Ken Shirriff's blog Examining a technology sample kit: IBM components from 1948 to 1986 I recently received a vintage display box used by IBM to illustrate the progress of computer technology. This display case, created by IBM Germany1 in 1986 included technologies ranging from vacuum tubes and magnetic core memory to IBM's latest (at the time) memory chips and processor modules. In this blog post, I describe these items in detail and how they fit into IBM's history. An IBM display box, showing components and board from different generations of computing. Click this (or any other photo) for a larger image. First-generation computing: tube module