IBM i track · Intro · self-paced ~6–8h (1 day as a cohort) · no prerequisites
The other big iron, from zero: what an AS/400 — today’s IBM i on Power — is and is not, the workloads it runs, the object-based architecture with single-level storage and TIMI, batch versus interactive, and the whole stack on one map; then your first sign-on and a working command of the 5250, menus, the command line, libraries and the library list, WRK panels, and the PDM → SEU → compile loop. 15 short videos (about 2h20m), each a lesson, a live demo and your own exercise on the same environment, ending in a seven-item navigation certification. Feeds straight into CS210 RPG Programming I.
Self-paced available Cohort
Recorded in full: the course intro and all 15 lesson videos (Sessions 1–2), about 2h20m in all; Japanese-narrated versions of the intro and videos 1.1–2.3 are recorded too. Where this environment differs from a production IBM i — it has no F4 command prompting yet, and F3 and F12 behave the same here — the video says so on camera rather than faking it. No prior exposure assumed: this is the IBM i track’s level zero, and CS210 RPG Programming I picks up exactly where it ends.
Every session ends in a lab on your own environment. Labs are machine-checked against expected outputs — you and your L&D team always know exactly where you stand.
Seven videos, each a lesson, a live demo and your own exercise on the same environment. The AS/400 as IBM’s midrange business system and its lineage in one line — AS/400 (1988) → iSeries → System i → IBM i on Power today, the same programs still running — and the three myths it buries: that it is dead, that it is a mainframe, that green screens mean obsolete. Where it hides in daily life: distribution, manufacturing, banks and insurers (huge in APAC), pharmacies, trucking. The workload profile — ERP, inventory, order management, payroll, general ledger — where the database and the applications live together on one box; the packaged-software ecosystem and decades of in-house RPG; the career angle, honestly framed. The architecture video: everything is a typed object (*PGM, *FILE, *LIB…) and the system refuses an invalid operation on the wrong type; single-level storage, where memory and disk are one address space; and TIMI, the machine interface that let programs compiled in 1990 run unchanged through the CISC → RISC → Power processor changes. Batch versus interactive in IBM i vocabulary — jobs (your sign-on is one), subsystems QINTER and QBATCH, job queues and output queues — and the habit “where did my output go?”. Then the stack in three videos, on one map: IBM i and work management; DB2 for i, the relational database integrated into the operating system, so every file you will program against is a table; RPG, CL, COBOL and SQL with ILE named; and security — object-level authority and user profiles — with the finished map, the two journeys (interactive and batch) traced across it, and the IBM i map beside the mainframe map for students taking both tracks. Live on the system: an ERP-shaped library toured in WRKLIBPDM and WRKOBJPDM; option 16 (Run) refused on a *FILE — “Option 16 not valid for type *FILE”; one batch job followed from SBMJOB through WRKSBMJOB, WRKJOB and WRKSPLF to its report in the job log; one physical file seen three ways — an object in PDM, rows in STRSQL, the records a program reads — with the same balance in all three, and its field layout in DSPFFD; a real free-format RPG member and a CL program opened in SEU, and ADDLIBLE run from the command line; DSPOBJAUT showing a file’s *PUBLIC authority, WRKUSRPRF and DSPUSRPRF on the shipped profiles.
LAB Worksheet: five local companies or industries you suspect run IBM i, then ten described workloads marked IBM i-shaped or not. Object safari: five objects in a library, their types and a five-word job description for each. Submit the supplied batch job, watch it through the queue and record its job name, number, user and one line of its output. Run the supplied SELECT over the sample customer file and read the same file’s description — record length, key field and row count. Browse the supplied RPG member and answer three questions from its source. From-memory blank-map exercise: place TIMI, IBM i, work management, DB2 for i, security, CL and RPG with five-word job descriptions. Session 1 checkpoint.
