[funsec] 7 April 1964: Happy Birthday, IBM System/360

[Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah]

> >The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a mainframe computer system family announced by
> >International Business Machines on April 7, 1964. It was the first family of
> >computers making a clear distinction between architecture and implementation.

> >http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2006/04/7-april-1964-happy-birthday-ibm.html

A bit of trivia.  A mathematical theorem (I think it was the four-colour thingie) 
was proven using a computer.  A few years ago the (historical) reports about this 
all just said "supercomputer," and so someone got interested in what the machine 
actually was, and found that it was (if dim memory serves) a 360.  (It *might* 
have been the followon 370, but I don't think so: if anything it might have been a 
modded 360+.)  He then went and looked up the specs, and found that the 
processing power involved fell somewhere in the range between a 486/25 and 
486/33.

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade at vcn.bc.ca      slade at victoria.tc.ca      rslade at sun.soci.niu.edu
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a
computer; Art is everything else.               - Donald Ervin Kunth
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm