Important Question about computer terminology Please answer soon!

[Larry_OHF]

My wife is filling out an application and a question asks, Mainframes:_____________________________

What is this asking her? I think it is asking if she knows :

Windows
Macintosh
IBM

But I might be wrong. Please explain what it is asking for her to put here.

[Reeka]

I have to admit that it makes me a little curious as to what kind of application. But, in response to your question, and believe me I am probably the least knowledgeable person, a mainframe in my experience is like the "main" brain of a network. When I was working at the University, we all had pcs on our desk and they were all networked but over in the tight-security building where are the IT and computer programmers and system analysts and all was the "main frame." It was in a huge room and was the computer that networked all the other computers. That was where they ran the back-ups every night, etc.

That is what I know. I don't know how this would fit in with your wife's application. Hope it helps.

[Zero Alpha]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: Mainframes:_____________________________

Mainframes:_yes they are very nice. what about them?

seriously, just telling us 'mainframes' isnt very enlightening. what is the actual question?

and Reeka, that sounds about right. it may not answer the question though, as technicaly one hasnt been posted!

[ 09-06-2003, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Zero Alpha ]

[Reeka]

I found this, Larry: http://www.mainframes.com/whatis.htm

[Larry_OHF]

Zero, this is exactly how the page reads..



Years of experience:

Typing________________

PCs___________________

Mainframes____________

[Night Stalker]

They are asking how much xp she has working on mainframe class computers. For exapmle: an IBM AS/400 series or "Big Blue". Possibly programming in CICS, COBOL, DB2, various *nixes, familiarity with 3270 interfaces. I'm guessing the answer is 0.

Reeka, a mainframe is just a very large and powerful computer. They typically have multiple processors, huge amounts of RAM and can allow multiple programs and users use their resources. While they can be networked, they have nothing to do with the network per say.

Side note: Today's desktop PCs are way more powerfull than the mainframes of 30 years ago.

[Cloudbringer]

Larry,

I think they are refering to her experience on the mainframe computers of major corporations/businesses and schools. For instance a Unix machine or the old IBM and Sun (?) mainframes. At the university, we refer to our Unix and the old VAX as the university mainframes. They are the huge main 'brain' computers that keep vast amounts of data and power the company/school's sites and programs.


I used to log onto our mainframe from my pc at my desk at work before being able to access the outside world- nowadays they've got a portal we enter and we're hardwired into the system.

Basically they're asking if she's had experience on the big toys.

edit: Yah, what Night Stalker said!

[ 09-06-2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]