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The Rebirth of the IBM 1401 Computer

An ancient machine, rescued from a garage and refurbished, now whirrs and clicks away again, just as it did way back in 1964

30 Oct 2009

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Photo: IBM

BACK TO THE FUTURE: An IBM 1401 system filled a room. Its equivalent now fits in your hand. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

BUILDING A BRAIN: Robert Garner [left], head of the team that restored the IBM 1401, didn’t know what a 1401 was when he volunteered to start the project in 2003. He stands next to the CPU, his arm on two tilted-out gates whose cards manage memory and storage. Ron Williams, in charge of the processor restoration, leans on the frame that holds the logic cards. <
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Photo: Judith Haemmerle

MY MIND IS GOING, DAVE: A magnetic core memory, the rapid-access medium of the day, stored ones and zeroes in the magnetic fields of little “doughnuts” strung on crossing wires.<
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Photo: Mark Richards

TANGLED WEB: The CPU operator’s panel shows data lines linking registers, switches, and memory. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

SEARCHING MEMORY .... SEARCHING...: IBM's 729 magnetic tape drive was one of those iconic things that gave 1960s-era computer systems their look, sound, and feel. Its tape had seven tracks and spun faster than the eye could follow. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

STARDATE: 1313.5: Joe Preston [left] and Glenn Lea were customer engineers for IBM when the IBM 729 tape drive was still cutting-edge technology. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

BIG WHEELS, KEEP ON TURNING: IBM’s 513 reproducing punch, shown with rehabbers Frank King [left] and Robert Erickson. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS: Punch cards were moved by a gear transmission. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

RIP AND READ: IBM’s 1403 printer printed faster and more clearly than previous devices. It used a chain of letters moving horizontally so that each hammer would hit a selected letter just as it passed by. That way, any timing error would affect only the spaces between the letters. Don Luke [left] and Frank King restored it.<
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Photo: Mark Richards

FIT TO PRINT: In older systems, in which character-carrying cylinders rotated vertically, such a timing error would cause the machine to print a letter above or below the line, making the text hard to read. The tape [above] controlled the 1403’s movement. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK: The IBM 026 keypunch, a design dating back to the 1940s, entered numbers and letters into a data card. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

CARD COUNTING: The IBM 077 collator—whose guts are on display—mixed and matched cards from many sources into a single deck. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

HARD COPY: Actual paper manuals show young museum visitors what work was like back in the day. <
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Photo: Mark Richards

BYO TOOLS: Pliers, hammers, and tongs show young museum visitors what real work was like back in the day. <
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Photo: Mark Richards. For more information, see the article "Rebuilding the IBM 1401

CHECK LIST: Nonvirtual tools, paper manuals, and handwritten memos [shown here] show young museum visitors what work was like back in the day. <
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computer history museum type:slideshow computing ibm hardware

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