Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about those experiences in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month.
Fred Brooks in 2007
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applications and a complete range of applications from small to large. The design distinguished between architecture and implementation, allowing IBM to release a suite of compatible designs at different prices. All but the only partially compatible Model 44 and the most expensive systems use microcode to implement the instruction set, featuring 8-bit byte addressing and fixed point binary, fixed point decimal and hexadecimal floating-point calculations.
IBM System/360 Model 30 central processor unit (CPU)
IBM System/360 Model 20 CPU with front panels removed, with IBM 2560 MFCM (Multi-Function Card Machine)
IBM System/360 Model 30 CPU (red, middle of picture), tape drives to its left, and disk drives to its right, at the Computer History Museum
IBM System/360 Model 50 CPU, computer operator's console, and peripherals at Volkswagen