RE: When an AS/400 is called an iSeries

Hmmm. I seem to see a pattern.

Windows 3.0
Windows 3.5
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows XP
Windows Vista

If IBM is trying to build the same name-brand consistency, I'm all for
it.

System i AIX
System i Linux
System i i5
System i i6



-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Trevor Perry
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: When an AS/400 is called an iSeries


Darrell,

This is, I think, the inherent problem. We spend more time trying to
work out what it was, why they did it, what went on, and how crappy it
was, rather than becoming a community around a brand name.


IBM sells i5 servers. They can run i5/OS, AIX 5L, Linux 64-bit and using
iSCSI, can provide tight integration with Windows and Linux 32-bit.

Since many people still have AS/400s and iSeries servers, there is a
name to bring us all together - that name is System i.


Sure, it does not match what everyone likes, or be what everyone wants,
and it may not make sense to every myopic developer, and it certainly
annoys some green screen programmers. But it is what we have. It is OUR
ugly. I guess we are like any dysfunctional family (or is that
d(i)sfunctional?), but while we keep calling it an AS/400, the world
thinks we are out of date. Regardless of whether or not you like it,
saying the words "System i" is less difficult than people are making it
out to be.

Trevor




On 6/11/07 12:14 PM, "Darrell A Martin" <DMartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Trevor:

I think my "Series i" blunder (although affected by sleep deprivation
at least in part) points out what is, to me at least, the biggest
problem with the name changes. It is *NOT* the frequency, which is
well within the normal range (perhaps even less often than some other
members of the genre). Rather, the problem is that the current names
-- even taken in isolation -- seem to be inherently confusing.

For example, the operating system is "i5/OS". The server name is
"System i5". The platform family is "System i". Yet it is suggested,
sometimes emphatically, that a machine that was built as an "AS/400e"
running "OS/400" (our Model 720) has somehow morphed -- first into an
"iSeries" and then into a "member of the System i family" -- if I've
got that right. Interestingly, that same machine actually *is* capable

of running "i5/OS" even though -- again I venture what I think is
correct -- the Model 720 does not run on a Power 5 chip.

In the "other world" the operating system nomenclature is completely
separate from the CPU nomenclature. M$FT's "Windows" in its various
incarnations cannot be confused with the chip it is running on by
anyone paying the least attention: 80286, 486SX, Pentium, Athlon,
Turion, and a host of others. Ditto for Linux and Mac/OS. Even where
there is a close to one-to-one relationship, the naming distinction is

maintained. It may not make the computer any better, but it sure helps

keep the discussion clearer, IMHO.

Beauty is as beauty does, and we have a beautiful platform to work
with; but ugliness is in the i....

Darrell