In this instalment of the alphabet history of software in three-letter acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms, I is for IBM: International Business Machines. And it's part one of two, because it turns out IBM has quite a lot of history. In this instalment, we cover the story of IBM from the invention of the Hollerith punch card in the 1880s, through to the first supercomputer, Project STRETCH, in the early 1960s. Sources: "IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon (History of Computing)", James. W Cortada, MIT Press, 2023 "Father Son & Co: My Life at IBM And Beyond", Thomas J. Watson Jr. and Peter Petre, Bantam Books, 1990 "The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived: Tom Watson Jr. and the Epic Story of How IBM Created the Digital Age", Ralph Watson McElvenny and Marc Wortman, PublicAffairs, 2023 "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's most powerful corporation (Expanded Edition)", Edwin Black, Dialog Press, 2012 "Planning a Computer System: Project Stretch", ed. Werner Buchholz, McGraw-Hill, 1962 Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum Punch photographs: IBM Heritage: