TFH Volume: 35 Issue: 38 Archives

IBM Pulls The Curtain Back A Smidge On Project Bob

October 20, 2025 Alex Woodie

We learned last week that Project Bob is in at IBM, and Watson Code Assist for IBM i is out. IBM is gung-ho about the prospects for Bob to function as a do-it-all, AI-powered junior programmer for all of its platforms. But what exactly does this entail for IBM i customers? IT Jungle talked to IBM i chief architect Steve Will to get some answers.

When IBM eventually ships the AI code assistant that is currently called Project Bob, it will offer a range of AI-powered functionality for all IBM customers, including IBM i shops, mainframe customers, and Linux and …
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IBM Just Killed Merlin. Here’s Why

October 20, 2025 Alex Woodie

The writing had been on the wall for some time, and IBM finally made it official as part of the Technology Refresh for IBM i on October 7. That was when Big Blue announced the immediate withdrawal from marketing and service for its Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration product, commonly called Merlin. It will likely go down in IBM i history as a well-intentioned product that got some things right, but which ultimately could not overcome its flaws.

The introduction of Merlin back in May 2022 represented a sizable shift in IBM’s approach to application development on IBM i. Prior …
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Guru: Playing Sounds From An RPG Program

October 20, 2025 Mike Larsen

I received a request to play audio sounds when an event took place on a display file. I hadn’t done this before, but I thought it was interesting to find out how it could be done. As with many tasks, it turns out there are more than one way to do this. My goal was to choose a method to make the process as seamless as possible.

At first, the request was to play two sounds: one that would signal a positive event, and another to signal a negative event. But, as I started working with the project, I found …
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A Bit More Insight Into IBM’s “Spyre” AI Accelerator For Power

October 20, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If anything is clear right now, it is that Nvidia does not need to get any richer in the GenAI revolution, and neither does its foundry partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. But everyone else, including IBM and specifically its Power Systems business, desperately needs to do something to catch the GenAI wave and make some money in this once-in-a-millennia opportunity.

Our thesis, as you well know, is that for IBM i shops, code assistants that can help document, update, modernize, or port RPG and COBOL application code to newer languages and modular programming techniques is the killer app for GenAI, …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 42

October 20, 2025 Doug Bidwell

Just a reminder that IBM’s System Planning Tool Version 6.25.287.0 is available for download. You can get the feeds and speeds of SPT 4, 6, and 6 at this link and the download for the latest version at this link. This one has features for adding the “Spyre” AI accelerator to Power Systems, among many other updates.

Other than that update to SPT, it has been a pretty quiet week here at the IBM i PTF Guide.

Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

PTF Groups 7.6:
- HIPERs (High
…
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IBM Pulls The Curtain Back A Smidge On Project Bob

IBM Just Killed Merlin. Here’s Why

Guru: Playing Sounds From An RPG Program

A Bit More Insight Into IBM’s “Spyre” AI Accelerator For Power

IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 42

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