IBM accompanied the new baby models of the AS/400 – which reduce the entry price to true AS/400 to $18,250 with software – with a promise that it would have a top-end model offering more than double the power of the Model 70 by the middle of next year, effectively missing its 1988 promise to double performance every two years by about one year. Thoroughly confusing those that thought that an IBM processor number referred to a specific CPU, IBM has called all three models of the new AS/Entry-AS/400 system 9402s – but one is actually a 5363 System 36 processor in the new low-end AS/400 box. The three 9402s are the AS/400 Models CO4 and C06 and the AS/Entry Model Y10 – that’s the one with the 5363 CPU in it. It runs only a new release 6 of the System 36 System Support Program but is field-upgradable to a 9402 CO6 by swapping the processor boards, when it runs only OS/400 – including SSP in emulation mode. The new models replace the B10 and B20 and the B30 and B40 are replaced by the C25 and C35: those B models disappear from the price list from November. At the other end of the scale, maximum disk storage on the AS/400 9406 models is increased, going to 55Gb on the Model 70, which can double main memory to 192Mb using 32Mb memory boards of 4M-bit chips. Maximum disk on the 9404 C25 is increased 50% to 3.84Gb. The new release 3 of OS/400 includes Operational Assistant to make the AS/400 easier to run, and there are additional Systems Application Architecture compliance features. The AS/Entry Model Y10 comes with 1Mb or 2Mb and 160Mb to 640Mb disk. The AS/400 CO4 comes with 8Mb memory, 640Mb disk, rising to 12Mb and 960Mb and is claimed to outperform the B10. The CO6 comes with up to 16Mb and 1.28Gb disk. The new 9336 disk drive turns out to be a 5.25 unit – no doubt the one that will be used in IBM’s planned top-end disk arrays – the 9336 Disk Unit contains two, three or four disk drives and a controller card in a 19 rack-mountable unit, 8.75 high which attaches to all 9406 models and can be used for disk mirroring. The Model 10 comes with two 471Mb drives, the 20 with two 857Mb drives, and an additional one or two of either capacity can be added. Other new features are Ethernet and 16/4 Token-Ring adaptors and TCP/IP Telnet support. IBM also added Fortran/400, RM/Cob ol-85 and Procedures Language 400/REXX for the AS/400; substanti ally everything is out next month.
