[mattelderca]

I'm kinda partial to it's easterly neighbour more so than that one itself. I've long admired it for the period of it's construction.

 

[LowPolygon]

IBM Datacentre, 36 King Street East, 1963

 

[Goldie]

What's the source of the IBM photographs?

 

[LowPolygon]

What's the source of the IBM photographs?

not sure i'm afraid...it was a site that hosted a lot of beautiful old IBM archive shots. sadly those were the only two from the Toronto Datacentre...
they are really big files--the colour one is 600dpi!

 

[adma]

I don't know about the *building* (which'd be mind-blowing); but I'm seriously wondering whether Eliot Noyes had a hand in the Datacentre itself. (Almost like the purported Philip Johnson connection to the Torno penthouse, I suppose.)

 

[Mississauga Slim]

The Datacentre looks very "2001: A Space Odyssey."

 

[Goldie]

adma: "I don't know about the *building* (which'd be mind-blowing); but I'm seriously wondering whether Eliot Noyes had a hand in the Datacentre itself. (Almost like the purported Philip Johnson connection to the Torno penthouse, I suppose.)"

Mississauga Slim: "The Datacentre looks very "2001: A Space Odyssey."
____________________________________________________

I probably shot those IBM Datacentre photos (c.1980s) when I was working for IBM,.

Don't know who designed the room but most of those IBM facilities worldwide were very similar in appearance.

Here's the previous IBM office at 36 King St. E. (1938).

P.S. After asking for the source of the IBM photos, I found them myself on this very interesting site: http://ibm-1401.info/IBM1401_ArchivePics.html

 

[LowPolygon]

^those photos are contemporaneous with the Datacentre itself, ie. they were taken at the time it opened in 1963. lower left in both of them one sees the Selectric typewriter, launched in 1961...

 

[Goldie]

My bad! Yes, I was mistaken. The date is more likely c.1963.
But I believe that's not a Selectric, but rather an IBM Model C typewriter.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Deepend: I really liked those four pictures of IBM's Data Centre in Downtown Toronto...It had that classic 1960s look to it...
Was that an exhibit of sorts to show off IBM's products and computer technology? It was probably similar to what IBM had at
their exhibit at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair...and I agree with MS about his "2001: A Space Odyssey" observation...
I remember well that neat science/fiction movie from 1968...even though I think that scenes in that movie look even more modern...

LI MIKE

 

[mattelderca]

Well, I can tell you first hand, the data centres don't look as nice today as they did then. IBM just opened two new data floors here at work. Fully hardened and nice from a technical point of view but far from aesthetically pleasing.

 

[Blovertis]

Those mainframes in the window probably have less processing power than the old RAZR in my drawer.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Mississauga Slim: "The Datacentre looks very "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Indeed! I have to say, while the hardware in the datacentre is utterly passe, the design of the datacentre is still awfully slick - just like 2001.

mattelderca:

Well, I can tell you first hand, the data centres don't look as nice today as they did then. IBM just opened two new data floors here at work. Fully hardened and nice from a technical point of view but far from aesthetically pleasing.

Not necessarily (though of course these examples are by firms with an interest in making a statement through architecture and design, just like IBM does at the time I suppose):
http://hyperallergic.com/58330/the-aesthetics-of-data-storage/
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/17/google-inside-data-centers/

And some supercomputing centres are just as interesting:
http://cenblog.org/2008/07/home-sweet-home/

Blovertis:

And to put it all in perspective, technically speaking the GPU in the new iPhone5 have the raw processing power that surpasses a supercomputer from the late 80s-early 90s.

AoD

 

[Goldie]

The interest in IBM prompts this display of the changes at Eglinton & Don Mills.
The IBM plant at 844 Don Mills Rd. was built when the surrounding farm lands were just beginning to be converted into the community of Don Mills.

IBM Manufacturing Plant, north section

South addition

IBM plant became Celestica in 1994 and was sold to Onex in 1996.

 

[J T CUNNINGHAM]

Prof Goldie knows just what I am going to say here:

Long live IBM and their Lenovo T Series!
(LOL)


Regards,
J T