IBM Advanced Computer Systems project: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|1960s supercomputer architecture}}

The '''ACS-1''' and '''ACS-360''' are two related [[supercomputer]]s designed by [[IBM]] as part of the '''Advanced Computing Systems''' project from 19611965 to 1969. Although the designs were never finished and no models ever went into production, the project spawned a number of organizational techniques and architectural innovations that have since become incorporated into nearly all [[high-performance computing|high-performance computers]] in existence today. Many of the ideas resulting from the project directly influenced the development of the [[IBM System p|IBM RS/6000]] and, more recently, have contributed to the [[Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing]] (EPIC) computing paradigm used by [[Intel Corporation|Intel]] and [[Hewlett-Packard|HP]] in the [[Itanium]] processors.

After the ACS project folded, the engineers were given tothe choice to rejoin other divisions of IBM. Many declined as it would require them to return to the east coast from California. A number formed MASCOR in 1970 but this was short-lived as they were unable to raise capital. [[Gene Amdahl]] took the opportunity to start his own company, building IBM-compatible mainframe computers using the [[Emitter-coupled logic|ECL]] designs worked on for ACS. [[Amdahl Corporation]]'s 470V/6 were both faster and less expensive than IBM's own high-end designs.

==History==

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Harwood Kolsky gave a presentation on the various competing designs, while [[Gene Amdahl]] and [[Chen Tze-chiang]] talked about their work on the high-end 360 Model 92. Kolsky had worked at Los Alamos for seven years before joining the Stretch project, while Amdahl had left IBM after being passed over to lead Stretch development but returned to IBM Research in 1960 and joined the Project X effort.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=61}} In late 1964, Amdahl took a teaching position at [[Stanford University]], wanting to return to the west coast. In January 1965 he was named an [[IBM Fellow]] for his work on the Model 92. As a Fellow, Amdahl was entitled to work at any IBM facility of his choosing and decided to join ACS at the invitation of Bob Evans.<ref name=interview>{{cite journal |journal= IEEE Design and Test of Computers |date=April 1997 |title=Interview with Gene Amdahl}}</ref>{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=63}}

Even at this early meeting, Amdahl made the argument that it would make much more sense to make the ACS compatible with the 360, as had been the case with Project X. While it might run marginally slower than the ACS, due largely to it using ahaving sixteen 32-bit word and having 16 registers instead of 32thirty-two 48-bit ones in the new concept, it would offer customers of the Model 92 an upgrade path to much higher performance and leverage all of the software andfor the 360, especially theirthe [[compiler]] technology developed for that machine.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=61}}

===Design matures===

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Another concept developed for the ACS was dynamic instruction scheduling, or DIS. The ALU and indexing units, which calculated addresses, both had six-slot buffers from which it could select two instructions to execute out-of-order. This allowed the system to execute queued instructions while earlier instructions were waiting for data from memory or previous calculations. The outputs from these calculations being executed out of order would then be placed back in memory at the correct time, giving the illusion that everything had been executed in the order it was found in the [[machine code]]. Lynn Conway, who had been hired to develop a software simulation of the ACS, developed a system that used a bit-matrix to track which instructions were ready to be executed and which were waiting.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=62}}

Using the simulator, Conway benchmarked a number of high-performance computing workloads against the [[IBM 7090]], 6000CDC 6600 and [[IBM System/360 Model 91|S/360 Model 91]]. In comparison to the 7090, IBM's older scientific offering, ACS-1 would perform the Lagrangian Hydrodynamics Calculation (LHC) 2,500 times faster. On the more complex Neutron Diffusion (ND) code, it outperformed the 7090 by almost 1,300 times, and was about 60 times as fast as the 6600.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|pp=62, 66}}

Allen, Cocke, and Jim Beatty led the development of the compilers for the machine. This represented a significant effort as the system was to be highly advanced and aggressively optimize code. Among its features was the ability to unwind loops, schedule instructions around the [[basic block]] concept, and separate those optimizations that were code-based vs. platform-based. The compiler would be used by both a [[PL/1]] front-end as well as an expanded version of [[Fortran IV]].{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=63}}

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===Design "shootout"===

Amdahl continued to agitate for a 360-compatible version of the machine. In January 1967, [[Ralph L. Palmer]] asked [[John Backus]], [[Robert Creasy]], and Harwood Kolsky to review the project and Amdahl's concept. Kolsky concluded that the 360-compatible version would be too difficult, and pointed out that the ACS was aimed at the [[CDC 6600]] market, not the 360's, so if the customer was interested in compatibility, 6600 compatibility would seem more useful. The next month, Amdahl once again argued for 360 compatibility for marketing reasons.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=63}}

