techno-culture

Nov 13 2009

Happy birthday IBM 1401!

An IBM 1401

Last month was the 50th anniversary of the launch of one of the most iconic old mainframes, the IBM 1401, in Oct 1959. Not only did one get a cameo role in the film Dr Strangelove, but this was the computer that brought real computing down to the level of small to medium sized businesses. The monthly lease costs were affordable to smaller businesses but also, many used bureau services from IBM or its partners to get processing jobs like invoices or inventory work done by computers rather than by hand.

I love writing about and talking to people who were involved with such aspects of computing history. I had a fantastic time talking for about 90 minutes to former programmer Denis Mullen, a retired Irish IBM career veteran, for my piece in today’s Irish Times.

As a companion story, I also relished finally having a good excuse to ring up the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, whose lovely album, IBM 1401: A User’s Manual has long been one of my favourites. That interview into why this album has this name and on how to get an old mainframe to sing — is here.

Tags: IBM 1401, IBM 1401: A User's Manual, Jóhann Jóhannsson, mainframe

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Happy birthday IBM 1401!”

1. Brian O'Donovan says:

   November 13, 2009 at 4:53 pm

   Karlin,

   Thanks for another great article. 50 years might seem like a long time to many youngsters, but it is only about half of the average life expectancy. It is amazing to think that this mainframe was regarded as making computing more accessible to the masses (which it probably was at the time). Now even youngsters in third world countries probably have more computing power in the mobile phone in their pocket.

   To quite Bob Dylan “The world it is a changing!”
   Brian
2. Dennis King says:

   November 13, 2009 at 8:00 pm

   Hey Karlin,

   I just discovered your blog via a posting by a Dublin IT engineer, Aonghus Ó hAlmhain, who blogs in Irish. Tá blag agam féin — i nGaeilge ar ndóigh! — le sé mhí anuas.

   Dennis
   Seattle
3. John Timmons says:

   November 17, 2009 at 9:23 pm

   Hi Karlin

   Have you read Tracy Kidder “The Soul of a New Machine”. It also gives an insight into the world of computers in days gone by.

   It’s about the development of a Mini Computer in the early seventies by a team from Data General.

   John

   Courtown
4. Karlin says:

   November 20, 2009 at 1:44 am

   Hi John — yeah, one of my favourite books on computing ever! If you look in my podcasts on this site, you’ll see I did a whole segment on the book with Iona Technologies co-founder Chris Horn, who chose it as his personal favourite for the ‘geek bookshelf’. If you liked the book you might enjoy having a listen.
5. gabriel reilly says:

   December 8, 2009 at 2:11 am

   Ah yeah, the good old days!would i be right in saying that we’ve developed more in the last 50 years than in the entire human history?