Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: They took the credit for your second Symphony Rewritten by machine,
Speaker 1: a new technology. I feel like I've heard that somewhere before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably in a recent podcast, because we quoted that song
Speaker 1: not long ago. Yes, it buggles the mind. It does
Speaker 1: buggle the man. Uh. Today though, we're talking about, uh,
Speaker 1: something entirely well, not something entirely different, but something a
Speaker 1: little uh, I don't know. We are gonna we're concentrating.
Speaker 1: We're concentrated today on a particular company. And this is
Speaker 1: going to be a multi part podcast because the come
Speaker 1: and he has such a long history that we can't
Speaker 1: sum it up in one episode. It's just it's too
Speaker 1: much information, um, and it would just mean that if
Speaker 1: we were to try and push it all into thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: you really wouldn't learn anything. Right. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we had we had a request for this at one point,
Speaker 1: I believe, Yeah, I think so. We've had a few
Speaker 1: people ask us about this. I don't have any specifics
Speaker 1: to point to, because we've received quite a few over
Speaker 1: the history of our podcast. So we are going to
Speaker 1: talk today about IBM. Yes, Big Blue International Business Machines. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it's it's got an incredibly long history. Let me
Speaker 1: just ask you, Chris, just curious just when when you
Speaker 1: hear the the letters IBM, what's the first thing you
Speaker 1: think of? Um, Well, I probably think of the current computers,
Speaker 1: mainly because well, just to be honest, um, those of
Speaker 1: us in the editorial department at how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: a lot of us still have IBM laptops, which are
Speaker 1: the machines that they gave us. And specifically, which is
Speaker 1: kind of funny because this actually comes after, uh, the
Speaker 1: company made an agreement with the Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo,
Speaker 1: so their IBM branded but they're actually Lenovo machines. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably just because it's there every day.
Speaker 1: I think of that, but I also think of, um
Speaker 1: a number of things, main frames. I think of the
Speaker 1: IBM S electric typewriter that I can't wait to talk
Speaker 1: about that. Um So, yeah, I mean, for me, it's
Speaker 1: the first thing I think of, is, uh, the IBM
Speaker 1: two eighties six that my family had when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. We started off with other computers, which I've
Speaker 1: talked about in the past, but the computer that my
Speaker 1: dad got that ended up being the workhorse was an
Speaker 1: IBM two eighties six. We did eventually upgrade to a
Speaker 1: three eight six and for eighty six further down the line,
Speaker 1: but that two eight six kind of was what I
Speaker 1: cut my teeth on once I got on the Apple
Speaker 1: two e No, no, no, no, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: chew on them. Well, I realized that, But I was
Speaker 1: a late bloomer anyway. Where the personal computer age is
Speaker 1: very late in IBM's history because the company is very,
Speaker 1: very old. Yeah, it sort of depends on whom you
Speaker 1: ask how old it is, because IBM actually sort of
Speaker 1: gives their their age tracks or age back a little
Speaker 1: differently than other people might write. UM. And I found
Speaker 1: that out. Actually checked out a book from the library
Speaker 1: called Building IBM, Shaping an Industry and its Technology by
Speaker 1: Emerson W. Pu Um, and he actually tracks uh, the
Speaker 1: founding of IBM past where IBM does. He goes back
Speaker 1: to an inventor named Herman Hollowrath. Yes, yes, Herman Hollowrath.
Speaker 1: He created a tabulating machine, didn't he. Yes, he did. Um.
Speaker 1: He actually got his his first patent application in on
Speaker 1: in September four. That's not that when he started the company,
Speaker 1: but that's when he started working on tabulating machines. Now
Speaker 1: there are other people who were doing other related work too,
Speaker 1: because IBM actually was founded by the combination of three companies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: technically kind of a fourth company. Uh. The three companies
Speaker 1: specifically were, UM, let's see, it was the the Tabulating
Speaker 1: Machine Company, which was incorporated in eighteen ninety six, So
Speaker 1: you've got that one. You've got the Computing Scale Company,
Speaker 1: which was incorporated in eighteen nine one, and the International
Speaker 1: Time Recording Company organized in nineteen hundred. And then there
Speaker 1: was also the Bundy Manufacturing Company, which was incorporated in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine. Now a lot of the Bundy UH
Speaker 1: properties had been incorporated into International Time Recording Company already,
Speaker 1: so you're already talking about companies have been undergoing mergers
Speaker 1: and acquisitions. Um. You had people like Julius E. Petrot
Speaker 1: who in five security patent for a device that he
Speaker 1: called a computing scale. That was what created the foundation
Speaker 1: for the Computing Scale company. UH. You had Herman Hollerwrath
Speaker 1: who had the tabulation and punch card machines that he created.
