Oops... IBM's 1964 gift to CDC and DEC
Posted by Much-Stay-7237@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 12 comments
IBM’s missteps effectively ended its dominance in scientific computing and helped open the market to successors such as CDC, DEC, and Data General. In particular, the System 360 enabled CDC and Seymour Cray to become dominant with 60-bit architectures that were clearly superior.
https://decwarorg.blogspot.com/2026/04/oops-ibms-1964-gift-to-cdc-and-dec.html
sprashoo@reddit
Interesting to observe, though, that IBM is still around while all those other companies basically folded or got bought out decades ago.
Stoney3K@reddit
That's because their "Hail Mary" of getting the 5150 to market paid off big time. The PC was pretty much a machine that was a little outside of their wheelhouse, but it was such a sales hit that it put IBM back on the map.
Also, you can't really compare a S/360 or S/370 mainframe to a PDP-8 or even a PDP-11.
FredSchwartz@reddit
Yeah, IBM has made... what, trillions (adjusted for inflation) in revenue from the 360 line and descendants. The other companies are all fond memories at this point.
the123king-reddit@reddit
The 360 line has to be the longest lived system architecture. Descendants are still being made and supported today (though arguably none of them are actually inherently 360 compatible, i believe that's more of a microcode/software shim)
the123king-reddit@reddit
To add to this, the 360 was one of the first computers to adopt the 8 bit byte as a unit of data storage. By the 1970's everyone else standardised round the byte too, which probably helped the 360 last as long as it did. Other contemporary systems tended to use octal-based data units (12 bit, 18 bit) which translated poorly to 8 bit bytes. Systems like the PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-15 (heh, ever heard of that one?) and the CDC 6600 were inherently incompatible with data from the 360 and other 8-bit systems like the PDP-11, so whilst the PDP-11, DG Nova, System 360, and later 8 bit microprocessors dominated, older octal systems were left in a world where they couldn't easily share data with the "new kids on the block"
NightmareJoker2@reddit
You forgot about a small detail there, though:
IBM has sold a lot of business units.
IBM is just a monolith that purchases and does business when it is profitable, and sells off the hollow husks once they start to no longer meet their required margins and sustainability projections.
TheCh0rt@reddit
Good news! RFK Jr. is putting the ol girl back in service at the CDC! It will be up and running the nation's most important health simulation algorithms soon!
nmrk@reddit
Well that is certainly a unique perspective on the most successful mainframe ever built.
gadget850@reddit
I have former coworkers who followed the printer business from CDC to Centronics to GENICOM.
todd0x1@reddit
System 360 was so gorgeous. Makes me sad to know most of them were scrapped. I'd give anything to have whats in the picture in a glass walled corner of my house..........
youtellmebob@reddit
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
7upswhere@reddit
The 360 system was not meant to compete with the CDC6600. Yes, you can find IBMThe 7030 Whirlwind was the computer that the CDC6600 was made to compete with. CDC6600 was not made for large batch processing and data input like what the 360 was. The 360 also had to be compatible with older systems also why it used a 24/31 bit architecture for companies upgrading their older IBM systems, where the CDC6600 was a whole new architecture made specifically for scientific computation.
Ferarri vs semi-truck is an apt reference comparing these two.
Any DEC or Data General were what we now would say are Minicomputers. Not made to complete with the 360/370 except at the very very low end IBM systems.