You Must be a Mainframer If...


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1. When someone mentions green card, you don't think of immigration
2. You understand the significance of version 3.8
3. You think of DASD not DISK
4. You know what a disk pack is
5. When someone mentions RENT you don't think of housing expense
6. You know that WAD has nothing to do with gum
7. You think that fixed font, green on black is an ideal programming environment
8. You know where "pluckin' and shuckin'" really came from (and wish you didn't)
9. You know that the head of string is not an HR position
10. You think of DASD when someone mentions string
11. You don't trust any machine you can lift or step over
12. You remember when your computer had an air bag in it (and a compressor to inflate it)
13. You understand how a computer can work better with 30 gallons of water in it
14. You know that a functional recovery routine is not physical therapy
15. You don't feel that having only two concurrently active paths to any disk is sufficient
16. Your field engineer has ever shown up with parts to fix your computer BEFORE you even know it was broken
17. You know what load unit dials are, and how to use them
18. You know why BALR 14,14 works like it does
19. You don't consider channels something on TV or part of a product distribution system
20. You think any system that can't successfully scale past a 4 - way for a single image is a toy
21. You remember punched cards and why they were called unit records
22. You know what a drum card is
23. You know that a DASD FARM isn't where little DASDs grow
24. You know CORE is in an apple.. mainframes use monolithic memory these days
25. You DO know what CORE memory is
26. You understand why 31bit addressing and not 32bit
27. You know that DEBE does everything but eat
28. You spell "kicks" CICS
29. You can make a sentence out of just acronyms, and your peers will understand it perfectly
30. Your computer has always been made up of multiple processors
31. You expect your system and application to stay "up" even if one of the processors it is using fails
32. You can recite at least three meanings for the ISC acronym
33. You remember having to press REQUEST on the console
34. You know the keystroke for EOB (Alt + 5)
35. You know domains were something that Amdahl invented
36. You know that REUS is not waste recycling
37. You know that a Coupling Facility has nothing to do with the railroad
38. You know that a control register has nothing to do with Point Of Sale
39. When someone says prism, you're not thinking of light diffraction
40. When someone mentions a "pizza oven" you don't immediately think of food
41. You know the difference between UNI, MP, AP, and SMP
42. You think of availability in terms of end user access to applications, not just recovering to the C:> prompt
43. You consider most horizontal scaling clustering to just be wanna-be's
44. You find taking a stand-alone dump to be perhaps annoying, but not offensive
45. You remember HIPO and know that it's not a zoo animal
46. You know why you can't pop address plugs across strings (especially on MSS staging volumes)
47. You know why blue cables and not grey
48. EREP doesn't scare you
49. You know what CUU means
50. You know what DISOSS is and it doesn't scare you
51. You remember consoles that were more like electric typewriters than display terminals
52. You remember the advent of dot-matrix printing and thought it was sooo cool
53. You know PROFS doesn't refer to college teachers
54. You don't have to be told when to press the Enter key
55. You don't spend hours looking for the "ANY" key
56. You know the difference between BTAM, TCAM, QTAM, and VTAM
57. You know who "the BUNCH" were (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC and Honeywell)
58. You know that SPOOL is an acronym (Simultaneous Peripheral Operations Online)
59. You don't think that address space is an area on an envelope
60. You remember when having four "screens" on one, in orange on black was a big deal
61. You've successfully used PSW RESTART
62. You know what Reset, Load, Rewind, Start had to do with
63. You understand the benefits of connection-based communication architectures
64. You know that TSO TEST could not test everything
65. You know that just because your manager wrote some code, that didn't make it authorized
66. You know that AC(1) had nothing to do with room temperature
67. You know that Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detect is how a token succeeds in life.
68. You know the relative merits of Count Key Data and Relative Block Addressing
69. You know that //EOJ is not a web address.
70. You know what IEFBR14 does and how many APARs were taken on it (4)
71. You know what an APAR is (Authorized Program Analysis Report)
72. You know that DITTO is an acronym. For DOS, no, not that DOS, the other DOS. (IBM Data Interfile Transfer, Testing, and Operations Utility).
