IBM1130.org

Where are the 1130s today?

We want to list the location and status of all 1130 and 1800 systems around the world, including compatibles, clones, and emulated systems. If you know of one not on this list, please write us.

IBM 1130

We know of several IBM 1130 systems in various states of repair:

  • University of Stuttgart Computer Museum, Stuttgart, Germany. It is fully, spectacularly functional.

  • ACONIT, Grenoble, France. We believe the CPU and disk drive are working but the printer, not yet.

  • IBM1130.org, Berkeley, CA. We have an 8K-word 1131 with single disk drive, a 1442 card read-punch, an 1132 printer, an 1134 paper tape reader, and a 1055 paper tape punch. The 1131 mostly works (it has memory errors after running for a while); we need to work on it and on connecting the printer and card read-punch, whose cables are damaged.

  • Oscar E. Wyss, Basel, Switzerland. Oscar has an 1130 system and provided the electronic copy of the source code for DMS that is included with our simulator.

  • Computer History Museum. Mountain View, CA. Two 1131 CPU's.

  • History San Jose, San Jose, CA. Status unknown.

  • The Federal State Museum of Upper Austria has an 1131 and a 1403 printer, according to Dr. Michael Malicky. Both were installed in the Computer Centre of the federal state government of Upper Austria, and their current functional status is unknown.

  • Bob Rosenbloom, Santa Cruz, CA. CPU only; purchased on Ebay in 2005 and shipped from Austria.

  • MARCH Computer Museum. Acquired in 2010.

  • IBM Museum, Sindelfingen, Germany. Status unknown.

  • The National Museum of Computing (TNMoC) at Bletchley Park, about 50 miles north of London, has an 1131 CPU with single-disk storage, an 1132 printer, and a 1442 card read-punch. Stewart Baker is the lead of the system’s restoration project, and is looking for schematics (which hopefully we can provide — we believe we have a full set, and as I said we now have access to a decent large-format scanner) as well as blank disk cartridges — does anyone know of a source?

  • "Indianapolis system." A large 1130 system with a full complement of external disk drives was sold at auction from its original owner, an architectural firm in Indianapolis, IN, and eventually purchased by a collector in Utah. No details are available. (If you are the owner of this system, we'd like to hear from you!)

IBM 1800

  • Mike Ross has an IBM 1800 system. Condition unknown.

  • By report from Dan Chang, four IBM 1800 systems were running in their original application at Pickering Nuclear Power Station, Ontario, Canada. It appears that they were finally retired from service in 2010, replaced by machines running the original 1800 code in emulation.

  • Bob Rosenbloom, Santa Cruz, CA. CPU only. This is a sort of "Franken1800" system with a solid-state memory retrofit and a PC-based system providing an emulated disk and printer.

  • We believe that other IBM 1800's are still in use in their original applications. We hope to get more information about this.

  • We also know of an organization that is still running its business using IBM 1130 Fortran on a non-IBM timesharing operating system running on an IBM 1800 emulator. We hope to get more information about this too.