IBM System/360 Processor Card

About this Artwork: The image in this artwork is of an IBM System/360 mainframe computer control panel. This panel had lots of round lights that indicated what was happening in the computer.  The lights went on and off as programs ran and the binary ones and zeros kept changing. Because these computers could only do thousands of instructions per second (KIPS), it was possible to determine the "health" of the computer by watching the pulsing lights. The circuit board in the center of the picture is part of an actual System/360 processor. It is over fifty years old. Each of the metal squares was a Solid Logic Technology circuit, which together provided the control, arithmetic, and logic functions of the computer. The picture to the right shows what the SLT circuit looks like if you remove the square metal can.In 1961, IBM had about 65% of the market for computers. However, IBM’s existing computers were all incompatible. IBM needed a new approach to computing if it was going to gain, or a