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The M in IBM standing for _Machines_, which have been fully commoditized and virtualized with the evolution of the Internet. IBM's biggest software advancements

The M in IBM standing for _Machines_, which have been fully commoditized and virtualized with the evolution of the Internet. IBM's biggest software advancements were proprietary and specific to their platforms (OS/360, etc.). Mainframes were called "big iron"; you could feel the mass of the computing engines when touching the beige powder-coated plates of their cabinets. The punch cards were never very far off, it was always just a faster version of the original mechanical processor. Any smaller computer they made was always just to plug a market breach created by some young wazoos. IBM PC responding to Apple II. RS/6000 responding to Sun. None of these were truly "serious" machines in the eyes of Real Men in Suits. They knew that when the time came to handle big business, you needed big beige boxes sitting on raised floors in an atmosphere-controlled room that you could watch over through a window, their blinkenlights softly atoning for whatever sins The Man had committed in the struggle for civilisation.

nl 4y ago
Not really sure what this is supposed to be about, but I was talking about IBM Research[1]. As Wikipedia notes, 6 Nobel prizes and 6 Turing awards is just the start. This has very little to do with OS/360 or anything - instead they were inventing scanning tunneling microscope[2] or Fortran[3]. I'm sure I'd be able to give a better list, but the Watson research center website[4] is down for me.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Research [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran [4] https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_page.php?id=6812 https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_page.php?i...
rbanffy 4y ago
> big beige boxes sitting on raised floors in an atmosphere-controlled room that you could watch over through a window, their blinkenlights softly atoning for whatever sins The Man had committed in the struggle for civilisation. Since then they turned black, most likely because of such sins...

nl 4y ago

Not really sure what this is supposed to be about, but I was talking about IBM Research[1]. As Wikipedia notes, 6 Nobel prizes and 6 Turing awards is just the start. This has very little to do with OS/360 or anything - instead they were inventing scanning tunneling microscope[2] or Fortran[3]. I'm sure I'd be able to give a better list, but the Watson research center website[4] is down for me.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Research [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran [4] https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_page.php?id=6812 https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_page.php?i...

rbanffy 4y ago

> big beige boxes sitting on raised floors in an atmosphere-controlled room that you could watch over through a window, their blinkenlights softly atoning for whatever sins The Man had committed in the struggle for civilisation. Since then they turned black, most likely because of such sins...