The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
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Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#2Now there's a blast from the past! I'm the "13-year-old 8th grade son" in the testimonials!
Hercules is pretty neat, and, for a very portable pure emulator, is reasonably quick as well. I definitely recommend giving MVS 3.8j a spin since it's readily (and legally) available.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#3Wow. The tron guy. That's a blast from the past. It takes guts to see your dream through like that.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#4Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop.
The platform has a big image problem. I personally blame IBM for not maintaining relationships with their education customers in the early 80s. The high cost of the hardware drove universities to adopt the new and exciting (ie cheaper) distributed platforms, and thus breeding a generation of distributed-minded graduates never even hearing about the mainframe platform except in history books. I know, because I was one of them.
Now the industry is now facing an exodous of their mainframe experts as most near retirment. The average age is something like 55-60, ready to retire [2]. There just isn't any young, talented mainframers being educated. IBM has realized this, and they've started the "IBM Academic Initative" to partner with schools and incorporate mainframe into their curriculum. It's a start, but the damage is done.
The technology, however, is top notch. The closed-source software/hardware model provides a lot of performance gains over the open source model. z/OS is updated every year and IBM releases new, faster hardware every year. And it's not always more expensive. An EC10 can consolidate several racks of Linux blades into its zVM hypervisor (btw IBM has been doing virtualization for 30+ years) while processing 145,000 credit card transactions per second into a single refrigerator-size machine 24x7x365.
If you are looking for a new career, consider mainframe [3]. It's the backbone of financial, retail and data processing industries. It may not be as glamorous, but it's not going anywhere. And when all that old mainframe talent retires, you can write your own check.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Maynard [2]: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2010-08-03/big-tech-prob... [3]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/01/30/kids-see-a-f...
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#5Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…
Getting into mainframes is damn near impossible without fluking into an apprenticeship, is the problem.
Taking the IBM courses to fully qualify as a dinosaur herder costs as much as a computer science degree.
The other problem: kids aren't dreaming of maintaining 360 assembler, COBOL or PL/I applications.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#6Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…
The university I studied at was sponsored by Sun, before they were bought by Oracle. Oracle no longer had any desire to support universities. So the university looked around and IBM gladly picked up where Sun left: They donated (or sold for a low price) a mainframe to the university. Students now can play on the mainframe.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#7Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…
Getting into mainframes is damn near impossible without fluking into an apprenticeship, is the problem. Taking the IBM courses to fully qualify as a dinosaur herder costs as much as a computer science degree. The other problem: kids aren't dreaming of maintaining 360 assembler, COBOL or PL/I applications.
The IBM System z Remote Development Programs (zRDP) [1] costs a little less than $600 per month, and gives you access to a system sufficiently robust for learning. I don't know how it would work to have multiple IDs for multiple people on the same subscription. But if you can trust everyone in a group of 10-20, and work out a shared access schedule, then it can be quite affordable. You might need to come up with some development project as a stated reason to join, but that is easy enough.
[1] http://dtsc.dfw.ibm.com/MVSDS/%27HTTPD2.ENROL.PUBLIC.SHTML%2...
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting into mainframes is damn near impossible without fluking into an apprenticeship, is the problem. Taking the IBM courses to fully qualify as a dinosaur herder costs as much as a computer science degree. The other problem: kids aren't dreaming of maintaining 360 assembler, COBOL or PL/I applications.
The IBM System z Remote Development Programs (zRDP) [1] costs a little less than $600 per month, and gives you access to a system sufficiently robust for learning. I don't know how it would work to have multiple IDs for multiple people on the same subscription. But if you can trust everyone in a group of 10-20, and work out a shared access schedule, then it can be quite affordable. You might need to come up with some…
It appears to be a test platform for ISVs, not a training program.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#9Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…
As someone who has spent a few years with zLinux, the "several racks of blades with zero downtime" is a story, but it's not always reality, shall we say. Good platforms, but you need to scrutinise the price:performance quite carefully.
Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
#10Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…
> The closed-source software/hardware model provides a lot of performance gains over the open source model.
Wait, what? If they changed the license right now to an opensource one, the software and hardware wouldn't slow down at all because of that.