game which are still the same today. The IBM 701 has a claim to be the first computer displaying the potential of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

Arthur Samuel Arthur Lee Samuel (December 5, 1901 – July 29, 1990) was an American pioneer in the field of computer gaming and artificial intelligence. He popularized the term "machine learning" in 1959. The Samuel Checkers-playing Program was among the wo ...

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

-playing program on February 24, 1956. The program, which was developed for play on the IBM 701, was demonstrated to the public on television. Self-proclaimed checkers master Robert Nealey played the game on an IBM 7094 computer in 1962 and the computer won. It is still considered a milestone for artificial intelligence and it offered the public during the early 1960s an example of the capabilities of an electronic computer. The University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore developed a language compilation and runtime system called the

KOMPILER In computing, the KOMPILER was one of the first language compilation and runtime systems for International Business Machines' IBM 701, the fastest commercial U.S. computer available in 1955. Information on KOMPILER is listed on page 16 of Volume ...

for their IBM 701.

Speedcode Speedcoding, Speedcode or SpeedCo was the first high-level programming language created for an IBM computer. The language was developed by John W. Backus in 1953 for the IBM 701 to support computation with floating point numbers. The idea ...

was the first

high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong Abstraction (computer science), abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ...

created for an IBM computer. The language was developed by

John Backus John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented and implemented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, and was the inventor of the Back ...

in 1953 for the IBM 701 to support computation with

floating-point numbers In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...

. The Fortran compiler also developed by Backus was not released by IBM until the

Description

Hardware configuration

The IBM 701 system was composed of the following units: *IBM 701 - Analytical Control Unit ( CPU) *IBM 706 - Electrostatic Storage Unit (2048 words of

Williams tube The Williams tube, or the Williams–Kilburn tube named after inventors Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn, is an early form of computer memory. It was the first random-access digital storage device, and was used successfully in several early co ...

Memory) *

IBM 711 The IBM 711 was a punched card reader used as a peripheral device for IBM mainframe vacuum tube computers and early transistorized computers. Announced on May 21, 1952, it was first shipped with the IBM 701. Later IBM computers that used it were t ...

Punched Card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

Reader (150 Cards/min.) *

IBM 716 The IBM 716 line printer was used with IBM 700/7000 series computers in the 1950s and 1960s. It was introduced on May 21, 1952 with the IBM 701 and withdrawn from marketing on July 14, 1969. Overview The 716 was based on IBM 407 accounting machin ...

- Printer (150 Lines/min.) *IBM 721 - Punched Card Recorder (100 Cards/min.) * IBM 726 -

Magnetic Tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...

Reader/Recorder (100 Bits/inch) *

IBM 727 The IBM 727 Magnetic Tape Unit was announced for the IBM 701 and IBM 702 on September 25, 1953. It became IBM's standard tape drive for their early vacuum-tube era computer systems. Later vacuum-tube machines and first-generation transistor c ...

- Magnetic Tape Reader/Recorder (200 Bits/inch) *IBM 731 - Magnetic Drum Reader/Recorder *IBM 736 - Power Frame #1 *IBM 737 - Magnetic Core Storage Unit (4096 words of 12 μs Core Memory) *

IBM 740 The IBM 740 CRT Recorder was announced in 1954 and used with the IBM 701, IBM 704, and IBM 709 computers to draw vector graphics images, point by point, on 35 mm photographic film (i.e. microfilm). The 740 film recorder contained digital-to-analo ...

- Cathode Ray Tube Output Recorder *IBM 741 - Power Frame #2 *IBM 746 - Power Distribution Unit *IBM 753 - Magnetic Tape Control Unit (controlled up to ten IBM 727s) The total weight (depending on configuration) was about .

