IBM announces the IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Calculator, an intermediate size
electronic computer, to handle widely diversified accounting and scientific
computations. Warmly received by universities and businesses, nearly 2,000 of the
650 are sold by 1962, making it the most popular computer of the 1950s.
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., publishes the company's first written equal opportunity
policy letter - one year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board
of Education and 11 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Also announced is the 702 computer for commercial use.
