🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom Linden wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:18:41 GMT, <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>>
>> "Peter Flass" <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:Svz7f.100111$7b6.38895@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>>> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>>
>>> > And 360/20 PL/I, I think.
>>> >
>>>
>>> Was there ever such a thing??? Never heard of it.
>>>
>> The IBM System 360, Model 20 was an entry level
>> machine intended for people transitioning from environments
>> such as the IBM 407 and 402 environments.  These were
>> sometimes called EAM (Electronic Accounting machines) and
>> they operated on punched cards with plug-board panels that
>> could be reconfigured to handle a wide variety of jobs.
>>
>> The Model 20 was largely incompatible with the rest of the IBM
>> 360 line.  Most of the progams were written in RPG.  The OS
>> was totally different from anything else in the 360 family and I
>> recall the version of that OS called BPS (Basic Programming
>> Support).
>>
>> While there were eventually compilers for COBOL and some level
>> of PL/I, few IBM customers used anything except RPG.   Most
>> customers were happy to simply transfer their EAM applications
>> to the Model 20.   Intial deployments of this system required a
>> continued dependency on punched cards.   Tape was available.
>> Over time the system did evolve to support a greater variety of
>> storage devices.
>>
>> Eventually, IBM introduced the System 36 and other machines that
>> were a complete departure from the 360 line and many of the Model
>> 20 users were able to migrate to those systems.   The next step was
>> the AS 400 line.  I don't think System 36 or AS 400 provided support
>> for PL/I, but the AS 400 became one of the best products IBM ever
>> produced for small business accounting systems.
> 
> Actually they introduced the System 3 in a vareity of models, and they
> were eventually replaced by the sytem 32, 34, 35, 38 and then the AS400,
> The 32 came out around 1975, IIRC

High-end System/3's were similar to the 360/20 -- batch-oriented and 
card-oriented. Low-end System/3's were interactive.

Replacing the low-end System/3's, The System/32 was single-station, the 
System/34 was multi-station, and the System/36 was an upgrade to the 
System/34.

The System/38 was incompatible with the System/3 and the System/3x; it 
was based on the abandoned "Future Systems" series that had been 
intended to replace the S/370, and marketed as a replacement for the 
high-end System/3's, which had hit their architectural limits.

The AS/400 was a convergence of the S/36 and S/38.

One might also add the System/23, which was an attempt to converge the 
5100 "Portable Computer" series (IBM's 70's line of PCs) with the 
System/34. Painfully slow, as the only language was interpreted BASIC, 
but it at least had ISAM, a usable sort utility, and a program-generator 
utility.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"