Re: One of your readers...My memory

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Lets see. Bell Labs got the first IBM 704 using vacuum tube  
technology. -- IBM:s entry into the scientific computing area. All 32  
K of 36 bit words -core . Actually most places got 8 K but Dick  
Hamming talked management in 32K system saying someone is bound to  
find a use for it. We Latter upgraded to a IBM 709 slightly enhanced  
machine but still vacuum tube. Meanwhile IBM was building for the AEC  
and latter NSA  the Stretch. The designers of the Stretch were among  
the best architects anyone had-- like John Cocke -- a good friend   
(see http://www.iment.com/maida/tv/computer/johncockewindowdub.htm)  
who bunt many a hole in my couch while he was re-designing the  
telephone system -- which actually IBM tried to do -- long story that  
I will tell sometime.

One of IBM competitors (I forget which, announced a asynchronous  
transistorized computer that was fast so IBM took Stretch technology  
and transistorized the 709 into the 709T which was announced as the  
IBM 7090 and was the engine of research and evoloved to the 7094 prior  
to the arrival of the   360 .

BTW I had a set of Stretch manuals and also has a hard as hell set of  
Harvest manuals -- a real fun addition to the Stretch. Documentation  
of Stretch is hard to find but start at http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/stretch/


Begin forwarded message:

From: Gene Spafford <spaf () cerias purdue edu>
Date: September 2, 2008 1:39:07 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: One of your readers...

Dave,

Perhaps one of your readers would know the answer to this.   I've  
tried various online and book searches and cannot find the answer.

Some time back, I read (somewhere) that Thomas Watson, Jr. took a big  
gamble in going from the IBM 700 series to the 7000 series by using  
all transistor logic.  This was circa 1959.   The figure I recall is  
that transistors were about $7 each (in 1959 dollars; about $60 each  
in today's dollars).

I'm looking for confirmation and/or a source citation for this.

Thanks in advance.
--spaf



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