IBM System/370 turns 50 years old

Paul Koning paulkoning at comcast.net
Tue Jun 30 19:57:47 CDT 2020



> On Jun 30, 2020, at 7:38 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 30/06/2020 16:44, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote:
>>> Happy birthday to the 370! Looks like it was released to the press on 30
>>> June 1970.
>>> 
>>> https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PR370.html 
>>> 
> Well, actually, IBM released the first 370 in 1968, only they didn't want to tell anybody too soon.
> So, they camouflaged it as a new 360 model, the /85, ...

That's interesting.

DEC at one point used that same number for the VAX-11/780.  I once at DECUS was shown a secret document which was the instruction list (similar in form to the way it appeared on the "VAX code card").  The document described it as being for the PDP-11/85.

I think that was at DECUS Chicago, 1977 perhaps, and I think the person who showed it to me was the attendee from Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI -- which later became a company with the same initials but a different name).  I never saw anything more along those lines until the official announcement with the real name, but I'm pretty sure about that memory.

	paul



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