IBM does have the zPDT for running an emulated mainframe on Intel hardware for development, and education purposes. However it is not free. IIRC it is about $1K

IBM does have the zPDT for running an emulated mainframe on Intel hardware for development, and education purposes. However it is not free. IIRC it is about $1K/year. Not a bad cost for a business, but too expensive for someone to go learn on their own. You are absolutely right about how hard it is to do business with IBM. I worked for IBM for nearly 7 years, running a small datacenter. It was such a pain in the ass every time I needed to order something. IBM sales and support process is very high touch, and is designed for the large enterprise that has a team of IBM sales people supporting them. If you are that customer it is not a big deal because you have someone to navigate the process for you. If you are a smaller customer, they want you to go through a VAR. Which is still a pain in the ass. Windows NT and the AS/400 are about the same age. This pain in the ass sales process is a big part of why Windows NT won. The IBM sales people didn't want to sell it because you didn't need to buy services with it and it was too hard to buy on your own. Where as if you wanted Windows NT, you just bought a copy of Windows NT and installed it on an easily available PC. We won't even talk about the time I tried to use IBM Smart Cloud Enterprise.