Dave's Green Card Collection

Here is a small collection of Green Cards (the generic name of IBM mainframe reference summary card/booklets). You may be young enough to have never seen an actual Green Card or you may have been handed a brand new one when they came out. They have grown from 14 pages (GX20-1703-6) to 58 pages (SA22-7209-02).

A special thanks to Leslie J. Somos who sent me a boxful of Green Cards and other mainframe memorabilia!

System/360
X20-1703-1 System/360 Reference Data Early "Green Card"! See larger version Scan by John Kalinich	GX20-1703-6 System/360 Reference Data This is the Green Card that I physically own. Passed on (the hard way)	GX20-1703-6 System/360 Reference Data This card has been used so much it had to be taped together.
Not pictured above: X20-1703-3 System/360 Reference Data (front and back) Contributed by Dirk Olefs X20-1703-4 System/360 Reference Data (front and back) Contributed by Champ A. Lee GX20-1703-7 System/360 Reference Data GX20-1703-8 System/360 Reference Data -- 12 pages GX20-1703-9 System/360 Reference Data John P. Kalinich sent me System/360 Operator Reference Guide cover/back scans

System/370
GX20-1850-0 System/370 Reference Summary First Edition (April 1972)	GX20-1850-3 System/370 Reference Summary Fourth Edition (November 1976)	GX20-1850-6 System/370 Reference Summary Seventh Edition (July 1986)
Not pictured above: GX20-1850-1 System/370 Reference Summary Second Edition (September 1972) -- 16 pages GX20-1850-2 System/370 Reference Summary Third Edition (March 1974) -- 16 pages From a post on IBM-Main by Neil Stenlake on 12 November 1998 GX20-1850-3 System/370 Reference Summary Fourth Edition (November 1976) -- 16 pages Quoting the reference card (copyright by IBM): This reference summary is a minor revision and does not obsolete the previous edition. Changes include the addition of some new DASD and 3203 printer commands, the EBCDIC control characters GE and RLF and minor editoral revisions. GX20-1850-4 System/370 Reference Summary Fifth Edition (October 1981) -- 22 pages From a post on IBM-Main by Neil Stenlake on 12 November 1998 The first Reference Summary that is a booklet instead of a card GX20-1850-5 System/370 Reference Summary Sixth Edition (July 1984) -- 24 pages From a post on IBM-Main by Neil Stenlake on 12 November 1998 GX20-1850-7 System/370 Reference Summary Eighth Edition (February 1989) -- 40 pages

XA and ESA/370

GX20-0157-2
System/370
Extended Architecture
Reference Summary

The title for GX20-0157-0 was arranged like this:

System/370
Extended
Architecture
Reference
Summary

Someone noticed that if you read the first letter of the title, it spelled "SEARS" - henceforth it was called the SEARS card. Subsequent printings found the title arranged as you see on the left for GX20-0157-2:

  System/370
  Extended Architecture
  Reference Summary

Thanks to Carl Youngren for sending me this explanation of the SEARS card.

GX20-0406-0
Enterprise Systems Architecture/370 Reference Summary

First Edition (February 1989)

Not pictured above:

GX20-0157-0 System/370 Extended Architecture Reference Summary
First Edition (November 1984) -- The infamous "SEARS" card
GX20-0157-1 System/370 Extended Architecture Reference Summary
Second Edition (July 1986)
GX20-0157-2 System/370 Extended Architecture Reference Summary
Third Edition (February 1989)

ESA/390
With ESA/390, the Reference Summary lost the binary column in the Code Assignments table	SA22-7209-01 Enterprise Systems Archiecture/390 Reference Summary Second Edition (December 1994) Order SA22-7209-01	No need to scan in SA22-7209-02 - the most boring reference summary cover in "Greencard" history.
Not pictured above: SA22-7209-02 Third Edition (November 1999) - 58 pages. It is available as a Acrobat PDF file. Tip: Do a "Save Link as" and keep this on your local hard drive. This PDF file is 70 pages! Quoting SA22-7209-02: This revision differs from the previous edition by containing minor corrections and also instructions, control blocks, and fields related to the new facilities marked by a bar under "Facility" in "Preface". Additions to the assembler also included. Changes are indicated by a bar in the margin.

Misc cards

X24-6447-6 IBM 1401 Data Processing System Reference Card

Long before ViSiO, people flowcharted by hand with templates. Click below to see some of these templates (partially slid out of their protective envelopes):

If you enjoyed this page, you may also be interested in a history of Punched Cards

And then there is Jan Jaeger's list of opcodes not listed in Principles of Operation or your yellow/pink/blue/white reference card.

System/360, System/370, Extended Architecture, Enterprise System Architecture/370, System/390, and S/390 are registered trademarks of IBM.

BC 15,Planet MVS.