Researching IBM rare equipment from 50s to 80s

[Jay Jaeger]

On 12/14/2018 4:41 AM, Peter Van Peborgh via cctech wrote:
> Fellow geeks of more mature vintage,
> 
> Do any of you guys know whether it is possible to find out to whom any IBM
> equipment was sold back in the day? (Still chasing IBM 2321 Data Cell - I
> never learn!)
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> peter
> 

Well, if your intention is to actually find one, can't help.

I do know that Wisconsin DOT had one back in the day, on an IBM 360/50,
but it was gone before I started work there.  I think that I have a
large negative of the beastie lying around somewhere.  No, it is not
stuffed anywhere.  Indeed the building that formerly housed it (and was
home for me during my career) was razed just this year.

In general, even if IBM still had such records, I am sure that they
would not release them, and doubt that they would be indexed in fine
detail such that you could find customers of any particular machine type
(unless they fed them to Watson ;) ).  Leased units would have been
turned back into IBM.  Purchased units would have been mostly traded in
and scrapped.

A Google Search found these instances of customer units (there may well
be more - I stopped after a few pages)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/datacell.html

https://www.facebook.com/HealthManagementTechnology/photos/ibm-2321-data-cell-drive/1324757777567020/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IBM2321DataCellAtUMich.jpg




JRJ