In the 1960’s IBM’s
System/360 machines had no interactive capabilities to start although
customers, especially public utilities, clamored for one.Ben Riggins, known as the father of CICS,
was sent to an IBM development facility near Chicago to make one.The result was the Public Utility Customer
Information Control System.The name
was later shortened to the Customer Information Control System, now known as
CICS. In 1969, IBM unbundled software from hardware and began to sell CICS on
its own.
In 1971, IBM began
to sell CICS for its smaller operating systems, DOS for small mainframes and
the simpler DOSE, the entry version of DOS.
In 1973, the
development of CICS moved from the Chicago area to Hursley, England, where it
is today.
A CMS version was
marketed in 1985 as a single user development environment. A production VM
version was introduced in 1987.
During the 1990’s,
CICS continued its movement to other operating platforms such as the AS/400
and web environments.