Deep Inside Rochester

Buzzword and Jargon Watch

2007-06-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

engine, noun,Used to refer to the microprocessor chip(s) installed inside a computer system (like IBM's System i)During a recent set of presentations that I attended, the term engine was used frequently (mostly by IBMers) in the sense defined above. I'll keep my eyes and ears posted for uses in "outside" publications and presentations.

POWER6 Just Owns It

2007-05-24T18:39:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, IBM announced the System p based on the new POWER6 microprocessor. (System i fans shouldn't worry, POWER6-based systems are on the way.)Systems running with the new chip excel at key benchmarks. The new IBM System p 570, running the POWER6 processor, claims the No.1 spots in SPECint2006, SPECfp2006, SPECjbb2005 and TPC-C. This is the first time that a single system has owned

Rochester's weather is like porridge ...

2007-04-10T20:08:00.000-05:00

... sometimes it's too hot,sometimes it's too cold,and sometimes (but not often) it's just right.Right now, it's too cold. We're on track for the coldest April ever, and the forecast is calling for 5-10 inches of snow by tomorrow afternoon.I guess I'll just stay home tonight and work.

64 Bits, No Buts!

2007-03-28T20:09:00.000-05:00

I used to own an IBM polo shirt with the slogan "64 Bits, No Buts!" on the sleeve. That was over 10 years ago. Earlier this week, an article called "Why 64 Bits Will Soon Matter" was published at IT-Analysis.com. The article talks about a 64 bit Revolution where a new generation of applications will have a single view of data in memory and divorce themselves of assumptions that the primary copy

Buzzword and Jargon Watch

2007-03-08T20:41:00.000-06:00

C-level, adj,Used to refer to an executive-level officer, such as the CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, etc. The LUG was in Rochester last week (despite the snow), and several members made a reference to their "C-levels."

IT Revenge

2007-03-08T20:06:00.000-06:00

IBM released a series of IT Revenge videos on YouTube (my favorite is Hard Boot Pinata).This is new for System i, and I found it to be an entertaining way to make a point about System i's reliability and robustness (yeah, there is an alternative to running your business on a PC).The end of each video points you to the "iwantcontrol" site, which has more information about i.Check it out.

Al Franken, Minnesota Politics, and System i

2007-02-19T22:16:00.000-06:00

Al Franken was in Rochester today. He is a DFL candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In Minnesota, the Democratic party calls itself the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, or DFL for short. Until recently, the Republicans called themselves the Independent-Republican Party, or IR for short. Leave it to Minnesota to be different. Is it any wonder that a computer system designed and developed

Unlocking Hidden Optimizations

2007-02-17T08:19:00.000-06:00

The C compiler for System i provides a packed decimal data type, but not a zoned decimal data type. When working with a data base or exchanging data with RPG or COBOL, it is sometimes necessary to convert between the zoned representation of decimal data and other data types such as packed decimal, floating point, and integer.The common technique for converting between zoned and another data type

i5: The Romantic Side

2007-02-13T21:33:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! Pipes Fuels Need For Feeds

2007-02-11T13:37:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! Pipes provides a visual editor for remixing feeds in clever and useful ways. The resulting pipes can then be added to your start page or other web pages. I currently have several pipes defined and added to my netvibes-based start page.Prior to tools like netvibes, Google desktop, and pageflakes, I had little need or interest in feeds. Instead I used news aggregators like Daily

The Landscape of Parallel Computing Research

2007-02-11T08:51:00.000-06:00

"The Landscape of Parallel Computing Research: A View from Berkeley"is the title of an interesting paper referenced on Slashdot that discusses recent hardware trends and their impacts to programming models and operating systems, especially wrt supporting parallel computing. Nothing radical -- in fact, it reinforces much of what has been written and discussed on the subject -- but impressive

Mark Shearer

2007-02-06T22:01:00.000-06:00

The System i Network has a 10 second survey to let you "characterize Mark Shearer's leadership of the System i Division" (see http://www.systeminetwork.com/article/w/1001/n/5054/i/6275/a/54003/index.html)From an IBMer's perspective, Mark is the most visible product manager that we've ever had. He's convinced me of his commitment to System i.I gave him an excellent rating.

