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.

Thomas John Watson Jr. was an American businessman, diplomat, Army Air Forces pilot, and philanthropist. The son of IBM Corporation founder Thomas J. Watson, he was the second IBM president (1952–71), the 11th national president of the Boy Scouts of America (1964–68), and the 16th United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1979–81). He received many honors during his lifetime, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Fortune called him "the greatest capitalist in history" and Time listed him as one of "100 most influential people of the 20th century".