Eight videos. The 5250 screen-at-a-time model: the screen is a form, nothing reaches the host until Enter or a function key, fields are typed and length-limited, the input-inhibited state and the message line. The sign-on screen decoded, what happens when you sign on — a job starts, your profile loads, your library list is built — SIGNOFF versus closing the window, and the abandoned-session recovery every beginner hits. Menus as the first front door: MAIN, numbered options that run commands, GO as the teleport, F3 versus F12. Command anatomy as the platform’s cleverest feature: VERB + OBJECT roots (WRK, DSP, CRT, DLT × LIB, OBJ, F, PGM, SPLF…), so fifteen roots let you guess hundreds of commands; F4 prompting, F1 help and F9 retrieve as the real-AS/400 habits — taught as concepts and shown honestly, because this environment does not prompt yet, so the lesson is carried by command-building you can run. Libraries and objects, LIBRARY/OBJECT naming, and the library list as the search path attached to your job — the mechanism that keeps test and production apart under the same program names. WRK panels as lists you act on: option numbers beside entries (2, 4, 5, 8…), the legend, F5 refresh and confirmation panels. Where code lives: source physical files and members, PDM from library to object to member, SEU with line commands, option 14 to compile and the listing in your spool — the edit → compile → check loop that RPG Programming I runs hundreds of times. Live on the system: typing without sending and Tab between fields on the real sign-on screen, an over-filled field locking the keyboard with “X II Field full”, a wrong password refused on the message line, a real inquiry program’s own field errors; sign-on → your own job found in WRKACTJOB → SIGNOFF → sign on again as a new job number; MAIN’s options run live, GO MAIN and the GO prompt; WRKSPLF, WRKACTJOB, DSPMSG and WRKMBRPDM built from roots and run; DSPLIBL, an unqualified CALL resolved through the library list, a qualified CALL to the wrong library refused with SFF9801, the same program duplicated into two libraries and the list reordered with CHGLIBL; 5=Display and 4=Delete with its confirmation panel on real spooled files, 8=Spooled files on your own job; and the full PDM → SEU → option 14 → listing loop on a real member, including a bad edit caught by the compiler.
LAB Field-navigation drill on the sign-on screen until the terminal feels predictable. Sign on, record your job’s name, number and user, SIGNOFF cleanly, sign on again and reproduce the abandoned-session recovery once on purpose. Menu scavenger hunt: five destinations with their paths, then two of them in one hop with GO. Command-guessing game: eight plain-English tasks → guess the command → run it (target six of eight). Display your library list, add the course library, verify an object resolves and qualify the same call explicitly; explain in two sentences how a shop separates test and production with it. Housekeeping drill: submit the supplied job, find it in WRKACTJOB, display its output in WRKSPLF and delete a designated obsolete spool file, recording the option numbers you used. In PDM, copy the template member to your own name, change the header comment in SEU, compile with 14 and verify the listing in your spool. Lab 2.8, the navigation certification: (1) sign on and find your own job in WRKACTJOB; (2) GO to a named menu and jump back with one command; (3) guess and run a command you have never used; (4) add the course library to your library list and prove resolution; (5) edit your 2.7 member in PDM, recompile and display the new listing from WRKSPLF; (6) clean up one designated spool file; (7) SIGNOFF. All seven ticked = IBM i Foundations complete — exactly where CS210 picks up.
CobolStack Certificate of Completion — IBM i (AS/400) Foundations (CS201) is issued from the lab harness’s own record of your runs — not from attendance. To earn it you must clear every gate below:
The certificate attests that you can sit at an IBM i (AS/400) on day one: explain its architecture and stack, sign on, drive menus and the command line, read and change your library list, work WRK panels and the spool, and run the PDM → SEU → compile loop — the midrange navigation baseline that every RPG course and every IBM i developer or operator posting assumes.
Your seat is a private, full IBM i-compatible environment (SteelFrame X) with a 5250 session in the browser — the MAIN menu and command line, WRKACTJOB, WRKSPLF and WRKOBJ, the library list, PDM and SEU with option 14 compiles, and DB2 for i through STRSQL and DSPFFD in the browser — nothing to install, snapshot and reset per exercise. By the end of the course the lab harness will have verified: your own sign-on, job number and sign-off recorded; a submitted batch job traced from the job queue to its spooled output; the course library added to your library list with a call resolved through it; a member copied, edited in SEU, compiled with option 14 and its listing read from the spool; and the seven-item navigation certification completed end to end.