IBM yesterday made two major moves to increase the attractions and marketability of its biggest problem child, the 9370: it announced a series of Express load-and-go packaged versions of the machine, and it made big strides in moving the machine onto the factory floor, where it is conceived to work in intimate partnership with a Series 1 co-processor running the EDX Event Driven Executive. 9370 Express packages consist of pre-defined systems tailored for specific business applications, complete disks, tape, printers, and terminals, and the operating system and applications software preloaded prior to shipment. And the first incarnation of ES/9370 Express is the IBM SolutionPac ES/9370 Realtime Plant Management Integrated System, which is designed for managing plant operations in the process industries, and is derived from the Realtime Plant Management System/Advanced Control System Version 2 family of programs. It also marks the first official appearance of MVS on the 9370 – even IBMers don’t know exactly what is announced at any time: talking to Computergram three weeks ago, IBM’s Fred Fassman mentioned this product as already having been introduced (CI No 1,048)! The system consists of the chosen 9370 processor with disk, tape, an IBM Series 1 processor and other RPQ specials all mounted in the rack, and the software loaded to go. Software products included are Advanced Control System Host Support; Interactive Schematic Builder; Special Real Time Operating System; Algorithm Generation Language; MVS/370; MVS/370 Data Facility Product; ACF/VTAM; SMP/E; VS/Fortran; EDX Host Macro Library and EDX Host Preparation; Data Facility Data Set Services; Realtime Plant Management Integrated Communications; Signal Interface; EDX Supervisor; EDX Program Preparation; and EDX System/370 Channel Support. The new packaged models of the 9370 are the 9373 P30, 9375 P50 and P60; and the 9377 P80 and P90, all of them are scheduled to be out in the US in April.
