The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine¹ was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer, here being assembled in Poughkeepsie, New York at a rate of one per month (July, 1953). It was also known as the Defense Calculator while in development. IBMs first series production mainframe computer was based on the IAS machine² at Princeton and it competed with Remington Rand's UNIVAC 1103 in the scientific computation market. This 36-bit single-address 1 MHz computer used 4000 vacuum tubes for its logic circuitry and electrostatic storage, consisting of 72 Williams tubes³ giving a total memory of 2048 words. For secondary storage, it used the 200,000 word IBM 726 magnetic tape unit⁴, the world's first tape machine with vacuum columns and a 72-track magnetic drum⁵ with 8192 word capacity. Nineteen IBM 701 EDPM systems were installed. Eight went to aircraft companies like Boeing. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, having an IBM 701 meant that scientists could run nuclear explosives computations faster. Later in 1953, John Backus invents Speedcode⁶ for the 701 in order to support computation with floating-point numbers, it was the first high-level programming language created for an IBM computer. In 1954, he later developed the FORTRAN language⁷ (a FORmula TRANslating system) on the 701's successor the core memory based IBM 704 computer.
Photograph of logging crew carrying a log by hand at the J. P. Yates property. There are thirty-four men on the...Obion County, Tennessee, 1910.
