System/370 and Virtual Memory Operating Systems
When System/370 was announced in 1970 it offered essentially the same facilities as System/360 but with about 4 times the processor speeds of similarly-priced System/360 CPUs. Then in 1972 IBM announced "System/370 Advanced Functions", of which the main item was that future sales of System/370 would include virtual memory capability and this could also be retro-fitted to existing System/370 CPUs. Hence IBM also committed to delivering enhanced operating systems which could support the use of virtual memory.
Most of the new operating systems were distinguished from their predecessors by the presence of "/VS" in their names. "VS" stands for "Virtual Storage" - IBM avoided the term "memory", allegedly because it might be interpreted to imply that their computers could forget things.
All of today's IBM mainframe operating systems except z/TPF are descendants of those included in the "System/370 Advanced Functions" announcement - z/TPF is a descendant of ACP, the system which IBM initially developed to support high-volume airline reservations applications.
Read more about this topic: History Of IBM Mainframe Operating Systems
Famous quotes containing the words system, virtual, memory, operating and/or systems:
“I need not say what match I would touch, what system endeavor to blow up; but as I love my life, I would side with the light, and let the dark earth roll from under me, calling my mother and my brother to follow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Tragedy dramatizes human life as potentiality and fulfillment. Its virtual future, or Destiny, is therefore quite different from that created in comedy. Comic Destiny is Fortune—what the world will bring, and the man will take or miss, encounter or escape; tragic Destiny is what the man brings, and the world will demand of him. That is his Fate.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)
“We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I think there are innumerable gods. What we on earth call God is a little tribal God who has made an awful mess. Certainly forces operating through human consciousness control events.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)