Why Do Mainframes Still Exist? What's Inside One? 40TB, 200+ Cores, AI, and more!
Dave's Garage3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2023–2024
explainer · intermediate · evergreen · 2023–2024 on HN
Dave Plummer tours the IBM z16 mainframe from design through factory assembly, test lab, accelerators and water cooling. He explains why mainframes still exist and what makes them reliable.
Recommended as an accessible tour of modern mainframes that compares them sensibly to ordinary server setups.
Up next
3 mo on HNWhat a Japanese Moving Company in Tokyo is like
Paolo fromTOKYO
3 HN recommender · 2020–2025
9 mo on HNA Mind Is Born (256 bytes)
lftkryo
8 HN recommender · 2017–2025
2 mo on HNThe Iroquois Confederacy
Historia Civilis
2 HN recommender · 2018–2025
3 mo on HNHow an Average Family in Tokyo Can Buy a New Home
Life Where I'm From
3 HN recommender · 2017–2023
5 mo on HNSteve Reich, "Music for 18 Musicians" - FULL PERFORMANCE with eighth blackbird
Vic Firth
4 HN recommender · 2016–2025
2 mo on HNRiot On Documentary (2002)
Caroline bruins
2 HN recommender · 2016–2022
4 mo on HNNuclear 101: How Nuclear Bombs Work Part 1/2
Belfer Center
4 HN recommender · 2018–2024
5 mo on HNHappy People | Spring (part 1) [Happy People Documentary | Spring in Siberia Part 1
Дмитрий Васюков
4 HN recommender · 2015–2023
12 mo on HN8-bit computer update
Ben Eater
14 HN recommender · 2017–2023
11 mo on HNLight Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer
TNMoC
11 HN recommender · 2021–2026
11 mo on HN“Hello, world” from scratch on a 6502 — Part 1
Ben Eater
11 HN recommender · 2019–2026
10 mo on HNFinding the Missing Memristor - R. Stanley Williams
The Qualcomm Institute
12 HN recommender · 2010–2024
4 comments from Hacker News
"Why Do Mainframes Still Exist? What's Inside One? 40TB, 200+ Cores, AI, and more! - Dave explores the IBM z16 mainframe from design to assembly and testing. What's inside a modern IBM z16 mainframe that makes it relevant today?" - by Dave Plummer. This is an amazing 23-minute video by the Microsoft programmer who developed the Windows NT Task Manager, among other things. He visits IBM and talks to engineers about the Telum chip architecture (Hot Chips 2023), used in the z16 mainframe. Special attention is paid to the cache. ▶ this video
Check out this youtube video: ▶ this video It does a reasonably good job at comparing mainframes to a regular server setup. It's not about SPEC or GFLOPs etc.
Great comment. IBM is as IBM wants to be. I don't think there's a mystery to it and they've ended up on an evolutionary path that can't be reversed. To wit, I just watched a long form video [1] on the passion that goes into IBM mainframes including some interesting clips of various physical robustness tests of the assembled systems. It reminded me of watching clips from various space programs where a largely full-up untested rocket had to put humans into orbit without blowing up. Another revolution that's occurred, but IBM chose not to really follow (asterisk) is the idea that you assume some percentage of your hardware will fail (instead of trying to make it never die) -- then you engineer around that. I'm not sure what will win in the end, but right now the entire industry is telling us to have failover into different availability zones in Amazon, or even across clouds -- one of which IBM offers. 1 - ▶ this video (asterisk) - IBM does sort of have an understanding of this of course, they have a cloud after all.
Dave Plummer recently did a tour: ▶ this video It's definitely intriguing if it were.. I don't know, available to tinker with?