April 27, 2011 • 34 mins
While most computer users have heard of IBM, many don't know the company's history -- and it's a long story. So long, in fact, that Chris and Jonathan can't cover it in one show. Tune in and learn about IBM in the first part of this series.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
(00:20):
I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
They took the credit for your second Symphony Rewritten by machine,
a new technology. I feel like I've heard that somewhere before. Yeah,
probably in a recent podcast, because we quoted that song
not long ago. Yes, it buggles the mind. It does
buggle the man. Uh. Today though, we're talking about, uh,
(00:44):
something entirely well, not something entirely different, but something a
little uh, I don't know. We are gonna we're concentrating.
We're concentrated today on a particular company. And this is
going to be a multi part podcast because the come
and he has such a long history that we can't
sum it up in one episode. It's just it's too
(01:05):
much information, um, and it would just mean that if
we were to try and push it all into thirty minutes,
you really wouldn't learn anything. Right. As a matter of fact,
we had we had a request for this at one point,
I believe, Yeah, I think so. We've had a few
people ask us about this. I don't have any specifics
to point to, because we've received quite a few over
the history of our podcast. So we are going to
(01:26):
talk today about IBM. Yes, Big Blue International Business Machines. Yes,
and it's it's got an incredibly long history. Let me
just ask you, Chris, just curious just when when you
hear the the letters IBM, what's the first thing you
think of? Um, Well, I probably think of the current computers,
(01:51):
mainly because well, just to be honest, um, those of
us in the editorial department at how stuff Works dot com,
a lot of us still have IBM laptops, which are
the machines that they gave us. And specifically, which is
kind of funny because this actually comes after, uh, the
company made an agreement with the Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo,
(02:15):
so their IBM branded but they're actually Lenovo machines. But yeah,
I mean, that's probably just because it's there every day.
I think of that, but I also think of, um
a number of things, main frames. I think of the
IBM S electric typewriter that I can't wait to talk
about that. Um So, yeah, I mean, for me, it's
the first thing I think of, is, uh, the IBM
(02:38):
two eighties six that my family had when I was
a kid. We started off with other computers, which I've
talked about in the past, but the computer that my
dad got that ended up being the workhorse was an
IBM two eighties six. We did eventually upgrade to a
three eight six and for eighty six further down the line,
but that two eight six kind of was what I
cut my teeth on once I got on the Apple
(03:00):
two e No, no, no, no, you're not supposed to
chew on them. Well, I realized that, But I was
a late bloomer anyway. Where the personal computer age is
very late in IBM's history because the company is very,
very old. Yeah, it sort of depends on whom you
ask how old it is, because IBM actually sort of
(03:23):
gives their their age tracks or age back a little
differently than other people might write. UM. And I found
that out. Actually checked out a book from the library
called Building IBM, Shaping an Industry and its Technology by
Emerson W. Pu Um, and he actually tracks uh, the
founding of IBM past where IBM does. He goes back
(03:44):
to an inventor named Herman Hollowrath. Yes, yes, Herman Hollowrath.
He created a tabulating machine, didn't he. Yes, he did. Um.
He actually got his his first patent application in on
in September four. That's not that when he started the company,
but that's when he started working on tabulating machines. Now
there are other people who were doing other related work too,
(04:06):
because IBM actually was founded by the combination of three companies. Yeah,
technically kind of a fourth company. Uh. The three companies
specifically were, UM, let's see, it was the the Tabulating
Machine Company, which was incorporated in eighteen ninety six, So
(04:26):
you've got that one. You've got the Computing Scale Company,
which was incorporated in eighteen nine one, and the International
Time Recording Company organized in nineteen hundred. And then there
was also the Bundy Manufacturing Company, which was incorporated in
eighteen eighty nine. Now a lot of the Bundy UH
properties had been incorporated into International Time Recording Company already,
(04:48):
so you're already talking about companies have been undergoing mergers
and acquisitions. Um. You had people like Julius E. Petrot
who in five security patent for a device that he
called a computing scale. That was what created the foundation
for the Computing Scale company. UH. You had Herman Hollerwrath
who had the tabulation and punch card machines that he created.
(05:09):
William L. Bundy, who was of course the founder of
the Bundy Manufacturing Company, came up with a time recording device.
He was actually a jeweler, and this guy came up
with a time recording device that allowed employees to track
their time based upon using special keys. That would put
a special key into this machine. Turned the key, it
would stamp the time that they clocked in, and then
they would turn the key. At the end of the day,
(05:30):
it would stamp the time they clocked out, and it
helped keep track of how many hours they worked. Then
you also had Dr Alexander day d e Y and
he created a similar time time keeping device, but it
didn't use keys. Instead, you put the names of the
employees on this machine and there was a mechanical pointer.
You had aimed the pointer at the employee's name. You
(05:50):
put a punch card in, push a button and it
would then stamp the employee's sheet which was inside the machine. UH.
With the time that they clocked in and clocked out.
So you had all these differ in companies. And remember
this is this is the age where we're really starting
to get into mechanical devices. So most of these devices
are mechanical in nature. There are actual physical gears and
(06:11):
pistons things like that that are making stuff happen inside
these machines. But it's not it's I'm sorry, no, go ahead,
I was gonna say it's it's actually, in a way,
not any of these guys who created IBM. No, it
took someone from outside this group to really form it together.
(06:32):
Which the fun and the funny part is we've got
all these inventors, but we're really talking about, or at
least I am talking about a businessman, yes, who saw
an opportunity to combine the companies and make some money by,
you know, making a building a merger between them. And
his name was Charles R. Flint. Yes, So here we
(06:53):
got a guy who looks at these companies, these individual
companies that are all making various kinds of mechanical devices,
and he says, hey, hang on a second, we could
combine these because a lot of these are are creating
devices specifically geared toward businesses. And if we were to
combine these, we could combine the manufacturing power and the
(07:15):
business power of these and and market it toward businesses.
We could create an enormous corporation. Now, I just have
to convince the guys that this is a good idea.
So he starts going to all these different companies and
he submits merger proposals, and eventually the companies agreed to this,
and they formed the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation or CTR
(07:37):
on June six, nineteen eleven. I gotta say, these guys
have a flare for an innovative name. Yes, the Computing
Tabulating Recording Corporation. It was called computing because of the
computer scale we were talking about, which was not a
computer computer. It was a scale that could very accurately
(07:57):
measure weights computing scale. Yes. And then the tabulating being
the tabulating from Holly Erath, and the recording being the
time recording devices that we talked about earlier. Yes, pews
Book actually said that the scale that they had come
up with would give you the information up front, so
you didn't really have to do as much work with it,
so it would actually do the calculating for you will
(08:18):
give you an idea of what was going on, which was,
you know at the time, was was pretty innovative. Yes,
so we've got this major corporation forming in nineteen eleven.