Speaker 1: William L. Bundy, who was of course the founder of
Speaker 1: the Bundy Manufacturing Company, came up with a time recording device.
Speaker 1: He was actually a jeweler, and this guy came up
Speaker 1: with a time recording device that allowed employees to track
Speaker 1: their time based upon using special keys. That would put
Speaker 1: a special key into this machine. Turned the key, it
Speaker 1: would stamp the time that they clocked in, and then
Speaker 1: they would turn the key. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it would stamp the time they clocked out, and it
Speaker 1: helped keep track of how many hours they worked. Then
Speaker 1: you also had Dr Alexander day d e Y and
Speaker 1: he created a similar time time keeping device, but it
Speaker 1: didn't use keys. Instead, you put the names of the
Speaker 1: employees on this machine and there was a mechanical pointer.
Speaker 1: You had aimed the pointer at the employee's name. You
Speaker 1: put a punch card in, push a button and it
Speaker 1: would then stamp the employee's sheet which was inside the machine. UH.
Speaker 1: With the time that they clocked in and clocked out.
Speaker 1: So you had all these differ in companies. And remember
Speaker 1: this is this is the age where we're really starting
Speaker 1: to get into mechanical devices. So most of these devices
Speaker 1: are mechanical in nature. There are actual physical gears and
Speaker 1: pistons things like that that are making stuff happen inside
Speaker 1: these machines. But it's not it's I'm sorry, no, go ahead,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's it's actually, in a way,
Speaker 1: not any of these guys who created IBM. No, it
Speaker 1: took someone from outside this group to really form it together.
Speaker 1: Which the fun and the funny part is we've got
Speaker 1: all these inventors, but we're really talking about, or at
Speaker 1: least I am talking about a businessman, yes, who saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity to combine the companies and make some money by,
Speaker 1: you know, making a building a merger between them. And
Speaker 1: his name was Charles R. Flint. Yes, So here we
Speaker 1: got a guy who looks at these companies, these individual
Speaker 1: companies that are all making various kinds of mechanical devices,
Speaker 1: and he says, hey, hang on a second, we could
Speaker 1: combine these because a lot of these are are creating
Speaker 1: devices specifically geared toward businesses. And if we were to
Speaker 1: combine these, we could combine the manufacturing power and the
Speaker 1: business power of these and and market it toward businesses.
Speaker 1: We could create an enormous corporation. Now, I just have
Speaker 1: to convince the guys that this is a good idea.
Speaker 1: So he starts going to all these different companies and
Speaker 1: he submits merger proposals, and eventually the companies agreed to this,
Speaker 1: and they formed the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation or CTR
Speaker 1: on June six, nineteen eleven. I gotta say, these guys
Speaker 1: have a flare for an innovative name. Yes, the Computing
Speaker 1: Tabulating Recording Corporation. It was called computing because of the
Speaker 1: computer scale we were talking about, which was not a
Speaker 1: computer computer. It was a scale that could very accurately
Speaker 1: measure weights computing scale. Yes. And then the tabulating being
Speaker 1: the tabulating from Holly Erath, and the recording being the
Speaker 1: time recording devices that we talked about earlier. Yes, pews
Speaker 1: Book actually said that the scale that they had come
Speaker 1: up with would give you the information up front, so
Speaker 1: you didn't really have to do as much work with it,
Speaker 1: so it would actually do the calculating for you will
Speaker 1: give you an idea of what was going on, which was,
Speaker 1: you know at the time, was was pretty innovative. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we've got this major corporation forming in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: But here's a problem. Who heads up this new corporation. Now,
Speaker 1: Flint was pretty savvy, as was the board of directors
Speaker 1: for CTR. They knew that they could not necessarily just
Speaker 1: hire or promote someone from within one of those companies
Speaker 1: to be the head of the new corporation, because if
Speaker 1: they did, there's the danger that that person would favor
Speaker 1: one division over all the others. So if you were
Speaker 1: to promote someone up from the tabulating machine company, for example,
Speaker 1: that person might concentrate on that division of the new
Speaker 1: mega company and ignore the others, and then your business
Speaker 1: venture fails. So they had to find someone from outside
Speaker 1: this this merger to head up the new company. I
Speaker 1: know who you're gonna say, but I I would also
Speaker 1: like to add before we go on to this person,
Speaker 1: um that apparently, from what I understand, not everyone was
Speaker 1: thrilled with the way the merger was working out. Apparently
Speaker 1: hollerth Uh and Flint didn't necessarily get along all that well,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, apparently Hollowrath was you know,
Speaker 1: one of the rare business people where he was very egalitarian. Um.
