• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • A Frank Solstice

    June 20, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    When you are born in Minnesota, the seasons matter. Unfortunately, as Frank Soltis, the former chief architect of the AS/400 system and the creator of the single-level storage architecture of the System/38 and the AS/400 that is still a marvel, once quipped to us: “There are only two seasons in Minnesota: Winter, and Getting Ready For Winter.”

    And so, you have two options: Play hockey when you aren’t farming, or design excellent computer systems. That’s how supercomputer genius Seymour Cray did it from nearby Wisconsin.

    The AS/400 for which this publication was founded 33 years ago was born on the summer solstice, June 21, 1988, and 34 years is a long time for any system architecture to be in the field. And yet here we are, on the cusp of the announcement of the Power10 entry machines, which will be the 21st generation of processors that IBM has brought into the field that can still run RPG II, RPG III, RPG IV, and ILE RPG applications that were written one, two, or three decades ago. No, not just written, but compiled decades ago and still can run!

    There is only one system in the world that has a longer history and that is still currently economically viable, and that is Big Blue’s System z mainframe. And its architecture, in many ways, has never been as sophisticated as that of the AS/400 that should have been able to replace it. The two platforms have shared common peripherals for many years now, and their processors have similarly used the same chip etching processes and a lot of common circuit blocks (like on-die caches and controllers), and people often get confused and call the AS/400 and its progeny a “baby mainframe.” These machine architectures are as different as the Old Testament and the New Testament, and absolutely unlike Coke and New Coke. If you catch my drift.

    In an industry that has difficulty projecting five years out into the future, and in a time when so many things seem uncertain, as the AS/400 enters its 34th year as the Power Systems with Power10 running IBM i – we could do with better naming conventions and we will never get them – it is a comfort to us that this unique platform with its uniquely midwestern architecture and cultural ethos persists. That it will persist for another decade, who can say? But the AS/400 has persisted this far, and continually evolved while remaining more or less firm in its original architectural convictions.

    And that is just about as rare as a summer solstice when the Strawberry Moon hits on the same day. That didn’t happen on June 21, 1988, but rather in 2016, and it did not happen this year, either. (The Strawberry Moon this year was a week earlier than the solstice, as it was back in 1988.)

    For which, we are quite frankly, eternally grateful.

    RELATED STORIES

    The Long Play

    You’re Only As Old As The Applications You Feel

    A Platform Of A Certain Age And Respectability

    Big Blue Gives IBM i Shops A Special 30th Birthday Bash Box

    30 Years And Just Getting Started: IBM i Celebration Looks Ahead

    Seven Bright Spots To Ponder On The AS/400’s 29th Birthday

    Power Systems GM Weights In On AS/400 Birthday

    The AS/400 At 28: A HENRY, Not A DINK

    The AS/400 Turns 27, And Still Has Much To Teach IT

    Reader Feedback On The AS/400 Turns 27, And Still Has Much To Teach IT

    Still A Community Of Common Interest

    TFH Flashback: A Community of Common Interest

    Silver Anniversary For Silverlake

    Power System Tweaks Loom As IBM Offers 25th Anniversary Edition Iron

    The Big Two Four For The Four Oh Oh

    You’re Only As Old As The Programs You Run With

    The AS/400 at 22: Yesterday and Forever

    AS/400: Still Kicking After 21 Years

    IBM’s AS/400 20th Birthday Party Pictures

    The AS/400’s Grandfather Talks Past, Present, and Future

    Happy 20th Birthday, AS/400!

    The AS/400 at 19: Predicting the Future–Or Not

    Happy 18th Birthday, AS/400; Time to Leave the Nest

    The IBM Systems Agenda: iB(M)

    Happy 17th Birthday to the AS/400!

