Gse 2019 Mainframes and The Moon PDF

Mainframes and the Moon
The Role Played by IBM Mainframes in

the Greatest Technical Achievement in
the History of Mankind
Mark Nelson, CISSP®, CSSLP®
IBM
November 2019
Session FM
Before we Get Started….
This session focuses on the role of the IBM Mainframe. We are not focusing on:
• The contributions of all of the other providers of information technology that were used
in the United States space program through the lunar landing. We look forward to them
telling their stories.
• The amazing other computing technologies used onboard the Apollo Command Module
or the Lunar Module
• Events (Skylab, Space Shuttle) which occurred after the lunar landing on 20 July 1969.
A big “thank you” to everyone who worked on these mainframes and to Max Campbell
at the IBM Archives for his invaluable assistance!
© 2019 IBM Corporation 2

How do we Teach the Story of
the Mainframe?

How do we Explain the History of the Mainframe?

And Sometimes Even This!

But Doesn’t That Miss the Point?

No Matter What Your Business,
the Mainframe Can Help

Financial Hospitality Transportation Putting Things into the
Air

Let’s Tell the Story of the History of The
Mainframe as a Tool used in one of the
most Significant Technological
Achievements of all Time:
Landing on the Moon

Why is the Space Program
Such a Good Story?
• It’s a story that combines all of the
elements of a great story:
• Life and death drama
• Singularity of vision and purpose
• Engaging, passionate characters
• Technology (physics, chemistry,
electrical engineering, computer
science, materials…)
• Politics
• Finance, Management
• … and after all the trials and
tribulations, a happy ending.
It’s a Local Story!
• With 20,000 contractors and subcontractors,

virtually every state in the United States
contributed!
• Take New York, for example:
• IBM Poughkeepsie
• IBM Kingston
• IBM Fishkill
• IBM Endicott
• IBM Owego
• USMA, West Point
• Grumman Aerospace, Bethpage
• … and many others

It’s a Timely Story!
2019 is the:
• 50th anniversary of the lunar landing
• 55th anniversary of the announcement

of the IBM System/360

It’s a Story about the Times: 1968
1968

It’s a Story about the Times: 1969

Some People Believe that this was the Beginning
President John F. Kennedy’s 25 May, 1961 President John F. Kennedy’s 12 September

speech before a Joint Session of Congress 1962 at Rice University
“First, I believe that this nation should commit “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade
itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is and do the other things, not because they are
out, of landing a man on the moon and returning easy, but because they are hard; because that
him safely to the Earth. No single space project in goal will serve to organize and measure the best of
this period will be more impressive to mankind, or our energies and skills, because that challenge is
more important for the long-range exploration of one that we are willing to accept, one we are
space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win,
accomplish.” and the others, too. “
Some People Believe that this was the Beginning…
Sputnik: First artificial satellite launch Yuri Gagarin: First human in space
4 October, 1957 11 April, 1962

Perhaps this was the Beginning…
Yalta Conference, 4-11 February 1945 Potsdam Conference, 17 July to 2 August 1945.

The Stages of the US Space Program Leading up to the
Lunar Landing
Project Vanguard Project Mercury Project Gemini Project Apollo

• Goal: Launch a satellite into • Goal: One human into earth • Goal: Prepare for the lunar • Three Astronauts on each
space orbit and return to earth mission mission, with 12 manned
safely. missions, most notably:
• During a highly publicized • Two astronauts flew ten
launch on 6 December, 1957, • Alan Shepard launches for a missions to work out • Apollo 1: Launch pad fire
the launch vehicle rises four 15 minute suborbital flight on maneuvers needed for a lunar on 27 January, 1967. Gus
feet, sinks back, and explodes 5 May, 1961 and John Glenn landing: Grissom, Ed White, Roger
into an orbital flight on 20 Chaffee perish.
• First satellite into space February, 1962 • Extra-vehicular activity
(Explorer 1), launched on a (EVA) • Apollo 7: Manned flights
Vanguard Rocket on 31 • But the Soviet Union had resume on 11 Oct., 1968
January, 1958 launched Yuri Gagarin into an • Space craft rendezvous
orbital flight on 12 April, 1961 and docking • Apollo 8: First manned
• But the Soviet Union had flight to the moon in 21
launched Sputnik 1 on 4 • Extended duration Dec. 1968
October, 1957
• Apollo 10: “Dress
rehearsal” 18 May
• Apollo 11: Success!

