The Mainframe that Revolutionized Software Project Management
Introduced in 1964 the IBM System/360 was THE most popular computer of that era when such devices were the exclusive domain of big business and government. Each computer supported floating-point calculations and ran with up to 8 megs of memory! Sadly there are very few of these gems still in existence today — in fact the Smithsonian owns a 360 but sadly it isn’t even on display.
But the real story behind this computer is the project manager — who was Fred Brooks. As fate would have it in addition to the hardware Brooks also had to manage the development of the operating system for the 360 which was System/360. Luckily for all of us the project was a disaster going over budget and over time. However Brooks turned lemons into lemonade by writing the book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
which was first published in 1975: Read more…
