Linked by snydeq on Fri 12th Aug 2011 03:55 UTC
InfoWorld's Galen Gruman highlights 18 technologies that remain core to the computing experience for IT, engineers, and developers 25 to 50 years since their inception. From Cobol, to the IBM mainframe, to C, to x86, these high-tech senior citizens not only keep kicking but provide the foundations for many vital systems that keep IT humming.
Thread beginning with comment 484738
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-10-08
Thats why there are tons of cobol jobs available right now.
If you're lucky, you're the one who writes the salary into the working contract. :-)
COBOL is a language that suffers from the fact that nearly nobody can (or wants to) remember it. It's not in the scope of university or professional education. Those who are skilled in it are "old men" today. There are only few young people willing and able to code in COBOL, as it doesn't seem very attractive at first sight. But the number on the bill may justify diving more into that language that is a domain of the "greybeards". That's why it's traditionally not considered "modern" and therefore uninteresting. It still runs many important infrastructures which their users and owners are possibly about to lose control of. So they are willing to spend interesting amounts of money for those who can keep the things running.
Now try to guess what this is:
Eytsh. Eff input, I pee ieh, eff, eighty eighty ... (pause) read fourty. Eff output, oh, vee, hundredthirtytwo hundredthirtytwo, of printer.
I input, ah ah, zero one. I ... (long pause) ... one twelve hello. Oh output, tee, two, ell err. Oh ... (pause) hello twelve.
Got it?
It's RPG (Report Program Generator), a programming language that's also still around. You find it in accounting and rental services. If I remember correctly, this one even dates back to the 50's. The example above is "hello world".
Member since:2005-07-06
Mainframes are supposedly about throughput of many concurrent transactions, I/O; lots of stuff is offloaded to coprocessors. Central Processing Unit seems to have slightly different meaning in them (mainframes don't really seem to be strictly about raw CPU crunching)
Then there are claims about reliability, on-line repairs and upgrades, verifiability (they seem to basically do everything two times and compare the results, at minimum? That ought to slow things down), or security (apparently stemming from few choices about overall architecture of the machines; also can't help, at the least, with raw CPU number crunching)
Edited 2011-08-12 12:35 UTC
Member since:2007-07-27
Mainframes are supposedly about throughput of many concurrent transactions, I/O; lots of stuff is offloaded to coprocessors. Central Processing Unit seems to have slightly different meaning in them (mainframes don't really seem to be strictly about raw CPU crunching)
Yes, but maybe we can agree that IBM Mainframes have slow cpus, inferior to x86 cpus. So, you dont buy IBM Mainframes for their cpus, because they are not suited for raw number crunching. Any cheap x86 cluster is much faster at raw number crunching.
Then there are claims about reliability, on-line repairs and upgrades, verifiability (they seem to basically do everything two times and compare the results, at minimum? That ought to slow things down), or security (apparently stemming from few choices about overall architecture of the machines; also can't help, at the least, with raw CPU number crunching)
Yes, IBM has made lot of claims. For instance, the biggest Mainframe can virtualize 1.500 x86 servers. I dug more into this, and it turned out that IBM assumed all x86 servers idle, and the Mainframe is 100% loaded. That makes sense, because if any x86 server start to do some work, then the Mainframe can not cope with the fast x86 cpus.
But in my opinion, this is false marketing. Because I can boot up 10 mainframes on my PC. But it would be false of me to say "my PC can virtualize 10 IBM Mainframes". Dont you agree?
Also, there are claims that IBM Mainframes can handle 400.000 clients. I would not be surprised if IBM assume all clients to idle, and only a few of them does real work. Judging from the example above.
Regarding the Mainframes reliability. One of the largest train installation in Scandinavia: the CEO said "our IBM mainframe crashed recently, that is strange. It normally never crashes. Last time it happened were six years ago". This is a contradiction. It seems their mainframe crashes every 5 year. I can google that article if you want to read. Just tell me.
