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Comment by psim1 | Hacker News Reader

I worked at a company in the early 1990s that ran its business on an IBM System/36. It was basically a System/360 but one tenth of the size and expense! This was the only minicomputer I ever encountered, and I was not responsible for it. I was there to work on the "micros" (Windows PCs). I remember the System/36 programmer making comments about PC techs not being "real" computer operators or programmers. She was nearing retirement at that time, and if she is still alive I imagine she is enjoying a comfortable pension.

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My first job in 1984 included 'selling' System/36s - I say 'selling' in inverted commas as I don't think we actually sold a single machine - the other part was selling PC/XTs which was much easier. Also customers weren't that keen.

By 1990 it would have been a desktop S/36 which sat on or under your desktop. The first version was the shape of a washing machine but about 6x bigger by volume.

It was also incredibly slow. I later came across an insurance company that ran its business on a S/36 emulated on a 386. The emulation was faster than the original machine.

From memory I don't think the architecture had much in common with S/360. Quite simple I think but a lot of the internal state of the processor exposed to the programmer. Might do a blog post on it at some point!

Edit; Do let me know if a blog / newsletter post would be of interest - details in my bio. Thanks!

IIRC, the follow up to the 36 was the AS/400, which is now called IBM i, runs on POWER (same hardware as the IBM POWER line), and is, on many aspects, still ahead of our time (such as making no distinction between memory and disk). The line between a mini and a PC-based server has blurred.

I’d love to see more on this in your blog.

Do you remember the name of the emulator? Was it provided by IBM, if so was not running production on it against the TOS?

If it was not supplied by IBM then it was certainly not legal as far as IBMs legal team is concerned.

I only ever saw a demo of the IBM emulator. It was only offered for short time if memory serves. I do remember the emulator being painfully slow. This is not strange given the amount of emulation it had to do to emulate the SYSTEM/36/360 architecture.

The IBM model 5364 was called the "System/36 PC" or "Desktop 36"is about the size of a regular computer.

The full machine fits your description well

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/IBM_System/36 https://www.recycledgoods.com/ibm-5364-s-36-pc/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oa5g5FWss

I didn't have direct contact with the emulator (it was >20 years ago and I wasn't working for the firm concerned) but this was in a highly regulated industry so I'd be astonished if it wasn't compliant with any TOS.

Yes, the 5360 was the bigger machine I was involved with. We also the 'Compact' 5362 but not the 'Desktop' 5364 model. The Desktop S/36 only appeared in 1985 after I left IBM.

They had the 5362, seemed to be about the size of a two-drawer file cabinet. I recall maybe three or four terminals connected to it from around the office. It was a small manufacturing firm and this computer was a big investment for them.

Interesting thanks! Do you remember what software you were running?

It's easy to forget that a whole class of computer like this has disappeared from the market - a small company would use the cloud these days I guess.

> Do you remember what software you were running?

Not at all! I was the PC tech and I remember feeding a lot of diskettes into Windows 3.1 machines to load Word Perfect and other office tools of the time.

My mom has had a lot to say about reliability of mainframes over PC servers. She worked as mainframe programmer at trucking company that had a mainframe, and robotic DVD archives loading system, for scheduling and dispatch. PC servers were starting to be used for other parts of business.

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