The entire IBM 370 mainframe line – bar perhaps the baby 9371s will be replaced with a new 9000 line – but IBM will not be able to ship a truly new top-end mainframe until the fourth quarter of 1991, Hesh Wiener reports in the September issue of Computer & Communications Buyer. And IBM will count backwards, to trap the unwary, so that the 9370 will be replaced by the 9221 family; the 4381 will be succeeded by the 9121 family; and the 3090 will give way to the 9021 family. At the top end, even a year from now, only two models – a four and a six processor model – are likely to be offered, and in the interim, users will have to make do with repackaged, upgradable versions of 3090 mainframes with optional features such as fibre optic channels. IBM’s really new machines will be the four-processor, 161 MIPS 9021-820 an the six-processor, 212 MIPS 9021-900. All the old-technology machines should be shipped in limited quantities by year-end. Upgrades of 3090s to old technology 9021s will become available during the first several months of 1991. The 4391 will appear as the 9121 – with very low power consumption, and the smallest new 370-architecture systems, the 9221s, will encompass four boxes: the model 120 at 2 MIPS, the model 130 at 3 MIPS, the model 150 at 5 MIPS and the model 170 at 6.5 MIPS. A key aim of introducing new lines at each level is that applications will be able to be cross-compiled on any level machine, which is cur rently impossible. Details: see p2
