System/360

One of IBM's early mainframe families, released in the mid-sixties, replacing all earlier systems. OS/360, the operating system, was notable for being portable across a wide range of models.

IBM was motivated to create a universal operating system for it's hardware to reduce application software development costs, which were steadily increasing relative to hardware. It also provided an easier upgrade path for customers.

The development of System/360 was the largest software development project in history at the time. Frederick P. Brooks headed the project, and revealed many insights learned on the project in his well-known book, "The Mythical Man-Month".

One of the most revolutionary machines in computer history. The 360 series machines standardised the byte. The System/360 introduced the concept of virtualizing, paged and segmented memory, was the first production machine to use microprogramming, pipelining, and multiprogramming. The 360 series of machines acheived their goal of having a broad range of computers with compatable code. The fastest 360 series computers were over 500 times as powerfull as the slowest. The System/360 was also the worlds first supercomputer.