IBM AS/Entry Advanced/36 9402-236 Documentation

[spiceminer]

Dear all,

likely I will get my hands on an IBM AS/Entry Advanced/36 9402-236 machine. As far as I know, this is the link between System/36 and AS/400 with the SSP operation system running as an emulation on a slightly crippled AS/400 machine?

As the machine is from 1994 from a major manufacturer, I thought getting all the manuals would be easy but this seems not to be true.
I quick look on IBM's webpage, Archive.org, Waybackmachine or bitsavers does not reveal significant bits of information.

Is there any source of information available.... Like an introduction manual for somebody who never touched an AS/400 or S36 before ?

The best source of information was

but no manuals.... Maybe somebody owns this machine here or can contribute?

Thanks a lot
Stephan

 

[Al Kossow]

It's only been in the last decade that there has been much interest shown in IBM medium systems
In particular, IBM software licensing for the AS400 family is not at all geared to hobbyists
nor was their attitude towards hobby use since it was (and is) still an actively supported product.

Similarly, while Hercules is around, you don't see hobbyists openly running IBM licensed program products.

 

[spiceminer]

You mean fear of IBMs legal department is the reason that there is no documenation available on the above mentioned sources?
I dont know for sure but I could not believe the AS/Entry is still actively supported..

 

[mbbrutman]

IBM had a long history of working with business partners, especially on the smaller machine like the S/36. When IBM discontinued the S/36 the business partners filled in the gaps, providing support long after IBM stopped doing so.

The System/36 was out of production for a long time when the Advanced/36 was released. It's less of a "crippled" AS/400 and more of an early release of the next AS/400 operating system. The S/36 is emulated on top of a new kernel running on a PowerPC variant. Shipping an emulator on an early version of the next OS generated a little extra revenue and also through those customers and business partners a lifeline on the hardware. While it had modern drives an innards, you still used your existing twinax terminals to talk to it.

At least as far as the operating system is concerned, it's the same documentation as an S/36. For the hardware it should use the same hardware as an early RISC model AS/400.

Your best bet for finding documentation is to find an AS/400 business partner that has been around for a few decades.