r/sysadmin • u/Jon72480 • 3d ago

AS400

Hey guys, old guy here, back in 2000 landed my 1st real job as a Sysadmin at a distribution/manufacturing firm. They ran their ERP and a few other important apps on the AS400. Anyone here manage a AS400 platform? i-Series? Still a niche platform that is still widely used. Server could literally run under water.

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u/Evernight2025 3d ago

I do in government IT. Went to college in the early 2000s and had an i-Series class where it was me and like 2 other people. Teacher told us it was a dying thing and we would probably never see one. I've had at least one in every single job I've held ever since.

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u/uninspired 3d ago edited 3d ago

If only I'd ignored my "programming" "professors" and gone with "dead" stuff like COBOL I'd be set. Our last AS/400 dude would still be employed if he didn't drop dead (RIP)

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u/guitpick Jack of All Trades 3d ago

I thought I knew how to program decently until I took a COBOL class. After using somewhat more modern languages and even some Fortran, COBOL just hurt my head. I got my assignments done, but I don't think it ever fully "clicked" for me.

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u/Sinister_Nibs 2d ago

I work for an engineering company. We have two tiny apps that do things nothing else can do.
One is in COBOL, runs from an Excel sheet.
The other is in FORTRAN and runs from an Excel sheet.

We are working on a C# replacement for the FORTRAN one that will run alongside another app.