Memory

The system used

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...

logic circuitry and electrostatic storage, consisting of 72

s with a capacity of 1024

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...

s each, giving a total memory of 2048

words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

of 36 bits each. Each of the 72 Williams tubes was 3 inches in diameter. Memory could be expanded to a maximum of 4096 words of 36 bits by the addition of a second set of 72 Williams tubes or (later) by replacing the entire memory with magnetic-

core memory Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

. The Williams tube memory and later core memory each had a memory cycle time of 12 microseconds. The Williams tube memory required periodic refreshing, mandating the insertion of refresh cycles into the 701's timing. An addition operation required five 12-microsecond cycles, two of which were refresh cycles, while a multiplication or division operation required 38 cycles (456 microseconds).

Instruction set

Instructions Instruction or instructions may refer to: Computing * Instruction, one operation of a processor within a computer architecture instruction set * Computer program, a collection of instructions Music * Instruction (band), a 2002 rock band from Ne ...

were 18

s long, single address. *Sign (1 bit) - Whole word (-) or Half word (+) operand address *Opcode (5 bits) - 32 instructions *Address (12 bits) - 4096 Half word addresses Numbers were either 36 bits or 18 bits long, signed magnitude, fixed point. The full word has a precision of about ten decimal digits. A decimal digit corresponds to

log_2 10

or 3.322 bits. The IBM 701 had only two programmer accessible registers: #The accumulator was 38 bits long (adding two overflow bits). #The multiplier/quotient was 36 bits long.

Peripherals

The Magnetic Drum Reader/Recorder was added on the recommendation of

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

, who said it would reduce the need for high speed I/O. The first magnetic tape drives were used on the Tape Processing Machine (TPM) and then adapted to the 701.

IBM 701 customers

*IBM World Headquarters, New York, N.Y. (1952) *University of California., Los Alamos, N.M. (1953) *Lockheed Aircraft Company, Glendale, Cal. (1953) *National Security Agency, Washington, D.C. (1953) *Douglas Aircraft Company, Santa Monica, Cal. (1953) *General Electric Company., Lockland, Ohio (1953) *Convair, Fort Worth, Tex. (1953) *U.S. Navy, Inyokern, Cal. (1953) *United Aircraft, East Hartford, Conn. (1953) *North American Aviation, Santa Monica, Cal. (1953) *Rand Corporation., Santa Monica, Cal. (1953) *Boeing Corporation, Seattle, Wash. (1953) *Douglas Aircraft Company, El Segundo, Cal. (1954) *Naval Aviation Supply, Philadelphia, Pa. (1954) *University of California, Livermore, Cal. (1954) *General Motors Corporation, Detroit, Mich. (1954) *Lockheed Aircraft Company, Glendale, Cal. (1954) *U.S. Weather Bureau, Washington, D.C. (1955) *Dupont Central Research, Wilmington, DE (1954)

References

;Notes * Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, Emerson W. Pugh, ''IBM's Early Computers'' (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986) *

Cuthbert Hurd Cuthbert Corwin Hurd (April 5, 1911 – May 22, 1996) was an American computer scientist and entrepreneur, who was instrumental in helping the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computers. Life Hurd ...

(editor), ''Special Issue: The IBM 701 Thirtieth Anniversary - IBM Enters the Computing Field'', ''Annals of the History of Computing'', Vol. 5 (No. 2), 1983

External links

A Notable First: The IBM 701
(IBM Archives)
Oral history interview with Gene Amdahl

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Amdahl Amdahl may refer to: People * Einar Amdahl (1888-1974), Norwegian theologist * Bjarne Amdahl (1903-1968), Norwegian pianist and composer * Douglas K. Amdahl (1919–2010), American lawyer and judge from Minnesota * Gene Amdahl (1922–2015), for ...

discusses his role in the design of several computers for IBM including the IBM 701, the

and the STRETCH. He discusses his work with

and IBM's management of the design process for computers.
The Williams Tube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibm 701

701 __NOTOC__ Year 701 ( DCCI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 701 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

7 0701 Computer-related introductions in 1952 18-bit computers