Speaker 1: He when he sold you know, the interest in his
Speaker 1: company to Flint, he insisted that everyone get a fair
Speaker 1: share of the money and apparently was very well liked
Speaker 1: within his own company before uh he did that. And apparently,
Speaker 1: um And I imagine that that would be something to
Speaker 1: to take into account when you are trying to make
Speaker 1: this decision on who you want to run the company,
Speaker 1: because you know, if you've got people who are already
Speaker 1: having you know, personality problems personality conflicts with the people
Speaker 1: at the top, then you're you're certainly going to be
Speaker 1: aware of that and and and try to avoid that
Speaker 1: conflict because otherwise you could scuttle the company. But I
Speaker 1: think you're talking about the person you wanted to mention
Speaker 1: next with someone who was brought in as a general manager. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: from from the National Cash Register Corporation and CR. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That person was Thomas J. Watson, Sr. And he was
Speaker 1: hired on May fourth, nineteen fourteen, And that is the
Speaker 1: date that IBM uses as its founding. It considers Watson's
Speaker 1: arrival at at the company and remember it's not called
Speaker 1: IBM yet, it's still CTR, but it considers his arrival
Speaker 1: to be the birth of IBM. And part of that
Speaker 1: reason is because Watson really instilled in the company an
Speaker 1: entire array of marketing UM principles and philosophies that he
Speaker 1: he had developed over the years, and that became IBM
Speaker 1: sort of foundation for the way that they do business. Now,
Speaker 1: let's give a little background on Watson. Watson was a
Speaker 1: bit of a character too. In fact, he had he
Speaker 1: was not exactly spotless in his history. UM Watson when
Speaker 1: he graduated college, originally he wanted to be a teacher,
Speaker 1: but reportedly that job lasted all of one day before
Speaker 1: he quit. He then concentrated on becoming a salesman, and
Speaker 1: in fact was a traveling salesman selling. As I recall
Speaker 1: pianos and organs to people in rural areas, it made
Speaker 1: me think of the music man. It was. Essentially Watson
Speaker 1: was was Professor Harold Hill. He was actually selling stuff
Speaker 1: instead of trying trying to and then getting out well
Speaker 1: technically Hill was selling stuff too, He just was making
Speaker 1: promises that people could use it when he didn't intend
Speaker 1: to do it. He wanted to skip town as soon
Speaker 1: as the stuff came in. Spoiler alert for ayone who
Speaker 1: has not seen a musing that I almost got you
Speaker 1: to split water too. That was great. So Watson then
Speaker 1: went on to UH. He started he opened up a
Speaker 1: butcher's shop. He ended up eventually selling the butcher's shop,
Speaker 1: but one thing he had to do was he had
Speaker 1: an NCR cash register in that butcher's shop that was
Speaker 1: not completely paid for, so he had to kind of
Speaker 1: act as a liaison between the new owner of the
Speaker 1: butcher shop and NCR to kind of settle these payments.
