[cctalk] Re: IBM 360

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Apr 11, 2024, at 2:42 AM, Joseph S. Barrera III via cctalk 
> <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 6:36 AM Murray McCullough via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> I don’t think I truly realized the seminal work done at IBM then
>> (60's&70's).

One interesting historic tidbit is the Dutch connection on the IBM/360.  One of 
the lead designers on the 360 was Gerrit Blaauw, a Dutch computer engineer who 
learned his craft at Harvard (with Aiken), and refined it at the MC in 
Amsterdam (now CWI) leading the design of several one-off research computers.  
Among other things, he taught the other designers that logic needs to be 
clocked to be reliable. :-)

After that, he left for IBM and worked on several computer designs, culminating 
in the 360.  Wikipedia says that the choice of 8 bit characters rather than the 
then-current 6 bits came from him.  

        paul