RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

I for one have tried over the past year or so to change the terminology that 
I use when referring to the AS/400, System i, iSeries, whatever you want to 
call it.

There is a distinct difference in my mind between legacy and old.  legacy is 
misused an awful lot these days and I am as quilty of it as anyone.

Legacy refers to history, something which defines an individuals 
performance, a company, or a machine.

Old is just that...OLD.

I still prefer 5250 for most applications but considering our industry, it 
is something that still works exceptionally well.


On Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:29:40 -0400, Chris Payne wrote
> The reason that people think the AS/400 is obsolete is because it looks
> obsolete. We can argue all day long whether terminal interface is better
> then GUI for certain types of tasks. The Unix guys do this to they will
> talk and talk about how great the command line interface is, but Unix
> has a GUI too and when it is appropriate to use they use it.
> 
> Imagine that instead of developing windows, Microsoft had instead
> upgraded DOS to support more character sets, and then renamed it "system
> D", sure you can only use 8 characters in a file name, but that is 
> all you really need for business use. They could add a virtual 
> machine so that you could run "system D" on a 32 bit processor or a 
> 64 bit processor. And everyone would refer to it as a legacy system 
> because it would look OLD.
> 
> Auto companies spend an enormous amount of money on styling because
> people's impressions when they look at a product matter. What if Ford
> had a car they called "system T" which was cheap, reliable, safe,
> efficient and looked exactly like a model T, do you think anyone 
> would buy it?
> 
> The AS/400 is a good reliable back end system with some impressive
> technology under the cover, and I am not necessarily arguing that
> anything needs to change. But the reason that everyone who is not
> closely involved with the AS/400 thinks it is a legacy system is because
> it looks like a legacy system.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
> Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 7:55 PM
> To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
> Subject: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence
> 
> The iSeries supports pretty much every character set available.
> Certainly
> as many as your standard Windows/*nix box.
> 
> The QSYS library system is the only file system that has the 10
> character
> limit, and that's frankly all a business system needs.  Long
> directory/path
> structures are needed for text-file-based operating systems that are
> fconfigured with thousands of little files, as opposed to an OS with 
> an integrated database.
> 
> But in any case, the iSeries supports long file names just fine in 
> the IFS.
> 
> The fact that the iSeries supports all those technologies IN 
> ADDITION TO all the technologies offered by other operating systems 
> is a benefit, not a disadvantage.
> 
> Joe
> 
> P.S. I should start a cult: The Church of the Perpetual Myth of iSeries
> Obsolescence.  I'd have to rename it every time IBM renamed the box, 
> but that might actually be helpful from a tax (evasion) standpoint.
> 
> > From: Keith Carpenter
> > 
> > EBCDIC ?
> > library/object file system with 10 character names ?
> > 
> > 
> > Unfortunately, changing these things probably has little ROI.
> > 
> > 
> > Michael Jacobsen wrote:
> > >> Where do people get the idea that the iSeries system is so
> obsolete?
> > >
> > > Green screen?
> 
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If you bought it, it was hauled by a truck - somewhere, sometime.