System iNetwork

My first conference was at Reno; we were running a S/38 with 11 communication lines to 50 remote customers. I ran into a communication expert from Rochester to explain our problem when a line failed due to a telco problem, the S/38 ground to a complete halt doing error recovery. Our solution was to use the control panel and shut down the entire system; power it back up and rebuild the logical files.

At the next conference I spoke with the same person and found out that he went to his manager and told him of our error recovery system. The manger was floored this was the only way to bring up the system.

The tech said they attached a S/38 to a Series 1 that was configured to emulate multiple remote locations, then they disconnected the cable and watched the S/38 do its error recovery. IBM then added new configuration parameters to the communication lines and controllers to keep the S/38 from grinding to a halt.

I will never forget that I, as a young user from a small customer, was able to get Big Blue to fix a problem that would only affect a small part of their customer base.

If I remember correctly it was the spring conference in Anaheim, CA in 1998. There was a huge session on RPG-ILE hosted by two IBMers. I believe one was George Farr. There were over 400 attending the session and one of the presenters asked how many people were using ILE features like subprocedures, etc. Eleven people raised their hands.

My first COMMON conference was in the late 70's in Boston. At a large RPG session, someone asked the speaker if there was a way to perform a certain function in RPG. The speaker replied that it couldn't be done. About 5 minutes later, this young guy raised his hand and told the speaker that he just wrote an RPG subroutine that would perform the requested function. He passed the speaker the subroutine (writen on the back of the session review sheet). The speaker looked at it and replied that it would work and if anyone else would like a copy. That sold me on the value of COMMON. By the way, the young guy's name was Charlie Massoglia.
He didn't wear a cowboy hat back then.

"Eleven people raised their hands."

I was there - I cried.

My first COMMON experience was in Minneapolis at the downtown convention center (I don't remember the year, but it was around 2000). I still remember thinking how prestigious it was for me to be able to attend when not everyone from my shop was allowed to go. I was 19 at the time and still remember waiting in line for the evening meal and was pleased to see they had large cups of grape juice sitting out - to be consumed with the sub sandwiches. Well, after the first big gulp I realized it wasn't grape juice :-) That was actually the first time I had ever drank alcohol believe it not.

aaronbartell.com

I first spoke at COMMON about the IFS. IBM and COMMON were so excited about it that I was given the ballroom right after Frank Soltis. Two people showed up. At every conference after that, I was assigned a smaller room, but more people came. It took ten years for the curves to cross. I got a blowout in a room that held 50.

The year was 1988 and after 18 months on contract IBM hired me just in time for the first COMMON featuring the AS/400 which had just been announced. It was also the first North American COMMON held outside of the US - Toronto. At the time I was on the COBOL team and IBM wanted to hire me so I could speak on the new COBOL compiler at COMMON.

I was terrified - the crowd was over 100 people and was the biggest audience I'd ever spoken to.

Of course that audience was tiny by comparison with the crowd in Atlanta a few years later. That was one of the early introductions to RPG IV and there were 1,000 people in the room. I wasn't as nervous - but that crowd was pretty intimidating.

Ah - Those were the days!

This will be the first COMMON I've missed since that first one in 1988 - but hopefully there will be more to come in the future.

Jon P.

In the 90s my wife and 7 year old daughter came into the conference to give me a package. My daughter asked "Why is everyone fat and wearing shorts?". She is more polite now.

First attended COMMON in St. Louis in 1970. Back then the topics were about attaching the 2501 Optical Card Reader and an IBM 2311 Disk Drive to the IBM 1130. That was a midrange machine back then!

My first was in 2008 in Nashville. I have not been able to attend again but am saving my cash to go again since the first one was such an unbelievably great and rewarding time.

I would say the most rewarding time was the first timers event with Trevor Perry. I met two other iSeries programmers for the first time and then had the pleasure of sharing some meals, downtime discussions, and a few games on Wii with them. People are the key and the most important thing. At Common I met so many people that impacted me in my career and also firmly challenged me.

Watching the fun that Paul Touhey, Jon Paris, and the others had poking fun at each other, etc... made me feel comfortable and loosen up for the week. Some of the commoners are outright fun and good at guitar hero as well.

Trevor Perry asked in a large session how many are using full ILE. Jon, 11 people raised their hands. Then Trevor said come on now, and most in the room raised thier hands then.

Good times and good learning. 2011 here I come.

- Mike

My first time at COMMON was in 1989 in New Orleans. I was chatting to one of the other attendees who noticed on my badge that I had come all the way from New Zealand and asked me in disbelief, "Wow, you HAVE computers down there?"
I assured her that we didn't all live in grass huts without electricity and that our company was running a bureau operation with four System/38s. We may have had just got our first AS/400 around that time.
I have been lucky enough to attend another 6 or so conferences over the years, always valuable.

I was at Orlando for COMMON 2010 and this was my first COMMON experience.
I have been related to ‘I’ since last 7 years and it has always my dream to come to COMMON and meet the gurus whom I have been following for these many years and I was lucky to get this.

The 5 days of conference have been my best ‘I’ days. My knowledge bag seemed to be heavy by the teim I returned from conference, My networking seemed to cross the bandwidth, my excitement absorbed the Orlando heat. Meeting the gurus and IBMers will remain a great event in my life.

I owe to love ’I’ and educate the community about its greatness.

I was perhaps 28 at the 1995 Common in Chicago and at the IBM Soundoff I mentioned how upper management just felt they should run certain applications on Windows because 'you just do'. I made a statement about the AS/400 winning the technology battle while losing the marketing war. I received a standing ovation from the COMMONers but apparently it had little impact on IBM.

p.s. I love Bill Hansen's story... Frank Soltis is a tough act to follow. Where would we be without the IFS today?