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OS/400 V3

SystemSystem
edited July 2020 in Product Comments

imageOS/400 V3

OS/400 (now known as IBM i, previously i5/OS) is the operating system of the AS/400 (now Power Systems, previously System i) series of minicomputers by IBM. It is the replacement for CPF for the System/38 and SSP for the System/36. In addition to a consistent programming environment and a user-friendly interface, it features advanced features not seen in other platforms such as tagged memory, single-level storage, is exclusively written in managed languages.

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Comments

  • ZylissZockerHDZylissZockerHD
    I wonder if this would ever work on QEMU or some other emulator
  • DPlex64DPlex64
    Does anyone know how to virtualize this system?
  • jack23247jack23247
    edited July 2020
    There is currently no way to virtualize OS/400: the CISC models are a no-go, and even the early POWER-based 400s are not quite the same as contemporary RS/6ks, so currently QEMU cannot handle it. Even if it could you'd need some kind of ROM image which contains the code responsible for the early stages of IPL and loads the LIC either from Side A/B, Tape or CD-ROM.

    Due to the unique nature of OS/400 it might be possible to reverse-engineer the TIMI VM and perform some kind of HLE, but it'd definitely require some gargantuan amount of work.
  • DPlex64DPlex64
    So how do you install it? Or is there no way to install it?
  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    Unless someone writes an emulator, the only way to run it is to have a genuine AS/400. To make matters worse, as I understand it, license keys restrict it to running only on the machine that the license if for. So if you don't have a matching license key, your are kind of screwed. (And you thought Windows licensing raped kittens)

    These are big proprietary systems that are nothing at all like a PC.
  • jack23247jack23247
    There could be a loophole to bypass the licensing issues: OS/400 V4R5 came free-of-charge with the AS/400e Model 150, so if an emulator reported itself as a 150 the OS *should* be able to run without expiring. By the way, if you own a working unit you can print out the license keys with the DSPLICKEY CL command.

    And yes, it's true: the classic 400s are some really weird beast, probably even more than their mainframe counterparts, as their design choices (up to the point when they finally integrated all in the System p line) really hark back to the S/38 days.
  • Menie8888Menie8888
    what the hell is this? what is that architecture!???
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