Once upon a time, a long time ago,
April 7, 1964 to be exact, IBM announced the System 360 family of
computers. (1) It was a bold move, to create a unified line of
computing from small to large, with a compatible operating system and
set of peripherals. It was fabulously successful and used in
industry, research and education throughout this country and the
world.
The IBM logo of the period which was also designed by Paul Rand as is their current logo.
This was so long ago that computers
were not mere vehicles of commerce, shallow consumerism, crime and
government oppression and surveillance, as they are today.
Back then, computers could be seen in a
more naive and positive way, as a force of positive social change.
Of course, IBM was not seen as a force of social progress back then,
not at all. It would take a real idealist to see them in that light
and only a few did. But there were a few who recognized and
appreciated their role as part of a larger movement that might one
day help to change the world. I doubt anyone serious could hope for
a positive role for computing today, with its squalid consumerism and
oppressively bad design, but back then there was an elite who hoped
for and worked for that day, a day which never came.
The front panel for the IBM 360 Model 75
Say what you will about IBM and its
role as a pillar of Decadent Western Capitalism, as we used to
affectionately call it, they knew a thing or two about design and a
lot of good research and development took place on their computers which set the
stage (in part) for other well-intentioned initiatives of our
so-called civilization.
I remember that one day in the 1970s,
leftist radicals took over the Computing Center at UCSB to protest
something or another. They were so stupid that they thought that by
turning off the main console that they had turned off the computer.
Those of us who knew better used remote consoles in Physics and
elsewhere to keep working while Campus Security was negotiating the
removal of this would-be revolutionary vanguard.
Had our well-intentioned lefties only
noticed the big glowing bank of lights on the IBM 360/75, they
might have deduced that in fact they had not turned off computing for
the campus as they had hoped, but that the work of the
military-industrial complex, as the 360/75 symbolized to them, went
on, uninterrupted.
Today, no working IBM System 360 is
said to exist.
I doubt that this is completely true,
but it is true that only a few remain, the rest being melted down for
their copper or otherwise disposed of, their bulk making them very
difficult for all but a few to store for the long term. Perhaps we
will find a few front panels stashed in the garages of the world,
waiting like arrays of diamonds in the night to be rediscovered.
An antiquarian has collected for us an
array of symbolic representations of the System 360 front panels.
Each model had its own front panel, which represented the internal
implementation of that particular design in some abstract manner.
You may find his web page with its
various graphics representations here:
The front panel of the 360 / 75 that I
have included above is from his page.
Today, the front panel is a concept of
the past, destroyed by manufacturing principles of cost reduction.
Gone without discussion. Gone beyond any hope of retrieval, like
our hope that these technologies of which they were a part would be
used one day to help people and not merely oppress them.
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A good introduction to the System 360
can be found here:
The Wikipedia page on the System 360:
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Notes:
1. The Press Release from IBM for the
System 360 may be found here:
