360/50 microcode listing
Jon Elson
elson at pico-systems.com
Thu May 7 21:11:36 CDT 2015
On 05/07/2015 02:15 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 05/07/2015 11:56 AM, Robert Ferguson wrote:
>> Is there a reliable estimate of the number of extant
>> relatively complete and/or actually working System/360
>> machines? A registry, perhaps?
>>
>> I would find that to be a very interesting data point.
>
> I'd be interested also, in that a simple 360 CPU is
> essentially useless. You need at least a minimum
> collection of working peripherals to be able to do
> anything at all.
>
> --Chuck
>
>
>
Small 360's at least had integrated channels, but you still
needed control units AS WELL as the peripherals.
It ends up being a fair number of boxes to just get even a
360/30 to do any reasonable bit of work. Some of the unit
record control units could live in shared boxes. But, a
reasonable system would need a unit record controller, a
tape controller and a disk controller, as well as the card
machine, tape drives and disk drives.
The 360/65 had no integrated channels, IIRC, so you needed
to have at least a couple channel boxes in addition to the
CPU and control units. Ended up being a forest of blue
boxes. And, the wiring under the floor was totally
unbelievable!
Jon
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