The problem is described as the customer answering basically 5 different criteria (age range, gender, interests, category, price range) about the gift recipient

The problem is described as the customer answering basically 5 different criteria (age range, gender, interests, category, price range) about the gift recipient, and the computer returns a list of 10 gifts. Based on the description of the problem being solved, I'd guess they would have used "FARGO", a sort of report generation language, which probably had some predefined way to "AND" those criteria together and print out 10 matches. FARGO may have morphed into RPG by 1962, but the idea would have been similar. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1401/C24-1464-3_1401_fargo.pdf http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1401/C24-1464-3_1401_fargo.pdf