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Old IBM terminals 5291 and 3178C.
- Thread starter Luke
- Start date
Unless you have an old System 36, AS/400 or iSeries machine sitting around, the 5291 is not going to be of much use. It uses the '5250' data stream, which is EBCDIC and not compatible with anything PC or Unix based.
The 3178C is a 3270 style terminal for connection to an IBM 360 (or descendant) mainframe.
Mike
The 3178C is a 3270 style terminal for connection to an IBM 360 (or descendant) mainframe.
Mike
mikerm
Experienced Member
Back when I had a couple AS/400's, I had a similar terminal. They connect by twinax to the mainframe (you can also get baluns to use CAT3 cabling). Twinax is a bus network that uses coax.
My old job they has an AS/400 in use. I learned twinax networking (blah), and I even had to do an emergancy solder repair. Twinax printers are even more special (sarcasm).
That said, I absolutely despise AS/400's. Thier OS is insane, the RPG is the worst programming language I have ever seen. The RPG editor is craptastic at best IMHO.
My old job they has an AS/400 in use. I learned twinax networking (blah), and I even had to do an emergancy solder repair. Twinax printers are even more special (sarcasm).
That said, I absolutely despise AS/400's. Thier OS is insane, the RPG is the worst programming language I have ever seen. The RPG editor is craptastic at best IMHO.
Careful there. You are 2 seconds away from getting banned - I was an operating systems programmer on the AS/400 for 8 years, and spent another few years supporting customers. ;-0
OS/400 is different than any other operating system out there - no contest. RPG dates back to the plugboard programming of the 1950s. But the machine is so much more than RPG.
It was light years ahead of other machines with the integrated relational database, consistent and shared language run time, security features, and consistent operating system patch methodology. I used to joke that an AS/400 was the world's most advanced filing cabinet - back in the day when hard drives were 8GB in size we had systems that terabytes of installed storage, and databases that were tremendous compared to what was available on other systems. OS/400 was the first commercially available 64 bit operating system - we put that out in 1995, long ahead of the 64 bit Unix boxes.
And from a business perspective, we did the best thing of all - we preserved the customer investment in their old code. The AS/400 was extremely backward compatible with prior code, to the point of even automatically recompiling programs to run on new architectures.
Yep it was different. Definitely not for the PC or Unix crowd. But a great machine. The slogan used to be 'Run your business, not your computer' and it fit well.
OS/400 is different than any other operating system out there - no contest. RPG dates back to the plugboard programming of the 1950s. But the machine is so much more than RPG.
It was light years ahead of other machines with the integrated relational database, consistent and shared language run time, security features, and consistent operating system patch methodology. I used to joke that an AS/400 was the world's most advanced filing cabinet - back in the day when hard drives were 8GB in size we had systems that terabytes of installed storage, and databases that were tremendous compared to what was available on other systems. OS/400 was the first commercially available 64 bit operating system - we put that out in 1995, long ahead of the 64 bit Unix boxes.
And from a business perspective, we did the best thing of all - we preserved the customer investment in their old code. The AS/400 was extremely backward compatible with prior code, to the point of even automatically recompiling programs to run on new architectures.
Yep it was different. Definitely not for the PC or Unix crowd. But a great machine. The slogan used to be 'Run your business, not your computer' and it fit well.
mikerm
Experienced Member
Yeah, I mean, the hardware is excellent really, it's powerful. The newer AS/400's can do more than RPG. I do hate that IBM made it to where only certain cards were compatible with certain models though, that is a royal (expensive) pain. The licensing isn't fun either.
The company I used to work at had horrid software, it was terrible. Not the machines fault, but it just boggled my mind when I watched programmers try to bandaid and patch the code in that crazy editor. I still don't understand how you guys can put up with RPG.
No offense inteded
The company I used to work at had horrid software, it was terrible. Not the machines fault, but it just boggled my mind when I watched programmers try to bandaid and patch the code in that crazy editor. I still don't understand how you guys can put up with RPG.
No offense inteded
It's a propriety system, no doubt. It uses standards like PowerPC and PCI internally, but the universe of supported options is very small and tightly controlled. I think that overall that helps maintain the quality, but yes, it does have costs ..
As for the editor - most of us who program on the AS/400 don't use the 'green screen' directly. We run our editors on a PC ..
Mike
As for the editor - most of us who program on the AS/400 don't use the 'green screen' directly. We run our editors on a PC ..
Mike