mainframe career advice

In article <ziE_e.109279$4i6.86064@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>,
Defaultuser <Defaultuser@hotmail.com> wrote:
><docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:dhcqo5$fbr$1@reader1.panix.com..
. 
>
>That's not architecture, that's just based on the usage.

Ummmm... I thought that things like bus-width were matters of
architecture.

>'You can do anything in a bungalow exactly as you can in a house' - doesn't
>mean I ponder why I've never seen one with an stair lift.

According to http://www.m-w.com a bungalow *is* a house, usually.

>I do recall someone taking a partition on a mainframe installing Linux, and
>then a dos emulator in order to play an ancient version of pong once...but 
I
>doubt anyone would have admitted to that somewhere where google could find
>it.

This might have been done after my statement was made... Mr Torvalds did
not begin his kernel, I believe, until 1991.

> 
>I would say especially for those who make use of DD....

Well, glad *that's* cleared up, then.

DD

HeyBub <heybubNOSPAM@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mirlitone wrote: 
>
> It may surprise you to learn that mainframes are alive and well.
>
> How many PCs does it take to print the payroll checks for all government
> workers? For Air France?
>

Using standard software a single PC can typeset about thousend pages
per second.  A PC database can easily deliver 20 thousend rows per
second.  So, a single PC can generate content for millions of checks
per hour.  It looks that the bottleneck is actual printing: you need
a sizeable printer farm to handle that load.

Granted, mainframes have bigger IO capacity that desktop PC.  But you
just have to size things correctly, if not desktop then server machines.
For highest load it looks that IBM Power serwers are the best -- from
data sheets it looks that top Power machines offer 2-10 times better
performance (depending of the load) then top Z architecture machines.

--
Waldek Hebisch
hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl

Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>
> Using standard software a single PC can typeset about thousend pages
> per second.  A PC database can easily deliver 20 thousend rows per
> second.  So, a single PC can generate content for millions of checks
> per hour.  It looks that the bottleneck is actual printing: you need
> a sizeable printer farm to handle that load.
>
> Granted, mainframes have bigger IO capacity that desktop PC.  But you
> just have to size things correctly, if not desktop then server machines.
> For highest load it looks that IBM Power serwers are the best -- from
> data sheets it looks that top Power machines offer 2-10 times better
> performance (depending of the load) then top Z architecture machines.
>

Could you cite some sources for your numbers? I find them to be rather
on the high end.

docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
> In article <ziE_e.109279$4i6.86064@tornado.tampabay.rr.com>,
> Defaultuser <Defaultuser@hotmail.com> wrote: 
>
> According to http://www.m-w.com a bungalow *is* a house, usually.
>

A bit of UK vs US terminology. In the UK a house has multiple floor
levels with stairs (and/or other means of ascending) and a bungalow is
a single-floored dwelling place. I think.

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:54:39 GMT, "Defaultuser"
<Defaultuser@hotmail.com> wrote:

>'You can do anything in a bungalow exactly as you can in a house' - doesn't
>mean I ponder why I've never seen one with an stair lift.

You got me to look up "bungalow", which I assumed meant "small house".
I have never come across the term "stair lift" before.

Apparently a bungalow is a "small house with a single story".    I
would assume it can have small stairs, as long as they are in a single
story, so I am assuming a "stair lift" is a flight of stairs going
from one story to another.

<howard.brazee@cusys.edu> wrote in message
 news:oaeoj19aee326csvr7mepgtd9d8ruid2k9@
4ax.com...
> On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:54:39 GMT, "Defaultuser"
> <Defaultuser@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>
> You got me to look up "bungalow", which I assumed meant "small house".
> I have never come across the term "stair lift" before.
>
> Apparently a bungalow is a "small house with a single story".    I
> would assume it can have small stairs, as long as they are in a single
> story, so I am assuming a "stair lift" is a flight of stairs going
> from one story to another.