The Long and Short of Subprocedure Return Values

2007-01-31T22:26:00.000-06:00

User-defined functions in RPG, especially in the context of free-form calculations, can simplify programming tasks (and make calculation specifications more fun to write). However, you should keep in mind that return values are implicitly returned by value. Therefore, the same considerations that apply to VALUE parameters also apply to return values (see prior post on this subject).In the

RPG's VALUE Parameters Often Have Little

2007-01-28T21:36:00.000-06:00

When the VALUE keyword is specified on the definition of a subprocedure parameter, it instructs the compiler to pass the parameter by value rather than by reference."By value" means that a copy of the argument value is passed, while "by reference" means that the address of the argument value is passed. By value is a safer way to pass data to a subprocedure (because the data cannot be modified),

Favorite CDs For 2006

2006-12-30T17:17:00.000-06:00

In Rochester, we're lucky to have "the current" on the air waves. It's a way to listen to great music by local and independent artists.Here are my ten favorite CDs for 2006:Alexi Murdoch - Time Without ConsequenceBuilt To Spill - You In ReverseCat Power - The GreatestElectric President - Electric PresidentHeartless Bastards - All This TimeHot Chip - The WarningJunior Boys - So This Is

System i for everyone!

2006-12-30T17:00:00.000-06:00

I'm using the holidays to catch up on some reading and other things.One piece of mail -- The iSociety Newsletter -- contained a link to "System i for everyone!", which I found to be an interesting site where users can submit marketing ideas (videos, pictures, slogans, ...) for System i. Check it out.

Another Logo for System i

2006-09-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

Back in December, 2005, I posted several verions of my System i5 logo. I'm thinking in broader terms today, so here's a first draft of a System i logo ...

i, It's Talk Like A Pirate Day

2006-09-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

Today is international "Talk Like a Pirate Day." So, here goes ..."i, i, Cap'n"

It's Never Too Hot

2006-07-31T08:19:00.000-05:00

Fifty years ago on this date (7/31), ground was broken for the IBM Rochester (MN) facility, almost 6 months after the plans were announced (see prior post on this subject). To help celebrate 50 years of innovation, which is the theme adopted for a series of events to recognize the achievement, Sam Palmisano, Bill Zeitler, and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will be on site today.This special

Thank You For Your Partial Attention

2006-06-25T12:44:00.000-05:00

The use of laptops and cell phones during meetings and presentations can be distracting to the speaker and others present. However, beyond these etiquette issues, there is a growing amount of evidence to suggest that technology is interfering with productivity. One term used to describe an adverse effect of technology on our lives is "Continuous Partial Attention" (CPA). See http://

Well, for one thing, today is the summer solstice

2006-06-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

On June 21, 1988, IBM introduced the Application System/400 (AS/400). It was a hot and humid day in Rochester, and John Akers was present for the announce-day festivities. I remember Mr. Akers standing in the hot sun talking to employees while sweat dripped off his forehead.Many things have changed since then. John Akers was succeeded by Lou Gerstner and Sam Palmisano, and the AS/400 was

(formerly) Unwritten Rules of Programming

2006-06-13T21:23:00.000-05:00

Some of the unwritten rules in Rochester:The original author owns the code they developed until they leave the company (and even then they may be contacted)One does not make changes to someone else's code (unless explicitly directed to do so)Drop everything to handle a customer problem

Name Calling at the iSeries Nation Blog?

2006-06-12T10:08:00.000-05:00

Oh my, controversy at the content-less blog.In the June 12, 2006 edition of the The Four Hundred newsletter, there is a reference to the iSeries Nation blog (in the article titled "Project Prometheus: Playing with Fire"). The article prompted me to take a look.What a sad state of affairs. First, the blog has one message. Second, the site contains this poorly punctuated heading:This blog is

Cute marketing slogans for System i (#3)

2006-06-04T19:28:00.000-05:00

"Who am i?"(To be used if we decide to change our name again.)

