Re: OS400 release levels

["Leif Svalgaard" <leif@xxxxxxxx>]

From: James Rich <james@eaerich.com>
> Actually what really hampers us is not being able to send save files from
> new releases to older ones.  I don't know much about OS/400 internals, but
> this seems to me to be absolutely stupid.  I can unzip a zip file from
> 1991 on modern OSes and it works;  I can untar a tarball from 1987 and it
> works.  Why does OS/400 have to be so difficult?
===> I agree that this is most inconvenient, but as always this is standard
practice to force people off old releases. Remember, how you could not
restore AS/400 programs back onto the S/38, even though there was no
real reasons for that (some opcodes were made deliberately different to
prevetn going bakwards - the new system understood both old and new...)

>
> p.s.  There may not have been zip files in '91 or tarballs in '87 - though
> my first linux computer was in '94 and the compressed tarballs from it can
> still be read today, 8 years and many releases later.
>

actually, this will also work on the AS/400 going FORWARDS. You can
restore an 8-year old save file on the newest box. You just can't go the
other way (both for technical and for marketing reasons).