IBM System 9000

The IBM System 9000 Instrument Controller (aka CS9000 or S9000) was a largely unsuccessful IBM workstation that was announced in 1982 for use as a laboratory computer. It was based on the Motorola 68000, running at 8 MHz and was one of the few systems that used Motorola's Versabus. Input/output ports included three RS-232 serial ports, an IEEE-488 instrument port plus analog and parallel I/O. It ran a custom operating system called CSOS, standing for Computer System Operating System. IBM also offered XENIX on the S9000, but this required at least 640 KB of RAM. The machines shipped with 128 KB RAM as standard, and this was expandable up to 5.2 MB in 256 K increments.

There were two versions of the System 9000. The 9001 was the benchtop (lab) model, while the 9002 was the desktop model.

The 9000 was originally developed by a company that IBM acquired in 1980, which became IBM Instruments, Inc. IBM closed its Instrument division in January 1987, reassigning the approximately 150 employees that had worked for it.