4 ms·

But it is worse. Over 12 million Ras Pis have been sold, I see them just lying around on developer's desks all the time. I don't think I've ever even seen a boo

But it is worse. Over 12 million Ras Pis have been sold, I see them just lying around on developer's desks all the time. I don't think I've ever even seen a bootable Power system.

stusmall 9y ago
The local UUG I was a part of had one available through the IBM innovation center. You were able to schedule time on it to experiment. Even with that close access it seemed like a PITA.
classichasclass 9y ago
Other than the one in my house, you mean?
- marshray 9y ago
  Have I been to your house?!
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    Does that mean it doesn't boot? I will concede one point: it was not easy to purchase. I prefer to host my personal site on Power hardware; I started with AIX in the 3.2.5 days and I ran Floodgap on an Apple Network Server 500 for the better part of 14 years. I wanted to get a POWER7 to replace it in 2010, I budgeted $15k for it, and IBM wouldn't take my money. I couldn't find _any_ IBM VAR who would do an end-user sale because I wasn't going to buy the service contract. Eventually I found a reseller who was more than happy to take $10K of my budget for a decent 2-year-old POWER6. It had a backplane burp a couple years ago but otherwise has been pretty damn spiffy. I'll concede IBM has to do a lot more to get these systems into people's hands to achieve a critical mass and it certainly wouldn't hurt to make them cheaper up to a point, but the systems are out there, and you can get them (and find them). As a postscript, in my current job (a large local government agency) I was in the CIO's office one day and the regional IBM salesdroid dropped by. Just to needle him I told him this story and he gave me his card and told him to call him with any parts requests, any time. I still buy from the reseller, though. They've earned my personal business.
    - cwyers 9y ago
      He said he's never seen one, not that they don't exist.
    - frankchn 9y ago
      Even in your example, the barrier or entry is still so high — I can buy a very nice new x86 machine for $10k, instead of a 2 year old POWER system. I am interested in the POWER architecture, but not buy $10k worth of old hardware interested.
rbanffy 9y ago
I have a couple RS/6000's in storage... But yes... Vintage computing doesn't count.
Spooky23 9y ago
That pretty much tells the story. A single, last man standing vendor like IBM with a business model of making money on Mainframe/“Midrange”/Old-School Unix boxes will never, ever be Intel. POWER is cool, but who cares. It’s more productive to think about how to harness lots of cheap ARM cores if intel isn’t doing it for you. My employer has a few. It’s fast and looks impressive. But when you cut away the bullshit, it mostly exists because the sales guy presented a story where the cost of a new POWER box is a better deal than maintenance on the old one. If you really dig into it, there’s no scenario other than a license play where a transition to Intel isn’t more cost effective. Even in those scenarios, you can usually engineer a solution (Oracle, etc) where you deliver a better ROI on commodity hardware or cloud hardware.

But it is worse. Over 12 million Ras Pis have been sold, I see them just lying around on developer's desks all the time. I don't think I've ever even seen a bootable Power system.

stusmall 9y ago

The local UUG I was a part of had one available through the IBM innovation center. You were able to schedule time on it to experiment. Even with that close access it seemed like a PITA.

classichasclass 9y ago

Other than the one in my house, you mean?

marshray 9y ago
Have I been to your house?!
- classichasclass 9y ago
  Does that mean it doesn't boot? I will concede one point: it was not easy to purchase. I prefer to host my personal site on Power hardware; I started with AIX in the 3.2.5 days and I ran Floodgap on an Apple Network Server 500 for the better part of 14 years. I wanted to get a POWER7 to replace it in 2010, I budgeted $15k for it, and IBM wouldn't take my money. I couldn't find _any_ IBM VAR who would do an end-user sale because I wasn't going to buy the service contract. Eventually I found a reseller who was more than happy to take $10K of my budget for a decent 2-year-old POWER6. It had a backplane burp a couple years ago but otherwise has been pretty damn spiffy. I'll concede IBM has to do a lot more to get these systems into people's hands to achieve a critical mass and it certainly wouldn't hurt to make them cheaper up to a point, but the systems are out there, and you can get them (and find them). As a postscript, in my current job (a large local government agency) I was in the CIO's office one day and the regional IBM salesdroid dropped by. Just to needle him I told him this story and he gave me his card and told him to call him with any parts requests, any time. I still buy from the reseller, though. They've earned my personal business.
  - cwyers 9y ago
    He said he's never seen one, not that they don't exist.
  - frankchn 9y ago
    Even in your example, the barrier or entry is still so high — I can buy a very nice new x86 machine for $10k, instead of a 2 year old POWER system. I am interested in the POWER architecture, but not buy $10k worth of old hardware interested.

rbanffy 9y ago

I have a couple RS/6000's in storage... But yes... Vintage computing doesn't count.

Spooky23 9y ago

That pretty much tells the story. A single, last man standing vendor like IBM with a business model of making money on Mainframe/“Midrange”/Old-School Unix boxes will never, ever be Intel. POWER is cool, but who cares. It’s more productive to think about how to harness lots of cheap ARM cores if intel isn’t doing it for you. My employer has a few. It’s fast and looks impressive. But when you cut away the bullshit, it mostly exists because the sales guy presented a story where the cost of a new POWER box is a better deal than maintenance on the old one. If you really dig into it, there’s no scenario other than a license play where a transition to Intel isn’t more cost effective. Even in those scenarios, you can usually engineer a solution (Oracle, etc) where you deliver a better ROI on commodity hardware or cloud hardware.