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IBM 360 question

C

ComputerGeek

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Hello, so I’ve recently taken interest in the IBM 360 series of computers, maybe someday I will get a complete system? I found this picture and want to know what the parts of it is. I already know what most of the parts are like the 2401 tape drives and controllers and 1403’s with controllers, the 2540’s with controllers, the 2311 and the 2314 but where is the operator panel and what are the cabinets and the bottom and right side? The picture is below.92D72C62-ED04-4ED2-ADA0-230F166AC0FC.jpg
 
The operator console is where the guy is sitting down, in front of the row of 2311 and 2314 disk drives. I would assume that the CPU is the sort of double-H-shaped array of cabinets in the center, and the rows of cabinets along the bottom and right side would contain stacks of core memory and associated circuitry. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I've always thought that IBM RED was the most beautiful of their colors. IBM BLUE was next in line. Unfortunately, their systems became less and less colorful and daring as we went through the years, ending up as just mostly off-white or black boxes. The System/390 mainframe series had either a colored "speed bump" or a little colored stripe on the system cabinet, but that's about it. Here's one with IBM's "sunshine yellow," I believe it was called:

http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/ibm-system390
 
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It might be more interesting if this were an actual photograph, but it's not. It's an artists rendering:

http://www.diazcontemporary.ca/Artists_GirouxYoung1.html

If I were to guess, I'd say the operator's console is behind the thick part of the "H" in the center--you can just make out the edge of a CRT or microfiche box.

However, this is supposed to be S/360 Model 85, which looks like this.
 
There are some nice pictures of the Newcastle University 360/67 here:-

http://history.cs.ncl.ac.uk/anniversaries/40th/images/ibm360_672/index.html

This ran MTS most of the time, something that the University of Michigan had written because IBM's TSS wasn't ready for production use. MTS was interesting because the main console was just another terminal but usually logged in to a privileged account. On a weekend it was possible to access it to mount your own disks and tapes....

... You can download Hercules (which is actually a 370 and later emulator) and MTS and run all this on a PC...

http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/mts-d60A

http://www.hercules-390.org/

http://www.softdevlabs.com/hyperion.html

https://hercules-390.github.io/html/hercinst.html
 
g4ugm said:
I had better be careful then. I usually war a Magpies hat as one son is MUFC and one ManCity and it usually avoids arguments.... but perhapds not the best today
Click to expand...

Good call. You're not a Geordie, by any chance?
 
roberttx said:
Good call. You're not a Geordie, by any chance?
Click to expand...

No Darlington, but I studied Maths at Newcastle Poly so the Newcastle Uni 360/67 was the machine I used for my course. I lived in Whitley Bay for one year, Garth Heads, off the City Road by Manors Station for two. I already knew Fortran when I went. I also learnt IBM 360 Assembler and APL but perhaps not as much Maths as I shoul.

An early program did least squares fits on data from physics experiments (we also did one hour a week physics) which would plot the data on a Storage Scope or Pen Plotter. If run on the scope you could use the light pen to "adjust" any nasty outlying data points.....
 
Since my posts from 2/14 were lost--the operator's console is precisely where I said it was--at the rear of the thick "H" section. The 1052 by the disk drives is probably a logging device.
 
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