IBM 601 Multiplying Punch
The IBM 601 Multiplying Punch, introduced in 1931. It read two factors up to
eight decimal digits in length from a card and punched their product onto a
blank field of the same card. It could subtract and add as well as multiply.
It had no printing capacity, so was generally used as an offline assistant
for a tabulator or accounting machine [4].
The 601 that was delivered to Eckert's lab in 1933 was a special model "capable
of doing direct interpolation, a very unusual feature, especially designed for
Eckert by one of IBM's top engineers at Endicott [NY]"
[9]. Eckert went a step further by
connecting the 601 to a Type 285 Tabulator and
a Type 016 Duplicating Punch through a
calculation control switch of his own design,
forming the first machine to perform complex scientific computations
automatically.
References:
Eckert, W.J., Punched Card Methods in Scientific
Computation, The Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau,
Columbia University, Lancaster Press, Inc., Lancaster PA (January 1940).
Renner, H.W., Solving Simultaneous Equations through the Use of
IBM Electric Punched Card Accounting Machines, IBM, Endicott NY
(1946), 8pp.