Actually, a stair lift is essentially a comfortable chair that is attached
to a rail on the wall that enables people with difficulty walking to sit and
be "stair lifted" mechanically.  It's like a ski lift for the home but it's
not as much fun coming down.

As an aside.  Some of the Brits may have heard of http://www.billwiggin.com/
the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Shadow Minister for the
Environment, and Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency of
Leominster.  He's a political big wig, no pun intended.

He has been called Bungalow Bill as it is said that he "doesn't have much
upstairs" if you know what I mean.....

In history there have been a number of Bungalow Bills - the man who married
Alexis..no wait, that's Joan Collins in real life.....and of course the
famous Bungalow Bill, what did you kill....a case of John Lennon thinking
people with guns shooting defenseless critturs weren't too bright....he came
to learn that more up close later on in life, unfortunately....

J.

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:27:45 GMT, "Defaultuser"
<Defaultuser@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Actually, a stair lift is essentially a comfortable chair that is attached
>to a rail on the wall that enables people with difficulty walking to sit an
d
>be "stair lifted" mechanically.  It's like a ski lift for the home but it's
>not as much fun coming down.

There's one in _The Farmer's Daughter_.

> In the UK a house has multiple floor levels with stairs

While most houses in the UK do have multiple floor levels, in what way
is this a _requirement_ to be called a 'house' ?

> a bungalow is a single-floored dwelling place.

Unless it has had a loft conversion. But even if it is a bungalow it is
still a house if it is a place for people, especially a single family,
to live.

BTW most houses in New Zealand are single story, though mine* has 3,
the original single level, a basement office and a 'pop-top'.  In NZ a
house would only be called a bungalow if it resembled the original
Indian meaning of a small native house with verandas (another indian
word), and even then it would most likely be called a batch (North
Island - short for Bachelor house) or crib (South Island).

*Targetting data: Google Earth 36 42'40.90"S 174 44'18.78"E

Mike <MPBrede@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Waldek Hebisch wrote: 
>
> Could you cite some sources for your numbers? I find them to be rather
> on the high end.
>

For typesetting on PC I just use a pipline:

flat file -> Perl Script -> TeX -> dvips

and just measured the speed.  For database speed I forgot the
location of benchmark page.

Info on z9-109 from (but since data is incomplete I guesstimate
based on earlier models):

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/systems/systemz9/z9109

Info on p5 595:

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserv...ighend/595.html


z9-109 page does not disclose clock speed but following:

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/z990/

I see that z990 uses 1.2 GHz (0.83 ns) clock.  Considering that clock
speeds were changing slowly in recent two years I guess that z9-109
has much slower clock then 1.9 GHz in p5 595.  Also I guess that p5 595
(like the lower end models) is highly superscalar (3-5 instructions per
clock) while Z architecture is probably doing 1-2 instructions per clock
(it used to be single dispatch and comparisons of models suggest that it
still may be the case).  p5 595 has 64 processors, top z9-109 has 38
(with 54 scheduled for November).  So p5 595 seem to have much higher
instruction rate than z9-109.  Memory and IO capacity of p5 595 seem
to be high enough to keep ahead also on data intensive load.


--
Waldek Hebisch
hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl

In article <1128007814.086722.296790@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Mike <MPBrede@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>docdwarf@panix.com wrote: 
>
>A bit of UK vs US terminology. In the UK a house has multiple floor
>levels with stairs (and/or other means of ascending) and a bungalow is
>a single-floored dwelling place. I think.

According to my copy of the OED (Compact Edition, 1981 USA printing, Vol
I, Pg 295, reduced page 1178, col iii) it is defined as 'A one-storied
house (or temporary building, e.g. a summer-house), lightly built, usually
with a thatched roof.' ... but what do *they* know about UK terminology,
anyhow?

(Interestingly enough the derivation is from bangla, 'understood to be
identical with the adj. use of the same form, meaning 'belonging to
Bengal'.')

DD