[Tokhtamish]

The AS400 was not a mainframe. It was a minicomputer designed to compete with DEC Vax's and PDP's. But like an IBM mainframe it ran COBOL and DB2. It was simply that the network is the natural enemy of the minicomputer.

It seems to me that the logic of running Linux on the IBM is the sheer fact that it is impossible to get young programmers to make any career investment in learning COBOL and JCL. Do any computer schools these days still teach MVS or IBM 360/Assembler ? People want skills as portable as possible not limited to a ghetto of the computing world. Old legacy mainframe programmers are a dying breed.

The trick is, someone has to come up with a COBOL compiler for Linux. There is a mountain of old COBOL code out there that still has to be supported (like the stuff that calculates your social security, for instance ?). And it will never go away. There will always be huge institutions that need to process enormous amounts of information with 24/7 reliability and ironclad security. That is what mainframes do.

[cherry_bomb88]

People want skills as portable as possible not limited to a ghetto of the computing world

*cute* phrase...I assume you are talking about the mock *geeks* that just know MCSE and networking???

I know those that can actually program COBOL & MVS are definitely a dying breed, I know a few older people that can do it. They can command a top $$$ for those that still have "monsters in the basement" that need servicing & programming skills.

I guess my ignorance in programming shows through...again, I am just an above average end user that can design pre-packaged databases (access, filemaker & Act) and use most software packages to their fullest capablities as I take the initiative to really learn them. I can also do some networking & hardware trouble shooting...but I'm not a professional geek...I just pretend to be one at home {G}

[Paleo Conservative]

The trick is, someone has to come up with a COBOL compiler for Linux.

Wouldn't it be better to cross-compile to new C or Java code? I think I read somewhere about a program that takes original COBOL code, analyzes how various parts of the code interact with each other and creates new source code in C with documentation. Supposedly it can even recognize dead code that is no longer referenced and delete it from the new source code.

[sine_nomine]

Thanks for the information. I keep seeing out of work mainframe guys - or soon to be out of work guys.

[AppyPappy]

We run COBOL on unix.

[dark_lord]

Apparently, you can already get COBOL on the mainframe running on Linux. And here is a press release on the same product.