🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, March 29, 2018 at 8:58:35 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> > It's sad to read of intra-department squabbles at IBM, but it
> > seems from the IBM Early Computer history that this is nothing
> > new.  Back in the early 1950s there was rivalry between the
> > Endicott and Poughkeepsie labs.  The S/360 development had a
> > lot of sharp differences of opinion on the direction to go.
> 
> I've told the story before about the Gov. antitrust (turns out one of
> the IBM people at the science center had relative that was MIT
> economist(?) that was at the trial) ... where various members of the
> bunch all testified that by the end of the 50s, all computer companies
> knew that the single most important customer requirement was compatible
> computer line (beginning of rapid growth in computer use ... so
> projecting lots of upgrading) ... and only IBM top executives managed to
> enforce it (none of the top executives at bunch managed to force plant
> managers for various product lines to toe the line) ... compatible
> product line was more important than features for any particular model.

>From what I've read, creating a compatible product line across
all four modes* in 1960 would require a lot of compromises that
would downgrade performance and increase cost.  In 1960, computer
hardware was still extremely expensive, not that fast, so including
circuits to do unwanted functions was an unnecessary expense.  Indeed,
even in the early days of S/360 and even PC's, floating point was an
optional feature.  The addressing needs on a small machine are different
than a large machine; S/360 base+displacement was a compromise.

* Small business-oriented, large business, small science/engineering,
large sci/eng.  Each type of orientation requires specific hardware.

Anyway, the product managers were expected to develop cost-effective
competitively priced hardware, which countered the goal of 
compatibility.  I can't blame them for being resistant; their
futures were threatened.

Note that the 1410/7010 wasn't exactly compatible with the 1401;
one had to throw a switch to run 1401 programs.

[snip]