Fergie's Tech Blog

7 April 1964: Happy Birthday, IBM System/360

The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a mainframe computer system family announced by International Business Machines on April 7, 1964. It was the first family of computers making a clear distinction between architecture and implementation. The chief architect of the S/360 was Gene Amdahl.

The S/360 was the most expensive CPU project in history. (The most expensive project of the 1960s was the Apollo program for moon exploration. IBM's System/360 was the second most expensive. S/360 machines were also heavily used in the Apollo project.) Fortune Magazine at the time referred to the project as IBM's "$5 billion gamble," and they were right. IBM absolutely bet the company on the System/360. (US$5 billion in 1964 dollars translates to about $30 billion in 2005 dollars.) The bet paid off.

posted by Fergie @ 4/06/2006 10:01:00 PM