But here's a problem. Who heads up this new corporation. Now,
Flint was pretty savvy, as was the board of directors
for CTR. They knew that they could not necessarily just
(08:39):
hire or promote someone from within one of those companies
to be the head of the new corporation, because if
they did, there's the danger that that person would favor
one division over all the others. So if you were
to promote someone up from the tabulating machine company, for example,
that person might concentrate on that division of the new
(09:00):
mega company and ignore the others, and then your business
venture fails. So they had to find someone from outside
this this merger to head up the new company. I
know who you're gonna say, but I I would also
like to add before we go on to this person,
um that apparently, from what I understand, not everyone was
(09:22):
thrilled with the way the merger was working out. Apparently
hollerth Uh and Flint didn't necessarily get along all that well,
as a matter of fact, apparently Hollowrath was you know,
one of the rare business people where he was very egalitarian. Um.
He when he sold you know, the interest in his
company to Flint, he insisted that everyone get a fair
(09:44):
share of the money and apparently was very well liked
within his own company before uh he did that. And apparently,
um And I imagine that that would be something to
to take into account when you are trying to make
this decision on who you want to run the company,
because you know, if you've got people who are already
(10:07):
having you know, personality problems personality conflicts with the people
at the top, then you're you're certainly going to be
aware of that and and and try to avoid that
conflict because otherwise you could scuttle the company. But I
think you're talking about the person you wanted to mention
next with someone who was brought in as a general manager. Yes, yes,
from from the National Cash Register Corporation and CR. Yeah.
(10:32):
That person was Thomas J. Watson, Sr. And he was
hired on May fourth, nineteen fourteen, And that is the
date that IBM uses as its founding. It considers Watson's
arrival at at the company and remember it's not called
IBM yet, it's still CTR, but it considers his arrival
(10:52):
to be the birth of IBM. And part of that
reason is because Watson really instilled in the company an
entire array of marketing UM principles and philosophies that he
he had developed over the years, and that became IBM
sort of foundation for the way that they do business. Now,
let's give a little background on Watson. Watson was a
(11:14):
bit of a character too. In fact, he had he
was not exactly spotless in his history. UM Watson when
he graduated college, originally he wanted to be a teacher,
but reportedly that job lasted all of one day before
he quit. He then concentrated on becoming a salesman, and
in fact was a traveling salesman selling. As I recall
pianos and organs to people in rural areas, it made
(11:38):
me think of the music man. It was. Essentially Watson
was was Professor Harold Hill. He was actually selling stuff
instead of trying trying to and then getting out well
technically Hill was selling stuff too, He just was making
promises that people could use it when he didn't intend
to do it. He wanted to skip town as soon
as the stuff came in. Spoiler alert for ayone who
(12:00):
has not seen a musing that I almost got you
to split water too. That was great. So Watson then
went on to UH. He started he opened up a
butcher's shop. He ended up eventually selling the butcher's shop,
but one thing he had to do was he had
an NCR cash register in that butcher's shop that was
not completely paid for, so he had to kind of
act as a liaison between the new owner of the
(12:21):
butcher shop and NCR to kind of settle these payments.
He started to bug the people at NCR for a job,
and eventually they broke down and and apprenticed him to
someone at NCR as a salesman, and over time Watson
was able to make a name for himself as a
salesman and later as a manager. He actually became known
for running competitors out of business in certain markets. He
(12:45):
would go into a market and find out ways to
to be able to UH to beat any competitor who
that was also selling a mechanical cash register machine. So,
for example, he would go into a market and undercut
all the compere editors and sell cash registers at a
loss just to bankrupt his uh, his competitors so that
(13:06):
he could have a monopoly on the market. This eventually
led to an antitrust lawsuit against him because he was monopolizing. Well,
the first trial ended with a guilty verdict and a
five thousand dollar fine and I think two years since
in jail something like that. Anyway, it was, it was
it was unusual for a jail sentence to go along
(13:28):
with this kind of a charge, but Watson ended up
getting one. He appealed that and during the appeals process,
the government decided he won the right to appeal. The
government decided that it was not worth the time and
money to pursue a second trial, so he the charges
were dismissed. But yeah, so Watson was he was kind
(13:50):
of a cutthroat businessman as well. So during his days
at NCR he did something that ended up being very
important to ibm s philosophy. It was in a meeting
in December in nineteen eleven. Do you know where I'm
going with this? All right? It's a motto that IBM uses. Yeah,
So there's Watson in this meeting with n c R
(14:11):
and he says, this is a quote. The trouble with
every one of us is that we don't think enough.
We don't get paid for working with our feet, we
get paid for working with our heads. Thought has been
the father of every advance since time began. I didn't
think has cost the world millions of dollars. And then
he wrote the word think in all capital letters in
(14:33):
blue crayon on an easel Blue Think Big Things for IBM,
as it turns out. Yeah, so it's kind of funny
that IBM can trace one of its central mottos to
another company because this was before Watson came over. So
then Watson does come over to the company and begins
to lead it. He joined in nineteen fourteen, and the
(14:55):
company really starts to take off. You know, You've got
all these different divisions that are concentrating on specific elements
of their business, and uh, they just start really cranking
out some interesting products, all for businesses, by the way,
right right, Well, let's put this, let's put it in perspective.
So in nineteen according to IBM, when Thomas J. Watson Sr.
(15:18):
Joined the company, it had one thousand, three hundred forty
six employees and nine million dollars in revenue. Um, the
gross income from sales, service and rentals was about four
million dollars. Uh. And as a matter of fact, one
hundred years of CTR stock UH would set you back
about three thousand dollars. Yes, so they would make four
(15:39):
million dollars in a year. But out of that their
earnings were around a million. Right, So so you make
four million and after costs you you ranke in a
million dollars. Um. Yeah, I said, Actually it said nine.
Well I'm looking at two different IBM documents. One is
nine million in revenues and the other says, uh, four
million from gross in come. Yeah, that's what I had,
(16:01):
the four million engrossing had so um. You know, yeah,
it sounds like a little today, keeping in mind that
it's that's quite substantial. Yeah, nine fourteen. Come on, And
if it sounds weird to say rentals, hollow if actually
when he did his tabulating machine, would actually rent the
equipment out. Um, So he did not sell people machines.
(16:22):
So at the time, you know this kind of equipment, uh,
the sophisticated mechanical computer equipment. Actually, he was one of
the first people to use electrical um tabulating devices. Yeah,
we're getting into the electro mechanical era here. So yeah,
but I mean you didn't you didn't buy that necessarily,
you would rent that from someone. And we're actually you
might wonder what these tabulating devices were used for. Well,
(16:45):
they were often I mean they were used to classify
information in a way that could be sorted and categorized
in various ways relatively quickly, you know, much more quickly
than humans could. In fact, it was originally used for
the Census. He worked for hollow Reth worked for the
Census in eighteen eight I believe, and he actually his
boss was saying, it would be really nice we could
come up with a machine to cut down on all
(17:05):
this work, because this is a real pain in the neck.
