The IBM 1400 series were second generation (transistor

Transistor computer

A transistor computer is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The "first generation" of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, were bulky, and were unreliable. A "second generation" of computers, through the late 1950s and...

) mid-range business decimal computer

Decimal computer

Decimal computers, computers which have a decimal architecture, represent numbers and/or addresses in decimal, and provide instructions to operate on those numbers and/or addresses directly; examples of encoding used are BCD, Excess-3, two-out-of-five code, ASCII, and EBCDIC.Many early computers,...

s that IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 sold in the early 1960s. They could be operated as an independent system, in conjunction with IBM punched card equipment

Unit record equipment

Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines or tabulating machines. Unit record machines were as ubiquitous in industry and government in the first half of the twentieth century...

, or as auxiliary equipment to other computer systems.

1400-series machines stored information in magnetic cores as variable length character strings terminated by a special flag. Arithmetic was performed character-by-character. Input and output was on punched card

Punched card

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...

, magnetic tape

Magnetic tape

Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...

 and high speed line printer

Line printer

The line printer is a form of high speed impact printer in which one line of type is printed at a time. They are mostly associated with the early days of computing, but the technology is still in use...

s. Disk storage

Early IBM disk storage

IBM manufactured magnetic disk storage devices from 1956 to 2003, when it merged its hard disk drive business with Hitachi's. Both the hard disk drive and floppy disk drive were invented by IBM and as such IBM's employees were responsible for many of the innovations in these products and their...

 was also available.

History

The 1401

IBM 1401

The IBM 1401 was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing electromechanical unit record equipment for processing data stored on punched cards...

 was the first member of the IBM 1400 series. The IBM 1410

IBM 1410

The IBM 1410, a member of the IBM 1400 series, was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on September 12, 1960 and marketed as a midrange "Business Computer". It was withdrawn on March 30, 1970. The 1410 was similar in design to the very popular IBM 1401, but it had one...

 was a similar design, but with a larger address space

Address space

In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, peripheral device, disk sector, a memory cell or other logical or physical entity.- Overview :...

. The IBM 1460 was logically but not physically identical to a fully optioned 1401 with 16,000 characters of memory, and twice as fast. The 1240 was a banking system, equivalent to the 1440 system with MICR support. The IBM 7010 was logically but not physically identical to a 1410, and twice as fast.

Members of the 1400 series included:

• IBM 1240 - 1963
• IBM 1401
  IBM 1401
  The IBM 1401 was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing electromechanical unit record equipment for processing data stored on punched cards...
  
   - 1959
• IBM 1410
  IBM 1410
  The IBM 1410, a member of the IBM 1400 series, was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on September 12, 1960 and marketed as a midrange "Business Computer". It was withdrawn on March 30, 1970. The 1410 was similar in design to the very popular IBM 1401, but it had one...
  
   - 1960
• IBM 1420 - 1962

• IBM 1440
  IBM 1440
  The IBM 1440, a member of the IBM 1400 series, was an IBM computer designed as a low-cost system for smaller businesses. It was announced on October 11, 1962 and withdrawn on February 8, 1971....
  
   - 1962
• IBM 1450 - 1968
• IBM 1460 - 1963
• IBM 7010 - 1962

Compatible systems

IBM provided several models compatible (or nearly so) with the 1401.

• 1460 was twice as fast, and many special features of 1401 were standard.
• 1440 was a popular lower-cost alternative, although not fully compatible with the 1401.
• 1240, 1420, 1450 were systems specially designed for banking.
• 1410 was a much faster system in the same spirit as 1401, but with significant differences, such as larger memory (up to 100,000 characters), more index registers (fifteen), five digit addresses, and additional instructions. A remarkable feature in the pre-microprogramming era was a "compatibility mode" switch that allowed it to run 1401 programs without change.
• 7010 was a faster and exactly compatible version of 1410.
• The IBM System/360 Model 30 could be ordered with a 1401 compatibility microprogram feature. Several 1400 series peripherals were adapted for use with System/360.

Honeywell's Honeywell 200

Honeywell 200

The Honeywell 200 was a character-oriented two-address commercial computer introduced by Honeywell in the early 1960s, the basis of later models including 1200, 1250, 2200, 3200, 4200 and the later 2070, and the character processor of the Honeywell 8200....

 provided approximate 1401 compatibility through a combination of architectural similarity and software support.

Programming Languages

Programming languages for the 1400 series included Symbolic Programming System

Symbolic Programming System

The IBM 1401 Symbolic Programming System was an assembler that was developed by the Applied Programming Department of IBM as an alternative to the use of machine code for the IBM 1401 computer, the first of the IBM 1400 series. One source indicates that "This programming system was announced by...

 (SPS, an assembly language

Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...

), Autocoder

Autocoder

Autocoder was the name given to certain assemblers for a number of IBM computers of the 1950s and 1960s.The first Autocoders appear to have been the earliest assemblers to provide a macro facility....

 (assembly language

Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...

), COBOL

COBOL

COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....

, FORTRAN

Fortran

Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

, Report Program Generator (RPG) and FARGO

FARGO Programming Language

FARGO was the predecessor to the popular RPG programming language . FARGO was more of a utility program than a programming language, whereas RPG had a program generation process that produced an executable object.- A Transitional Tool :The idea behind FARGO was to facilitate ease of transition...

.

Retirement

The 1400 series was replaced by System/360

System/360

The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific...

 and low end machines like IBM System 3 and subsequently the System/32

System/32

The IBM System/32 introduced in January 1975 was a low-end business computer. It was used primarily by small to midsize businesses for accounting applications.RPGII was the programming language for the machine....

, System/34

System/34

The IBM System/34 was a minicomputer marketed by IBM beginning in 1978. It was a multi-user, multi-tasking successor to the single-user System/32. Most notably, it included two very different processors, one based on System/32 and the second based on older System/3. Like the System/32 and the...

, System/36

System/36

The IBM System/36 was a minicomputer marketed by IBM from 1983 to 2000. It was a multi-user, multi-tasking successor to the System/34. Like the System/34 and the older System/32, the System/36 was primarily programmed in the RPG II language...

, System/38

System/38

The System/38 was a midrange computer server platform manufactured and sold by the IBM Corporation. The system offered a number of innovative features, and was the brainchild of IBM engineer Dr. Frank Soltis...

 and AS/400.

The 1400s were officially withdrawn in the early 1970s, however some 1400-series peripherals were still sold with third generation systems.

Two IBM 1401

IBM 1401

The IBM 1401 was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing electromechanical unit record equipment for processing data stored on punched cards...

computers are being restored to full operational status by the Computer History Museum.

External links

• Many IBM 1400 series manuals are online (pdf files) at http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1410/.