Slashdot Mirror

You're perfectly correct about the technology. It's your terminology that's wrong. When I said that mainframes are just a kind of microcomputer, I was not saying that mainframes are a kind of PC. "Microcomputer" refers to the fundamental technology that the PC is based on. "Mainframe" originally referred to computers built out of discrete components (the "mainframe" being that chassis that holds those components). At first that was the only kind of computer there was. Then the low end of the market was taken over by "minicomputers" which used integrated components. These were slower but cheaper. As time went by, minis got faster, and mainframes retreated into a high-end market.

Then around 1971, microprocessors appeared, people used them to make microcomputers, and history repeated itself. As microcomputers got faster and cheaper, they gradually took over the market. Completely. Now "mainframe" and "mini" describes market positioning, not fundamental technology.

Perhaps you're saying, "You're just playing with words. Mainframes are faster." But if so you're confusing "mainframe" with "high performance computer".

As it happens, I'm the documentation lead for an HPC system from Sun, the x4600. Up to 8 AMD CPUs. When Barcelona comes out, you'll be able to 32 processor cores in a single 4U system. Now, this thing has a fancy high-speed bus and other optimizations, but aside fro that, it's not that different from a PC. You can even run Windows on it. (Alas, most of our customers do, though Linux and Solaris are also popular.) You could even run an IBM emulator on it and then run all the software that was originally written for mainframes. Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!

You're that TronGuy! Dude you're the coolest!

PCs won't run z/OS
Have a look at hercules

If the mainframe were still useful, why would you be able to emulate one on a Mac? http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

Wow... you're also the guy who cusses at women in Texas VHF-FM Society meetings. The person that posted that also posted this page about you.

Looks to me like it is all about a voted on measure to allow voting in the Society by paper mail, that was later disemboweled by the Board against the rules of the organization.

At least that is what this link says: A link to one of the people brave enough to tell the truth.

Quite the show of professionalism you Texas Hams have there - and Minnesota elected you to their Repeater Coordination group?

And then the NFCC. Truly amazing. Or is that disgusting?

Neat what you can find on that there IntarWeb thingy. Your friends really like you. That web page above was fourth or fifth down the list on Google for "Texas-VHF-FM Society".

I think I'll post Anonymously so you don't shoot me - Mr. "Benefactor Life Member of the National Rifle Association" according to your web page.

Hopefully prospective Hams can learn something about how NOT to behave as an Amateur by your example.

http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

The same is true of their memory subsystems, their disk subsystems, etc., though their backplane performance tends to be second to none. Mainframes are designed for throughput.

Mainframes are capable of staying operational for decades at a time. If you don't want your computer to ever go down and can afford the price, a mainframe is what you want.

One other nice benefit: they've had virtualization figured out on mainframes since the 1960s, so allocating resources is a relatively easy thing to do.

If you're interested in finding out what the older mainframe OSes were like, check out the Hercules IBM mainframe emulator here.

... and here's the link: http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

Now, the only question is..
Does it run linux? (so it can emulate Big Iron) :)

And in the end, I still yearn for the blinking cursor.

At least on Tiger, that's Terminal > Window Settings..., select Display, check Blink, click "Use Settings as Defaults". HTH. :-)

But if you want really old, try Hercules. Runs on your Linux boxes, your Windows boxes, and your Mini. Makes your Apple // look shiny and modern, especially if you boot OS/360 on it....

And in the end, I still yearn for the blinking cursor.

At least on Tiger, that's Terminal > Window Settings..., select Display, check Blink, click "Use Settings as Defaults". HTH. :-)

But if you want really old, try Hercules. Runs on your Linux boxes, your Windows boxes, and your Mini. Makes your Apple // look shiny and modern, especially if you boot OS/360 on it....

"Or the server which can run highly debugged application written in mainframe assembler in 60's or 70's ?"
Right here. Just load it up and go. Probably would run faster than it did in the 70s as well. http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

I don't exactly have one lying around I can play with.

Ah, but you do have one you can play with. It's on your desktop.

Okay, not quite. But the Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator will give you something to experiment with.

Now, you can't get the modern z/OS or z/VM without convincing IBM to sell you them for your emulator. But you can get their ancestors MVS and VM/370 for free, as well as others (including Linux/390, of course).

