It doesn't seem that long ago. Midrange systems were hot, and IBM jumped into the fray with the AS/400 - a computer that could serve small and medium businesses on a day-to-day basis and still meet the departmental needs of the enterprise.

I was still working in Atlanta at the time, in what had started out in the 70's as the General Systems Division and evolved as things do into a pretty strong organization for reaching just the kind of folks who would be in the market for the AS/400. We'd built that know-how from the ground up, starting back in the days of the System 3 and Sytem/7.

There were some pretty fair competitors staking a claim in midrange territory (Wang, Digital, General Data and probably others I'm forgetting). But the AS/400 came out of Rochester ready to rock 'n' roll with the best of them. And it was designed with the kind of flexibility that would let it evolve as the market needs changed (iSeries, System I, Power Series).

Were you around for the AS/400 era? What do you remember about it? We'd love to hear from you.

Larry Phipps
A Greater IBMer and managing editor of The Greater IBM Connection