"Listen to your mother and get a warehouse."
March 28, 2016 2:02 PM Subscribe
Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe (SLYT) A scosh long but very charming, what it says on the tin.
Some acronyms & abbreviations that aren't spelled out in the video:
LPAR: Logical Partition
IPL: Initial Program Load
FICON/ESCON: Fibre Connection/Enterprise System Connection
HMC: Hardware Management Console
posted by zamboni at 3:15 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
LPAR: Logical Partition
IPL: Initial Program Load
FICON/ESCON: Fibre Connection/Enterprise System Connection
HMC: Hardware Management Console
posted by zamboni at 3:15 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
IBM installed a zSeries like that in the test lab of the start-up that I worked for not long after they bought us. We gave it the hostname of Locutus.
posted by octothorpe at 3:22 PM on March 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 3:22 PM on March 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
I used to work for convex supercomputer. Amongst my trophies are two coffee table size circuit boards that I will someday figure out what to do with....
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:31 PM on March 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:31 PM on March 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
I was overjoyed to help a friend move a couple of PDP-11/34s a few years ago, primarily because although I'd get to play with them they were not going to my house.
posted by phooky at 3:33 PM on March 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by phooky at 3:33 PM on March 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
In re convex circuit boards: take really good photos of them and put them up on bitsavers? (I'm sure they'd love software files and manual scans if you have those too.)
posted by tss at 3:34 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by tss at 3:34 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
I almost got an ancient 360/30, no way would I have tried to boot it but it had an amazing front panel which would have been amazing to hook up to a raspberry-pi or something and basically make a silly game with flashing lights. Turn a dial, toggle, blink blink.
posted by sammyo at 3:51 PM on March 28, 2016
posted by sammyo at 3:51 PM on March 28, 2016
At first, I was like "2004 vintage? That wasn't that long ago." But then it reminded me of when I was in 1985, my room-mate found an old HP minicomputer in a lab storage closet, and the professor said he could have it. So we hauled it back to the dorm room. This thing had a 8k of magnetic core memory and a paper tape drive. Googling around, I'm pretty sure it was second generation HP 2100...which means at the time it was between 11 and 15 years old.
My lawn, perhaps you should get off it?
posted by fings at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
My lawn, perhaps you should get off it?
posted by fings at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
I love this so much. I'm following a similar retrocomputing path to Connor's - have built a Z80 membership card, a PiDP-8, a new S-100 system and a P112. All of them together would fit in this mainframe's power supply unit. I totally agree with his assessment that older computers are great for learning...it's been a fun journey so far, and Connor has shown me how far this hobby can go. Thanks for sharing!
posted by dylanjames at 4:17 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by dylanjames at 4:17 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Amongst my trophies are two coffee table size circuit boards that I will someday figure out what to do with...
The question answers itself!
posted by The Tensor at 4:20 PM on March 28, 2016 [26 favorites]
The question answers itself!
posted by The Tensor at 4:20 PM on March 28, 2016 [26 favorites]
Na, that's too easy. I had a big scene with store mannequins, and flashing lights and a punch card, as part of my ever changing Barbie Bordello, but then the gallery where I kept the house of sin went bust, and so it all moulders in boxes somewhere.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:29 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:29 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wonderful kid (is he still a kid?). Wonderful parents too. And great story!
posted by carter at 4:48 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by carter at 4:48 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
My lawn, perhaps you should get off it?
I actually used a HP2100A which was installed in my father's physics lab around 1974. The user interface was a Model 33 Teletype machine and after the second round of grant applications they had a high-speed paper tape punch and reader. As far as I know it's still there, but the building has been sealed since it was all underwater after Hurricane Katrina.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:53 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I actually used a HP2100A which was installed in my father's physics lab around 1974. The user interface was a Model 33 Teletype machine and after the second round of grant applications they had a high-speed paper tape punch and reader. As far as I know it's still there, but the building has been sealed since it was all underwater after Hurricane Katrina.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:53 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
28:40 +/- he runs his cost versus initial list - $350 for a $350k machine. Dang.
posted by mwhybark at 4:55 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mwhybark at 4:55 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Can someone chime in with relative performance to current desktops?
They're roughly as fast as contemporary high-end servers, which have 32 to 64 processors and are basically 32-64 times faster than your desktop. Mainframes cost 10x as much as those high-end servers, but that's because of the 30 years of backward compatibility that lets your bank put a new one in with no downtime, not because of being fast. IBM puts out a breathtaking amount of misleading marketing material that implies mainframes are worth it on performance alone... they're really not.