Let’s Talk About the Mainframes!

Pre-Space Program: IBM SSEC
• The IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator
(SSEC)
• Built at IBM Endicott, installed at 590 Madison Avenue,

NYC
• Based on the electro-mechanical IBM Automatic

Sequence Controlled Calculator (Harvard Mark I).
• Electronic and electromechanical design
• Arithmetic unit: Approximately 12,500 vacuum tubes

were used in the arithmetic unit, control, and its eight
high-speed registers, which had an access time of less
than one millisecond.
• Control and slow speed registers: Consisted of 21,400

relays with an access time of 20 milliseconds.
• Calculated position information of the moon and planets;

This data was the basis for data used later during the
Apollo program

Project Vanguard Computer
Center
• Established June 1957, Washington

D.C. with a backup in Poughkeepsie
N.Y.
• Consisted of an IBM 709 in each
location
• Supported orbital calculations and
tracking data for satellites

IBM 709 Data Processing
System
• Vacuum tube technology
• 180 instructions
• Improved version of the IBM 704
• Introduction of the “data-synchronizer units”
(we’d call them channels today)
• 32,768 words of 36-bit word magnetic core
memory
• Could execute 42,000 addition or subtraction
instructions per second
• Could multiply two 36-bit integers at a rate of
5000 per second
• An optional hardware emulator executed 704
programs
Real Time Computer Center
(RTCC): Project Mercury
• Established in 1960 at Goddard Space

Flight Center in Greenbelt, M.D.
• Three IBM 7090s
• Consolidated information from tracking

sites and launch control in Cape
Canaveral to provide a real-time
continually updated aircraft status
• Special-purpose control
program/monitor with limited
multiprogramming capabilities

System
• Transistorized version of the IBM 709

• Six times faster
• Far more reliable
• Half the cost
• but still $63K a month in 1960 dollars
($540K in 2019 dollars)
• 32,768 words of 36-bit magnetic core

memory (same as 709)

RTCC: Project Gemini
• Had to control two spacecraft at

the same time
• Five IBM 7094s, partitionable into:
• Two mission systems, one b/u
• One mission, one test/training, one
b/u
• Still has a custom control
program/monitor, but commercial
off-the-shelf operating system
(IBSYS) begins to be used

System
• Instruction set increased to 274

instructions
• A basic machine operating cycle of 2
microseconds
• Double-precision floating-point
operations
• 7094 II
• Shorter cycle time
• Less cycles for multiplications and
divisions
• Memory interleaving

Project Apollo

Apollo Launch Vehicle: Saturn V
• 363’ tall, launch weight of 6.5M pounds,
capable of lifting 310K lbs. delivered to
lower earth orbit, 107K to lunar orbit
• Three stage launch design:
• 1:(S-IC, Boeing), five F-1 rockets, 2:41
burn of liquid oxygen/kerosene, altitude
36 NM, 50NM downrange, velocity
7.5KFPS
• 2:(S-II, North American), five J2 rockets,
6:32 burn of liquid oxygen/hydrogen
• 3:(S-IVB, Douglas), one J2 rocket two
burns, one for orbit insertion (2:30), one
for trans-lunar injection (6:00)

Apollo Landing Vehicle: Lunar Module
• Designed an manufactured by
Grumman (Bethpage, NY)
• Two stage design: Descent and ascent
• Dimensions: 23’x31’x31’
• Could not be flown in earth’s gravity or

atmosphere
• Flown manually for final lunar descent

Apollo 11 Mission Overview : Duration 195 hours, 49 minutes

RTCC: Project Apollo
• Transitioned from the five IBM 7094s to five
IBM System/360 Model 75Js which were
responsible for:
• Launch systems
• Management of telemetry data
• Orbit computation and trajectory determination
• Mission planning
• Reentry
• NASA contractors Rockwell and Caterpillar

work with IBM to create what is now called
IMS to help track the millions of parts needed
for the Apollo rockets and spacecraft
• The Apollo Real-Time Operating System

(RTOS), a modified version of OS/360
becomes the single operating system to
support all Apollo activities
IBM System/360 Model 75J
• First non-microcoded System/360

• Configured with 1M core storage with 750
nanosecond access time
• Supported four-way interleaved storage
• Purchase price: $2.5M-$3.5M ($19M-$26M in
2019 dollars)

RTOS Extensions to OS/360
• Creation of a new task dispatcher and the
concept of tasks which are independent of their
creator, run with their own PSW key, and wait
for work, which can be queued
• Support for a synchronized high resolution (10

micro second) clock and interval timer
• Real-time I/O control system for devices

supporting a device-independent display
format language
• Support for IBM 2361 Large Core Storage (4M

of additional storage)
• Fast swap-over (10 seconds) to backup
• Houston Automatic Spooling Priority (HASP)

system to control job input and output
It’s Not a Mainframe but….

