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The OSnews article is right - those towers look super cool. Also it seems weird that the one-core model will only run IBM i.

trollbridge 2y ago
IBM i doesn’t need a lot of power for many common use cases (even this machine is overkill). For example, my credit union (like many other CUs) runs CU*BASE which runs on i. This entry level machine is still orders of magnitude more than the software needs to run well. (For reference, when I spec’d out an entry level machine for an application like a credit union a few years ago, the cost was roughly $10,000 - fairly easy for most IT budgets to handle.) I suspect they didn’t want the one core sales to cannibalise more expensive AIX or Linux machines, and most people using AIX or Linux would want a more horsepower anyway.
- sillywalk 2y ago
  To be clear, by spec'd for a credit union, you mean like a single branch office of a credit union right? I know IBM i (and it's variously named predecessors) are/were built as a system designed to do core "business stuff" - inventory/payroll, credit-union stuff", and not have smaller users too worried about the details of e.g. storage or database tuning. It's an interesting computer / OS architecture. EDIT: link to IBM's product page: https://www.ibm.com/products/power-s1012 https://www.ibm.com/products/power-s1012 Datasheet: https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/K34GVY1B https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/K34GVY1B
dralley 2y ago
IBM supercomputers also look pretty neat
- Koshkin 2y ago
  I am sure you meant "mainframes." (Supercomputers look like rows of server racks these days.)
gautamcgoel 2y ago
Bizarre that the tower won't ship with the 8-core CPU.
- Koshkin 2y ago
  I once spoke to a younger developer who did not know that multitasking could be done on a single core; also, he has never seen a mechanical watch and could not believe that it did not need a battery.

trollbridge 2y ago

IBM i doesn’t need a lot of power for many common use cases (even this machine is overkill). For example, my credit union (like many other CUs) runs CU*BASE which runs on i. This entry level machine is still orders of magnitude more than the software needs to run well. (For reference, when I spec’d out an entry level machine for an application like a credit union a few years ago, the cost was roughly $10,000 - fairly easy for most IT budgets to handle.) I suspect they didn’t want the one core sales to cannibalise more expensive AIX or Linux machines, and most people using AIX or Linux would want a more horsepower anyway.

sillywalk 2y ago
To be clear, by spec'd for a credit union, you mean like a single branch office of a credit union right? I know IBM i (and it's variously named predecessors) are/were built as a system designed to do core "business stuff" - inventory/payroll, credit-union stuff", and not have smaller users too worried about the details of e.g. storage or database tuning. It's an interesting computer / OS architecture. EDIT: link to IBM's product page: https://www.ibm.com/products/power-s1012 https://www.ibm.com/products/power-s1012 Datasheet: https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/K34GVY1B https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/K34GVY1B

dralley 2y ago

IBM supercomputers also look pretty neat

Koshkin 2y ago
I am sure you meant "mainframes." (Supercomputers look like rows of server racks these days.)

gautamcgoel 2y ago

Bizarre that the tower won't ship with the 8-core CPU.

Koshkin 2y ago
I once spoke to a younger developer who did not know that multitasking could be done on a single core; also, he has never seen a mechanical watch and could not believe that it did not need a battery.