Hacker Culture A to Z

Chapter 9. I

IBM

International Business Machines (IBM) is one of the most important corporations in the history of computing, with roots that predate the advent of electronic computers.

In 1889, Harlow Bundy founded Bundy Manufacturing Company, the first manufacturer of time clocks for shift workers. By 1900, it had evolved into the International Time Recording Company. In 1896, Herman Hollerith founded Tabulating Machine Company, which made mechanical devices for accounting and sold the New York Central Railroad “punched card” equipment for processing waybills. They merged to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1911.

Thomas J. Watson became the general manager in 1914, but didn’t like the name of the company very much. In 1924, he renamed the company’s US and international operations to match the name of its Canadian operation: International Business Machines.

IBM got into computing in 1944 with a groundbreaking pre-electronic computer called the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or Mark I, developed from years of research coordinated with Harvard University. It was a massive beast—and the first machine that could execute long computations automatically. (Its equally massive manual was written by none other than Grace Hopper!)

IBM’s first properly electronic computer was the IBM 701 in 1952. ENIAC had proved the computational potential of vacuum tubes, and the 701 was full of them! The 1953 IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Calculator became the most commercially ...