Found 1954 IBM manual

From: Ashley Carder <wacarder_at_usit.net>
Date: Sat Nov 20 16:15:50 2004

Today I was cleaning out my room over the garage,
which is where I have my home office and my *MODERN*
computers. In the process of cleaning out one of
the desk drawers, I found an old manual that I knew
I had kept since college in the 1970s, but I had
lost track of where it was.

It's a 1954 "Preliminary Manual of Information" for
IBM Electronic Data Processing Machines, Type 702.
It's 83 pages long and has lots of interesting
information on the 702 system and its related set
of peripherals and other items. On page 4 is a
picture of an installation, with some 727 Magnetic
Tape Units, an operator's console, a 712 Card
Reader, the 702 Arithmetic and Logic Unit, a 732
Magnetic Drum Storage Unit, a 722 Card Punch, and
a 717 Printer.

The main storage unit can hold a total of 10,000
characters, which are stored as dot and dash
charges on 3" cathode ray tubes.

Does anyone on this list remember this kind of
system? It is really interesting reading, looking
at this manual and comparing to where we are today,
or even where we were back in the 1970s, when I
picked this manual up from the "free giveaway"
table outside our college's computer room.

Does anyone know if this manual exists in scanned
form? If not, I'll scan it and send it to Al
Kossow to put on bitsavers.

Ashley
Received on Sat Nov 20 2004 - 16:15:50 GMT