Burroughs 205
Prices, Weights and Power Consumption

 


Peter Toma in front of the Datatron, 1957.
Courtesy of the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Although Consolidated Engineering Corporation started out to build a $50,000 computer in 1951, reality brought the price up.  By announcement date in 1954, the price had risen to $125,000.  Modifications to make all machines "magnetic tape capable" brought the final selling price to $135,000.  That was not sufficient to give you any input or output capability, however.

If you truly wanted a "bare bones" calculating machine you could get it for about $161,000 including paper tape and Flexowriter capabilities.  Even then, you would likely be doing scientific work and would want the floating point unit bringing the total up to $182,000.

The typical installation in the 1956-60 era would be quite a bit more expensive.  You would want a tape controller and four drives, a Cardatron control unit, one Cardatron input unit and two output units.  That would put you over $362,000.  You still needed to call your IBM representative to rent a Model 089 reader, a Model 407 printer and a Model 523 card punch unit.

While these prices might not seem high to our current eyes, they were substantial in 1956.  To put these prices in some perspective, consider that Fortune magazine published an article in January, 1956, on the merits of business aircraft.  They estimated the price for a couple of the typical planes of the day to be the Beech Super-18 at $125,000 and the Douglas DC-3 at $240,000.  The decision to buy a corporate computer was not a small one!  By the way, the median price of a new home in 1956 was $14,500, about two thirds of the price for the Floating Point option on the Datatron.  The engineers designing the system were earning around $700-750 per month.

Total weight of your typical Datatron installation would be about 19,000 pounds (including the IBM peripherals.)  The power consumption was about 66,000 watts not including the air-conditioning.  The system would be producing about 164,000 BTUs per hour or about the equivalent of two conventional home furnaces running full blast.

But here, configure your own system using this combined Price, Weight and Power Consumption chart.

 

Individual Component

 Prices ($) Weight Power Consumption (KVA) Heat
Sale

Monthly Rental

  lbs. 208/230V, 3-Phase 115V, single phase BTU/hr
DATATRON Computer Model 205 135,000 3,900 3,175 15.0 1.5 56,100
Control Console              
     Model 403 no reader, no punch 7,050 230 450        
     Model 406 Reader and Punch 14,210 490 450      
     Model 403 Reader only 11,230 362 450      
Consolette Model 405 1,980 70        
Photoelectric Reader (included in Control Console)     35      
Magnetic Electronic Power Supply                    
     Power Control Unit     1,000      
     Basic Power Supply     1,500      
     Auxiliary Power Supply     1,500      
Power Supply Power Consumption                    
     Datatron (Model 205)       2.5 2.0 15,300
     Floating Point (Model 360)       0.2   700
     Magnetic Tape Control Unit (Model 543)       0.2   700
     Punched Card Converter (Model 500)       0.3   1,000
     Cardatron (Model 506)       3.7   12,600
Typewriter Control Model 446 4,560 137 160      
Modified Flexowriter Model 458 3,135 95 88      
Tape Perforator and Verifier Model 454 3,790          
Numeric Code Converter Model 460 3,680          
External Switching & Output Selector Model 420 4,375          
External Switching Model 421 2,890
High Speed Tape Punch     100      
Magnetic Tape Control Model 543 25,000 750 600 3.8   12,900
Single Magnetic Tape Unit Model 544 12,000 375 500 3.8 1.2 4,100
Datafile Model 560 25,000 825 650   1.0 3,400
Floating Point Model 360 21,200 725 750 2.4   2,200
Punched Card Converter Model 500 18,625   1,044 3.4 3.5 23,500
CARDATRON Model 506             
     Control Unit 31,000 770 850 3.0 0.5 11,900
     Input Unit 22,500 560 750 2.2 0.5 9,200
     Output Unit, 80 characters 26,300 660 800 2.8 0.5 11,200
     Output Unit, 120 characters 27,550 690           
Punched Card Equipment            
     IBM Type 089   85 1,027 1.5   4,560
     IBM Type 407    800 3,286 2.5   7,500
     IBM Type 416    190 2,272 1.6   4,390
     IBM Type 419    425 1,997 1.4   3,480
     IBM Type 402   420 2,751 1.4   4,692
     IBM Type 514    125 1,289 1.4   3,820
     IBM Type 517     526      
     IBM Type 519    110 1,311 1.5   4,090
     IBM Type 523    85 747 0.9   2,375
     IBM Type 528    440 1,430 1.2   3,166

Sources:
 ElectroData Price List #3460 dated April 16, 1956
 ElectroData Installation Manual (weights, heat and power consumption)
 IBM Equipment Summary dated August 27, 1957 found at Bitsavers (Includes photos)