Anyone here really understand or remember AS400?

The one word that comes to mind is, Robust.

My former employer still has current systems running on AS400, despite spending millions over the years implementing new systems on Salesforce and SAP.

I'm remembering the primary language of the AS400 as RPG. The consulting firm I worked for had may consultants on AS400 jobs. I was more of a C++ guy in those days but many companies were running the AS400.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Anyone here really understand or remember AS400?

I remember the AS/400. Never did anything with them, though.

I used to.....this was 2 decades ago though.

I've stayed away from service/entry since....now, I get to hear the gripping from my CSR about SAP

AS400 the computer or AS400 software. If you are talking about the software it's something we still use.

Thanks for the quick response. Question is two fold I guess with regard to hardware/software. It actually is more focused on communication.

Current technology uses TCP/IP coms. Is AS400 capable of supporting that type of communication? If I recall it was FTP.

The primary concern is transmission speed and possible network latency.

I did once upon a time. In my previous job, I was actually part of a team that migrated an ERP from the 400 over to an SQL environment, and then was responsible for managing the SQL databases going forward. The 400 was solid, but MSSQL was a lot easier to work with. I never really got as proficient with the 400 as I was in the MS environment.

I spent the majority of my 40+ year career on the AS/400, iSeries, and the last iteration the Power i. RPG was the main application programming language in the beginning, along with CL which was the procedure part, and as time evolved the machine evolved with it, from both a connectivity and programming language support. I always found it impressive that the programs that were written in the late 80s can still run on the current operating system - a goal of IBM that they kept their promise on. There was no "Reboot it and see if that fixes the problem", it was/is one of the most solid pieces of hardware and operating system ever developed by IBM.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Thanks for the quick response. Question is two fold I guess with regard to hardware/software. It actually is more focused on communication.

Current technology uses TCP/IP coms. Is AS400 capable of supporting that type of communication? If I recall it was FTP.


The primary concern is transmission speed and possible network latency.

Yes, it will handle it

I used to be quite good at it two jobs ago.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Thanks for the quick response. Question is two fold I guess with regard to hardware/software. It actually is more focused on communication.

Current technology uses TCP/IP coms. Is AS400 capable of supporting that type of communication? If I recall it was FTP.

It's "just" software. If you have a TCP/IP stack in the OS, there is no reason that software cannot be produced that will do FTP or any other protocol built on top of TCP. There are gigabytes of open source software that implement these capabilities.

quote:

The primary concern is transmission speed and possible network latency.

This is, probably, more a question of the raw speed of the AS/400 core system, whether there is enough instruction budget to run the system, its applications, and the networking all at the same time. TCP itself is fairly resilient to long latencies, slow data rates, etc. In fact it was designed so. However, user expectations for responsiveness and throughput often exceed the capabilities of the underlying hardware.

I would be surprised if one could not get a reasonable set of TCP-based applications working on an AS/400, the underlying hardware is essentially a Mac circa 2004 which had no trouble running TCP/IP applications. The question I'd ask is "why would you want to?" Sunk cost in applications development, I understand that, but even something like a Raspberry Pi will compute rings around the ancient AS/400 hardware. So find an PowerPC emulator for Linux and don't look back.

Wow, this was a trip down memory lane. While I couldn't remember the exact answer to the OP's question, It brought back the days of a career from so long ago. I started programming in COBOL in 1990 on an IBM mainframe. Around 95 or 96, we converted over to an AS400 iSeries and converted our COBOL and JCL over to COBOL400 and CL. I worked for three other companies utilizing COBOL400 and CL until the crash of 2008. After that, the COBOL shops in the region switched over to other languages and machines and I lost a really good gig. The AS400 was the easiest machine to program with and maintain. I've really missed it over the last 15 years.

quote:

Originally posted by BlackTalonJHP:
AS400 the computer or AS400 software. If you are talking about the software it's something we still use.

IIR that box was a solid performer across the banking industry. I never had the pleasure of working on it, but I spent some time on Big Blue mainframes and their clones - OS 360, TSO/ISPF, JES1, JES2, Cobol 68 & 74, VSAM/ISAM, CICS, and then later some other stuff that ran on mainframes that wasn't produced by IBM. The good old days. Because of the strict rules for constructing code and job control, and the tight control and implementation by IBM, those systems were rock solid.

We're still using the AS400 software at work, but we've been transitioning over to JDE one plant at a time.

I'm a user, not a programmer, so I don't really know much about the development side.

I’ve used it nearly everyday at work for the last 18 years.
They have also said for the last 18 years that we will soon be transitioning to a replacement.
I’d say it is a good bet it will still be our main database long after I have retired.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I’ve used it nearly everyday at work for the last 18 years.
They have also said for the last 18 years that we will soon be transitioning to a replacement.
I’d say it is a good bet it will still be our main database long after I have retired.

That's impressive. Noone's gonna hack into that. Everyone on Linux is spending real money on multiple layers of security, without which they would be destroyed in a week.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I’ve used it nearly everyday at work for the last 18 years.
They have also said for the last 18 years that we will soon be transitioning to a replacement.

Same here, any day now…

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I’ve used it nearly everyday at work for the last 18 years.
They have also said for the last 18 years that we will soon be transitioning to a replacement.

Same here, any day now…

When you get right down to it some courage is required to turn off a working old system for a new system.

IBM does say that support for the 30 year AS 400 system will continue due to its widespread use

Details Here