I still want one in my basement though.
posted by miyabo at 5:31 PM on March 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
They're roughly as fast as contemporary high-end servers, which have 32 to 64 processors and are basically 32-64 times faster than your desktop. Mainframes cost 10x as much as those high-end servers, but that's because of the 30 years of backward compatibility that lets your bank put a new one in with no downtime, not because of being fast. IBM puts out a breathtaking amount of misleading marketing material that implies mainframes are worth it on performance alone... they're really not.
I still want one in my basement though.
posted by miyabo at 5:31 PM on March 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
Yes, but will it run OS/2?
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:58 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by SteveInMaine at 5:58 PM on March 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
My first thought was "What's he going to do about power and storage?".
Today I learned you can ignore the third phase in 3 phase power circuit.
And I never thought I'd see a little Compaq MSA connected to a mainframe. Very clever.
In regards to space, he's lucky it wasn't the first machine I worked on - the IBM 3090
posted by Diag at 6:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Today I learned you can ignore the third phase in 3 phase power circuit.
And I never thought I'd see a little Compaq MSA connected to a mainframe. Very clever.
In regards to space, he's lucky it wasn't the first machine I worked on - the IBM 3090
posted by Diag at 6:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
SteveInMaine - not the mainframe itself (as far as I know), but that Thinkpad that he used to do all the setup (the HMC?) ran OS/2.
posted by Diag at 6:06 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Diag at 6:06 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
SteveInMaine: Kinda, the Hardware Management Console (in this case I believe it's his laptop, which he describes as running OS/2) that manages the mainframe runs OS/2. Ref: z890 System Overview p. 2-16. So OS/2 runs it, but it does not, by itself, run OS/2.
posted by Grimgrin at 6:07 PM on March 28, 2016
posted by Grimgrin at 6:07 PM on March 28, 2016
Yes, but will it run OS/2?
Of course.
(the entire album)
posted by neckro23 at 6:45 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
Of course.
(the entire album)
posted by neckro23 at 6:45 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
SecretAgentSockpuppet, why not make coffee tables out of 'em? Mount them on a nice piece of wood and then mount a piece of tempered glass over that to both protect and display them. They would be two super sweet coffee tables and excellent conversation pieces, I'm sure.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:49 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:49 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd like to thank this talk for introducing me to govdeals.com, which is a rabbit hole from which I may never escape.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Itaxpica at 7:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
The dude's a genius. I applaud him.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 8:01 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 8:01 PM on March 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
He didn't seem to use the folks at Rutgers as a resource. It was their machine, presumably someone either used it at one point or knew who did.
posted by AugustWest at 10:21 PM on March 28, 2016
posted by AugustWest at 10:21 PM on March 28, 2016
He didn't seem to use the folks at Rutgers as a resource.
Dollars to donuts the people in charge of selling the thing were never in charge of operating it. For instance, the part where the Rutgers guy deadlifts the rack onto the trailer.
posted by carsonb at 11:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Dollars to donuts the people in charge of selling the thing were never in charge of operating it. For instance, the part where the Rutgers guy deadlifts the rack onto the trailer.
posted by carsonb at 11:03 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is so great; makes my folks' complaints about the old Sun box and VT220 in the loft seem petty.
One thing I didn't get but the audience did: what was the complaint about the licence screen? Does it just display for a fixed amount of time on each boot or something?
posted by bonaldi at 4:01 AM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
One thing I didn't get but the audience did: what was the complaint about the licence screen? Does it just display for a fixed amount of time on each boot or something?
posted by bonaldi at 4:01 AM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
His story of moving it reminded me of when I bought a non-functional stand-up Asteroids machine when I was 18. It was made in 1979 and was made to tolerate bar fights. It weighed about 300 pounds.
My folks had a Dodge Omni 024, also made in 1979, which weighed 2500 pounds.
With some help from the arcade folks who sold me the game, we hoisted it in through the hatch of the car, bottom end first. It felt like I was driving up hill. Until I actually got to a hill, when I was sure that game was going to slide out the back on me. It did not. I hauled it out of the car solo and took it around back using a technique similar to moving an Easter Island head.
I spent an hour cleaning it up and and found that the problem was with one of the dead-man switches on the back panel and then had the game up and running.
posted by plinth at 6:28 AM on March 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
My folks had a Dodge Omni 024, also made in 1979, which weighed 2500 pounds.
With some help from the arcade folks who sold me the game, we hoisted it in through the hatch of the car, bottom end first. It felt like I was driving up hill. Until I actually got to a hill, when I was sure that game was going to slide out the back on me. It did not. I hauled it out of the car solo and took it around back using a technique similar to moving an Easter Island head.