73. You know that FS didn't take over from the mainframe, but became a pretty good System/38.
74. You don't understand all the furor about security... it's a given
75. You think that two computers that can't share the same data for update is silly and archaic
76. You know that RESERVE has nothing to do with dinner or wine
77. You know that RELEASE isn't kicking back with a cool one
78. You know what Select Out Bypass is
79. You know that BUS and TAG aren't children's games
80. You know that SPIE and STAE are not commands for your pet
81. You know the difference between STAE and ESTAE
82. You think count - key - data is the way all information should be structured
83. You know that FETCH Protect isn't a way to keep your dog from getting to the bone stash
84. You think that all systems should be able to run at 100% 24x7 without having issues
85. You know that 24x7x365 was coined by someone who didn't understand math
86. You don't find 6 months of continuous up-time without having to restart the system as unusual
87. You don't "boot" a system, you IPL it
88. You don't know what throwing an exception means, but do know what an abend code is about
89. You think that all the bits of a word should represent a numerical value the same way it's written... high order on the left
90. You know the difference between single and multi-mode fibre cable and where to use which
91. You can create a tape backup of something and know you can read it back on another machine
92. You think nothing of sharing a database between transactional and batch work, and maintiaining response time
93. Creating a 2 billion row operational, transactional database capable of sustaining thousands of transactions per second doesn't even warrant a raised eyebrow
