Last Updated: 13 February 2025

VM History and Heritage

A compilation of VM history resources

IBM announced its first official VM product, VM/370, on August 2, 1972 for the System/370. As times changed, so did VM. You may have known it by one or more of its many IBM products: VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/SP HPO, VM/IS, VM/ESA. Today, it's known as z/VM.

• August 2, 2022 - Celebrating 50 years of Virtualization Innovation
• A visual timeline of IBM VM history

• VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future

  For an in-depth look at VM's history, Melinda Varian, retired staff from Princeton University, has kindly made her paper available for download from her web site. There is also an older version that includes pictures.



• 50 Years of Mainframe Virtualization

  Jim Elliot's presentation from the 2022 VMWorkshop. Jim has provided a comprehensive history of IBM virtualization and details each iteration of the IBM VM product.



• z/VM - A Brief Review of Its 40 Year History

  Created for VM's 40th anniversary, Bill Bitner and Susan Greenlee recap the first 40 years of VM.

• 40 Reflections for 40 Years of z/VM - Bill Bitner shares 40 fond memories of working in VM Development
• 45 (Official) Years of Virtualization - How z/VM has evolved over 50 years to grow with your business needs
• Short History of IBM's Virtual Machines
• VM History YouTube channel
• z/VM Announcements
• Previous VM Announcements

• IBM Archives: IBM History - Valuable resources of IBM's history
• 1963 Timesharing: A Solution to Computer Bottlenecks
• IBM Control Program of Operating System/360
• The 360 Revolution - System/360 and the new world of on demand business
• The IBM 360/67 and CP/CMS
• VM-Related Hardware Announcements