Kevin,
I just looked on eBay and saw a model 170-2290 like one I bought 8 years ago, and a model 520 like one I bought 2 years ago. Prices on eBay ranged from $500 - $6,000. Note that a model 170 with os/400 v5r3 is no longer supported by IBM, if that's a consideration for you. It may not be a consideration if you just want to tinker.
IBM put a CPU governor on the model 170-2290. It's not geared for today's CPU intensive workloads. It's geared for native 5250 and batch workloads. Performance of HTTP, SMTP, and FTP is marginal. Don't think of running Java on it!
The CPU in my model 520 is literally 50 times faster, according to my own benchmark, and would be eligible for IBM support.
The thing that would be interesting to me would be to find some line-of-business [finance, HR, payroll, manufacturing] software to tinker with on my model 170.
Nathan.
----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@xxxxxxxxx>
To: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2008 2:09:53 PM
Subject: Intro AS/400
Hello,
I am a bit of an IBM fan and have used most of their product line (PCs,
RS/6000, even 390/z - see my pages:
http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/) for
fun and work. However, I have yet to try an AS/400. I see them come
through the local computer recycler and sell on eBay cheaply enough and
would like to pick one up for home tinkering. The goal is to simply
learn and play with another computing platform.
Tips on what models to look out for would be helpful. Obviously, I
don't need a lot of compute power nor current hardware/software. The
one requirement I do have is to be able to setup/interact with the
system over Ethernet rather than fool with something like Twinax.
I also see the potential problem of finding a system with software,
since I assume it is not cheap to get a hold of os400. Any comments or
suggestions would be appreciated.. as you can tell I am a total newbie
to AS/400s.
Regards,
Kevin
midrange.com
