Learning mainframe without Hercules.

Preeti Malhotra · Post by **Preeti Malhotra** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 12:07 pm

Hi,

I am trying to learn mainframe from home. Can someone please share their experience thought with me on this. I learned from my searches online that Hercules can be of help in this. But is this the only resource, can I not learn it from somewhere else? Please ehlp me with your valuable thoughts.

Thanks for any help.

Post by **nicc** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:05 pm

It alldepends on what you mean by "learn mainframe". System admin? DB2? IMS? COBOL? PL/1? Rexx? etc etc
If, for example DB2, then do you mean DB2 admin? Programmer using DB2 etc etc.
Some languages have PC equivalents. Some database managers have PC equivalents. Not all are free.
Hercules is a tool for the experienced mainframe techy so, basically, you either need to find a trainee position or go to a college that uses a mainframe.

Post by **enrico-sorichetti** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:33 pm

just to clarify things a bit more ...
Hercules is a BARE IRON emulator,
once installed, You will need an operating system
unfortunately the modern IBM operating systems are not available for free

but, running an older operating system will still give You some things to meditate on
see
http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/

Post by **Anuj Dhawan** » Fri Feb 17, 2017 12:33 pm

For COBOL, possibly you can pick up GnuCOBOL and experiment with it. For RDBMS and SQL, try using DB2 Express-C. There are PC versions of REXX and SAS too - I think with good hold on these, you'll be ahead of half the crowd easily, IMHO.

Preeti Malhotra · Post by **Preeti Malhotra** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:33 pm

nicc wrote: It alldepends on what you mean by "learn mainframe". System admin? DB2? IMS? COBOL? PL/1? Rexx? etc etc
If, for example DB2, then do you mean DB2 admin? Programmer using DB2 etc etc.
Some languages have PC equivalents. Some database managers have PC equivalents. Not all are free.
Hercules is a tool for the experienced mainframe techy so, basically, you either need to find a trainee position or go to a college that uses a mainframe.

I want to learn the application programming about it. Is that a correct statement. I mean I like to learn COBOL, JCL and DB2.

Preeti Malhotra · Post by **Preeti Malhotra** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:45 pm

enrico-sorichetti wrote: just to clarify things a bit more ...
Hercules is a BARE IRON emulator,
once installed, You will need an operating system
unfortunately the modern IBM operating systems are not available for free

but, running an older operating system will still give You some things to meditate on
see
http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/

Thanks enrico. Looks like I won't be able to make it installed it so easily.

Preeti Malhotra · Post by **Preeti Malhotra** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:46 pm

Anuj Dhawan wrote: For COBOL, possibly you can pick up GnuCOBOL and experiment with it. For RDBMS and SQL, try using DB2 Express-C. There are PC versions of REXX and SAS too - I think with good hold on these, you'll be ahead of half the crowd easily, IMHO.

Thanks Anuj. Will check on these.

Post by **enrico-sorichetti** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:51 pm

the link I posted points to a ready to run system ...
download, unzip, READ THE DOCS, click and go

Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Learning mainframe without Hercules.

Learning mainframe without Hercules.

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