Long before Linux, Unix and Windows battled for corporate dominance, before the dot-com boom and bust, before computers became small enough to fit within a cubicle - before businesses even had cubicles -there was the IBM System/360. The first general-purpose mainframe, which turns 40 today, cost IBM nearly $30 billion in today’s money to develop and launch. IBM hired 60,000 people and opened five new plants.

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