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I had a summer internship in high school with an AS/400 application development shop. I found the machine and its development environment annoying and unpleasan

by schoen 3y ago

I had a summer internship in high school with an AS/400 application development shop. I found the machine and its development environment annoying and unpleasant compared to Unix, but the support from IBM was incredible. Absurdly bureaucratic, but also so thorough and detailed and accessible. I still have this memory that IBM sent out an Engineering Change for the AS/400 that consisted of a twist tie to help customers who had purchased an Ethernet card for it coil their Ethernet cables more reliably. (The twist tie of course then having a specific IBM part number.) I would love to be able to substantiate this memory. IBM was also seemingly very open to supporting new technologies, both hardware and software, on the AS/400, including some that were invented decades after the machine was introduced. Usually for a fee, of course!

easton 3y ago
IBM lists a cable tie as a part for Power5 here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/power5?topic=catalog-system-parts https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/power5?topic=catalog-system-part... I don't know if 9119-590 is compatible with AS/400 though.
neilv 3y ago
That twist-tie ECO process sounds aerospace-grade. I saw things like that from IBM, just from their later Power AIX workstations. For mission-critical computing companies, there was lots of process intended not to have anything slip through the cracks. The first memory that comes to mind was actually DEC (or was it HP?), who, to send a single sheet of paper (e.g., for a license key), would routinely use an entire shipping box. Paper would be shrink-wrapped or poly-bagged, with a sheet of cardboard. Plus a packing list, itemizing not only that one sheet of paper, but also itemizing all the shipping supplies to be used. Not very efficient in some sense, but if it avoided a single mission-critical incident for a customer, I suppose it was worthwhile.
- euroderf 3y ago
  It would certainly put a roomful of people on alert that something important was up. Making it harder to foul up.

by schoen 3y ago

easton 3y ago

IBM lists a cable tie as a part for Power5 here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/power5?topic=catalog-system-parts https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/power5?topic=catalog-system-part... I don't know if 9119-590 is compatible with AS/400 though.

neilv 3y ago

That twist-tie ECO process sounds aerospace-grade. I saw things like that from IBM, just from their later Power AIX workstations. For mission-critical computing companies, there was lots of process intended not to have anything slip through the cracks. The first memory that comes to mind was actually DEC (or was it HP?), who, to send a single sheet of paper (e.g., for a license key), would routinely use an entire shipping box. Paper would be shrink-wrapped or poly-bagged, with a sheet of cardboard. Plus a packing list, itemizing not only that one sheet of paper, but also itemizing all the shipping supplies to be used. Not very efficient in some sense, but if it avoided a single mission-critical incident for a customer, I suppose it was worthwhile.

euroderf 3y ago
It would certainly put a roomful of people on alert that something important was up. Making it harder to foul up.