On Tue, 2016-08-30 at 19:49 +0000, Steinmetz, Paul wrote:
2017 planning and budgeting.
http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh082916-story01.html
An interesting read, which raises a "thats interesting, how" question in
my mind.
I notice it says that it will accept "regular DDR4 memory sticks"... I'm
going to assume that it means it will accept the EEC version, and not
the "PC" kind.
This raises 3 kind of interrelated questions in my mind (please note I'm
a non-hardware guy and its been years since I had some knowledge and
these questions are pure curiosity rather than "purchasing" based).
The first is, can you just stick any old manufacturers ram into an IBM/I
power 9 box or does it have to be "special" ram when its used in/for an
IBM/I specifically?
Question 2, the reason I wonder about "special" ram for IBM/I is due to
the way the old "400", if I remember correctly, borrowed unused bits in
the EEC for special tags (tags active "IBM/I" mode) so my question is
using "bog standard" memory is it still possible to access these bits
within the EEC via the physical DDR4 hardware interface? (1)
Question 3, assuming "bog standard" ram works ok with IBM/I does the
amount of ram affect licensing/pricing in the same way that, if I
remember correctly, things such as cores/TPW/disk used to. So is it
possible to just go out and buy loads of large ram modules to upgrade a
box or does it have licence implications (2)
(1) For some reason I always assumed that the EEC would be done "in the
ram" and would just throw a bit flag style error... but I guess its
actually done with a mix of the ram, the controller/interface, and
processor as a "PC"/Intel requires both a capable processor (Zeon, if my
memory serves) and a capable MB chipset (non-consumer).
(2) I seem to recall that a whole host of different things ramped up the
cost of licensing the "OS/400" back in the day, although I don't recall
what they were specifically. I also recall, dimly, that IBM had a large
price premium, although everywhere I worked always preferred the premium
over third party compatibles even down to the twinax displays. (I still
miss using a genuine IBM 5250 keyboard over all the many and varied "PC"
keyboards I've used... nothing compares to the positivity and movement
of the keys - they were nearly indestructible as well!)
midrange.com
