This section provides information and downloads for people interested in IBM Mainframes - especially those who want to research and learn about them but who do not have access to a real mainframe!

The key tool is Hercules an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new 64-bit z/Architecture. Hercules runs under Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X.

An exciting project exists - OS/380 - which provides a family of freely-available 31-bit mainframe operating systems which includes MVS/380 and VM/380. This provides a way of running 31-bit applications - otherwise the freely available legacy operating systems only support 24-bit applications (too small to be useful). The aim is to provide binary compatibility with the modern z/OS versions.

Initially we just have a holding page providing some required (but not easily available) downloads.