Why "9020" ?

From the book The Brawl in IBM 1964 - a memoir by Joseph M Fox:

THE MULTIPROCESSOR GETS NAMED -THE "9020"

"Joe, we need a name for this computer."

I look at Collins, puzzled.

"A name! What do we call it?" Collins asks.

"Oh! I hadn't thought of that."

Up till now we simply called it the Model 50. But it was now different from a standard 50. And we needed it to be different. All non-standard boxes in IBM got a 9000 number assigned. I make a call. Three days later the phone in the firehouse rang.

"Fox!" someone shouts.

"Hello."

"Joe, your system is 'the 9020 System'. I've got about thirty other numbers for you, one for each box."

I like it.

Joe Fox was IBM's proposal manager for its effort to win the competition in 1963-64 for the computers to automate the FAA's En Route Air Traffic Control system. Jack Collins was IBM's focal point for liaison with the FAA.

If the FAA machine were standard, it would have to be priced like all the other S/360 machines. This price would include the R&D costs, etc. If it were 'different' it could follow its own pricing rules. Make it standard, IBM could not win because of price. But if it were different, it could be offered at a cheaper price.

As well as standard S/360 units, such as 2314 (disk), 2401 (tape), 1403 (printer), etc., the 9020 'special' boxes were allocated 72XX numbers and include:

IBM 7201: enhanced 2065 (S/360 Model 65) used as a Computing Element (CE) in the 9020D and 9020E

IBM 7231: enhanced 2050 (S/360 Model 50) used as an Input Output Control Element (IOCE) in the 9020A/D/E, and CE in the 9020A

IBM 7251: 512 kB core Storage Element (SE) used in the 9020D/E

IBM 7262: System Console (SC) used in the 9020A/D

IBM 7265: Configuration Console (CC) used in the 9020E

IBM 7289-02: Peripheral Adapter Module (PAM) used in the 9020A/D

IBM 7289-03: Flight Strip Printer Control Module (FSPCM) used in the 9020A/D

IBM 7289-04: Display Element (DE) used in the 9020E

The reference to "firehouse" needs some explaining. It was where Joe Fox's bid team was accommodated to work on IBM's response to the FAA's Request For Proposals. From his 1982 memoir:

We drive to a firehouse at Red Oaks Mill, about two miles from the IBM main plant and development labs. This will be our 'office' for December.

The firehouse has two rooms, separated by an 8-foot by 20-foot kitchen. One 'room' houses two fire trucks, shiny, red, vintage fire engines with hoses, pumps, and axes. The second room is a large, low ceiling 60-foot by 60-foot room designed for parties and meetings. On a slab of concrete. Cold.

There is no office furniture, no typewriter, no copiers, just long picnic tables and chairs. There are two telephones in the kitchen, and a dozen or so tables set up in the big room. Most documents will be driven over to the labs on Route 9 to be typed there.

 Why a firehouse? Here's what Joe has to say:

How did the proposal effort for the air traffic control system of the nation end up in a firehouse?

It has remained a mystery to me all these years. My best guess is that the Federal Systems Division's technical publications man assigned to help on the effort grabbed it as a last resort.

The firehouse - at least the garage part - was still in operational use at the time, as this extract indicates:

I call a meeting of just the sales people, in the truck bay. I have a 3-foot by 4-foot paper chart that summarizes where we are. We have a piece of Scotch tape on each end of the piece of paper, and we tape the chart to the 6" hose of one of the fire trucks.

I start to explain the chart to the group when a big man I don't know charges angrily into the truck bay.

"Get out, God damn it," he yells. "You cannot touch the fire trucks. That was the deal! Get those charts down - now!"

"But it's only two pieces of ..." I stammer.

"Get them down and get out of this room."

The man was barely rational. We all exit like guilty children. The man locks the truck bay. The bid is worth $150,000,000. We can't use the truck bay anymore.

The firehouse still exists here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/we3LqFnb7yHiPtWdA 

The building was extended in subsequent years, but the original part clearly matches the description in the memoir.