You can follow the instructions according to your operating system to compile Hercules, or install it from your Linux distribution package manager. The Hercules project is hosted on () and you can find its documentation and installation instructions (). Hercules will allow you to learn how to operate a mainframe and run programs. In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through installing Hercules and MVS 3.8j Tur(n)key 4- ('TK4-'), a ready-to-use OS/VS2 MVS 3.8j system built specifically to run under the Hercules System/370.
Hercules is a free emulator that runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X. Enter Hercules Hyperion: an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the latest 64-bit z/Architecture. And even if you buy one at auction (), you’ll need a lot of room to host it.
On a budget, a mainframe will typically set you back several thousand (). Mainframes are infamous for being really expensive and inaccessible.
However, most COBOL programs actually run on mainframes, so to work with COBOL properly, you need to be able to operate a mainframe. In a (), I presented a collection of resources for learning COBOL and running COBOL programs on Linux. Starting and Running Your First Program on a Mainframe
