{"id":33960,"date":"2021-11-04T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T16:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=33960"},"modified":"2021-10-18T17:59:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T21:59:26","slug":"a-1958-univac-airline-reservation-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/04\/a-1958-univac-airline-reservation-system\/","title":{"rendered":"A 1958 UNIVAC airline reservation system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had thought that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sabre_(computer_system)\">SABRE<\/a>, a joint development of IBM and American Airlines, was the first computerized airline reservation system, going live in 1960. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/1458043.1458075\">&#8220;The Univac Air Lines Reservations System: a special-purpose application of a general-purpose computer&#8221;<\/a> was published in 1958 and talks about the system being up and running already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-1176x1520.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34612\" width=\"635\" height=\"820\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-1176x1520.png 1176w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-792x1024.png 792w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-232x300.png 232w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-768x993.png 768w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23-1188x1536.png 1188w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-23.png 1202w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have a look at the authors&#8217; affiliations at the bottom right. A cautionary tale that success in the computer industry can be fleeting! How powerful was the mainframe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-24.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-24.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34613\" width=\"354\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-24.png 545w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-24-260x300.png 260w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 354px) 100vw, 354px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Transaction processing time wasn&#8217;t that different than today&#8217;s bloated servers, with their infinite layers of Java, can manage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-25.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-25.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34614\" width=\"337\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-25.png 518w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/image-25-300x183.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 337px) 100vw, 337px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The system was up 99.7 percent of the time for its first six weeks and the authors envisioned a future system serving 1,200 travel agents simultaneously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had thought that SABRE, a joint development of IBM and American Airlines, was the first computerized airline reservation system, going live in 1960. However, &#8220;The Univac Air [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-nerdism","category-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A 1958 UNIVAC airline reservation system - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/04\/a-1958-univac-airline-reservation-system\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A 1958 UNIVAC airline reservation system - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had thought that SABRE, a joint development of IBM and American Airlines, was the first computerized airline reservation system, going live in 1960. 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