IBM 1440

The IBM 1440 system, introduced in 1962, was a lower-cost SMS system with hand-wired back panels representing a midpoint between the 1401 and the pre-printed back panels of the System 360. 

The 1441 (CPU), 1447 (Console), and 1311 (Disk drive) are on loan from IBM Corporate Archives, since February 2010. The 1442 (card reader punch) was donated to the Center by Bob Rosenbloom, with transport provided by IBM Almaden Research Lab and Geodis.  Major challenges involved cleaning components that had spent decades in storage and designing an interface between the SMS-era 1441/1447 and SLT-era 1442 card-reader punch. A micro-processor controlled interface board installed in July 2016 is performing as anticipated, making it possible to successfully read and write data from card decks. In 2016 - 2017, the team completed repair of 1442 card reader-punch, wrote additional application programs, and brought the 1311 disk drive on-line.  Debut of 1311 operation, December 2017 - see video below.  Gantt Chart below outlines timeline and details of future work.

Team Members

  • Fred Petras, Coordinator

  • Don Blake

  • Bill Davis

  • Charlie Davis 

  • Gary DeBlieck

  • Bill Green

  • Dale Harrington

  • Carl Mosher

  • Jack Westermann

Advice & Assistance from

  • John Andrejack

  • Dick Ault

  • Don Crandall

  • Vince Fiacco

  • Hal Fishbeck

  • Nick Heckman

  • Kish Kapur

  • Judd McCarthy

  • Don McCarty

  • Nick Plavac

  • Gerry Schrag

  • Don Seraphim

  • Mike Tarcha

  • John Wiley

Gallery

Delivery March 2012