IBM System/1

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Jul 16 22:54:07 2000

> The 360/20. It's seems unlike to me that it was really the inspiration for
> the minicomputer families. They had already build minicomputer-class
> machines in the past (e.g., 650, 1401, 1620/1710), and were fairly
> successful with them.

Maybe not an inspiration, but certainly a rebirth. S/360 was supposed to
do all the jobs for business (not counting process control or lab use).
  
> I think what caused them to scale up their efforts
> was more a matter that the perceived they were losing a lot of market
> share to DEC (and other minicomputer vendors).

I could see this.
 
> There were some intermediate stops along the way, such as the 1130/1800,
> and the System/7.

I think these were process control machines (great for running
factories). I think IBM always treated these as a whole different branch.

There is an amazing lack of information on the S/7 on the web.
 
> One of the most interesting things about Series/3 was that they invented
> a new punched card format for it.

Not all of them used the things, however.

> I recently acquired one, and wish I had time to test the "unhackable" part.
>
> The newer machines are based on the PowerPC architecture (with some
> extensions), and may be more "hackable" than the old CISC machines.

I don't think having a PowerAS based system will help. I would think the
older machines would be easier to play with.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_psfn.org
Received on Sun Jul 16 2000 - 22:54:07 BST