IBM Introduces the 601 Multiplying Punch

In 1931 IBM of Endicott, New York began manufacture of the 601 multiplying punch.

"It read two factors up to eight decimal digits in length from a card and punched their product onto a blank field of the same card. It could subtract and add as well as multiply. It had no printing capacity, so was generally used as an offline assistant for a tabulator or accounting machine."

The 601 that was delivered to W. J. Eckert's lab at the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau at Columbia University in 1933 was a special model "capable of doing direct interpolation, a very unusual feature, especially designed for Eckert by one of IBM's top engineers at Endicott [NY. "Eckert went a step further by connecting the 601 to a Type 285 Tabulator and a Type 016 Duplicating Punch through a calculation control switch of his own design, forming the first machine to perform complex scientific computations automatically" (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/601.html, accessed 9-2020).