IBM 7074 and then some: "Systems we love" conference

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017, Eric Smith wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 8:07 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
>> "Transactions of Society of Actuaries"
>> 1959, Volume 11, Number 31


On a system like that, how much time could elapse between, "We (customer) 
are switching to..."?
decision
planning
negotiating
contract
begin manufacturer of first bespoke component
finish manufacture of last bespoke component
begin shipping
delivery of last awaited part
begin installation
complete assembly and turn on power
initial diagnostic IPL
diagnostics
redo whatever needs redoing
first IPL to actually begin customer's data processing

'twould seem that there could be a moderately substantial amount of time 
between the customer saying, "we are getting" V "we are now using"

Even the phrase "shipped" need not be when the customer starts printing 
out the nine billion names of god.   (1953, so it predates the 7074)

> imagine them getting a date wrong, but it seems pretty surprising that they
> would specifically claim that the 7070 was announced far before the 7090
> but shipped six months after, if that wasn't true.
> IBM generally didn't consider a data processing system to have "shipped"
> until it passed the field acceptance criteria, e.g., assembled on-site and
> passed diagnostics. Perhaps the 7070 didn't pass acceptance testing until
> April 1960?

Yep,
That is implied, but not explicitly confirmed by the customer saying,
"we are switching to..."


ANY "FIRST" will run into overlaps between the ways that the "first" date 
can be chosen and marked for multiple products in development.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com