Dave's Green Card Collection

Here is a small collection of System/360 "Green Cards". These are 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 12 pages (X20-1727-1) to 118 pages (z17 SA22-7871-12).

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

Here is a history of the origins of the green card: Green Card Genesis and summary (created by AI).

[2025-07-13]

System/360

X20-1727-1
System/360
Model 20
Reference Data
12 pages

GX20-1703-6
System/360
Reference Data
12 pages

GX20-1703-7
System/360
Reference Data
12 pages

GX20-1703-9
System/360
Reference Data
14 pages

Contributions

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

External:

System/360 green card GX20-1709-6 at the Computer History Museum.
GX20-1703-9

System/370

GX20-1850-3
System/370
Reference Summary
Fourth Edition
(November 1976)
16 pages

The rest of the
System/370 cards
are not clickable

GX20-1850-0
System/370
Reference Summary
First Edition
(April 1972)

GX20-1850-6
System/370
Reference Summary
Seventh Edition
(July 1986)

Contributions

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

System/370 XA and ESA

GX20-0157-0
System/370
Extended
Architecture
Reference
Summary
First Edition
(November 1984)
31 pages

The rest of the
System/370 XA and ESA
cards are not clickable

GX20-0157-1
System/370
Extended Architecture
Reference Summary
Second Edition
(July 1986)
45 pages

GX20-0157-2
System/370
Extended Architecture
Reference Summary
Third Edition
(February 1989)
46 pages

GX20-0406-0
Enterprise Systems
Architecture/370
Reference Summary
First Edition
(February 1989)
50 pages

SEARS card

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.

Thanks to Carl Youngren for sending me this explanation of the SEARS card.
Subsequent printings found the title arranged differently like GX20-0157-1:
  System/370
  Extended Architecture
  Reference Summary

ESA/390

SA22-7209-01
Enterprise Systems
Archiecture/390
Reference Summary

Second Edition
(December 1994)

SA22-7209-02
Third Edition
(November 1999)

z/Architecture

SA22-7871-12
Thirteenth Edition
(April, 2025)
Z17 Pops

1401

Before the System/360 was the IBM 1401

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

Punched Cards

If you enjoyed this page, you may also be interested in punched cards as well:

All of these cards and the terms: System/360, System/370, Extended Architecture, Enterprise System Architecture/370, System/390, and S/390 are owned by IBM of course.

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Dave's Green Card Collection

System/360

Contributions

External:

System/370

The rest of the System/370 cards are not clickable

Contributions

System/370 XA and ESA

The rest of the System/370 XA and ESA cards are not clickable

SEARS card

ESA/390

z/Architecture

1401

Punched Cards

The rest of the
System/370 cards
are not clickable

The rest of the
System/370 XA and ESA
cards are not clickable