-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 2:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: It keeps getting uglier
<SNIPAGE> "could". But would it happen? Is z/OS at any price a preferred instructional platform? How relevant to mainstream computer science is teaching students to code DD statements for CKD DASD when the view of many sophisticated readers of this list is that CKD should be superseded by FBA? Twenty years ago, I got a Macintosh SE, in large part so my girlfriend could write her doctoral dissertation in music. Would I have taken an s/370 (XA?) at the time for personal use?. Not if it were free; not if it were in a package I could carry. How many of us today, given a z/OS system that weighed 5 pounds and cost $1000 would make that our only computer and OS? Wouldn't we each still need another computer, or at least a partition on the same one, for Email, Web browsing, document preparation, access to IBMLink, etc.? <SNIPAGE> WANG with their WANG/VS systems came up with an idea that would have met your problem. The workstations had a button that caused the CEC to download microcode for DP/WP (Data Processing / Word Processing). So your workstation could switch between types of work. [ASCII based S/360 type architecture on steroids.] IBM attempted to make a product to market against WANG. They couldn't figure out how to do it economically. Problem was the distance from the tree to the eyeballs of the powers that were was about 2 inches. The problem was solved by having a PC that could do word processing while having an emulator (3270) for the 3270 type tasks, and then the PC would handle the word processing type tasks. With the advent of Unix System Services, your workstation can make use of Open Office running on the mainframe (I think, I don't have the opportunity to install it here to try it out). And you could chose to make that system a server to handle email if you so desire, or you can get your email direct to the workstation from your ISP. Back to your DD statement arguments, that to me is a strawman. What or how the SCP supports the hard drives is not truly germane. Yes, you and I battle with it because we choose to. But tell me again what SMS is for? And you, like me, may prefer a stick-shift. I certainly do when driving a CLASS B (or above -- to those not in the USofA, trucks of 10,000lbs or beyond w/ or w/o a trailer) vehicle, but these days I kinda like my wife's automatic when I drive in city traffic. I do this because I know I can tune my applications better than the system can (in most cases) and it gives us better through-put than a vanilla all IBM software install. So, if given an opportunity, I would take a PC based z/ARCH development machine. Imagine building a "web" type interface for doing all my doc writing and printing that runs under z/OS. Imagine having a system with serious security that is very hard to hack (I didn't say impossible, and I didn't say it couldn't be done, because I know of at least one S/370 virus that was written to prove the point). Now imagine every major university having HLASM, COBOL, C/C++, etc. taught in true cross platform environments. How many z/xxx licenses would that make? Imagine being able to develop an integrated application that small offices would want, and IBM could license the software for less than what they do now because the base is no longer a concrete pond -- 100,000 and growing z/xxx installs would allow for software prices to soften a bit. Get that over 500,000 and the prices should drop more. Service would not be that tough because most users would not be pushing the limits (well, except for you, me and those hacker type students of course). Regards, Steve Thompson -- All opinions expressed by me are my own and may not necessarily reflect those of my employer. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
