View source for IBM 7030 Stretch

{{Infobox Machine
| name = IBM 7030 (Stretch)
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| manufacturer = [[International Business Machines]]
| year announced = late 1956
| year design started = late 1954; formal project start January 1956
| year first shipped = April, 1961
<!--| year introduced = -->
| year discontinued = May, 1961
| form factor = [[mainframe]]
| word size = 64 bits
| physical address = 18 bits (256K words)
| virtual address = 18 bits
| logic type = [[Emitter-coupled logic|ECL]] using drift [[transistor]]s
<!-- | design type =  -->
<!-- | clock speed = 4.4 µsec (basic add instruction) -->
<!-- | ram = -->
| memory speed = 2.1 µsec
<!-- | cpu =  
| bus arch =  -->
<!-- | memory mgmt = bounds register -->
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| successor = -->
| price = US$7.8M (reduced from US$13.5M)
}}

The '''IBM 7030''' (a product of '''Project Stretch''', so it was often called by some variant of that) was a ground-breaking and influential [[mainframe]] from [[International Business Machines|IBM]], arguably the first [[supercomputer]]. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the advent of the [[CDC 6600]] in 1964.

Although initially considered a commercial failure by IBM, it was later recognized as the foundation of the success of the [[IBM System/360]]; both its technology (it was the first machine IBM built with [[transistor]]s, and Stretch hardware was used directly in the [[IBM 7090]]), and many of its [[architecture|architectural]] innovations were used there, especially in the higher-performance models of the /360 line. Indeed, many of them (such as [[pipeline]]s) are still in use today, and important.

The initial goal was a performance 100 times that of the [[IBM 704]]; this target was not met, but the 7030 was roughly 30 times as fast (the exact multiplier depends on the problem, due to the large amount of overlap between successive [[instruction]]s).

It also introduced the concept of the 8-[[bit]] [[byte]], although the [[Central Processing Unit|CPU]] could [[address]] individual bits.

The logic used was basically [[emitter-coupled logic|ECL]], in that it used "switching (or steering) a constant current .. toward [either] output". The CPU alone contained no less than 169,000 discrete transistors, packaged in wat was effectively an early form of [[Standard Modular System]] [[printed circuit board|cards]]. The [[main memory]] used [[interleaving]] (up to 4-way, depending on the number of memory banks installed) to increase the memory bandwidth.

It was intended from the start to be used in [[multi-tasking|multi-programming]] mode; the system included what was effectively [[base and bounds]] [[memory management]].

==Further reading==

* Werner Buchholz (editor), ''Planning a Computer System: Project Stretch'', McGraw-Hill, New York, 1962

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[[Category: IBM Mainframes]]
[[Category: Supercomputers]]