26 Sep
2004
26 Sep
'04
3:42 a.m.
First: I did not forget the terminals I announced some time ago.
Actually I?m looking for a cheap way to ship them to the fellows who
were interested. As I am quite busy at work at the moment, this will
take some time ? please excuse that.
My main question(s) ? I hope it?s ?on-topic?:
I obtained a nice IBM AS/400 9404 System. It was cheap and is in nice
condition, so I could not resist. It consists of two huge
enclosurements. One (I?ll call it the left one) is loaded with 3 or 4
nice and big harddisks. The second one contains the logic-boards, three
harddisks, an 8 inch diskette and a tape drive. Both boxes have some
batteries built in. The two boxes are interconnected with 3 cables. In
the right box some options(?) are installed:
Fist slot (left): Nr. 2700
Second slot (from the upper position to the lowest): ??? (looks like
the following
), 6151, 6136. Underneath the small modules I can read
2615.
3rd slot: 3120
4th slot: 2533
It?d be nice if you cold help me out a bit with these numbers. I could
not really find out what these are. Could somebody please identify
them?
I also got a 3197 terminal, twinax expansion boxes (2x 4 ports) and
some cables with the machine. My first question: How do I connect the
terminal correctly? I assume it plugs into port 0 for system console.
Are the cables critical, could I use cat 5? I have not enough
connectors
I?d be happy if anyone could supply some cheap connectors
(male) and Infos about the twinax cabling sheme, especially how the
pinout of the connectors and how I have to connect the console
terminal
I have no docs for the machine, but it should be loaded with an OS.
When I turn it on it seems to IPL. Is there any Info available online?
I think, I need some information about the OS too (at the back of the
machine I can read ?Release Level 2? on a sticker. Somebody told me the
OS-License is tied to the machine? If so, could someone provide me some
backup copies of the system disks?
I know most people would throw these machines out, but I want to keep
it as it is one of the earlier AS/400 systems.
I could make pictures if anyone needs it.
Thank you for any information,
Best regards,
Wolfgang
=====
====================================================
Ing. Wolfgang Eichberger cell.: +43-664-240-65-92
http://www.eichberger.org
email: wolfgang(a)eichberger.org
----------------------------------------------------
Gruentalerstr. 24 - 4020 Linz ? AUSTRIA
====================================================
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26 Sep
26 Sep
1:21 p.m.
Wolfgang Eichberger <cbmpet2001(a)yahoo.de> wrote:
It d be nice if you cold help me out a bit with these numbers. I could
not really find out what these are. Could somebody please identify
them?
Sorry, too many years have passed... I can't remember. <grin> Try here:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/support/iseries/index.html
I also got a 3197 terminal, twinax expansion boxes (2x
4 ports) and
some cables with the machine. My first question: How do I connect the
terminal correctly? I assume it plugs into port 0 for system console.
Are the cables critical, could I use cat 5? I have not enough
connectors I d be happy if anyone could supply some cheap connectors
(male) and Infos about the twinax cabling sheme, especially how the
pinout of the connectors and how I have to connect the console
terminal
Start with the 3197 terminal. It will either have 1 or 2 twinax ports.
If two, just connect a twinax cable between port 1 on the terminal and port
0 on the AS/400. If one, you will need a "t-cable" to connect to it to
provide the two ports. Twinax is somewhat like old 10base-2 (coax) Ethernet,
where the terminals are "daisy chained" and the end of the cable is
terminated. With 10base2 the terminator was a separate item, but with twinax
it is built into the device or T-cable - examine it carefully, you will see
a small plunger on port 2 which switches out the terminator when a cable is
screwed in to extend the chain.
You can use CAT 5 with special baluns and filters, but only for short runs.
The data rate is only 1 MB/sec but it is susceptible to reflections if the
wrong cable is used or it is not properly terminated, even in short runs.
Properly run and terminated twinax will work over runs up to 1 mile long.
The actual data stream is pure SDLC protocol in multi-point mode - each
terminal polled in turn by the controller in the system unit.
I have no docs for the machine, but it should be loaded
with an OS.
When I turn it on it seems to IPL. Is there any Info available online?
I think, I need some information about the OS too (at the back of the
machine I can read Release Level 2 on a sticker. Somebody told me the
OS-License is tied to the machine? If so, could someone provide me some
backup copies of the system disks?
