RE: Old-timer's disease question

Yeah, it's slow.  It's a rare "feel free to thump your chest" day when you 
get a high percentage of bandwidth used on your LAN card.  Due to remote 
considerations, this isn't going to do it.  Downloading all these ptf's 
from IBM can be really slow.  I use a ftp script to download them on 
Monday morning.  On Tuesday I use /QFileSvr.400 to distribute them to all 
lpars.  Then I use
INSPTF LICPGM((*ALL)) DEV(OPTVRT01) INSTYP(*DLYALL)
to load them and set them to apply that weekend during the IPL.  I would 
have at least downloaded them in advance, in your case.  Yes, you can 
download the cume for V5R4 even if you are running V5R3 or earlier. 
Suggest doing the "get them all, applied or not" and the "for distribution 
to remote systems", or whatever they're called.
Back in the early days of the 400 I used to download the cume cover letter 
using SNDPTFORD right before bringing the system down into restricted 
state.  Read it for the hipers that were not on it.  Download them all 
using SNDPTFORD.  Load them using LODPTF and APYPTF, repeat for coreq's 
that somehow didn't come down.  Now, try and document those steps and have 
one of your "B" players try to follow them.  Ended up in a lot of pages 
(before cell phones for commoners like me) and calls from me using a pay 
phone in a bar.


Rob Berendt