I haven’t been a systems programmer since os/mvt 20.6 - I went into software development and forgot most of what I knew.
I do have a MVS Hercules system that I play with. I think it is great.
I think the New Jersey problem is the 3081 is too slow.
A PC with an Intel I7 or I9 with nvme drives running Hercules would be a lot faster, more reliable.
They are hoping to convert cobol 77 to program package Zos cobol.
Have you got any ideas on how to migrate from a real mainframe to Hercules?
Here is a link to the story:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/05/new_jersey_cobol_volunteers_mainframes/
You’re probably right,
But that situation has no time for anyone who doesn’t already know Hercules.
Recommend you try to contact the project’s owner(s) and maintainer(s) to find someone expert in the region to step in and arrange for a quick oversee and evaluation.
I’d expect that alternatively,
Someone can try to contact the New Jersey government and talk to whoever might be in charge of IT and arrange to set up a plan and options for what is possible.
Problem is,
The pressure is probably extremely high for someone to step in and immediately make all the right decisions without making a mistake.
That’s really, really hard to do even if you had experts for everything needed at your fingertips which isn’t likely the case when a public plea goes out.
I also agree that the plea for Cobol programmers is probably off the mark as the likely central need, but will probably be needed in the wings.
Who knows, maybe the programming is all single threaded and can’t scale so should be re-written.
But, in a situation like today it’s probably the last thing that should be done… Better slow and works than try to be fast and the thing makes all sorts of mistakes.
IMHO it is better to change old mainframe with a new mainframe.
Mainframes could be great with not FLOPS, but TPS.
Changing HW to a x86-64 may cause rewriting all software.
I suspect that they could put multiple MVS machines (4) on a single ZOS machine and put last names starting a-f on 1 g-m on another n-r on the third and s-z on the 4th and run 4 systems.
I have been away too long to be of much help - other than I did do CICS programming in 1975 and IMS DB/DC in 1976 - then I did hardware installs - buss and tag cables and telling system programmers what to add to the system to use the tape, disk, 3270’s, Front End Processor. More removing old CPU and Installing new faster larger ones.
Water cooling was such a pain. Plumbers were always late and needed additional parts every time.