    The AS/400: 16 Years of Bending, Not Breaking

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: AS/400, Frank Soltis, IBM i, ILE RPG, Power Systems, Power10, RPG II, RPG III, RPG IV, System z

    Sponsored by
    LaserVault

    Integrate Virtual Tape to Automate Your Backups And Strengthen Your Ability To Recover From Cyber Attacks And Disasters

    With most IT departments stretched thin, finding something that can quickly free up IT time is definitely a bonus. That’s why it’s important to stop and take a look at integrating virtual tape into your backup and recovery. Virtual tape is one of those technologies where once you have it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. See a demo and get a $50 gift card.

    But what is it about using virtual tape that makes it so worthwhile? Why is it that so many IBM i shops are already using or considering using virtual tape for all or part of their backup and recovery systems?

    Virtual tape and virtual tape libraries offer a way to both simplify and strengthen backup and recovery operations. By incorporating virtual tape technology, automation of backups becomes possible resulting in hundreds of hours saved annually for IT departments and personnel.

    “We needed to find a replacement that would lower the maintenance cost and reduce complexity of our backup and recovery functions without a major disruption to our operations.” David Fray, Director of Enterprise Systems, ABC Financial

    LaserVault ViTL is a virtual tape and tape library solution developed specifically for use with IBM Power Systems (from AS/400 to iSeries to Power 9s). With ViTL you can:

    • Replace physical tape and tape libraries and eliminate associated delays
    • Automate backup operations, including the ability to purge or archive backups
    • Remotely manage your backups – no need to be onsite with your server
    • Save backups to a dedupe appliance and the cloud
    • Recover your data at lightspeed greatly improving your ability to recover from cyberattacks
    • And so much more

    Sign-up now to see a ViTL online demo and get a $50 Amazon e-gift card when the demo is complete as our way of saying thanks for your time. Plus when you sign-up you’ll receive a free facts comparison sheet on using virtual tape vs tape so you can compare the functionality for yourself.

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    The Inevitable Wave Of Power9 Withdrawals Begins Guru: The CALL I’ve Been Waiting For

    One thought on “A Frank Solstice”

    • emanuele tissani says:
      June 20, 2022 at 7:39 am

      Sometimes I even wonder if distributed systems like containers and their orchestration so much in vogue nowadays make sense for a “normal company” (I’m not talking here about HPC o scientific applications).

      A single current Power machine and a single OS instances can support nowadays a tremendous load, seats and general throughput. Redundancy should be in the hardware, with good components and design. And a single additional machine can provide failover (HA) in case.
      With all the benefits and simplicity of centrality.

      *IMHO* the IBMi OS architecture got many things right, and is one of the best server architecture out there currently.

      I still not understand why they stopped to develop the display protocol. This is what all “see”, the user “see”, the manager “see”, the CIO “see” and the filter through which many times the platform is perceived and purchase decision are made. This is the real state of the decisions regarding software… “i.e. ok we buy a new system and ditch a sophisticated business logic program, incrementally made and tuned in over 25 years, because it is written in RPG III and because we cannot sort this grid column with the mouse…” this happens.

      A session based standard GUI inside the OS supported by IBM is important. And this is also marketing 101 to catch the eye.
      Developing a proper display protocol (and build dev tools using it) would have costed I think 1/100 of all the webfacing, java etc. attempts with X 100 the results on the market and keeping incrementally all 5250 compatibility.

      Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 32 Issue: 43

This Issue Sponsored By

  • ARCAD Software
  • Profound Logic
  • New Generation Software
  • LaserVault
  • Raz-Lee Security

Table of Contents

  • Plotting A Middle Age Career Change To IBM i
  • What Is Code Transformation Even?
  • Guru: The CALL I’ve Been Waiting For
  • A Frank Solstice
  • The Inevitable Wave Of Power9 Withdrawals Begins

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • DRV Brings More Automation to IBM i Message Monitoring
  • Managed Cloud Saves Money By Cutting System And People Overprovisioning
  • Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Patched on IBM i
  • Four Hundred Monitor, June 22
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 25
  • Plotting A Middle Age Career Change To IBM i
  • What Is Code Transformation Even?
  • Guru: The CALL I’ve Been Waiting For
  • A Frank Solstice
  • The Inevitable Wave Of Power9 Withdrawals Begins

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.