RE: Making a List

["Rebecca Snyder" <rsnyder@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As someone who has a VAX sitting right next to our AS/400, this is
somewhat interesting. We've had this VAX (a 6420) for 12 years and
it's used by most of our company. The AS/400 we've had for 3 years
and it run MAPICS for one division.

I've used various different VAX since 1987 and have yet to write
a line of MACRO-11 code. On the other I have had to learn
Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, and C all on a VAX. Some were running
UNIX and some were running VMS. Currently most of the programs
on our Vax are written in Pascal against Ingres database. And
no, we don't run UNIX, we run VMS, although I have written several
command language programs to emulate UNIX commands.

Yes it's true that you can't buy a "new" VAX anymore. All they
sell are ALPHAs, and I'm not even sure they're making those
anymore. When Digital was bought by Compaq, the VAX and ALPHA
were pushed to the back shelf. Now that HP owns Compaq and hence
Digital, VAX and ALPHA are probably going to drop off the face
of the earth.

As for what makes a VAX programmer different from an AS/400
programmer... The AS/400 programmer probably has a better
chance of finding a job in his chosen line of work :)

And Jim as for the “The AS/400 programmers are probably, on
average, just a little bit younger.” thing... I’m only 34 years
old, but yes, on the average most of the people I know that
work on a VAX are older than me!

Rebecca Snyder

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
[mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Paul Raulerson
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 7:43 AM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Making a List


LOL! What a wonderful comparison.

The first thing that comes to mind is that almost all production Vax systems
today run on a emulated platform called Charon, which
means they use PC hardware.

Secondly, you can access the underlying machine as easily on a Vax as on a
mainframe, and unlike on a AS/400. This sounds like a
minor difference to a COBOL programmer, but it really isn't.

Vax use ASCII terminals and serial/telnet connections, AS/400's use block
mode terminals

Vax uses a stream based DASD format, AS/400's use a record based DASD
format. (natively speaking, Vaxes use RMS which gives a record
based DASD, and 400's can handle stream files of course.)

Most common language on a Vax is Macro-11, and it supports system
programming. Most common language on a AS/400 is RPG, and it does
not support 'system' programming in the sense we use it on a a Vax or
mainframe.

Hope that helps.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Todd kidwell" <Todd.kidwell@3cc.co.wayne.mi.us>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 5:52 AM
Subject: Making a List


> I've got an interesting question for some Monday morning stimuli ...
>
> I need to create a list of what makes an AS/400 ... iSeries .... i/400
programmer unique from a VAX programmer - or vice versa.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Todd Kidwell (Netstar)
> AS/400 System Administrator
> (313) 224-0578
>
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