How "Home Brew" Email Servers Work, if you're 87 years old
-
An email server such as the one Hillary Clinton used may conjure up an image of refrigerator-sized machines and tangled wires,
It may? For who!? Was this written by a person whose sole experience with computers was watching the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project?
Pictured: Hillary Clinton's private email server, console 1 of 367but the home brew server used during Clinton's tenure as secretary of state is likely no bigger than a desktop computer.
Whaaa! For the incredibly demanding task of serving up emails?! UNBELIEVABLE!
-
-
home brew server
-
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Wow, blast from the past. I hadn't thought of that movie in, probably, more than 30 years — and then only because I knew a guy in college whose name was Forbin and called his computer Colossus.
-
Nice jugs?
-
-
If you look under his right elbow, you can just make out what might be an onion attached to where his belt should be.
-
It could totally be that big if you built it by hand.
It totally is even if you don't.Our AS400 servers are still fully functional, including delivering emails via terminal interface.
The techs thought it was the absolute coolest feature one could have when they implemented a personal "notepad" that could hold nine pages of text (about 210 characters per page or so) that you could call up at any time by hitting the special "Attn" key.
-
The techs thought it was the absolute coolest feature one could have when they implemented a personal "notepad" that could hold nine pages of text (about 210 characters per page or so) that you could call up at any time by hitting the special "Attn" key.
What year was this?
-
What year was this?
IIRC, the first version of this feature was promoted to production circa 2003.
-
-
I simultaneously bless you for having the foresight to do so and curse you for having that ability.
Apparently we're so darned engrossed in our home-built system that nobody wants to slay the baby.
-
I simultaneously bless you for having the foresight to do so and curse you for having that ability.
Apparently we're so darned engrossed in our home-built system that nobody wants to slay the baby.If management had enforced the use of features in the software I maintain, our AS400 could have been shut down 6 months ago. As it is, everyone just wants to keep using what they know. At least until the events in my latest Lounge topic come to fruition. Then they won't have a choice.
-
Shit, that's what my computer looks like.
-
We have an AS400.
I have no idea what it's for, but I hear about us needing to reboot it from time to time. I think it runs some legacy applications I'm not involved with.
-
Here's a screenshot of the system as is today, we now have a 34x13x10 space for which to have notes (A whole 4420 characters ZOMG!).
needing to reboot it from time to time
Yes, ours is actually scheduled to go down every night at 22:00 (At least, according to the FIREMAN user).
-
Yes, ours is actually scheduled to go down every night at 22:00 (At least, according to the FIREMAN user).
You can walk into a place like Micro Center or Autozone and they do item lookups on...terminal emulators attached to AS400s or whatever, because they just keep on running, and it would cost a lot to replace.
-
Well....that has to be some sort of record for a Mediocre Poster badge...
-
Where the hell are the Roll Up and Roll Down keys?
-
AS400s are popular in healthcare. Because they run Siemens MedSeries software.
And the old desk-sized ones, to be fair, were reliable as shit. You could open the door and just start yanking disks and cables out and it would not crash.
-
Our AS400 servers are still fully functional, including delivering emails via terminal interface.
AS400's are everywhere still. If it is a big, old, company, there is probably at least one still kicking around there somewhere. Even Bill Gates liked them. In the early 90's, he expressed interest in buying up that division of IBM when they had talked about splitting up Big Blue.
-
I think IBM finally sold them off to Lenovo, but it took ages. IIRC I read a story about that happening a couple months ago.
-
-
I think IBM finally sold them off to Lenovo, but it took ages. IIRC I read a story about that happening a couple months ago.
Interesting. I had not read that.
I am always fascinated by them when I run across them in the wild. I almost half expect them to transform in to some raptor looking thing with vacuum tubes for teeth and start lumbering around eating people.
-
Micro Center [...] item lookups on...terminal emulators
Only the sales staff. The service and backoffice staff have actual terminals.
-
Where are the Roll Up and Roll Down keys?
No idea, but they're mapped to Page Up and Page Down in the terminal emulator.
-
I think I'm wrong, I think Lenovo just bought the x86 server business:
That means IBM still holds on to all the AS/400 servers:
IBM will retain its System z mainframes, Power Systems, Storage Systems, Power-based Flex servers, PureApplication, and PureData appliances.
AS/400s are just large rackmounts at this point anyway. The one at the hospital I worked at was replaced with like 24U worth of rackmount cases. Boring. And the desk-sized one was moved to the building across the parking lot to serve as the hot spare.
-
AS400's are everywhere still. If it is a big, old, company, there is probably at least one still kicking
That reminds me, I have it from inside sources that UniGroup (parent company to United Van Lines and Mayflower) runs 99% of their operations on IBM CICS (kɪks) mainframes.
-
AS400's are everywhere still.
My company maintains an AS400 product, because a handful of customers are still willing to pay a lot to use it instead of moving to a web-based solution.
-
-
You can walk into a place like Micro Center or Autozone and they do item lookups on...terminal emulators attached to AS400s or whatever, because they just keep on running, and it would cost a lot to replace.
Costco is just now replacing their AS400 systems. It might be done this year.
-
Here's a screenshot of the system as is today, we now have a 34x13x10 space for which to have notes (A whole 4420 characters ZOMG!).
Yes, that's quite vintage looking. It even features white-out!
-
To be fair, I had to use the photo-editing software available to my work machine.
Can always count on mspaint.exe being available.
-
We have one of those! It's scheduled to be shut down this fall.
We have several. Scheduled to maybe be shut down in at least 5 years IIRC.
-
I love that "maybe". We barely got our approvals in to patch the client drivers on all workstations for it, a full staged decommission may take decades!