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Quiz about IBM S360 Mainframe Computer History

IBM S360 Mainframe Computer History Quiz

The introduction of the IBM 360 family of mainframe computers changed the face commercial computing. Here is a quiz about how much you know of the early years of this era.

A multiple-choice quiz by key_man. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
key_man

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
291,988

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Tough

Avg Score
6 / 10

Plays
465

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. IBM announced the new System/360 family of computers in 1964 as a replacement for the low- to mid-size market (at the time). Which of the following was one of those machines targeted for replacement by the S/360? Hint

IBM 1401

IBM VM

IBM 745

IBM PC

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Question 2 of 10

2. The first hard drives (Direct Access Storage Facility) marketed for the S/360 was the IBM 2311 which was about the size of a top-loading dishwasher. The 2311 had what form/size of drives? Hint

5MB on 5 14-inch platters in a 5 lb disk pack

1.44MB on a single 3.5-inch disk weighing 2 oz

20MB on ten 14-inch platters in a 20 lb disk pack

7.25 MB on six 14-inch platters in a 10 lb disk pack

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Question 3 of 10

3. Which of the following IBM System/360 systems shipped first? Hint

360 model 30

360 model 44

360 model 20

360 model 90

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Question 4 of 10

4. Which operating system was available for the IBM System/360 model 2x? Hint

All of these

TOS/360

BOS/360

DOS/360

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Question 5 of 10

5. If your IBM S/360 was going to run the BOS/360 Operating System you would have been required to have purchased at least how much memory? Hint

8 kilobytes

64 kilobytes

16 kilobytes

128 kilobytes

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Question 6 of 10

6. What was the primary medium used to input programs into S/360 in the mid-1960s? Hint

Telephone lines

Paper tape

Punched cards

Teletype terminals

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Question 7 of 10

7. In IBM S/360 terminology what did MFT mean? Hint

Multiprogramming with a Fixed Number of Tasks

Multiprogramming with a Fixed Number of Terminals

Multiprogramming with a Finite Number of Tasks

None of these, meaning was trade secret

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Question 8 of 10

8. In the IBM S/360 which character set was used? Hint

ASCII

BCD

EBCDIC

Cyrillic

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Question 9 of 10

9. Who were the architects of the IBM S/360 system? Hint

Amdahl, Blaauw, Brooks & Gates

Amdahl & Blaauw

Amdahl, Blaauw, & Gates

Amdahl, Blaauw, & Brooks

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Question 10 of 10

10. What was the code written to govern the execution of steps within a computer job on the IBM S/360 called? Hint

The IPL (Initial Program Load) deck

The JCL (Job Control Language) deck

The Job Cards deck

The CPC (Control Program Configuration) deck

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

Answer: IBM 1401

The 1400 series was IBM machine language family for small and mid-range business. Through an emulator your new S/360 allowed your 1401 machine code to run so that everything did not have to be re-developed when you upgraded. This was a critical factor in convincing existing clients to move to the new platform.

2. The first hard drives (Direct Access Storage Facility) marketed for the S/360 was the IBM 2311 which was about the size of a top-loading dishwasher. The 2311 had what form/size of drives?

Answer: 7.25 MB on six 14-inch platters in a 10 lb disk pack

40 years later you can hold a typical 500GB disk drive for the PC in the palm of your hand. This would have required approximately 65,000 2311 Direct Access Storage units. Also, the speed of todays drives is about 10x that of this dinosaur (8.5ms vs 85ms average time to find a block of data on the drive). Each of the platters did come with 3 unused tracks which were designated for use only when faults occurred on other tracks on that platter.

3. Which of the following IBM System/360 systems shipped first?

Answer: 360 model 30

360/30 in 1965... the 360/20 a smaller version did not ship until the following year

4. Which operating system was available for the IBM System/360 model 2x?

Answer: All of these

All of these ... BOS (Basic Operating System); TOS (Tape Operating System) and DOS (Disk Operating System) were all options for the model 2x series. The more sophisticated MFT/MVT operating systems was reserved for higher models.

5. If your IBM S/360 was going to run the BOS/360 Operating System you would have been required to have purchased at least how much memory?

Answer: 8 kilobytes

8K (less than the average cellphone 40 years later). This was the minimum central memory that was shipped with the low end S/360 systems.

6. What was the primary medium used to input programs into S/360 in the mid-1960s?

Answer: Punched cards

These cards had 80 columns with rectangular holes punched in up to 6 of the twelve rows of each of the first 72 columns. Columns 73 through 80 were reserved for optional sequence numbers (which programmers quickly learned to always use so that when a deck of several hundred cards was dropped it could quickly be mechanically sorted).

7. In IBM S/360 terminology what did MFT mean?

Answer: Multiprogramming with a Fixed Number of Tasks

Multiprogramming with a Fixed Number of Tasks allowed multiple tasks to use the single S/360 system providing they had a fixed allocation of resources. It was the precursor to the MVT (Multiprogramming with a Variable Number of Tasks)

8. In the IBM S/360 which character set was used?

Answer: EBCDIC

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) was selected even though IBM had been a strong advocate of ASCII at the time. This was to preserve the large investment of existing IBM customer with programs that used BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) character sets.

9. Who were the architects of the IBM S/360 system?

Answer: Amdahl, Blaauw, & Brooks

Gene Amdahl went on to leave IBM and form a competing mainframe company (AMDAHL) which with IBM dominated the North American mainframe market. IBM's colour was "BLUE" and a central theme in their marketing and even their computer that played Spasky at chess was nicknamed "Big Blue", Gene's line of computers used a "PINK" colour scheme.

10. What was the code written to govern the execution of steps within a computer job on the IBM S/360 called?

Answer: The JCL (Job Control Language) deck

JCL was wrapped around your compiled code cards and could use return codes from job steps to conditionally execute or bypass later steps.

Source: Author key_man

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
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