25 Mar
2007
25 Mar
'07
9:41 p.m.
Lyle Bickley wrote:
AS/400's are regularly available here in the Bay
Area (California). Prices for
smaller systems range from $100 to $250. They are generally in excellent
condition. I've seen many with disk drives (very important for AS/400's as
they use a AS/400 specific drives). Contact me off-list if you want me to
"keep my eyes open" for one.
Common lore about the AS/400 is that for the CISC systems, IOW
anything that ran pre-V4 OS/400, are nodelocked. Keys for the OS are
tagged to the CPUID, and IBM's idea of a hobbyist license is $15,000 a shot.
If you fall into a system with the disks intact, you can run whatever
software's on it. That's about the extent of it.
The RISC systems, otoh, are licensed by right of ownership. At least
as regards the base OS, if you own the hardware you are licensed to run
OS/400.
Doc