The Series/1 was typically used to control and operate external electro-mechanical components while also allowing for primitive data storage and handling.

A US government asset report dated May 2016[1] revealed that an IBM Series/1 was still being used as part of the country's nuclear command and control systems.

Various serial peripherals were attached: Printronix bar-coding printers, MICR Readers, IBM ASCII Terminals.

Severn Trent Water Authority used a number of Series/1 computers running the RPS operating system to collect and process river telemetry outstation data.

In this environment the Series/1 provided customized interfaces to diverse (and generally non-IBM) minicomputer-based hospital systems using asynchronous or binary synchronous communications then commonly found in the laboratory, pharmacy, and other departments.

Each standard 'suite' included the CPU unit, a keyboard, and a 132 column dot-matrix printer with a separate cooling-fan base.

This suite was transported in two green, foam-lined, waterproof, locking plastic cases; each weighing over 100 pounds loaded.

ISMOs were also formed at 2nd FSSG at Camp Lejeune, 2nd MAW Cherry Point and 3rd FSSG and 1st MAW on Okinawa and were staffed with computer programmers (MOS 4063/4066) whose responsibilities included training of end users, hardware and software troubleshooting and development of local computer applications.

Designed primarily as a Source Data Automation (SDA) device for the enhancement of input into 'Class I' logistics and personnel computer systems, the ADPE-FMF Series/1 provided the power of a minicomputer to the battalion/squadron commander.

However, left in the hands of young Marine Corps programmers eager to explore the capabilities of their new equipment, the Series/1 soon proved to be a valuable and flexible workhorse for all manner of tasks at all organizational levels.

Systems developed included the waggishly named 'Standardized Wing Overseas Operation Passenger System' (SWOOPS – developed to generate Air Force passenger manifests from personnel databases) and 'Universal Random Integrity News Extract' (URINE – developed to provide names picked randomly from personnel databases for urinalysis screening), FLEAS (FLight Evaluation Administration System).

In the middle 1980s, the ADPE-FMF equipment was gradually phased out in favor of IBM-PC class microcomputers running off-the-shelf software and Marine Corps developed applications written in Ada.

In May 2016 the United States Government Accountability Office released a document that covered the need to upgrade or replace legacy computer systems within Federal Agencies.

This system still used 8-inch floppy disks, however the Department of Defense planned to update some of the technology by the end of the 2017 fiscal year.