IBM's System/360 was 50 years old on April 7, 2014

[jebem]

Thanks for bringing this memories here.

I reminds me that time pass by and when you realized, you feel that you spent your life chasing the next big advanced technology only to be made obsolete by the next big thing.

When I started working on IT since the end of the 70's, I had my time implementing and supporting really high tech DataSaab D15/D16 computers (when RAM memory as done using magnetic ferrite cores, paper tape punch was high tech, and an 5MByte Hard Disk unit was the best and more than enough for any medium sized organization needs!), Wang 2200 and VS system computers, WANG-IBM interoperability (2780/3780 transfer, SNA 3274 CU, 3278 terminals...).

The world was simpler at those times: The computer solution really worked nicely, as the hardware and software were developed/tested by the same manufacturer, and the quality of the products had to be near to perfect, otherwise the customers would not accepted them.
Bugs? Yes, it existed all the time, but it were corrected in very short time to keep the customers happy and loyal to the brand.

Then downsizing took over with the x86 architectures and the world saw a small revolution in IT.
Nowadays it seems to be acceptable to go to market with an unfinished product, full of "issues"/"bugs", and because the customers are "adapted" to this new reality, everybody accepts this as the "correct" way to create products.

So, you keep learning the new high technologies to keep you self up to date, if you want to be in this business. That's what I do.
And every time I look back, I wonder how much long I will have to keep this pace. One day, maybe one day, I will stop doing this...

Cheers.