So we did. Yeah, and this this invention plays a
much darker role in a few years, and we'll touch
on that because it is an important element of IBM's history.
But I think that's why Pugh started with Hollywrith was
because that is the most computer alike of all the things,
of all the the original businesses that CTR was involved with. Yeah. So,
(17:27):
so just a couple of highlights in the early years
of Watson's uh um, what am I gonna call it?
Watson being the president general manager of of ctr U.
They have the company's implementation of electric synchronization for the
control and regulation of complete time and programming systems. Yep,
(17:49):
and that's that's true, um, now that you pointed out,
I mean, they introduced the first electric synchronized time clock
system UM, which again is very computer like, just a
component that's part of that. And I'd just like to
add one sort of foreshadowing date. A couple of years
before that, in nineteen seventeen, UH, CTR decided to enter Canada,
(18:13):
UH and decided instead of using CTR they would use
a different name. They decided to call themselves International Business Machines. Yeah,
so in nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen they registered that
name in New York, but did not use it at
that time. So uh yeah. And in nineteen twenty they
introduced the lock Autograph Recorder, which was the first complete
school time control system. They also launched the electric accounting machines,
(18:37):
so that's kind of a predecessor to the calculator. Ah.
And they acquired a company called the ticket O Graph
Company of Chicago in nineteen twenty one, and they also
started buying up more patents IBM to this day has
more than a thousand patents. They had more than a
thousand in the seventies, but yes, far more than a thousand, so,
(18:59):
and some of those were developed in house and some
of them they've purchased. So in those early years, we
get up to February fourteenth, Valentine's Day, nineteen twenty four.
Watson has an idea. Yes, he decides that this IBM
name that they're using in Canada as a good name,
and that it should it really reflects the business more
(19:20):
than CTR does. UM. The business at this point is international.
They have offices elsewhere besides the United States, and so
they think, well, we're gonna rebrand ourselves. We're gonna be
called International Business Machines or IBM UM. And by now,
so this is ten years after he's he's taken the reins.
The the gross income for the company is that remember
(19:44):
it was at four million before, it's at eleven million
now with the net earnings of around two million. And
there there's more than three thousand employees, so they've essentially
doubled the size of the number of employees that that
that they hired. Yes, now, UM, going back to for
a second, to holler his his tabu lighting machines used
punched cards, which we've talked about in the past. Um.
(20:06):
In nine they introduced the first electric key punch. Now
to record information on these punch cards, you have to
have something that pops out. The little chats um actually
just punches a hole in the right spot. Right. Originally
they did use a circular punch like you would see
in you know, a traditional hole punch. UM, but they
were they were becoming more sophisticated, adding this functionality along
(20:29):
as they went. UM and Uh. The punched card could
now hold as much as eighty columns worth of information UM,
which also helped out significantly with what they could do. UM.
And then of course we're getting close to the Great
Depression in ninety. Yeah, here's an interesting thing. So in
nineteen thirty you get the Great Depression, but IBM still
(20:50):
does pretty well. Right, they're not they're not hurting as
badly as other companies. In fact, at that point their
gross income was nineteen million dollars and their net earnings
seven million dollars with sixty three hundred employees. So IBM
is actually employing people at the same time the other
folks are finding themselves out of work. So IBM was
actually doing quite well well. Of course, you know at
(21:11):
that time people were laying people off because they couldn't
afford we're going out of business entirely. Um. Meanwhile, this
would these machines would help people streamline their business efforts.
They wouldn't have to hire as many humans to do
the works well, and I mean they kept on developing
other things. They developed a public address and signaling system
for schools. They called it the schoolmaster's joke. That just sounds.
(21:36):
That just sounds so I don't know, sinister anyway. So
now we're two decades out from when Watson took control.
They remember they're grossing around nineteen million and earning around
seven millions. That's a much more than the four million
and one million from two decades before. And they're employing
seven thousand, six hundred thirteen people. So yeah, the company,
(21:57):
the company is really doing well and the development is
really just gonna explode over the next few decades, like
to the point where it's it's almost impossible to believe
how big it got. I had my first snicker moment
U because it apparently they decided to divest themselves of
the Scale division. So they sold it to Hobart, which
(22:23):
if you if you're thinking back and going, I know,
I know that name, it's because they're still in business
and it's apparently from from want to understand, Mr Watson
was a little concerned because, as it turns out, immediately
that business took off after the after they got rid
of it. So well there you go at. They can't
(22:43):
always do everything well all the time, right, well, you know,
they made it a decision based on what they thought
would happen, and in five IBM introduced the International Proof Machine,
which synchronized twenty four adding machines together, and it was
meant to process checks in banks as meant as a
(23:04):
processing system behind the scenes, but eventually people found other
uses for it and you could think of it as
a precursor to the computer. Um it could only do.
It had a limited number of operations that could do
and uh, it wasn't a true computer in the sense
that we think of today, but it showed that by
you know, IBM was thinking, how can we create more
(23:26):
sophisticated devices without necessarily making bigger ones. In this case,
it was linking lots of lots of different adding machines together. Now,
keeping think about what we're talking about here. As we're
going on through this timeline, IBM is finding ways to
make crunching numbers easier. They're they're finding new ways to
to compress the number of items you could put in
(23:48):
a punch card. They're finding new ways to link machines
together to increase processing power with these machines. And no,
we don't think of that in terms of again, the
IBM laptops that we're using as we record the podcast
obviously have far more processing power than that. But gradually,
over time they're innovating and coming up with new ideas.
(24:09):
In thirty five they also came up with the first
successful electric typewriter. Yep, yep. So now we'll get more
into the electric typewriters. A little later in thirty seven
they introduced a test scoring machine. Um, so this is
kind of all you folks out there get to play
those take those standardized tests. This is sort of the
(24:30):
grandfather to those machines, the Scantron type stuff. But this
is this was a little earlier than that, but still
same principle. They came out with the pencil marks sensing reproducer,
which reproducer. Uh yeah, of course everyone's taking these tests
on computers now. So in between thirty seven and forty
there's a little event, big event. We have a little
(24:51):
big event. Yeah. So world War two here's where we
got to get in some problematic stuff. There was an
IBM subsidiary company called de Homag Deutsch hollerth Machine and
Gazelle Shuft and that was the that was the full name.
