Chapter 52 Machines That Span a Wide Performance Range
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Chapter 52 series also share an upward-compatible ISP, as outlined in Chap. 51. The various models differ in interpreter speeds and PMS structure. PMS elements are used in The IBM Many common, particularly System/360, System/370, K's, Ms's, and T's. The 3030 and 4300 series constitutes the 3030, and 4300: A Series of Planned currant primary IBM product line. The 3030, and 4300 series are That a System/360, System/370, pre- Machines Span Wide sented both because IBM's market dominance makes it the most Performance Range prevalent mainframe computer and because its implementations span the largest performance and price range of any series. The various models are compared in Table 1. C. G. Bell / A. Newell / M. Reich / D. Siewiorek This chapter will open with a discussion of the various 360, 370, 3030, and 4300 series models. Finally, the System/360- System/370 series will be evaluated in terms of cost and perform- Introduction ance. In this section, besides making some general comments on the IBM System/360 and System/370 series and System/370 follow- The IBM System/360 Family ons, we will attempt an analysis of the performance and costs of the series. Performance is notoriously difficult to measure, as we Figure 2 illustrates the introduction dates of the various System/ noted in Chap. 5, and costs are even more so. With respect to the 360 models. Chapters 40, 41, and 12 discuss the logical structure latter, what is publicly available is price data, not manufacturing of the System/360, the implementations,' and the microprogram- cost data. med Model 30, respectively. These prices reflect not only marketing policies but also A succinct description of the design goals and innovations is accounting policies within the organization for the attribution of given in the abstract of Amdahl, Blaauw, and Brooks [1964]. The cost to product lines. Nevertheless, the 360 and 370 series provide architecture^ of the newly accounted IBM System/360 featured two things which make a comparative analysis worthwhile. First, four innovations: the common ISP makes simple performance measures more comparable; second, the common manufacturer makes relative 1 An approach to storage which permits and exploits very prices more a reflection of relative costs than would otherwise be large capacities, hierarchies of speeds, read-only storage for flexible and the case. Neither of these aspects is perfect, as we will note at microprogram control, storage protection, relocation. several points in the discussion. Nevertheless, the 360 and 370 simple program series provide as good an opportunity to attempt cost/performance 2 An input/output system offering new degrees of concurrent analysis as we know. operation; compatible channel operation; data rates ap- Analyses of the type we attempt here produce only rather crude proaching 5 million characters per second; integrated of hardware and a pictures and are subject to question if all the input data are not design software; new, low-cost, multiple- channel mainframe hardware; new provi- very carefully checked. We have not done this, depending instead package sharing sions for device status information; and a standard channel on published sources. For the purpose of this book, illustration of interface between central processing unit and input/output the style of analysis seems sufficient. In addition, using a devices. performance measure based only on Pc power measurements 3 A machine new leaves many questions unanswered because it does not address truly general-purpose organization offering facilities, the soft areas of analysis relating to throughput, task environment, supervisory poweriul logical processing opera- tions, and a wide variety of data formats. and the operating-system software. Figure 1 depicts the family tree of IBM computers as a function 4 Strict upward asd downward machine language compatibil- of introduction date and relative processing power. It can be used 'Cfiapters 40 and 41 are from IBM Systems Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, 1964, as a concise summary and reference for the following discus- whicfi was devoted exclusively to the System/360. Other articles, listed in sions. The reader is encouraged to follow the procession of this the bibliography at the end of this chapter, are recommended for chapter on Fig. 1. additional details. The IBM architecture was introduced in 40. System/360 Chap. ^The term architecture is used here to describe the attributes of a system The series has been the IBM superseded by System/370, 3030, as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual structure and functional and 4300 series. Each series is upward-compatible with the behavior, as distinct from the organization of the data flow and controls, System/360 so far as the user problem state is concerned. The the logical design, and the physical implementation. 