That $5B appears to be the cost of the entire project, including production.

In your essay, you wrote "development cost". Is that meant to include production? Because it appears the development cost as its own line item was no more than $1B.

Have you read Wise's Fortune article to confirm that it says what you think it does? I haven't been able to find it online.

Also, I think it's interesting that nearly all of the sources I found cite that Fortune article, and not an IBM publication. Even an IBM site prefers to quote Fortune instead of their own sources.

> That $5B appears to be the cost of the entire project, including production.

I agree. Not that any of this really matters but I hate when inaccurate figures are just repeated and taken as fact which is why I raised the point in my original question. Actually just because the number seemed to high to be true.

We've had two other cases of this that I can remember recently. One was the ADA and flossing. [1]

The other was the "8 glasses a day of water" which is something that has been repeated as gospel. [2]

As a general rule people will always throw in the kitchen sink when stating numbers and make them seem as large as possible. [3] Additionally anyone who was ever interviewed for a news story will know that whatever you repeat to a reporter is rarely questioned. It's taken as a fact and if it ends up in a major newspaper (say NYT or WSJ) it is taken as vetted and authentic. (I have been quoted so that is why I say this..)

[1] And now I am seeing this: http://www.ada.org/en/press-room/news-releases/2016-archive/...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-...

[3] Unless of course it serves them to make them as small as possible.

In fairness, the figure is mostly accurate. Development cost $1 billion, the entire project including production cost $5 billion. It was a bet-the-company move.

I agree that it's an accurate number. I meant to highlight that "development" can mean "to develop a working system" (R&D) as well as "to develop a commercial product" (R&D plus production, support, sales, marketing, ...).

You might want to edit the part about it being the first, business mainframe. The Burroughs B5000 was published in 1961 then released I think same year as System/360. Quite forward-thinking stuff vs the giant calculator IBM made:

http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burr...

Burroughs changed their name to Unisys. They still sell those machines although not with the custom CPU's with hardware-enforced safety/security. (sighs)