ng to eliminate the second-hand trade while working as a top executive for NCR. After his release, he joined CTR and worked his way again to the helm before changing the companys name to International Business Machines Corporation. By 1935, IBM had sales of only $35 million a year. His luck sky-rocketed as his business would soon follow. The Social Security Act of 1935 and the Wages-Hours Act were passed and the demand for his machines became his savior. In 1937, Watson backed Howard Aiken, another computer builder and researcher, with his project of building a faster calculator with a storage device that acted more as a general purpose computer. IBM fronted $100,000 dollars for the project, but would eventually fully fund the endeavor with the entire $500,000 needed. The project took six years to complete, although they had planned only for a few months. He used his knowledge from the partnership to further his business more into the computing world. The computer that was conceived from the Watson-Aikens partnership was called the Mark I. A relatively complex machine that was an attempt to simulate the thought process of the human brain. When the question arose who was to receive credit for the new machine, a conflict developed and the partnership was severed. Watson then assigned his engineers to the task of constructing a machine that would surpass the Mark I. They did, the SSEC, but IBM took it to the next level by making the computer publicly accessible. It was in fact the only public machine that could complete differential equations. Its memory - consistent of 12,500 vacuum tubes - was capable of storing eight 20 digit decimals, and 150 numbers in its relays. It could also hold 20,000 numbers on sixty-six reels of punch tape. This was IBMs debut into popularity in the computing business.One of the most incredible - yet simple - inventions that effects our digital world profoundly today was that of the transistor....
