IBM 4331 Mainframe

Ethan Dicks ethan.dicks at gmail.com
Mon May 1 13:34:02 CDT 2017


On Mon, May 1, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> Just to let folks know that I finally moved the IBM 4331 Mainframe this past weekend
> from where it was currently stored to my shop.  Pictures are here:
> https://www.flickr.com/gp/150223282@N04/NrX91K <https://www.flickr.com/gp/150223282@N04/NrX91K>

Very cool.  We had a 4331 at Software Results from around 1984 through
about 1988.  We got it because we needed to configure our own HASP,
3780, and SNA lines for testing our products and reproducing customer
issues (and previous attempts to rent time on outside machines took
too long to get configured on demand, etc).  Outside of pushing test
data around, we also used it for designing new products with CBDS2
(Circuit Board Design System 2).  We had a huge (over 20") Tektronix
storage tube for displaying parts of the schematics and layout.  ISTR
we went with the 4331 because it was the smallest machine that could
give us the bisync and SNA lines we needed for its primary use.  It
was vast overkill for the workload we had.

It took up as much floorspace as two of our VAX systems that supported
dozens of users, but was a thing unto itself.

Nice setup!

-ethan


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