IBM System/360 - Remaining Machines

Remaining Machines

Few of these machines remain. Despite being sold or leased in very large numbers for a mainframe system of its era, only a few System/360 computers are known to exist today, none of which is in working condition. Most machines were scrapped when they could no longer profitably be leased, partly for the gold and other precious metal content of their circuits, but mainly to keep these machines from competing with IBM's newer computers, such as the System/370. As with all classic mainframe systems, complete System/360 computers were prohibitively large to be held in storage, and too expensive to maintain. The Smithsonian Institution owns a System/360 Model 65, although it is no longer on public display. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA has a non-working System/360 Model 30 on display, as does the Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) in Auckland, New Zealand and the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. The University of Western Australia has a complete System/360 in storage at its Shenton Park warehouse. The IBM museum in Sindelfingen has two S/360s (a Model 20 and a Model 91 floating point machine). The control panel of the most complex System/360 model type built, the FAA IBM 9020, comprising up to 12 System/360 model 65s and System/360 model 50s in its maximum configuration is on display in the Computer Science department of Stanford University as IBM 360 display and Stanford Big Iron. It was manufactured in 1971 and decommissioned in 1993. The IBM Endicott History and Heritage Center in Endicott, NY has a non-working System/360 and an associated 2401 magnetic tape drive on display.