I spent an hour cleaning it up and and found that the problem was with one of the dead-man switches on the back panel and then had the game up and running.
posted by plinth at 6:28 AM on March 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
bonaldi: "One thing I didn't get but the audience did: what was the complaint about the licence screen? Does it just display for a fixed amount of time on each boot or something?
"
From what I gathered it's on screen for ~15 minutes upon each boot. Since these things went for years, or even a decade between hard-boots what's 15 minutes* to force someone to read an EULA.
* Probably 100's of thousands of dollars in lost sales / bank transactions! Fix it faster!
posted by wcfields at 7:39 AM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
"
From what I gathered it's on screen for ~15 minutes upon each boot. Since these things went for years, or even a decade between hard-boots what's 15 minutes* to force someone to read an EULA.
* Probably 100's of thousands of dollars in lost sales / bank transactions! Fix it faster!
posted by wcfields at 7:39 AM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't have time to watch the whole thing now, but I got to the part where he figures out it doesn't fit through the basement door. Seems he has thought of some things but not others.
Looking forward to him learning about 3-phase power, and how often it's in private homes.
posted by MtDewd at 3:13 PM on March 29, 2016
Looking forward to him learning about 3-phase power, and how often it's in private homes.
posted by MtDewd at 3:13 PM on March 29, 2016
Today I learned you can ignore the third phase in 3 phase power circuit.
This is true of some transformer power supplies, but not all, and is not true of motors at all. If you drop a phase on a three-phase AC motor you will burn the motor up.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:23 PM on March 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
This is true of some transformer power supplies, but not all, and is not true of motors at all. If you drop a phase on a three-phase AC motor you will burn the motor up.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:23 PM on March 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
>Model 33 Teletype
Oh man I sorta miss the old ASR 33. It was connected to the first computer I ever programmed in high school, a PDP-8/s . I was such a geek I could actually read the binary from the yellow punch tape. I think I can still smell the oil...
posted by AGameOfMoans at 9:01 PM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh man I sorta miss the old ASR 33. It was connected to the first computer I ever programmed in high school, a PDP-8/s . I was such a geek I could actually read the binary from the yellow punch tape. I think I can still smell the oil...
posted by AGameOfMoans at 9:01 PM on March 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Last mainframe I worked on was the 3090, so I never got to the CMOS processors.
On older IBM mainframes, you needed 3-phase, and it needed to be in the correct sequence, or the fans would run backwards. I guess the Z's have DC fans.
IIRC, there was also a balancing of areas that didn't use all 3 phases, so that some would use legs A & B, some would use B & C, and some would use C & A, so that each leg would have more or less the same load. Dropping one leg there would cause some areas to not work.
(He says one phase to Hot and one to Neutral- I assume he meant he used one phase to black and one phase to red, or else he wouldn't have got 220V)
Looks like he almost had a water-cooled machine.
posted by MtDewd at 2:03 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
On older IBM mainframes, you needed 3-phase, and it needed to be in the correct sequence, or the fans would run backwards. I guess the Z's have DC fans.
IIRC, there was also a balancing of areas that didn't use all 3 phases, so that some would use legs A & B, some would use B & C, and some would use C & A, so that each leg would have more or less the same load. Dropping one leg there would cause some areas to not work.
(He says one phase to Hot and one to Neutral- I assume he meant he used one phase to black and one phase to red, or else he wouldn't have got 220V)
Looks like he almost had a water-cooled machine.
posted by MtDewd at 2:03 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I understand this is a 10 year old machine, but I'm surprised there is apparently zero resale market for this thing. You'd think there would at least be people still running the same model who would buy the parts as spares. Or is the idea that running these machines simply requires an IBM maintenance contract, so it would be moot?
posted by smackfu at 3:51 PM on April 14, 2016
posted by smackfu at 3:51 PM on April 14, 2016
Smackfu, you reach a point in the obsolescence cycle where it is cheaper to buy a newer machine or run your software in emulation than it is to upgrade or repair the old mainframe. This happened to the company I work for in the mid 1980's. They had an IBM mainframe the size of a washer-dryer pair, and ran out of memory. They found that replacing the entire computer with a new one the size of a large tower PC was cheaper than buying the memory upgrade for the old computer.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2016
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2016
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Official system overview.
Wikipedia entry on the System Z line, which (according to it) are direct descendants of the old System/360 from 1964, and can run much of its software unmodified.
Can someone chime in with relative performance to current desktops? It looks like this may not be entirely non-comparable.
posted by JHarris at 3:12 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]