Saturn Instrument Unit
• The Saturn Instrument Unit had
mainframe reliability characteristics for
its mission
• Built by IBM Huntsville, Alabama, with
processors made by IBM Owego
• Responsible for aircraft trajectory from
before liftoff until establishment in
“parking” orbit
• Saved the Apollo 12 mission when it
was struck by lightening during launch
causing a complete loss of telemetry
• As designed, continued the launch to
orbit (“SCE to AUX”)
Which Lead to The Lunar
Landing on 20 July 1969
• Launched on 16 July, 1969 at 13:32 UTC and

returned to Earth on 24 July, 1969 17:29 UTC
• Commanded by Neil Armstrong, with Buzz

Aldrin also in the Lunar Module and Michael
Collins remaining in lunar orbit in the
Command Module
• One lunar EVA lasting 2:31:40 during which

48 pounds of lunar rocks were gathered
• Lunar activity was watched by an estimated

20% of the population of Earth

Where did we go Next?
• The Apollo 11 lunar landing was not the

last event in our space travel activities.
It was followed by:
• 6 additional Apollo missions, which
landed 10 more men on the moon
• The Apollo-Soyuz joint United States and
Soviet Union mission
• Spacelab
• The Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle and IBM Z
• The Space Shuttle program made extensive
use of z/OS (IMS, JES3,PL/I, HL Assembler,
C++, RACF), z/VM, and Linux on Z (Redhat)
• z/OS was used for mission planning, flight
software creation, testing, simulation, and
loading and validating software onto the
orbiter
• Onboard computing was performed by the
IBM-supplied AP-101S General Purpose
Computer (GPC)
• Also used on several military aircraft (B-1, B-52,
F-15)
• Evolved from the S/360 architecture
• See “Space Shuttle Usage of z/OS” (Jan Green,
United Space Alliance), SHARE, 14 August
2007, session 8121
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090001334.pdf
What Happened to the
Mainframe?
• The IBM Mainframe continues to evolve, bring

more and more processing power and added
reliability and security
• The evolution continued through the the IBM

System/370, 303X, 308X, IBM 3090,
System/390, zSeries (900, 800, 990, and 890),
System z9, System z10, zEnterprise System
(z196, zEC12, z13, z14,z15)
• … and while an operational mainframe never
made it to the moon, 37 IBMers were honored
when their names were left on the moon
during Apollo 15 in recognition of their Apollo
efforts

Mainframes and
the Moon
The Role Played by IBM

Mainframes in the Greatest
Technical Achievement in the
History of Mankind
z/OS® Security Server (RACF®) Design and Development
IBM® Poughkeepsie
[email protected]
GSE, November, 2019

© 2019 IBM Corporation
Please submit your session feedback!
• Do it online at http://conferences.gse.org.uk/2019/feedback/FM
• This session is FM
Mainframes and the Moon
The Role Played by IBM Mainframes in
the Greatest Technical Achievement in
the History of Mankind
IBM
November 2019
Session FM
Backup

