The IBM 5880, also known as the IBM 5880 Electrocardiograph System, is a computerized electrocardiograph and diagnostic tool. It was developed by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

scientist Ray Bonner in the early 1970s and announced in 1978. The IBM 5880 was designed to analyze electrocardiograms, measurements of the electrical activity of the

heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

, and provide diagnostic advice to the same standards as a

cardiologist Cardiology () is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery di ...

. Similar programs already ran on

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, 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 ...

s, but the 5880 was the first version that could be placed in a cart and taken into hospital conditions. When it first arrived in the hospitals doctors were afraid that they no longer would be paid to "read" and EKG. Going forward all EKGs done by the 5880 in the hospital still had to be "reviewed" by a doctor and was paid for that.

References

IBM Archives
Products introduced in 1978 5880 {{med-tech-stub