Evolution of the Mainframe

1. An early ancestor of the modern mainframe, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator was also called:

2. The ASCC weighed five tons, filled an entire room and cost about $200,000 to build. It was developed throughout the 1930s and was ready for use in what year?

3. The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed in 1938, and completed in 1941. What was the German Government’s response at the time?

4. IBM’s “big iron” Data Processing Division (DPD) was formed in what year to focus on the development and marketing of mainframe products?

5. The IBM 701 represented a huge leap in information technology. It was one quarter the size of the SSEC (introduced four years earlier) and how many times faster?

6. Which of these companies was not a mainframe manufacturer in the 60s and 70s?

7. Considered by some to be the world’s most successful computer, IBM System/360 was initially delivered in what year?

8. How much did IBM invest in the development of S/360?

9. InfoWorld‘s Stewart Alsop infamously predicted that the last mainframe would be unplugged in what year?