IBM 1620 - Use in Film and Television

Use in Film and Television

A radio program was developed by DJ Rege Cordic for KDKA Pittsburgh, based on a baseball game simulator developed by John Burgeson of IBM and his brother, Paul, then an ensign in the U.S. Navy. This program was used in numerous demonstration events in the years 1960 to 1963 as an example of the power of computers to perform simulation exercises. The fictional computer Colossus of Colossus: The Forbin Project used about a dozen scrapped 1620 front panels purchased on the surplus market, in various orientations. A similar arrangement was used in a late episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to portray a THRUSH supercomputer.