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0 pointsBetelbuddy1mo ago0 comments

This is the reason. IBM Mainframe business grew 60%. The modern mainframe is the best state of the art platform for computing, in both reliability and efficiency.

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ASalazarMX1mo ago

Also, IBM mainframes are wonderfully isolated from physical hardware. They could change processors in the next model, and users would notice a small delay as binaries were recompiled on-the-fly the first time it was used.

They surely could extract more performance from the hardware by shedding layers, but prioritized stability and compatibility.

rbanffy29d ago

> Also, IBM mainframes are wonderfully isolated from physical hardware. They could change processors in the next model, and users would notice a small delay as binaries were recompiled on-the-fly the first time it was used.

This was with AS/400's move from their own CISC processors to POWER. While you could pull that off with mainframes, it'd be recompiling actual native binary code. IBM mainframe architecture is very well defined and documented (sadly, unlike AS/400).

This [0] describes it in depth.

0- https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/SSQ2R2_15.0.0/com.ibm.tpf.toolki...

ASalazarMX29d ago

I stand corrected. I experienced that change, and it was seamless, but AS/400 was a midrange, not a mainframe.

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