IBM Early Business Computers

IBM's early business computer line moved the company from punched card tabulating equipment into full electronic data processing during the 1950s and early 1960s. The IBM 1401, introduced in 1959, is remembered as the first high volume, stored program, core memory, transistorized computer, and it became the best selling computer of the early 1960s among small and medium sized businesses for payroll, billing and inventory work. The IBM 7090, a transistorized scientific mainframe, saw wide use for computation and reservation work, including forming the backbone of the SABRE airline reservation system built for American Airlines. Both machines mark IBM's transition from earlier drum and vacuum-tube designs toward the transistorized systems that defined the company's dominance of the computer industry through the 1960s.