[3] This was true of the entire line, which expanded with the release of the Model 120E,[4] 150, 150E, 180, 180E, 200, 200E, 300, 300E, 400, 400E, 600E, 600J, and 600S[5] 3090 were described as using "ideas from the ... IBM 3033, extending them ...

[5] By the late 1970s and early 1980s, patented technology allowed Amdahl mainframes of this era to be completely air-cooled, unlike IBM systems that required chilled water and its supporting infrastructure.

On February 15, 1988, IBM announced[18] Processor Resource/Systems Manager (PR/SM) for 3090 enhanced ("E") models This feature allows the operator to define and assign resource to a virtual machine known as a logical partition (LPAR).

IBM entered into partnerships with several universities to promote the use of the 3090 in scientific applications, and efforts were made to convert code traditionally run on Cray computers.

[24] Along with the vector unit, IBM introduced their Engineering and Scientific Subroutines Library and a facility to run programs written for the discontinued 3838 array processor.