94. You can state, with accuracy, how busy your machine is
95. You can tell who used what resources on your machine, and when
96. Someone says "sigh" and you think SIE
97. When something has a problem, you know documentation will be available to solve that problem
98. You don't understand why other people in IT don't understand what an LPAR is
99. You think that OSA isn't a Japanese word
100. You understood the value of Token Ring
101. You know that FDDI is just Token Ring on glass
102. Your program don't track no steeenking rodent
103. You don't consider BTAM, QTAM, VTAM to be kinds of headgear
104. You logON to a system, you don't logIN
105. You know how to find out what maintenance is on your system, definitively
106. If someone mentions BDAM or ODAM, you know they're not swearing
107. You know your machine knew how to "phone home" way before E.T.
108. You can find data, because you know it's pointed to by a catalog
109. You know that GOO VOO is not part of a 50's "oldies" song
110. You remember when computers had lots of blinking lights, and know what they meant
111. You know what a "tape ape" is
112. You can explain the phrase "no ring, no write"
113. Virtualization is not a new term to you
114. You actually used report writer to write a report
115. You know that PTF's might come after your APAR.
116. You think you can fix the jam in the MFCM
117. If you remember the sequence PCP, MFT, MVT.
118. If you keep a FLOWCHARTING TEMPLATE (GX20-8020-2) in your desk drawer.
119. If you know that much of FORTRAN was written in FORTRAN!!
120. If you know what the BOMB is that the CE picked up from the airport (core memory tester - SIMM )
121. If you still carry a "HEX" TI calculator
122. You know how to "SUPERZAP"
123. You know what MIPS originally meant, and can explain why it doesn't mean that today
124. You know that IEF, IEB, IDC, IEA aren't names of consulting firms
125. You don't think the reader is a newspaper
126. You know what green-bar is
127. You know that a data cell is not a jail for data... well, maybe
128. You don't think about running daily anti-virus scans, and still feel safe
129. You don't think of JECL as the other personality of Hyde
130. You know what packed decimal means
131. You can spell anything in eight characters
132. To you, COND EQUAL is not ambiguous
133. COND ONLY makes perfect sense
134. You know that Super Zap isn't a sports drink
135. You know what a VTOC is
136. You expect applications that fail to "clean up" after themselves
137. You know that IEHIBALL is not a computer utility
138. You know that MIDAW is not a medical remedy
139. You remember MG sets and PCDUs
140. You think all computers belong on a raised floor
141. You've ever written a CCW string
142. You know what PCI code is
143. You remember belt-driven disk drives
144. You know DOS runs on a S/360, not on an Intel machine
145. You understand the relevance of Fredrick P. Brooks' essays
146. You know that PCP is an operating system, not a recreational pharmaceutical
147. You know what a puddle of oil on the floor next to your 2311 or 2314 meant
148. You think of a boot as half of a pair of footgear
149. You know that ISAM is not a means of self identification
150. You remember when your computer had an alarm bell or horn in it
151. You know what happened if the printer "tape" broke.
152. You know what a printer tape is
153. You know what happened when you forgot to put a punch in channel 12 on above tape
154. You know why not to put your cup of coffee (or other) on top of a 1403 printer
155. You know the history of JES2 and JES3 and why you were a JES2 or JES3 bigot
156. You know that "bursting" is not an explosive result
157. You know what decollating is
158. You know that ASP is not a snake, and has nothing to do with the WWW
159. You know that HASP isn't something to keep the barn door closed
160. You know why VM programmers disliked MVS (it had something to do with it being harder to spell)
161. You knew what a "chad" was before the 2000 elections
162. You convinced your manager that there was an op code called "Eject Chad Box" when said box spilled on the floor
163. You know why to punch sequence numbers in a card deck
164. You know that BPAM is not a cooking spray
165. You know what a CVOL is
166. You know that a CAM List was not auto parts
167. You know that MOUNT and DISMOUNT have nothing to do with equestrian activities
168. You know what happens when someone tried to re-sequence a deck after it was dropped, not knowing there were several phases all having been punched with the same sequence numbers
169. You know that FORCE did not come from Star Wars
170. You think computer utility names like GREP, KILL, AWK, MAN, BIFF and VI are just silly
171. You consider any terminal not functioning in block mode to be just plain inefficient
172. You know why you need an ACEE
173. You know that command chaining was not a management technique to get more work out of people
174. You know that POPS is neither a beverage or a frozen novelty
175. You know what a TNL is and how to insert one
176. You know that REXX is not your dog's name
177. You named your dog REXX
178. You thought nothing of running hundreds to thousands of time sharing users on a 1MB system
179. You've replaced the typeball on a 1052 console with an APL one, just to freak out the operators
180. You know what a rotate tape is
181. You know that being disabled for interrupts is not a handicap, unless you're in a wait state
182. You know that a DIRF bit is not a spongy play toy
183. Your computer has a real SILI bit
184. You think of bandwidth in terms of MegaBYTES and not Megabits
185. You know that OSA is not a strange Star Wars character trying to say something
186. You've spent hours arguing with your peers about the fastest way to clear a register
187. You know where the GVRFLB (pronounced guver-flub) is located
188. You know that "The BLOB" is not a Sci-Fi monster
189. You know that MAS has nothing to do with religion, or your mother
190. You know that Replicate Imbed has nothing to do with sex
191. You've found yourself with friends singing songs extolling MVS or JES after 10:30 PM in a strange city
192. You really thought long and hard about naming your dog FICON
193. Your vanity plate says MIPS-R-US
194. A day at 90% average utilization is just another (easy) day
195. You think that one TCP/IP stack is just not enough
196. You aspire to DIM
197. COBOL is not a foreign language for you
198. You know that USS reduced the gap with "them"
199. You know what TCO is and what to do about it
200. You can chargeback
201. You can audit resource use
202. You don't think of SPECTRA as having anything to do with early spy movies
203. You remember GECOS
204. You can watch the highest priority work in your system get dispatched behind the lowest and be way relaxed
205. Your CE is a trusted professional, not a toy operating system
206. You don't think twice about running OLTP and BI in the same database
207. You know that RISC means Really Important Stuff is in the Compiler
208. You think RISC is something to be minimized
209. You know that CISC means Crazy Instruction Set Cruncher (just kidding... but we could start a rumor!)
210. It has never even occurred to you to run just ONE application on ONE machine
211. You know the difference between 3-tier logical and 3-tier physical application architecture
212. You remember 1964 for the S/360 and not the Mustang
213. You know that NIP is not racially derogatory
214. You don't go to the Catalog to order items for the house
215. You use version control for a list like this
216. You thought that creating or reading this list was fun

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