IBM 702

It was the company's response to Remington Rand's UNIVAC, which was the first mainframe computer to use magnetic tapes.

As these machines were aimed at the business market, they lacked the leading-edge computational power of the IBM 701 and ERA 1103, which were favored for scientific computing,[1] weather forecasting, the aircraft industry, and the military and intelligence communities.

The 702 was announced September 25, 1953, and withdrawn[2] October 1, 1954, but the first production model was not installed until July 1955.

Due to problems with the Williams tubes, the decision was made to switch to magnetic-core memory instead.

A complete system included the following units: Total weight (depending on configuration): about 24,645 pounds (12.3 short tons; 11.2 t).