I play on both mainframes and Sun servers.
by rcsteiner on Sun 14th Aug 2011 00:39
in reply to "RE[4]: Infoworld"
Member since:2005-07-12
There's no contest. The Unisys Clearpath mainframes we use (using an airline-focused OLTP environment called HVTIP) are able to parse a screen, do several I/Os to various files, and return a response to the customer in under 30 milliseconds, and can do that with a load of more than 600 of those online transctions per second.
I'm sure IBM's OLTP architecture (TPF?) is similar. The Unisys boxes use multiple IPs and IOPs, very fast files mapped into cache, and databases (in our case something called "freespace files") which use sets of preallocated fixed-length records and are lightning fast compared to anything relational.
Member since:2005-07-22
RE: Power 7 slower than an X86?
by Kebabbert on Sat 13th Aug 2011 10:12
in reply to "Power 7 slower than an X86?"
Member since:2007-07-27
Well, my unscientific benchmarks beg to differ.
Our AIX System moves data around at a rate that Intel can only dream about.
Our workloads (using the same software) run getting on for an order of magnitude better on a twin Power 7 core than on the latest i7 based server.
Our AIX System moves data around at a rate that Intel can only dream about.
Our workloads (using the same software) run getting on for an order of magnitude better on a twin Power 7 core than on the latest i7 based server.
Well, the latest Intel Westmere-EX is only ~10% slower than the POWER7. But at a fraction of the price. Here are some benchmarks:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4285/westmereex-intels-flagship-bench...
Next year, the IvyBridge version will arrive. It will be 40% faster than the Westmere-EX, according to Intel.
Thus, x86 is catching up on POWER really fast, and next year surpasses POWER7. There are much more research in x86 (Intel and AMD), than in POWER (only IBM). Of course x86 will surpass POWER at some point in the future.
Earlier, the IBM POWER6 servers were several times faster than x86, and the POWER6 servers costed 5-10x more than x86 servers.
Today, IBM POWER7 is ~10% faster than x86 servers, and POWER7 costs only 3x more.
In the future, will the IBM POWER8 be at par with x86, or even slower? With such a slow cpu, the POWER8 must have a price similar to x86, or even be cheaper. We all know that IBM only does high margin business. If the POWER8 is as cheap as x86, why would IBM continue to invest billions in POWER cpus? IBM will start to loose money on POWER8.
Most likely, IBM will kill off POWER cpus. Just as IBM recently killed the CELL cpus. When POWER is killed off, then AIX will be killed too. AIX runs only on POWER. Coincidentally, IBM has publicly said that AIX will be killed off and replaced with Linux. This will happen when IBM start to loose money on POWER, when x86 has surpassed POWER.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-982512.html
Member since:2011-08-01
Member since:2005-07-12
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2007-07-27
That is another reason why I don't click on Infoworld links. They write complete crap.
Yes, that is questionable. It would be better to say that Linus Torvalds created the first GNU distro. Earlier, there were no kernel for the GNU operating system - so the finish student Linus Torvalds filled in that gap and created the first GNU distro. Then other GNU/Linux distros spawned, of course.
Regarding IBM Mainframes, it always surprises me that they still live, as the IBM Mainframe cpus are much slower than a fast x86 cpu. And the biggest IBM Mainframe z196 have 24 of these slow cpus, and it costs many 10s of million USD. If you have a 8-socket x86 server with Intel Westemere-EX then you have more processing power than the biggest z196 IBM Mainframe. You can emulate IBM Mainframes on you laptop with the open source emulator TurboHercules.
Here is the z196 cpu, which IBM dubbed "Worlds fastest cpu" last year. It has 5.26GHz and almost half a GB of cache (L1+L2+L3), but still it is much slower than a fast x86 cpu. How could IBM fail so miserably with the z196 transistor budget?
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32414.wss
And the old COBOL. It's not particularly sexy or hot. It is boring and ugly, only used on old dinosaurs (i.e Mainframes).