Don DeBold from San Jose, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Type: Supercomputer
Presentation: Released in May 1961
Weight: 32 tonnes
Processor: 64-bit processing unit
Memory: 2048 KB
Operating System: MCP, SOS (Stretch Operating System, written by the BYU Scientific Computing Center as an updgrade to MCP), STRAP (STRETCH Assembly Program, an assembler), compilers/interpreters for the FORTRAN, COLASL, and IVY programming languages
Notes: The 7030 was IBM's first transistorised supercomputer. It was designed to meet a requirement formulated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by physicist Edward Teller. Despite being the world's most powerful computer until the introduction of the CDC 6600 in 1964, the 7030 was actually much slower compared to IBM's expectations, and fell short its ambitious performance goal. In a 2008 article, PC World annoverated the IBM Stretch as one of IT history's biggest project management failures. However, the 7030 was later used as one of the basis for the development of the far more succesful IBM System/360 family of mainframe computers.
