On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:36:37 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:26:21 -0600, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

THE metric unit of time is the second. Minutes and hours are not
metric.

When does a french guy eat dinner? 648,000 o'clock ;-)

Something reminds me of a quotation from the TV show "Perfect
Strangers", that is "don't be ridiculous".

Of course I never said I recommended using metric time units.
--
45 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

In article , T wrote:
In article ,
says...

I suppose you know a light year is NOT an amount of time.

Right, it's a distance and it is metric.

Half right. It *is* a distance. It is *not* a metric measure.

Last I knew, light traveled at approximately 3x10^8 m/sec.

A year is roughly 31,536,000 seconds. So light travels
9,460,800,000,000,000 m/year. Simplified, 9.5x10^15

That doesn't make a light-year a metric measure any more than the fact that
light travels approximately 5.88x10^12 miles in a year makes a light-year an
imperial measure.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

"Doug Miller" wrote
In article , T
wrote:
In article ,
says...

I suppose you know a light year is NOT an amount of time.

Right, it's a distance and it is metric.

Half right. It *is* a distance. It is *not* a metric measure.

Last I knew, light traveled at approximately 3x10^8 m/sec.

A year is roughly 31,536,000 seconds. So light travels
9,460,800,000,000,000 m/year. Simplified, 9.5x10^15

That doesn't make a light-year a metric measure any more than the fact
that
light travels approximately 5.88x10^12 miles in a year makes a light-year
an
imperial measure.

I would say a light-year is an astronomical unit, and not a metric or
imperial unit. Just like a dollar is not a Franc or a yen.

GWB wrote:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:03 -0500, T
wrote:

In article , NOPSAMmm2005
says...
On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:13:20 GMT, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:

Terry wrote:
Now that the winter is here I have my thermostat set to 70. That
sometimes seems a little low. When I push it up to 71 it seems a
little warm. The place I notice it the most is when I am setting at
my computer desk. I have on the wall behind it. The desk does not
cover the vent.

Put it at 69º and buy a sweater with the savings.

Or 68!




Or 67!

Hell, my wife's got the a/c on 70 and I'm wearing a sweater. G

And mine will complain it is too warm at 68 in the summer and too cold
at 68 in the winter. Go figure.

Harry K

In article ,
says...
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:53 -0500, T
wrote:

For some reason, it was elected to keep the operations center (computer
room) at my office at 65F. It is very cool in there.

I am not sure why people think computer rooms should be that cold. The
official IBM spec for a data center was 75F at 50%RH.


In our case the costs of power, heating and cooling are fixed for the
next ten years in the square footage cost.

We do run half lighting most times though, to save energy.

In article , Alan
says...
On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:03:31 -0600, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 12:41:51 GMT, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 22:05:23 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:13:20 GMT, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:

Terry wrote:
Now that the winter is here I have my thermostat set to 70. That
sometimes seems a little low. When I push it up to 71 it seems a
little warm. The place I notice it the most is when I am setting
at my computer desk. I have on the wall behind it. The desk does
not cover the vent.

The temperature on your thermostat doesn't really matter.

What matters is the temperature where you sit, compute, sleep, etc.

In my house, the thermostat is in a warm spot, and most of the places
I actually spend time are 2 - 3 degrees cooler than the setting.

So, if you want to deal with the actual temperature, check the
temperature where you actually do things, and set the thermostat up
or down to make your specific areas be the temperature you want.

You may want them at 68, or at 73, I don't care, but use a
thermometer, and set the thermostat to give the temp you want were
you spend time.

Luckily it has been far warmer than usual here in the northeast. Daytime
temps have been low 50's to high 60's. Night temps are getting down
there but with day temps so high, the heat hardly runs and the place
states near 70F.

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:53 -0500, T
wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 22:05:23 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:13:20 GMT, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:

Terry wrote:
Now that the winter is here I have my thermostat set to 70. That
sometimes seems a little low. When I push it up to 71 it seems a
little warm. The place I notice it the most is when I am setting at
my computer desk. I have on the wall behind it. The desk does not
cover the vent.

Put it at 69º and buy a sweater with the savings.

Or 68!


But NEVER 65. That's too cold. I've been through that with my parents.


For some reason, it was elected to keep the operations center (computer
room) at my office at 65F. It is very cool in there.

