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newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:38 am
by tyejackson
this may be posted in the wrong forum( if so im sorry)

i am the work study for the CIS acidemic chair at my school.
i aquired an old ibm 5363 today(just had to haul it off)
no cables or anything was included
i know nothing about this equipment i now own.
my advisor told me it was an AS-400 Mainframe.

numbers on the front :
ibm 5363
M/T 5363
S/N 10-13328
the only number on the back:
B/M 92X3483
thats it for what i do know

what i would like to know :
any place to find documentation on how to plug it in, connect it to my network, and use it, what i need to get to hook up to it, what cables hook to it, ect, anything
pretty much i was handed a piece of equipment and told it was a mainframe and thats the most i have ever been exposed to them? i would love to know how this machine could be useful to me
please any help would be very very appreciated

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:39 am
by NicC
Cannot really help you but I can correct something - an AS400 is not a mainframe it is more a souped up PC running AIX - IBM's version of Unix for the AS400. But I do not know if a 5363 is an AS400 or not. Google to the rescue - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5363! It is a system 36 - ancient and pre-dates the AS400 (IIRC).

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:11 am
by tyejackson
thanks i got this thing today and i was told to learn about it, harder than i thought i dont even know what i can do with this machine but im gonna figure it out thanks

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:51 pm
by enrico-sorichetti
DO NOT POST THE SAME ISSUE ON MULTIPLE FORUMS AT THE SAME TIME
it is considered bad manners and it just wastes people time having them give duplicate answers :evil:

multiple posting is allowed only if after a reasonable time You do not get a response to the preceding one

for this kind of issues the best places to seek help are those dealing with vintage/retrocomputing equipment/hobby

anyway the <machine> would be <useful> only if You have the hobby of collecting such equipment
right now and given its condition You can use it, as said in the <other> thread, as a SPACE EATER

for some s/36 manuals look at www.bitsavers.org

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:47 pm
by mongan
Unless you are a museum and are trying to get this thing to run I see no use in it at all. Alone the power consumption ....

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:54 pm
by BillyBoyo
Before spending too much time on it, do some background reading on S/36. Then decide. "Thar's gold in them thar circuits" might get you a few bucks if you scrap it.

To get it running, talk to IBM. You're an educational institution, you'd get all the software free/at discount. You'll need cables. You probably can't "just" hook it up to your network :-), but I suppose there'd be a way. But before all of that, is it able to be any benefit to you? Students learning RPG III as a general introduction to programming? I don't think so.

You don't have any peripherals, so stand-alone is not even an option - and again, why?

"Thar's gold..."

Re: newbie to mainframes needing help with old ibm 5363

PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 6:30 pm
by tyejackson
thanks for all the forget about it posts i have read the last few days and i have decided to sell it or trade it off
i was only wanting to see it run maybe toy around with it a little, try to gain some knowledge about mainframes
i acquired a box of cables and connectors and two consoles for the system but it is ever evident that even booting this beast up is
a waste of my time but thanks for all the reply's