Well, MVS has become OS/390, and now z/OS, the latter offering more Linux integration. I see what you mean. In fact, as I understand it, the HP 3000 was originally meant to compete with IBM's mainframe offerings. Now, what I see, with too many of the mainframers I work with, is occult art. People copy job cards, having no idea exactly what all they do; they just know that they work. I've seen users who understood exactly one way to do a thing, and repeat it by rote, without understanding it, or other ways to accomplish the same thing, even when that would be better. If I have to explain one more time that I do not always have to "preallocate" a file... MVS & co started in a time when machine time was more valuable than developer time, so the developer was required to specify a lot of options. And there are a lot of options; I am struck by the mainframe's complexities. Consequently, this makes for a huge topic. We can compare subsystems. And we can compare market niches. And we could compare the kinds of people who work on them, and the job markets for them. Greg Stigers http://www.cgiusa.com * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *