The IBM system/360 wasn't exactly a super computer, but a modular, scalable family of mainframes, ranging from medium business machines to scientific computers.

The IBM system/360 wasn't exactly a super computer, but a modular, scalable family of mainframes, ranging from medium business machines to scientific computers. The S/360 built on previous IBM mainframes, like the IBM 605 (first mass produced computer), the IBM 305 RAMAC (hard disk!), the IBM 7070 (solid state) and the popular IBM 1404 (about 10,000 units sold, an image of it found its way amongst the photos of the S/360 on that page). The S/360 was especially important for introducing the octet for a byte. It may be noted that the IBM 1401 was introduced in 1959 to replace hardwired punched card appliances, especially after these were heavily challenged by the Bull Gamma 3. The lower range IBM S/360 were replacing the 1401 in turn. The S/360 family was eventually replaced by its direct successor, the IBM system/370. That said, IBM did maintain some real super computing projects around this time, namely project X and project Y (resulting in the ACS project). Project X eventually became the top of the range S/360 Model 92, project Y (ACS-1) was especially important for its legacy in cache architecture and software optimization (optimizing compilers, etc.) Edit: Project X was actually sold under the designations S/360 Model 91, Model 95 and Model 195. (Introduced in 1969, these were more an add-on to the family, which had been introduced in 1965 and was already approaching the end of its retail cycle.) About 3 dozen of these actual super computers were built in total[1]. [1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7726/d267b6fb7470066640e7bb21843fed6b8a6e.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7726/d267b6fb7470066640e7bb...