voidstar78
Veteran Member
I recently came across an IBM 5120 that included a bunch of documentation. Sifting through some of that, I came across an IBM "notice to customers" document that was notifying about software price changes. This was dated Oct. 1985. While "home computing" was certainly taking off by this point, there was still a lot of "big computer business" being done.
What's interesting here is there is a long list (about 8 pages) of very-boring business oriented software titles. But then also in the last half of the document is a product number cross reference to the prices of this software (and the corresponding price increase that the notice is all about).
On the first page of the notice, IBM is offering options of Monthly Fee versus One-Time-Cost. (sounds familiar? the idea of "rented software" is lately making a come back)
The intro of the notice has terms like:
Initial License Charge (ILC)
One-Time Charges (OTC)
Monthly License Charges (MLC)
Distributed Systems License Option (DSLO)
Basic License (BL)
Volume License Amendment (VLA)
The bulletin is mid-1980s and some of the software is prefixed as being for the S/38, S/23, S/34, Datamaster -- kind of "business class" computers (that maybe wouldn't be categorized as mainframe). To IBM, "small business" is maybe something like 1,000 employees (not an exact number -- but point is, small to them isn't the 5-10 employee shops that we might consider as small). Anyway, the majority of the software is for the 5120, some also compatible with the 5110 and 5100, and some with a legacy from even earlier 1960s mainframes.
I have an initial draft image of this document here (two files, one with software title listing and a separate file that contains the portion with the prices). Unless I've grossly misunderstood something, these are US $ prices (as of 1985).
They are available here:
github.com
Sorry for the poor quality, it was just my draft attempt to digitally capture this info. As time permits, I may put the info into a spreadsheet or text file (after some more proper flat scans of the pages, but for now the letter/notice is difficult to separate the pages).
As a highlight to some of the most expensive software (some costing more than the hardware itself, and one example of the least expensive software):
The "BARPICS" title is pretty funny - not at all sure what that's about, but I think individual IBM engineers did sometimes have a sense of humor. It's possible I lined up the wrong catalog number with the wrong price (the curved pages with no horizontal lines makes that a little difficult sometimes).
And as examples of some of the other titles, to show the variety of domains IBM is involved with: (SWIFT is big-international-banking stuff)
S.W.I.F.T. support (e.g. DMNL TO S.W.I.F.T)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR MODULE
DRYWALL CONTRACTOR MODULE
ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR MODULE
PLUMBING CONTRACTOR MODULE
BID DAY SYSTEM (auction stuff???)
ENERGY FACILITY CONTROL POWER MGMT
FORTRAN IV COMPILER (5734-F03, $399 monthly)
MATHEMATICS SUBROUTINE LIBRARY
GENERAL PURPOSE SIMULATION SYS V
CHANGE MANAGEMENT TRACKING
ELIAS-I/VM
HIGH LEVEL IMAGE PROCESS SYSTEM
CONTINUOUS SYSTEM MODELING / APL
DORTMUND LEUVEN LIBRARY
WATERLOO PC NETWORK STANDALONE
WATERLOO AND WATCOM LANGUAGES
PATIENT CARE SYS-RADIOLOGY
BANK TELLER APPL/COMML EXTENSIONS
WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM
INTRODUCING THE COMPUTER (5796-PDX $2,160)
APL MULTIVARIATE TIME SERIES ANALYSIS
CRYPTOGRAPHIC INFORMATION PROTECTION
LIBRARY CONGRESS MARC TO DMARC
GDDM GRAPHICS PRODUCTIVITY OPTION
TRANSLATOR BURROUGHS 1800-1900
TRANSLATOR BURROUGHS COBOL 2000-4900
TRANSLATOR UNIVAC 1100 COBOL
VOICE/TEXT MESSAGING SYSTEM
EDX MULTILEAVING RJE
LOGICALC / LOGIQUEST III
DISPLAYWRITER MONEY TRACK
CREDIT/CHECK AUTHORIZATION
IDX CHAIN PHARMACY
EDX LABORATORY AUTOMATION
DISPLAYWRITER - INFORMATION EXCHANGE
TEXT EDITOR (5798-RLH, $300)
EARTH RESOURCES MANAGEMENT II
Kind of boring stuff, but the full list shows the breadth of industry that IBM was involved with. I used to work software for a dental lab management system decades ago, the owner was very proud of his first $30K check from a customer - he posted a copy on the wall for awhile.
What's interesting here is there is a long list (about 8 pages) of very-boring business oriented software titles. But then also in the last half of the document is a product number cross reference to the prices of this software (and the corresponding price increase that the notice is all about).
