Re: Intro AS/400

Al Mac Wheel wrote:

You will find a lively disagreement here of different voices.
I disagree with some of the other answers, but rather than argue, I state some of what I think of as "facts" and will let others sort out if they wish.

Thank you Al, Steve, and Lukas. This is the kind of helpful advice I was looking for. It is clear to me that I should get a system with software loaded if at all possible. I'm thinking it will probably be better to hunt around local and see if I can find one being decommissioned so I know what is on it. Phoenix, AZ has a pretty lively IT market, so it shouldn't be that hard and I can always go to my favorite scrap yard and try and power up the systems to see if they are working (and pray that the media comes with). The model 270 looks particularly appealing to me, but if I need to get a Twinax terminal for configuration of older models it is not the end of the world.

The RS64 core was a pretty powerful CPU in the RS/6000 brothers of the time for integer performance (common for business computing) - it is interesting that they purposely crippled it on some of the low-end machines.

I already see a difference in mindset about these machines and the users just from my few simple questions. It is clear that the AS/400 is not a particularly hobbyist friendly platform, but it makes them that much more interesting to me :-).

I just did a blog post about why I am into old systems like these: http://www.kev009.com/wp/2008/12/retrocomputing-for-fun-and-profit/

Regards,

Kevin

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.