Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Wolfgang]

I am not so sure about the "sane". People in a "group therapy" thread might have one or the other slight anomaly. 

[mnementh]

mnem
Alternately, Dusseldorf.

[Wolfgang]

An engineer without a hefty spleen is miserably incomplete. 

[Cerebus]

... reminds me of the Daimler Benz "Maybach" super luxury cars.

If you want people to know what you're referring back to you're going to have to add at least a tiny quote to help them. This is not a solipsistic universe, we do not all know what message you were thinking about when you wrote this and if it's more than an hour or two back in our own personal reading history we probably won't figure it out without active searching, and most people won't bother to do that. If one makes readers work to understand one, generally they won't and one won't get read.

You got away with it this time, just, but I noticed a few pages back that you were replying to things that were themselves sufficiently far back that I didn't have a clue what you were replying to. General rule: if the message you're replying to isn't the one immediately above yours, put just enough quote on to provide context.

[Cerebus]

Alternately, Dusseldorf.

Old Street, via Oxford Circus.

[bd139]

Mornington Crescent!

[mnementh]

Alternately, Dusseldorf.

Old Street, via Oxford Circus.

Mornington Crescent!

Not during rush hour! You'll be lucky to escape with your hubcaps; the A501 is crawling with lumbering dinosaur buses just looking for metros to snack on!

mnem
They took my thumbs.

[Wolfgang]

Sorry for forgetting the quotes. I promise to improve on that.

[med6753]

In the old times IBM was always bragging with the numbers of computers they sold and how clearly they outclassed theit competitors.

When it came to low-end and mid-range systems....yes, IBM boasted numbers sold. But when it comes to mainframes always been somewhat tight lipped about numbers sold, although it was obvious they owned the market.

There was a time when even the mainframe final test cycle time was confidential. (Depending upon model was anywhere from a week to 2 weeks or more). Today it's even posted in the final test area for visiting tours to see. Approx 2.5 days.

[Wolfgang]

In the old times IBM was always bragging with the numbers of computers they sold and how clearly they outclassed theit competitors.

When it came to low-end and mid-range systems....yes, IBM boasted numbers sold. But when it comes to mainframes always been somewhat tight lipped about numbers sold, although it was obvious they owned the market.

There was a time when even the mainframe final test cycle time was confidential. (Depending upon model was anywhere from a week to 2 weeks or more). Today it's even posted in the final test area for visiting tours to see. Approx 2.5 days.

I found some info about the revenue from 2006 to 2018 here:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/23/ibm-is-enjoying-the-strongest-mainframe-cycle-in-y.aspx

Its cyclic, like any tech business working in releases. When you average the curve out, it looks like a rather flat line, not exponentially growing as cloud computing and the other new hype stuff. They also mentioned that only 11% of IBMs revenue is coming from mainframes. Now compare that to the old times ! What a change !!

[med6753]

In the old times IBM was always bragging with the numbers of computers they sold and how clearly they outclassed theit competitors.

When it came to low-end and mid-range systems....yes, IBM boasted numbers sold. But when it comes to mainframes always been somewhat tight lipped about numbers sold, although it was obvious they owned the market.

There was a time when even the mainframe final test cycle time was confidential. (Depending upon model was anywhere from a week to 2 weeks or more). Today it's even posted in the final test area for visiting tours to see. Approx 2.5 days.

I found some info about the revenue from 2006 to 2018 here:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/23/ibm-is-enjoying-the-strongest-mainframe-cycle-in-y.aspx

Its cyclic, like any tech business working in releases. When you average the curve out, it looks like a rather flat line, not exponentially growing as cloud computing and the other new hype stuff. They also mentioned that only 11% of IBMs revenue is coming from mainframes. Now compare that to the old times ! What a change !!

Yep, but it only talks about percent growth....not actual numbers nor which models of the Z14 are sold. And yes, the mainframe business as part of IBM's total business is rather small (but still very important) compared to the glory years of the 1960's through 1980's.

[mnementh]

In the old times IBM was always bragging with the numbers of computers they sold and how clearly they outclassed theit competitors.

When it came to low-end and mid-range systems....yes, IBM boasted numbers sold. But when it comes to mainframes always been somewhat tight lipped about numbers sold, although it was obvious they owned the market.

There was a time when even the mainframe final test cycle time was confidential. (Depending upon model was anywhere from a week to 2 weeks or more). Today it's even posted in the final test area for visiting tours to see. Approx 2.5 days.

I found some info about the revenue from 2006 to 2018 here:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/23/ibm-is-enjoying-the-strongest-mainframe-cycle-in-y.aspx

Its cyclic, like any tech business working in releases. When you average the curve out, it looks like a rather flat line, not exponentially growing as cloud computing and the other new hype stuff. They also mentioned that only 11% of IBMs revenue is coming from mainframes. Now compare that to the old times ! What a change !!