It's not quite as good as the real thing, but it's much more practical for an individual.

I don't exactly have one lying around I can play with.

Ah, but you do have one you can play with. It's on your desktop.

Okay, not quite. But the Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator will give you something to experiment with.

Now, you can't get the modern z/OS or z/VM without convincing IBM to sell you them for your emulator. But you can get their ancestors MVS and VM/370 for free, as well as others (including Linux/390, of course).

It's not quite as good as the real thing, but it's much more practical for an individual.

So if you were offered a chance to debug Linux kernel code for money, that wouldn't be attractive to you at all either, I guess?

If you're working in the Real World, on mammoth aggregations of code that have evolved over decades, you cannot avoid "debugging other people's code".

Get over it. Despite a CS degree from Stanford, you're just not that special.
If you were, you would strike out on your own and create a new industry or market niche.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but debugging other people's code is in many ways much more intellectually challenging than producing your own monsters for others to debug.

Quite possibly the reason the people were reticent to teach you anything is that you wanted to be taught, instead of learning. There's a considerable chasm between those things. Another possibility is that they were never informed that they were supposed to take time away from doing the work to nurse the newbies along.

In my experience, IBM documents things reasonably well -- so much so that a major challenge is learning to search the plethora of manuals for the particular clue one is looking for. Start with the Principles of Operation to understand the hardware. IBM Redbooks are sometimes a wealth of how-to info that is generally unavailable. I suspect that if asked, any of the older guys could have given you the view from 40,000 feet, which isn't much, but at least orients you so as to permit intelligent self-directed education from that point forward.

And there are some good texts available -- not many, and they're OLD, but they present a good view that's a lot closer than the view from 40,000 feet. Try Operating Systems: A Pragmatic Approach by Katzan (ISBN: 0442247389) or Systems Programming by Donovan (ISBN: 0070176035) or Invitation to MVS: Logic and Debugging (also by Katzan, ISBN: 0894330810).

Also, there is a wealth of helpful web sites out there, start at Planet MVS or MVShelp.com.

And for the truly dedicated, install a mainframe emulator and an old copy of a mainframe OS that's in the public domain onto your PC and debug THAT!

I'm an operating system nut (UNIX administrator for a living), and would love to learn z/OS. The problem with learning z/OS is that there is such a high barrier to entry to get into the proper situation to do so.

While you can use open source utilities like Hercules to run z/OS on an x86 machine, the means of acquiring z/OS legally or illegally is certainly not easy. In fact, it's very unlikely.

Unlike other operating systems, you can't just easily buy a machine to run z/OS on eBay. Heck, I'm not quite sure what the oldest and most affordable machine that can run z/OS is. The cheapest S/390 I've seen on ebay is in the thousands of dollars. Whereas the barrier to entry for learning AIX is just a $150 43p away.

I'd still love to be able to run z/OS at home somewhere for learning it. It's just not terribly easy to do so.

well ok not quite but check out http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/ Then you will see why the mainframe is ignored.. Its complicated, and not very sexy....

here http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/ it is.

This http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/ is what you want a 370 & 390 emulator for your pc! it runs under windows & Linux/unix!

For even older check out simh

http://simh.trailing-edge.com/

Enjoy!

Just write an emulator.

Check out Hercules.

Or is it that people in IT generally suck???

Yes. Most, probably 3/4, of the ones I have met needed a training class or a prepackaged software tool to do their jobs (and then a training class to use the tool of course :). And after all the training classes, they still suck. They expect to be 'held by the hand' with everything.

No initiative, no imagination, no innovation. They got into technology because it was a job opportunity, not because they actually had interest or aptitude in the field.

A good nerd (the term 'Geek' is oh so trendy these days) will stay at home Friday and Saturday nights reading, hacking and taking online courses. A good nerd will download hercules http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/ and turnkey http://www.bsp-gmbh.com/turnkey/index.html hit the news groups, amazon and teach themselves mainframes. Nerds do not fear technology but rather embrace it.

(in fact I applied for a mainframe job, similar to one I had about 10 years ago, and have been using hercules/turnkey to brush up my skills. I have an interview in a few days).

