9370 is a dog! Was: Re: Re[2]: Firsts

From: Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk <(Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk)>
Date: Wed Feb 18 09:15:06 1998

[Power Consumption of 3090]

> Are these all water machines? There are some air-cooled versions that are
> probably reasonable.

All 3090 models are indeed water machines. The 3090 was IBM's large
mainframe of the late 1980s.

There were other 370-derived machines around at the time. In particular
there was the 4300 series, of which the 4361 and 4381 remained at that
time (I think if you tried to buy a 4321 or 4341 you got a 4361. The
price was the same, anyway.) I cannot remember whether these were air
or water cooled, but they were much less powerful than the 3090

>> These figures are not even for a minimum system - you have to add disk
>> drives and that awful 400Hz motor generator set - which can consume up
>> to 7kW in itself.
>
> Yes, the 400 Hz would be a problem, almost as much as a cooling system (if
> one went with a water machine - probably too big of a headache).

I wonder. I have never seen inside the PSU of any of these machines,
but it seems to me that the outputs are all going to be low voltage dc
at a few hundred amps - so conventional switching power supplies could
be contrived (tho' probably not purchased new if there are tens of kW
involved!) to replace the strange 400Hz thingies. And a little circuit
to provide a 400Hz heartbeat if the machine uses this at all...

>> So, as I said, a typical system based around, say, a model 200 might
>> consume 50kW, but even that needn't cripple you financially.
>
> No. Around me, electricity is not very cheap - 11 cents/kWh - but running

Much the same here.

> a 50kW computer is not a financial burden if done in moderation. What
> might be a burden is getting the service entrance of the house to a point
> where it could handle 50kW nicely.

Yes. Although the elctricity company may do a lot of the work free of
charge if they think you're going to use a lot of the stuff. (My
parents achieved this. They wanted to move the meter board, so the
electrician doing the wiring told the electricity company, they're going
to use so much electricity thy'll need 3-phase and there won't be room
in the existing location. Result: new 3-phase connection and new meter
board, all free of charge.)

> I suppose that is the good thing about RCS/RI - we are in a factory, and
> are looking to get real 3-phase installed!

Nice. I'm surprised you don't have this already if you're in a factory.
 Here we have 240V (now officially 230V but I've not noticed any change)
single phase up to around 20kW peak demand, 415V 3 phase (now officially
400V, ditto) up to a megawatt or so, 11kV 3 phase above that. Some
factories have their own supply at 33kV or even higher.

Philip.
Received on Wed Feb 18 1998 - 09:15:06 GMT