[Gllug] Laptops?

[Henrik Morsing]

> It's a matter of terminology really. Although it's termed a "mid range"
> server, a fully spec'ed p690 is physically larger and more powerful than
> a lot of "real" mainframes. And similarly priced. So calling it a
> mainframe isn't far off.

I'm sorry but no!
You're basically saying that if you make a car big enough, it's a train.
It doesn't work that way.
A mainframe works in a very different way to other computers. Not only the
processors but the memory management and especially the I/O-system is
extremely different.
Size doesn't change the type of the computer. You can even get very small
mainframes and a full spec mainframe is still a lot more powerful than a
p690, especially on the I/O side.

The mainframe *is* physically bigger than a p690 (unless it's one of the
really small models) and it's a lot more expensive.
p690s range from £500.000 to £2.500.000
Mainframes might start at £1.000.000 but if you want a decent system it's
a lot more. You also have to remember that Mainframes doesn't have disks
(normally) so you need a £500.000 ESS to run it.

Calling a p690 a mainframe is indeed far off.

> To the best of my knowledge the "true" mainframes - the z Series - still
> use their own CPUs with their (extremely) CISC.

zSeries are mainframes, pSeries, iSeries and xSeries are not!

My last post in this thread - this has gone too off-topic.

Cheers
Henrik Morsing
IBM Certified - p690 Technical Support

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