Junior Techie Rushed Off For Fun Weekend After Making A Terminal Mistake That Crashed A Client
The Register, Monday, March 10th, 2025
Using one green screen to manage multiple machines needs more than a Friday afternoon brain
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Bill" who told us about his very first job, fresh out of university, working to support a client's fleet of IBM AS/400 midrange computers.
Bill's duties saw him work with both on-prem AS/400s and customers' machines that he accessed remotely, over modems that sped along at perhaps 2400bps! He used the same tool to access either type of machine: a 5250 green screen dumb terminal.
Working on AS/400s was fun because, as Bill reminded us, "commands were invariably constructed from mnemonics of the words."
"WRKCFGSTS, for example, meant 'work with configuration status functions'. WRKACTJOB meant 'work with active jobs'."
Another command, PWRDWNSYS powered down a system, with optional parameters RESTART(*YES) or RESTART (*NO) offering the chance to specify a reboot or complete shutdown.