24 Jun
2007
24 Jun
'07
11:32 a.m.
On Jun 23, 2007, at 9:05 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Even the current PPC hardware is not 'standard' .. there are some
extensions to support the single level store. 'Tagged
pointers' (ie: pointers marked as trusted by the OS) are the single
biggest oddity that I can think of, and that requires hardware
support.
Sadly, the AS/400 line (iSeries) is slowly dying off ... IBM can't
market it's way out of a paper bag, and the 'cash cow' status the
machine has had has caused it to fall too far behind.
Last year I found myself digging around in the job market. As
most people know, there's just not much technical work in Florida
compared to other areas, so I was running scared for a while. One
thing I noticed is that all the AS/400-related jobs in the whole damn
world seem to be here. I figured that was because of their extensive
use in the health care industry, and while Florida's reputation for
being filled to overflowing with retirees is inaccurate, it's not
entirely unfounded.
I wonder how quick those types of places will be to abandon their
AS/400 gear once IBM EOLs it.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's
nothing that weird
about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back.
The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works
at all.