20080222 a mainframe of my own - plembo/onemoretech GitHub Wiki

title: a mainframe of my own link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/a-mainframe-of-my-own/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 557 created: 2008/02/22 23:13:33 created_gmt: 2008/02/22 23:13:33 comment_status: open post_name: a-mainframe-of-my-own status: publish post_type: post

a mainframe of my own

Ever since they let me work the hardware console of a zSeries server 7 years ago (has it been that long?) so I could install Linux on our company mainframe, I’ve wanted one of my own.

This is a screenshot of a 3270 client connected to my home workstation, now running the MVS Turnkey system inside the hercules S/390 emulator.

For this little experiment I’m using the latest generic hercules i686 rpm for linux, hercules-3.05-1.i686.rpm, and Volker Bandke’s Turnkey MVS system downloaded from Jay Maynard’s IBM Public Domain Software Collection.

Some people might ask, “Why bother? The mainframe is dead, isn’t it?”

Apart from anything else, one of the things that separates real sysadmins from the wannabes is the drive to always be learning something new.

Besides, mainframes aren’t dead. They are still a lot running out there, both in the private and public sectors. While public domain MVS may not be very popular nowadays, open source Linux for S/390 and zSeries has been deployed all over.

Now I have to get back to figuring out how to get this thing to output to my printer …