Do-All Thinkmachine

With the fanfare of a royal birth, International Business Machines Corp. last week ushered in a new tribe of supercomputers called System/360. Some of the many sweeping claims that IBM makes for System/360 were promptly disputed by rival manufacturers. Nonetheless, its introduction spotlighted important trends in design and application. The system's basic working parts are "microminiaturized modules": complicated circuits formed by printing with electro-conductive ink on thin ceramic plates half an inch square. To the tiny metal networks are attached transistors and diodes so small that 5,000 of them fit into a thimble.

Swirling Innards. The circuits and their transistors are both made by automatic machines that turn them out by the thousand. Instead of hiring girls to attach hair-thin wires under the micro scope, the wiring is done by etching holes through a protective film of glass and shaking into them pellets of copper five-thousandths of an inch in diameter.

The circuits are tested automatically, and their resistance units are trimmed precisely by sandblasts spurting through nozzles as small as hypodermic needles. The finished modules are sealed in plastic and mounted on thin cards that are stacked tightly to form the inner works of the computer.

With the miniaturization of modules, computer units that once filled a room now fit into cabinets no bigger than a water cooler. This saves materials and floor space, but a much more important advantage is increased speed of operation. When a computer is working, a blizzard of brief electric pulses swirls through its innards. The transistors and other components react almost instantly, but the pulses cannot travel between them faster than the speed of light, which is about ten inches in one billionth of a second. If they must cover any considerable distance, they slow the computer down. System/360 is so compact that the pulses can reach their destinations and complete their work in a few nanoseconds (billionths of a second) instead of the microseconds (millionths of a second) that they once needed.

Family Talk. System/360 emphasizes another dominant trend in computer design: versatility. The new IBM family has junior members that can be rented for $2,700 per month or bought outright for $133,000; its largest systems rent for $115,000 per month, cost $5,500,000 to buy. The family's largest and smallest members are now compatible; they use the same computer language and talk to each other at grisly speeds of many thousand characters per second. IBM intends that big and little ones will be connected in closely intimate groups, chattering like crazy 24 hours per day.

Each government department, major corporation or large laboratory will have a Model 70, the biggest of the System/360 family, in its central office. Secondary offices will have smaller computers, perhaps Model 40s, and the smallest branches will struggle along with Model 30s.

But no one will feel deprived. When an engineer in the Spokane branch has a problem that needs the attention of Model 70's mighty brain, he can tell his little Model 30 to call for help by wire. The Model 70 in New York or Washington will listen simultaneously to the troubles of many Model 30s. When it has heard enough, it gives itself a signal that stops its own work. All the little problems of all the little computers flash through its brain in a few seconds, and the answers are distributed to the proper branch offices. Then Model 70 can return to weightier matters.

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