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Have you ever seen a Mainframe?


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Have you ever seen a Mainframe
Yes
46%
 46%  [ 695 ]
No
53%
 53%  [ 787 ]
Total Votes : 1482

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MBabu

Active User


Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 400
Location: Mumbai

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 9:00 pm
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started on a 370/125, worked on 3033E, serial number 000002 - so many ECs (engineering changes) that it didn't have doors on it because of all the wires going from one frame to the next. Then countless boxes after that. Only ever saw one 360 in production on a manufacturing line. Used 3084 TCMs as paper weights. Mainframes were just big boxes. Now they are just small boxes.
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Willem Vermeer

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Joined: 31 Oct 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:40 pm
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Hi,

I started with MVS 3.7 on a 370/158. Most beautiful machine I ever saw was a 370/168 MP. Storage was on 3330 and tape was the reel stuff on very real units. Did a lot of working with punched cards, too.

Must admit, it's been some time sincs I actually saw a mainframe. Not that I actually miss it. After all, nowadays they're just as nice looking as a fridge.
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Marso

REXX Moderator


Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 1353
Location: Israel

PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 4:25 am
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Funny,
for all places I worked with VSE, the answer is YES,
and for all places I worked with MVS, the answer is NO.
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BASKAR SETHU

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Joined: 18 Jan 2010
Posts: 1
Location: Mysore

PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 6:02 pm
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i saw in CDAC, Trivandrum
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lmuvalla

New User


Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 7
Location: chennai

PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:33 am
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I am new to this world...
i am jus 2 months old in mainframe technology...

i hope to see the giant very soon......
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Manigandan Aravindhan

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Joined: 09 Oct 2007
Posts: 81
Location: India

PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 2:07 pm
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Yes, Even did IPL for it.
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pals2006_2009

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Joined: 22 Jul 2009
Posts: 2
Location: Bangalore

PostPosted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 7:20 pm
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Never got a chance to see :-( but will see it soon
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expat

Global Moderator


Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 8797
Location: Welsh Wales

PostPosted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:09 pm
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Willem Vermeer wrote:
Must admit, it's been some time sincs I actually saw a mainframe. Not that I actually miss it. After all, nowadays they're just as nice looking as a fridge.

At least the fridge keeps your beers nice and chilled icon_lol.gif
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enrico-sorichetti

Superior Member


Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 10872
Location: italy

PostPosted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:42 pm
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so after all going from the 3080/3090 ( water cooled series ) where there was a chance to use it as a refrigerator
to the new technologies, was a step backwards, not forward icon_biggrin.gif

and the piping was quite sophisticated, all the pipe junctions were with safety valves
( You could attach and detach everything with the water cycling at full pressure with just a few drops of water )
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Pete Wilson

Active Member


Joined: 31 Dec 2009
Posts: 580
Location: London

PostPosted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:49 pm
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1976

IBM 360/40 - 48k main storage (carbon core - pre transistor) running DOS - no screen, just golf-ball tyewriter for Master Console printing onto lineflow. All punch card input. IPL's involved a large blue button with IMPL written on it! All the red checklights would go on on the facia if a vacumn cleaner was started anywhere near it!

1977
IBM 370/125 running DOS POWER/VSE. Luxury of a master console screen. Non luxury of tray after tray of card input and endless prinnting of multi-part lineflow paper on a 1403 followed by decollating it.

1980 - for a few years.
370/158
370/165 (with crap CDC memory upgrade)
3031's
3081's - started installing channel cables at this point as well. Shit job pre fibre as the old grey and blue copper bus/tag cables VERY heavy, especially for 3420 drives as that had extra shielding.
3084
then some Hitachi's..can't recall the model numbers
3090's of various flavours

Now miles away from datacentre so never layed hands on any of the Z990 or Z10's, but they're pretty boring to look at these days.
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mikelee

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Joined: 02 Mar 2010
Posts: 2
Location: Santa Fe NM

PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:07 pm
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I go back to 1401/1410's and 7094's so over the years I have actually seen probobably all of the 360's and 370's (except the very rare 360/95 and extremely rare 370/195 pipeline processors) most of the ES9000's and many of the early CMOS IBM's. I have seem several 800's 900's and z9/z10's. Have not seen a z11 yet but the consulting company I am with is working on capacity/performance issues for a State government right now and I may end up recommending they look at the z11's - not sure - project is just getting going and I haven't finished data collection.
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kashi1234

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Joined: 11 Mar 2010
Posts: 16
Location: Chennai

PostPosted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:10 pm
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Hi All,

I am not a Developer but the end user of ISPF (Focus). Struggling very hard to learn how things work.

cheers,
Kashi
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Aleksandr DuPuy Orlov

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Joined: 03 Nov 2009
Posts: 1
Location: Las Cruces NM

PostPosted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:50 am
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First MainFrame? A Honeywell Dinosaur in 1970. Then, a bleeping 360 running MVT. Then IBM 370/168. Then a 3033. Then a 3091. (Yawn) So many allnighters.... back in the day, doing CICS installations and testing and coordinating with the VTAM Clowns. Oh what fun! (Nah, am Serious: It WAS Fun) And doing prohibited things (Late Night) was a total blast !
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Michael Mays

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Joined: 05 May 2010
Posts: 6
Location: Farmington Hills, MI

PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 12:42 am
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Mainframes have come a long way.
When I started in 1970, we ran 160 grocery stores on an IBM 360/20 with 8K of central storage. No disk, No tape.