Speaker 1: He started to bug the people at NCR for a job,
Speaker 1: and eventually they broke down and and apprenticed him to
Speaker 1: someone at NCR as a salesman, and over time Watson
Speaker 1: was able to make a name for himself as a
Speaker 1: salesman and later as a manager. He actually became known
Speaker 1: for running competitors out of business in certain markets. He
Speaker 1: would go into a market and find out ways to
Speaker 1: to be able to UH to beat any competitor who
Speaker 1: that was also selling a mechanical cash register machine. So,
Speaker 1: for example, he would go into a market and undercut
Speaker 1: all the compere editors and sell cash registers at a
Speaker 1: loss just to bankrupt his uh, his competitors so that
Speaker 1: he could have a monopoly on the market. This eventually
Speaker 1: led to an antitrust lawsuit against him because he was monopolizing. Well,
Speaker 1: the first trial ended with a guilty verdict and a
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar fine and I think two years since
Speaker 1: in jail something like that. Anyway, it was, it was
Speaker 1: it was unusual for a jail sentence to go along
Speaker 1: with this kind of a charge, but Watson ended up
Speaker 1: getting one. He appealed that and during the appeals process,
Speaker 1: the government decided he won the right to appeal. The
Speaker 1: government decided that it was not worth the time and
Speaker 1: money to pursue a second trial, so he the charges
Speaker 1: were dismissed. But yeah, so Watson was he was kind
Speaker 1: of a cutthroat businessman as well. So during his days
Speaker 1: at NCR he did something that ended up being very
Speaker 1: important to ibm s philosophy. It was in a meeting
Speaker 1: in December in nineteen eleven. Do you know where I'm
Speaker 1: going with this? All right? It's a motto that IBM uses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's Watson in this meeting with n c R
Speaker 1: and he says, this is a quote. The trouble with
Speaker 1: every one of us is that we don't think enough.
Speaker 1: We don't get paid for working with our feet, we
Speaker 1: get paid for working with our heads. Thought has been
Speaker 1: the father of every advance since time began. I didn't
Speaker 1: think has cost the world millions of dollars. And then
Speaker 1: he wrote the word think in all capital letters in
Speaker 1: blue crayon on an easel Blue Think Big Things for IBM,
Speaker 1: as it turns out. Yeah, so it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: that IBM can trace one of its central mottos to
Speaker 1: another company because this was before Watson came over. So
Speaker 1: then Watson does come over to the company and begins
Speaker 1: to lead it. He joined in nineteen fourteen, and the
Speaker 1: company really starts to take off. You know, You've got
Speaker 1: all these different divisions that are concentrating on specific elements
Speaker 1: of their business, and uh, they just start really cranking
Speaker 1: out some interesting products, all for businesses, by the way,
Speaker 1: right right, Well, let's put this, let's put it in perspective.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen according to IBM, when Thomas J. Watson Sr.
Speaker 1: Joined the company, it had one thousand, three hundred forty
Speaker 1: six employees and nine million dollars in revenue. Um, the
Speaker 1: gross income from sales, service and rentals was about four
Speaker 1: million dollars. Uh. And as a matter of fact, one
Speaker 1: hundred years of CTR stock UH would set you back
Speaker 1: about three thousand dollars. Yes, so they would make four
Speaker 1: million dollars in a year. But out of that their
Speaker 1: earnings were around a million. Right, So so you make
Speaker 1: four million and after costs you you ranke in a
Speaker 1: million dollars. Um. Yeah, I said, Actually it said nine.
Speaker 1: Well I'm looking at two different IBM documents. One is
Speaker 1: nine million in revenues and the other says, uh, four
Speaker 1: million from gross in come. Yeah, that's what I had,
Speaker 1: the four million engrossing had so um. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a little today, keeping in mind that
Speaker 1: it's that's quite substantial. Yeah, nine fourteen. Come on, And
Speaker 1: if it sounds weird to say rentals, hollow if actually
Speaker 1: when he did his tabulating machine, would actually rent the
Speaker 1: equipment out. Um, So he did not sell people machines.
Speaker 1: So at the time, you know this kind of equipment, uh,
Speaker 1: the sophisticated mechanical computer equipment. Actually, he was one of
Speaker 1: the first people to use electrical um tabulating devices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're getting into the electro mechanical era here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean you didn't you didn't buy that necessarily,
Speaker 1: you would rent that from someone. And we're actually you
Speaker 1: might wonder what these tabulating devices were used for. Well,
Speaker 1: they were often I mean they were used to classify
Speaker 1: information in a way that could be sorted and categorized
Speaker 1: in various ways relatively quickly, you know, much more quickly
Speaker 1: than humans could. In fact, it was originally used for
Speaker 1: the Census. He worked for hollow Reth worked for the
Speaker 1: Census in eighteen eight I believe, and he actually his
Speaker 1: boss was saying, it would be really nice we could
Speaker 1: come up with a machine to cut down on all
Speaker 1: this work, because this is a real pain in the neck.
