RE: Windows BSOD vs. AS/400

John,

At 7/31/00 09:05 PM -0600, you wrote:

With respect to printer drivers, NO ONE but IBM releases a printer driver
for the 400. Ditto terminals. IBM defines the device types, and supplies the
"drivers". I'm pretty sure that the same can be said for disk and tape drives.

 As far as printers are concerned, even for the printers that are not defined by native /400 drivers, we can use WSCST objects to define the printer to the OS.  No crashes needed.  If the Win OS would provide a good tape API, then the tape vendors would not have to write at the microcode level.

Even with a single vendor solution, and the excellent quality control that
we've come to expect from Rochester, the 400 is still not immune to those
types of problems. All you have to do is browse the HIPER alert every
Tuesday morning, and they will become apparent.

 While it's not totally immune, the fixes are created and delivered quickly and pretty easily. I don't think that could be said as readily about Windows.

Now, having said all that, I'd like to point out that I'm a huge fan of the AS/400, and I think that it's the most reliable commercial business machine available. But I think it's fair to say that it's reliability is due, in large part, to the fact that it's hardware is closely matched to the software, and that a single vendor is providing all of the critical microcode (or "drivers"). Things might be markedly different if you were able to buy an Adaptec SCSI card for the box, and had to load an "OS/400 driver" from their website.

 What I'm saying that the hardware API specs can and should be well defined by MS for vendors to tap into.  Then if they go outside the spec, tough luck.  On the flip side, MS s/b open to hardware innovation and work w/ the vendors to support the new hardware as quickly as possible.

 -mark