Mainframerz Matters - Update on our next Event

Our next Mainframerz Meetup Event is quickly approaching and we hope to finalise the date for the next event very soon. We are aiming to hold the event towards the end of June this is a provisional date, but it's our aim, unless anything changes. Our event this time will focus around the mainframe itself, what is it, what does it do, what are some of the key components you will find and why are they used.

I am sure there will be plenty of stories around these topics and as a community hopefully we can shine a light on our experiences and share these to newer attendees.

We will as always have our slack channel open for you to post questions, answers and stories. We are lining up we hope some great speakers who will give an overview of the mainframe but in a fun way.

We are always listening to everyone for feedback and ideas, and we love to hear from you, what would you choose next, what do you think we should make our next meeting about?

If you have any idea as a speaker for a topic or if you would like to suggest the next topic we are listening.

As a mainframe community event we try and ensure our event is for all of you in the mainframe community, we have a great back catalog of events that you can find on YouTube. Our event has covered Cobol, the Cloud, Staying secure with CiCS and mainframe Security, we have had also had some fun stories and we have taken the mainframe to the movies, and the mainframe went to space.

The question is what comes next..............

Share your Events

As our event this time is explaining more about the mainframe it seems a good time to help explain how to also get more from our event. I have this time chosen to highlight the general tab on our slack channel as it is a great resource where lots of interesting mainframe posts can be found.

The General tab on our slack channel, it's available to everyone in the community. In there you can find links to all sorts of events taking place in the mainframe community, there is lots of good stuff to be found in here:-

As you can see above we include Mainframe Events, shown below you can see we have links to some fun mainframe videos that have been posted. I recommend this its really good shared by Sophie.

You can find community days, here is an IBM Z day event, conference event.

You can find great articles to read, white papers and more, if it's a free and available for the mainframe let us know and share it with others.

I hope you can see from the variety of posts which I have tried to select a cross section of different types of content that its a great place to find information, if you want to find out more about the mainframe it's a great resource.

You will find so many useful links in here provided by all of us and we want you to help us by adding to the content.

Just for Fun

Q. Did you know you can buy an earthquake resistance kit (feature code 1906) is an optional seismic kit for stabilizing the frame so that the frame complies with IBM? earthquake resistance standards ?

It is important for storage systems to be adequately restrained during earthquakes. This precaution helps to prevent human injury. It also ensures the availability of the storage system after an earthquake by limiting potential damage to critical system components, such as disk drives. This optional earthquake resistance kit feature includes cross-braces on the front and rear of the rack, which prevent the rack from twisting. Hardware at the bottom of the rack secures the rack to the floor. The earthquake resistance kit ensures that your storage system complies with the earthquake resistance objectives that are documented in Earthquake Resistance for IBM Hardware Products (IBM Corporate Bulletin C-B 1-9711-009 9202). Fact supplied by Nick Garrod of IBM, coincidentally April 18th, 1906 is the date of the Earthquake which struck San Francisco, almost 116 years later to the day when I began preparing this edition of the newsletter.

Q. Do you know what this image has to do with the mainframe (you will find the answer under the picture) ?

Quick note this image is shared under internet fair use policy - it was originally available via https://flickr.com/photos/95142644@N00/11595561416 and was uploaded by Ruth Hartnup, Vancouver Canada.

To give you a clue and help you, I can tell you that the image is of a cheese cutter, which was originally green. I came across this when I found a video of the cheese cutter restoration uploaded to YouTube which you will find below. For some reason I find the video of the restoration quite pleasing to watch (not sure if it is an ASMR, Autonomous sensory meridian response).

To put everyone who is still wondering why is there a picture of a cheese cutter in a Mainframerz newsletter out of your misery (as we say in the UK), it is because it one of a number of products apart from Earthquake Resistance Kit which IBM manufacture today; the cheese cutter is a product manufactured by IBM in the past sadly no longer available. Over time many companies including IBM will look into exploring and diversifying into other markets. Fact supplied by Jorge Martelanz, System Programmer at IBM, Saudi Arabia.

?? Please let me know in the comments if you knew the answer. ??

?? Link to Youtube video is here: https://youtu.be/z8VhNF_0I5 ??