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Buying an IBM Mainframe

blog.mainframe.dev

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Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#21

Post by dx034 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #18
glogla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty solid space heater.

Very inefficient though. But solid!

Is it inefficient? Some of the energy will be converted to light, but all the rest should be converted to heat? If you need constant heating and use electricity for heating, wouldn't a mainframe be as efficient as any other heating?

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#22

Post by sliken »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #18
glogla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty solid space heater.

Very inefficient though. But solid!

Actually it's 100% efficient in terms of converting electricity into heat. Anything that consumes electricity is near 100% efficient at generating heat. If you tried really hard you could build a very efficient laser and send heat outside the room, so not 100% would end up in the room. Even then the majority of heat will be dissipated in the room.

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#23

Post by Tor3 »

dx034 wrote: post #21
quickthrower2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very inefficient though. But solid!

Is it inefficient? Some of the energy will be converted to light, but all the rest should be converted to heat? If you need constant heating and use electricity for heating, wouldn't a mainframe be as efficient as any other heating?

It would. Unless you could replace the electric heating with a heatpump though - then you would get more heat out of each kW you put in. But replacing an old-fashioned electric wall heater with a 1700 W mainframe would be totally equivalent. So no, a 1700 W computer isn't more 'inefficient' than a wall heater of the same wattage. The light is neglible and it too ends up as heat anyway.

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#24

Post by sliken »

dx034 wrote: post #21
quickthrower2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very inefficient though. But solid!

Is it inefficient? Some of the energy will be converted to light, but all the rest should be converted to heat? If you need constant heating and use electricity for heating, wouldn't a mainframe be as efficient as any other heating?

Heh, exactly. Even the light will quickly be turned into heat once it hits something. Sure some might escape through a window, but that's going to be vanishingly small amount of the total energy.

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#27

Post by trasz »

dx034 wrote: post #20
new4thaccount wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you Google around a bit, mainframes are pretty expensive, but have very high up times and other benefits.

Can't you get to that uptime with a well-configured cluster? I tried to find more information but couldn't find any other reasons why mainframes would still be the best option for a newly designed system?

IIRC the mainframe uptimes are for the cluster („sysplex”) anyway.

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#28

Post by lexs »

_lbaq wrote: post #8
cominous wrote: post #4

Is it just for the fun or is there actually a legit use case for having a mainframe at home apart from accelerating climate change?

I think its a great career niche to be fluent in everything Mainframe, they are still used in critical places and will be for the foreseeable future and they are largely overlooked as a opportunity. So if you want to work in this niche, having your own Mainframe will greatly speed up learning the system. It probably also looks awesome when you market yourself. So all in all, 25k USD for kickstarting a potentially ver…

I think we have very different definitions of "a bargain".

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#29

Post by bluecmd »

kev009 wrote: post #14

It's a lot cheaper in to do this in the US and with a long term view, my total outlay was under $3000 for a z800, z114, ds6800 all in with transportation. I also temporarily had two DS8870s but resold them because they were worth a lot more than I paid and I will pick up another for cheaper over the course of this year. Both of my frames have HMCs, the z114 was even IBM banded and "MSQ" maintenance service qualified…

Hi kev! Thanks for your comments, you are 100% right. Yes, living in the states make this hobby waaay easier. The surplus auctions help as well, having various goverments with various languages going in Europe does not make it as easy :-).

Was $3000 your outlay for the system + the DS6800? Or just the shipping? That is a great find in that case!

I just want to correct a small thing: You need SEs (the frame mounted laptops), you do not actually need an HMC as far as I know. Do you have any information that tells another story? If so I will update the article.

Thanks again!

Re: Buying an IBM Mainframe

#30

Post by bluecmd »

_lbaq wrote: post #8
cominous wrote: post #4

Is it just for the fun or is there actually a legit use case for having a mainframe at home apart from accelerating climate change?

I think its a great career niche to be fluent in everything Mainframe, they are still used in critical places and will be for the foreseeable future and they are largely overlooked as a opportunity. So if you want to work in this niche, having your own Mainframe will greatly speed up learning the system. It probably also looks awesome when you market yourself. So all in all, 25k USD for kickstarting a potentially ver…

Hi, author here. Spot on! It is pretty common to see mainframe courses for $10k each - so given how much I hope to learn I kind of justify the cost just on that. Now, I do not expect to change to work on mainframes full time, but maybe it can grow into a side gig? Who knows! I do enjoy the process anyhow so it feels like a win-win :-).

Thanks for reading!

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