IBM System/1

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Jul 16 02:53:38 2000

> I am not knowledgable, but never let that impede making comments, so isn't
> the success of the AS/400 more at the expense of mainframe sales and former
> mainframe applications?

Yes, but over a very long time. The IBM minis came out of the S/360
family in the late 1960s. IBM had a very low end S/360 intended for small
businesses, which unfortunately, was not really a S/360 (big
incopatibilities, like half the registers!). IBM decided to split the
product off, as it was selling, and proved that the business minicomputer
was a real thing. They decided to come up with a new design, the S/3, in
the very early 1970s. It too was a good seller, and led to other models
further down the line - S/32, S/34, S/38, then S/36 (note that some of
these machines are wildly different, but made for the same market). The
last two were used, along with some ideas from a project called "FS", to
make the AS/400 in the mid-1980s.

Did all of this steal mainframe applications? Well, not directly, but
yes. But as you can see, it has been happening for 30 years now.

Additionally, the was not just an IBM thing - DEC witnessed the same
shift, as the PDP-11 and VAX took applications away from the PDP-10.

While many hackers complain and dislike AS/400s, they really are very
interesting, well built machines (but very unhackable - one of the big
problems for us.). They are damn near bulletproof, in both the hardware
and software end. If you order an AS/400 from IBM, you unpack it and turn
it on. That's it - it works perfectly. It doesn't crash, even when bogged
down. System administration really is not much of an issue, unlike a Unix
or NT box. Massive architecture changes can happen (and have) without
problems. The financial and business people love them...

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Sun Jul 16 2000 - 02:53:38 BST