Editing IBM System/36 (section)

==Overview of the IBM System/36==
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The '''IBM System/36''' was a popular [[small business]] [[computer]] system, first announced on 16 May 1983<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web |url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html |title=IBM Archives: IBM System/36 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060702151655/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/rochester/rochester_4018.html |archive-date=2006-07-02 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and shipped later that year. It had a 17-year product lifespan. The first model of the System/36 was the 5360.

In the 1970s, the [[United States Department of Justice|U.S. Department of Justice]] brought an [[United States antitrust law|antitrust]] [[lawsuit]] against [[IBM]], claiming it was using unlawful practices to knock out competitors. At this time, IBM had been about to consolidate its entire line ([[System/370]], [[IBM 4300|4300]], [[IBM System/32|System/32]], [[IBM System/34|System/34]], [[IBM System/38|System/38]]) into one "family" of computers with the same [[ISAM]] [[database]] technology, [[programming language]]s, and [[Computer architecture|hardware architecture]]. After the lawsuit was filed, IBM decided it would have two families: the System/38 line, intended for large companies and representing IBM's future direction, and the System/36 line, intended for small companies who had used the company's legacy System/32/34 computers. In the late 1980s the lawsuit was dropped, and IBM decided to recombine the two product lines, creating the AS/400 - which replaced both the System/36 and System/38.

The System/36 used virtually the same [[IBM RPG II|RPG II]], [[Screen Design Aid]], [[Operational Control Language|OCL]], and other technologies that the System/34 used, though it was object-code incompatible. The S/36 was a [[small business]] computer; it had an 8-inch [[floppy disk|diskette drive]], between one and four [[hard drive]]s in sizes of 30 to 716 MB, and memory from 128K up to 7MB. [[Tape drive]]s were available as backup devices; the 6157 [[Quarter-inch cartridge|QIC]] (quarter-inch cartridge) and the reel-to-reel 8809 both had capacities of roughly 60MB.  The [[IBM Advanced/36|Advanced/36]] 9402 tape drive had a capacity of 2.5GB. The [[IBM 5250]] series of [[Computer terminals|terminals]] were the primary interface to the System/36.