IBM AS/400 The Best Architecture In The World 1992

IBM AS/400 The Best Architecture In The World 1992
Presented by Malcom Haines
Includes "Don't Hang Up" and "Extending Your Competitive Edge"

[@zjones9876]

I started my career in payroll processing on an AS/400 system in the mid 90s at a Fortune 100 company. The software did have a steep learning curve to be sure but it was solid as a rock. It never crashed, never had any bugs, and always did exactly what it was supposed to do. Even when we had way too many users running way too many processes it may have slowed down but it always always always got the job done. I can't recall a single time we ever had an issue with uptime.

[@jtc1947]

YOU WERE LUCKY! Our machine had 3 of 6 disks to fail and even the IBM tech was astonished. 1 or 2 might have been normal but 3 at the same time was unheard of.

[@sound-ur1bq]

Simply the best operating system, supporting an embeded unix env, a db2 engine and a virtualization at the os level that makes it able to incorporate any new tech without disruption of applications (it started with a 16 bit cpu but 48 bits addressing from the get go), no migration trouble, you can run 30 years old prgrams etc. The best

[@jaworskij]

34:50 - That CallPath/400 story literally brough tears to my eyes. I'm a IBM fan since elem. school Grade 1 (1972) and I have never seen anything as good as this before. This is the IBM I loved in the 1990s.

[@malcolmcatling9331]

Great video from Malcolm Haines back in the day. I was one of the IBM SE leads for the AS400 when it was announced in 1988 and Malcolm was one of the engineers involved. The AS400 was a development from the System 38 which used the same arhitecture and design principals. Great system which is still the best for general purpose business use.

[@johncongerton7046]

I spent most of 36 years on the S/38 As/400 and IBM i. Loved it - it had the most loyal community of any platform

[@Thebrainymonkey]

What a blast from the past! This was the first job I did at View Point after I left University. Quite a palaver back in the day as all the compositing was done live with one of the first Ultimatte machines. I created all the graphics on a Quantel Paintbox. Malcom came back in 1997 I think and we did a 'digitally remastered' version with all new 3D graphics. Colin was fun as always. I may still have the VHS tape somewhere. Remember, practice safe hex.

[@lawrenceshadai4966]

I love this- clear but fun explanation of WHY AS400 is the way it is.

[@michaeldavis6607]

I’m working on one now and I’m 60. Still love it

[@bbuggediffy]

So they built Salesforce when I was in Kindergarden... as400 sounded amazing 😊

[@tightcamper]

In the early 90s I was lead engineer of a mobile phone start up. I wanted a billing system running on a DEC VAX but was forced to use an IBM AS400. I sulked big time and gave everyone a hard time over it. Later I managed to change to a distributed PC running UNIX. That cost me my job! Decades later I have revisited the AS400 and see my immature mistake. I was a reckless fool.

[@adamsteele6148]

I was a wreckless fool at 20

[@davidmontague9125]

Lovely to be reminded of Malcolm’s style and the elegance and sophistication of the integrated design.(which is where the ‘i’ came from).

[@rich_in_paradise]

This video is as humourous as IBM gets

[@pianoman4Jesus]

David Barnes's OS/2 Nun Commercial was also right up there...

[@m7dgz]

This is brilliant! "Safe Hex", imagine IBM of 2024 being willing to put out something like this

[@illini0403]

The product we created was called Sequel and we had over 10,000 customers worldwide. It was a lot of fun.

[@WhoaNick]

Are you still in this line of work?

[@Thornspyre81]

I'm STILL using As400 at my job in Inventory Control. :sigh:

[@titaGrace]

Hi Thomas, can i ask what is the difficulty you experienced using AS400? I need a little help for my research paper but can't find much info about using this system.

[@Thornspyre81]

@@titaGrace I'd be happy to help. I will touch base in a few hours, I'm just now laying down to go to sleep.

[@titaGrace]

@@Thornspyre81...oooh, thank you so much. Advantages or disadvantages u want to share about using it. Any infos will do. Have a good rest :)

[@horrifiedheartlander]

the AS400 is to the current day the ultimate and most elegant development tool of data based management systems, at least in systems application if not power of processing output. In '92, IBM was a mainstay of portfolio equity for the global rich. It no longer is precisely because an over-diversified behomoth that had become a disorganized and inefficient dinosaur failed to provide proper support and marketing for many of its outstanding products and services.