Having worked and constatly retrained on Windows systems, Unices, mainframes, Oracle, Sql Server, PERL, Java, C#, COBOL, Postgresql etc. I am pretty much convinced that I have an 'iron rice bowl'. There is nothing anyone can throw at me that I cannot learn.

Sorry about the ranting, you hit a nerve.

Hercules and have hours of fun

You'd be amazed at what we've got running under Hercules...there's a lot of computing history being lost because people threw away old round tapes, thinking "Oh, we'll never run THAT again". A guy used an emulator to rescue old census data from Africa (was the story reported here? It wasn't that long ago), and that kind of thing will be only seen more as time goes on.

If you know of old IBM mainframe software on tape, drop me a note; chances are I can recover it. I've got 9-track and 3480 cartridge tape drives on a PC just for that purpose.

is kinda available.

OS/360 and MVS up to release 3.8j are public domain (before 1989, no copyright notices = public domain in the US), and have full source code available. 3.8j is from the late 70s I think, but mainframes don't change much anyway. I got it running on the Hercules emulator, but I just followed a guide. Played around with it for awhile but couldn't get anywhere

Hercules will run z/OS i believe, if you can work out the licensing issues... so you *could* have a laptop running z/OS. Not natively, but still :)

Yeah, and I could just aim my rocket launcher across the street. I'll never buy another Ford product again after the way they screwed me the last time.

Holy Cow!
The Hercules IBM Mainframe emulator is maintained by none other than TRON GUY .
That guy is a stud.
mr.

No, installing OS/390 on top of linux is a poor man's mainframe.

If you want to honour the GPL, then if you give a copy of the software to a friend on a CD you are required to either maintain a copy of the src for 3 years and provide it to your friend upon request, or ensure that the src is transferred to your friend when you hand them the CD.
This is exactly why the open-source package Hercules does not distribute the Cygwin binaries with the Windows version, but instead directs the user to the Cygwin site. We've found that Cygwin is enough of a moving target that it's best to install the version that Hercules was compiled against, and that means we'd have to keep around several different source code packages for years just to satisfy the GPL. In this case, we're actively working on getting away from Cygwin just so we don't have to mess with the installation hassles. If Cygwin were licensed under some other license, even one that required that the user be pointed at a place where he could download the source, we wouldn't have this problem.

The GPL actively inhibits software reuse, one of RMS's original goals for the license. Of course, he never lets goals stand in the way of being simon-pure on ideology...

One of the more amazing at the time that I saw was a workable subset implemented in the '80s on a PC card. It turned an early IBM PC into a desktop mainframe for some applications

An IBM System/370 hardware emulator for Linux, Windows, and OS X can be found at the Hercules Emulator page.

One site for good Mac emulators is emulation.net. Check out the PDP-8/e emulator -- Mac OS X native, with a spookily accurate virtual reproduction of the PDP-8/e's front panel!

Betwixt and between all of these, and many of the others out there, he could easily double the number of OSes he can run on his PowerBook!

that they need to run IBM's mainframe operating systems on their desktop.

Hey, I do run an IBM mainframe operating system on my desktop. (Although admittedly, not very often. But it does run faster than any hardware that the OS was explicitly designed for.)

Although come to think of it, anyone running Linux is also running an IBM mainframe operating sytem.

Yup.

Couldn't you just run hercules? It is an System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture emulator.

There's a free mainframe emulator, but the available operating systems for it are either Linux-based or obsolete IBM operating systems. IBM still charges very high prices for their current mainframe operating systems.

It's a pure interpreter written in C, and thus slow; emulation costs you about two orders of magnitude in performance. But that gives you the performance of an entry-level IBM mainframe circa 1998 or so.

There's a commercial emulator called FLEX-ES, but if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it. It's being sold to companies who are replacing old IBM mainframes with an emulator running on an x86 rackmount server. IBM will license their OSs for FLEX-ES, as long as the emulated CPU doesn't exceed 8 MIPS (!).

Hercules was created by Roger Bowler and is maintained by Jay Maynard. Jan Jaeger designed and implemented many of the advanced features of Hercules, including dynamic reconfiguration, integrated console, interpretive execution and z/Architecture support.