The Timeline

Event Timeline: Early US Space Program
Date Event
August 7, 1944 IBM presents the Mark I to Harvard University.
IBM Selective Sequential Electronic Calculator enters service. The SSEC is a hybrid mechanical (relay) and electronic
January, 1948 (vacuum tube) unit.
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite in space. It emits beeps for twenty-one (21) days before its
October 4, 1957 batteries are exhausted and continues to orbit the earth until it burns up in the atmosphere on January 4, 1958.
Sputnik 2 is launched. On board is the first “space dog”, Laika, who expires, as expected, during the flight.
November 3, 1957
The United States attempts to launch TV3. The Vanguard rocket lifts four feet off the launch pad, sinks back, and explodes. The
December 6, 1957 launch was televised and widely viewed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeFkakURXM
The United States successfully launches Explorer 1.
January 31, 1958
The launch of Vanguard I succeeds.
March 7, 1958
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once in a 108-minute flight.
April 12, 1961
Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space in a 15-minute flight that traversed 496 miles.
May 5, 1961
President Kennedy’s message to a joint session of Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the
May 25, 1961 goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
President Kennedy’s Speech to Rice University: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade
September 12, 1962 and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and
measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to
postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Event Timeline: Manned Apollo Missions
Date Event
Apollo 1, launch pad fire kills all three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White
21 February, 1967
Apollo 7, first manned orbital mission launches using a Saturn 1B.
4 April, 1968
Apollo 8, first manned flight to the moon launches using the Saturn V and performs 10 lunar orbits.
21 December, 1968
Apollo 9, first manned flight of command service module (CSM) and lunar module (LM) in earth orbit.
3 March, 1969
Apollo 10, lunar landing rehearsal with lunar orbit launches. LM descent to 50,000 feet over lunar surface.
18 May, 1969
Apollo 11, lunar landing mission launches. Lunar landing on 20 July. Two and a half hours spent outside the LM
16 July, 1969 on the moon. Forty-seven pounds of lunar rock returned
Apollo 12 launch almost derailed by telemetry loss due to lightning strike. “SCE to AUX” recovery.
14 November, 1969
Apollo 13 launches, mission canceled when SM experiences an explosion and crew uses the LM to provide
11 April, 1970 environmental support to the astronauts that allows them to safely return to earth.
Apollo 14 launches.
31 January, 1971
Apollo 15 launches. During the lunar visitation, leaves a canister containing a miniaturized version of a booklet
26 July, 1971 honoring the men and women who worked on the missions. Thirty-seven IBMers are listed.
Apollo 16 launches.
16 April, 1972
Apollo 17 launches, the only manned Apollo launched at night.
7 December, 1972
Note: The information in this table is a condensed version of what is in the Wikipedia article at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
Saturn Subcontractors

Apollo 13: Engineers Have a Sense of Humor!

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Mainframes and the Moon

The Role Played by IBM Mainframes in

© 2019 IBM Corporation 2

© 2019 IBM Corporation 3

© 2019 IBM Corporation 4

© 2019 IBM Corporation 5

© 2019 IBM Corporation 6

© 2019 IBM Corporation 7

© 2019 IBM Corporation 8

Landing on the Moon

© 2019 IBM Corporation 9

• With 20,000 contractors and subcontractors,

© 2019 IBM Corporation 11

• 55th anniversary of the announcement

© 2019 IBM Corporation 12

© 2019 IBM Corporation 13

© 2019 IBM Corporation 14

President John F. Kennedy’s 25 May, 1961 President John F. Kennedy’s 12 September

© 2019 IBM Corporation 16

© 2019 IBM Corporation 17

Project Vanguard Project Mercury Project Gemini Project Apollo

• Apollo 11: Success!

© 2019 IBM Corporation 19

• Built at IBM Endicott, installed at 590 Madison Avenue,

• Based on the electro-mechanical IBM Automatic

• Electronic and electromechanical design

• Arithmetic unit: Approximately 12,500 vacuum tubes

• Control and slow speed registers: Consisted of 21,400

• Calculated position information of the moon and planets;

© 2019 IBM Corporation 20

• Established June 1957, Washington

© 2019 IBM Corporation 21

• Established in 1960 at Goddard Space

• Consolidated information from tracking

© 2019 IBM Corporation 23

• Transistorized version of the IBM 709

• 32,768 words of 36-bit magnetic core

© 2019 IBM Corporation 24

• Had to control two spacecraft at

© 2019 IBM Corporation 25

• Instruction set increased to 274

© 2019 IBM Corporation 26

© 2019 IBM Corporation 27

© 2019 IBM Corporation 28

• Could not be flown in earth’s gravity or

© 2019 IBM Corporation 29

© 2019 IBM Corporation 30

• NASA contractors Rockwell and Caterpillar

• The Apollo Real-Time Operating System

• First non-microcoded System/360

© 2019 IBM Corporation 32

• Support for a synchronized high resolution (10

• Real-time I/O control system for devices

• Support for IBM 2361 Large Core Storage (4M

• Fast swap-over (10 seconds) to backup

• Houston Automatic Spooling Priority (HASP)

© 2019 IBM Corporation 34

• Launched on 16 July, 1969 at 13:32 UTC and

• Commanded by Neil Armstrong, with Buzz

• One lunar EVA lasting 2:31:40 during which

• Lunar activity was watched by an estimated

© 2019 IBM Corporation 36

• The Apollo 11 lunar landing was not the