S/36 Archives - IT Jungle

IBM Banking on Merlin 2.0 to Goose Modern Development on IBM i

June 19, 2024 Alex Woodie

IBM last week shipped most of the new stuff unveiled in the Spring Technology Refreshes, which includes Merlin 2.0, the Web-based application development and modernization environment for IBM i. Big Blue is betting that the new and improved offering will encourage IBM i shops to (finally) begin their journey toward truly modern coding techniques.

Friday, June 14 marked the start of general availability for the majority of the features IBM is including in IBM i 7.5 TR4 and IBM i 7.4 TR10, which it announced on May 8. The version 2.0 release of Merlin – whose official IBM name …
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IBM i Chief Architect Will Gives N2i Some Platform Pointers

January 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

It’s hard to find someone more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the IBM i platform than Steve Will, who holds CTO and chief architect titles at IBM. So when Will accepted an invitation from COMMON’s N2i (New to IBM i) group to speak to IBM i newcomers this week, it was a good chance to pick up something new.

One of the first things that IBM i newcomers will notice about the IBM i is that it’s an unusual platform, in several regards. For starters, it’s older than many platforms, being able to trace its lineage back to …
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Dr. Frank Reminisces on 35th Anniversary, Looks to Platform’s Future

June 28, 2023 Alex Woodie

The IBM i community came out in force last week for the 35th anniversary of the creation of the AS/400 back in 1988. IBM corralled a handful of IBM i authorities to speak during three webcasts it held for fans around the world. During a call with European community members, Frank Soltis, who developed the architecture for the S/38 and AS/400, kicked things off by declaring there was really just one platform.

“I think one of the distinct distinctions that I have is that I worked for IBM for 45 years before retiring,” Soltis, the retired IBM chief scientist told …
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Guru: Flexible Interfaces

November 1, 2021 Ted Holt

The details are murky, it’s been eons ago. Probably the mid-1990’s. I was working on an AS/400 that ran a mixture of System/36 and native applications. I needed to call a program that had been written in the latest version of RPG from both S/36 RPG II and native RPG III (a.k.a. RPG/400) programs. I hope I’m remembering this correctly. It’s been so long.

The problem I ran into was rooted in a numeric parameter. S/36 programs passed numeric parameters in zoned decimal format, whereas native RPG and CL programs used packed decimal. The called program defined the parameter as …
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Technical Debt: The Silent Killer

October 27, 2021 Alex Woodie

There’s a dangerous malady afflicting companies that rely on the IBM i server to run their business applications. Left undiagnosed and untreated, it can debilitate an IT shop, rendering it unable to take advantage of new opportunities and respond to challenges. It’s called technical debt, and you or an organization you know may be suffering from it as we speak.

Technical debt is a concept that is credited to Ward Cunningham, the American programmer and the co-author of Manifesto for Agile Software Development. “If you develop a program for a long period of time by only adding features but …
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Guardicore Extends Zero-Trust Security to IBM i

May 5, 2021 Alex Woodie

Guardicore, which is trying to shake up the firewall market with its “micro segmentation” security solution, recently announced that it has extended its “zero-trust” approach to the IBM i platform. The offering will help IBM i shops close blind spots in their security posture by monitoring the server for signs of problems, the company says.

Guardicore develops a software-based security solution called Centra that uses a micro segmentation approach to protecting IT assets from evolving security threats. Micro segmentation is a relatively new approach to cybersecurity that revolves around the concept of breaking the network down into multiple segments or …
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Swedish Manufacturer Plans A New Path Forward

December 2, 2020 Alex Woodie

The Swedish manufacturing company Dahrentrad knew its S/36-era production planning solution was getting a bit long in the tooth. The question was, what should the company do about it? Migration and modernization were weighed as the two primary options, but which was the better path?

A subsidiary of LWW Group, Dahrentrad specializes in producing copper and aluminum wiring used in electrical motors, pumps, transformers, and other industrial and automotive components. The 75-year-old company runs factories in Sweden, Germany, and Poland.

The company relied on an old but reliable business application that utilized 5250 greenscreen interfaces, according to Mats Lidström, …
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Guru: SQL Can Read Program-described Data

September 21, 2020 Ted Holt

I thought I left program-described database files behind me in 1988. That’s when I left my last S/36 shop to begin working on the S/38. Well, I did, but not completely. From time to time I work on a system with program-described files, and even some externally described files have program-described fields. Fortunately — and I owe this to Scott Forstie — I have learned that SQL can read program-described data. Will wonders never cease?

You may be thinking, “This article doesn’t apply to me. Our files are externally described.” You may be right. Then again, you may be wrong. …
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Functionality Trumps Glitz in ERP Decision

November 1, 2017 Alex Woodie

What do you look for in a new ERP system? For the folks at Veterinary Purchasing Company, which is transitioning away from its homegrown S/36-era ERP system, the decision came down to a preference for proven substance over hollow glamor.

Veterinary Purchasing Company is a member-owned company that was founded in 1972 by a group of veterinarians who wanted to increase their purchasing power by buying in bulk on the wholesale market. The company, which employs about 210 people at its headquarters in St Mary, Ontario, also sells to non-shareholder vets and animal hospitals across Canada.

In the mid-1970s, VP …
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