I've been in some places, like computer rooms, which were kept like
that. Also the generator room at Glen Canyon Dam was kept at 50F.
Interestingly, I didn't find it that cold. That house (where 65F was
too cold) may have had too many leaks.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:18:12 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:53 -0500, T
wrote:

For some reason, it was elected to keep the operations center (computer
room) at my office at 65F. It is very cool in there.

I am not sure why people think computer rooms should be that cold. The
official IBM spec for a data center was 75F at 50%RH.

The lower temperature may to deal with all the mobile heat sources
(people) that enter the area.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:12:51 -0600, GWB wrote:

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:03 -0500, T
wrote:

In article , NOPSAMmm2005
says...
On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:13:20 GMT, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:

Terry wrote:
Now that the winter is here I have my thermostat set to 70. That
sometimes seems a little low. When I push it up to 71 it seems a
little warm. The place I notice it the most is when I am setting at
my computer desk. I have on the wall behind it. The desk does not
cover the vent.

Put it at 69º and buy a sweater with the savings.

Or 68!




Or 67!

Hell, my wife's got the a/c on 70 and I'm wearing a sweater. G

I feel best when the A/C thermostat is set to 76F (when using cooling,
with heating I usually like it around 70F).

My mother wore sweaters to work, even when it was over 100 degrees
outside. I wear one about 10 days every year (I'm at about the same
latitude).
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:38:23 -0500, T
wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Thu, 9 Nov 2006 08:52:36 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 03:21:58 GMT, "mwlogs"
wrote:

Which means what? The metric system IS decimal while the current US system
of feet, inches, pounds and onces is not.

Farenheit is decimal. ;-)

And had multiple units of measurement for the same thing. Units which
are not simply related (as in length: there's feet, inches, yards,
rods, fathoms, angstroms, light years and more), so adding to the
difficulty of obtaining and using measurements.

Metric has ONE unit for each thing, and a set of related prefixes for
large or small multiples of any unit.

Light years don't exist?


WHAT?? The closest I said to that was that the light year is not a
metric unit.

I suppose you know a light year is NOT an amount of time.

Right, it's a distance and it is metric. Last I knew, light traveled at
approximately 3x10^8 m/sec.

A year is roughly 31,536,000 seconds. So light travels
9,460,800,000,000,000 m/year. Simplified, 9.5x10^15

The "second" is a metric unit. The "year" is not.

You can measure the distance light travels in a year, expressed in
metric units. That doesn't make "light years" a metric unit. It is
based on the year, which is not a metric unit.

You can measure the volume (using fluid ounces) of a liter. That
doesn't make the liter non-metric.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:18:46 GMT, "Stephen B."
wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote
In article , T
wrote:
In article ,
says...

I suppose you know a light year is NOT an amount of time.

Right, it's a distance and it is metric.

Half right. It *is* a distance. It is *not* a metric measure.

Last I knew, light traveled at approximately 3x10^8 m/sec.

A year is roughly 31,536,000 seconds. So light travels
9,460,800,000,000,000 m/year. Simplified, 9.5x10^15

That doesn't make a light-year a metric measure any more than the fact
that
light travels approximately 5.88x10^12 miles in a year makes a light-year
an
imperial measure.

I would say a light-year is an astronomical unit, and not a metric or
imperial unit.

For the willingly confused, there is another unit of distance called
an "astronomical unit".

Just like a dollar is not a Franc or a yen.



Some people would argue that the above is wrong, and would seem to
believe that saying "a dollar is not a peso" is proof of that :-)

BTW, apples aren't oranges, but both are fruit.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:20:14 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 05:57:49 GMT, "Stephen B."
wrote:


"Harry K" wrote in message
ups.com...

Stephen B. wrote:
"Dave Smith" wrote
Default User wrote:

Stupid example, though. If you're going 100 MPH, a 500 mile
trip also takes five hours. If you're only using one set of
units, it doesn't make any difference what they are.

More practically, 60MPH is a mile a minute, and very easy to work
with.

Yes, but then you have to divide by 60 to know how many hours
that work out to. 375 km at 100 kph is 3.75 hours. or 3 hours 45
minutes, while 375 mile requires division rather than just
sticking in a decimal point. 6 with a remainder of 15.

