RE: When did CFINT begin -- MIDRANGE-L

Maybe things have changed.  Our 9406-740 config/order shows a 1513
interactive feature card.  My 1999 AS/400e System Handbook shows interactive
feature as hardware cards across the model line.

I may have some of this wrong, but this is my understanding of things:

Back in the 1995-1996 AS/400's were sold as blue panel or red panel,
traditional or server models.  A model 530 and model 53S could be configured
with identical hardware, but the 53S was a much cheaper server model sold to
encourage client server or data warehouse customers.  The 53S had limited
interactive functionality, but it was an artificial limit.  I believe IBM
sold it as a different model to obscure the fact that they were selling the
same hardware and OS to two different markets at different prices.  Many
server customers found that they needed a degree of interactive processing,
but they didn't need to buy a full blown blue panel model.  IBM then
switched to an all server model line with interactive cards to provide
incremental interactive processing.

I've talked to a lot of IBM folks at COMMON and in Rochester, and all of
them come on step short of admitting that interactive feature cards
basically did nothing but announce their own existence to the OS.  (It was
actually kind of fun to see John Sears duck this one.)  The OS sees the
interactive feature card and uses that information to "un-degrade" an
appropriate amount of interactive processing.  Note that in the AS/400
announcements IBM goes into great detail on the hardware features
(processors, memory, bus technology), but they never tell you what's in the
interactive feature card (processors, memory, sawdust...).

I've always maintained that server models and interactive feature cards were
created to support the illusion that interactive processing was managed
through hardware.  IBM knew that traditional customers wouldn't like the
idea of spending much more money for interactive processing, so they make it
look like you have to buy more hardware to make it work.  Interactive
feature could just as easily be sold as software license keys.

-Jim

James Damato
Manager - Technical Administration
Dollar General Corporation
<mailto:jdamato@dollargeneral.com>




-----Original Message-----
From: Leif Svalgaard [mailto:leif@leif.org]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 2:30 PM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: When did CFINT begin


maybe Jim Feature 'code' instead of 'card'?

From: Leif Svalgaard <leif@leif.org>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: When did CFINT begin


> then why does Jim call it a card?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Phil <sublime78ska@yahoo.com>
> To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 2:11 PM
> Subject: RE: When did CFINT begin
> > I didn't think it was a card, just an "interactive feature".
> >
> > Phil
> >
> > > From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
> > > [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Leif Svalgaard
> > > Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 3:00 PM
> > > To: midrange-l@midrange.com
> > > Subject: Re: When did CFINT begin
> > > From: Jim Damato <jdamato@dollargeneral.com>
> > >
> > > > It was never done with hardware.
> > > > The first server models were offered as an alternative to
traditional
> > > > models.  Later traditional models were eliminated and every model
was
a
> > > > server model with options for interactive feature cards
> > >
> > > why 'cards' if it is not a hardware feature?


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