4 ms·

Ask HN: What happened to the old mainframes? Were many preserved?

1 points by hoodoof 11y ago

DrScump 11y ago
I doubt it. Storage costs and hassles would be immense. Given that few people kept old Apple 1's around, as small as they are (which is why they sell so high at auction), I see no sense in preserving a mainframe, then or now. I would guess that most surrendered mainframes (for the past decade or two) would be directly decommissioned, having no subsequent market warranting re-deployment. Have you been in an old-school mainframe shop? I left that world in 1986 for the minis/PCs/UNIX world and didn't follow the industry after that. But at that time, a mainframe like an IBM 309x (successor to the 308x, which was the successor to the 3033, which was the successor to the 370 era) required huge, elevated, Halon-protected, chilled rooms, with banks of tape drives the size of a phone booth, hard drives the size of a small chest freezer, plus numerous large peripherals (printers, card readers, card punches, etc.), and an enormous power infrastructure. Today, you now have more CPU power in your phone. I loved operating mainframes alone - it was like being an orchestra conductor, except you could reboot a recalcitrant concertmaster. It was typical of the mainframe world that machines were leased rather than owned. I guess the owners would redeploy if there was any customer, otherwise decommission for parts/scrap. The hassle of transport/exchange was huge. BTW, anybody need 9-track reel tapes? I have a few.
- hoodoof 11y ago
  Yes I worked in a few places with mainframes. Never found them very interesting though because they were so tightly controlled. I do remember how flaky they were though. Constantly crashing and needing reboot, which could easily take the better part of an hour.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Constantly crashing and needing reboot Not at all, in my experience. They were vulnerable to power dips but otherwise low trouble (by the standards of the time; not like, say, SunOS on Sparc). They would go weeks or months without a reboot (such had to be scheduled through upper management and customers). IBMs even had a cool Quiesce feature where you could stop the processor (and all I/O) while leaving the system stable. This was necessary when doing things like disconneting/reconnecting peripherals and drives. But it didn't sing "Daisy, Daisy" in the process.
pinewurst 11y ago
For certain values of "mainframe", some are operational or being restored at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle (a very neat place). http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/The-Collection/Exhibit-Hall.aspx#Mainframe http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/The-Collection/Exhibit-H...

1 points by hoodoof 11y ago

I doubt it. Storage costs and hassles would be immense. Given that few people kept old Apple 1's around, as small as they are (which is why they sell so high at auction), I see no sense in preserving a mainframe, then or now. I would guess that most surrendered mainframes (for the past decade or two) would be directly decommissioned, having no subsequent market warranting re-deployment. Have you been in an old-school mainframe shop? I left that world in 1986 for the minis/PCs/UNIX world and didn't follow the industry after that. But at that time, a mainframe like an IBM 309x (successor to the 308x, which was the successor to the 3033, which was the successor to the 370 era) required huge, elevated, Halon-protected, chilled rooms, with banks of tape drives the size of a phone booth, hard drives the size of a small chest freezer, plus numerous large peripherals (printers, card readers, card punches, etc.), and an enormous power infrastructure. Today, you now have more CPU power in your phone. I loved operating mainframes alone - it was like being an orchestra conductor, except you could reboot a recalcitrant concertmaster. It was typical of the mainframe world that machines were leased rather than owned. I guess the owners would redeploy if there was any customer, otherwise decommission for parts/scrap. The hassle of transport/exchange was huge. BTW, anybody need 9-track reel tapes? I have a few.

hoodoof 11y ago
Yes I worked in a few places with mainframes. Never found them very interesting though because they were so tightly controlled. I do remember how flaky they were though. Constantly crashing and needing reboot, which could easily take the better part of an hour.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Constantly crashing and needing reboot Not at all, in my experience. They were vulnerable to power dips but otherwise low trouble (by the standards of the time; not like, say, SunOS on Sparc). They would go weeks or months without a reboot (such had to be scheduled through upper management and customers). IBMs even had a cool Quiesce feature where you could stop the processor (and all I/O) while leaving the system stable. This was necessary when doing things like disconneting/reconnecting peripherals and drives. But it didn't sing "Daisy, Daisy" in the process.

pinewurst 11y ago

For certain values of "mainframe", some are operational or being restored at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle (a very neat place). http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/The-Collection/Exhibit-Hall.aspx#Mainframe http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/The-Collection/Exhibit-H...