I am used to the metric system. When I am en route to a city and
see the destination signs and it says for example 122 km.....
that is 1.2 hours. ..... and I instantly know I am just over an
hour a way.

If you are 23 km away how long will it take to get there at 100 kph?

23 minutes unless there is something wrong with my math. Now had you
said 23 miles away at 100 kph...

Only if you have 100 minutes in your hours.


"KPH" is not really a metric unit. It's a hybrid of metric (kilometer)
and something else (hour).

Certainly it is. It my not be MKS, nor purely SI, but it is
metric. K==kilometers (1E3 meters) H==Hours(3.6E3 seconds), both
of which are SI units. KPH is then a "derived unit" and perfectly
acceptable.

The metric unit of time is the second.


Converting some (non-metric) time units to metric:

Who cares? snip

Where'd you get your omniscience? Others could use some too.
--
44 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"God was invented by man for a reason, that
reason is no longer applicable."

In article ,
writes:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:40:53 -0500, T
wrote:

For some reason, it was elected to keep the operations center (computer
room) at my office at 65F. It is very cool in there.

I am not sure why people think computer rooms should be that cold. The
official IBM spec for a data center was 75F at 50%RH.

In most places I've been, the rooms run at 21C (70F).
The RH is then adjusted to stop the room feeling too cold to
humans in cases where they have to work in there for long
periods. (A dry 21C with significant wind chill feels very
much colder than 21C.)

--
Andrew Gabriel

In article ,
says...
On 12 Nov 2006 08:31:22 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

official IBM spec for a data center was 75F at 50%RH.

In most places I've been, the rooms run at 21C (70F).
The RH is then adjusted to stop the room feeling too cold to
humans in cases where they have to work in there for long
periods. (A dry 21C with significant wind chill feels very
much colder than 21C.)


Maintaining RH at 50% is mostly to make the paper (cards in the olden
days) more machine friendly. At lower RH static is a problem and at
higher RH the paper stiffness suffers and it swells imparing feeding.

Not true at all. A high RH contributes to failures in electronics
as well. Even recent equipment is specified from 40-60% RH, over a
fairly narrow temperature range.

--
Keith

In article ,
says...
On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 20:01:41 -0500, krw wrote:

Maintaining RH at 50% is mostly to make the paper (cards in the olden
days) more machine friendly. At lower RH static is a problem and at
higher RH the paper stiffness suffers and it swells imparing feeding.

Not true at all. A high RH contributes to failures in electronics
as well. Even recent equipment is specified from 40-60% RH, over a
fairly narrow temperature range.

A production laser printer will be wadding up paper long before the
electronics start complaining. If the paper is too wet it will curl
when it goes through the fuser. A big printer shoving that paper out
at 3 pages a second will turn the stacker into something that looks
like a carnation.

That may be true, but it doesn't mean it's only the printers and
card readers that are in controlled environments.

--
Keith

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:24:32 -0500, krw wrote:

A production laser printer will be wadding up paper long before the
electronics start complaining. If the paper is too wet it will curl
when it goes through the fuser. A big printer shoving that paper out
at 3 pages a second will turn the stacker into something that looks
like a carnation.

That may be true, but it doesn't mean it's only the printers and
card readers that are in controlled environments.

I think people are far too concerned with the rest of the electronics.
DASD in a data cernter is just the same drives you have in your PC
piled in a big box these days and the processors are not that much
different than your PC. It is certainly a similar packaging. I have
PCs running in totally unconditioned space in SW Florida with no
problems. In fact one survived a fire. 3 are running in vehicles that
see 130-140F in the day time and wide swings in RH.
IBM started saying in the 80s that if the people could handle the
environment the computer could. 4300 mainframes and AS/400 mid range
were "office environment" machines. It was really the big paper
pushers that needed conditioned space.

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

--
Keith

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.

Ok, let me try again, slower. AS/400 and 4300s are/were what we
now call "departmental servers". /370, ES/9000s were relegated to
data centers and are rated for a "class-A" environment only. Note
that "office space" rating isn't exactly harsh either.

--
Keith

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:07:04 -0500, krw wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.

Ok, let me try again, slower. AS/400 and 4300s are/were what we
now call "departmental servers". /370, ES/9000s were relegated to
data centers and are rated for a "class-A" environment only. Note
that "office space" rating isn't exactly harsh either.

