Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!border-3.nntp.ord.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local-4.nntp.ord.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-1.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2025 03:30:36 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
X-Mozilla-News-Host: snews://news.giganews.com:563
From: c186282 <c186282@nnada.net>
Subject: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2025 23:30:45 -0400
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/78.13.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <KCCdnfVpqdbBZPj1nZ2dnZfqn_WdnZ2d@giganews.com>
Lines: 30
X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com
X-Trace: sv3-El08+eSDZ8Uq8unx8ocfzzJS2S1X3kHvvaDyx0miVsnGhgTm/MScTPMeOHjZLl77Jyxcqx8REjfeD2F!T2FqPpOmL/Md/FbY9OxtY4WnnSNqXztiQ6IjH00YUQgV8OG5k4BeXzsFmYmzln8EAuwX+VqT0P0y
X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com
X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.40

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_650

These were quite popular during the mid 50s up
until the early 60s. Compared to other brands
they were CHEAP - biz and schools could afford them.
First known install was for an insurance company.

In truth, check the instruction set, they were
closer to what we'd now call a 'programmable
calculator' rather than a general-purpose computer.
However, cleverly employed, they could still be
very useful.

Some of the instructions were very CISC ... like
'PCH' for writing to a punch card. Clearly there
was a lot of hidden code that one instruction
evoked.

Tubes/valves ... 125Khz, not Mhz or Ghz, clock
speed. Instruction speeds measured in milliseconds.
1000 to 4000 WORDS of disk memory. Maybe around
40 instructions per second ...

A variety of add-on units.

Odd base-10 decimal words. Program an emulator in
shitty Python on yer laptop and it'd be likely
thousands of times faster than the original unit :-)

Oh, typical setup, *6000* pounds of metal.