BUSINESS: the 2nd mainframe in Europe

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I visited one of the datacenter of Triaton in Frankfurt (Germany) yesterday. Quite impressive! We had a chance to have a look at the second mainframe which was installed in Europe! This installation happened in 1957-58 by the Hoechst chemical company. It was a 701 model. The goal was to organize better the payroll system. Already a Business Process Re-engineering project ;-) I was surprised that IBM already had more than 80’000 employees in 1957…

I couldn’t take some pictures but I found some funny and interesting pictures and information on the IBM’s website. Have a look at these pictures and the incredible power of this machine!

Overview of the mainframe (the one we saw was bigger)

The incredible control panel

The magnetic core storage unit

The vacuum tubes

System performance

  • Electrostatic storage capacity: 20,480 digits.

  • Magnetic drum capacity: 81,920 digits.

  • Magnetic tape capacity: More than 8 million digits without changing tape.

  • Addition and subtraction: More than 16,000 operations per second.

  • Multiplication and division: More than 2,000 operations per second.

  • Tape reading and writing speed: 12,500 digits per second.

  • Drum reading and writing speed: 8,000 digits per second.

  • Printed output: 180 letters or numbers per second.

  • Punched card input: 600 digits per second.

  • Punched card output: 400 digits per second

    • Source: IBM model 701 exhibits

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