... OS/360 for dummies! Comes bundled with the Hercules emulator and DASD images. Money back guarante efor people who could not grok mainframes after 21 days.

As far as finding an S/390 to work on, I'll admit it's hard to find the actual iron to bang on, but there's a damn good emulator for it. For learning OpenVMS, you don't have to use an Itanium; you can pick up an old VAX or Alpha for next to nothing off of ebay or the local surpluss place. Hell, if you don't want to get physical hardware, you can always emulate it; won't be fast, but it'll teach you the basics. And VMS-based systems are all over the board as far as their size goes. A single processor Alpha or VAX is very much a micro. A system or cluster with a dozen or so procs is getting into the midrange area, and the really big iron, like the VAX 7000, can ease into the high-end server/mainframe range when using VMS's built in insanely reliable clustering. Yeah, it'll be tough discovering a truly non-trivial project, but hey, that's part of learning.

As others have noted, the biggest hurdle is that there's no good way for an interested geek to learn firsthand about mainframe systems and OSes. While Hercules takes care of the hardware, at least enough for people to run something to learn on, the same isn't true for the operating system. Modern IBM OSes are hideously expensive, for an individual (unless you're Bill the Gates), and there's been some persistent comments that they won't license them on Hercules anyway (although I have no direct knowledge of this, either way).

I've been advocating a hobbyist license for IBM OSes for use by individuals with Hercules for some time now. There's a white paper at http://www.conmicro.cx/ibmhobbyistlic.html. Aside from a few curmudgeons, and aside from the folks at IBM who make the decisions, the reaction I've gotten to this paper has been uniformly positive. I believe that it would help slow the slide, at least.

In the meantime, the interested can get a running copy of the last public-domain version of MVS from the CBT Tape web page, which is a great resource for the mainframe community in general.

As others have noted, the biggest hurdle is that there's no good way for an interested geek to learn firsthand about mainframe systems and OSes. While Hercules takes care of the hardware, at least enough for people to run something to learn on, the same isn't true for the operating system. Modern IBM OSes are hideously expensive, for an individual (unless you're Bill the Gates), and there's been some persistent comments that they won't license them on Hercules anyway (although I have no direct knowledge of this, either way).

I've been advocating a hobbyist license for IBM OSes for use by individuals with Hercules for some time now. There's a white paper at http://www.conmicro.cx/ibmhobbyistlic.html. Aside from a few curmudgeons, and aside from the folks at IBM who make the decisions, the reaction I've gotten to this paper has been uniformly positive. I believe that it would help slow the slide, at least.

In the meantime, the interested can get a running copy of the last public-domain version of MVS from the CBT Tape web page, which is a great resource for the mainframe community in general.

Exactly. It's also very much a chicken-and-egg problem to get into the mainframe world, becuase the barriers to entry are much higher from the standpoint of working on the technologies at home to get that all-important First Job. It's easy to build a $500 linux server or buy a $1000 used ultrasparc sun machine to learn some unix and unix coding on, but ... how are you going to learn mainframe stuff? Half of that stuff isn't even documented in the trade press (unless O'Reilly has come out with Mainframe Crap in a Nutshell or something and I just haven't noticed... heck, even the acronym set for that skill area is completely divergent from what most of the rest of the tech world uses. DASD anyone? IPL? MVS? JCL? RPG? OPA? XYZ?) The closest I've ever seen to being able to toy with that sort of thing at home would be something like Hercules or buying a used AS/400 off ebay for a few grand (which isn't a mainframe but a lot closer than a generibox linux server ;))

And even with trying to learn it at home, the production machines cost so much and are usually so business critical, you're going to have to really luck out to find a position where you'll ever even be allowed to touch the thing... On the flip side, I guess once you're in that world your job would be pretty stable, simply by virtue of the same barriers to entry in the field.

Everybody's got (or can get access to) a linux box to "learn Unix" on. Where on earth am I going to find an S/390?

Where on earth am I going to find an S/390?

Right here

In the last couple of months, my company tasked me with trying to come up with a way for our developers to start porting some of our enterprise applications to zOS and Linux/390. We didn't have the budget for a mainframe, and Hercules would probably work, but we'd still need a license from IBM to get zOS. This is not cheap or easy.

