In what is being seen as an effort to squeeze a little more out of the 4381, IBM yesterday duly announced the new low-end CMOS processor for the 9370 series, killing off the 9373 Model 20 and 9375 Model 40 in the process, but failed to announce the model many had expected to come in […]
In what is being seen as an effort to squeeze a little more out of the 4381, IBM yesterday duly announced the new low-end CMOS processor for the 9370 series, killing off the 9373 Model 20 and 9375 Model 40 in the process, but failed to announce the model many had expected to come in above the 9377-90; instead it added a slugged version of this machine as the Model 80. The new processor, which implements VLSI CMOS for the first time in the 9370 so that the new processor board replaces four old ones. IBM claims that the new entry Model 30 offers double the price performance of the previous entry level, the Model 20: in the US, the base price is $37,000 – UKP23,694 here. A new 9375 Model 50 using the same processor is claimed to offer twice the performance of the Model 40, and costs $58,000 – UKP37,786 here. And the Model 80, using the same Thermal Conduction Module CPU as the Model 90, is claimed to offer 1.5 times the performance of the Model 60. It costs $142,000, UKP106,994 here. On the software side, the resurrection of DOS/VSE continues, and IBM now says that it will sneak its way under the Systems Application Architecture umbrella, albeit only to the extent that CICS/VSE applications will be transferrable into an MVS SAA environment. The company now lists six operating systems for the 9370 – VM, with a new, even further simplified, VM/IS release, as well as a move forward to October for VM/SP release 6; DOS/VSE; DPPX from the 8100; AIX/370 Unix; Pick; and – a real surprise, that great survivor from the medical world, mainly seen on DEC hardware, Mumps. Ships imminent.
