V5R4 to V7R1 question

Hello all,

Quick and easy question for the group. We currently are running V5R4 on
our iSeries/i/etc. We are looking at upgrading to V7R1. At the same time
we're looking at migrating our machine to an offsite location to be
managed/supported by a third party vendor, which in our case would mean the
vendor would be purchasing a machine themselves and migrating our
applications to it as opposed to physically taking ours to another
location. We're hearing some interesting things from them that I am
wondering about. We are debating whether to migrate offsite first, and
then upgrade to V7R1, or go to V7R1 first. Our vendor is telling us that
"we are having a hard time locating a machine that will support V5R4",
which would enable us to do the migration first and then the OS update. Am
I not right in thinking that it doesn't matter what box we have as far as
migrating between releases? I mean, I think we could if we wanted to just
put our current box in a truck and take it to the new location and then
upgrade that SAME box and achieve what we're talking about. There's no
such thing in the iSeries world as a box that doesn't support previous
releases, right? Please, tell me I'm not crazy. Thanks all!

Bill