Mainframe Work, Then and Now -- The issues and transitions mainframers
faced in the past help us improve today
It's all too easy as mainframers to answer "What's new?" with "Not
much." Or to gripe about the latest bug encountered or fixed, or look
forward to installing the (supposedly) latest-and-greatest
just-announced whatever from IBM or an ISV.
But taking a longer view is interesting, remembering back five or 20
years or more, focusing on how it's not just technology that's changed,
and also the very nature of our work. Today's processors, memory,
storage capacities and networks couldn't have been imagined in the early
days; paraphrasing a well-known but bogus industry saying, 24-bit
addressing was thought to be enough for anybody. And it was, for a
while. (Now, of course, we take for granted 64-bit technology, a growing
array of opcodes and a massive Principles of Operation that would
astonish early mainframers.) Similarly, punch card input and greenbar
printed output (and system dumps!) made the world—and the 1403 print
train—spin, for a while.
http://www.destinationz.org/Mainframe-Solution/Trends/Mainframe-Work--Then-and-Now
--
Gabriel Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, Inc. [email protected]
3401 Silver Maple Place, Falls Church, VA 22042 (703) 204-0433
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabegold Twitter: GabeG0
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