Changes

IBM originated from the company that [[Herman Hollerith]] started in the 1890s to sell punch cards and card readers to government bureaus and insurance agencies. In 1924 the new owner [[Thomas Watson]] renamed the company "International Business Machines" and expanded into electric typewriters and other office machines. Watson built a highly motivated and disciplined sales force. The inside motto was "THINK", but users were warned not to "fold, spindle or mutilate" the cards. IBM's first experiments with computers in the 1940s and 1950s were humdrum; it surged to dominance in the 1960s with its Model 360 mainframe.

IBM originated from the company that [[Herman Hollerith]] started in the 1890s to sell punch cards and card readers to government bureaus and insurance agencies. In 1924 the new owner [[Thomas Watson]] renamed the company "International Business Machines" and expanded into electric typewriters and other office machines. Watson built a highly motivated and disciplined sales force. The inside motto was "THINK", but users were warned not to "fold, spindle or mutilate" the cards. IBM's first experiments with computers in the 1940s and 1950s were humdrum; it surged to dominance in the 1960s with its Model 360 mainframe.

==360==

==360==

The mainframe computer entered American life in a major way in 1965 when IBM introduced its Model 360. This multimillion-dollar machine was quickly adopted by large businesses, government agencies and universities. Although it used transistors instead of vacuum tubes, the mainframe ran hot and required special facilities and 24-hour air conditioning, and was always attended by white-coated technicians. IBM dominated the worldwide computer market, as rivals (the "seven dwarfs") could match IBM's technology, but not its reputation. Technological advances every year brought bigger and faster mainframes and hastened the restructuring of most bureaucratic enterprises around the mainframe. The mainframe centralized computing power high up in an organization, where legions of FORTRAN and COBOL programmers wrote codes that harnessed raw computing power to specialized tasks. Bureaucracies expanded, assigning lower echelons the task of preparing forms for keypunching holes on cards that fed the machine. Most jobs were simple and routine, usually just the rapidly rapid processing of large numbers of highly stylized forms such as monthly electric bills. By the 1970s, distributed processing allowed clerks to use terminals connected directly to the mainframe. These were "dumb" terminals without their own computing power. Upstart companies introduced smaller, much cheaper "minicomputers" in the 1970s that handled most medium and small jobs as well as a mainframe. By the early 1990s, the mass introduction of PCs ("personal computers", originally called "microcomputers") radically undercut the market for mainframes and minis both.  

The mainframe computer entered American life in a major way in 1965 when IBM introduced its Model 360. This multimillion-dollar machine was quickly adopted by large businesses, government agencies and universities. Although it used transistors instead of vacuum tubes, the mainframe ran hot and required special facilities and 24-hour air conditioning, and was always attended by white-coated technicians. IBM dominated the worldwide computer market, as rivals (the "seven dwarfs") could match IBM's technology, but not its reputation. Technological advances every year brought bigger and faster mainframes and hastened the restructuring of most bureaucratic enterprises around the mainframe. The mainframe centralized computing power high up in an organization, where legions of FORTRAN and COBOL programmers wrote codes that harnessed raw computing power to specialized tasks. Bureaucracies expanded, assigning lower echelons the task of preparing forms for keypunching holes on cards that fed the machine. Most jobs were simple and routine, usually just the rapidly rapid processing of large numbers of highly stylized forms such as monthly electric bills. By the 1970s, distributed processing allowed clerks to use terminals connected directly to the mainframe. These were "dumb" terminals without their own computing power. Upstart companies introduced smaller, much cheaper "minicomputers" in the 1970s that handled most medium and small jobs as well as a mainframe. By the early 1990s, the mass introduction of PCs ("personal computers", originally called "microcomputers") radically undercut the market for mainframes and minis both.