1986
IBM RISC System/6000 AIX Rugby Shirt

"This a rather unusual addition to the collection of the Centre for Computing History, specifically an IBM Rise System/6000 A1X Rugby Shirt. This shirt was one of a very limited run (less than 50) that were produced for IBM's customer education centre (IBM Southbank. London) in about 1998-1999.The rugby shirts were commissioned by me for the technical instructors who were teaching on IBM's Rise System/6000 platform (now IBM System p) and A1X operating system in the UK.

At the lime I was the curriculum manager and senior¹technical instructor) of IBM's RS/GOOO & AIX customer education business in the UK and Ireland. These rugby shirts were available only to 'AIX instructors and their partners', although 1 distinctly remember this one being worn far more by my girlfriend at the time than I ever did.

The definition of'AIX instructor' extended to many freelance instructors employed by IBM at the lime, including a handful who used to fly in from overseas to leach particularly specialist courses. I recently corresponded with a former freelance instructor who lives in far Hung Edmonton. Alberta - one of two instructors who regularly came to the UK from Canada.

Eventually IBM had to drop the idea of instructors wearing a quasi-uniform, not least because just about every customer on an IBM RS/GOOO & AIX course wanted a rugby shirt, and in due course IBM rebranded RS 0000 as pSeries and then System p, and dropped the coloured diamond logo."