Speaker 1: So we did. Yeah, and this this invention plays a
Speaker 1: much darker role in a few years, and we'll touch
Speaker 1: on that because it is an important element of IBM's history.
Speaker 1: But I think that's why Pugh started with Hollywrith was
Speaker 1: because that is the most computer alike of all the things,
Speaker 1: of all the the original businesses that CTR was involved with. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so just a couple of highlights in the early years
Speaker 1: of Watson's uh um, what am I gonna call it?
Speaker 1: Watson being the president general manager of of ctr U.
Speaker 1: They have the company's implementation of electric synchronization for the
Speaker 1: control and regulation of complete time and programming systems. Yep,
Speaker 1: and that's that's true, um, now that you pointed out,
Speaker 1: I mean, they introduced the first electric synchronized time clock
Speaker 1: system UM, which again is very computer like, just a
Speaker 1: component that's part of that. And I'd just like to
Speaker 1: add one sort of foreshadowing date. A couple of years
Speaker 1: before that, in nineteen seventeen, UH, CTR decided to enter Canada,
Speaker 1: UH and decided instead of using CTR they would use
Speaker 1: a different name. They decided to call themselves International Business Machines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen they registered that
Speaker 1: name in New York, but did not use it at
Speaker 1: that time. So uh yeah. And in nineteen twenty they
Speaker 1: introduced the lock Autograph Recorder, which was the first complete
Speaker 1: school time control system. They also launched the electric accounting machines,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of a predecessor to the calculator. Ah.
Speaker 1: And they acquired a company called the ticket O Graph
Speaker 1: Company of Chicago in nineteen twenty one, and they also
Speaker 1: started buying up more patents IBM to this day has
Speaker 1: more than a thousand patents. They had more than a
Speaker 1: thousand in the seventies, but yes, far more than a thousand, so,
Speaker 1: and some of those were developed in house and some
Speaker 1: of them they've purchased. So in those early years, we
Speaker 1: get up to February fourteenth, Valentine's Day, nineteen twenty four.
Speaker 1: Watson has an idea. Yes, he decides that this IBM
Speaker 1: name that they're using in Canada as a good name,
Speaker 1: and that it should it really reflects the business more
Speaker 1: than CTR does. UM. The business at this point is international.
Speaker 1: They have offices elsewhere besides the United States, and so
Speaker 1: they think, well, we're gonna rebrand ourselves. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: called International Business Machines or IBM UM. And by now,
Speaker 1: so this is ten years after he's he's taken the reins.
Speaker 1: The the gross income for the company is that remember
Speaker 1: it was at four million before, it's at eleven million
Speaker 1: now with the net earnings of around two million. And
Speaker 1: there there's more than three thousand employees, so they've essentially
Speaker 1: doubled the size of the number of employees that that
Speaker 1: that they hired. Yes, now, UM, going back to for
Speaker 1: a second, to holler his his tabu lighting machines used
Speaker 1: punched cards, which we've talked about in the past. Um.
Speaker 1: In nine they introduced the first electric key punch. Now
Speaker 1: to record information on these punch cards, you have to
Speaker 1: have something that pops out. The little chats um actually
Speaker 1: just punches a hole in the right spot. Right. Originally
Speaker 1: they did use a circular punch like you would see
Speaker 1: in you know, a traditional hole punch. UM, but they
Speaker 1: were they were becoming more sophisticated, adding this functionality along
Speaker 1: as they went. UM and Uh. The punched card could
Speaker 1: now hold as much as eighty columns worth of information UM,
Speaker 1: which also helped out significantly with what they could do. UM.
Speaker 1: And then of course we're getting close to the Great
Speaker 1: Depression in ninety. Yeah, here's an interesting thing. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty you get the Great Depression, but IBM still
Speaker 1: does pretty well. Right, they're not they're not hurting as
Speaker 1: badly as other companies. In fact, at that point their
Speaker 1: gross income was nineteen million dollars and their net earnings
Speaker 1: seven million dollars with sixty three hundred employees. So IBM
Speaker 1: is actually employing people at the same time the other
Speaker 1: folks are finding themselves out of work. So IBM was
Speaker 1: actually doing quite well well. Of course, you know at
Speaker 1: that time people were laying people off because they couldn't
Speaker 1: afford we're going out of business entirely. Um. Meanwhile, this
Speaker 1: would these machines would help people streamline their business efforts.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have to hire as many humans to do
Speaker 1: the works well, and I mean they kept on developing
Speaker 1: other things. They developed a public address and signaling system
Speaker 1: for schools. They called it the schoolmaster's joke. That just sounds.