On the first page of the notice, IBM is offering options of Monthly Fee versus One-Time-Cost. (sounds familiar? the idea of "rented software" is lately making a come back)
The intro of the notice has terms like:
Initial License Charge (ILC)
One-Time Charges (OTC)
Monthly License Charges (MLC)
Distributed Systems License Option (DSLO)
Basic License (BL)
Volume License Amendment (VLA)
The bulletin is mid-1980s and some of the software is prefixed as being for the S/38, S/23, S/34, Datamaster -- kind of "business class" computers (that maybe wouldn't be categorized as mainframe). To IBM, "small business" is maybe something like 1,000 employees (not an exact number -- but point is, small to them isn't the 5-10 employee shops that we might consider as small). Anyway, the majority of the software is for the 5120, some also compatible with the 5110 and 5100, and some with a legacy from even earlier 1960s mainframes.
I have an initial draft image of this document here (two files, one with software title listing and a separate file that contains the portion with the prices). Unless I've grossly misunderstood something, these are US $ prices (as of 1985).
They are available here:
IBM_5100_DOCS/PDFs_5120 at main · voidstar78/IBM_5100_DOCS
Archive of documents related to the IBM 5100 (opcodes ISA) - voidstar78/IBM_5100_DOCS
github.com
Sorry for the poor quality, it was just my draft attempt to digitally capture this info. As time permits, I may put the info into a spreadsheet or text file (after some more proper flat scans of the pages, but for now the letter/notice is difficult to separate the pages).
As a highlight to some of the most expensive software (some costing more than the hardware itself, and one example of the least expensive software):
Code:
CATALOG PRICE ($) DESCRIPTION
5664 176 21,000 PROFESSIONAL OFFICE SYSTEM
5665 348 49,900 IMS APPLICATION DEVEL FACILITY VER 2
5668 908 150,000 COPICS SHOP ORDER LOAD ANALYSIS REP
5710 D01 60,000 HOTEL RESERVATION GUEST ACCT/SYS
5719 HD2 120 EDX X.25/HDLC COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT
5740 XYB 60,840 CUSTOMER INFORMATION FACILITY IMS/VS
5740 XYC 54,080 CUSTOMER INFORMATION FACILITY OS/VS
5746 XXS 37,100 CUSTOMER INFORMATION FACILITY DOS/VS
5787 YAA 33,000 BARPICS
5796 AWC 34,800 LAB DATA MANAGEMENT SYS II
5796 BDQ 45,000 INTEGRATED PUBLISHING SYSTEM
5796 BTT 45,000 LEGAL DIARY SYSTEM
5796 PXH 90,000 DPPX MATERIALS/PURCHASING AND REPORTING
5796 ZGT 60,000 S/36 RETAIL INVENTORY, PLANNING, MDSEThe "BARPICS" title is pretty funny - not at all sure what that's about, but I think individual IBM engineers did sometimes have a sense of humor. It's possible I lined up the wrong catalog number with the wrong price (the curved pages with no horizontal lines makes that a little difficult sometimes).
And as examples of some of the other titles, to show the variety of domains IBM is involved with: (SWIFT is big-international-banking stuff)
S.W.I.F.T. support (e.g. DMNL TO S.W.I.F.T)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR MODULE
DRYWALL CONTRACTOR MODULE
ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR MODULE
PLUMBING CONTRACTOR MODULE
BID DAY SYSTEM (auction stuff???)
ENERGY FACILITY CONTROL POWER MGMT
FORTRAN IV COMPILER (5734-F03, $399 monthly)
MATHEMATICS SUBROUTINE LIBRARY
GENERAL PURPOSE SIMULATION SYS V
CHANGE MANAGEMENT TRACKING
ELIAS-I/VM
HIGH LEVEL IMAGE PROCESS SYSTEM
CONTINUOUS SYSTEM MODELING / APL
DORTMUND LEUVEN LIBRARY
WATERLOO PC NETWORK STANDALONE
WATERLOO AND WATCOM LANGUAGES
PATIENT CARE SYS-RADIOLOGY
BANK TELLER APPL/COMML EXTENSIONS
WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM
INTRODUCING THE COMPUTER (5796-PDX $2,160)
APL MULTIVARIATE TIME SERIES ANALYSIS
CRYPTOGRAPHIC INFORMATION PROTECTION
LIBRARY CONGRESS MARC TO DMARC
GDDM GRAPHICS PRODUCTIVITY OPTION
TRANSLATOR BURROUGHS 1800-1900
TRANSLATOR BURROUGHS COBOL 2000-4900
TRANSLATOR UNIVAC 1100 COBOL
VOICE/TEXT MESSAGING SYSTEM
EDX MULTILEAVING RJE
LOGICALC / LOGIQUEST III
DISPLAYWRITER MONEY TRACK
CREDIT/CHECK AUTHORIZATION
IDX CHAIN PHARMACY
EDX LABORATORY AUTOMATION
DISPLAYWRITER - INFORMATION EXCHANGE
TEXT EDITOR (5798-RLH, $300)
EARTH RESOURCES MANAGEMENT II
Kind of boring stuff, but the full list shows the breadth of industry that IBM was involved with. I used to work software for a dental lab management system decades ago, the owner was very proud of his first $30K check from a customer - he posted a copy on the wall for awhile.
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