Well, they had to rotate out all the priesthood from that generation in an orderly fashion due to pretty ironclad contracts; though they have gotten a fair bit of bad press and litigation in the last decade or so for deliberately not renewing experienced staff who really should have been kept on in favor of the PFYs they've been hiring to replace them at half the salary.

But then, that's pretty universal, unless you're "Too big to fail" like GM and can get away with declaring bankruptcy without really going bankrupt, just to get out from under the pension fund debt left behind by previous CEOs who pillaged it like it was their personal piggy bank... 

mnem
"The 'machine' you need to worry about destroying the world is not made of metal and circuits; it is made of bureaucracy and sociopaths." ~me

[mnementh]

Mornington Crescent!

Wait a minute... are you talking about the street or the Radio game? If the latter, I believe your strategy is flawed and likely an illegal move, for at least three turns...

mnem

[Wolfgang]

In the old times IBM was always bragging with the numbers of computers they sold and how clearly they outclassed theit competitors.

When it came to low-end and mid-range systems....yes, IBM boasted numbers sold. But when it comes to mainframes always been somewhat tight lipped about numbers sold, although it was obvious they owned the market.

There was a time when even the mainframe final test cycle time was confidential. (Depending upon model was anywhere from a week to 2 weeks or more). Today it's even posted in the final test area for visiting tours to see. Approx 2.5 days.

I found some info about the revenue from 2006 to 2018 here:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/07/23/ibm-is-enjoying-the-strongest-mainframe-cycle-in-y.aspx

Its cyclic, like any tech business working in releases. When you average the curve out, it looks like a rather flat line, not exponentially growing as cloud computing and the other new hype stuff. They also mentioned that only 11% of IBMs revenue is coming from mainframes. Now compare that to the old times ! What a change !!

Yep, but it only talks about percent growth....not actual numbers nor which models of the Z14 are sold. And yes, the mainframe business as part of IBM's total business is rather small (but still very important) compared to the glory years of the 1960's through 1980's.

If you dont give actual sales numbers its normally because you want to present youself stronger than you really are. If the numbers are strong and all curves are going up, its a cheap argument to show. The impression they would like to avoid at all cost is that you bet on a doomed platform, but I'm afraid that by all means the island they are living on is a shrinking one - cost is enormous, development money must be shared between a shrinking user base, know-is fading, ... its not a surprise that none of the younger IT people  I know  ever wants to work on this machinery. On the other hand I know a lot of (aged, retired) freelancers making good money in keeping vintage systems running.

[med6753]

If you dont give actual sales numbers its normally because you want to present youself stronger than you really are. If the numbers are strong and all curves are going up, its a cheap argument to show. The impression they would like to avoid at all cost is that you bet on a doomed platform, but I'm afraid that by all means the island they are living on is a shrinking one - cost is enormous, development money must be shared between a shrinking user base, know-is fading, ... its not a surprise that none of the younger IT people  I know  ever wants to work on this machinery. On the other hand I know a lot of (aged, retired) freelancers making good money in keeping vintage systems running.

Yep, just like the naysayers declared the mainframe "dead" and a "dinosaur" back in the early 1990's. The wave of the future was "distributed processing" where data would be available on low end servers and PC's. The industry believed these idiots and it did nearly kill the mainframe market. And what a total bunch of horseshit distributed processing turned out to be. And another factor that nearly killed the mainframe was technology. Up through 3090 mainframe the circuitry was transistor bi-polar. Fast but requires enormous amounts of power and cooling. The next generation machine was already in design when it was apparent that it was going to be a power and cooling monster. It was cancelled in favor of going with CMOS designs. Slower but required much less power and cooling. It took many years to develop that technology to where it is today.

And point of fact...present day....The latest model of Z series is selling like IBM is giving it away. Will it last? Dunno, but I do know there's more to come. So those "experts" who call it a dead legacy and a doomed platform have no clue. 

[mnementh]

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/277818-pentagon-will-only-accept-proposals-for-military-cloud-network-on-dvd

Perhaps they've finally been forgiven by these guys? I hear the staff at Guugle is walking out on active contracts in protest...

mnem
I miss living in a world where I could still laugh at this...

[Wolfgang]

If you dont give actual sales numbers its normally because you want to present youself stronger than you really are. If the numbers are strong and all curves are going up, its a cheap argument to show. The impression they would like to avoid at all cost is that you bet on a doomed platform, but I'm afraid that by all means the island they are living on is a shrinking one - cost is enormous, development money must be shared between a shrinking user base, know-is fading, ... its not a surprise that none of the younger IT people  I know  ever wants to work on this machinery. On the other hand I know a lot of (aged, retired) freelancers making good money in keeping vintage systems running.

