RE: 7208 -- MIDRANGE-L

Brad,

Been thinking about this some more...  The possibility of NLS (near-line
storage) at FLS (fairly low "scratch" ;-) is HUGE, from what I can tell...
This is something I've always wanted to see...:  Take advantage of cheap PC
hardware on the iSeries...  G's of cheap memory, T's of cheap RAID..
Accessed by OS/400...


Now, I'm not gonna say you WILL have a problem here, but just relating a
past experience that may not apply in this situation:

Sprout wrote (AFAIK) the first non-IBM MI compiler in '83.  He also wrote,
and marketed briefly, the first "Copy Screen" utility in the mid-80's.  IBM
came out with CPYSCN (or whatever) ***the next release of CPF***.  And that
was back in the days when CPF advanced at a relative snail's-pace.  (No
offense.. just compared to today...)


That's why I posted before (something like): time to market is KEY, because
as soon as IBM gets even a whiff of your success, they may decide to market
the thing themselves.  There go your margins...

You may be able to make a decent living on those margins, and/or IBM may not
enter the market...


Now, I know your "bag" is putting together great hardware/software combos.
But another possibility is marketing this as a software only solution, to
run on IXA/IXS...  Ends the maintenance problem, and encourages IBM to leave
the market to you.


One technical question:  isn't emulating a 7208 (a serial tape drive) gonna
be a limiting factor in making this work as a NLS device?  The tape length
is probably gonna be a minor issue, and probably solvable..  But I wonder
about emulating a tape drive?

jt


| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Brad Jensen
| Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 11:04 AM
| To: midrange-l@midrange.com
| Subject: Re: 7208
|
|
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "Neil Palmer" <NeilP@DPSlink.com>
| To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
| Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 7:25 AM
| Subject: Re: 7208
|
|
| > CRENLSVOL ?  You mean CRTNLSVOL !   ;-)
|
| Yes, you are right, I didn't have his notes in front of me, silly
| me to think the AS/400 guys would pick the sensible 3 letter
| mininym. A CRT is a VDT.
|
| Correctomundo.
|
| > Don't know if you will jabve a problem with the "tape lenght".
| I do know
| > that yeard ago on teh 9347 1/2" Reel (1600bpi/3200bpi) unit that
| it didn't
| > like tapes longer than 2400'.  If you tried a 3600' tape it
| would end
| > shortly after it had processed 2400' of the tape.
| >
| > ...Neil
|
| oh boy. I guess we can do a writeforever RPG program to see how
| much we can get away with.
|
|
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