Yesterday, Sunday June 21 2026, was the 38th anniversary of when the ancestor of the IBM Power and IBM i, AS/400, was first announced. Excitement was high as the advancements made to create AS/400 were ground breaking, many other maufactures spent years developing the equivalent technologies into their hardware and software.
Over the past 38 years a lot has changed, the AS/400 evolved through different forms, and names, before becoming the IBM Power server back in 2008.
Does this mean that the "AS/400" is old and outdated? The Power servers can run several different operating system, including IBM i. With the modern IBM i operating system we can emulate the AS/400, and this advanced operating system can do so much more than the AS/400, and its operating system OS/400, ever could.
I think I did a good job describing this history for the 35th anniversary. If you are interested in learning more what AS/400 was, and what it has become, read the story here.
Happy birthday IBM Power and IBM i! May you have many more!
I remember sunsetting the System 38 and firing up the AS400. My nightly batch processing went from several hours to about 20 minutes once on the AS400. I was stunned at how fast and improved the AS400 platform was over its predecessors.
ReplyDelete