HPC and the Cell Processor

2006-06-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that IBM has plans to utilize the Cell processor for more than game consoles. Although I don't expect to find a Cell processor in System i, I think you can certainly expect to find Cell chips applied to High Performance Computing (HPC).The potential for Cell in HPC was recently impressively demonstrated in a paper written by scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National

Cute marketing slogans for System i5 (part 2)

2006-05-23T07:13:00.000-05:00

"This 'i' is for real" (esoteric reference to the use of "i" to represent an imaginary number)

Buzzword and Jargon Watch

2006-05-23T06:27:00.000-05:00

E-co-sys-tem, n, Used to describe the interaction of a computer system with its users, developers, and applications. Recent examples:2/14/2006 - Gates Makes Case for 'Trust Ecosystem' in Gates Shares Microsoft’s Vision for a More Secure Future2/28/2006 - Mark Shearer presentation to ITSO at Rochester, MN: Referred to system i5 as an "open ecosystem" for application and tool development.2/23/2006

Cute Marketing Slogans for System i5 (part 1)

2006-03-15T12:13:00.000-06:00

"i Never Stopped Loving You""The i's have IT"

Happy Pi Day and Rochester's Weather

2006-03-14T09:17:00.000-06:00

The welcome sign inside Rochester's Benchmark Center reads: Welcome to RochesterWhere the winters are coldand the systems are hot.Considering the current weather conditions (Mar 14, 8:54 am CST), I think they're right:Temp: 16 FWinds: NW 17Wind chill: 0 Fand there are 4 inches of new snow on the ground.Oh, it's also Pi Day

Dave's Sudoku solver at think400.dk

2006-03-04T08:20:00.000-06:00

The following recent thread on the MIDRANGE-L list over at MIDRANGE dot COM caught my attention: Sudoku on an iSeriesA webified version of the sudoku solver is available, but I found the original version written by Dave Kahn to be more interesting.First, Dave's Sudoku Solver is written in RPG. If you examine the source code, you'll find a writing style that exemplifies effective use of /free

All in the i Family ...

2006-02-13T07:20:00.000-06:00

The IBM System itm family:S/38Great grandfatherAS/400®FathereServer iSeriestmSoneServer i5GrandsonSystem i5tmGreat grandson

IT Jungle (and i5) getting face time on RWT

2006-02-09T15:05:00.000-06:00

The i5 (iSeries) is getting some exposure among the heavy-duty gearheads over at Real World Technologies thanks to a recent message citing a breaking news story on POWER6 over at the IT Jungle.If you are into POWER6, see the rest of the messages in this RWT thread.Of course, for good information on i5, see the IT Jungle.

IBM Rochester ... 50 years and counting

2006-02-08T07:27:00.000-06:00

This year, the IBM development and manufacturing facility in Rochester, MN will commemorate 50 years. In fact, it was 50 years ago today (February 8, 1956) that Thomas J. Watson, Jr., announced plans to establish the manufacturing, engineering and education facility in Rochester. Groundbreaking was July 31, 1956.The two-story facility built on 397 acres has an unusual, but appealing design.

Most applications for the System i5 are multithreaded parallel applications

2006-01-30T13:32:00.000-06:00

The title of this post came from a statement made by Frank Soltis in a recent article in TECHWORLD called "Q&A: Power chip inventor speaks out". What Frank actually said is this:Today, most ISV-developed applications for the System i5 are multithreaded parallel applications.Although I agree with Frank that "the System i5 and its predecessors have always been designed to run multiple applications

More on POWER6 (and eCLipz)

2006-01-08T18:14:00.000-06:00

Real World Technologies (RWT) has an article on the IBM eCLipz project, "An eCLipz Looms on the Horizon" by David Kanter, which includes more discussion on POWER6.In addition, the article is discussed here on Ars Technica.The Kanter article briefly mentions iSeries and oS/400 as they relate to the economics of convergence and economies of scale. The author writes that "most platforms that did

Rounding in RPG

2006-01-07T08:55:00.000-06:00

In RPG, the "H" operation extender is used to indicate whether the contents of the result field are to be half adjusted (that is, rounded).Applying terminology from the Clive Maxfield article to RPG, we can see that rounding in RPG uses a symmetric implementation of round-half-up. Here is a description of rounding from Chapter 9, Calculation Specifications, of the RPG/400 Reference: "

Rounding

2006-01-05T21:17:00.000-06:00

Slashdot.org has a pointer to an interesting article on rounding algorithms, including those applied to decimal arithmetic. Here is the link to the article:Clive Maxfield, "An introduction to different rounding algorithms," http://www.pldesignline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=175801189

Degrees of Cloudiness

2006-01-02T09:16:00.000-06:00

Given that Rochester hasn't seen the sun for at least two weeks, I think it's fair to say that the weather is simply cloudy here. But a recent regional forecast in the local paper (provided by AccuWeather) has a different way of describing it:Tonight: "Clouds."Thursday: "Cloudy most of the time."Friday: "... considerable cloudiness."Saturday: "Rather cloudy."Sunday: "Mostly Cloudy"Monday: "

i5 Logo Update

2005-12-31T15:24:00.000-06:00

i5 Logo (Winterized)

2005-12-23T12:51:00.000-06:00

Ready for January.

