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IBM 729
The IBM 729 Magnetic Tape Unit was IBM's iconic tape mass storage system from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s. Part of the IBM 7 track family of tape units, it was used on late 700, most 7000 and many 1400 series computers. Like its predecessor, the IBM 727 and many successors, the 729 used 1/2 inch (12.7 mm) magnetic tape up to 2400 feet (730 m) long wound on reels up to 10½ inch (267 mm) diameter. To allow rapid tape acceleration (and thus reduced seek/access times), long vacuum columns were placed between the tape reels and the read/write heads to absorb sudden increases in tape tension which would otherwise break the tape. Write protection was provided by a removable plastic ring in the back of the tape reel. Data format The tape had seven parallel tracks, six for data and one to maintain parity. Tapes with character data (BCD) were recorded in even parity. Binary tapes used odd parity (709 manual, p. 20). Aluminum strips were glued sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punched Card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to directly control automated machinery. Punched cards were widely used through much of the 20th century in the data processing industry, where specialized and increasingly complex unit record machines, organized into semiautomatic data processing systems, used punched cards for data input, output, and storage. The IBM 12-row/80-column punched card format came to dominate the industry. Many early digital computers used punched cards as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data. While punched cards are now obsolete as a storage medium, as of 2012, some voting machines still used punched cards to record votes. They also had a significant cultural impact. History The idea of control and data storage via punched hole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 1401
The IBM 1401 is a variable-wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing unit record equipment for processing data stored on punched cards and at providing peripheral services for larger computers. The 1401 is considered to be the Ford Model-T of the computer industry, because it was mass-produced and because of its sales volume. Over 12,000 units were produced and many were leased or resold after they were replaced with newer technology. The 1401 was withdrawn on February 8, 1971. History The 1401 project evolved from an IBM project named World Wide Accounting Machine (WWAM), which in turn was a reaction to the success of Bull Gamma 3 (fr). The 1401 was operated as an independent system, in conjunction with IBM punched card equipment, or as auxiliary equipment to IBM 700 or 7000 series systems. Monthly rental for 1401 configurations started at US$2,500 (wort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 7330
The IBM 7330 Magnetic Tape Unit was IBM's low-cost tape mass storage system through the 1960s. Part of the IBM 7 track family of tape units, it was used mostly on 1400 series computers and the IBM 7040/7044. The 7330 used magnetic tape up to long wound on reels up to diameter. Data format The tape had seven parallel tracks, six for data and one for parity. Tapes with character data (BCD) were recorded in even parity. Binary tapes used odd parity. (709 manual p. 20) Aluminum strips were glued several feet from the ends of the tape to serve as beginning and end of tape markers. Write protection was provided by a removable plastic ring in the back of the tape reel. A ¾ inch gap between records allowed the mechanism time to stop the tape. At 200 characters per inch, a single 2400-foot tape could store the equivalent of some 50,000 punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camp Smith, Hawaii
Camp H. M. Smith is a United States Marine Corps installation in the Hawaiian town of Aiea on the island of Oahu, near the community of Halawa (ha-LA-va) Heights. It is the headquarters of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), Special Operations Command Pacific, and Marine Forces Pacific, the Marine service component command of INDOPACOM. The camp, originally the Aiea Naval Hospital, was named for General Holland McTyeire Smith, the first commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, on June 8, 1955. The initials H. M. also stood for his nickname which was "Howling Mad" referring to his temper and given to him by his Marines. History An Act of Congress on 17 March 1941 had approved purchase of the site, then a sugar cane field, for a Navy Hospital. In 1941, the investment for the 220½ acres of Camp Smith land, in fee simple (a term for owning both the land and the buildings), was $912,000, and improvements cost an additional $14 million. Work commenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electrical power, power. The transistor is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits. Austro-Hungarian physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld proposed the concept of a field-effect transistor in 1926, but it was not possible to actually cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacuum Tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as a thermionic tube or thermionic valve utilizes thermionic emission of electrons from a hot cathode for fundamental electronic functions such as signal amplification and current rectification. Non-thermionic types such as a vacuum phototube, however, achieve electron emission through the photoelectric effect, and are used for such purposes as the detection of light intensities. In both types, the electrons are accelerated from the cathode to the anode by the electric field in the tube. The simplest vacuum tube, the diode (i.e. Fleming valve), invented in 1904 by John Ambrose Fleming, contains only a heated electron-emitting cathode and an anode. Electrons can only flow in one direction through the device—from the cathode to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 logic and were made obsolete by the introduction of the transistorized 7000s. The 7000s, in turn, were eventually replaced with System/360, which was announced in 1964. However the 360/65, the first 360 powerful enough to replace 7000s, did not become available until November 1965. Early problems with OS/360 and the high cost of converting software kept many 7000s in service for years afterward. Architectures The IBM 700/7000 series has six completely different ways of storing data and instructions: *First scientific (36/18- bit words): 701 (Defense Calculator) *Later scientific (36-bit words, hardware floating-point): 704, 709, 7040, 7044, 7090, 7094 *Commercial (variable-length character strings): 702, 705, 7080 * 1400 series ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 709
The IBM 709 was a computer system, initially announced by IBM in January 1957 and first installed during August 1958. The 709 was an improved version of its predecessor, the IBM 704, and was the third of the IBM 700/7000 series of scientific computers. The improvements included overlapped input/output, indirect addressing, and three "convert" instructions which provided support for decimal arithmetic, leading zero suppression, and several other operations. The 709 had 32,768 words of 36-bit magnetic core memory and could execute 42,000 add or subtract instructions per second. It could multiply two 36-bit integers at a rate of 5000 per second. An optional hardware emulator executed old IBM 704 programs on the IBM 709. This was the first commercially available emulator. Registers and most 704 instructions were emulated in 709 hardware. Complex 704 instructions such as floating point trap and input-output routines were emulated in 709 software. The FORTRAN Assembly Program was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM System/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applications and to cover a complete range of applications from small to large. The design distinguished between architecture and implementation, allowing IBM to release a suite of compatible designs at different prices. All but the only partially compatible Model 44 and the most expensive systems use microcode to implement the instruction set, which features 8-bit byte addressing and binary, decimal, and hexadecimal floating-point calculations. The System/360 family introduced IBM's Solid Logic Technology (SLT), which packed more transistors onto a circuit card, allowing more powerful but smaller computers to be built. The slowest System/360 model announced in 1964, the Model 30, could perform up to 34,500 instructions per second, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
9 Track Tape
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender, as, for example, in . The mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parity Bit
A parity bit, or check bit, is a bit added to a string of binary code. Parity bits are a simple form of error detecting code. Parity bits are generally applied to the smallest units of a communication protocol, typically 8-bit octets (bytes), although they can also be applied separately to an entire message string of bits. The parity bit ensures that the total number of 1-bits in the string is even or odd. Accordingly, there are two variants of parity bits: even parity bit and odd parity bit. In the case of even parity, for a given set of bits, the bits whose value is 1 are counted. If that count is odd, the parity bit value is set to 1, making the total count of occurrences of 1s in the whole set (including the parity bit) an even number. If the count of 1s in a given set of bits is already even, the parity bit's value is 0. In the case of odd parity, the coding is reversed. For a given set of bits, if the count of bits with a value of 1 is even, the parity bit value is set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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