IBM Gets AS/400 Running On PlayStation

TomPee writes "Hackers may have oiled the rails for Linux fans eager to run their favourite Penguin-fronted operating system on Xbox, but that's nothing compared to IBM's latest in-house project, according to Gamesindustry.biz: running the AS/400 enterprise operating system on a humble PlayStation. Now I'm only wondering: what will be the practical use of this ?" According to another account from News.com.au, which non-specifically mentions 'PlayStation', it may be that IBM are working on the PS2, and not the PSOne, as the newer article claims.

Comments

Perhaps a real use.

[shadwwulf]

This reminds me of this a previous Slashdot post.

Perhaps now the whackjobs of the world will have a reason to stockpile consoles other than needing their fix of Final Fantasy.

Just a thought...

IBM's secret plan to take over the world.

[DavidBrown]

Given that OS/400 is usually found on enterprise servers, and - with apologies to Al Yankovich - about as useful to gamers as JPEGs to Helen Keller, the project is never likely to make it out of the Rochester lab, but has been undertaken anyway as part of research associated with IBM's "CELL" project - jointly underway with Toshiba and Sony to develop processors for entertainment applications. (from the article).

Maybe the idea here is that IBM is working on a robust OS and networking system and maybe the hardware for use in future Sony platforms (PS3, anyone?) and has done this as a demonstration of what they can do. If they can make it work with the PSOne, they can make it work with anything.

It's kind of karmic, the PS3 also being the PS/3 and all.