around 2001 or 2002 JCPenney got rid of their 80s era mainframes, and i got an IBM mainframe, and i can't remember if it was as/400 or rs6000, but it was two racks, with a hard drive the size of a small clothes dryer (and louder), and a 9" floppy. The IBM stuff didn't sell on ebay that well, but the cisco stuff (the second rack?) sold alright. Mostly went to repairing my junker car back then.
AS/400 and RS/6000 are not (per official IBM terminology) “mainframes”. AS/400s were classified as “midrange” systems.
From the floppy, I’m guessing it was more likely to be an AS/400. (RS/6000s had them too, and they were originally invented on mainframes, where they were used for microcode updates-but I believe AS/400s dropped them later than RS/6000s and mainframes did.)
Now the RS/6000 and AS/400 lines have been merged at the hardware level - but an old machine being thrown out in 2001/2002 would have been from when they were still distinct hardware.
to both you and sibling: If i had managed to get it to turn on enough to use it for anything, i'd remember a lot more about it. It was just scrap by the time i got it. we really wanted the racks.
