1956 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES IBM PROGRESS REPORT MAINFRAME COMPUTERS XD13644

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit / periscopefilm
Visit our website www.PeriscopeFilm.com
This black & white educational film is about the progress of IBM as a company and what their products are and will be. This was made in 1956.
Opening (no credits): Film dedicated to the late Thomas J. Watson, who served as the CEO of International Business Machines. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. A message from Thomas Watson, Jr. Watson, Jr. was the son of Thomas J. Watson, and the 2nd company president. He served as the chairman and CEO during IBM's most explosive period of growth, leading the company from the age of mechanical tabulators and typewriters into the computer era. Members of his team are introduced: Executive President L.H. LaMotte, Executive President A.L. Williams, President of the World Trade Corporation A.K. Watson, Vice President T.V. Learson, and Vice President H.W. Miller Jr. (:08-4:40). Credits: IBM Corporation Progress Report (6:10-6:50). Walter Cronkite talks about IBM and presents company statistics (6:51-8:15). 3500 Become Customer Engineers. Endicott, NY, a customer engineer student listens to J.J. Kenny, vice president of service, as he gives an address. The student looks at a machine and starts to open it (8:16-11:36). IBM Builds Six New Plants. Executive President A.L. Williams, Vice President H.W. Miller Jr., and R.F. Boedecker, manager of facilities planning. A new electric typewriter plant in Lexington, KY. Owego, NY, military products division. Sherman, TX, new punch card plant. Endicott, NY, a modern education building. Kingston, NY, the giant SAGE computer (SAGE was designed to detect atomic bomb-carrying Soviet bombers and guide missiles to intercept them) and the electric typewriter are built there. H. W. Reese Jr., general manager of electric typewriter division. Rochester, MN plant, scheduled for completion in 1957. San Jose, CA, construction (11:37-15:13). Research Laboratory Opens In Switzerland. Zurich, Switzerland, a car drives to the IBM plant in town. Thomas Watson Jr. and A. K. Watson walk towards the plant (15:14-17:08). Production Line For Computers in Endicott, NY. IBM 650 computers. Assembly of an IBM 700 and 705. The 705 has a magnetic core memory unit to remember 40,000 individual characters. Women assemble transistors. Interior of the 608 computer (17:09-20:07). Press Previews New Products. Norfolk, VA where the IBM 350 Ramac's are made. Sign for the U.S. Naval Air Station in Norfolk. Executive President L.H. LaMotte and G.E. Jones, division sales manager describe the machine. IBM 350 Ramac is shown. Broome County Airport. Endicott, NY, Greyhound bus. Thomas J. Watson, Jr talks about the new products. Vice President T.V. Learson demonstrates the IBM 650. A electric typewriter (20:08-23:09). Computer Program Aids Education. Stanford University in California.650 and 700 IBM computers (23:10-24:57). New IBM Subsidiary Formed. Men at a table plan: O.M. Scott leads the new corporation SBC (Service Bureau Corporation), W.T. McGloughlin, the manager of field operations, points at a map. IBM 650 computers at work. IBM 700 computer. O.M. Scott, T.W. McClane, vice president of SBC, Bruce Oldfield, NY Data processing manager.(24:58-28:22). IBM On Display, Paris and New York. River Seine, the Eiffel Tower. A sign for Salon International, de L'equipment de Bureau. IBM tent. Typewriters & clocks. New York City, NY Coliseum where IBM unveiled new products at the National Business Show. Featured is: the new file feed for the 83 Sorter. Card proof punch machine, features of Ramac 720 printer. Electronic typewriters (28:23-31:14). SAGE Builds U.S. Defenses. People hustle towards a military jet. Outposts of SAGE. Military Products Division in Kingston, NY, a car pulls up. General Alfred R. Maxwell, commander of Rome AFB, with IBM execs. New SAGE computers shown. R.P. Krego, general manager of the military products plant explains. Jet interceptors fly (31:15-33:19). Planners For the Future. Men at a table sit and discuss: W.W. Simmons, M.J. Cammy, P.O. Crawford, Jr., P.F. Lewis and K.B. McGloughlin. They talk about how computers of the future will benefit mankind (33:20-34:37). Walter Cronkite wraps up (34:38-35:33). End credits (35:34-35:41).
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference."
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com

[@Starchface]

Absolutely loving this progress for the benefit of all mankind. Under the guiding light of Thomas J Watson, 1957 is sure to be a watershed year!

[@2sk21]

This film is a real gem - a wonderful time capsule

[@Triassic_Pickle]

Walter Cronkite

[@TheDavejmcknight]

I completely agree 👍

[@Spookieham]

When i first started dealing with IBM in the mid 80s and early 90s they were the gold standard in just about everything. Now in 2023 they are synonymous with terrible staff treatment and poor service.

[@charlieb.5760]

I'm glad Endicott, Plant #1, is mentioned and shown here.

[@workstuff79]

Way better than watching on my Steenbeck. Great job.

