Reply to: Mainframe work

[darmstadt]

the zBX thing smacks a bit of 'me too'

They see the world is going towards commodity hardware so they bolt some on the size of a system z - its like the bride of frankenstien

I remember using Lotus 123 and Wordperfect on a mainframe some 25 years ago, bloody awful. I've been talking with people who were doing testing of ISV software with zBX and they're quite impressed with them, personally can't see any use yet but one day...Don't forget that mainframes were doing virtualisation long before those upstarts such as VMWare and that MVS was the first OS to be fully UNIX (XPG 4.2 IIRC) compliant...

[AlfredJPruffock]

Not a patch on good old 370 Assembler - I worked in MFrames for - oh - 12 years - Systems Programmer - VM - MVS DOS-VSE - then the comms stuff VTAM NCP - did it all.

Oh on the dev side REXX for VM - best thing since 360 assembler.

[DodgyAgent]

Learn COBOL and FORTRAN, then you can go FORTH.

Or PL/1 if you want to really move ahead

[portseven]

Just got a couple of z196'es (sadly no zBX frames) which we've now set-up for GDPS. Mainframes, being keeping me in business for over 30 years now and still invoicing well :-)

the zBX thing smacks a bit of 'me too'

They see the world is going towards commodity hardware so they bolt some on the size of a system z - its like the bride of frankenstien

[darmstadt]

I'm getting some new Solaris toys to play with soon - a T4-1, a T4-2, a T4-4 and some blades for a 6000 chassis -a couple of T4-1b, a storage blade and some x86 blades. Then I've got to try to work out what to do with them.

Just got a couple of z196'es (sadly no zBX frames) which we've now set-up for GDPS. Mainframes, being keeping me in business for over 30 years now and still invoicing well :-)

[Normie]

I fancy a go on one. Bit bored of crappy vmwared windows and even big solaris boxes don't excite me anymore.

I'm getting some new Solaris toys to play with soon - a T4-1, a T4-2, a T4-4 and some blades for a 6000 chassis -a couple of T4-1b, a storage blade and some x86 blades. Then I've got to try to work out what to do with them.

[Sysman]

Learn COBOL and FORTRAN, then you can go FORTH.

Oh I love COBOL compiler listings.

"Period missing. Period assumed"

and then it proceeds as if it hasn't assumed a period at all and throws errors all through the rest of the listing.

Good work if you can get it.

[AtW]

Learn COBOL and FORTRAN, then you can go FORTH.

[stek]

I fancy a go on one. Bit bored of crappy vmwared windows and even big solaris boxes don't excite me anymore.

Try a monster pSeries, POWER7 795, nice...

Will run AIX or ppc Linux LPARs, dual VIO's, NPIV, hypervisor in firmware.....

[doodab]

A more interesting question would be - why do you want to?

I fancy a go on one. Bit bored of crappy vmwared windows and even big solaris boxes don't excite me anymore.

[Freamon]

How do you get into it from a standing start?

A more interesting question would be - why do you want to?

[portseven]

one route in could be via Linux, a few places that havesystEm z are enabling a few IFLs and putting Linux on them

I have learnt a few thing at current client due to having to get a Linux capability stood up on z

[BigTime]

Not exactly 'mainframe work' tho is it, knowing a few things to type.

it's a start and if you want to turn into a bearded freak, nobody will hold you back

[stek]

get a contract with a client that has them where your specialisation (say a piece of software on windows or unix) is the key requirement. same goes for as400, tandem & vms. if you know a cross platform product and that's what they need, teaching you a few commands to do the same tulip in a different place isn't a big deal.

Not exactly 'mainframe work' tho is it, knowing a few things to type.

[BigTime]

How do you get into it from a standing start?

get a contract with a client that has them where your specialisation (say a piece of software on windows or unix) is the key requirement. same goes for as400, tandem & vms. if you know a cross platform product and that's what they need, teaching you a few commands to do the same tulip in a different place isn't a big deal.