🚀 go-pugleaf

On Friday, March 16, 2018 at 9:18:29 PM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:
> rnet...@gmail.com writes:
> 
> > On Friday, March 16, 2018 at 1:45:05 PM UTC-4, han...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> >> IBM's calculator series were in the 600s, so I would guess that 7 was
> >> the next available series.
> >> 
> >> IBM planned to have the subsequent computers in the 800 or 8000
> >> series, but this was cancelled and replaced by S/360.
> >> 
> >> I don't know where the "14" came from for the 1401 series.
> >
> > The 14 came from the fact that the origial model, sold as an
> > "elecronically programmable tabulator", had 1400 postions of internal
> > storage.
> >
> > Bob Netzlof
> 
> Never heard that before but that sounds plausible.
> 
> Leaving the mystery of how they chose:
> 
> 1401
> 1410
> 1460
> 1440
> 
> I've always assumed model numbers and names are chosen by the
> sales force and their reasoning is something like "that sounds nice".

In addition to the 1410, there was also the 7010.
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/dpd50/dpd50_chronology2.html

I don't have my IBM Early Computers history handy, but I believe
it said the 14xx series was actually an outgrowth of several
different development efforts, for example, a super-tabulator
for European service and something called the "Wooden Wheel".
IBM eventually re-oriented those efforts into a common 
stored-program computer product line.

The book talks a little about the development history of the
other models.  I think at least one model, and maybe several,
were actually intended to be something else, and IBM had them
change their architecture to 14xx compatible. 

As mentioned, the 1410 was "sort of" 1401 compatible, while the
1460 was compatible.  I'm not sure of the differences of the 1410
and 1460--that is, why a customer would buy one over the other--
but I suspect that came out of the differing background.  The
unity of S/360 was supposed to eliminate that kind of confusion.

Some of the other 14xx models were higher end, but one was a
low-end.  I think the low-end model didn't sell too well because
it was too costly for the low performance.

As we know, Haanstra was not a supporter of S/360 and actually
quietly built a 'super' 1401 using new components.  IBM was
not pleased by this effort and he was punished for it.

As Campbell-Kelly explains in their book, the beauty of the 
IBM 1401 was not in its electronics (not a big deal) but rather
the 1403 printer, which gave high quality at a significantly
faster rate.  As mentioned, I remain amazed that for _years_,
customers tolerated wavy lines of other mainframe line printers,
even slow ones.