Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, [1] is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing.
Designed by John Backus and Gene Amdahl, it was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. [1] [2] The IBM 704 Manual of operation states: [3] The type 704 Electronic Data-Processing Machine is a large-scale, high-speed electronic calculator controlled by an internally stored program of the single address type.
The IBM 701 was the first computer in the IBM 700/7000 series, which were IBM’s high-end computers until the arrival of the IBM System/360 in 1964. [ 5 ] The business-oriented sibling of the 701 was the IBM 702 and a lower-cost general-purpose sibling was the IBM 650 , which gained fame as the first mass-produced computer.
Third-generation computers were offered well into the 1990s; for example the IBM ES9000 9X2 announced April 1994 [30] used 5,960 ECL chips to make a 10-way processor. [31] Other third-generation computers offered in the 1990s included the DEC VAX 9000 (1989), built from ECL gate arrays and custom chips, [32] and the Cray T90 (1995).
Military needs during World War II drove development of the first electronic computers, based on vacuum tubes, including the Z3, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, Colossus computer, and ENIAC. The invention of the transistor enabled the era of mainframe computers (1950s–1970s), typified by the IBM 360.
Spun off computer division as Canon Computer Systems: Celerity Computing — United States: 1983: 1988: Acquired by Floating Point Systems: Centurion Computer Corporation — United States: 1974: 1985: Exited the computer business: Chicony Electronics — Taiwan: 1988: 2000: Left the computer business; still active in peripheral business ...
IBM 704 mainframe at NACA in 1957. From 1952 into the late 1960s, IBM manufactured and marketed several large computer models, known as the IBM 700/7000 series. The first-generation 700s were based on vacuum tubes, while the later, second-generation 7000s used transistors. These machines established IBM's dominance in electronic data processing ...
The RCA Spectra 70 is a line of electronic data processing (EDP) equipment that was manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America’s computer division beginning in April 1965. The Spectra 70 line included several CPU models, various configurations of core memory, mass-storage devices, terminal equipment, and a variety of specialized ...