The OS license is tied to both the machine and the customer. I seem to
recall it is a monthly charge, no pay means no valid license. There is no
other OS than OS/400, IBM did publish full specs to allow anyone to write
their own OS but no-one ever did. The system software comes on tape (QIC-120
or 9-track, depending on the drive in your machine). Some microcode and
diagnostics come on 8 inch diskette.
Note: Don't just power it off while running after it has IPLed. You'll be in
for a very long (up to a full day in some cases) rebuild phase on next power
up. That's why many AS/400 systems had battery backup like yours, so they
could be shut down properly if there was a power failure. I think I remember
the command... PWRDWNSYS *IMMEDIATE
Good luck, the AS/400 and OS is different from just about any other
machine/OS you may have seen. It's actually quite simple and logical to use,
provided you are not familiar with operating other OSes. It is an object
oriented system, and with no concept of disks or files. Everything is an
object with attributes, and all objects are conceptually in main memory at
all times (64 bit address space, so plenty of room). Each sector on the hard
disks has its own 64-bit beginning address - each sector is formatted to 520
bytes instead of 512 to provide room for the address. The system maintains
tables of addresses versus disk location, and it is these tables that take a
long time to rebuild after a forced power off.
You really should try to get the manuals, there is online help but the
manuals will provide a lot of background information.
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
5:23 p.m.
Rumor has it that Don Hills may have mentioned these words:
Wolfgang Eichberger <cbmpet2001(a)yahoo.de> wrote:
[snippety]
You can use CAT 5 with special baluns and filters, but
only for short runs.
Most (all?) Cat5 baluns use pins 4 & 5 for this run -- making sure that
pair is part of a twisted pair will help a *lot*.
Good news: You could even make an Ethernet/Twinax single jack, if you're
not running faster than 100Mbps ethernet, as they run 1/2 & 3/6 for their
pairs -- just use 4/5 for twinax.
Bad news: *Most* pre-built cables don't follow the standard as to where the
twisted pairs should be - most just go 1/2 - 3/4 - 5/6 - 7/8 - and that's
bad for both Ethernet & twinax. You'll wanna punch down and/or build your
own cables if you're going to do this.
[snip]
Note: Don't just power it off while running after
it has IPLed. You'll be in
for a very long (up to a full day in some cases) rebuild phase on next power
up. That's why many AS/400 systems had battery backup like yours, so they
could be shut down properly if there was a power failure. I think I remember
the command... PWRDWNSYS *IMMEDIATE
Amazingly, that's one of the (if not *the*) most damaging commands to the
system... and it's the *first* one you read about in the IBM manuals...
(well, the ones I read, anyway)!
Anywho, HTH!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch(a)30below.com
Hi! I am a .signature virus. Copy me into your .signature to join in!
7:27 p.m.
[snip]
Most (all?) Cat5 baluns use pins 4 & 5 for this
run -- making sure
that
pair is part of a twisted pair will help a *lot*.
Good news: You could even make an Ethernet/Twinax single jack, if
you're
not running faster than 100Mbps ethernet, as they run 1/2 & 3/6 for
their
pairs -- just use 4/5 for twinax.
[snip]
thanks roger! I think I will run twinax separately from ethernet. I'll
stop by my fav electronics dealer for some connectors tonight...
Amazingly, that's one of the (if not *the*) most
damaging commands to
the
system... and it's the *first* one you read about in the IBM
manuals...
(well, the ones I read, anyway)!
uff. I don't have any manuals :( I was just looking around at IBM'S
website and was googling around a bit but had nearly no luck. No hints
on bitsavers too.
I home someone could provide some links to (at least) basic info.
But before I that I think I have to determine the correct machine type,
right? How can I do this?
Regards,
Wolfgang Eichberger
=====
====================================================
Ing. Wolfgang Eichberger cell.: +43-664-240-65-92
http://www.eichberger.org
email: wolfgang(a)eichberger.org
----------------------------------------------------
Gruentalerstr. 24 - 4020 Linz ? AUSTRIA
====================================================
___________________________________________________________
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8:20 p.m.
Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> wrote:
Amazingly, that's one of the (if not *the*) most damaging commands to the
system... and it's the *first* one you read about in the IBM manuals...
(well, the ones I read, anyway)!
Well, you can leave off the *immed if you want the system to wait until all
jobs have finished. But for the version of OS that he has, it'll be fine.
(Ex IBM product trained CSR *and* PSR for S/38 and AS/400 speaking...)
