On July 2, 1953, IBM announced its 650 series of computers, the first mass-produced computer, and the dominant computer of the decade. The IBM 650 stored information on a rotating magnetic drum and received it on programmed punch cards. Its memory stored numbers with up to 10 decimal digits.
The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is one of IBM’s early computers and the world’s first mass-produced computer. It was announced in 1953 and in 1956 enhanced as the IBM 650 RAMAC with the addition of up to four disk storage units. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962.
The first 650 was installed on December 8, 1954, in the controller’s department of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in Boston. The IBM 7070 (signed 10-digit decimal words), announced 1958, was expected to be a “common successor to at least the 650 and the [IBM] 705”
