The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation was in November 1959. In 1960, a typical system sold for $2,900,000 or could be rented for $63,500 a month.
The 7090 used a 36-bit word length, with an address-space of 32K (32,768) words. It operated with a basic memory cycle of 2.18 μs, using the IBM 7302 Core Storage core memory technology from the IBM 7030 (Stretch) project.
The 7090 was six times faster than the 709, and could be rented for half the price.
Read more about IBM 7090: IBM 7094 and IBM 7040/7044, Instruction and Data Formats, Input/Output, Software, Notable Applications