Editing IBM 709 (section)

{{Short description|Vacuum tube computer system, 1959}}
[[File:IBM 709 front panel at CHM.agr.jpg|thumb|IBM 709 front panel at the [[Computer History Museum]]]]
The '''IBM 709''' is a [[computer]] system that was announced by [[IBM]] in January 1957<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZI-1AAAAIAAJ&q=709+1958|title=IBM and the U.S. data processing industry: an economic history|last1=Fisher|first1=Franklin M.|last2=McKie|first2=James W.|last3=Mancke|first3=Richard B.|date=October 1983|publisher=Praeger|isbn=9780030630590|pages=37|language=en}}</ref> and first installed during August 1958.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bOlEAAAAIAAJ&q=ibm+709+August+1958|title=The Composition of the Computer Market: Past, Present, Future : a Report|last=Schulz|first=Peter R.|date=1970|publisher=Stanford-Sloan Program, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University|pages=8|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcBYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ibm+709%22+August+1958|title=An introduction to automatic computers|last=Chapin|first=Ned|date=1963|publisher=Van Nostrand|pages=192|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://personal.anderson.ucla.edu/clay.sprowls/history/WDPC/RFP/negotiatons.htm|title=WDPC Negotiations|website=personal.anderson.ucla.edu|others=September 16, 1958: The IBM 709 computer arrives (26 tons of iron)|access-date=2018-01-21|quote=Use of the big computer, second of its type to come off the assembly line, is being given to the WDPC (...)|archive-date=2006-09-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060912154821/http://personal.anderson.ucla.edu/clay.sprowls/history/WDPC/RFP/negotiatons.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> The 709 was an improved version of its predecessor, the [[IBM 704]], and  was the third of the [[IBM 700/7000 series#Scientific Architecture|IBM 700/7000 series]] of scientific computers. The improvements included overlapped input/output, [[indirect address]]ing, and three "convert" instructions which provided support for [[decimal]] arithmetic, leading zero suppression, and several other operations. The 709 had 32,768 words of [[36-bit]] [[magnetic-core memory]] and could execute 42,000 add or subtract instructions per second. It could multiply two 36-bit integers at a rate of 5000 per second.<ref>[http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/ibm709.html IBM 709 at Columbia University history page]</ref>

An optional hardware [[emulator]] executed old IBM 704 programs on the IBM 709. This was the first commercially available emulator. Registers and most 704 instructions were emulated in 709 hardware. Complex 704 instructions such as floating-point trap and input-output routines were emulated in 709 software.

The [[FORTRAN Assembly Program]] was introduced for the 709.

It was a large system; customer installations used 100 to 250&nbsp;kW to run them and almost as much again on the cooling. It weighed about {{convert|2110|lb|kg}} (without peripheral equipment).<ref name=Report>[http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-ibm0709.html IBM 709 Data Processing System] BRL report, (details of each installation) with photos</ref>
The 709 was built using [[vacuum tube]]s.

IBM announced a transistorized version of the 709, called the [[IBM 7090]], in 1958, only a year after the announcement of the 709, thus cutting short the 709's product life.