{"id":132408,"date":"2015-07-27T14:57:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T12:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=132408"},"modified":"2015-07-27T14:59:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T12:59:12","slug":"south-africas-first-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/132408-south-africas-first-computers.html","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s first computers"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa has a rich computing history, with some of the first machines in the country dating back to 1921 when tabulating equipment from the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company – IBM\u2019s predecessor – was used in SA.<\/p>\n

The next milestone for South Africa was when the government bought a modern \u201celectronic tabulator\u201d from IBM in 1952. It was also the year IBM South Africa was formed.<\/p>\n

The most desired machine at the time was the IBM 407 Accounting Machine<\/a><\/strong> – the last and best of the all-electromechanical IBM accounting machines (also known as tabulators).<\/p>\n

The IBM 407 prepared reports and records from punched cards. The Columbia University explained that<\/a><\/strong> it read a deck of punched cards on its integrated card reader at a rate of 100 to 150 cards per minute.<\/p>\n

The computing device then accumulated totals, subtotals, and other statistics in counters made of gears, and printed the results on its integrated 132-column line printer.<\/p>\n

The IBM 407 had a control panel which was wired to specify the details of the desired operation: what card columns to read, what to do with them, and how to format the report.<\/p>\n

Early programmers also found ways to make the IBM 407 act as an input\/output device, making it more than a mere calculating unit.<\/p>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 407<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 407 on the inside<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 407 in operation<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 407 panel<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Plugboard<\/a>

Plugboard for the IBM 407<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 407 without a front cover<\/p><\/div>\n

The first \u201creal\u201d computers in South Africa<\/h3>\n

IBM told MyBroadband that the first IBM 305 RAMAC<\/a><\/strong> in South Africa was delivered to a brokerage firm in 1959.<\/p>\n

The IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) was the first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard disk drive for secondary storage.<\/p>\n

The IBM 305 RAMAC<\/strong><\/a> was an electronic general purpose data processing machine that maintained business records on a real-time basis.<\/p>\n

The 305 was one of the last vacuum tube systems designed by IBM, and more than 1,000 of them were built before production ended in 1961.<\/p>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 305 RAMAC<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 305 RAMAC<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 305 RAMAC mechanism<\/p><\/div>\n

\"RAMAC<\/a>

RAMAC platter<\/p><\/div>\n

First IBM 1401 in South Africa<\/h3>\n

In 1960, the first IBM 1401<\/a><\/strong> data processing system in South Africa was installed in the IBM Service Bureau in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

The all-transistorised IBM 1401 data processing system was first unveiled\u00a0in October 1959. The computer weighed about five tons and had 16 kilobytes of memory.<\/p>\n

The IBM 1401 was the company\u2019s first affordable general-purpose computer, and placed the features found in electronic data processing systems at the disposal of small businesses.<\/p>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 1401<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IBM<\/a>

IBM 1401 Advertisement<\/p><\/div>\n

First computer at a university<\/h3>\n

Rhodes University was the first university in South Africa to install a computer – an ICT 1301<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in November 1965.<\/p>\n

Mike Lawrie was the customer engineer for the computer, who said one of the “fun” things run on the device\u00a0was a dating program for the Arts and Science Ball in September 1967.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was that the computer would give you a shortlist of possible partners to invite to the Ball,\u201d said Lawrie.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of 1969, the 1301 computer was replaced with an ICL 1901A, and a few years later by an ICL 1902T.<\/p>\n

\"ICT<\/a>

ICT 1301<\/p><\/div>\n

\"ICT<\/a>

ICT 1301<\/p><\/div>\n

More on the history of IT in South Africa<\/h3>\n

The History of Internet access in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

South African broadband speeds: 2008 to 2014<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

How the internet started in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa received its first computing device in 1921, with the country’s first real computer delivered to a brokerage firm in 1959. Here is a look at the country’s early computing history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":132735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[31618,35,835,31622,31687,31616,31614,31620,31612],"class_list":["post-132408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-burroughs","tag-headline","tag-ibm","tag-ibm-1401","tag-ibm-305-ramac","tag-ibm-407","tag-ict-1301","tag-ncr","tag-south-africa-first-computer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132514,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132408\/revisions\/132514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}