856 52 The IBM and 4300: A Series of Planned Machines That a Wide Performance 857 Chapter | Systein/360, System/370, 3030, Span Range and Evolution Section 5 The and 858 Part 4 Compatibility, I System/360 System/370 Family I Family Range, Chapter 52 The IBM System/360, System/370, 3030, and 4300: A Series of Planned Machines That Span a Wide Performance Range 859 and Evolution Section 5 The and 860 Part 4 Range, Compatibility, I System/360 System/370 Family I Family Most of the above ISPs have a diSierent structure from the 360 ISP. For the 1401 series instructions and data and 1130' example, [Bell 1800' Newell, 1971] are variable-length character strings; the 1620 has 20 variable-length data strings; the 704 series process fixed- and 25 data with instructions; and the 7070 30 floating-point single-address 40 is a fixed-word decimal computer. Thus the 360 C's represent the 44 first machines to be two in the same 50 logical processors physical 60 implementation. 62 The emulated are often better than that of the 64 speeds original 65 hardwired computer. This is not surprising, considering the 66 in it is a attractive feature. 360 67 change technology; very The Mp TSS (software! performance is often a factor of 5 to 10 times the "emulated" 70 75 com'puters; and the M[ROS] data rates are a factor of 25 times the 85 Mp's. For example, the Model 65 emulating a 7090 runs faster 91 92 than a hardwired 7090. Note, by way of contrast, that the 95 hardwired models 91 and 44 have the lowest cost/performance RCA 70'-' Spectra ratios in the series. 1964 1965 1966 1967 There are minor deviations in the particular models, but all A-announced; D-delivery; E—exhibited; W—withdrawn implementations belong to a common ISP subset. The Model 22 ' Not part of Svstem/360 and the Model 91, the extremes of the series, deviate most from ^Usessame ISP the standard 360 ISP. The range of models shows the comparative effects of implementation on the actual processing times. For Fig. 2. IBIM System/360 model introduction dates. example, the designers of the various C's were constrained by memory bandwidths. Since the core memories have about the ~ tion and technology but include RCA marketing and profit same cycle time (0.75 2.5 (xs), variation in bandwidth is strategy. In addition, of course, there should have been lower obtained by increasing the data-path width from 8 to 64 bits and development costs. RCA's exit from the computer business when by increasing the number of independent Mp's. By looking at just ~ it sold its user base to UNIVAC also may be indicative of the fact Mp bandwidth, for models 30 65, we obtain a range of 5.3 to that the 360 costs were not out of line with the product and service 133.5 Mbit/s, corresponding to a performance range of about 1 to costs. 25. By doubling the number of independent memories, this factor An interesting aspect of the design is the method used to can be increased to 50. These models correspond to a Pc implement the individual computer models (of the range) and performance range of 1 to 50. Although we might expect a their associated costs. From the standpoint of innovation, the 360 narrower range (based on Mp speed), the range can be increas- was the first computer series to cover a wide range. The more ed by performance suppression (at the low end). Power range can ~ basic P's (Models 20 65) were implemented via a micropro- be increased by lowering the absolute performance of Model 30. grammed processor. This is based on a computer program within This is accomplished by making performance tradeoffs to lower an M[read only], i.e., a read-only storage (ROS), to interpret the cost. common ISP. A payoEF from this implementation strategy is a solution to the "compatibility design constraint," which is the Logic Technology ability to provide compatibility with the customer's previous (IBM) machine, which, of course, was not a member of the 360 The logic of the 360 series is realized in a hybrid technology, series. This is undoubtedly the most difficult constraint to meet in composed partly of integrated-circuit techniques and partly of the the P designs, and probably the most significant real innovation. solid-state techniques standard in second-generation machines. It From the marketing viewpoint, it provided the user with a crutch is a "thick-film" technology, which deposits the circuitry on a to go from a former IBM computer to the System/360. This is ceramic substrate. This is called Solid Logic Technology (SLT) and " accomplished through "emulation, which (as defined by IBM) is used solely by IBM. This production technique allows only for means the ability of one C to interpret another's programs at a the fabrication of passive circuit elements on the substrate.