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Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe

SHARE Association2 HN recommenders · 2018–2025
3.2M views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2016-03-25

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.

HN commenters cite it as an entertaining example of a teenager buying, hosting and booting a real mainframe.

History of computingComputer architecture & CPUs

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9 comments from Hacker News

@dredmorbius2018 · in “Hello World on z/OS”

C'mon, you just needa little motivation. ;-) Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe [VIDEO]

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@avip2018 · in “Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap”

This vid has some good photos [VIDEO] (also discussed on HN previously). You don't want one if you ask me.

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@dbg314152019 · in “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 || [VIDEO]

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@dirktheman2019 · in “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! [VIDEO]

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@laxd2020 · in “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 [VIDEO] (Here's What Happens When an 18 Year Old Buys a Mainframe)

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@galoisgirl2020 · in “GnuCOBOL 3.1.1”

He did, his talk about it is really interesting: [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]

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@chiph2021 · in “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. [VIDEO]

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@jamal-kumar2022 · in “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] [VIDEO]

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@timewizard2025 · in “A Tour Inside the IBM Z17”

It depends on how full those drawers are. $250k to $1m would be the typical price range. It's easier and harder at the same time to buy older hardware. That's half the challenge though because the software is strictly licensed and you pay per MIPS. Here's a kid who bought a mainframe and then brought it up: [VIDEO]

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