So yeah, just just as an aside um, Mr hollow
Earth had been working on building the business internationally even
(25:14):
before he sold tod CTR, so you know they he
had businesses around the world already. Now they were small,
but they were divisions of his company, and yes, this
is one of them. So yeah, this was kind of
an IBM subsidiary that Hollerwath actually ended up selling of
the company back to IBM because the company was in
some financial problems. World War One bankrupted Germany, right, I
(25:40):
mean Germany was in dire economic straits after World War
One and this this company was affected by that. So
part of in order to stay solvent, they sold ninety
pc of the company back to IBM. So IBM owns
this company. And here's where things get really dark and murky.
There's an author and researcher by the name of Edwin
Black who wrote a full book about IBM and its
(26:02):
role possibly connected to the Holocaust, and now Black alleges
that IBM was not just um uh aware of what
was happening, but somewhat complicit in what was happening. Ibm
UH They they obviously do not agree with that assessment.
And in fact, the more you know about Watson, I mean,
(26:25):
I don't know. I didn't know these people clearly, but
the more I learned about Watson, the less I was
convinced that he was the sort of person who would
actively be complicit in this. But here's what happened. Dio
magg made this tabulation uh products and Hitler was very
much interested in getting to know exactly how many Jews
(26:47):
were in Germany at the time, and so they were
using this tabulating process to track people, to to classify
people as either being Jewish or not Jewish. And by
classifying generations of people, they could actually track people back
if they if they claim that they weren't Jewish, they
you know, the Germans could look at the generation before
(27:07):
the generation before them and see if there were any
Jewish ancestors and if there were those, you know, the
people would be classified as being Jewish. This came into
play both in the ghettoization of the Jewish communities where
Jews were pushed into ghettos and then later during the
actual Holocaust. So Dio mag was played a big part
(27:30):
in in the third Reich's plan to to eliminate the Jews.
And it's a tragic, horrible story. And Black in his
book alleges that Watson himself was part of this, that
he was taking advantage of the situation in order to
make a profit. Uh, there is some stuff that kind
of points to Watson being uh at least at least
(27:53):
a part plays a part in this, and that Hitler
awarded Watson a medal. It was the Eagle with Star Metal.
But I should point out that in n Watson returned
the medal. He had been torn by this because apparently,
at least according to IBM, Watson at first thought that
the medal was on behalf of his work to try
(28:14):
and establish world peace, because Watson actually was concerned about
creating a peaceful global environment, and that when he became
convinced that that was not the case, he felt that
it was necessary to return the medal, which in turn
infuriated Hitler and reportedly Hitler then said that Watson would
never again be welcome in Germany. Uh once the United
(28:38):
States and Germany entered World War two. Once once the
war was declared between the two countries, Germany took control
of De Homag and it was no longer under ibm
s control at all. It was completely under German government control.
So how involved was IBM. According to IBM, they were,
you know, it was a subsidiary company. They did not
(29:00):
have control over it. They had owned they owned um
interest in it, but they were not the ones making
the decisions. So it's it's, like I said, a murky,
complicated part of IBM's past, and it's if you read
Edwin Black's book, it paints a much darker picture for
IBM than what IBM says. I honestly don't know the truth.
(29:21):
I cannot. I'm not going to pass judgment because I
don't know. And also I should add that Watson has
had really backed a lot of humanitarian efforts before and
after World War Two, which again kind of suggests that
he was not taking this complicit role. Right. Um, what
I just meant to say was that there are situations
(29:43):
regarding many companies and individuals and it's unclear, uh, you
know many people I've read about and which you know,
how much they knew about what was truly going on,
how whether or not they were being recruited to the cause,
whether they were being uh and bridge to supply continue
supplying when it was obvious that, um, there was a
(30:05):
genocide going on. And and IBM for its part, also
began to work very closely with the United States military
in producing various parts and pieces that were being used
in military applications. So there's that as well well the
the I know that the United States used IBM equipment
(30:26):
to work on codebreaking. Yep, so that's that's certainly were
contributing to the Allied war effort, certainly, yes, yes, So
moving beyond that that horrible story, UM, IBM really in
the in the forties began to work on developing calculators
that that became a big focus of IBM's business. They
(30:47):
were still working on tabulating and time recording devices as
well as various other kinds of adding machines and uh
they uh they founded the Watson Science of Fit Computing
laboratory at Columbia University in New York. That that's true,
that's true. UM, yeah, not too long before that, shortly
(31:07):
before the war's in, IBM uh gave a large scale computer,
the first of its kind to the called the Automatic
Sequence Controlled Calculator to Harvard UM. So they're certainly an
interested in education at that point. So we're getting close
to wrapping up this first episode of the IBM history
and the reason for that is we're very quickly approaching
(31:31):
the time when IBM introduces the first production computer for
scientific calculations, which is the seven oh one, and that
was introduced in nineteen fifty two. We'll we'll probably pick
up I would say, probably at the seven oh one
for our next podcast, and we'll we'll move up to uh.
I think we'll go from the seven oh one to
(31:51):
just before the the personal computer era for IBM because,
like we said, this company very large, has a very
long and and storied history. UM. And you know this again,
this was like the cliffs Notes version to the cliffs
Notes version to IBM's history, because you can't cover everything
(32:12):
they've done unless you were to do you can dedicate
a full podcast just IBM like not not not an episode,
an entire podcast. Yes, yes, and I mean there are
other important computing developments going on here, like um, uh,
the very large project at the More School of Electrical
Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, you know in
(32:32):
the late nineteen four mid late nineteen FOURI is called
I don't know, maybe you've heard of it, Aniac, I
think so. Wasn't that a muppet? Um? Yes, I have,
But yeah, there are This is a period of advanced
advanced scientific development as far as computers are concerned. Um,
(32:53):
the code breaking, the skills that computer programmers were using
and trying to break codes, um, and trying to advance
computing development, this is all accelerating an immense pace at
this point. Yeah. We we've reached the level of mechanic
electro mechanical computers already, and electronic computers are right around
the bend. So let's let's conclude this episode. We will
(33:16):
pick up in nineteen fifty two and we will move
on from there. And uh, you know, you guys, if
you have if you would like us to cover specific
companies that are were, you know, are or were instrumental
in the technology fields, let us know. We've talked before
about companies like Apple and Microsoft, and both of those
will come up pretty soon in this podcast series. Um,
(33:39):
and let's you know, if you if there's some other company,
maybe Intel or A and D or uh, you know,
I don't know, Infocom, anything you want to hear about,
let us know. We will. We will look into it
and cover it. Perhaps not all of them will warrant,
you know, multi episodes like IBM does, but we're happy
to cover them, and we'll probably have to move off
and do some thing else for a while, come back
(34:01):
and do another company podcast. Yeah, yeah, no, we'll we'll
definitely put some space between these IBM episodes and the
next focus on a company, because you know, we don't
want to just get ourselves stuck into that routine. So
guys just let us know. You can let's know on
Twitter or Facebook are handled there is tech stuff hs
W or shoot us an email. That address is tech
(34:21):
stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and
I will taught to you again really soon. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com To learn more about the podcast. Clock
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the
(34:46):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
(00:20):
I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
They took the credit for your second Symphony Rewritten by machine,
a new technology. I feel like I've heard that somewhere before. Yeah,
probably in a recent podcast, because we quoted that song
not long ago. Yes, it buggles the mind. It does
buggle the man. Uh. Today though, we're talking about, uh,
(00:44):
something entirely well, not something entirely different, but something a
little uh, I don't know. We are gonna we're concentrating.