I wouldn't exactly call a 4331,41 & 81 class machines a department
server. It was the replacement for 370 M138-158 class machines.

THat's exactly how they were used. BTW the replacement for the
3138-3158 class was the 3031.

The AS/400 actually out performed that series in black box form.
The word mainframe became fairly ambiguous anyway when they became
nothing more than a rack of RISC cards.

Is an xSeries a "mainframe"? Is it a "rack of RISC cards"?

It is one reason I left. The
computer business got very boring for a hardware guy. When the CPUs
pumped water and the disk drives pumped oil it was fun to do. The
hardware job became pluck and chuck. The Physical planning rep job
pretty much just went away too. What pass for mainframes these days
would run fine in a warehouse.

You were a CE? Hardware development is still interesting.

BTW offices are still FCC class A environments. B is residential

I don't believe I said anything about the FCC. I didn't even know
they cared about temperature or humidity.

--
Keith

krw wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:


Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.


Ok, let me try again, slower. AS/400 and 4300s are/were what we
now call "departmental servers". /370, ES/9000s were relegated to
data centers and are rated for a "class-A" environment only. Note
that "office space" rating isn't exactly harsh either.


You guys are in semi-violent agreement.
Keith's first response was:
"Not true at all. A high RH contributes to failures in electronics
as well. Even recent equipment is specified from 40-60% RH, over a
fairly narrow temperature range."

I call the "not true at all" part complete bull****.
What Greg said was 100% true. And the gratuitous
"let me try again, slower" is another detractor.

Bottom line: human comfort and "equipment comfort"
are roughly the same, with the "equipment comfort"
range being wider than the human comfort range.
Think about it - humans operate the equipment, and
would not be willing to work in the thousands upon
thousands of "normal" datacenters if the machinerey
could not function in office-like temperature and
humidity. (Sorry - if you're in the military, you
work where they tell you - but even then, if it's
in a datacenter, it's likely to be comfortable.)
In fact, humans usually get uncomfortable outside
the 68-72 range, on average. Datacenter machinery
functions well outside of that range. The farther
you depart from that 68-72, the more extensive the
steps a human needs to take. Machines can't take
those steps, so they will fail when the conditions
are too far from nominal. What would be interesting
is some real discussion of the specific numbers.

I'll give you five examples:
1) Peat Marwick Mitchell datacenter, early 70's
An airconditioner failure caused DASD (2314) data
errors at exactly 94 degrees on their wall thermometer.
Ran fine at 93.
2) Manufacturers Hanover Trust datacenter began losing
equipment (power down) when temperature went above 90
during a blackout. (Early 80's) They had emergency
power to keep the data processing equipment running,
but nothing to power the conditioners.
3) Bloomingdales (now part of Federated) datacenter,
mid-late 70's. Red lite checks on CPU (3138) whenever
a metal cart carrying cards would touch the CPU;
random red lite cpu checks when loading paper in 1403.
Relative humidity was 16%. Raising it to 40% fixed
the problem. No hardware was damaged. Interesting -
with the lights off, when a new box of 1403 paper was
opened and fanned out, you could see the discharge.
4) Divco Wayne had a building heat failure over the
weekend. On Monday morning, the computer room was
30 degrees F. The damn system powered up and ran,
with no problems - but the 1416 print train ran
audibly slow. (Early-mid 70's)
5) IBM datacenter, early 80's. A disk pack was
transported in the trunk of a car, properly packed,
but in sub zero temperature. Upon arrival it was
immediately placed in a 2314. The idiot who did it
moved the pack to subsequent drives when it didn't
work. 180 heads, 5 VCM's and several days later,
full service was restored. I guess by the 6th pizza
oven, he moved the pack soon enough where the VCM
was not destroyed.

Specifically, the relative humidity spec is for
static/paper "fatness". The equipment couldn't
care less. It will run happily outside the range.
But if the RH is too low, static discharge can
occur, and that discharge can interfere with
equipment operation. The equipment does not mind
the low humidity, but it does mind the discharge.
"Wet" paper, due to high humidity, does not do
well in paper handling machinery in the datacenter.
Feed the equipment "dry" paper & it performs flawlessly.
I do not have statistics on "wet" paper - perhaps
one of you can discuss that in more detail.

Ed

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.


