IBM Remote Access Computing (RAX) is a discontinued early time-sharing system for IBM System/360 introduced in 1966.[1] RAX was based on an earlier system, RACS. developed jointly by IBM and Lockheed Aircraft in Marietta, Georgia in 1965. The system influenced a number of other timesharing systems including MCGILL-RAX from McGill University,[2] McGill's MUSIC,[3] and Reactive Terminal Service (RTS) from ITT Data Services.[2][4] In the 1970s Boston University used RAX as the basis of its VPS system, which ran as a guest operating system running on VM/370.[3]
Hardware
RAX was available from IBM as program number 360A-CX-17X, and runs on System/360 Model 30 and above.[1]As announced, it runs on systems with as little as 64 KB of main storage, and supports a mix of up to 63 IBM 1050 typewriter terminals and IBM 2260 display terminals. The languages supported are BASIC, FORTRAN IV, and IBM Basic assembly language.[note 1] In a minimal system with 64 KB memory, user programs can be up to 32 KB, with larger programs allowed on larger systems.[5]
Users
In 1968 RAX was used by the United States Department of Agriculture for their Washington Data Processing Center.[6] It was used in a number of colleges, universities, and corporations, including McGill, Boston University, St. Andrew's in Scotland,[7] The University of Rhode Island, and Bell Aerosystems.[2]