We're concentrated today on a particular company. And this is
going to be a multi part podcast because the come
and he has such a long history that we can't
sum it up in one episode. It's just it's too
(01:05):
much information, um, and it would just mean that if
we were to try and push it all into thirty minutes,
you really wouldn't learn anything. Right. As a matter of fact,
we had we had a request for this at one point,
I believe, Yeah, I think so. We've had a few
people ask us about this. I don't have any specifics
to point to, because we've received quite a few over
the history of our podcast. So we are going to
(01:26):
talk today about IBM. Yes, Big Blue International Business Machines. Yes,
and it's it's got an incredibly long history. Let me
just ask you, Chris, just curious just when when you
hear the the letters IBM, what's the first thing you
think of? Um, Well, I probably think of the current computers,
(01:51):
mainly because well, just to be honest, um, those of
us in the editorial department at how stuff Works dot com,
a lot of us still have IBM laptops, which are
the machines that they gave us. And specifically, which is
kind of funny because this actually comes after, uh, the
company made an agreement with the Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo,
(02:15):
so their IBM branded but they're actually Lenovo machines. But yeah,
I mean, that's probably just because it's there every day.
I think of that, but I also think of, um
a number of things, main frames. I think of the
IBM S electric typewriter that I can't wait to talk
about that. Um So, yeah, I mean, for me, it's
the first thing I think of, is, uh, the IBM
(02:38):
two eighties six that my family had when I was
a kid. We started off with other computers, which I've
talked about in the past, but the computer that my
dad got that ended up being the workhorse was an
IBM two eighties six. We did eventually upgrade to a
three eight six and for eighty six further down the line,
but that two eight six kind of was what I
cut my teeth on once I got on the Apple
(03:00):
two e No, no, no, no, you're not supposed to
chew on them. Well, I realized that, But I was
a late bloomer anyway. Where the personal computer age is
very late in IBM's history because the company is very,
very old. Yeah, it sort of depends on whom you
ask how old it is, because IBM actually sort of
(03:23):
gives their their age tracks or age back a little
differently than other people might write. UM. And I found
that out. Actually checked out a book from the library
called Building IBM, Shaping an Industry and its Technology by
Emerson W. Pu Um, and he actually tracks uh, the
founding of IBM past where IBM does. He goes back
(03:44):
to an inventor named Herman Hollowrath. Yes, yes, Herman Hollowrath.
He created a tabulating machine, didn't he. Yes, he did. Um.
He actually got his his first patent application in on
in September four. That's not that when he started the company,
but that's when he started working on tabulating machines. Now
there are other people who were doing other related work too,
(04:06):
because IBM actually was founded by the combination of three companies. Yeah,
technically kind of a fourth company. Uh. The three companies
specifically were, UM, let's see, it was the the Tabulating
Machine Company, which was incorporated in eighteen ninety six, So
(04:26):
you've got that one. You've got the Computing Scale Company,
which was incorporated in eighteen nine one, and the International
Time Recording Company organized in nineteen hundred. And then there
was also the Bundy Manufacturing Company, which was incorporated in
eighteen eighty nine. Now a lot of the Bundy UH
properties had been incorporated into International Time Recording Company already,
(04:48):
so you're already talking about companies have been undergoing mergers
and acquisitions. Um. You had people like Julius E. Petrot
who in five security patent for a device that he
called a computing scale. That was what created the foundation
for the Computing Scale company. UH. You had Herman Hollerwrath
who had the tabulation and punch card machines that he created.
(05:09):
William L. Bundy, who was of course the founder of
the Bundy Manufacturing Company, came up with a time recording device.
He was actually a jeweler, and this guy came up
with a time recording device that allowed employees to track
their time based upon using special keys. That would put
a special key into this machine. Turned the key, it
would stamp the time that they clocked in, and then
they would turn the key. At the end of the day,
(05:30):
it would stamp the time they clocked out, and it
helped keep track of how many hours they worked. Then
you also had Dr Alexander day d e Y and
he created a similar time time keeping device, but it
didn't use keys. Instead, you put the names of the
employees on this machine and there was a mechanical pointer.
You had aimed the pointer at the employee's name. You
(05:50):
put a punch card in, push a button and it
would then stamp the employee's sheet which was inside the machine. UH.
With the time that they clocked in and clocked out.
So you had all these differ in companies. And remember
this is this is the age where we're really starting
to get into mechanical devices. So most of these devices
are mechanical in nature. There are actual physical gears and
(06:11):
pistons things like that that are making stuff happen inside
these machines. But it's not it's I'm sorry, no, go ahead,
I was gonna say it's it's actually, in a way,
not any of these guys who created IBM. No, it
took someone from outside this group to really form it together.
(06:32):
Which the fun and the funny part is we've got
all these inventors, but we're really talking about, or at
least I am talking about a businessman, yes, who saw
an opportunity to combine the companies and make some money by,
you know, making a building a merger between them. And
his name was Charles R. Flint. Yes, So here we
(06:53):
got a guy who looks at these companies, these individual
companies that are all making various kinds of mechanical devices,
and he says, hey, hang on a second, we could
combine these because a lot of these are are creating
devices specifically geared toward businesses. And if we were to
combine these, we could combine the manufacturing power and the
(07:15):
business power of these and and market it toward businesses.
We could create an enormous corporation. Now, I just have
to convince the guys that this is a good idea.
So he starts going to all these different companies and
he submits merger proposals, and eventually the companies agreed to this,
and they formed the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation or CTR
(07:37):
on June six, nineteen eleven. I gotta say, these guys
have a flare for an innovative name. Yes, the Computing
Tabulating Recording Corporation. It was called computing because of the
computer scale we were talking about, which was not a
computer computer. It was a scale that could very accurately
(07:57):
measure weights computing scale. Yes. And then the tabulating being
the tabulating from Holly Erath, and the recording being the
time recording devices that we talked about earlier. Yes, pews
Book actually said that the scale that they had come
up with would give you the information up front, so
you didn't really have to do as much work with it,
so it would actually do the calculating for you will
(08:18):
give you an idea of what was going on, which was,
you know at the time, was was pretty innovative. Yes,
so we've got this major corporation forming in nineteen eleven.
