35 years of IBM i

35 years is a long time, especially in this age of fast paced change and technological progress.

The history of IBM i and its predecessors is well documented so I won’t repeat it here. Instead, here are some memories and reflections on the application server which PacSol’s own ImageView and ViewPoint document management applications are developed for.

The AS/400 was announced in 1988 whilst I was working as a young programmer at Synon in Islington, London. It was all very hush, hush and I recall people saying they knew what the new machine was called but they couldn’t tell me as it was a secret. When the name ‘AS/400’ was finally revealed I just remember thinking it was a very odd name, and what does AS stand for anyway (Application Server as it turns out).

The AS/400 replaced the IBM System/38 (and 36) which are the kind of computers you see in old action movies - a large lump of cream/grey cabinet with a small green on black character screen mounted on it. The AS/400 was different - it was (mostly) rack based. If you needed more disk, or a tape drive, you just added more racks. This modular approach came with a lot of little flashing green lights, which is always reassuring.

In the late 1990’s the processor was upgraded to RISC, and that made it go a lot faster. I heard that after upgrading, some customers complained that their overnight processing must have failed because, instead of 8 hours, the task had been completed in just 1 hour therefore something must be wrong after the migration! The new RISC processor really was a lot faster.

Scalability is a major plus for AS/400. You could have a very small system meeting the needs of your small business and also use AS/400 to run a bank (as many do today). The same software would run both, the same operations, the same backup strategy. Another major plus for AS/400 was its built-in database. This was easy to use and manage whilst being rock solid - we never worried about reliability, it all just worked.

RPG is the default programming language for AS/400. I didn’t like it much so used PL/1 instead, and then C when it became available. It would have been nice if C++ were available earlier, but I had migrated to Java by that time. There are many more choices of programming language for IBM i today but I stick to Java (much to the derision of my nephew - hopefully he will have a nephew that will pass on the compliment in like fashion).

The AS/400 may have changed its name several times and the processing speed /capacity increased massively over the last 35 years but the core strengths remain the same: All the power you need, all the stability you need and all the technology you need for any size of organisation.

 Mark Wheadon, Managing Director. June 2023

 

 

 

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