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
27 Sep
27 Sep
4:46 a.m.
Also, the os's for old AS/400's would run for 30 or 60 days, then bomb, and
you could reload them indefinitely. sort of the same as XP, but less painful.
if you wanted to do real work, then you would have to pay, but to just make
the screen flash, you can run it for a while then reload.
one place I worked used a junk as/400 for that purpose, just to check
out connectivity with a hardware adapter for keyboard and screen
jim
Don Hills wrote:
Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> wrote:
>
<snip>
... There is no
other OS than OS/400, IBM did publish full specs to allow anyone to write
their own OS but no-one ever did. ...
Don, do you have any referenced on this? I know some years ago Pick Systems
was porting to the AS/400, but that was bootlegged, and eventually given up.
jim
5:58 a.m.
On Sep 27, 2004, at 9:46 AM, jim stephens wrote:
... There is no
other OS than OS/400, IBM did publish full specs to allow anyone to
write
their own OS but no-one ever did. ...
In one of my jobs I worked for the communications product div of
Novell, they were trying
to port netware to the AS400, but the simulated machine the AS400
presents was not effiecient for
Novell, they could not get the server to run well enough, And IBM would
not release the actual
machine instruction set so the server could be written at the lower
level (AS400 machines all run
a simulator of an imaginary machine.. They do this so that all models
of the AS400 are binary-compatible.)
I think the imaginary machine's instruction set was called "MI" for
Machine Interface???
28 Sep
28 Sep
10:51 p.m.
Ron Hudson <ron.hudson(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote:
In one of my jobs I worked for the communications product div of Novell,
they were trying to port netware to the AS400, but the simulated machine the
AS400 presents was not effiecient for Novell, they could not get the server
to run well enough, And IBM would not release the actual machine instruction
set so the server could be written at the lower level (AS400 machines all
run a simulator of an imaginary machine.. They do this so that all models of
the AS400 are binary-compatible.)
The actual machine instruction set was available for the System/38 (AS/400
predecessor). It was sufficiently baroque that no-one wrote anything for it
so they didn't bother publishing it for the AS/400 where, as you say, they
wanted to use different processor architectures within the range. That's not
to say it was badly designed, it was simply highly optimised for its role as
an OO database engine. There's a very interesting book about the AS/400's
design process written by the chief architect, Frank Solti: "Inside the
AS/400" ISBN 1-882419-66-9
I think the imaginary machine's instruction set was
called "MI" for Machine
Interface???
Yep.
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
29 Sep
29 Sep
2:24 a.m.
On Sep 29, 2004, at 3:51 AM, Don Hills wrote:
Ron Hudson <ron.hudson(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote:
My impression was that the different models of AS400 could have
different processors (and
native instruction sets) so to have upward/downward compatibility IBM
had them all run
an emulator of a machine that spoke "MI". They didn't want people
writing for the native
processor because the program would be bound to a single model.
(I suppose there would also be some security issues, if you can get
your own program running
at the same level as MI)
In one of my jobs I worked for the communications product div of
Novell,
they were trying to port netware to the AS400, but the simulated
machine the
AS400 presents was not effiecient for Novell, they could not get the
server
to run well enough, And IBM would not release the actual machine
instruction
set so the server could be written at the lower level (AS400 machines
all
run a simulator of an imaginary machine.. They do this so that all
models of
the AS400 are binary-compatible.)
The actual machine instruction set was available for the System/38
(AS/400
predecessor). It was sufficiently baroque that no-one wrote anything
for it
so they didn't bother publishing it for the AS/400 where, as you say,
they
wanted to use different processor architectures within the range.
That's not
to say it was badly designed, it was simply highly optimised for its
role as
an OO database engine. There's a very interesting book about the
AS/400's
design process written by the chief architect, Frank Solti: "Inside the
AS/400" ISBN 1-882419-66-9 I think the imaginary machine's instruction
set was called "MI" for
Machine
Interface???
Yep.
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
28 Sep
28 Sep
11:14 p.m.
jim stephens <jwstephens(a)msm.umr.edu> wrote:
Also, the os's for old AS/400's would run for
30 or 60 days, then bomb, and
you could reload them indefinitely. sort of the same as XP, but less painful.
