Re: OS/400 on mambo emulator

Hello Vlad,

Am 28.05.2020 um 17:51 schrieb Vlad Korge <vladkorge@xxxxxxxxxx>:

As per my understanding, a nowadays IBM i is running on exactly the same hardware as AIX or Linux called IBM Power Systems.

Yes, and they've been marketed with different price tags. I bet there's something like a "IBM i/Other" switch somewhere. Not necessarily a physical switch, though. But do you really know how that hardware is controlled by firmware? These boxes are architecturally not just like an x86 server with a different CPU type (POWER). See Yvan's comment about Open Firmware vs. IBM i.

You're not the first one and will not be the last one trying to get OS/400 and it's successors run on standard x86 hardware with some means of emulation. Why is emulation so desirable, despite the apparent huge effort needed to get it done? (And the high risk being sued to death by IBMs lawyers.) Comparing to Hercules (emulating the S/3x0 and z-Series of IBM hardware), is it portability (taking my mainframe with me on my notebook)? Is it about not requiring extra hardware (with it's own needs of space and power to provide noise and more or less heat, and sometimes needs repair)?

I'm content with my very own, very old hardware, converting around 100W electrical power into heat and noise. This old hardware is interesting in itself (to me), because of reasons Yvan already described. I'd summarise them as "mini-mainframe like". I can't take it with me easily, but I don't need to: I can use VPN to get access to my home net from anywhere-with-internet-connection. (Same with Hercules, I don't need it to be "portable", it runs on a Linux server in the basement, providing mostly storage services, and I also can log in from where I want to that TK4-.) All that old stuff relied on Terminals. No need to be close to the hardware, no need to take an emulated hardware with you.

Think twice: What's your benefit from emulation?

The more serious problem is that you almost always need license keys to prevent the OS force you into a complete reinstall after 70 days *if* you reboot after then. And even without reboot, some programs will cease to start without license keys. This problem will not be solved by emulation.

Emulation means, you'll need to fake an environment which is indistinguishable by IBM i from a LPAR. You'll have a lot of fun finding out how everything is supposed to work together, because there's no Low Level Documentation available outside of IBM. As others have put it: Just don't expect to start the Mambo binary, point it to the proper I_BASE Image file and everything will work just out of the box. It's a *lot* more than struggling with the use of Mambo itself.

:wq! PoC

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