Didn’t have time to post about all the buzz generated by the “Gameframe” announce by IBM:

IBM today disclosed a cross-company project to integrate the Cell Broadband Engine™ (Cell/B.E.) with the IBM mainframe for the purpose of creating a hybrid that is blazingly fast and powerful, with security features designed to handle a new generation of “virtual world” applications, such as the 3D Internet.

The other company involved in the project is Hoplon Infotainment, who runs its massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) Taikodom on an IBM zSeries Server. But the news is not that IBM is getting involved in the game industry nor the virtual worlds. As reported by the eightbar team, this is not the first time that IBM tries to run MMOG in its hardware, as back in 2005, IBM Blade Servers were being used to host Eve-Online.

The real innovation is that IBM is going to integrate CELL engines within IBM mainframes. Previous integrations were zIIP and zAAP specialty engines, but this time, CELL will be the first specialty engine to actually feature different hardware. The combination of the power of the CELL chips with the high-performance mainframes will result in a single system that can can run complex online games and virtual worlds.

BTW, last day, I was exploring the IBM SOA Hub in Second Life when I found an ATM connected to a real mainframe. Kareltje Krasher, one of the IBM guys, told me that this ATM is connected to the Smartbank zSeries infrastructure, a live banking operating environment running CICS and DB2:

Nice to see how IBM is reinventing mainframes. Long Life The Mainframe!

Grady Booch will give a virtual lecture at the IBM CODESTATION Pavilion in Second Life. Make sure to register soon as virtual space is limited.

Be aware that this lecture is not available in all countries. And I don’t understand why, first notice that Second Life has frontiers.

The Electric Sheep Company has announced today that IBM/Rational Software has opened up the IBM CODESTATION region within Second Life.

For non-experts, there is an open source library of scripts and objects. As a non-coder, I’ve always found that code syntax is handy, but to really advance in a language, I need to see it applied to practical uses. I hope CODESTATION can be that resource for SL scripters, complementing the LSL wiki (which, frankly, I’ve found useful but weak on examples). Right now, the library has been seeded with 15 script and 16 object examples.

For more advanced coders, there is a fun maze challenge with an open source bot that you can take apart, improve, etc. The maze even has bugs for the bots to eat and a scoreboard tracking time. There are workstations to the side of the maze if you want a quiet place to tinker with the bot code and create your super-bot. If you are an advanced coder, I also hope you consider participating in and enhancing the open source library.

I just had a visit and here are some snapshots:

The IBM CODESTATION Welcome panel:

The Library Donation Box:

The Library Donation Box:

The Script and Object libraries:

The Labyrinth, me sitting on my mazebot:

The Labyrinth, me and my bot at the exit of the IBM maze:

The Labyrinth Scoreboard:

More reports at Ambling in Second Life and 3pointD.

Thanks to Alan Lepofsky, today I discovered some interesting buildings at the IBM 12 islands at Second Life (more info at the eightbar team blog).

Alan, who acted as a host, guided us through some of the key spots:

He also shows us how to take the train tour, who flies around the IBM complex:

And surprise! After the tour, I discovered an IBM System 360 replica:

I think this kind of initiatives has an enormous potential, despite some negative commentary about the early of this technology. Related to the financial sector (the one where I’m actually working on), I hope we will see in brief some bank branch offices openings, as the ABN AMRO branch opening.