Up until 18 months ago, we had a billion dollar, as in giga, customer running
on MP2003s using OS/390 1.3. If we had told them that they would have to
upgrade to a current operating system based on IBM's support schedule along
with the corresponding hardware upgrade, we would never have made that sale in
1999 nor been gainfully employed providing support for the past decade and a
half.
Pontificate all you want but those of us whose organizations and jobs depend on
serving the customer within his political and financial constraints make no
apology for doing so.
BTW, when did making a profit become ignominious?
-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-
l...@listserv.uga.edu] On Behalf Of Andreas F. Geissbuehler
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 6:55 PM
To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Length question
quoting John Gilmore's
I of course expected this response. Litanies in defense of the old
and familiar are recurrent here, but repetition does not make them
meritorious. They are of a piece with the suspiciously repetitive,
insular, risk-averse, mediocre notions that are ruining, have indeed
largely ruined, the mainframe, a splendid platform that is now used
in
mostly ignominious ways.
Sir John, even you and me, for that matter 99.99 % of us
consumers, we don't waste much thought about the sheer beauty of the
processor's architecture when we turn up the thermostat, skip a track
on our MP3 player or withdraw some cash at an ATM.
S/360 Architecture lovers, the 0.01 % exception, they enjoy
playing with MVS 3.8j running at 10x the speed of an IBM 370/168 on
their own PC, something which 99.99 % of the population doesn't
understand... :)
Andreas F. Geissbuehler
