[Simh] IBM's decimal computers [was Re: pdp11 and unix]

[Ken Hall]

I worked on a pure decimal machine back in the 70's and 80's.  Everything was totally decimal, even the disks, 100,000 sectors of 100 bytes each.

It was made by Singer, and was used mainly as a point-of-sale collection system.



-----Original Message-----
From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Rich Alderson
Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 3:37 PM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: [Simh] IBM's decimal computers [was Re: pdp11 and unix]

> From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
> Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 10:23:15 -0500

> I wasn't referring to packed decimal instructions for binary machines; 
> those stayed around for a long time.  Even VAX had them, at least 
> originally.  I was talking about decimal machines, with memories 
> organized in decimal digits.  The last computer I can think of that 
> fits that description is the IBM 1620, from the early 1960s.

The 1620 family were decimal, intended for scientific computing.  The original
1620 was introduced in 1959, the same year as the 1401.  The last member of the family was introduced in 1963.

The 1400 family were decimal, intended for business computing.  The 1401, from 1959, was the first in the family.  The last member of the family, the 1450, intended explicitly for the banking industry, was introduced in 1968.

So decimal computers were longer lived than you thought.

                                                                Rich _______________________________________________
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