An ibm minicomputer for small business and departmental users, released in 1988 and still in production in October 1998.

Features include a menu-driven interface, multi-user support, terminals that are (in the grand ibm tradition) incompatible with anything else including the ibm 3270 series, and an extensive library-based operating system.

The machine survives because its api layer allows the operating system and application programs to take advantage of advances in hardware without recompilation and which means that a complete system that costs $9000 runs the exact same operating system and software as a $2 million system. There is a 64-bit risc processor operating system implementation.

Programming languages include rpg, assembly language, c, cobol, sql, basic, and rexx. Several case tools are available: synon, as/set, lansa.

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