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The Mainframe Kid - and OS/2

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Martin Iturbide:
This is an interesting video from IBM.

https://youtu.be/wJyiHsfJLEI

It is a nice story about a kid who bought a mainframe and installed it on his basement... WHAT??? He now works at IBM.
(joke)I suppose he has to work there to pay the MLC (Monthly license charge) (/joke).

There is his full presentation called "I just bought an IBM z890, Now what?" (I still need to check that video completely)

But it is a nice story, getting mainframe information and how to use it has always been a question to me. Maybe someday I will experience that.

If you check the video on 1:55 you will see OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business Booting. And that is some other thing that I also wonder, what was the relationship between OS/2 Warp and the Mainframe? I basically known (or think that I know) that for some control or functions of the mainframe an OS/2 machine will came embedded to make it easy to administrate it. But I never saw that in life or knew if there were any specific software used on OS/2 to administrate a mainframe.

Has anybody used OS/2 to administrate the mainframe? Am I completely wrong on my appreciation?

Anyways it is a nice story.

Regards


Martin Iturbide:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on February 20, 2018, 04:35:05 pm ---There is his full presentation called "I just bought an IBM z890, Now what?" (I still need to check that video completely)

--- End quote ---

Hi

I just completed to watch his full presentation, it is very nice presentation for someone that is complete noob on the Mainframe. There are some screenshots of OS/2 on 13:18,  and the audience recognized OS/2 very fast :)  It seem that it shows you for 15 minutes the license agreement, then there is an screenshot of app called "System Power Progress".

I liked his talk. For someone like me that never used a mainframe it was fun.

Regards

Olafur Gunnlaugsson:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on February 20, 2018, 04:35:05 pm --- And that is some other thing that I also wonder, what was the relationship between OS/2 Warp and the Mainframe?

--- End quote ---

There is a PC running OS/2 embedded into the mainframes that lives outside the VM, controls the boot (although they can supposedly boot without it) and also handles certain legacy communications protocols that are mostly used these days for PC to PC terminal services, configuration and administration, but it may be used for some diagnostics work as well. It is still there there in most modern mainframes or at the least the bigger ones, it was there in a 2016 model that I saw delivered via Unisys. It is simply there since the comm software layer/server was written in the 80's and updated in the mid 90's is rock solid on OS/2, an NT version did exist as well but never had the polish that the OS/2 version had, cheaper to maintain it than to start from scratch. There may be some other old custom software on there as well.

Martin Iturbide:
Thanks for the feedback Olafur.

If by any chance you can find some screenshots of the administration software, please post it here.

Regards

Doug Clark:
On the home page of WWW.IBM.COM there is a picture of Conner Krukosky and an article about him buying the mainframe and now working at IBM. They call it a "passion project."

https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/passion-projects/careers-mainframe/?lnk=ushpv18l1&lnk2=learn

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