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IBM Mainframes – 45 Years of Evolution
© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM
Reports of the death of the mainframe were premature
“I predict that the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996.” – Stewart Alsop, March 1991 “It’s clear that corporate customers still like to have centrally controlled, very predictable, reliable computing systems – exactly the kind of systems that IBM specializes in.” – Stewart Alsop, February 2002
Source: IBM Annual Report 2001 2
© 2009 IBM Corporation
In the Beginning The First Two Generations
© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM
Well, maybe a little before…
IBM started out as a merger of three US companies, which became units of CTR – Computing Scale – Tabulating Machine – Time Recording The Canadian unit became the International Business Machines Co. Ltd. in 1917 The parent became International Business Machines Corporation in 1924
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© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM
The family tree – 1952 to 1964
Several mainframe families announced, designed for different applications Every family had a different, incompatible architecture Within families, moving from one generation to the next was a migration – Common compilers made migration easier – COBOL and FORTRAN
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© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM
IBM 701 – 1952 1st generation
The first IBM large-scale electronic computer manufactured in quantity IBM's first commercially available scientific computer The first IBM machine in which programs were stored in an internal, addressable, electronic memory The first of the pioneering line of IBM 700 series computers, including the 702 through 709
701
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© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM
IBM 305 RAMAC – 1956 1st generation
The first computer to include a disk drive (named the IBM 350 Disk File) Prior to this magnetic computer storage had consisted of core memory, tape, and drums The 350 Disk File consisted of a stack of fifty 24 inch discs