IBM's Mainframe Dinosaur Turns 40

theodp writes "According to an SFGate.com article, PCs were supposed to kill off the mainframe, but Big Blue's big boxes are still crunching numbers, posting sales of $4.2 billion in 2003. First unveiled on April 7, 1964, the IBM mainframe computer celebrates its 40th birthday this week with a sold-out party at the Computer History Museum." The SFGate article also reveals: "Doug Balog, an IBM vice president, noted that 70 percent of the world's data are still housed in mainframe computers."

Comments

DATUM not data

[Anonymous Coward]

"Doug Balog, an IBM vice president, noted that 70 percent of the world's data are still housed in mainframe computers."

Ughhh I HATE this common misconception.

Data is the singular. DATUM IS THE PLURAL

the sentence should read

"Doug Balog, an IBM vice president, noted that 70 percent of the world's datum are still housed in mainframe computers."

I have been correcting people over this for decades and still nobody corrects their usage

But how many is that?

[Ambush]

PCs were supposed to kill off the mainframe, but Big Blue's big boxes are still crunching numbers, posting sales of $4.2 billion in 2003

$4.2 billion is what, three mainframes? Not impressed yet.

;-)

Re:70% of world's data housed on mainframes

[empaler]

Who the hell would want a mainframe without porn?