Re: AS/400 as Religion??!! (was Re: Denise Buonaiuto Leave's AS/400 Job)

> If you want to make a "religious" statement out of this, eleven years ago
> there were only _two_ religions -- pro- and anti-IBM.  I was in the anti-
> crowd.  IMO at the time, _everyone_ did _everything_ better than IBM when it
> came to computing.  It continues to this day, in that most of the available
> clones are better than the PC's that IBM turns out (although IBM did
> _FINALLY_ figure out that it shouldn't take twenty minutes to check memory
> integrity).
> 
> My anti-IBM sentiments changed when my platform of choice ceased production
> around the same time as the advent of the AS/400.  The AS/400 had all of the
> hallmarks of my last platform:  write once run anywhere, ease of maintenance,
> ease of use, easy to program.  When I decided to retrain and studied
> available midrange platforms in depth, my considered alternatives (DEC, HP,
> Unisys) did not and _still_ do not offer these features.  IMO (both then and
> now) the AS/400 remains a "best buy" from the customer standpoint, and that's
> all that matters.


i can guess what your prior platform was!  my ex worked at a bank that
got one of those, and i heard more than once about their one size fits
all.  one time the banks computer was down, and they ran the stuff on a
backup machine that was a different model, etc, etc.  but the every size
runs all is a great feature of the as/400.  every 5 years or so, when
something new came out, you'd have to recompile, convert, migrate, or
whatever.

nj
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