[@badscrew4023]

"And the purpose of the underwear is to protect you and your software from changing hardware characteristics" This guy knows his stuff

[@illini0403]

Brilliant. I lived from the s/38 to as400 to miseries. Our database software worked on all platforms with very few modifications.

[@roodborstkalf9664]

Something went horribly wrong within IBM that they were not able to build on the success of the AS/400 in the last 25 years. They had the best product for company software that was using databases by far. It's only in the last five years that we have PC-systems that are comparable in reliability to the AS/400 in the early 90's.

[@yorkan213swd6]

Which ones ?

[@antiv]

After watching this entire video I LOVE AS/400 even though I barely know what it is.

[@Centar1964]

This is friggin hilarious! BUT VERY GOOD Somewhere we have forgotten these important facts...

[@wmrieker]

I wondered what was in those things! Did Hoover get a product placement in this film?

[@scottperryman5664]

Funny how our computer systems today do not work this well and you have to pay monthly/annually. Thank you SaaS

[@ecsyntric]

30yrs we are still promising the same things

[@williamcorcoran8842]

IBM is an absolute brute force innovator.

[@moezbouchaala2730]

This is really awsome , I just need now training to know how to work with the OS/400

[@christophcuscoleca7486]

our school ist teaching it...

[@dumaguetedreaming]

This was my programming language in 2000.

[@biukucanoe]

still looking for youtube explanation of how oddball as/400 works I grew up with HP 3000 and VAX and DG MV/8000

[@larrybolhuis1049]

Whooda thunk we'd need more than 280TB of data? But true to his word, IBM extended that to (approx) 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! (2^128)

[@viovuu5042]

ok guys i dont know this AS400 was so old, i just googled this and landed here, we have a AS400 systems running for one customer and iseries too, but those machines are much more capable of what we are discussing here. do any one have more clarity on this?

[@jtc1947]

There might be 1 thing about the A/S 400 that people did not know? At the time that our company purchased an A/S 400. We did NOT know that ALL A/S 400's used the same chip set processor. Only if You bought the "TOP of the line A/S 400" Could You get all the power & speed available to the unit. IBM (unethically) installed SOFTWARE to cripple the performance of the unit that we had. We had to lease software from a company on the ISLE of MAN to be able to run our A/S 400 at a good speed. IBM could not sue makers of this software but it was very annoying to have a crippled machine.

[@brianmorrison6636]

You use the amount of processor that you have paid to use. How is that unethical? Using software to circumvent processor capping, is that not unethical?

[@illini0403]

As a software company we copied IBMs tiered pricing models. Companies with smaller models got in cheaper than companies with large models. Companies didn't have issue with this.

[@travis1240]

on the plus side though, you could literally download more CPU (and it would work) :)

[@jtc1947]

@@travis1240 "DOWNLOAD more CPU?? Not sure what You mean by THAT???

[@travis1240]

@@jtc1947 There have always been scam programs that you could run on Windows to "make your CPU faster" or "download RAM". With the IBM I (and z) you could buy software that would remove the delay loops, and actually increase your performance. The first "increase your performance" type program that actually worked :)

[@wesley00042]

46:00 I bet those cops have got SCMODS

[@capability-snob]

🤣🤣💀 it's giving Monty Python I'm more familliar with EROS than AS/400 (it also had a SLS and capabilities aka "object orientation") but I'm hoping that 40 years later consumer systems will eventually catch up 🙃

[@dave4shmups]

What kind of software is the guy named "Roger" using at 36:05??

[@JeffTiberend]

I just don't get how IBM got AS/400 so right and OS/2 just horribly.

[@gabrieldavis2795]

Under ware

[@fujifrontier]

Mannn he made me so drowsy lol

[@hikeoganessian1482]

too noisy

[@qaon5748]

Um I have an amd 8 core fx with Windows 10 which blows this as400 outta the water on every level

[@fnsmike]

Sure, 25 years later. Meanwhile, this architecture has evolved into the POWER7 line that Watson uses.

[@latimeralder1]

Show me you had it 25 years ago.

[@torbjornappehl]

even power9 as the largest super computer in the world uses

[@BigJon1949]

Really? Can it handle 1,000 concurrent users?

[@christophcuscoleca7486]

Well, you can have a 256 Core Power 9 machine.. that eats every windows server for breakfast... side dish.