Elara S. Novikova
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IBM System/360

IBM System/360
1964 · Machine / system

American mainframe family chosen as the ES EVM prototype

IBM System/360 in the timeline

1964-04-07 IBM System/360 announced

Thomas Watson Jr.'s $5 billion 'bet the company': more than the Manhattan Project cost, against IBM revenues of $3.2 billion. A family of compatible machines that establishes the 8-bit byte; its descendants still run banking systems today. Three years later, the USSR decides to clone it.

1967-01-26 Commission votes to copy IBM/360

A joint Academy and State Committee session resolves to base the unified ES EVM computer series on the IBM System/360 architecture. Lebedev becomes the decision's fiercest opponent; only chairman Glushkov files a formal dissent at this meeting.

1967-01-27 Decision to clone IBM System/360

At the highest government level the USSR decides to copy the IBM System/360 as the ES EVM ('Ryad') instead of continuing its own BESM and Minsk lines, against the resistance of leading computer scientists. Babayan later calls it a cardinal error that 'destroyed' domestic innovation; scientists had to study outdated Western software and rewrite it from scratc

Where the sources are

This object is named in 1 verified source entry across 1 dossier of this book. The entries sit with the people who built or used it, which is where the research recorded them.

Anatoly Dorodnitsyn (1 source)
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