I've been involved with IBM since the System 3 days.
Their stuff was always very good mechanically, but we all had a very good
friendship with our Customer Engineer. Nobody's gear was as good as it is
now.
The ability of IBM gear to talk to other IBM gear or non IBM gear was always
a struggle and the available languages for mere mortals was not exactly
feature rich.
However, those entities that used IBM were always able to become somewhat
automated without having to have a predominance of propeller heads. For
instance, RPG was always be akin to riding a Moped. You didn't want your
friends to see you ride it but it was fun and got you where your were going.
IBM always had a PERFECT business model. You can yell and cry foul but they
were not fools in spite of all the apparently missed opportunities that
everyone likes to throw in their face.
They always provided JUST enough horsepower and features to solve the need
you had 2 YEARS ago. It took you over a year to get something new going so
you never caught up. Way back just getting upgraded hardware took months (or
over a year for a new System 34)
You were hooked and it worked, and you could most often have normal people
handling lots of IT stuff.
Grumbling is good, but there are many reading this stuff who are chuckling
knowing what was really going on. We feigned righteous indignation but it's
been good.
regards
Steve Moland
Access Paths Inc
12 Parmenter Rd Unit C4
Londonderry NH 03053
steve@xxxxxxxxxxx
God damnit IBM, i5/OS is so very cool, but the hardware you sell is
several years old and slow (and probably overpriced, but I don't know
that yet).
midrange.com
