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Attempting to control the consumer market by choosing a lesser chip does sound like something IBM would do. They were all about protecting their turf (as400 an
by marktangotango 12y ago
Attempting to control the consumer market by choosing a lesser chip does sound like something IBM would do. They were all about protecting their turf (as400 and mainframes).
- jacquesm 12y agoI ran into an AS400 a week ago on a job, box the size of your average PC, second hand (refurbished) cost: $125000... That's a good markup, and it doesn't seem to do anything that a regular rack mounted intel box couldn't do. It probably has some reserve in terms of IO and reliability but for the spot where it's sitting it is total overkill (ancient ERP system only running on that hardware).
- peapicker 12y agoThe extra cost is in the extra 2 to 4 nines of uptime guarantee.
- rogerbinns 12y agoThe AS/400 is completely different hardware and software. I don't mean that it just a reimplementation of what you are used to, but rather alien to what you are used to. It is designed to be a business system, and an evolution of the System 32/36/38. I recommend Frank Soltis' books about it, although they are very expensive. For example an earlier edition is http://www.amazon.com/Inside-As-400-Frank-Soltis/dp/1882419138 http://www.amazon.com/Inside-As-400-Frank-Soltis/dp/18824191... As an example there is extreme backwards compatibility, pervasive database, single address space (a different meaning of virtual memory than you are used to), sharing, tagged and protected pointers, clustering etc.
- jacquesm 12y agoThank you! I've worked with some pretty weird hardware in the past so I think I'll be just fine but pointers are very much appreciated.