This volume describes General Electric Corporation’s venture into developing second and third generation mainframe computer systems. The General Electric Corporation (GE), which began its life as the Edison Electric Co., was long involved in electrical appliances and industrial machines. It was also a founder of the Radio Corporation of America, which eventually became one of its competitors, and developed many electrical systems in order to control different types of industrial machines. Its breakthrough into computing came with its winning bid to provide the computing systems for the Electronic Recording Method of Accounting) system developed for the Bank of America by the Stanford Research Institute. The success of this project led GE to develop the GE-200 series which was the foundation for commercial timesharing. The GE-235 was selected by Dartmouth for its Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), an innovative academic time-sharing system. BASIC was developed on the GE-235 computer system under DTSS. GE enhanced it to develop its Mark II/III Time Sharing System, apparently the first commercial time sharing service in the world. GE develop the GE-300/-400 systems for industrial process control. The GE-600 series replaced the GE-200 series and demonstrated innovation in time-sharing systems. The GE-645 was selected to host Multics, which was developed by MIT. However, GE felt that it could not compete in computing against IBM, Univac, and other mainframes competitors, so it folded its tent and sold its Computer Division to Honeywell, Inc. Nevertheless, GE will be remembered for many innovations which continue to be used in modern computing systems.

This compact history traces the computer industry from its origins in 1950s mainframes, through the establishment of standards beginning in 1965 and the introduction of personal computing in the 1980s. It concludes with the Internet’s explosive growth since 1995. Across these four periods, Martin Campbell-Kelly and Daniel Garcia-Swartz describe the steady trend toward miniaturization and explain its consequences for the bundles of interacting components that make up a computer system. With miniaturization, the price of computation fell and entry into the industry became less costly. Companies supplying different components learned to cooperate even as they competed with other businesses for market share. Simultaneously with miniaturization—and equally consequential—the core of the computer industry shifted from hardware to software and services. Companies that failed to adapt to this trend were left behind. Governments did not turn a blind eye to the activities of entrepreneurs. The U.S. government was the major customer for computers in the early years. Several European governments subsidized private corporations, and Japan fostered R&D in private firms while protecting its domestic market from foreign competition. From Mainframes to Smartphones is international in scope and broad in its purview of this revolutionary industry.

For many decades, IT infrastructure has provided the foundation for successful application deployment. Yet, general knowledge of infrastructures is still not widespread. Experience shows that software developers, system administrators, and project managers often have little knowledge of the big influence IT infrastructures have on the performance, availability and security of software applications. This book explains the concepts, history, and implementation of IT infrastructures. Although many of books can be found on individual infrastructure building blocks, this is the first book to describe all of them: datacenters, servers, networks, storage, virtualization, operating systems, and end user devices. Whether you need an introduction to infrastructure technologies, a refresher course, or a study guide for a computer science class, you will find that the presented building blocks and concepts provide a solid foundation for understanding the complexity of today's IT infrastructures.

Second Generation Mainframes: The IBM 7000 Series describes IBM’s second generation of mainframe computers which introduced new technology, new peripherals and advanced software. These systems were continuations of the instruction sets of the IBM 700 series with significant enhancements, but supported upwards compatibility that preserved customers’ investment in the earlier series. The use of magnetic cores, fast magnetic tapes and disks, and transistors yielded computation speeds that opened new domains for computation. Programming languages continued to be developed and enhanced, and new ones were developed for specific domains, such as SNOBOL, COBOL, and Macro Assemblers. Robust subroutine libraries for mathematical applications appeared. New operating systems provided many capabilities to programmers for data management and file systems, limited multiprocessing, timesharing, programming language support, and better error handling and control of peripherals. Early concepts in persistent file systems on magnetic disks were developed that changed the nature of job processing. The IBM 7000 series led the way in many innovative concepts that helped to establish IBM as the foremost manufacturer of computer systems. However, the diversity of the models put significant strain on IBM’s financial resources and development teams, which ultimately led to OBM’s development of the System/360 family of machines.

Confused about zSeries Mainframes? Need to understand the z/OS operating system - and in a hurry? Then you've just found the book you need.Avoiding technical jargon, this book gives you the basic facts in clear, light-hearted, entertaining English. You'll quickly learn what Mainframes are, what they do, what runs on them, and terms and terminology you need to speak Mainframe-ese.But it's not all technical. There's also invaluable information on the people that work on Mainframes, Mainframe management issues, new Mainframe trends, and other facts that don't seem to be written down anywhere else.Programmers, managers, recruitment consultants, and industry commentators will all find this book their new best friend when trying to understand the Mainframe world.

This volume describes several different models of IBM computer systems, characterized by different data representations and instruction sets that strongly influenced computer system architecture in the 1950s and early 1960s. They focused on a common system architecture that allowed peripherals to be used on different systems, albeit with specific adapters. These systems were modular, which made them easy to manufacture, configure, and service. Computing with UNIVAC, they used reliable Williams Tubes for memory, and later introduced magnetic core memory. IBM developed its own magnetic tape drives and magnetic drums that were both faster and more reliable than UNIVAC’s peripherals. The first software systems that could reasonably be called “operating systems” enabled more efficient use of programmer time and system resources. The development of programming languages, notably FORTRAN, and assembly language processors, notably Autocoder, improved the productivity of programmers. In addition, IBM developed one of the finest product marketing, sales and servicing organizations in the world. The legacy of the IBM 700 series is found in their popular successors, the IBM 7000 Series, which will be described in a forthcoming volume.

This IBM Redbook provides students of information systems technology with the background knowledge and skills necessary to begin using the basic facilities of a mainframe computer. It is the first in a planned series of textbooks designed to introduce students to mainframe concepts and help prepare them for a career in large systems computing. For optimal learning, students are assumed to have successfully completed an introductory course in computer system concepts, such as computer organization and architecture, operating systems, data management, or data communications. They should also have successfully completed courses in one or more programming languages, and be PC literate. This textbook can also be used as a prerequisite for courses in advanced topics or for internships and special studies. It is not intended to be a complete text covering all aspects of mainframe operation, nor is it a reference book that discusses every feature and option of the mainframe facilities. Others who will benefit from this course include experienced data processing professionals who have worked with non-mainframe platforms, or who are familiar with some aspects of the mainframe but want to become knowledgeable with other facilities and benefits of the mainframe environment. As we go through this course, we suggest that the instructor alternate between text, lecture, discussions, and hands-on exercises. Many of the exercises are cumulative, and are designed to show the student how to design and implement the topic presented. The instructor-led discussions and hands-on exercises are an integral part of the course material, and can include topics not covered in this textbook. This book is also offered with a textbook cover instead of a redbook cover in PDF and hardcopy formats. Download PDF of book with textbook cover (6.0MB) Order hardcopy of book with textbook cover Note: The contents of the book are identical in both the textbook and redbook versions except for the covers.