Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 14th Apr 2010 23:51 UTC

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Because two things:
* A lot of old mainframes are still around;
why just let them die if we can update their
software stack and make them still useful instead
of being pieces of museums?
* It is done to demonstrate that it can be done. That
is the way that engineering works.
Edited 2010-04-15 15:10 UTC
A lot of old mainframes are still around;
why just let them die if we can update their
software stack and make them still useful instead
of being pieces of museums?
why just let them die if we can update their
software stack and make them still useful instead
of being pieces of museums?
Because it is much cheaper to just use modern hardware: it's cheaper in the time required to port software, cheaper to find administrators, cheaper to maintain the hardware, cheaper to license the operating system, cheaper to power the hardware, cheaper to store the hardware, and cheaper to cool the hardware.
It is done to demonstrate that it can be done. That
is how engineering works, right?
is how engineering works, right?
I don't think there are many people who have access to IBM mainframes and do things with them just because they can. It's one thing to mess around with workstations or servers, but a mainframe isn't exactly something one can usually get off Craigslist or eBay and put in his basement.
Member since:
2007-07-27
As I have shown, a modern x86 cpu is roughly 10x faster than a Mainframe CPU. Why port from fast x86 cpus, to dog slow cpus? I dont understand why you want to get 1/10th of the speed?