RE: AS/400 STILL wearing the undeserved "closed system" moniker (was PC connection via twinax ?)

>Wow...   you know, there is not a shadow of a doubt in my
>mind that the AS/400 is a "closed system".

Hi Scott!
  I think that we're talking about two different meanings of the word
"open."   Sort of like the word "free."  Does it mean you can check it out
of the library or does it mean you can walk out of the store without paying
for the beer?  Certainly, the AS/400 is not open in the BSD sense - complete
access to all source code and internal structures.  But it is open in the
sense that I don't have to buy an expensive custom communications system
(5250 workstation controller, twinax and terminals?) or special-use software
drivers to update and query the database.  Most of the system-level
functionality is available already, with more on the way in each release.

So, the OS will talk to virtually any hardware available today, and
certainly application programmers have a rich API set they can use.  I
suspect that 3rd party toolmakers like Hawkeye, ASC, BSD, et.al. have
"issues," and perhaps that's where the "closed system" label can be
justified.

Buck