But here's a problem. Who heads up this new corporation. Now,
Flint was pretty savvy, as was the board of directors
for CTR. They knew that they could not necessarily just
(08:39):
hire or promote someone from within one of those companies
to be the head of the new corporation, because if
they did, there's the danger that that person would favor
one division over all the others. So if you were
to promote someone up from the tabulating machine company, for example,
that person might concentrate on that division of the new
(09:00):
mega company and ignore the others, and then your business
venture fails. So they had to find someone from outside
this this merger to head up the new company. I
know who you're gonna say, but I I would also
like to add before we go on to this person,
um that apparently, from what I understand, not everyone was
(09:22):
thrilled with the way the merger was working out. Apparently
hollerth Uh and Flint didn't necessarily get along all that well,
as a matter of fact, apparently Hollowrath was you know,
one of the rare business people where he was very egalitarian. Um.
He when he sold you know, the interest in his
company to Flint, he insisted that everyone get a fair
(09:44):
share of the money and apparently was very well liked
within his own company before uh he did that. And apparently,
um And I imagine that that would be something to
to take into account when you are trying to make
this decision on who you want to run the company,
because you know, if you've got people who are already
(10:07):
having you know, personality problems personality conflicts with the people
at the top, then you're you're certainly going to be
aware of that and and and try to avoid that
conflict because otherwise you could scuttle the company. But I
think you're talking about the person you wanted to mention
next with someone who was brought in as a general manager. Yes, yes,
from from the National Cash Register Corporation and CR. Yeah.
(10:32):
That person was Thomas J. Watson, Sr. And he was
hired on May fourth, nineteen fourteen, And that is the
date that IBM uses as its founding. It considers Watson's
arrival at at the company and remember it's not called
IBM yet, it's still CTR, but it considers his arrival
(10:52):
to be the birth of IBM. And part of that
reason is because Watson really instilled in the company an
entire array of marketing UM principles and philosophies that he
he had developed over the years, and that became IBM
sort of foundation for the way that they do business. Now,
let's give a little background on Watson. Watson was a
(11:14):
bit of a character too. In fact, he had he
was not exactly spotless in his history. UM Watson when
he graduated college, originally he wanted to be a teacher,
but reportedly that job lasted all of one day before
he quit. He then concentrated on becoming a salesman, and
in fact was a traveling salesman selling. As I recall
pianos and organs to people in rural areas, it made
(11:38):
me think of the music man. It was. Essentially Watson
was was Professor Harold Hill. He was actually selling stuff
instead of trying trying to and then getting out well
technically Hill was selling stuff too, He just was making
promises that people could use it when he didn't intend
to do it. He wanted to skip town as soon
as the stuff came in. Spoiler alert for ayone who
(12:00):
has not seen a musing that I almost got you
to split water too. That was great. So Watson then
went on to UH. He started he opened up a
butcher's shop. He ended up eventually selling the butcher's shop,
but one thing he had to do was he had
an NCR cash register in that butcher's shop that was
not completely paid for, so he had to kind of
act as a liaison between the new owner of the
(12:21):
butcher shop and NCR to kind of settle these payments.
He started to bug the people at NCR for a job,
and eventually they broke down and and apprenticed him to
someone at NCR as a salesman, and over time Watson
was able to make a name for himself as a
salesman and later as a manager. He actually became known
for running competitors out of business in certain markets. He
(12:45):
would go into a market and find out ways to
to be able to UH to beat any competitor who
that was also selling a mechanical cash register machine. So,
for example, he would go into a market and undercut
all the compere editors and sell cash registers at a
loss just to bankrupt his uh, his competitors so that
(13:06):
he could have a monopoly on the market. This eventually
led to an antitrust lawsuit against him because he was monopolizing. Well,
the first trial ended with a guilty verdict and a
five thousand dollar fine and I think two years since
in jail something like that. Anyway, it was, it was
it was unusual for a jail sentence to go along
(13:28):
with this kind of a charge, but Watson ended up
getting one. He appealed that and during the appeals process,
the government decided he won the right to appeal. The
government decided that it was not worth the time and
money to pursue a second trial, so he the charges
were dismissed. But yeah, so Watson was he was kind
(13:50):
of a cutthroat businessman as well. So during his days
at NCR he did something that ended up being very
important to ibm s philosophy. It was in a meeting
in December in nineteen eleven. Do you know where I'm
going with this? All right? It's a motto that IBM uses. Yeah,
So there's Watson in this meeting with n c R
(14:11):
and he says, this is a quote. The trouble with
every one of us is that we don't think enough.
We don't get paid for working with our feet, we
get paid for working with our heads. Thought has been
the father of every advance since time began. I didn't
think has cost the world millions of dollars. And then
he wrote the word think in all capital letters in
(14:33):
blue crayon on an easel Blue Think Big Things for IBM,
as it turns out. Yeah, so it's kind of funny
that IBM can trace one of its central mottos to
another company because this was before Watson came over. So
then Watson does come over to the company and begins
to lead it. He joined in nineteen fourteen, and the
(14:55):
company really starts to take off. You know, You've got
all these different divisions that are concentrating on specific elements
of their business, and uh, they just start really cranking
out some interesting products, all for businesses, by the way,
right right, Well, let's put this, let's put it in perspective.
So in nineteen according to IBM, when Thomas J. Watson Sr.
(15:18):
Joined the company, it had one thousand, three hundred forty
six employees and nine million dollars in revenue. Um, the
gross income from sales, service and rentals was about four
million dollars. Uh. And as a matter of fact, one
hundred years of CTR stock UH would set you back
about three thousand dollars. Yes, so they would make four
(15:39):
million dollars in a year. But out of that their
earnings were around a million. Right, So so you make
four million and after costs you you ranke in a
million dollars. Um. Yeah, I said, Actually it said nine.
Well I'm looking at two different IBM documents. One is
nine million in revenues and the other says, uh, four
million from gross in come. Yeah, that's what I had,
(16:01):
the four million engrossing had so um. You know, yeah,
it sounds like a little today, keeping in mind that
it's that's quite substantial. Yeah, nine fourteen. Come on, And
if it sounds weird to say rentals, hollow if actually
when he did his tabulating machine, would actually rent the
equipment out. Um, So he did not sell people machines.
(16:22):
So at the time, you know this kind of equipment, uh,
the sophisticated mechanical computer equipment. Actually, he was one of
the first people to use electrical um tabulating devices. Yeah,
we're getting into the electro mechanical era here. So yeah,
but I mean you didn't you didn't buy that necessarily,
you would rent that from someone. And we're actually you
might wonder what these tabulating devices were used for. Well,
(16:45):
they were often I mean they were used to classify
information in a way that could be sorted and categorized
in various ways relatively quickly, you know, much more quickly
than humans could. In fact, it was originally used for
the Census. He worked for hollow Reth worked for the
Census in eighteen eight I believe, and he actually his
boss was saying, it would be really nice we could
come up with a machine to cut down on all
(17:05):
this work, because this is a real pain in the neck.
