[2][3] It was designed to be installed in branch offices, stores, subsidiaries, etc., and to be connected to the central host mainframe, using IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA).

Although its successor's role in distributed data processing was said to be "a turning point in the general direction of worldwide computer development," the 3790 was described by Datamation in March 1979 as "less than successful.

The 3790 was designed as a departmental processor, but the requirement for an IBM mainframe development environment inhibited adoption in its target market of mid-size companies.

IBM recognized the problems with the Macro Assembler and created an automated program generator named DMS.

DMS was essentially a screen painter; it could do simple edits such as field range checking or numeric tests but more complex logic still had to be coded using the Macro Assembler.