(Excerpts from a message dated 10-26-99, Fred Springfield to Murray
Lesser)

Hi Fred--

ML>     You _are_ a latecomer!  When I started (on the predecessor to the
ML> IBM Card Programmed Electronic Calculator), our keypunch didn't
ML> have a "drum card" because it wasn't intended for volume data input.
ML>  In those days, "computers" were people and "calculators" were
ML> machines.  I don't remember when the nomenclature changed.

FS>Does this predate the IBM 650?  I started my programming there with
  >Bell (after ATT Labs) code, the first available interpreter for that
  >machine, in 1958, right out of school.

   By several years!  The first production model of the IBM Card
Programmed Electronic Calculator (CPC) was delivered to Northrop
Aircraft (where I was one of the crew who learned to program it "on the
job") late in 1949.  We had used an earlier cobbled-up prototype
("Betsy") prior to that delivery.  The machine was used primarily for
structural analysis, for aerodynamic load calculations, and for takeoff
trajectory analysis of a rocket-launched air-breathing missile.  We
invented our own "programming languages" as we went along.

    The first delivery of an IBM 650, known internally during the
development period as the MDC (Magnetic Drum Calculator), was to the
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1954.

    For more information, see the book, "IBM's Early Computers" (ISBN
0-262-02225-7), MIT Press, 1986.

    Regards,

        --Murray

___
 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * Fidonet is almost like having a social life

--- Maximus/2 2.02