IBM System/360

The IBM System/360 is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific uses and a complete range of applications from large to small. The design distinguishes between architecture and implementation, which allowed IBM to release a group of compatible designs at different prices. Most models use microcode to implement the instruction set, and feature 8-bit byte addressing and fixed-point binary, fixed-point decimal, and hexadecimal floating-point calculations. The System/360 family introduced IBM's Solid Logic Technology (SLT), which packs more transistors onto a circuit card than previous technologies, allowing more powerful but smaller computers to be built.