19-year-old geek found a job thanks to restoring an old IBM mainframe



    In the spring of this year, we published in our blog an article that an 18-year-old geek bought an IBM z890 mainframe (2004), restored it and conducted a series of tests. He bought it on the GovDeals website for only $ 237. The seller was the university, renewing the fleet of equipment. Why a mainframe enthusiast? Of course, in order to install in the basement of your own home and bring it to working condition.

    Physical installation of the mainframe occupiedthe buyer has two days, since disassembling into blocks, loading into the basement and re-assembling is a very slow process. Plus, the mainframe went to the buyer without a data storage system - he could hardly find a suitable system at a price that was not too high. The author writes that there are a lot of solutions, but the cost exceeds the order of its purchase by an order of magnitude. Therefore, this solution was found .

    System Features:
    • From 1 to 4 processors
    • 8 to 256 GB of internal memory
    • Up to 30 LPAR logical partitions
    • Up to 256 I / O channels

    Design: The z890 is built according to the classic zSeries scheme, but has only one frame (A-frame), while the z990 has two frames (A and Z frames).

    Frame z890 consists of:
    • CEC frame
    • I / O frame
    • Power sources
    • UPS
    • Air cooling systems
    • Liquid cooling systems

    Since only one hardware model , A04, is implemented for the z890 server , CECcage contains only one processor unit (while CECcage in the z990 has 4 units). Therefore, the z890 can have from 1 to 4 processors and from 8 to 32 GB of internal memory. One of the processors can be configured as SAP.

    The z890 blocks support data throughput of 16 Gb / sec between memory and I / O devices using up to eight processor buses (STI) (Self-TimedInterconnect).

    The z890 servers only work in LPAR mode. Up to 30 logical partitions (LP) and, accordingly, up to 30 logical channel subsystems (LCSS) can be defined in one server. There are certain rules for building LP and LCSS:

    • Each LP must correspond to one LCSS. One LCSS can correspond to up to 15 LP
    • One LCSS can define up to 256 channel path identifiers (СHPID)
    • Some channel paths (for example, ESCON) must be tied to a single LCSS. The rest (for example, FICON and OSA) can be tied to several channel subsystems


    Source: IBM Systems Magazine

    Enthusiast, in his own words, was always supported by parents. They bought him a computer when the child was only 8 years old. Unfortunately, it is not known whether the guy took his first PC as a gift of fate. But the fact that it affected his fate, can not be doubted.

    Already at a conscious age, Krukowski became interested in what was inside the computer. He began to buy and disassemble outdated PCs, and over time, as he gained more experience, he bought a server. In his own words, he was always occupied by "small chips inside."

    The guy began to study these chips and a year later he became a sought-after professional. “I know about mainframes and the history of IBM. But I never intended to acquire a system that could not be useful for the United States, ”says a young mainframe specialist.


    For several weeks, he studied the capabilities of the old mainframe. The results of his work he described in the network. One of the resources where the guy laid out his observations was a site designed to share experience on mainframes.

    A number of users of this resource were impressed by the achievements of the author. Enthusiast received some valuable tips about the car, as well as additional information. One of the readers of Krukowski invited him to a conference in San Antonio. There enthusiast gave a lecture "I just bought an IBM z890 - now what?". The lecture was listened by computer technology professionals. After the lecture, some IBM representatives met Krukowski.

    IBM invited Krukowski to visit our offices in several US cities. In the end, it was decided to invite a young specialist to work, where he began to study a number of IBM projects. At the same time, he is working in the lab with one of the most modern mainframes from IBM.

    So far, the plans for the future are not very specific. A guy needs to go to college in order to get an education. He will be able to live and work near the office. Now, IBM plans to invite him to part-time work with the expectation of working all day in the future.

    The plans enthusiast opening its own museum of old iron. This part of the plans is also realizable, because over the years of collecting he has accumulated a good fleet of cars and accessories for them.
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