In addition to your list Gary, assuming you're including databases, the internal structure and components of the databases are themselves potentially of great value. For example, the Queries and the Forms and Reports which are based on those Queries, are extremely informative about HOW any given database is used. Just looking at the data sets in isolation doesn't really give you that knowledge.

Also, the tone of the messages exchanged on this topic implies that mainframe computers are a platform of the past. That's not the case:  if you need computing platform with vast processing capacity and rock-solid reliability, mainframe computers provide that. IBM still makes a good bit of money out of that market (see http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/advantages/index.html, http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/economics/index.html, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe#Today.27s_systems). 

Last I heard the New York City Financial Information Systems Agency--FISA--still runs the NYC budget and payroll systems on mainframe computer (if you had a payroll of 350,000, what would YOU run it on?).

From an historic point of view, IBM has a "Mainframes photo album" at the URL http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_album.html

Best regards,

Fred
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Frederic J. Grevin, Vice-President
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New York City Economic Development Corporation * www.nycedc.com
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