Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!purdue!sxr
From: sxr@purdue.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Superoptimiser.
Message-ID: <4480@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 12 Jul 88 20:24:26 GMT
References: <28200172@urbsdc> <11458@steinmetz.ge.com>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Reply-To: sxr@cs.purdue.edu (Saul Rosen)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 32

In article <11458@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <28200172@urbsdc> aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM writes:
>
>| The IBM 360 model 97 (I always get the model number wrong;
>| anyway, one of the early 360s) did this.
>
>  Was that the "stretch" model? I can't remember the model number, but
>very few were ever made. It supposedly was a reasearch item which went
>into production but was never marketed, so you could buy one if you
>could find out it existed (or something bizarre like that).
>
>  I find it hard to believe that IBM used to have a machine which they
>built for sale but didn't market. Now, of course they have come 180
>degrees from that position.
>-- 
>	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)

The Stretch belonged to an earlier generation than the 360.  Stretch
was the IBM 7030 which IBM withdrew from the market in 1961.  Its
performance was spectacular for its time, but not as good as had been
promised.  IBM agreed to deliver eight systems at a reduced price at
which it would lose money on every system delivered.  See "IBM's Early
Computers" by Bashe, Johnson, Palmer, and Pugh.  MIT Press 1986.

There was no 360 model 97.  IBM did introduce a model 90 series of
very high performance 360 systems, at least in part to help it compete
with Control Data.  This was the basis of an anti-trust suit by CDC
against IBM.  IBM built and delivered a few model 91 systems, and at
least one model 95.  They offered and sold a few model 91 systems to
University Computing centers at clearance prices, and withdrew them
from the market when the model 85 was introduced, and then the top of
the line 195.