Front panel switches - what did they do?

[Dave Wade]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
> Sent: 25 May 2016 20:54
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Front panel switches - what did they do?
> 
> On 05/25/2016 12:35 PM, Dave Wade wrote:
> 
> > According to Wikip around 10,000 1130's were sold.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130
> >
> > one salesman claims to have sold 1,000.  They were dotted about all
> > over the place, so when I was a Student in the UK Newcastle University
> > had a 360/67. The Polytechnic where I studied had an 1130 as an RJE
> > station, as did Durham University, the "Gas Board", and the British
> > Ship Research Council.
> 
> I had no idea!   I've programmed an 1130, but it seemed to be rather
> limited, but maybe that was what contributed to its popularity and low cost.

They were rather limited in computing terms, but it was easy to add custom i/o to them. There were lots of application packages, so I believe that many were used for specialist tasks. 
I bet both the Ship Research and the Gas Board used them with CSMP for solving differential equations. There was ECAP a circuit modelling program.  It really was sold as a departmental or personal computer.

> 
> Does that number also include the 1800?
> 

I don't think so. According to http://ethw.org/IBM_1800  about 2,000 IBM 1800's were sold..

> --Chuck

Dave