Harvest: The Most Interesting Computer You Never Heard Of

Sunday, July 14, 2024: 12:00 pm (Tobin 201/202): Harvest (IBM 7950) was a one-of-a-kind machine that was built by IBM for NSA for cryptanalysis and text processing. It was an add-on to a better known machine called Stretch, the 7030. There were about...

Sunday, July 14, 2024: 12:00 pm (Tobin 201/202): Harvest (IBM 7950) was a one-of-a-kind machine that was built by IBM for NSA for cryptanalysis and text processing. It was an add-on to a better known machine called Stretch, the 7030. There were about eight Stretch computers built, but Harvest was unique. Harvest ran from 1962 until 1976, when the mechanical parts of it literally wore out. Harvest was an unusual machine whose architecture has never been implemented since. This talk will examine all that made this computer so unique. If time permits, discussion will include a co-developed programming language.

Peter Capek