[SIGCIS-Members] Computer sales records

Tue Sep 22 19:04:19 PDT 2020

Thomas,

Your table "begs" for an entry with an installed base of 1.  Earlier today
I posted re: the ABC computer which was "built at Iowa State University
(then called Iowa State College) from 1937 to 1942" - do you want to have
that perhaps be the very first entry?

Brian Berg

On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 5:47 PM Allan Olley <allan.olley at utoronto.ca> wrote:

> Tom,
>         At the risk of getting lost in the weeds of "what is a computer",
> there is probably a case to be made that the Card Programmed Calculator
> as the first computer to have more than 100 sales/installations/rentals
> (and more than 10).
>         A quick check of IBM archives tells me it had 20 installations in
> 1949 when it was inaugrated and 700 by the mid-50s. However there were at
> least two versions of the CPC and it is arguably a calculator and not a
> computer.
>         It was programmable enough that things such as an arrangement to
> make it handle floating point were widely shared, on the other hand I get
> the sense some plugging was involved and it and limited programming
> flexibility. Someone who actually knows the nitty gritty of control for it
> and cares about a strict definition of what is or isn't a computer would
> probably be better qualified then me to judge the case.
>         The sales numbers are clear the "computer" part very unclear.
>
> --
> Yours Truly,
> Allan Olley, PhD
>
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/
>
> On Tue, 22 Sep 2020, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Hello SIGCIS,
> >
> >
> >
> > I’ve been emailing back and forth with Allan and David, and we appear to
> have
> > converged on a sense that a 400 lb roll might plausibly been around 4
> feet in
> > diameter and that photos of the SSEC show space for rolls of at least 3
> feet in
> > diameter, maybe as much as 4. So I am inclined to credit the testimony
> of Grosch as
> > being at most a small exaggeration. If you look at one of the classic
> SSEC images at
> > http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec.html, the tape rolls
> are the three
> > large round things at the top of the machine on the back wall. Each
> punch was
> > directly above 10 tape readers, and it appears that the tape emerging
> from the punch
> > could be threaded through all 10 readers to create a buffer memory with
> 10 chances to
> > read each piece of data.
> >
> >
> >
> > So with that and the hard drive platter taken care of, here is my next
> batch of
> > candidate records. I am trying a “power of 10” approach to computer
> sales (or in the
> > early days, leasing) records with the first machine to hit each
> milestone. This has
> > the advantage that I don’t need to try to figure out exactly with of the
> many
> > estimates of CBM 64 and iPhone 6 sales are accurate, just satisfy myself
> that they
> > were the first to exceed the threshold.
> >
> >
> >
> > Installed base in excess of…
> >
> > first achieved by…
> >
> > during sales years.
> >
> >                             10
> >
> > IBM 701
> >
> > 1952-1954
> >
> >                           100
> >
> > Probably IBM 650
> >
> > 1954-1962
> >
> >                       1,000
> >
> > IBM 650
> >
> > 1954-1962
> >
> >                     10,000
> >
> > IBM 1401
> >
> > 1959-1971
> >
> >                  100,000
> >
> > TRS-80 Model 1
> >
> > 1977-1980
> >
> >               1,000,000
> >
> > CBM VIC 20
> >
> > 1981-1985
> >
> >            10,000,000
> >
> > CBM 64
> >
> > 1982-1994
> >
> > 100,000,000
> >
> > Apple iPhone 6
> >
> > 2014-2018
> >
> >
> >
> > Points of possible uncertainty:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1: was the IBM 650 the first to 100 as well as to 1,000? Seems likely.
> >
> > 2: At the time that Commodore claimed the VIC 20 as the first million
> selling
> > computer, claims were also made for the ZX81 as the first computer to
> sell a million.
> > If anyone wants to make a case for Sinclair I will listen.
> >
> > 3: In case any Apple fans are about to speak up, re the idea that the
> TRS-80 was
> > first to sell 100K, let me explain my logic preemptively. I am going
> from a
> > combination of this advertisement from Computer World 18 Oct, 1979
> celebrating
> > 100,000 sold:
> https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_
> > summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false and these plausible seeming
> estimates of Apple II
> > sales by model(
> https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/459/over-its-lifetime-how-many-a
> > pple-ii-computers-were-sold), which suggest only 65K sales of the
> original Apple II.
> > As Radio Shack must have written the copy somewhat prior to the magazine
> date, say in
> > mid-September it is had to imagine that the Apple II Plus, introduced in
> June 1979,
> > sold 35K in its first three months to make up the difference (actually
> more than 35K
> > sales would be needed, to cover however many of the original model were
> sold between
> > Sept 1979 and its withdrawal in 1981). Apple II sales did not peak until
> well into
> > the 1980s, so although the Apple IIe eventually sold millions I believe
> the VIC 20
> > got to the one million milestone first.
> >
> >
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> >
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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