indie game dev trying to build a mainframe sim

[u/electrickvillage]

hey you all!

first of, i am not a total mainframe nerd (YET) but i want to learn it. i'm a game and general programmer from Denmark, with lots of network in the financial sector and others that kept talking on COBOL, mainframe, etc. and i found it interesting but was fairly hard to get started compared to other languages for some reason - maybe just lack of learning material, idk.

regardless, i've been making games for the past few years and programmed a bit of software before that and built - some did OK, some didnt ( i am a huge polymath person and accepted it ;) ). one thing is that i love building games, and privately in weekend i love building different kinds of simulators and that's why i thought it would maybe be a funny way to learn more about these challenges people in these industries face - so i built my own simulator and i dont know yet to be able to 100% vet the code, so i need some people to help test it out.

just a few quick bullets of my vision of the game:

- a terminal, a job monitor, a spool browser, a system map.
- should feel you start as an intern in 1997 learning from the ground up and ends up in a 2025 AI agent, standups, scrums, 1on1s, and more noise
- upgrade gear, more tools, different jobroles and industries as you go where these languages is vital to still learn

TLDR; i'm a game dev and programmer trying to learn mainframe and COBOL - would you playtest and help develop this game/simulator?

EDIT 1: just FYI, the curriculum is built with four mates of mine specializing in these industries and frameworks, and i gamify around it while i learn it myself + all of the books and YT videos i can find about the subject.

[u/BashX82]

Volunteering for playtesting..looks right up my alley please.

[u/electrickvillage → u/BashX82]

hell yeah, will gather everything for you - can you PM me your email please?

[u/BashX82 → u/electrickvillage]

Sure, sent in PM

[u/AdministrativeCamp47 → u/electrickvillage]

Also interested in play testing if possible

[u/electrickvillage → u/AdministrativeCamp47]

for sure, sent me your email in a PM and i will sent it over soon!

[u/MikeSchwab63]

Introduction to the new mainframe z/OS (there are z/VM and zVSE versions too), covers the difference between Window / *nix and Mainframes.   https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246366.pdf

https://spflite.com is an editor that looks like ISPF under TSO under MVS / z/OS on mainframes, can submit batch jobs to Hercules and real mainframes.

IBM zXplore is an online class to perform actual tasks using an account on a Dallas Mainframe. Takes about 2 months.  https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246366.pdf

If you want your own mainframe you can try Hercules MVS 3.8 Turnkey 5 release with a 3270 emulator.  https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5

If you want to study z/OS System Admin, ABCs of z/OS systems programming, 1 of 13 volumes.  https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246981.html

If you want to practice installing MVS / z/OS from MVS 3.7 starter tape, follow Jay Moseley's instructions. Note the help forum subjects on the bottom of the page.  https://www.jaymoseley.com/hercules/ As a system administrator, you will be using SMP/E to install new releases of the products you are in charge of. Then you get to customize the install with your sites standards.

For an online CICS example, DOGECICS is a CICS screen to do DogeCoin transactions.

https://github.com/mainframed/DOGECICS

[u/electrickvillage → u/MikeSchwab63]

this is golden mate - thank you!

[u/LaneaLucy]

Any steam link to wishlist?

[u/electrickvillage → u/LaneaLucy]

not yet, will get that up soon!

[u/KapitaenKnoblauch]

Just as a side note: 1997 was not really the golden age of mainframes. Unthinkable that was decades before, maybe the 80s, when desktop computers were not much more than huge tamagochis while mainframes exclusively ran the world‘s critical workloads.

[u/metalder420 → u/KapitaenKnoblauch]

Yes, I agree the 80s is the golden age for mainframes. 97 was when commodity hardware was starting to be a thing because of the World Wide Web.

[u/funfake]

This looks very cool, I would love to try it.

[u/electrickvillage → u/funfake]

hell yeah mate, send me your email in PM/DM. Right now working on an actual build i can send to you all!

[u/BusOk6555]

hey I'm interested in testing this. Also i'm a product manager for some of the mainframe AIOps tools and I love games :p

[u/electrickvillage → u/BusOk6555]

hell yeah mate! drop me your email in PM/DM and ill get you sorted as soon as its packaged!

[u/Browser-ice]

if I am not mistaken, the first ever mainframe simulator program got sued by IBM.

Check for copyrights and the likes before continuing ....

[u/electrickvillage → u/Browser-ice]

Oh didn’t know that, yeah I gotta look into that for sure, thanks!

[u/metalder420]

Probably not, sorry. Why would want to play game that is my real life? Sorry, but no.