The IBM 702 was an early generation

tube Tube or tubes may refer to: * ''Tube'' (2003 film), a 2003 Korean film * ''The Tube'' (TV series), a music related TV series by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom * "Tubes" (Peter Dale), performer on the Soccer AM television show * Tube (band), a ...

-based

digital computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These program ...

produced by IBM in the early to mid-1950s. It was the company's response to

Remington Rand Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

—the first mainframe computer to use magnetic tapes. As these machines were aimed at the business market, they lacked the leading-edge computational power of the IBM 701 and

ERA 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 credi ...

, which were favored for scientific computing, weather forecasting, the aircraft industry, and the military and intelligence communities. Within IBM, the 702 was notable for adapting the new technology of

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 ...

for random-access applications. The 702 was announced September 25, 1953, and withdrawn October 1, 1954, but the first production model was not installed until July 1955. It was superseded by the IBM 705.

History

Fourteen 702s were built. The first one was used at IBM. Due to problems with the

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 ...

s, the decision was made to switch to

instead. The fourteenth 702 was built using magnetic-core memory, and the others were retrofitted with magnetic-core memory. The successor to the 702 in the 700/7000 series was the

IBM 705 The IBM 700/7000 series is a series of large-scale (mainframe) computer systems that were made by IBM through the 1950s and early 1960s. The series includes several different, incompatible processor architectures. The 700s use vacuum-tube lo ...

, which marked the transition to magnetic-core memory.

Overview

The 702 was designed for business data processing. Therefore, the memory of the computer was oriented toward storing

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

. The system used electrostatic storage, consisting of 14, 28, 42, 56, or 70 Williams tubes with a capacity of 1000

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 for the main memory, giving a memory of 2,000 to 10,000 characters of seven bits each (in increments of 2,000 characters), and 14 Williams tubes with a capacity of 512 bits each for the two 512-character accumulators. A complete system included the following units: *IBM 702

Central Processing Unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU per ...

IBM 712 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 ...

Card Reader *IBM 756 Card Reader Control Unit *

IBM 717 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 Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

*IBM 757 Printer Control Unit *IBM 722 Card Punch *IBM 758 Card Punch Control Unit *

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 Unit *IBM 752 Tape Control Unit *IBM 732

Magnetic Drum Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of ...

Storage Unit Total weight (depending on configuration): about .Weight with only one tape unit:
32,844 lbs - 9,110 lbs + (9,110 lbs / 10) = 23734 + 911 = 24645 lbs
*

References

External links

IBM Archives: 702 Data Processing SystemIBM 702 Documents on bitsavers
{{IBM vacuum tube computers

702 __NOTOC__ Year 702 ( DCCII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 702 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era b ...

7 0702 Computer-related introductions in 1953 Variable word length computers

History

Overview

See also

References

External links