So we did. Yeah, and this this invention plays a
much darker role in a few years, and we'll touch
on that because it is an important element of IBM's history.
But I think that's why Pugh started with Hollywrith was
because that is the most computer alike of all the things,
of all the the original businesses that CTR was involved with. Yeah. So,
(17:27):
so just a couple of highlights in the early years
of Watson's uh um, what am I gonna call it?
Watson being the president general manager of of ctr U.
They have the company's implementation of electric synchronization for the
control and regulation of complete time and programming systems. Yep,
(17:49):
and that's that's true, um, now that you pointed out,
I mean, they introduced the first electric synchronized time clock
system UM, which again is very computer like, just a
component that's part of that. And I'd just like to
add one sort of foreshadowing date. A couple of years
before that, in nineteen seventeen, UH, CTR decided to enter Canada,
(18:13):
UH and decided instead of using CTR they would use
a different name. They decided to call themselves International Business Machines. Yeah,
so in nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen they registered that
name in New York, but did not use it at
that time. So uh yeah. And in nineteen twenty they
introduced the lock Autograph Recorder, which was the first complete
school time control system. They also launched the electric accounting machines,
(18:37):
so that's kind of a predecessor to the calculator. Ah.
And they acquired a company called the ticket O Graph
Company of Chicago in nineteen twenty one, and they also
started buying up more patents IBM to this day has
more than a thousand patents. They had more than a
thousand in the seventies, but yes, far more than a thousand, so,
(18:59):
and some of those were developed in house and some
of them they've purchased. So in those early years, we
get up to February fourteenth, Valentine's Day, nineteen twenty four.
Watson has an idea. Yes, he decides that this IBM
name that they're using in Canada as a good name,
and that it should it really reflects the business more
(19:20):
than CTR does. UM. The business at this point is international.
They have offices elsewhere besides the United States, and so
they think, well, we're gonna rebrand ourselves. We're gonna be
called International Business Machines or IBM UM. And by now,
so this is ten years after he's he's taken the reins.
The the gross income for the company is that remember
(19:44):
it was at four million before, it's at eleven million
now with the net earnings of around two million. And
there there's more than three thousand employees, so they've essentially
doubled the size of the number of employees that that
that they hired. Yes, now, UM, going back to for
a second, to holler his his tabu lighting machines used
punched cards, which we've talked about in the past. Um.
(20:06):
In nine they introduced the first electric key punch. Now
to record information on these punch cards, you have to
have something that pops out. The little chats um actually
just punches a hole in the right spot. Right. Originally
they did use a circular punch like you would see
in you know, a traditional hole punch. UM, but they
were they were becoming more sophisticated, adding this functionality along
(20:29):
as they went. UM and Uh. The punched card could
now hold as much as eighty columns worth of information UM,
which also helped out significantly with what they could do. UM.
And then of course we're getting close to the Great
Depression in ninety. Yeah, here's an interesting thing. So in
nineteen thirty you get the Great Depression, but IBM still
(20:50):
does pretty well. Right, they're not they're not hurting as
badly as other companies. In fact, at that point their
gross income was nineteen million dollars and their net earnings
seven million dollars with sixty three hundred employees. So IBM
is actually employing people at the same time the other
folks are finding themselves out of work. So IBM was
actually doing quite well well. Of course, you know at
(21:11):
that time people were laying people off because they couldn't
afford we're going out of business entirely. Um. Meanwhile, this
would these machines would help people streamline their business efforts.
They wouldn't have to hire as many humans to do
the works well, and I mean they kept on developing
other things. They developed a public address and signaling system
for schools. They called it the schoolmaster's joke. That just sounds.
(21:36):
That just sounds so I don't know, sinister anyway. So
now we're two decades out from when Watson took control.
They remember they're grossing around nineteen million and earning around
seven millions. That's a much more than the four million
and one million from two decades before. And they're employing
seven thousand, six hundred thirteen people. So yeah, the company,
(21:57):
the company is really doing well and the development is
really just gonna explode over the next few decades, like
to the point where it's it's almost impossible to believe
how big it got. I had my first snicker moment
U because it apparently they decided to divest themselves of
the Scale division. So they sold it to Hobart, which
(22:23):
if you if you're thinking back and going, I know,
I know that name, it's because they're still in business
and it's apparently from from want to understand, Mr Watson
was a little concerned because, as it turns out, immediately
that business took off after the after they got rid
of it. So well there you go at. They can't
(22:43):
always do everything well all the time, right, well, you know,
they made it a decision based on what they thought
would happen, and in five IBM introduced the International Proof Machine,
which synchronized twenty four adding machines together, and it was
meant to process checks in banks as meant as a
(23:04):
processing system behind the scenes, but eventually people found other
uses for it and you could think of it as
a precursor to the computer. Um it could only do.
It had a limited number of operations that could do
and uh, it wasn't a true computer in the sense
that we think of today, but it showed that by
you know, IBM was thinking, how can we create more
(23:26):
sophisticated devices without necessarily making bigger ones. In this case,
it was linking lots of lots of different adding machines together. Now,
keeping think about what we're talking about here. As we're
going on through this timeline, IBM is finding ways to
make crunching numbers easier. They're they're finding new ways to
to compress the number of items you could put in
(23:48):
a punch card. They're finding new ways to link machines
together to increase processing power with these machines. And no,
we don't think of that in terms of again, the
IBM laptops that we're using as we record the podcast
obviously have far more processing power than that. But gradually,
over time they're innovating and coming up with new ideas.
(24:09):
In thirty five they also came up with the first
successful electric typewriter. Yep, yep. So now we'll get more
into the electric typewriters. A little later in thirty seven
they introduced a test scoring machine. Um, so this is
kind of all you folks out there get to play
those take those standardized tests. This is sort of the
(24:30):
grandfather to those machines, the Scantron type stuff. But this
is this was a little earlier than that, but still
same principle. They came out with the pencil marks sensing reproducer,
which reproducer. Uh yeah, of course everyone's taking these tests
on computers now. So in between thirty seven and forty
there's a little event, big event. We have a little
(24:51):
big event. Yeah. So world War two here's where we
got to get in some problematic stuff. There was an
IBM subsidiary company called de Homag Deutsch hollerth Machine and
Gazelle Shuft and that was the that was the full name.
So yeah, just just as an aside um, Mr hollow
Earth had been working on building the business internationally even
(25:14):
before he sold tod CTR, so you know they he
had businesses around the world already. Now they were small,
but they were divisions of his company, and yes, this
is one of them. So yeah, this was kind of
an IBM subsidiary that Hollerwath actually ended up selling of
the company back to IBM because the company was in
some financial problems. World War One bankrupted Germany, right, I
(25:40):
mean Germany was in dire economic straits after World War
One and this this company was affected by that. So
part of in order to stay solvent, they sold ninety
pc of the company back to IBM. So IBM owns
this company. And here's where things get really dark and murky.
