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It was a bet-the-company move and would have bankrupted IBM had it failed. They literally discontinued all other product lines in one swoop and consolidated the

It was a bet-the-company move and would have bankrupted IBM had it failed. They literally discontinued all other product lines in one swoop and consolidated the entire company's architecture around a single, compatible processor spec. That is standard today and was unheard of at the time.

panick21_ 5y ago
And then the invented virtualization to run the old software again haha
- rbanffy 5y ago
  In 360 terms, virtual machines are for dividing the machine into multiple smaller ones, each able to run its own OS. At that time, there were multiple OSs for different things.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    The virtualized some of their older maschines I am pretty sure. Some people didnt want to switch. I think Honeywell started making clones of the old maschines and were successful and then IBM made that code run on 360.
Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
> They literally discontinued all other product lines Not quite, as I mention elsewhere they continued incompatible low end systems, most prominently the existing business 1401 series, and used 360 technology to make the affordable 1965 1130. I would assume the same for the 1969 System 3, which eventually evolved in the AS/400 or IBM I as they call it now, which internally is still by far the most sophisticated mass manufactured computer system architecture.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > eventually evolved in the AS/400 or IBM I as they call it now I have to note that the AS/400 was so much ahead of its time it's still, in many aspects, ahead of our time.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
It was a moonshot, both in expenditure and magnitude. https://spectrum.ieee.org/building-the-system360-mainframe-nearly-destroyed-ibm https://spectrum.ieee.org/building-the-system360-mainframe-n... "The company spent US $5 billion (about $40 billion today) to develop the System/360, which at the time was more than IBM made in a year, and it would eventually hire more than 70,000 new workers. Every IBMer believed that failure meant the death of IBM."

panick21_ 5y ago

And then the invented virtualization to run the old software again haha

rbanffy 5y ago
In 360 terms, virtual machines are for dividing the machine into multiple smaller ones, each able to run its own OS. At that time, there were multiple OSs for different things.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  The virtualized some of their older maschines I am pretty sure. Some people didnt want to switch. I think Honeywell started making clones of the old maschines and were successful and then IBM made that code run on 360.

Throwawayaerlei 5y ago

> They literally discontinued all other product lines Not quite, as I mention elsewhere they continued incompatible low end systems, most prominently the existing business 1401 series, and used 360 technology to make the affordable 1965 1130. I would assume the same for the 1969 System 3, which eventually evolved in the AS/400 or IBM I as they call it now, which internally is still by far the most sophisticated mass manufactured computer system architecture.

rbanffy 5y ago
> eventually evolved in the AS/400 or IBM I as they call it now I have to note that the AS/400 was so much ahead of its time it's still, in many aspects, ahead of our time.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

It was a moonshot, both in expenditure and magnitude. https://spectrum.ieee.org/building-the-system360-mainframe-nearly-destroyed-ibm https://spectrum.ieee.org/building-the-system360-mainframe-n... "The company spent US $5 billion (about $40 billion today) to develop the System/360, which at the time was more than IBM made in a year, and it would eventually hire more than 70,000 new workers. Every IBMer believed that failure meant the death of IBM."