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

12:36 interesting how the factory design is very similar to that of the (now demolished) production building on the former IBM Cottle Road Campus

[@desmond-hawkins]

19:10 crazy to see the size of the transistors in the IBM 650, with someone manipulating it with tweezers. How big is that, half an inch? While now transistors are in the single-digit nanometers in size, with 300M transistors per square millimeter (!!) in a 3nm process.

[@Spookieham]

You hear that sound? That's Thomas Watson spinning like a top when he sees what a joke IBM is now and how it treats it's employees.

[@kreuner11]

They're doing fine

[@barbarakilpatrick3859]

Jewelry!😊

[@jamesslick4790]

I had a late 1950s Model "B" electric typewriter in the 70s, A local real estate company upgraded to Selectrics (Selectric II ?) I forget now. Even as a 15 year old machine it was great! Had the best feeling keyboard (an IBM tradition!) It weighed as much as a 50s Buick, and every bit as solid as a 50s Buick! Sadly I sold it in the early 80s. (who knew old typewriters would be collectible!)

[@paulaharrisbaca4851]

My mom, who was a secretary in the days of "Mad Men" and who could write shorthand, absolutely loved the Selectric. She was always hoping I'd be a glamorous writer who traveled the world and so bought me an Olivetti, but I preferred her Selectric for typing papers for class, and so she disappointedly gave me her old Selectric. I believe my older brother has that still, as he bought my mom's house and everything in it after she died. My oldest brother has (or had) a real classic, the manual Remington typewriter, which practically broke your forefinger if you were a 4 year old hunt-and-peck little kid (and yes, I played with typing words on her typewriter. The ribbon was always getting stuck and my fingers would be black with hand-reeling the ribbon.)

[@markreeter6227]

Big Blue.

[@Y2Kvids]

nice company

[@satanofficial3902]

Except for that bit about IBM providing technology to the Nazis that enormously helped the Nazis do their slaughter-y thang with greater... efficiency....

[@satanofficial3902]

Company execs can be more than extremely ethics-challenged.

[@Spookieham]

@@satanofficial3902 the kit was supplied in the late 30s long before the war when the US was neutral and would sell to anyone.

[@Mark_Ocain]

Endicott's a ghost town these days

[@rayrafferty3180]

"This was a great time to work at IBM. Respect for the individual employee was a key belief. Promised were good benefits and a job for life which gave employees security in their lives and IBM a loyal and dedicated workforce. All theses concepts slowly started eroding away with the exit of the Watson family and in the early 1990's died with the first layoffs being the nail in the coffin. Now IBM is just another insecure company to work for who doesn't give a rat's butt about its employees or their families. Ah, progress.

[@JeffreyOrnstein]

At 32:35....sshhhh.....it’s an iPad, which will be introduced in about 60 years.

[@kreuner11]

Its something behind glass

[@paulaharrisbaca4851]

Kinda strange the time period PeriscopeFilm put this out. I wonder if there is a point to be made about what happens to great companies over the years once the founder and his ideas are gone and ruthless greedy globalists decide to run things with "diversity". Like what Tim Cook is doing to Steve Jobs' Apple (no matter how big of a jerk Jobs was, but he was his own boss) and what the various globalist CEOs have done to Walt Disney's company, allowing the exact type of people he felt were the worst sorts of people, who enjoyed taking advantage of people through deception and lies, which many cultures consider honorable ways of creating wealth. KZbin itself was flattered by the big money and interest that corporate media took in their little idea. Now that globalist Google bought their marvelous idea, you see what has happened to it. Censorship and the forcing of the giant, ahem, giant fingers down the throat of a modest little company and making it take all its mainstream corporate media, thus making KZbin into TheirTube, as some KZbinrs have said. There was a time when big corporations were swallowing up small companies and just selling them out piecemeal. I think it was "Other People's Money" with Danny DeVito and Gregory Peck, during the "greed is good" 1980's, that pointed that out. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYC3naSplM9nf6c

[@jamesslick4790]

The "720" printer can do 500 lines a minute!?! My 2019 vintage HP printer does 500 lines a WEEK. 6 decades later, and some technology is WORSE! 😛

[@dwightl5863]

In the 60's the speed was a 1,000 lines a minute. If the cover wasn't on it, it could fast slew paper fast enough to stack it on the ceiling.

[@Spookieham]

Line printers are very different technologies destined to hammer out lines of text at extremely high speed

[@richardgray8593]

The wonderful world of white people.

[@jormaple]

You can't find a company more diverse than IBM at this moment.

[@desmond-hawkins]

@@jormaple It's really not that hard to find companies more diverse than IBM. From IBM's diversity report in 2020: 6.9% black, 6.3% hispanic, 18.9% asian, 33.9% women. Compare to Apple: 9% black, 14% hispanic, 27% asian, 34% women. Definitely not the most diverse company, by far. See Mariott for example: 20% black, 30% hispanic, 12% asian, 53% women. IBM is far from it.

[@retrobilly1986]

That’s a very racist comment.

[@richardgray8593]

@@retrobilly1986 Point out the people of color, then. I missed it.

[@TweedProductions]

It was a great time.