IBM 360 ARCHITECTURE

By
Mithun raghav subramaniam
 CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION
 CRITICAL ELEMENTS
 ARCHITECTURE DETAILS
 ADDRESSING MODES AND INSTRUCTION
FORMATS
 OPERATION ON THE 360/370
 INTRODUCTION
 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a mainframe computer system family
announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. It was the first family of computers
designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large,
both commercial and scientific.
 The goal when creating the IBM 360 was to create a “family concept”,
where for the first time a single ISA could be used with older and newer
machines in the same family.
 The IBM 360 was historically important due to
1. forward and backward compatibility (family concept and extensive
instruction set)
2. clear separation between architecture and implementation
3. integration of scientific and business efficiency
4. extensive use of microprogramming
 CRITICAL ELEMENTS
 Forward and Backward Compatibility
IBM wanted to create “general purpose” computers that were both
forward and backward compatible. In doing so, they created small and
large computers that could handle the same ISA. They had to find a middle
ground between complicated and resource-intensive microinstructions that
small computers couldn’t run effectively and simple instructions that didn’t
utilize the large computers’ resources. The loss of efficiency in the
computers due to compatibility design considerations was far
overshadowed by the advantage of compatibility achieved between models.
Hence, they could create software that fit a single product line and
customers could choose their appropriate machine along this compatible
line.
The IBM 360 family of computers created the concept of the ISA ,
where every machine had the same set of instructions, number of user
registers, and behavior, and thus were binary compatible
 Evolution of Instruction Set Architectures
Single Accumulator (EDSAC 1950)
Accumulator + Index Registers
(Manchester Mark I, IBM 700 series 1953)

Separation of Programming Model

from Implementation

High-level Language Based Concept of an ISA Family

(B5000 1963) (IBM 360 1964)

General Purpose Register (GPR) Machines

Load/Store Architecture
Complex Instruction Sets (CISC)
(Vax , Motorola 68000, Intel x86 1977-80) (CDC 6600, Cray 1 1963-76)

RISC
(MIPS, SPARC, HP-PA, IBM RS6000, . . . 1987)
 Clear Separation Between Architecture and Implementation
The various capabilities and resources of one computer in the line
versus another required different implementations, while using the same
ISA.
IBM used the same architecture throughout many different computers
that then needed different implementations
 Integration of Scientific and Business Efficiency
Before the IBM 360, computers typically offered performance in
either scientific or business constructs.
The IBM 360 family of machines could run the same programs that
were on separate computers earlier, but at different speeds.
The tradeoff of performance for the ability to run business and
scientific programs on the same machine was worthwhile.
System/360 was designed to be able to handle both decimal and
binary formatted information, with both variable-fixed length and floating-
point arithmetic capabilities. Since scientific users tended to use Fortran
and business users tended to use Cobol, IBM designed and developed the
PL/1 programming language in a an attempt to provide a programming
bridge between the two communities
 Extensive Use of Microprogramming
The architecture of the IBM 360 is built around
microprogramming, or small programs of microinstructions. By using
microprogramming, smaller and larger computers could accomplish goals
of small micro programs with their own implementations and use
whichever microinstructions best suited them (most efficiently, that is).
This way the ISA is consistent, but separate efficient
microprogramming techniques between models are the only difference. In
order to accomplish this, there needs to be an extensive set of
microinstructions that all of the different models of computers could use.

Thus, the concept of a CISC (Complex Instruction Set

Computing) architecture was created.
 The 360/370 Instruction Set Architecture

The IBM System/360 is a 32-bit machine with

byte addressability and support for a variety of data types:
byte, halfword (16 bits), word (32 bits), doubleword (double-
precision real), packed decimal, and unpacked character
strings. The System/360 had alignment restrictions, which
were removed in the System/370 architecture.
 The internal state of the 360 has the following components:
1. Sixteen 32-bit, general-purpose registers: register 0 is
special when used in an addressing mode, where a zero is
always substituted.
2.Four double-precision (64-bit) floating-point registers.
3.Program status word (PSW) holds the PC, some control
flags, and the condition codes.
4.Later versions of the architecture extended this state
with additional control registers.
 Addressing Modes and Instruction Formats

The 360/370 has five instruction formats. Each

format is associated with a single addressing mode and has a set of
operations defined for that format. While some operations are defined in
multiple formats, most are not.
 RR (register-register )

 RX (register-indexed)

 RS (register-storage )

 SI (storage-immediate)

 SS (storage-storage)
 Operations on the 360/370

 The instructions on the 360 can be divided into classes. Four basic types of
operations on data are supported:

1. Logical operations on hits, character strings, and fired words.

These are mostly RR and RX formats with a few RS instructions.
2. Decimal or character operations on strings of characters or
decimal digits. These are SS format instructions.
3. Fixed-point binary arithmetic. This is supported in both RR and RX
formats.
4. Floating-point arithmetic. This is supported primarily with RR and
RX instructions.

Branches use the RX instruction format with the effective

address specifying the branch target. Since branches are not PC-relative, a
base register may need to be loaded to specify the branch target. This has a
rather substantial impact: in general, it means that there must be registers
that point to every region containing a branch target. The condition codes
are set by all arithmetic and logical operations. Conditional branches test
the condition codes under a mask to deter-mine whether or not to branch.
 IBM System z10
 IBM System z10 is the latest line of IBM mainframes. The z10 Enterprise Class
(EC) was announced on February 26, 2008. On October 21, 2008, IBM
announced the z10 Business Class (BC), a scaled down version of the z10 EC.
The System z10 represents the first model family powered by the z10 quad core
processing engine and the first to implement z/Architecture 2 (ARCHLVL 3).

 New Features
1. Cryptography
2. Decimal Floating Point
3. New Instructions
4. New Architecture Level Set (ALS)
5. z/VM LPAR Support
6. Capacity On Demand Enhancements
 z/Architecture, initially and briefly called ESA Modal
Extensions (ESAME), refers to IBM's 64-bit computing
architecture for the current generation of IBM mainframe
computers. IBM introduced its first z/Architecture-based
system, the zSeries Model 900, in late 2000. Later
z/Architecture systems included the IBM z800, z990, z890,
System z9 and the System z10. z/Architecture retains
backward compatibility with previous 32-bit-data/31-bit-
addressing architecture ESA/390 and its predecessors all the
way back to the 32-bit-data/24-bit-addressing System/360.
Enterprise Class
Business Class
 Reference
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360
 http://domino.watson.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf
/ResSubject?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=IBM%2
0System/360
 http://cis.poly.edu/cs2214rvs/ibm.htm
 http://www.beagle-
ears.com/lars/engineer/comphist/ibm360.htm
 http://www-sst.informatik.tu-
cottbus.de/~db/doc/People/Broy/Software-
Pioneers/Brooks_new.pdf