7 ms·

Wouldn't it be in these companies' best interest to release free "dev" versions of Solaris/HPUX/AIX/etc? I guess even then the problem is there's even a moat th

Wouldn't it be in these companies' best interest to release free "dev" versions of Solaris/HPUX/AIX/etc? I guess even then the problem is there's even a moat there to begin with. Company would have you fill out various info to get a license whereas you can download Ubuntu/Debian/CentOS without any such restriction. I also wonder about mainframes and why IBM hasn't come out with some sort of "emulation layer" for X86 machines. Yes mainframes are expensive, but wouldn't you want to do everything you can to get mainframe software that people can learn with into as many hands as possible?

cf100clunk 4y ago
In the context of the 1980s and early 1990s, there was an x86 version of Solaris 2.x that had drivers for a few of the commonplace PC hardware devices of the time, so perhaps the home hacker might have been able to take that up, but probably only through a school licence. The ''real'' Solaris OS as well as HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, OSF/1, etc. were written and developed for the proprietary hardware platforms of Sun, HP, IBM, Silicon Graphics, DEC, respectively. The cost of those hardware devices kept them out of the home hacker's reach until used or EOL units started popping up many years later.
accra4rx 4y ago
you have emulation for mainframe on x86, they give you a free 3 days emulated development env on their cloud if you sign up or else you can buy ADCD license and install it locally. other alternative is to use Hercules as emulator (only works with old ADCD images)