

IBM 704 Scientific Computer - wlj
http://www.zl2al.com/blog/category/ibm-704-computer/

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amackera
I've always loved hearing about our heritage as an industry. This article
reminded me of when I made a pilgrimage to the Computer History Museum in
Mountain View and saw a replica (working!) Babbage Engine amongst a bunch of
ancient and obsoleted hardware. It's fascinating to see the progress we've
made in only a few decades!

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keithpeter
Can that rate of progress be sustained or is this a 'path dependence' sort of
thing where niches get filled early on? I have no idea but would appreciate
views

~~~
jds375
I'd imagine it would be sustained. Every year more and more money is poured
into technology R&D as it becomes increasingly important. This helps match the
difficulty of further development. Far in the future this may be an issue, but
I doubt it will be an issue within the next decade.

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rst
PDF facsimiles of some original manuals are here: [http://bitsavers.trailing-
edge.com/pdf/ibm/704/](http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/704/)

In addition to the manual for the computer itself, describing the assembly
language and so forth, these include documentation for the earliest versions
of Fortran.

Bitsavers has a lot of neat stuff on all sorts of old computers, including
other old IBM systems, the B5500, (recently mentioned here) and a whole lot of
old DEC equipment.