I remember the S/36's and the RS/6000's. Never got to deal with either
of the above, but I did like the RS/6000's.

In article Tsn6h.1215$8u1.207@trndny04, says...
krw wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:


Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.


Ok, let me try again, slower. AS/400 and 4300s are/were what we
now call "departmental servers". /370, ES/9000s were relegated to
data centers and are rated for a "class-A" environment only. Note
that "office space" rating isn't exactly harsh either.


You guys are in semi-violent agreement.
Keith's first response was:
"Not true at all. A high RH contributes to failures in electronics
as well. Even recent equipment is specified from 40-60% RH, over a
fairly narrow temperature range."

I call the "not true at all" part complete bull****.
What Greg said was 100% true. And the gratuitous
"let me try again, slower" is another detractor.

Bottom line: human comfort and "equipment comfort"
are roughly the same, with the "equipment comfort"
range being wider than the human comfort range.
Think about it - humans operate the equipment, and
would not be willing to work in the thousands upon
thousands of "normal" datacenters if the machinerey
could not function in office-like temperature and
humidity. (Sorry - if you're in the military, you
work where they tell you - but even then, if it's
in a datacenter, it's likely to be comfortable.)
In fact, humans usually get uncomfortable outside
the 68-72 range, on average. Datacenter machinery
functions well outside of that range. The farther
you depart from that 68-72, the more extensive the
steps a human needs to take. Machines can't take
those steps, so they will fail when the conditions
are too far from nominal. What would be interesting
is some real discussion of the specific numbers.

I'll give you five examples:
1) Peat Marwick Mitchell datacenter, early 70's
An airconditioner failure caused DASD (2314) data
errors at exactly 94 degrees on their wall thermometer.
Ran fine at 93.
2) Manufacturers Hanover Trust datacenter began losing
equipment (power down) when temperature went above 90
during a blackout. (Early 80's) They had emergency
power to keep the data processing equipment running,
but nothing to power the conditioners.

Ah - we run something comparitively smaller in our office with a pretty
even mix of *nix to Windows servers. All total there are roughly 50
servers.

Room is supplied with power by an APC Symmetra that gives us nominally
15 minutes of backup power. That Symmetra also has a kill switch for
emergency and its wired into the fire alarm system so that when the
sprinklers go off, all power to the room is cut.

The Symmetra also powers the cubes in the IT space. Right now we get 40
minutes time out of it, but that's only because two of our employees
like to have their heaters going full tilt. Otherwise it's over an hour.

Overhead lighting and air conditioning are not on the UPS. However there
is a 125kW natural gas fired generator out back that backs up the UPS,
and also supplies power to not only the overheads, but to the HVAC
system and we even ran a line out to the MDF int he building so Cox
could take advantage of our generator in the event of a building wide
power failure. We weren't being altruistic, we just wanted to make sure
our network connection stays up.

We also do quarterly tests of the power system, as well as having the
system set to do regular exercise runs on the generator.

That data center was my baby. And the redundancy built in shows it.

In article ,
says...
In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.


I remember the S/36's and the RS/6000's. Never got to deal with either
of the above, but I did like the RS/6000's.

Those were all designed for office environments. Mainframes most
certainly were not, and it had nothing to do with paper (I/O was
seldom in the same room).

--
Keith

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:18:21 -0500, krw wrote:

I wouldn't exactly call a 4331,41 & 81 class machines a department
server. It was the replacement for 370 M138-158 class machines.

THat's exactly how they were used. BTW the replacement for the
3138-3158 class was the 3031.

I was region support for the 4300 and the 138, 148. I don't know of
ONE 370 138/148 customer who went for the 3031
It basically WAS a 158 (as were the service directors) so there would
^^^^^^^ channel
be no advantage to go 158 to 3031
I was also trained on both the 158 and 3031.

The channel directors off loaded all the I/O microcode. The 3031
was significantly faster than a 3158 because of the director. IIRC
they were pretty cheap too.

The AS/400 actually out performed that series in black box form.
The word mainframe became fairly ambiguous anyway when they became
nothing more than a rack of RISC cards.

Is an xSeries a "mainframe"? Is it a "rack of RISC cards"?
After my time but I bet it is.

It's not after mine. ;-) Nope. /360 is hardly RISC. THe
processor complex is an MCM.

