Peter K. Levy

For those who don't know, the above image is of a System/38, manufactured by IBM in the 1980's. Although I have known several different platforms, both in college and in the real world, this and all it's progeny (AS/400 and iSeries) are my favorites. If there is any one image that can define me professionally this one is probably it. It is among the memories that are foremost in my mind.

Even in the mid 80's it already looked archaic, probably because it's peripherals were designed to appeal to System/3 users, who were still entering data onto 8" diskettes. When I was first introduced to the 38 no one was using that feature anymore. The diskette's only use was in doing a SAVSYS, booting the system for a complete system reload, and to install what were then called PCs. (Today they're called PTFs.) You could also get an optional card reader but I never heard of a shop that ordered one.

To the left is the system printer, a high speed (for its day) workhorse. Moving to the right you can see the diskette magazine device (with the cover closed). Next comes the system monitor with built-in keyboard and Buck Rogers blinking lights panel. On the blue panel is the red emergency on/off switch. (Until IBM changed it many a former operator met their fate resting their right arm on the corner of that machine and absent mindedly fingering the switch). Finally behind both the printer and diskette magazine device you can just barely see the expansion unit which was always bolted onto the main unit at a right angle. (If you pulled the panels off the archaic-ness got even better, but it's too much to describe here.)

For me there's a certain beauty in its archaic-ness probably because it was its O/S (known as CPF) that really earned my respect. It's kind of funny because I started out my computer life greatly disliking IBM. (It's hard for the younger members of our trade to understand but in those days people like myself had the same dislike for IBM that they now have for Microsoft.) I started out struggling with VM and JCL on a System/370 and those awful line editors. When Rutgers acquired a DEC-20 and a VAX the ease with which I could get my work done and the breath of intricate features compared with the 370 was like night and day. I came to view IBM and all its software as horribly mediocre. Designed to impress only bean-counters and not computer nerds simply because they didn't have to.

That is until I was forced to learn the 38. Because of my prejudice I wouldn't have chosen to learn this platform on my own but when push came to shove I didn't have a choice. I didn't know it then but it was one of those life defining moments. The system was incredibly easy to create business applications. The editor, screen design features, versatile control language, subsystem configuration, etc. were all so intuitive and easy to learn and use. I was amazed and have often thought "why aren't other platforms this robust and easy to use?" There are probably many answers that could be proffered to answer that question, but I think part of the answer may be found in an old hackerism that says: "If it was hard to write then it should be hard to understand."

Over the years working with this system I became quite immersed in it and around the time the AS/400 came out I had became something of a systems programmer on that platform. A priest in a low-brow minority religion. The only drawback was the fact that aside from CL, which had and has some distinctly annoying limitations, there were no fun languages. The main programming language that every shop used was RPG-III because it was cheap. You definately got what you paid for with that language. (Today of course RPG has gotten so close to C that it's kind of scary.)

For a little more money you could get COBOL, which was a whole different category of boring. Then in the mid to late eighties IBM offered PL/I, which could be had for a whopping $10,000. With RPG-III costing $2,000 and COBOL costing around $3,500 most shops didn't bother with PL/I. Rumor had it at the time that the only reason IBM even offered it was because a very large corporation bought a huge quantity of 38's, but stipulated that they had to have the option of using PL/I. Not to turn down such a huge sale IBM ported the compiler to the 38.

The 38 also had a built-in database. I've heard some people claim that it was a relational database like DB2, but that didn't become a reality until V3R1 of the AS/400. In reality the 38's database consisted of data files (known as "physical files") with indexes (known as "logical files") and journaling was available but it wasn't required. There was no SQL, triggers, or referential integrity. All data integrity had to be embedded in the programs and display files and there, but there were some features of DDS that made this burden a little easier. Today of course all of the features that make a true relational database exist in DB2/400.

Back then the main advantages of the database was externally described record formats and level checking. In other words when an RPG or COBOL program was compiled it would automatically copy the record layout into the program. It also stored a hash code of the record to compare against the file whenever it was opened to make sure the format hadn't changed (level checking). For developoers migrating from the System/3, System/34, and System/36 these two features were vast improvements.

What follows is a list of some of the most prominent ease-of-use features of the System/38:

• Command prompting.
• Built-in data base.
• Everything is an object.
• Source Entry Utility.
• Screen Design Aid utility.
• Message help.

(You can peruse the linked items at your convenience. I will update the others to provide links as I either find or author them on Wikipedia.)

To paraphrase an old joke: You could get a 38 in any color you wanted just as long as the color you wanted was light grey... There's a story I heard from a local IBM sales team, who were directly involved in it, about a then small NY metro area apparel company who was moving up to their first mid-range computer. Since it was to be their first, the head of the company wanted to design their computer room to be bright white with a horizontal black stripe halfway up the wall going completely around the room and an all black computer in the middle of it all. Since the sale seemed to depend on the computer being black they took the panels off and took them to a car painter to have them professionally done.

This web site is a work in progress. No doubt there will be more as time goes on.