Speaker 1: That just sounds so I don't know, sinister anyway. So
Speaker 1: now we're two decades out from when Watson took control.
Speaker 1: They remember they're grossing around nineteen million and earning around
Speaker 1: seven millions. That's a much more than the four million
Speaker 1: and one million from two decades before. And they're employing
Speaker 1: seven thousand, six hundred thirteen people. So yeah, the company,
Speaker 1: the company is really doing well and the development is
Speaker 1: really just gonna explode over the next few decades, like
Speaker 1: to the point where it's it's almost impossible to believe
Speaker 1: how big it got. I had my first snicker moment
Speaker 1: U because it apparently they decided to divest themselves of
Speaker 1: the Scale division. So they sold it to Hobart, which
Speaker 1: if you if you're thinking back and going, I know,
Speaker 1: I know that name, it's because they're still in business
Speaker 1: and it's apparently from from want to understand, Mr Watson
Speaker 1: was a little concerned because, as it turns out, immediately
Speaker 1: that business took off after the after they got rid
Speaker 1: of it. So well there you go at. They can't
Speaker 1: always do everything well all the time, right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they made it a decision based on what they thought
Speaker 1: would happen, and in five IBM introduced the International Proof Machine,
Speaker 1: which synchronized twenty four adding machines together, and it was
Speaker 1: meant to process checks in banks as meant as a
Speaker 1: processing system behind the scenes, but eventually people found other
Speaker 1: uses for it and you could think of it as
Speaker 1: a precursor to the computer. Um it could only do.
Speaker 1: It had a limited number of operations that could do
Speaker 1: and uh, it wasn't a true computer in the sense
Speaker 1: that we think of today, but it showed that by
Speaker 1: you know, IBM was thinking, how can we create more
Speaker 1: sophisticated devices without necessarily making bigger ones. In this case,
Speaker 1: it was linking lots of lots of different adding machines together. Now,
Speaker 1: keeping think about what we're talking about here. As we're
Speaker 1: going on through this timeline, IBM is finding ways to
Speaker 1: make crunching numbers easier. They're they're finding new ways to
Speaker 1: to compress the number of items you could put in
Speaker 1: a punch card. They're finding new ways to link machines
Speaker 1: together to increase processing power with these machines. And no,
Speaker 1: we don't think of that in terms of again, the
Speaker 1: IBM laptops that we're using as we record the podcast
Speaker 1: obviously have far more processing power than that. But gradually,
Speaker 1: over time they're innovating and coming up with new ideas.
Speaker 1: In thirty five they also came up with the first
Speaker 1: successful electric typewriter. Yep, yep. So now we'll get more
Speaker 1: into the electric typewriters. A little later in thirty seven
Speaker 1: they introduced a test scoring machine. Um, so this is
Speaker 1: kind of all you folks out there get to play
Speaker 1: those take those standardized tests. This is sort of the
Speaker 1: grandfather to those machines, the Scantron type stuff. But this
Speaker 1: is this was a little earlier than that, but still
Speaker 1: same principle. They came out with the pencil marks sensing reproducer,
Speaker 1: which reproducer. Uh yeah, of course everyone's taking these tests
Speaker 1: on computers now. So in between thirty seven and forty
Speaker 1: there's a little event, big event. We have a little
Speaker 1: big event. Yeah. So world War two here's where we
Speaker 1: got to get in some problematic stuff. There was an
Speaker 1: IBM subsidiary company called de Homag Deutsch hollerth Machine and
Speaker 1: Gazelle Shuft and that was the that was the full name.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just just as an aside um, Mr hollow
Speaker 1: Earth had been working on building the business internationally even
Speaker 1: before he sold tod CTR, so you know they he
Speaker 1: had businesses around the world already. Now they were small,
Speaker 1: but they were divisions of his company, and yes, this
Speaker 1: is one of them. So yeah, this was kind of
Speaker 1: an IBM subsidiary that Hollerwath actually ended up selling of
Speaker 1: the company back to IBM because the company was in
Speaker 1: some financial problems. World War One bankrupted Germany, right, I
Speaker 1: mean Germany was in dire economic straits after World War
Speaker 1: One and this this company was affected by that. So
Speaker 1: part of in order to stay solvent, they sold ninety
Speaker 1: pc of the company back to IBM. So IBM owns
Speaker 1: this company. And here's where things get really dark and murky.
