PC-based IBM mainframe-compatible systems: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:41, 20 December 2006

Revision as of 21:21, 29 March 2007

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==System/370==

The Personal/370 (aka P/370) is a single slot 32-bit [[Micro Channel architecture|MCA]] card that can be added to a [[IBM Personal System/2|PS/2]] or [[RS/6000]] computer to run System/370 OSs (like [[MUSIC/SP]], [[VM (Operating system)|VM]], [[VSE]]) parallel to [[DOS]] or [[OS/2]] (in PS/2) or [[AIX operating system|AIX]] (in RS/6000) supporting multiple concurrent users. It is a complete implementation of the S/370 Processor including a [[Floating point unit|FPU]] co-processor and 16 MB[[MiB]] memory. Management and standard I/O channels are provided via the host OS/hardware. An additional 370 channel card can be added to provide mainframe-specific I/O such as 3270 local control units, 3400/3480 tape drives or 7171 protocol converters.

==System/390==

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An important goal in the design of the S/390 Processor Card was complete compatibility with existing mainframe operating systems and software. The processor implements all of the ESA/390 and XA instructions which prevents the need for instruction translation. There are three generations of the card:

* The original S/390 Processor Card incorporated 32MB32 MiB of dedicated memory, with optional 32MB32 MiB or 96MB96 MiB daughter cards, for a combined total of 64MB64 MiB or 128MB128 MiB of RAM. The processor was officially rated at 4.5 [[Million instructions per second|MIPS]]. It was built to plug into a [[Micro Channel architecture|MicroChannel]] host system.

* The second version was built for a [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] host system. It included 128 MBMiB of dedicated memory as standard, and was still rated at 4.5 MIPS.

* The third version, referred to as a P/390E card (for Enhanced), included 256 MBMiB of dedicated memory and was rated at 7 MIPS. It, too, was built for a [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] host system. There was an extremely rare (possibly only ever released as pre-production samples) 1GB1 [[GiB]] memory version of the P/390E card.

===R/390===

R/390 was the designation used for the expansion card used in an IBM RS/6000 server. The original R/390 featured a 67 MHz or 77 MHz [[POWER]] 2 processor and 32MB32 MiB to 512MB512 MiB of RAM, depending on the configuration. The [[Micro Channel architecture|MCA]] P/390 expansion card can be installed in any [[Micro Channel architecture|MCA]] RS/6000 system, while the [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] P/390 card can be installed in a number of early [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] RS/6000s; all such configurations are referred to as an R/390. R/390 servers require AIX version 4 to be run as the host operating system.

===P/390===

P/390 was the designation used for the expansion card used in an IBM PC Server and was less expensive than the R/390. The original P/390 server was housed in an IBM PC Server 500 and featured a 90 MHz [[Intel]] [[Pentium]] processor for running OS/2. The model was revised in mid-1996 and rebranded as the PC Server 520, which featured a 133 MHz Intel Pentium processor. Both models came standard with 32MB32 MiB of [[RAM]] and were expandable to 256MB256 MiB. The PC Server 500 featured eight MCA expansion slots while the PC Server 520 added two [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] expansion slots and removed two MCA slots.

===S/390 Integrated Server===

The S/390 Integrated Server (aka S/390 IS) is a mainframe housed in a comparably small case (HxWxD are 82 x 52 x 111 cm). It became available from November 1998. It is intended for customers who do not require the I/O bandwidth and performance of the [[Multiprise 3000 | S/390 Multiprise 3000]] (which has the same size). Only 256 MBMiB of ECC Memory and a single CMOS main processor (performance about 8 MIPS) are used. A [[Pentium II]] is used as IOSP (I/O Service Processor). It supports four [[ESCON]] and to four parallel channels. Standard PCI and ISA slots are present. A maximum of 255 GB internal harddisks are supported (16x 18GB18 GB HDs, with 2x HDs for redundancy). The supported OSs are OS/390, MVS/ESA, VM/ESA and VSE/ESA.

==z/Architecture and Today==