Dave's Green Card Collection

Greencards


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). New [2025-07-13]


System/360


x20-1703-1
X20-1727-1

System/360
Model 20
Reference Data
12 pages

x20-1703-1
GX20-1703-6

System/360
Reference Data
12 pages

x20-1703-1
GX20-1703-7

System/360
Reference Data
12 pages

x20-1703-1
GX20-1703-9

System/360
Reference Data
14 pages

Contributions

External:


System/370


x20-1703-1
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
GX20-1850-0
System/370
Reference Summary
First Edition
(April 1972)

gx20-1850-6

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

Contributions


System/370 XA and ESA


GX20-0157-0
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
GX20-0157-1
System/370
Extended Architecture
Reference Summary
Second Edition
(July 1986)
45 pages

gx20-0157-1
GX20-0157-2
System/370
Extended Architecture
Reference Summary
Third Edition
(February 1989)
46 pages

gx20-0406-0
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
SA22-7209-01
Enterprise Systems
Archiecture/390
Reference Summary

Second Edition
(December 1994)

sa22-7209-02
SA22-7209-02
Third Edition
(November 1999)

z/Architecture


SA22-7871-12
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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Last Updated: 2025-07-16
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