Nick Litten – AS400 iSeries and IBM i Consultant Nerd.
I’m an IT Consultant and IBM i Software Developer (aka RPG Programmer) primarily working on IBM Power Systems running the IBM i operating system. The current generation of IBM POWER SYSTEMS is latest iteration of the legacy machines from decades ago called System-i, iSeries, and AS400.
Thirty years ago (damn that makes me feel even older than I am) I fell into computer programming straight out of high school.. True story — I applied for a summer job driving forklift trucks because I thought that would be fun, but they decided I would be a good fit to work as a trainee programmer on their brand new System38 machine. I gratefully said “YES” purely because it paid more! But within a couple of weeks I was already feeling the nerdy excitement of this technology as I slowly got to grips with it.
Decades later, tapping on these IBM keyboards has taken me around the world; after spending the first third of my life in the United Kingdom, the next third travelling all over the USA, I’ve now settled in sunny Southern Spain. It’s a terrific ride. I believe us olderexperienced programmers have a responsibility to share the knowledge and help the *freshers* who are stepping foot in the IBM i pond for the first time.
English sounding RPG Hippie that looks exactly like me
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Update – July 2020
It’s time to upgrade this website to something more than just a blog. It’s time to give something back to the wonderful IBM i Community that I’ve enjoyed for so long. If you are new to the IBM i World, or training to be an RPG programmer or even working on a project that is interfacing with an IBM i System (earlier models included the AS400 and iSeries) then some of these video courses might help:
I started back in the days of IBM System/38 machines, the IBM PC XT was just being conceived, APPLE was working on its APPLE 2E, the internet was a futuristic dream and dialup Bulletin Boards were leading edge social media.
My home computer was an IBM PC XT with a modem the size of a shoe box that I plugged into my parents phone line, after disconnecting the bakelite rotary phone.
Working on IBM mainframe/midrange systems has taken me around the world, earning a good salary and, most importantly, doing something that I have really come to love: RPG is a fantastic language, IBM i is a terrific operating system and the hardware is second to none.
My blog is an attempt at sharing the IBM i Love, highlighting some programming techniques and sometimes just waffling about personal lifestyle nonsense.
Welcome to the Discussion Forum for Members Only. If you are a subscriber, this is the place to ask questions, request vides and to talk to other like-minded IBM i Nerds with technical discussions.
Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a popular source code editor developed by Microsoft that supports various programming languages, including IBM i (iSeries, AS/400) languages such as RPG, COBOL, and CL. With the help of extensions and plugins, VS Code can be transformed into a powerful tool for IBM i programming, providing features like syntax highlighting, code completion, debugging, and more.
This presentation is an introduction to the IBM i Power System and a look at the IBM Midrange System’s heritage from the 1970’s up to correct days. From the old pre-internet AS/400 systems, through the iSeries Generation to today’s modern Web2.0 IBM i Power Systems.
Which 5250 Screen Emulator shall I use? The IBM i System, like its predecessors the AS400 and iSeries, uses something called 5250 to stream its data to a terminal, often called a green screen. You’ve seen these clunky old terminals in black and white sci-fi movies. We still use them… sort of… we use terminal emulators (software that emulates the functions of those old terminals) to type commands into a command-line interface using windows/linux/mac whatever.
This course is an introduction into Using and Administering your IBM i System. We will go through signing up for a free account online and logging in and going through some basic usage of the wonderful IBM-i operating system.