[inforoots] Origin of the IBM 1130 Name

Mon Oct 30 08:09:54 PST 2006

 The CPU for the 1130 and 1800 was jointly designed by 2 engineers from the 1800 development group and myself. It was a modification of the initial design I had made for the 1130 which was an 18 bit machine. The systems were announced in February 1965. The disk drive was designed for the 1130 and picked up by the 1800 and S/360 Model 20. It was designed by an IBM Fellow named Walt Buslik. It was the first disk drive to use an electronically driven actuator vs. the prior hydraulic and pneumatic actuators.

 Brian Utley 

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Herb.Schwetman at sun.com
 To: inforoots at computerhistory.org
 Sent: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 9:59 AM
 Subject: Re: [inforoots] Origin of the IBM 1130 Name

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=======================================
    As was pointed out in the comment below, the 1130 was a replacement for the 1620 - and a wonderful replacement it was.
 IBM introduced the 1800 around 1966; it had a new CPU and was geared to process-control/real-time applications . A bit later,
 they introduced the 1130, which was the 1800 cpu, but packaged as a desk and geared for departments - with Fortran, etc. They both had
 funky disk cartridges - about 18 inches in diameter. I took a class on the 1130 and later wrote some code that ran on an 1800
 it attempted to analyze electrocardiograms.

 But, these comments do not address the question about the source of the numbers: 1800 and 1130. As far as I could tell, they appeared
 "out of the blue".

 Herb Schwetman

 Bill Worthington wrote:
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 Hi, Bill.

 My five cents...

 I'm not sure what the logic was in selecting machine numbers back in the 1960s. There did see to be some order to it however. I believe that they were all assigned by the product marketing folks in White Plains. Development had their own names for unannounced machines like NS, FS, Shark, etc. (This was good because some of them never saw the light of day.)

 I seem to remember hearing that the 70xy machines were the "high-powered" machines. Those numbered with the odd numbers (701, 7030, 7070, 7090) representing the more scientific (academic) marketplace and the even numbers were perhaps more business related (7040, 7080). The last digit changed when there were improvements with the same processor -- 7044, 7072, 7094, etc. (This falls apart slightly when I remember the bank I worked for planned to install a 7070 to do commercial banking applications.)

 Machine numbers beginning with a 1 were priced lower and had much smaller processing power. Included here were the 1401/1440/1460/1240 and 1620/1710. In the mid 1060s, the 1800 and 1130 were introduced using some of System/360 technology. The 1130 was to address the 1620 marketplace and the 1800 the 1710. (There were a lot of communications devices in the 10xx number range too -- 1050, 1060 families come to mind.) 

 System/360 came along and most of its machine numbers were in the 2000 range. Processors began with 20xx, disk with 23xx, tape with 24xx, card I/O with 25xx, remote I/O with 27xx, control units with 28xx. (29xx was reserved for RPQ devices which became a bit more main line.) System/370 used the 3000 range of numbers.

 Things went a bit wild in the late 1970s when the 8100 and 4300 were announced. There are a lot in the 9000 range today -- which had been reserved for RPQ devices.

 I believe that there is a problem today with some machine numbers being recycled -- as some of the "printer company" devices show.

 But to answer your question why "1130" was chosen, I have no idea why that set of numbers was selected. Hopefully, someone else may have better insight. Regards, Bill 

 Bill Selmeier wrote: ======================================= 

 Posts to inforoots at computerhistory.org is information known to or the opinions of the poster. All posts to inforoots at computerhistory.org are archived. By posting to this list you grant a license for use of this material to the Computer History Museum located in Mountain View, California, USA. 
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 With the upcoming IBM1130.org annual party coming up, I'm curious as to how this machine got its name? 

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