I had to laugh. How many folks know what EOL is? More now than 20 years ago I guess. I see more geek speak and I often wonder who really understands it. I am a real geek. zOS mainframe systems programmer. How about you?
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HDRams Geek OT thread
- Thread starter RV_Goose
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I had to laugh. How many folks know what EOL is? More now than 20 years ago I guess. I see more geek speak and I often wonder who really understands it. I am a real geek. zOS mainframe systems programmer. How about you?
LOL,
IBM Power Systems - AS400 (legacy speak) and Storage guy, infrastructure, migrations, upgrades, etc. started my career in 1980 in the US Army, been working on IBM gear since 1988.
I started as a keypunch operator in 1979. Got promoted to verifier within 4 months! Woohoo. Honeywell computer systems using GCOS and octal. I had a problem switching from octal to hexadecimal for my first couple of years on IBM systems 360 mod 40. 18 computer schools in 20 year active duty. Now pretty much doing automation engineering and linking client server and zOS backend. Basically making programmers dumber as they have to know less to do their jobs. At least I'm not doing binary assembler coding any more!
Oh no, Honeywell. Not the van mounted DAS3 systems was it? Level 6 model 47. I repaired those "tactical" computer systems. 3 miserable years at Ft. Riley with the Big Red One (1st ID).
LateToTheParty
Didn't want to come
I guess I'm what you guys would refer to as one of those whipper-snappers, as I started out in Cobol.
Sadly though, I've been hands-off for far too long, trying to remove the headaches to let my SMEs keep their heads down in our zOS and Connex systems. I rarely get to do anything beyond some macros or shells scripts these days.
Sadly though, I've been hands-off for far too long, trying to remove the headaches to let my SMEs keep their heads down in our zOS and Connex systems. I rarely get to do anything beyond some macros or shells scripts these days.
I don't really code, more of an infrastructure guy, but I did monkey a program in COBOL once on an IBM System 36 to do some parts inventory stuff for our unit. I can do minor source code edits and compiles, etc. but can't write code for crap.
Nope. WWMCCS.
I took the correspondence courses for CoBOL a couple of years before I got the official school. So when I went to the school, the biggest hassle was doing it the "a hook way", not the real USMC standards as it was a joint service school for all IBM facets. The most technical school was the Systems Programming course in 1992. These were all taught at Quantico Marine base.
Interesting.
I had an ex co-worker that was retired AF that claimed to have supported the old IBM 4341 Series mini-mainframes that flew their birds.
Dude was a (recovering) alcoholic. Said he used to go into the mountain with a thermos full of vodka every shift and left empty.
No Honeywell love? Started with CP-6 machines, some IBM S/34 hardware support, Sequent Balance and Symmetry machines, SGI back in the heydays, and now IBM and Cray HPC systems.
Sequent, SGI (Challenge platform) and IBM BlueGene stand out as my favorites.
Sequent, SGI (Challenge platform) and IBM BlueGene stand out as my favorites.
See my post?
I was a service engineer for a US Army logistics system (also finance/accounting systems) with Honeywell at it's core. It was a mishmash of gear. Called it DAS3
Honeywell Level6 Mod 47
CDC 40MB removable pack 14" 5 platter drives (8)
STK vacuum reel-reel 9-track tape drives
Decision Data card punch/reader
Tons of comms, BSC, SDLC, Async modems, etc.
All mounted in a 48' semi van painted green with HVAC slapped on the front.
I learned S/36 while stationed there, had one in garrison as a front end for the DAS3. When I got out, got a job doing S/34, S/36, then AS/400 engineering services (repair, installs, mods).
Still doing IBM i on Power (aka AS/400) to this day plus all things that go with it. It's like the mainframe they said would die but still going since 1988 (mainframe [now Z] has been around 50+ years). More of an SE role doing implementations, migrations, upgrades. Storage, probably 50% of my work now is implementing storage arrays and doing migrations. Minority Partner is a small business doing mom and pop stuff for years until we sold. Then worked strictly fortune 50-500 for a while but now with a merger back to everything from small shops (regional banks, etc.) to fortune 50.
I've done WIntel stuff, blade chassis, switch/route, circuits, security/firewall gear, you name it. Every time work gets a little slow someone tells me I'm a dinosaur and need to reinvent myself, then more work comes rolling in.
I did! Seemed like it might not have been one of your favorites; it was my first exposure to "real" hardware and I have a bit of a soft spot for Honeywell. Was just yanking your chain a little
Also, it seems to me that "reinventing" based on what's coming out of IT and software mills these days is unusually insistent on form over function and repeating an awful lot of mistakes the dinosaurs would be happy to share to avoid. There's quite a bit to be said for breath and depth of experience. (insert obligatory "get off my lawn!" reference here)