Those were the days when men were Men, and machines were Machines!!<G>

That same operation now takes a computer at least a thousand times more powerful to do the same job.
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Hardik Vachhani

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Joined: 11 Dec 2008
Posts: 13
Location: Phoenix, AZ, USA

PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2010 4:44 pm
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My first was an IBM Z9 Enterprise Class on in November 2009.
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Traveler

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Joined: 12 Aug 2010
Posts: 8
Location: Highlands, NJ

PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:03 pm
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Prudential Insurance had a Univac, it filled an entire floor on Wahsington Street, Newark, NJ. They moved up to the IBM/360. the best part of the early operatins of computer were all the key punch operators. the pretty young girls the compaines hired to do the key punching. We used to hand write all the code into coding sheets. the sheets got sent to the key punching and you got back a box of cards.

My first programming job was programming EAM 80/80 wire boards at Prudential. The key punch operators were on the 4th floor it was heaven.
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Roger W Suhr

New User


Joined: 30 Aug 2010
Posts: 5
Location: Tobyhanna, PA, USA

PostPosted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:54 am
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I started with a IBM 370/168 6MB of main memory, and about 50 DASD (3330, and later 3350) 16 tape drives, 2 card readers and 3 3211 "high speed" printers. In the beginning no TSO, just card punching. (What a mess when you dropped that card box! icon_eek.gif
Later we added 2 more MB, and even later we added a second machine. (First SYSLPEX experience), then MVS/XA came along.

Now I'm running MVS 3.8J on my laptop, under the Hercules emuator!
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stalin.seven

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Joined: 23 Mar 2011
Posts: 1
Location: India

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:30 pm
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Didn't get a single chance to see mainframe till now. icon_rolleyes.gif
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don.leahy

Active Member


Joined: 06 Jul 2010
Posts: 765
Location: Whitby, ON, Canada

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 5:38 pm
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In 30 years in this business, I have only seen a mainframe a couple of times.

Back in the 70s there were several terrorism incidents, so by the early 1980s the physical security surrounding large data centres was all but impenetrable. No one, including the CEO and Chairman of the Board, was allowed in the computer room unless his job required him to be there.
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haimzeevi

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Joined: 01 Mar 2010
Posts: 27
Location: Israel

PostPosted: Thu May 12, 2011 8:58 pm
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A computer (mainframe) operator since 1974... slept near 3330 disk-drives,
migrating, a few years later to programming.
And just a month ago, we visited a banks computer-room.
Well, the 370's and 4300 series looked much better than Z series..
Haim Zeevi
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rohanthengal

Active User


Joined: 19 Mar 2009
Posts: 206
Location: Globe, India

PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:20 pm
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Hi, I saw mainframes first in 2009/10 in bangalore HQ based indian MNC.
The mainframe used by great entrepreneurs in india.
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Ed Goodman

Active Member


Joined: 08 Jun 2011
Posts: 556
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:24 pm
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I was lucky enough to sit just outside the mainframe room. I actually used to have to go and hand tapes to the operators to load vendor patches and updates.

Most of the guys didn't go in there much. However, one summer, we had a summer tape hanger job go to the daughter of one of the head office guys. She was a real cutie and very friendly. Suddenly, every guy on the floor had to go in to deliver tapes...and watch the job to make sure it ran.

The best part was that I was always in there, and she would talk to her friends on the phone about all the "dirty old men" that came in to flirt with her.
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kchidambara2

New User


Joined: 23 Nov 2011
Posts: 6
Location: chennai

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:31 am
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i have completed 4 yrs but i don't have a luck to seen Mainframe. icon_sad.gif
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umasankartt

New User


Joined: 14 Jul 2012
Posts: 10
Location: India

PostPosted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 11:08 pm
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mainframe z10 503 model with 3 processor..... 4 drive tape library,dasd, GM server and allll......
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Peter.Mann

New User


Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 10
Location: USA

PostPosted: Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:20 am
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Started out in Vo-Tech (1973) on a Univac 9300, our DR (backup) icon_smile.gif system was an IBM accounting machine, every RPG program written for the Univac had to be wired for the accounting machine, my first job was working for Sears Eastern Territorial Office in St. Davids PA, the first IBM mainframe I "worked' on was a 370/158
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