Questions tagged [mainframe]
for questions about retrocomputing mainframes or clusters
6
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
16
votes
0
answers
816
views
Was there a cartoon series in the UK computer press called "Computability Brown"?
My dad was a computing professional in Scotland in the 1970s. He received a couple of industry trade magazines every week, such as Computer Weekly and Computing. In one of them, I remember there being ...
- 20.5k
5
votes
0
answers
202
views
Why did the Burroughs 205 not use bi-quinary like the IBM 650?
The IBM 650, one of the first general-purpose digital computers, designed in the early fifties, used decimal digits with bi-quinary representation for reasons discussed here: Why did the IBM 650 use ...
- 58.4k
3
votes
0
answers
206
views
Why was the IBM 7070 unsuccessful?
In a talk on the IBM 360 and the computers it replaced the speaker at 39:35 describes the 7070 as 'a dog', and elsewhere contrasts it unfavorably with the 1401 (which considerably exceeded ...
- 58.4k
2
votes
0
answers
199
views
Hitting the CMS Limits of Portable Code
I wrote this arbitrary precision arithmetic utility on BSD in my postgraduate days, then after graduating ported it to DOS using TurboC. Was proud that it would do the same thing with 16bit word ...
- 447
1
vote
0
answers
138
views
Record definitions with IBM COBOL and IMS
A common technology stack for line of business applications in the sixties and seventies was IBM COBOL with the IMS database. I'm curious about how the combination handled record definitions.
COBOL ...
- 58.4k
1
vote
0
answers
232
views
Are Unisys ClearPath Libra mainframes still in use in Australia?
By use, I mean are they still actively being developed for. I know this is the case in New Zealand and USA. In particular, is ALGOL code still being written on them?
- 11