Yep, just like the naysayers declared the mainframe "dead" and a "dinosaur" back in the early 1990's. The wave of the future was "distributed processing" where data would be available on low end servers and PC's. The industry believed these idiots and it did nearly kill the mainframe market. And what a total bunch of horseshit distributed processing turned out to be. And another factor that nearly killed the mainframe was technology. Up through 3090 mainframe the circuitry was transistor bi-polar. Fast but requires enormous amounts of power and cooling. The next generation machine was already in design when it was apparent that it was going to be a power and cooling monster. It was cancelled in favor of going with CMOS designs. Slower but required much less power and cooling. It took many years to develop that technology to where it is today.

And point of fact...present day....The latest model of Z series is selling like IBM is giving it away. Will it last? Dunno, but I do know there's more to come. So those "experts" who call it a dead legacy and a doomed platform have no clue. 

Well, I have worked with IBM mainframes from the beginning of the 90ies (yes, I'm old). I was working for the insurance industry (slow, risk-averse, rich at the times, conservative like hell). There were mainframes and nothing else. IT departments were hierarchical monoliths, the tools for your applications were COBOL, CICS and DB2, and that was it.
We implemented our last mainframe based administration application at the end of 1999. From then on, all was developped on PCs and was multi-platform.
Now make a fast forward towards 2018. *All* of the insurance customers we had have discontinued their mainframe use. The arguments were always the same: IBM drove up the maintenance costs for their legacy licenses up in an incredible way, and other platforms (using Oracle, C++, Java, Web GUIs)  were a lot more develop friendly than what IBM tried to sell you as "the future" (z Machines with plugged-on "innovations"). Except for the very big cat companies, their mainframes became a niche market.

Regarding z14, IBM is at the beginning of a new cycle. A look at the graph shows how the other cycles have performed. When new, everything sells well (probably using some good deals), but the long run is what counts. What could be result is that you get the /370 architecture stuff as an add-on to a modern (what CPU ?) high-availability server in future and not vice versa.

I am prepared to bet for a box (20 bottles) of premium Bavarian beer (Augustiner Edelstoff) if one of the following statements is false in 5 years:
- the share of the revenue based on the z Series will be below 7%
- IBM will focus even more on KI, Cloud, ... In order to gain market share, their solutions will be made available on all major platforms, not just z Series.
- z Hardware will be replaced by other emulating CPUs and FPGAs because the shrinking numbers dont  justify proprietary chips.

What about it ?

[med6753]

I'm old too. Between being an active employee with IBM and then a retiree/contract employee I have nearly 46 years with them. I'm done in January. At that point I won't give a rat's ass.  So no, I won't take you up on your bet because in 5 years I'll be totally clueless.    

[bd139]

Personal belief: Linux on POWER will eat everyone’s arseholes in the enterprise side of things in the next decade.

[Wolfgang]

I'm old too. Between being an active employee with IBM and then a retiree/contract employee I have nearly 46 years with them. I'm done in January. At that point I won't give a rat's ass.  So no, I won't take you up on your bet because in 5 years I'll be totally clueless.    

Only fair. I have a beer on you now. Cheers ! What crazy stuff are you going to do next after you retire ?

[mnementh]

(SNIP)
I am prepared to bet for a box (20 bottles) of premium Bavarian beer (Augustiner Edelstoff) if one of the following statements is false in 5 years:
- the share of the revenue based on the z Series will be below 7%
- IBM will focus even more on KI, Cloud, ... In order to gain market share, their solutions will be made available on all major platforms, not just z Series.
- z Hardware will be replaced by other emulating CPUs and FPGAs because the shrinking numbers dont  justify proprietary chips.

What about it ?

I'll take that bet. But we have to meet somewhere and drink it together.

mnem
Win-Win.

[Wolfgang]

Personal belief: Linux on POWER will eat everyone’s arseholes in the enterprise side of things in the next decade.

For the Linux, its is very likely, but I think it will overrun *all* server plaforms, not just Power.

[med6753]

I'm old too. Between being an active employee with IBM and then a retiree/contract employee I have nearly 46 years with them. I'm done in January. At that point I won't give a rat's ass.  So no, I won't take you up on your bet because in 5 years I'll be totally clueless.    

Only fair. I have a beer on you now. Cheers ! What crazy stuff are you going to do next after you retire ?

Become even more grouchy than I am already and fill this f..king place with TEA. 

[bd139]

That’s my retirement plan too 

Talking of which, been stalking my 87V from pikey post office to here. Nearly here \o/ (edit: actually less than three miles from my door at the moment - probably go to shit now)

[mnementh]

I'm old too. Between being an active employee with IBM and then a retiree/contract employee I have nearly 46 years with them. I'm done in January. At that point I won't give a rat's ass.  So no, I won't take you up on your bet because in 5 years I'll be totally clueless.    

Only fair. I have a beer on you now. Cheers ! What crazy stuff are you going to do next after you retire ?

Become even more grouchy than I am already and fill this f..king place with TEA. 

I was young and grouchy all my life. I'm trying to mend my ways; be old and fractious... maybe even bubbly. 

mnem
Honey, where are my PA-A-Ants?