Amdahl's continued arguments for 360 compatibility placed him increasingly at odds with Bertram. Bertram responded by "quarantining" him and making sure that no one was allowed to talk to him. Whenever someone would visit, within minutes someone else would arrive and call the first visitor into a meeting.{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=26}} Around the same time, another ACS team member, circuit designer John Earle, was being removed from the main team due to his working style which was causing friction in the team. Earle had been beaten up in a fight in Philadelphia,{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=26}} and when he returned from the hospital Bertram assigned Earle to Amdahl, apparently as a form of punishment.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=63}}

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A final review was performed in April, but this was brief and seemingly already decided. In May, IBM announced the ACS-1 would be cancelled and the AEC/360, to be known as the ACS-360 from that point, would move forward. Although Amdahl's competing design had much to do with this, it was not the only reason. Amdahl had also argued that the $15 million would better be spent on improving the operating systems on the 360, which would improve the entire lineup, not just the AEC. But perhaps the most serious blow to the ACS was the continued success of the 360. In January 1968, [[NASA]] had taken delivery of a 360 Model 95, which IBM described as "the fastest, most powerful computer now in user operation."{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}} Although the ACS would have outperformed the Model 95 by a wide margin, by this time Watson Jr. was considering withdrawing from the supercomputer market entirely.{{sfn|Conway|2011|p=29}}

Many of the retrospective articles on the ACS project note that the original machine would have been a world leader. Conway notes that "In hindsight, it is now recognized that had the ACS-1 been successfully built, it would have been the premier supercomputer of the era."{{sfn|Conway|2011|p=20}} The decision to cancel the original design rested mostly on the cycle counts which had not been tested as the simulator she had developed had not been portedmodified to use the new instruction set.{{sfn|Conway|2011|p=20}} Likewise, Amdahl's claim of an 8 nanosecond cycle was accepted by the Conti review although Mark Smotherman suggests it is not realistic.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}}

===Cancellation===

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While calculating the cost of the machine, Amdahl concluded that there was no way its sales could turn a profit. This was a serious risk to the company, as introducing a high-end machine that was guaranteed to lose money could be seen as anti-competitive behaviour, an attempt to take the market away from companies like CDC. IBM faced a similar problem with Stretch, but over time it was shown that the R&D in that project had been widely used in the company and if it was billed out then it was slightly positive.{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=27}} To allow ACS/360 to more clearly turn a profit, Amdahl suggested producing three models of the same basic system, the original ACS/360, a smaller model with {{frac|3}} the performance, and an even smaller version with {{frac|9}}, which would still make it the fastest machine in IBM's lineup.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}} This proposal was rejected.{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=27}}

In May 1969, IBM upper management instead decided to cancel the entire project,{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=67}} apparently at Amdahl's suggestion.{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=27}} What had initially been intended to be a project to compete with the fast-moving CDC had now stretched on for the better part of a decade and showed little evidence that it would release a machine in the short term. Amdahl later claimed it wasits cancellation was due primarily to it upsetting IBM's carefully planned pricing structure. The company as a whole had an understanding that machines above a certain performance level would always lose money and that introducing a machine that was as fast as the ACS/360 would require it to be priced in a way that would force their other machines to be reduced in price.<ref name=interview/> He has also claimed to have heard rumors that it had been deliberately set up to fail so that the technology could be used in other projects and the R&D cost written off on taxes.{{sfn|Aspray|2000|p=27}}

Shortly after the announcement of the project's cancellation, in August 1969, IBM announced the [[IBM System/360 Model 195]], a re-implementation of the Model 91 using [[integrated circuit]]s that made it twice as fast as the [[IBM System/360 Model 85|Model 85]], which at that time was the fastest machine in the lineup. To address the high-end market, a [[Vector processor|vector processing]] task force was started in Poughkeepsie.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=68}}

When the ACS project was cancelled, many of the engineers were not interested in returning to the main IBM research campus in New York. and wished to remain in California. Some ended up at IBM's [[hard drive]] research facility in [[San Jose, California]], while many others left to form a new company, Multi Access System Corp, or MASCOR. This failed to raise capital and folded after only a few months.{{sfn|Smotherman|Sussenguth|Robelen|2016|p=68}} Amdahl resigned in September 1970 and formed his own company to build 360-compatible machines, introducing the [[Amdahl 470/6]] in 1975. [[Amdahl Corporation]] would become a major vendor of IBM-compatible systems into the 1980s, with a 20% or better market share through the 1970s and 80s.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=AMDAHL IS STILL GUESSING RIGHT |date=22 May 1981 |first=Thomas |last= Lueck |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/22/business/amdahl-is-still-guessing-right.html}}</ref>

==Influence==