AS/400s in the Champaign area

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Apr 21 23:01:07 2002

> The AS/400 grew primarily out of the S/36 architecture but
> incorporated many architectural features of the S/38. It has a good
> deal of application compatibility with both the S/36 and the S/38.
> The S/38 (which came out before the S/36) is otherwise a fairly
> different machine from the S/32, S/34, and S/36.

??!!!

The S/36 architecture is more or less standard minicomputer fair, as is
the S/34*. S/3 is a little wierd, being a 8 bitter (!) designed to handle
strings, but still based on standard ideas of computer architecture. There
is no funny business going on inside those machines.

The S/38, however, is a *completely* different sort of thing, with the
whole object-oriented way of thinking (an idea IBM tried with the
stillborn FS followup to the S/370) and the concept of CISC taken to an
entire new level. The AS/400 is also an object based machine, and most of
its internal mechanisms are based on S/38 ideas. From what little has been
released about the internals of these two families of machines, it can be
said that they are *nothing* like anything else, with the possible
exception of the iAPX 432.

*Not sure about the S/32 - I have no information on it.

> The last model of the System/36 line, the 5363, was "enhanced" (though
> I don't know how) and renamed "AS/Entry"...it seems to me that they
> followed the numbering scheme, but loosely.

AS/Entry is just what it implies - a way to ween the diehard S/36 folks
away from 536x machines to AS/400s.

William DOnzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Sun Apr 21 2002 - 23:01:07 BST