Inside System/360 Gene Amdahl In 1960, IBM’s Gene Amdahl was named manager of architecture for their new System/360 family of mainframe computers. Amdahl’s challenge was to design a family of computers that would support a range of speeds and peripherals yet run the same software. The System/360, announced in April of 1964, became IBM's most profitable product and Amdahl a legendary figure in the industry. Amdahl’s initial S/360 architecture influenced generations of later IBM mainframes, includ...