There's an author and researcher by the name of Edwin
Black who wrote a full book about IBM and its
(26:02):
role possibly connected to the Holocaust, and now Black alleges
that IBM was not just um uh aware of what
was happening, but somewhat complicit in what was happening. Ibm
UH They they obviously do not agree with that assessment.
And in fact, the more you know about Watson, I mean,
(26:25):
I don't know. I didn't know these people clearly, but
the more I learned about Watson, the less I was
convinced that he was the sort of person who would
actively be complicit in this. But here's what happened. Dio
magg made this tabulation uh products and Hitler was very
much interested in getting to know exactly how many Jews
(26:47):
were in Germany at the time, and so they were
using this tabulating process to track people, to to classify
people as either being Jewish or not Jewish. And by
classifying generations of people, they could actually track people back
if they if they claim that they weren't Jewish, they
you know, the Germans could look at the generation before
(27:07):
the generation before them and see if there were any
Jewish ancestors and if there were those, you know, the
people would be classified as being Jewish. This came into
play both in the ghettoization of the Jewish communities where
Jews were pushed into ghettos and then later during the
actual Holocaust. So Dio mag was played a big part
(27:30):
in in the third Reich's plan to to eliminate the Jews.
And it's a tragic, horrible story. And Black in his
book alleges that Watson himself was part of this, that
he was taking advantage of the situation in order to
make a profit. Uh, there is some stuff that kind
of points to Watson being uh at least at least
(27:53):
a part plays a part in this, and that Hitler
awarded Watson a medal. It was the Eagle with Star Metal.
But I should point out that in n Watson returned
the medal. He had been torn by this because apparently,
at least according to IBM, Watson at first thought that
the medal was on behalf of his work to try
(28:14):
and establish world peace, because Watson actually was concerned about
creating a peaceful global environment, and that when he became
convinced that that was not the case, he felt that
it was necessary to return the medal, which in turn
infuriated Hitler and reportedly Hitler then said that Watson would
never again be welcome in Germany. Uh once the United
(28:38):
States and Germany entered World War two. Once once the
war was declared between the two countries, Germany took control
of De Homag and it was no longer under ibm
s control at all. It was completely under German government control.
So how involved was IBM. According to IBM, they were,
you know, it was a subsidiary company. They did not
(29:00):
have control over it. They had owned they owned um
interest in it, but they were not the ones making
the decisions. So it's it's, like I said, a murky,
complicated part of IBM's past, and it's if you read
Edwin Black's book, it paints a much darker picture for
IBM than what IBM says. I honestly don't know the truth.
(29:21):
I cannot. I'm not going to pass judgment because I
don't know. And also I should add that Watson has
had really backed a lot of humanitarian efforts before and
after World War Two, which again kind of suggests that
he was not taking this complicit role. Right. Um, what
I just meant to say was that there are situations
(29:43):
regarding many companies and individuals and it's unclear, uh, you
know many people I've read about and which you know,
how much they knew about what was truly going on,
how whether or not they were being recruited to the cause,
whether they were being uh and bridge to supply continue
supplying when it was obvious that, um, there was a
(30:05):
genocide going on. And and IBM for its part, also
began to work very closely with the United States military
in producing various parts and pieces that were being used
in military applications. So there's that as well well the
the I know that the United States used IBM equipment
(30:26):
to work on codebreaking. Yep, so that's that's certainly were
contributing to the Allied war effort, certainly, yes, yes, So
moving beyond that that horrible story, UM, IBM really in
the in the forties began to work on developing calculators
that that became a big focus of IBM's business. They
(30:47):
were still working on tabulating and time recording devices as
well as various other kinds of adding machines and uh
they uh they founded the Watson Science of Fit Computing
laboratory at Columbia University in New York. That that's true,
that's true. UM, yeah, not too long before that, shortly
(31:07):
before the war's in, IBM uh gave a large scale computer,
the first of its kind to the called the Automatic
Sequence Controlled Calculator to Harvard UM. So they're certainly an
interested in education at that point. So we're getting close
to wrapping up this first episode of the IBM history
and the reason for that is we're very quickly approaching
(31:31):
the time when IBM introduces the first production computer for
scientific calculations, which is the seven oh one, and that
was introduced in nineteen fifty two. We'll we'll probably pick
up I would say, probably at the seven oh one
for our next podcast, and we'll we'll move up to uh.
I think we'll go from the seven oh one to
(31:51):
just before the the personal computer era for IBM because,
like we said, this company very large, has a very
long and and storied history. UM. And you know this again,
this was like the cliffs Notes version to the cliffs
Notes version to IBM's history, because you can't cover everything
(32:12):
they've done unless you were to do you can dedicate
a full podcast just IBM like not not not an episode,
an entire podcast. Yes, yes, and I mean there are
other important computing developments going on here, like um, uh,
the very large project at the More School of Electrical
Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, you know in
(32:32):
the late nineteen four mid late nineteen FOURI is called
I don't know, maybe you've heard of it, Aniac, I
think so. Wasn't that a muppet? Um? Yes, I have,
But yeah, there are This is a period of advanced
advanced scientific development as far as computers are concerned. Um,
(32:53):
the code breaking, the skills that computer programmers were using
and trying to break codes, um, and trying to advance
computing development, this is all accelerating an immense pace at
this point. Yeah. We we've reached the level of mechanic
electro mechanical computers already, and electronic computers are right around
the bend. So let's let's conclude this episode. We will
(33:16):
pick up in nineteen fifty two and we will move
on from there. And uh, you know, you guys, if
you have if you would like us to cover specific
companies that are were, you know, are or were instrumental
in the technology fields, let us know. We've talked before
about companies like Apple and Microsoft, and both of those
will come up pretty soon in this podcast series. Um,
(33:39):
and let's you know, if you if there's some other company,
maybe Intel or A and D or uh, you know,
I don't know, Infocom, anything you want to hear about,
let us know. We will. We will look into it
and cover it. Perhaps not all of them will warrant,
you know, multi episodes like IBM does, but we're happy
to cover them, and we'll probably have to move off
and do some thing else for a while, come back
(34:01):
and do another company podcast. Yeah, yeah, no, we'll we'll
definitely put some space between these IBM episodes and the
next focus on a company, because you know, we don't
want to just get ourselves stuck into that routine. So
guys just let us know. You can let's know on
Twitter or Facebook are handled there is tech stuff hs
W or shoot us an email. That address is tech
(34:21):
stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and
I will taught to you again really soon. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com To learn more about the podcast. Clock
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the
(34:46):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.