Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lynn Wheeler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Harvest time! Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2026 13:43:19 -1000 Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 77 Message-ID: <875wzjlld4.fsf@localhost> References: <119kf6g$9kh$1@reader1.panix.com> <119mlq6$1iqr6$7@dont-email.me> <119n714$1o7tv$1@dont-email.me> <119nd6n$1ptm0$1@dont-email.me> <119p8ji$2g4hd$2@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2026 23:43:21 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="2687992"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+nTE1II/xF55AaTXed3s+lV7g7LyqKAHw="; posting-host="7b4b88d1c1a8669e6927c9753f9aaf8f" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:0+wuRMmnSa11+o0em5bxqzt5ZcY= sha1:WqkrjRJBPP3xqNkKUQn7Yp+0heM= sha256:Lmnd9D+rp1I+3DYvJYlNWSI25SMK/91ze2mLW0Cj7/c= sha1:30KkgMCXzA8c+qB6b0Vo/CPBNIo= sha256:lTQ5upytqeJZ9DvlB1y2CC/M2jHXX2/c0YwhcFEptGU= Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:235722 Lawrence D’Oliveiro writes: > IBM went much, much further. Remember, they pioneered the concept of > “FUD” (“Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt”) to scare customers off rivals’ > products, as notoriously happened with CDC. They didn’t have product > superiority, but they had marketing superiority. Their products were > clunky, expensive and inflexible, as well as being outdated in many > ways, but they still dominated the market (at least for mainframes) > because “nobody got fired for buying IBM”. Amdahl won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible ... and he left when it was killed (folklore that they were afraid ACS/360 would advance the state of art too fast and IBM woould loose control of the market). https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html above list most aggregate MIPS was 360/65 at 23%, univac 1108 2nd at 14% and CDC 6600 3rd at 10% About the same time, I was undergraduate and hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Service (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton datacenter largest in the world. 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed (boxes constantly staged in hallways around the machine room) ... comments that Boeing was ordering 360/65s like other companies ordered keypunch machines. Both IBM and Boeing told story than day 360 was announced (7Apr1964), Boeing walks in with order making the IBM marketing rep highest paid IBM employee that year (still straight commission, following year IBM moves to quota). When I graduate, I join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying with Boeing CFO). In 1st part of 70s, IBM has "Future System" project. During "FS", internal politics was killing off 370 efforts and the lack of new 370s is credited with giving the clone 370 makers their market foothold (and marketing "FUD", Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt; really came to forefront. When FS finally implodes there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines ... including kicking off the quick and dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html ... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World" https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/ ... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive ... snip ... trivia: 3081 was going to only be multiprocessor systems. The 1st 3081D ship was 2-CPU that had less aggregate MIPs than the Amdahl single processor. IBM doubles the 3081 processor caches for 3081K, bringing aggregate MIPS up to about the same as Amdahl 1-CPU. However, IBM's favorite son batch operating system ("MVS") documentation had its 2-CPU only getting 1.2-1.5 times throughput of one CPU (because of inefficient multiprocessor support), as a result a MVS 3081K (with approx same aggregate MIPs) only had .6-.75 throughput as a MVS 1-CPU Amdahl. trivia2: also after FS implodes, I got asked to help with 16-CPU 370 and we con the 3033 processor engineers working on it in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK (IBM high-end processors) that it could be decades before IBM's favorite son batch operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (IBM doesn't ship 16-CPU system until after turn of the century) and some of us were told to never visit POK again (and the 3033 processor engineers were told, "heads down and no distractions"). -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970