Talk:IBM 7090

Our "Notable applications" section says "Daisy" was first perform on a 7094 in 1961, but the earlier section says the 7094 was first installed in September 1962. A YouTube video here also claims a 7094 did it, in 1961. I presume a 7090 might have done it, as they were essentially compatible, assuming speed was not a problem. But can anyone resolve the issue? We could remove the inconsistency from the article by changing 7094 in the daisy item to "7090-series", but that still leaves the possibility that the Sept 1962 date is incorrect for the 7094. Wwheaton (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I see now that our IBM 704 article claims the song was done on a 704, not a 7094, in 1962 at Bell Labs, based on this 1997 www source at Bell Labs. Our 7090 article here has a www external link to Decca Records DL 9103 here, but it claims it was done at Bell Labs in 1960, on a 7090. Wwheaton (talk) 01:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I see 1961 for James Tenny in the Decca page, but I don't see a date for Decca recording.

I see conflicting dates for the 704; https://web.archive.org/web/20140401034716/http://www.bell-labs.com/news/1997/march/5/2.html claims 1962 but https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-10-116/national-recording-registry-adds-25/2010-06-23/ claims 1961. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

All we know is that "Daisy Bell" was the first song sung by a computer. After that, everything is unknown, including the date and the machine. This is annoying and has been an ongoing problem for more than 20 years. Bell Labs sources says it was the IBM 704 in 1962; but the Decca recording that was released in 1962 (Decca Records DL 9103) says it was made on an IBM 7090. (liner notes) Reddit thinks the discrepancy arises because the 704 used a vocoder and the 7094 was direct synthesis. As if this couldn't get any stranger, according to Clarke himself, he said he heard the song sung on an ILLIAC at Bell Labs in the early 1960s (in Murray Hill, New Jersey), not on an IBM 704 or a IBM 7094, but I don't think Bell Labs used an ILLIAC. Viriditas (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2026 (UTC)→

Right, I'm pretty sure that the ILLIAC stayed at University of Illinois. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:19, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, it's weird that he said it. His comments appear in "Foreword: The Birth of HAL" in the book HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality (1997), on p. xiv. One alternate interpretation is that he was using the term as a proprietary eponym to refer to supercomputers in general, just like we use "Google it" today. Viriditas (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

The movie did say that HAL was from the computer lab in Urbana, Illinois, which IS where the ILLIAC was. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:09, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeppers. Anyway, I believe I may have figured out the entire problem discussed here and below. I'm putting something together to resolve it finally, once and for all, but I may not have anything finalized until tonight or tomorrow. Viriditas (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Note, it turns out Bell Labs may have used an ILLIAC on their 1960 recording of computer music. Very odd. See the bottom comment on this page. Viriditas (talk) 23:04, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Never mind. It looks like they just published a song that was recorded on an ILLIAC, not that they used it in their work. Viriditas (talk) 23:11, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

There was only one ILLIAC I and only one ILLIAC II. They both resided in Urbana, Illinois. The ILLIAC II wasn't functional until 1962, but the 1960 recording could have been made on ILLIAC I. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:01, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l381_ho8KR8 - it plays "Daisy Bell", Then a little after 27:00, there is an explanation of how it was done. I think it implies a 7090 - it says work was started on a 704. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:26, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

@Loadmaster: The IBM 7094 registers table in § IBM 7094 has some issues:

1. The bit numbering does not match that in the 7090 and 7094 manuals
2. The S, Q and P bits of AC are not labelled.
3. The manuals use the term instruction counter (IC), not PC.

I'm not sure what the best way is to lay out the table: IBM labels bits as

AC

S, Q, P, 1...35

IC

3...17

Index register

3...17

MQ

S, 1..35

SI

0...35

Storage, including instructions

S, 1..35

For some instructions

Prefix

S, 1, 2

Decrement

3...17

Tag

18...20

Address

21..35

The numbering of the bits in the IC and index registers matches the numbering of the bits in the decrement. The same issues exist for table IBM 704x/709x registers in IBM 700/7000 series § Later scientific architecture (704/709/7090/7094). One possible arrangement is

but is an alternative preferable? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) -- revised 17:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)07:41, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

These are good suggestions. I had forgotten that IBM labeled the bits backward from the now-common convention (where bit n corresponds to value 2ⁿ within a word). The diagram looks good, the only changes I would make is to include two digits for all the bit numbers (i.e., bit 1 is displayed as ⁰₁), for consistency with other CPU infoboxes for other processors. Note: I went ahead and applied this change to the article. (A worthy goal is to have a register diagram for every CPU article in WP.)

The problem remains as to how to best align the shorter registers with the longer ones. On the one hand. the reverse bit numbering makes this somewhat problematic. On the other hand, showing the registers and their relative sizes is probably more important to the article than their visual alignment. Whatever the result, the same changes should be applied to the infobox in the IBM 709 article. — Loadmaster (talk) 15:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether the term reversed is appropriate in general, and certainly not for IBM hardware. Even after the 7000 series, IBM numbered bits from 0 on the S/360 through z Systems, on S/38 through iSeries, and on PC/RT through IBM Power Systems.

I couldn't find a 709 manual on bitsavers. Can someone confirm that it used the same numbering as the 7090/7094? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I could not either: So, I think there is one on archive.org, and another on a very weird place:

https://justine.lol/sectorlisp/ibm709.pdf "PROGRAMMING AND CODING THE IBM 709-7090-7094 COMPUTERS" (1963)

and

https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/102663112.05.01.acc.pdf "Reference manual 709 7090 Fortran programing system" (Jan 1961)

There was one on bitsavers:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/7090/D22-6508-2_709_7090_General_Information_Manual_Aug1960.pdf ( Aug '60)

I remember the programming forms numbering the bits from 00 to 35,

but the documentation ... oh my... had the memory locations in Octal! 135.180.103.252 (talk) 04:39, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

The first is not IBM's.

The second one is about FORTRAN, not about the 709, 7090 or 7094.

The third one matches the 7090 and 7094 principles of operation.

Real programmers do it in octal; cue battle to the death between ones' complement and two's complement, with sign magnitude and decimal computers looking on in amusement. ;-) -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

You would not have know about *any* of that, unless you were there. Thanks for the good laugh. Really. Now I need an Octal to IBM BCD chart...and...

From the Console numbering, it was not a leading zero, or super/sub script. 158.51.81.86 (talk) 21:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, I've never done ternary ;-)

There is a slight anomaly in the 7090 principles of operations manual; although for words in storage the bit label "S" is inline with the labels 1-35, for the AC and MQ registers the sign is shown in a box above and to the left of Q, P and 1-35. The 7094 PoOps has S inline for AC and MQ. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Nice job on the CPU register infobox. Now can someone apply the same fixes to the register infobox in the IBM 709 article? In general, it would be nice to see register infoboxes for all CPUs, especially now that we have a nice format and bit-numbering layout for IBM CPUs.

My preference for the bit position numbers is the ¹₂ format instead of the 12 form, on the theory that it is slightly more horizontally compact. It's also the style used in many other existing CPU infoboxes (8080, i386, 68000, etc.). — Loadmaster (talk) 01:25, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Now can someone apply the same fixes to the register infobox in the IBM 709 article?

I can't find a 709 principles of operation. Can anybody confirm that the 709 has the same 36-bit SI register as the 709?

My preference for the bit position numbers is the ¹₂ format instead of the 12 form, on the theory that it is slightly more horizontally compact.

That's the way that I originally wrote it, but 135.180.103.252 (talk · contribs · IP contribs · WHOIS) changed it in permalink/1242250376; the changed version more closely matches the manual. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

When I originally revised the register table, I marked up the bit numbers with <sup>...</sup> and <sub>...</sub>, a style used for tables in other articles. 135.180.103.252 (talk · contribs · IP contribs · WHOIS) changed it in permalink/1242250376 to drop leading zeros and to put the entire number in <sup>...</sup>, a style more aligned with the IBM documentation. I believe that a case can be made for any of the "⁰₁"-"³₅", "₁"-"³₅" and "¹"-"³⁵" styles, so I'm soliciting opinions on which is best.

A secondary issue linked to the first is how to render the special bit labels S, Q and P. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Based on the above #Nomenclature in IBM 7094 registers table discussion, it would appear you have wide support for your original ⁰₁ format. As far as the original format not matching the manual, the bits in the other processor manuals do not match that format either. RastaKins (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Show or suppress leading zeros? Does anybody know if the 709 had sense indicators? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:16, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to post an RFC to make all of these consistent:

1. IBM 704#Registers
2. IBM 709#Registers
3. IBM 7090#Registers
4. IBM 700/7000 series#Later scientific architecture (704/709/7090/7094)

This would include bit numbering, number style and instruction counter nomenclature.

Should that start with {{rfc|sci}} and be in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:48, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

RFC seems to be used for dispute resolution. I don't see much pushpack here against your idea. How about WP:BEBOLD and go ahead and implement your bit numbering. And while you're at it, determine if the 7090 instruction counter should be bits 21-35. RastaKins (talk) 15:29, 15 February 2026 (UTC)