Speaker 1: There's an author and researcher by the name of Edwin
Speaker 1: Black who wrote a full book about IBM and its
Speaker 1: role possibly connected to the Holocaust, and now Black alleges
Speaker 1: that IBM was not just um uh aware of what
Speaker 1: was happening, but somewhat complicit in what was happening. Ibm
Speaker 1: UH They they obviously do not agree with that assessment.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the more you know about Watson, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't know these people clearly, but
Speaker 1: the more I learned about Watson, the less I was
Speaker 1: convinced that he was the sort of person who would
Speaker 1: actively be complicit in this. But here's what happened. Dio
Speaker 1: magg made this tabulation uh products and Hitler was very
Speaker 1: much interested in getting to know exactly how many Jews
Speaker 1: were in Germany at the time, and so they were
Speaker 1: using this tabulating process to track people, to to classify
Speaker 1: people as either being Jewish or not Jewish. And by
Speaker 1: classifying generations of people, they could actually track people back
Speaker 1: if they if they claim that they weren't Jewish, they
Speaker 1: you know, the Germans could look at the generation before
Speaker 1: the generation before them and see if there were any
Speaker 1: Jewish ancestors and if there were those, you know, the
Speaker 1: people would be classified as being Jewish. This came into
Speaker 1: play both in the ghettoization of the Jewish communities where
Speaker 1: Jews were pushed into ghettos and then later during the
Speaker 1: actual Holocaust. So Dio mag was played a big part
Speaker 1: in in the third Reich's plan to to eliminate the Jews.
Speaker 1: And it's a tragic, horrible story. And Black in his
Speaker 1: book alleges that Watson himself was part of this, that
Speaker 1: he was taking advantage of the situation in order to
Speaker 1: make a profit. Uh, there is some stuff that kind
Speaker 1: of points to Watson being uh at least at least
Speaker 1: a part plays a part in this, and that Hitler
Speaker 1: awarded Watson a medal. It was the Eagle with Star Metal.
Speaker 1: But I should point out that in n Watson returned
Speaker 1: the medal. He had been torn by this because apparently,
Speaker 1: at least according to IBM, Watson at first thought that
Speaker 1: the medal was on behalf of his work to try
Speaker 1: and establish world peace, because Watson actually was concerned about
Speaker 1: creating a peaceful global environment, and that when he became
Speaker 1: convinced that that was not the case, he felt that
Speaker 1: it was necessary to return the medal, which in turn
Speaker 1: infuriated Hitler and reportedly Hitler then said that Watson would
Speaker 1: never again be welcome in Germany. Uh once the United
Speaker 1: States and Germany entered World War two. Once once the
Speaker 1: war was declared between the two countries, Germany took control
Speaker 1: of De Homag and it was no longer under ibm
Speaker 1: s control at all. It was completely under German government control.
Speaker 1: So how involved was IBM. According to IBM, they were,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a subsidiary company. They did not
Speaker 1: have control over it. They had owned they owned um
Speaker 1: interest in it, but they were not the ones making
Speaker 1: the decisions. So it's it's, like I said, a murky,
Speaker 1: complicated part of IBM's past, and it's if you read
Speaker 1: Edwin Black's book, it paints a much darker picture for
Speaker 1: IBM than what IBM says. I honestly don't know the truth.