There was no "time bomb" in the code, if that's what you meant. I think
you're remembering virtual address space exhaustion. Remember when I said
that everything (programs and data) were conceptually in main memory at all
times? Well, if you deleted or changed an object, its address space was
never re-used - a new address was assigned. (This was part of the security
architecture.) Eventually, you ran out of addresses in one region or another
(memory was somewhat partitioned, so for example you couldn't hard crash the
machine by trying to use up all addresses in the OS region). You had to
re-IPL occasionally so that "garbage collection" could occur.
Don, do you have any referenced on this? I know some
years ago Pick Systems
was porting to the AS/400, but that was bootlegged, and eventually given up.
As someone else has pointed out, Novel also tried. As far as I know, no-one
actually got to market. I think Pick would have been a good port - it was
essentially a database OS, and the AS/400 was essentially a database engine.
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
1 Oct
1 Oct
8:11 a.m.
Don Hills wrote:
jim stephens <jwstephens(a)msm.umr.edu> wrote:
the clunker we had would bomb about every 60 days, i assumed it was
even on that time, since several people said it was.... anyway the software
was from a tape that came with the system, not licensed, so I was only trying
to get something other than the cursor on the screen.
I was told by others that you had to enter some crap somewhere to set
the license and enable what you paid for and you had in the mean time from
the time you loaded your tapes or cd's or floppies a grace period to get
things set up before your license arrived. At least the users of the AS/400
used the time to make sure they had ordered everything they needed before
the system locked up.
we only brought up some screen after login just to paint the screen with
data for testing being able to hook to it physically, and scrape the screen.
other people later bought a license, but that was after I left. They did more
tools for interconnect I think.
jim
27 Sep
27 Sep
9:17 a.m.
Good news: You could even make an Ethernet/Twinax
single jack, if you're
not running faster than 100Mbps ethernet, as they run 1/2 & 3/6 for their
pairs -- just use 4/5 for twinax.
Bad news: *Most* pre-built cables don't follow the standard as to where the
twisted pairs should be - most just go 1/2 - 3/4 - 5/6 - 7/8 - and that's
bad for both Ethernet & twinax. You'll wanna punch down and/or build your
own cables if you're going to do this.
What?!?!?
I've made the odd 10baseT patch lead, and I was always careful to get 1/2
as a pair and 3/6 as another pair (I think the other 2 pairs were 4/5 and
7/8, but it;s been a long time..) Fiddling the wires into the RJ45 was a
pain, but I assumed it was necessary....
And you're telling me commercial cables get it wrong. I knew there was a
good reason to avoid them [1], the time in making up a cable is much less
than the time to sort out network problems later
[1] Other horrors include the IEC mains cable with L/N swaps, one I saw
with N/E swap(!), the null modem adapter which couldn't have worked with
any normal pair of RS232 devices (4 strapped to 5 at each end _and_ those
linkled across the adapter, that will short 2 outputs together...), an
RS232 cable that used the cable screen (shield) as one of the handshake
lines (!), and so on...
-tony
28 Sep
28 Sep
1:19 a.m.
> Good news: You could even make an Ethernet/Twinax
single jack, if
> you're not running faster than 100Mbps ethernet, as they run 1/2 &
> 3/6 for their pairs -- just use 4/5 for twinax.
>
> Bad news: *Most* pre-built cables don't follow the standard as to
> where the twisted pairs should be - most just go 1/2 - 3/4 - 5/6 -
> 7/8 - and that's bad for both Ethernet & twinax. You'll wanna
> punch down and/or build your own cables if you're going to do
> this.
Telephone cords would be wired that way, but I have NEVER seen
commercially made network cables miswired. They ALL have 3/6 paired,
as required.
I saw a miswire like you describe only once -- in a home-made test
cable. Our lab had a 100 meter Cat 5 cable for router testing.
Unfortunately, it was miswired, so it had lots of crosstalk -- which
made it seem that our router's Ethernet interfaces were misdesigned.
When I finally figured out what was wrong, I grabbed cutters and cut
off the connectors so no one could use that cable until we got it
fixed...
The one thing you do have to watch out for is straight through
vs. crossover cables (for 10/100 BaseT). Straight through goes to
hubs, crossover is if you connect one PC to another. With GigE it
doesn't matter, just use straight through in all cases.
paul
7154
days inactive
7159
days old
12 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cbmpet2001＠yahoo.de -
dmhills＠attglobal.net -
jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
pkoning＠equallogic.com -
ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net -
zmerch＠30below.com