RPG To The Rescue!

2005-12-22T10:56:00.000-06:00

Problem: An application written in ILE C or C++ needs to efficiently convert between zoned and packed decimal numbers.Solution: ILE RPG subproceduresDetails:An application written in C needs to operate on zoned and packed decimal data. The ILE C compiler directly supports a packed-decimal data type called _Decimal. Conversion between _Decimal data and other built-in data types, like integer and

Rock Solid Efforts

2005-12-16T16:01:00.000-06:00

With internet radio and the appearance of 'the current' on the local radio scene, it's so much easier to find new and interesting music. My favorite album from 2005 is "Gimme Fiction" by Spoon.Other commendable efforts: "Amos Lee" (self titled), "Awake is The New Sleep" by Ben Lee, "Guero" by Beck

i5 Logo

2005-12-11T17:10:00.000-06:00

First draft of my i5 logo ...

Singularity or Similarity?

2005-12-11T13:15:00.000-06:00

A current research project at Microsoft attempts to answer this question:What would a software platform look like if it was designed from scratch with the primary goal of dependability? Dependability is defined as a system consistently working as expected with a high degree of predictability. That is, something that "just works."The output of this project is a new system architecture and

POWER6

2005-12-11T08:27:00.000-06:00

For those that are interested in this kind of stuff, there is a thread on POWER6 over at Real World Technologies. Much of the discusision and speculation is based on the ISSCC advance program and a presentation at the recent Moscow event sponsored by power.org.

Rochester, Misstheboata

2005-07-05T19:33:00.000-05:00

Minnesota has long offered poor value for your tax dollar (lousy roads, mediocre university system, sub par snow removal, ...), but our law makers took it to the extreme last Friday when the state government shut down. Political scientists should have a field day. In the meantime, if you are traveling to Rochester by car, make a stop before crossing the border, because like many other state

Happy birthday!

2005-06-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

The computer system formerly known as AS/400 was launched on June 21, 1988. Happy 17th.

Distributing software inside a VM

2005-06-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

I found the following article very interesting: VMware Wants VMs to Be Modern Shrink Wrap for Software. It discusses the use of virtual machines as software containers. Kind of the ultimate decoupling of hardware and software. As hypervisors and virtualization become mainstream, the idea of simply plugging in another instance of MAC/OS or Windows on my underutilized, multi-core PC is very

Multi-core chips in the home

2005-05-31T09:45:00.000-05:00

My thoughts are presently stuck on the home PC market. I like having fast connected computers at home, but I have little interest in managing multiple systems. I would be extremely interested in a single-footprint, high-reliability solution that satisfied the whole family's computing needs. Cheap computers with multi-core chips will provide the capacity to do this; I'm just wondering what the

Installation Blues (blue screens, that is)

2005-05-29T09:18:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend.I've spent (way) too much of it preparing a new computer that my wife and I plan to give to give to my oldest as a graduation gift.Half of my time was spent configuring and tweaking the OS (XP Pro), setting up wirelesss networking, and doing the necessary security things. The other half was spent installing extra software. I finally reached

My favorite iSeries newsletter is ...

2005-05-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

My favorite iSeries newsletter is "The Four Hundred" (http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfhindex.html). It's published weekly (Monday), and it provides the keenest insights into IBM's announcements and actions (pertaining to iSeries). It's definitely more informative and interesting than internal IBM publications that I am privy to. Kudos to the editor Timothy Prickett Morgan and the rest of the

wiki for iSeries users

2005-05-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

David Gibbs earlier today announced a wiki for iSeries users. The URL is http://wiki.midrange.com David also runs an archive for mailing lists at midrange dot com (http://archive.midrange.com/). I follow the MI400, C400, and RPG400 mailing lists there (actually, I use the news server at news.gmane.org to follow the discussions). My thanks to David.