[jefftk]

> There was a piece of EAM equipment called a “multiplier” that used valves (predecessor to transistors, designed for use in radios and TVs). This machine could read two numbers out of a punched card, and multiply (or divide) them and punch the result back into different columns in the same card. The problem was that it was not very reliable (valves kept burning out – when you have some hundreds of valves, the chances of one “going” while you are processing some thousand of electricity billing cards is pretty likely).

Note that they're using the British "valve" for what is typically called a "vacuum tube".

[Animats]

That was probably an IBM 604.[1] The 604 was the first piece of electronic computing equipment manufactured and sold in quantity. It's an illustration of the big problem of the era - no good memory devices. The 604 had electronic add, subtract, multiply, divide, and control flow, but was programmed with a plugboard and had punched-card I/O. No place to store data other than a few registers.

Tube failure was more or less under control by then. IBM had a tube R&D center on the Hudson River working on that. They came up with a more reliable tube design and had RCA make the tubes in quantity. Experimental machines like the ENIAC could have big staffs replacing tubes and maintaining the machine, but a commercial product had to have reliable operation.

IBM had people working on electronic computing as early as 1936, but it took over a decade to get to a shippable product. WWII got in the way, of course.

[1] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/604.html