IBM 7030 Stretch

The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. Originally designed to meet a requirement formulated by Edward Teller at Lawrence Livermore, the first example was delivered to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1961, and a second customized version, the IBM 7950 Harvest, to the National Security Agency in 1962.

Its failure to meet its aggressive performance estimates forced its price to be dropped from $13.5 million to only $7.78 million and its withdrawal from sales to customers beyond those having already negotiated contracts. Even though the 7030 was much slower than expected, it was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964. PC World magazine named Stretch as one of the biggest project management failures in IT history.

The Stretch at RAF Aldermaston was heavily used by researchers at AERE Harwell, but only after the development of the S2 Fortran Compiler which was the first to add dynamic arrays, and which was later ported to the Ferranti Atlas at Chilton.

In spite of Stretch's failure to meet its own performance goals, it served as the basis for many of the design features of the successful IBM System/360, which shipped in 1964. The project lead, Stephen W. Dunwell, was initially blackballed for his role in the "failure", but as the success of the 360 became obvious he was given an official apology and was made an IBM Fellow.

In early 1955, Dr. Edward Teller of the University of California Radiation Laboratory wanted a new scientific computing system for three-dimensional hydrodynamic calculations. Proposals were requested from IBM and UNIVAC for this new system, to be called Livermore Automatic Reaction Calculator or LARC. According to IBM executive Cuthbert Hurd, such a system would cost roughly $2.5 million and would run at one to two MIPS. Delivery was to be two to three years after the contract was signed.

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