Hello Art,
Am 06.09.2024 um 03:25 schrieb Art Tostaine, Jr. <atostaine@xxxxxxxxx>:
Patrick: Love reading your posts. Care to share what you are doing with the 150? Hobby? Small Business?
Thanks! I appreciate your interest!
My private machinery is all about hobbyist things.
I found myself receiving a model 400 running V4R4 as a gift in 2007. First I was just curious and it nicely fit into my other "old computing" area of interest. After some tinkering with it I quickly came to the conclusion that without any application and just the OS, a machine quickly becomes boring. So I learned and taught myself about programming the machine from public sources, and came up with my back then primary use case: A stock keeping application about my radio valve collection. At least, the platform was meant as a database machine, yes?
I learned that the model 400 lacked the necessary license to use SEU, and maybe even use compilers, so I took some research and learned that the model 150 was an ideal substitute for the 400, mainly because it requires no lickeys (with V4) at all. So I obtained one.
I was utterly surprised how almost effortless can create full screen text applications on that platform, compared to Linux with the ncurses library. Hence my strong opinion that for me, 5250 is *the* main reason to use the system. Bolting together some web UI to query database content is something which I did on Linux before. I see no benefit for me in using OS/400 for that purpose. What's more, I feel text UIs often appear to be quicker in responding to user requests than web UIs. Others may disagree but everybody is allowed an individual opinion, yes?
From my effort developing the stock keeping application evolved my subfile template:
https://github.com/PoC-dev/as400-sfltemplates Find more things I've published so far on my GitHub page, which I run on/use on my 150 for.
(Interestingly, the stock keeping application is still not in a finished state and ended up being the most neglected part of my work.)
Besides that I find joy in exploiting ways to give more or less meaningful work to the machine. A common feature is communications/networking. Having disparate computers talk with each other, utilizing common TCP/IP only if there is no (other) native protocol available. One particular source of joy was my ability to eventually obtain a copy of SNA•ps:
https://try-as400.pocnet.net/wiki/Apple_SNA.ps
Unfortunately, I ended up with so many ideas and so many half-finished projects that I'm only slowly progressing towards finishing those. In general, the more unusual the use case, and the weirder it seems to do *that* with the machine, the more rewarded I feel. :-) Because I'm frequently rescheduling what I work on next, I often come up with questions which seems to be completely unrelated to anything I've asked and described before. Or I pick up on a topic I've discussed Months ago. Maybe this feels somewhat erratic to people.
Example projects in my queue:
- I want to have my email antispam database (Spamassassin Bayes) located on my 150 which might require extended effort — though establishing a custom client-server protocol and utilizing classic but very efficient file access APIs — if SQL queries from Spamassassin prove still to be too demanding with my newest findings about possible optimizations.
- Finish my information providing applications for the Fallout Gaming franchise, and come up with a way to present those "read-only" without any sign-on screen to select tn5250 clients connecting "in a special way" to my machine from the outside world, but directly be presented with a menu and no way to gain access to a command line.
- Finish my dual-personality groceries shopping list application: 5250 for home, web access for when I'm at the shop. It's meant to have features I've not yet found on any existing application for iDevices.
- Cleanup and port my crude "home automation" from Linux to OS/400. Need to come up with supporting talking to SNMP- and Modbus devices and a proprietary protocol from a Wiesemann&Theis 12-port digital I/O device to tap power meters. Main goal is to have a beautiful full screen "panel" showing all the relevant settings and obtained values from sensors, etc. through the described protocols.
Usually, I publish what I learn and program, sometimes with considerable delay. A hobby unfortunately does not pay the bills and should provide positive feelings, and not feel like a grind through some annoying obligation. I've learned that providing basic functionality in an application is relatively easy. But to enable others to use it needs help texts and documentation how to get it to run. I sometimes procrastinate this final step. :-)
Hope you enjoyed reading. If you feel like one of my projects sounds interesting enough to collaborate, I'm all ears. :-)
:wq! PoC
midrange.com
