Information Technology Reference
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the 1952 Presidential election, predicting the landslide victory of Eisenhower over Adlai
Stevenson, whom most pollsters believed would be the next president. Insurers used the
computer to run statistical data for actuarial purposes, Con Edison for predicting power
needs, and other firms for scientific purposes related to their research and development ef-
forts.
Virtually all the firms also used the computer for payroll management, material
scheduling, inventory control, billing, and general cost accounting. The last UNIVAC
mainframe to remain in operation was finally shut down in 1970. (Note: in 1956 the Sperry
Rand Corporation - result of the 1955 merger of Remington Rand and Sperry - released
the low-cost UNIVAC File Computer, specifically designed for data handling and nothing
else. This failed in the marketplace, which much preferred general purpose data processing
machines capable of not only data handling but also a range of other tasks.)
At the time Eckert-Mauchly delivered the first UNIVAC, would-be competitor IBM
was still deriving almost all of its income from the firm's traditional core business of
commercial calculators and tabulators. The firm did, however, have a competitor for the
UNIVAC in advanced stages of development, this to be announced in May of 1952. Based
on advances being made by mathematician John von Neumann at Princeton's Institute for
Advanced Study, IBM's 701 rivaled the UNIVAC as a stored-program computer - bettering
the UNIVAC's approach significantly. (That being said, the two machines were basically
capable of identical task-loads.)
Another far less ambitious IBM machine, the 650, was announced in 1953 and began
shipping in 1954. IBM manufactured 2000 systems before discontinuing the line in 1962.
IBM stopped supporting the 650 in 1969. The 650 was designed specifically for users
of existing IBM unit record equipment [electro-mechanical punched card-processing ma-
chines, so-called "Calculating Punches," like the IBM 604] who wished to upgrade to com-
puters proper.
But while the 650 provided a bridge from the past, the 701 served as a bridge to the
future. The 701's memory device was capable of retrieving all digits of a word simul-
taneously, rather than one at a time as in the slower process of the UNIVAC. Unlike the
UNIVAC, it featured plastic as opposed to magnetic metal tape (much faster starting and
stopping), and a unique vacuum-column mechanism which inhibited tearing of the tape.
Like the UNIVAC, the 701 was designed for both scientific and business (data processing)
use. Nevertheless, IBM insiders considered it primarily a machine that would appeal to the
military establishment including not only the United States Department of Defense but also
aerospace and other firms servicing military contracts. The popular name for the machine
in-house at IBM was "defense calculator."
IBM installed the first 701 at their own offices in Armonk, New York, and another at
the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory a few months later. There were eventually 19
installations in all, the bulk of these within the military establishment. This was in measure
