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Ibm 5362

I saw one of these on craigslist in the last few days, maybe the same one. Not the prettiest, I like the blinking lights type of old computers. What SW came with it?

Kipp
 
kyeakel said:
I saw one of these on craigslist in the last few days, maybe the same one. Not the prettiest, I like the blinking lights type of old computers. What SW came with it?

Kipp
Click to expand...

It's an IBM System/36. The Wiki link above will tell you everything you probably need to know about it.
 
Here's a link to an IBM brochure for the 5362 that has a bit more detail than wikipedia.
ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProdAnn/5362.pdf

I have a 5364, so-called "baby" 36 that I'm playing with at the moment, and a host of system 36 manuals (ssp,rpg,etc.)
Bitsavers has PDFs of a few manuals, as well.
 
Not sure about the Baby. I worked in a place where we had one with a Printer and a Tape Drive. The first engineer they sent couldn't get the covers off the drive to install it (it was a new model)....
 
I have never seen a baby /36 however I learned a lot about the full size system when I was trying to figure out ways to get a free one with printers and tape drives out of a storage locker for free. That was almost seven years ago now. I always assumed the baby units were essentially the same but trimmed down everything for those businesses that didn't need or have the room for a full system.
 
Interesting. I have two IBM 5363s that I've had for years but never really got all the stuff to get access to them. Not sure what all the differences are between our units. I know mine has twin-ax jacks on the back and I think it needs either a loop or termination but can't recall (never ended up with the right gear). I remember the person who gave us the servers laughed saying this wouldn't work when we (tech friends and I who didn't know what they were at all) saw ISA slots on the top when we removed the case. We installed a video card to see what it was doing and they said nothing would come up but it did a RAM count and I think ends up at some point where it won't tell us anything else. Not sure though, it's an odd beast. Right now they're the legs for my work bench lol.

Are your units also twin-ax based? I was thinking it would probably work with a twin-ax Y cable to AUX and connect the AUX to a terminal perhaps but never really spent much more time on them.
 
Yep. That's Twinax. From what I heard all you need is either an InfoWindow or a 5250 emulation card. Termination is generally done automatically in the harness that comes with the terminal/emulator which is passive. You can substitute actual Twinax cable with baluns that are cheap on ebay. Canadian Tire up until three years ago was still heavily using Twinax to connect all their store terminals together.
The systems are useless without at least one twinax terminal and looks to be even more so with this baby unit which has a much smaller front panel.

The Corestore did a great job photographing the larger model.
http://www.corestore.org/36.htm
 
Another source for limited information about the S/36 is here:
typewritten.org/Articles/IBM/g360-0809-04.pdf
It doesn't mention the 5363 which was the last model of the S/36 designed, meant to be a replacement for the 5364.
It's a pretty comprehensive list of all the features of the various models and lists compatible devices.
I can't remember which one, (S/34 OR S/36) required that the console was attached to Port 0, and could be the only device on it. I also seem to remember that for one of those, the console HAD to be an IBM display station, not a PC with an emulation card.
All except for the 5364 which required a 5150, 5160, or 5170 PC with a special cable and special interface card.
 
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Was there anyway of adding additional storage (external) to the system? How does it connect?
 
All external forms of storage was either more 8" hard disks in an expansion cabinet or 9-track tape. They might of connected through Twinax as well but I put more money on you added boards to the backplane and ran ribbon cables between the enclosures.

Edit: derp. I was thinking of the large units again but if the card cage is the same in the mini version it might be able to support the same expansions, otherwise we obviously see the 5.25" floppy drive.
 
TwinAx is a terminal connection protocol, although its fast for its day (1.5M/Bits) and it was extended to allow PC's to use System/36 disks but that required a shed load of software both ends. You can "daisy chain" the terminals. I think early terminals (5250?) did need separate terminators. Later terminals had a "T" connector with a protructing pin. When you screwed in the the cable to the next terminal the pin is depressed and the terminalor disconecccted. You can get "Baluns" (They are not really Baluns as twinax is balanced any way, and a balun converts BALanced to UNbalanaced and visa versa) so you can run twinax over Cat1, Cat3 or Cat5 cables (but not over ethernet).

If you go to the IBM Offering Search page

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi

S(You may asked to set a country) then Choose
- "Hardware and software description"
- then set the start date to 2/jan/1970
- search on "Product Number"
- put "5362" in the search box

you should come up with the "Product Description" :-

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/Sh...ENUS5362/index.html&lang=en&request_locale=en


which says:-

"Note: All CXX models contain the logic and connectors through a high- level electronics interface which is IBM's implementation of the ANSI standard for Intelligent Peripheral Interface Level 3 (IBM IPI-3) necessary to attach a 9332 direct access storage device Model 220 or Model 420 in AP, IBM LA, and Canada. Maximum external DASD is 600MB. When ordering a C02 model or a MES upgrade to a CXX model, also order External Disk Support #6267 of 5727-SS1."

whatever that means!. Also I didn't find any relevant manuals on-line:-

http://www-05.ibm.com/e-business/linkweb/publications/servlet/pbi.wss

but you might want to try with different search options....
 
From what the seller knows about it (Bought it from a pharmacist who went out of business and doesn't know the software(Pharmacy software) on it or comes with it, but it does run and has a b/u drive) the price of $1K seems a little high.
 
maxfli said:
From what the seller knows about it (Bought it from a pharmacist who went out of business and doesn't know the software(Pharmacy software) on it or comes with it, but it does run and has a b/u drive) the price of $1K seems a little high.
Click to expand...

I have 3 of those... 1x 5363 model II, with color Twinax screen and tapes with V3 system. But don't know how to install it from scratch and didn't find any details about it. It should have 8MB ram and has 2 HDD.
and then have 2x 9402 models. Black boxes, one 172W (2x twinax, 1x extra serial card, 2x 25pinn module) and second 375W (1x 25pin module, 1x 50 pin module with terminator).
Not sure how they works, the 5363 boots, shows IPL restart, service mode works, button and display works...

anyone interested in it or can someone help me to install the OS400 on it to play a bit ?
 
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