Reader Feedback on AS/400: Still Kicking After 21 Years

June 29, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

I wasn’t alone in my gratitude and slight melancholy as the summer solstice came around on the guitar again, reminding me of the AS/400’s 21st birthday. A bunch of you had some thoughts about this and my suggestion that we need an official AS/400 Advocate to argue the case for the Power Systems i platform. I thought I would share some of the emails I got from readers.

–TPM

I, too, am an oldster, having started on a System/36 and upgrading to the B40 AS/400 as it was called then.

As an amateur photographer, may I respectfully suggest you get those wedding slides scanned now. Slides are further from the present than the AS/400 and almost to the stage of the eight track tape. Before you can no longer duplicate or print from your slides, get them scanned and converted to JPG files.

Thanks for the memories of where we were and where we are now. I am now working with a AS/400e Model 810, so I have yet to arrive also.

Thanks for the thought provoking articles. I enjoy your publication immensely.

–Randy

What a great column that was, Timothy. Thanks.

–Ralph

Loved this. A really nice bit of writing that I, for one, could certainly relate to. And I’ve only been midranging for a decade!

Harlem sounds interesting. . . .

Cheers,

–Seamus

I’ll do what I can to promote the AS/400, iSeries, System i. I’m not passionate about many things, but the 400 is one thing I have a strong desire. So put me on the list and let’s build an army of 100,000 strong to work with IBM.

I’d give you my work email address, but I’m losing my job at the end of the year because hotels.com is moving to Linux.

–Rick

Now about AS/400 advocacy: I don’t like current day IBM. The nacht und nebel operation they are doing on U.S. jobs speaks for itself. I used to love IBM Rochester for their “Wild Ducks” attitude (see http://www.aip.org/history/newsletter/fall99/ibm.htm), but to me it seams they are gone now, GRed, RAed, fired, retired, or dead. And now IBM is rumored to divest itself of lesser performing divisions.

Now the Japanese, they love quality as perceived in the i. Perhaps, i would be better off with Hitachi: they have two i’s in their name, and iBM is really a one-i-yed company. (No offense to the visually impaired, BTW). Hitachi did the z800 boxes for IBM, so a reincarnation over there is perhaps not so impossible as it seems. As a cautious person, I’m always careful what I wish for, though. But then, of course, beauty is in the i of the beholder. (I’ve spent my quota of puns now, methinks.)

Anyhow, have a magic solstice! (*)

–Michiel

(* with many thanks to the “I’ve Been Magic Soltis,” now I come to THINK of it

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