X-Nico

unusual facts about IBM System/360 architecture



Bob O. Evans

He was responsible for the development of what was announced on June 30, 1970 as the IBM System/370 product line, initially with three models, later gradually expanded to 17 models.

Control store

The original System/360 models of IBM mainframe had read-only control store, but later System/360, System/370 and successor models loaded part or all of their microprograms from floppy disks or other DASD into a writable control store consisting of ultra-high speed random-access read-write memory.

Databank Systems Limited

A national computerised network was set up with overnight processing of transactions, initially on IBM System/360 Model 40 computers.

EMC Symmetrix

Symmetrix arrays, EMC's flagship product at that time, began shipping in 1990 as a storage array connected to an IBM mainframe via the block multiplexer channel .

Foto-Mem

In this particular case the Risar was controlled by an IBM System/360 computer with a 24  k (words or bytes is not clear) index database, with abstracts being held on an associated disk system.

IBM 1442

The 1442 Model 6 attached to an IBM System/3 or IBM 1130, read 300 cpm and punched 80 columns per second.

The 1442 Model 7 attached to an IBM System/3 or IBM 1130, read 400 cpm and punched 180 columns per second.

IBM System/3

Although the IBM System/38 and its successor the AS/400 and iSeries filled the same market niche, they used a radically different architecture, based on the failed IBM Future Systems project.

IBM System/36

If the operator "dialed up" the combination F-F-0-0 before performing an IPL, many diagnostics were skipped, causing the duration of the IPL to be about a minute instead of about 10 minutes.

In the 1970s, the US Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit against IBM, claiming it was using unlawful practices to knock out competitors.

IBM System/36 BASIC

System/36 BASIC was first offered in 1983, and as such, contained many of the trappings that a BASIC program would have encountered in the time period of the IBM PC, the Commodore 64, the VIC-20, the TRS-80, or many other offerings of the Seventies and early Eighties.

For example, on the Apple II, a programmer could embed a command into a program via PRINT, when prefaced by the character string CHR$(4).

IBM System/360 Model 40

The IBM System/360 Model 40 was developed and manufactured at IBM's facility in Poughkeepsie, U.S.A.: manufactured in Mainz, Germany; and manufactured in Fujisawa, Japan.

IBM System/370

The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) had a backend for S/370, but it became obsolete over time and was finally replaced by the S/390 backend.

In June 1971, on the S/370-145 (one of which had to be 'smuggled' into Cambridge Scientific Center to prevent anybody noticing the arrival of an S/370 at that hotbed of virtual memory development – since this would have signaled that the S/370 was about to receive address relocation technology).

IBM System/38

(The earlier Plessey 250 was one of the few other computers with capability architecture ever sold commercially).

The System/38 was a descendant of the abandoned IBM Future Systems project, which had been designed as the replacement for the System/360 and System/370 mainframe architectures.

Inter-processor interrupt

The M65MP option of OS/360 used the Direct Control feature of the S/360 to generate an interrupt on another processor; on S/370 and its successors, including z/Architecture, the SIGNAL PROCESSOR instruction provides a more formalized interface.

Paul H. Cress

He was a young lecturer in computer science at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) when, starting in 1966, he and his colleague Paul Dirksen led a team of programmers developing a fast Fortran programming language compiler called WATFOR (WATerloo FORtran), for the IBM System/360 family of computers.

Polsinelli

In 2012 it announced plans to tear down the bankrupt and unfinished Moshe Safdie-designed West Edge building that had originally been built for Bob Bernstein on the west side of the Plaza and replace it with a 10-story structure designed by 360 Architecture called Plaza Vista.

Power-on reset

The operator requests a POR for configuration changes that cannot be recognized by a simple System Reset.

Sexton Foods

Using the IBM System/360 mainframe, Sexton designed a software system to automate inventory records, customer billing and accounts receivable.

Source Code Control System

It was originally developed in SNOBOL at Bell Labs in 1972 by Marc Rochkind for an IBM System/370 computer running OS/360 MVT.

The Spooler

The Spooler was a systems software operating system package that provided spooling facilities for the IBM System/370 running DOS/VS, DOS/VSE environment, and IBM System/360 running DOS/360 or retrofitted with modified DOS/360, such as TCSC's EDOS.

University of Michigan Executive System

UMES was in use at the University of Michigan until 1967, when MTS was phased in to take advantage of the newer virtual memory time-sharing technology that became available on the IBM System/360 Model 67.


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