IBM System/360 Model 67
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The IBM System/360-67 (S/370-67) was an important IBM mainframe model in the late 60s. Unlike the rest of the S/360 series, it included features to facilitate time-sharing applications, notably virtual memory hardware and 32-bit addressing. The S/360-67 was otherwise compatible with the rest of the S/360 series.
The S/360-67 was intended to satisfy the needs of key time-sharing customers, notably MIT's Project MAC (which became a notorious IBM sales failure). When the S/360-67 was announced in August 1965, IBM also announced TSS/360, an ill-fated time-sharing operating system project that was canceled in 1971.
Far more successful on the S/360-67 was CP/CMS. This was the first fully-virtualized virtual machine operating system, and evolved from the research system CP-40. CP/CMS delivered high-performance time-sharing, validated the S/360-67 architecture, and ultimately spawned both a time-sharing service industry and IBM's VM/CMS operating system.
The unique features of the S/360-67 were initially not carried into IBM's next product series, the System/370. However, IBM faced increasing customer demand for virtual memory capabilities; IBM also delivered a large number of S/360-67 systems to time-sharing customers – including time-sharing vendors such as National CSS and IDC, which were achieving commercial success. IBM added virtual memory options to the S/370 series in 1972, seen by many as a vindication of work done on the S/360-67 project.
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