Speaker 1: I cannot. I'm not going to pass judgment because I
Speaker 1: don't know. And also I should add that Watson has
Speaker 1: had really backed a lot of humanitarian efforts before and
Speaker 1: after World War Two, which again kind of suggests that
Speaker 1: he was not taking this complicit role. Right. Um, what
Speaker 1: I just meant to say was that there are situations
Speaker 1: regarding many companies and individuals and it's unclear, uh, you
Speaker 1: know many people I've read about and which you know,
Speaker 1: how much they knew about what was truly going on,
Speaker 1: how whether or not they were being recruited to the cause,
Speaker 1: whether they were being uh and bridge to supply continue
Speaker 1: supplying when it was obvious that, um, there was a
Speaker 1: genocide going on. And and IBM for its part, also
Speaker 1: began to work very closely with the United States military
Speaker 1: in producing various parts and pieces that were being used
Speaker 1: in military applications. So there's that as well well the
Speaker 1: the I know that the United States used IBM equipment
Speaker 1: to work on codebreaking. Yep, so that's that's certainly were
Speaker 1: contributing to the Allied war effort, certainly, yes, yes, So
Speaker 1: moving beyond that that horrible story, UM, IBM really in
Speaker 1: the in the forties began to work on developing calculators
Speaker 1: that that became a big focus of IBM's business. They
Speaker 1: were still working on tabulating and time recording devices as
Speaker 1: well as various other kinds of adding machines and uh
Speaker 1: they uh they founded the Watson Science of Fit Computing
Speaker 1: laboratory at Columbia University in New York. That that's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. UM, yeah, not too long before that, shortly
Speaker 1: before the war's in, IBM uh gave a large scale computer,
Speaker 1: the first of its kind to the called the Automatic
Speaker 1: Sequence Controlled Calculator to Harvard UM. So they're certainly an
Speaker 1: interested in education at that point. So we're getting close
Speaker 1: to wrapping up this first episode of the IBM history
Speaker 1: and the reason for that is we're very quickly approaching
Speaker 1: the time when IBM introduces the first production computer for
Speaker 1: scientific calculations, which is the seven oh one, and that
Speaker 1: was introduced in nineteen fifty two. We'll we'll probably pick
Speaker 1: up I would say, probably at the seven oh one
Speaker 1: for our next podcast, and we'll we'll move up to uh.
Speaker 1: I think we'll go from the seven oh one to
Speaker 1: just before the the personal computer era for IBM because,
Speaker 1: like we said, this company very large, has a very
Speaker 1: long and and storied history. UM. And you know this again,
Speaker 1: this was like the cliffs Notes version to the cliffs
Speaker 1: Notes version to IBM's history, because you can't cover everything
Speaker 1: they've done unless you were to do you can dedicate
Speaker 1: a full podcast just IBM like not not not an episode,
Speaker 1: an entire podcast. Yes, yes, and I mean there are
Speaker 1: other important computing developments going on here, like um, uh,
Speaker 1: the very large project at the More School of Electrical
Speaker 1: Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Uh, you know in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen four mid late nineteen FOURI is called
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you've heard of it, Aniac, I
Speaker 1: think so. Wasn't that a muppet? Um? Yes, I have,
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are This is a period of advanced
Speaker 1: advanced scientific development as far as computers are concerned. Um,
Speaker 1: the code breaking, the skills that computer programmers were using
Speaker 1: and trying to break codes, um, and trying to advance
Speaker 1: computing development, this is all accelerating an immense pace at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah. We we've reached the level of mechanic
Speaker 1: electro mechanical computers already, and electronic computers are right around
Speaker 1: the bend. So let's let's conclude this episode. We will
Speaker 1: pick up in nineteen fifty two and we will move
Speaker 1: on from there. And uh, you know, you guys, if
Speaker 1: you have if you would like us to cover specific
Speaker 1: companies that are were, you know, are or were instrumental
Speaker 1: in the technology fields, let us know. We've talked before
Speaker 1: about companies like Apple and Microsoft, and both of those
Speaker 1: will come up pretty soon in this podcast series. Um,
Speaker 1: and let's you know, if you if there's some other company,
Speaker 1: maybe Intel or A and D or uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Infocom, anything you want to hear about,
Speaker 1: let us know. We will. We will look into it
Speaker 1: and cover it. Perhaps not all of them will warrant,
Speaker 1: you know, multi episodes like IBM does, but we're happy
Speaker 1: to cover them, and we'll probably have to move off
Speaker 1: and do some thing else for a while, come back
Speaker 1: and do another company podcast. Yeah, yeah, no, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: definitely put some space between these IBM episodes and the
Speaker 1: next focus on a company, because you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want to just get ourselves stuck into that routine. So
Speaker 1: guys just let us know. You can let's know on
Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook are handled there is tech stuff hs
Speaker 1: W or shoot us an email. That address is tech
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and
Speaker 1: I will taught to you again really soon. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
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