IBM 650

Common card · No. 475344

The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass-produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the first computer to make a meaningful profit. The first one was installed in late 1954 and the IBM 650 was the most popular computer of the 1950s. The 650 was offered to business, scientific and engineering users as a slower and less expensive alternative to the IBM 701 and IBM 702 computers, which were for scientific and business purposes respectively. It was also marketed to users of punched card machines who were upgrading from calculating punches, such as the IBM 604, to computers. Because of its relatively low cost and ease of programming, the 650 was used to pioneer a wide variety of applications, from modeling submarine crew performance to teaching high school and college students computer programming. The IBM 650 became highly popular in universities...

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