Then I discovered FLEX-ES from FSI. This emulator comes with a legal s390 license from IBM and seemed like a great solution to our problem. Except that it runs on SCO Unix. They also have a Linux version, but it might not support some of our hardware requirements.

Because of the lawsuit your company has filed against IBM, we have decided not to purchase this software, or the underlining SCO Unix OS license.

Now I'm sure my company's small purchase wouldn't help out a company expecting a billion dollar settlement that much. But if my company is not willing to purchase your flagship OS for fear of the reprocussions, how many other companies out there will also not purchase SCO based products or licenses...

If SCO is to continue in the future, come what may from the lawsuit, how do you expect companies to purchase products from you without fear of a future lawsuit against another company for IP infringement?

Personally, I run MVS 3.8j, which was IBM's flagship operating system circa 1974.

Personally, I run MVS 3.8j, which was IBM's flagship operating system circa 1974.

That Ace's Hardware link everybody connects to is a good overview of the IBM architecture and components, but frankly there are plenty of other machines that to my mind are mainframes as well.

Here is a definition that is as good as any, just keep in mind that there are plenty of other mainframes that do not have the IBM label on it.

Since everyone around here loves TCO arguments, here is the mainframe bid for cost-effective computing.

A general mainframe nerd site, with great links and how-tos.

Another good link site.

The dino web ring, a master compendium of 390-related sites.

Official IBMese for mainframes, with more sales power then you can shake an MS manager at.

The granddaddy of all user groups, SHARE kicks butt, defines system requirements to IBM, opposes UCITA, and changes your world more then any 5 computer gatherings you can mention. The members of this organization RUN your bank, credit card, hospital, government and corporate systems. Join the club.

And finally, you can run a mainframe on Linux or a Mac. Warning, IBM has very strict rules about their OS licensing, you are going into uncharted territory if you do ANYTHING remotely work-related with this. But you CAN run a mainframe emulator.

This is surely true. I started my programming in 1968 on an IBM 1620.

My last well-paying job was as a mainframe BAL and COBOL programmer. The company "merged" with one in Southern California; Much of he IT in Portland went away, just a few contractors around to keep the wheels moving.

I had developed an intranet warehouse application and a big-iron-monitor/program responsible/call-list in PHP on an old 386 box. Total cost to the company, $1.50 for the Linux CD (I did most of the coding outside of normal work hours). Them was the days!

I went to a company to re-write a DOS application into Linux, but that didn't work out.

My skill set includes FORTRAN, COBOL, IMS, mainframe Assembler, JCL, MVS and DOS/VSE style systems, X86 assembler, C, PHP, Ruby, Apache web server, Linux, *BSD, Networks -- you name it ... I've kept up with the technology. The fatal mistake was not jumping into bed with Microsoft.

At 60, I'VE BEEN UNEMPLOYED FOR A LONG TIME. Here in Portland you're lucky to even get a reply to a job inquiry because of the sheer numbers of applications for a job posting...

I'd gladly take a mind-numbing job as an operator (did that on a S/360 Mod 30)!

Hercules is the answer to getting quality time in a Big Iron environment:

http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

Almost worthy of its own discussion ! votes ?

Hercules is an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new 64-bit z/Architecture. Hercules runs under Linux, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.

You may also wish to download the original open source mainframe operating system, IBM OS360 ...

There also are a number of versions of Linux you can run on theIBM Z series Mainframes or the Hercules Emulator

Nothing like getting hot with some Big Iron running in your Pentium in the Study :^)

"...is that you can't easily learn as a hobbyist. You probably can't play with one at school, either."

Hercules.

Adam

For interesting machines, at least.. together with forgotten code there are forgotten platforms out there :) (and some are still being sold, even - just try getting a Quicktime player on your Linux/alpha box... )

You remind me of the Hercules emulator though - emulates the IBM System/370 through to zSeries mainframes. Apparently runs OS/370 pretty decently on recent hardware (preferably dual-processor, at least 1GHz), and during the beta testing for Redhat 7.3 a RH engineer actually invited people to try installing Redhat/S390 on it!

That, apparently, was slow :p You can read Moshe Bar's account of it at Byte.com