Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it as an entertaining example of a teenager buying, hosting and booting a real mainframe.
What it is
Connor Krukosky, an 18-year-old college student and vintage computer collector, tells how he bought an IBM z890 mainframe and got it running at home. The talk was given at SHARE in San Antonio in March 2016.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2018 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends laxd · 2020-05 · on “Mini-Mainframe at Home: A 6-CPU Server from 1997”
I'm shure alot of you have seen this already. If not, it's an entertaining 45 minutes [this video] (Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe)
Recommends galoisgirl · 2020-12 · on “GnuCOBOL 3.1.1”
He did, his talk about it is really interesting: [this video] > He and his old computer friends played around with some applications that were on the platform, and even made an FTP server that put some data on the internet. Per [LINK]
Cites dredmorbius · 2018-07 · on “Hello World on z/OS”
C'mon, you just needa little motivation. ;-) Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe [this video]
Cites avip · 2018-09 · on “Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap”
This vid has some good photos [this video] (also discussed on HN previously). You don't want one if you ask me.
Cites dbg31415 · 2019-02 · on “The Rise of the Tech-Savvy Parent”
Consumer tech has been refined and dumbed down to the point where everything just sort of magically works, and since it's "magic" you never have to dive into the nuts and bolts. By making it so easy to use, we are depriving people of their opportunities to organically learn like people in my generation had to. Exceptions exist. * Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe - YouTube || [this video]
Cites dirktheman · 2019-05 · on “Three geeks rescue a 50-year-old IBM 360 mainframe from an abandoned building”
Reminds me of the kid that bought an IBM z890 mainframe and brought it to his basement. And got it to work! [this video]
Cites chiph · 2021-11 · on “Bernie Madoff’s unwitting accomplice: The AS/400 (2009)”
If you do, blog about it. One of the challenges in getting an old mainframe (System 360, 3090, etc) running is getting a license for the operating system from IBM. Hopefully acquiring one for the AS/400 is easier. [this video]
Cites jamal-kumar · 2022-05 · on “OpenVMS on x86”
Wasn't there that kid that IBM uses as a sort of new mascot for mainframe stuff who bought an old mainframe and got it working in his basement? [1] [1] [this video]