“No paper moving cartridge!”“No type bars!”
“Prints faster than the eye can see.”
The old school way to change fonts. Turns 53 today. #TBT
10 years ago
45 years ago, we were there, too.
10 years ago
Really? Really.
10 years ago
“5 Reasons to Love ‘Mad Men’s’ New Star: The IBM 360"
via NBCNews →
And for Throwback Thursday, here’s one of the original ads.
10 years ago
Yes, they put the IBM System/360 on TV. No, they haven’t jumped the shark.
“5 Reasons to Love ‘Mad Men’s’ New Star: The IBM 360"
via NBCNews →
10 years ago
They’ve got the heavy drinking, the heavy smoking and now the heavy computing.
“5 Reasons to Love ‘Mad Men’s’ New Star: The IBM 360"
via NBCNews →
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
From the top
The 1964 World’s Fair was held in Queens, New York. Covering almost a square mile (2.6 km2) of land, it was one of the largest world’s fairs ever held in the U.S. Today the Queen’s Zoo, the Mets at Citi Field and the US Open tennis tournament all call this area home. And as a long-term sponsor of tennis, you could say that IBM never completely left the fairgrounds.
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
The Automatic Language Translator
Another World’s Fair crowd pleaser was the IBM Automatic Language Translator. In a live demonstration, the computer translated Russian text into English in a matter of seconds.
The most amazing part was that the translation wasn’t created from a computerized ‘dictionary search’ but from the analysis of both languages’ complex nuances and shades of meaning, syntax and grammar. To think that 50 years later, we have smart phones with translation apps for just about every language spoken. Очень здорово. Translation: Very cool.
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
Popcorn, 50 feet up
The showpiece of the IBM Pavilion was the massive Ovoid Theatre. Once seated in the “People Wall”, the audience was lifted 50 feet into the belly of the theater by a massive hydraulic lift for a screening of the film “Information Machine” on multiple large screens. One of the film’s topics? “The similarity of methods that are used by the human mind and computers to solve problems.” Meanwhile, Mary Poppins was a box-office hit, women were wearing pant suits and the cost of a First Class postage stamp was 5¢.
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
The Probability Machine
The odds were high that this attraction would delight the masses with its use of the Theory of Relativity. And it certainly did. The Probability Machine, looking like an upside-down pinball machine demonstrated how science uses probability to detect the laws of order in this world of random events.
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
Bird? Plane? It’s the Ovoid Theatre host
One of the most popular attractions at the World’s Fair was IBM’s multimedia experience, the Information Machine, held inside the Ovoid Theatre. Orchestrating the show was a host who’d drop down from overhead on a tiny platform, welcome guests and disappear again up into the theater. Once guests were inside, he’d reappear on a balcony and narrate the show from beginning to the end.
10 years ago
World’s Fair 50:
Roberta Peters hits a high note
Metropolitan Opera star Roberta Peters performs at the IBM Pavilion with an aria from La Traviata. The sign in the background reads “50 Years of Progress,” which from where we sit now, 50 years on, means IBM can actually lay claim to over 100 years of progress. History really does repeat itself.
10 years ago
