Up until 18 months ago, we had a billion dollar, as in giga, customer running on MP2003s using OS/390 1.3. If we had told them that they would have to upgrade to a current operating system based on IBM's support schedule along with the corresponding hardware upgrade, we would never have made that sale in 1999 nor been gainfully employed providing support for the past decade and a half.
Pontificate all you want but those of us whose organizations and jobs depend on serving the customer within his political and financial constraints make no apology for doing so. BTW, when did making a profit become ignominious? > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Andreas F. Geissbuehler > Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 6:55 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Length question > > quoting John Gilmore's > " I of course expected this response. Litanies in defense of the old > > and familiar are recurrent here, but repetition does not make them > > meritorious. They are of a piece with the suspiciously repetitive, > > insular, risk-averse, mediocre notions that are ruining, have indeed > > largely ruined, the mainframe, a splendid platform that is now used > in > > mostly ignominious ways. > " > Sir John, even you and me, for that matter 99.9999999999 % of us > consumers, we don't waste much thought about the sheer beauty of the > processor's architecture when we turn up the thermostat, skip a track > on our MP3 player or withdraw some cash at an ATM. > > S/360 Architecture lovers, the 0.0000000001 % exception, they enjoy > playing with MVS 3.8j running at 10x the speed of an IBM 370/168 on > their own PC, something which 99.9999999999 % of the population doesn't > understand... :) > > Andreas F. Geissbuehler