It is one reason I left. The
computer business got very boring for a hardware guy. When the CPUs
pumped water and the disk drives pumped oil it was fun to do. The
hardware job became pluck and chuck. The Physical planning rep job
pretty much just went away too. What pass for mainframes these days
would run fine in a warehouse.

You were a CE? Hardware development is still interesting.

CE, Support Specialist then later IPR and Contract Services.

--
Keith

In article Tsn6h.1215$8u1.207@trndny04, ehsjr wrote:
[...]
I'll give you five examples:
1) Peat Marwick Mitchell datacenter, early 70's
An airconditioner failure caused DASD (2314) data
errors at exactly 94 degrees on their wall thermometer.
Ran fine at 93.

Reminds me of an incident that occurred in the late 80s/early 90s when I
worked for the Navy. I managed a Tandem TXP system that shared a computer room
with a Honeywell 66. One holiday weekend, the air conditioning system failed
in the wee hours of Saturday morning after the second shift operators had gone
home. (There was no third shift.) Monday being a holiday, the problem wasn't
discovered until the first shift operators arrived at about 6am Tuesday to
find the data center at about 110 degrees. The Honeywell had gone down only
about three hours after the air conditioning did... but the Tandem was still
up. The DASD cabinets were painfully hot to the touch, and one of the drives
had gone down -- but since Tandem uses mirrored drives, and the mirror was
still ok, it did no harm. I measured the exhaust air at the back of the
processor cabinet at 134 degrees... but the Tandem was still up.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

In article ,
zz says...
In article ,
says...
In article ,
says...
On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:19:07 -0500, krw wrote:

Mainframes are *not* specified for office environment (rather
"Class A") though. There is a difference between a "departmental
server" and a data center mainframe.

I am not sure what machines you are talking about but 4300s and AS400s
were office space rated. These were around before most people had ever
heard of a server or a LAN.


I remember the S/36's and the RS/6000's. Never got to deal with either
of the above, but I did like the RS/6000's.

Those were all designed for office environments. Mainframes most
certainly were not, and it had nothing to do with paper (I/O was
seldom in the same room).



Actually we had lots of big iron at the Retro Computing Society of Rhode
Island. The KL10 was a big beast. Interestingly the collection seriously
lacked IBM big iron.

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:17:32 -0500, krw wrote:

Those were all designed for office environments. Mainframes most
certainly were not, and it had nothing to do with paper (I/O was
seldom in the same room).

Any of the air cooled machines could run damn near anywhere. When I
got to Florida (From the glass house data centers of DC) I saw it
happening. A "computer room" was a bay in a strip mall or industrial
center. That was also the first time I ran into red leg delta power
and the first time I saw "no raised floor" since the 1401 and mod 30
days.


We stipulated a raised floor because we could. And it has come in handy,
from snaking a power whip over to the telephone switch (An Avaya
Prologix) or running network cabling to server racks, etc.

http://blip.tv/file/67664

In article ,
says...
In article Tsn6h.1215$8u1.207@trndny04, ehsjr wrote:
[...]
I'll give you five examples:
1) Peat Marwick Mitchell datacenter, early 70's
An airconditioner failure caused DASD (2314) data
errors at exactly 94 degrees on their wall thermometer.
Ran fine at 93.

Reminds me of an incident that occurred in the late 80s/early 90s when I
worked for the Navy. I managed a Tandem TXP system that shared a computer room
with a Honeywell 66. One holiday weekend, the air conditioning system failed
in the wee hours of Saturday morning after the second shift operators had gone
home. (There was no third shift.) Monday being a holiday, the problem wasn't
discovered until the first shift operators arrived at about 6am Tuesday to
find the data center at about 110 degrees. The Honeywell had gone down only
about three hours after the air conditioning did... but the Tandem was still
up. The DASD cabinets were painfully hot to the touch, and one of the drives
had gone down -- but since Tandem uses mirrored drives, and the mirror was
still ok, it did no harm. I measured the exhaust air at the back of the
processor cabinet at 134 degrees... but the Tandem was still up.



Back in 1993 I was responsible for managing a Data General MV9600U
running AOS/VS II. Loved that machine, and still remember alot about it.

In any case, these were machines that could take abuse. We knew of one
located in a non-ventilated closet that just continued to run until
decommissioning day.