IBM Advanced Computer Systems project
The ACS-1 and ACS-360 are two related supercomputers designed by IBM as part of the IBM "Advanced Computing Systems" project from 1961 to 1969. Although the designs were never finished and no models ever went into production, the project spawned a number of organizational techniques and architectural innovations that have since become incorporated into nearly all high-performance computers in existence today. Many of the ideas resulting from the project directly influenced the development of the IBM RS/6000 and, more recently, have contributed to the Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) computing paradigm used by Intel  and HP in high-performance processors. History. The ACS project began in 1961 as "Project Y" with a goal of “building a machine that was one hundred times faster than Stretch”. Initial work began at the IBM Watson Research Center. A number of significant computer pioneers contributed to the project, including John Cocke, Herb Schorr, Frances Allen, Gene Amdahl, and Lynn Conway. A decision by IBM in May 1968 to modify the project to support S/360 compatibility resulted in the name change from "ACS-1" to "ACS-360" for the computer being designed. At its peak, the ACS-360 project involved over 200  engineers and staff. The ACS-360 project was canceled in May 1969; however, many of the innovations resulting from the project would eventually find direct realization in the IBM RS/6000 series of machines (later known as the IBM System p line of workstations and servers), apart from influencing the design of other machines and architectures. Influence. Although neither the ACS-1 nor the ACS-360 was ever manufactured, the IBM Advanced Computing Systems group responsible for their design developed architectural innovations and pioneered a number of RISC CPU design techniques that would become fundamental to the design of modern computer architectures and systems