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  • Thoughts on IBM 360

    From The Natural Philosopher@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 3 12:29:36 2025
    "The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could execute up to 16.6 million
    instructions per second. The larger 360 models could have up to 8 MB of
    main memory though that much memory was unusual; a large installation
    might have as little as 256 KB of main storage, but 512 KB, 768 KB or
    1024 KB was more common. Up to 8 megabytes of slower (8 microsecond)
    Large Capacity Storage (LCS) was also available for some models. "

    [Wiki]

    A Raspberry PI PICO could outperform that.

    A Pi Zero certainly could.

    "Application-level compatibility (with some restrictions) for System/360 software is maintained to the present day with the System z mainframe
    servers. "

    COBOL for a PI! It has to make sense...with a hundred PCS telnetted into
    it for data entry...

    There are a few 360s still around in museums or the hands of enthusiasts

    http://www.ibmsystem3.nl/System360/



    --
    "I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
    This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
    all women"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From rbowman@21:1/5 to The Natural Philosopher on Thu Apr 3 18:19:54 2025
    On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 12:29:36 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    "The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could execute up to 16.6 million instructions per second. The larger 360 models could have up to 8 MB of
    main memory though that much memory was unusual; a large installation
    might have as little as 256 KB of main storage, but 512 KB, 768 KB or
    1024 KB was more common. Up to 8 megabytes of slower (8 microsecond)
    Large Capacity Storage (LCS) was also available for some models. "

    My introduction to programming was on a System/360 30.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360_Model_30

    I can't remember if it had 32 or 64k but for operations like a FFT you
    wrote partial products to the tape drive, rewound, and took another pass.
    I was not impressed.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Lawrence D'Oliveiro@21:1/5 to The Natural Philosopher on Thu Apr 3 20:43:07 2025
    On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 12:29:36 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    "The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could execute up to 16.6 million instructions per second."

    [Wiki]

    A Raspberry PI PICO could outperform that.

    This was IBM’s attempt at the time to compete with the CDC 6000-series machines. These were designed by the legendary Seymour Cray, who came up
    with processors that were an order of magnitude faster than anything else around -- basically, they were the first “supercomputers”. IBM mounted a mighty FUD campaign to try to dissuade its customers from buying CDC
    machines, promising that its upcoming “360 Model 90” would be way ahead.

    When it finally shipped, about two years late, as the Model 91, it fell a
    bit short of what was promised.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From c186282@21:1/5 to Lawrence D'Oliveiro on Thu Apr 3 17:04:18 2025
    On 4/3/25 4:43 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
    On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 12:29:36 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

    "The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could execute up to 16.6 million
    instructions per second."

    [Wiki]

    A Raspberry PI PICO could outperform that.

    This was IBM’s attempt at the time to compete with the CDC 6000-series machines. These were designed by the legendary Seymour Cray, who came up
    with processors that were an order of magnitude faster than anything else around -- basically, they were the first “supercomputers”. IBM mounted a mighty FUD campaign to try to dissuade its customers from buying CDC machines, promising that its upcoming “360 Model 90” would be way ahead.

    When it finally shipped, about two years late, as the Model 91, it fell a
    bit short of what was promised.

    Well, sell it high - and then find reasons why
    the actual spec aren't as bad as they seem :-)

    The first i386 IBM-PC we bought went to the boss.
    Told him it'd do *one* MIP and, wow, he felt like
    he had a super-computer ! Thing is he never did
    anything but word processing and some small sheets
    but he FELT important. Keep the boss happy and
    everyone ELSE gets to be happy :-)

    Oh, and Cray-brand mainframes were the coolest-LOOKING
    things ever made.

    Apparently they WERE a step-above FAST too ... kinda
    first to make real-time ray-tracing and nuke physics
    sims practical.

    Was never quite sure why CDC broke up ... probably
    "management" issues because its hardware was always
    pretty well respected. Management idiocy kills more
    corps than bad sales ......

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Woozy Song@21:1/5 to The Natural Philosopher on Sat Apr 5 08:47:23 2025
    The Natural Philosopher wrote:
    "The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could execute up to 16.6 million instructions per second. The larger 360 models could have up to 8 MB of
    main memory though that much memory was unusual; a large installation
    might have as little as 256 KB of main storage, but 512 KB, 768 KB or
    1024 KB was more common. Up to 8 megabytes of slower (8 microsecond)
    Large Capacity Storage (LCS) was also available for some models. "



    I have some Fortran code written on an IBM 360. Due to the 8 MB memory
    limit, it more or less used one big array, and did it's own memory
    management by recycling the indexes IX,IY,IZ et cetera. Bloody nightmare
    to debug.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From John McCue@21:1/5 to Woozy Song on Sat Apr 5 11:57:01 2025
    Woozy Song <suzyw0ng@outlook.com> wrote:
    <snip>
    I have some Fortran code written on an IBM 360. Due to the 8 MB memory
    limit, it more or less used one big array, and did it's own memory
    management by recycling the indexes IX,IY,IZ et cetera. Bloody nightmare
    to debug.

    Does it still compile under gfortran ?

    I ask because I have a couple of programs from my college
    days (punch cards) that still compiles via gfortran.

    I typed them in from the cards, but they were not that
    large.

    --
    [t]csh(1) - "An elegant shell, for a more... civilized age."
    - Paraphrasing Star Wars

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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