It seems every time you turn around, there’s something new out there in the world of AI, so I don't feel guilty about announcing one more as MC Press introduces ‘MC ChatMaster’. And the good news is that at least this new entry is useful and unlikely to undermine our society in ways we can’t foresee. 

By David Shirey

MC ChatMaster is just what it sounds like – an AI tool, trained on the over 6,400 articles and 113 books in the MC Press universe, that provides instant answers to all your IBM i questions. RPG? Yes, that too. SQL? Of course.  DB2? Ditto, and more to boot. MC Press offers various subscription options to fit your workflow needs.

What Subject Areas Does It Cover?

Of course, the key question is whether MC ChatMaster will be worth the bucks. To answer that, we need to consider the needs of the average i user. And one of the most pressing needs in today’s world is access to a wide variety of info about the i and things that you may run into in the I world. Each day presents its own, generally disparate set of challenges, and the ability to get varied and detailed information is something every i person needs.

So the next question is – what sort of stuff does MC ChatMaster cover?

And the answer is – it covers every topic that has ever been touched on in an MC Press article or book.

That means, yes, IBM i hardware; yes, IBM i admin, security, networking, best practices. Plus, RPG, DB2, SQL, Python, RPG program design, etc., etc., etc.

For example, I thought the question ‘what can you tell me about NetSuite ERP’ would be sure to bring up a ‘What?’ answer. But instead, I got a page and a half describing NetSuite, its components, what it’s good at, and other stuff. Did not expect that.

So, I tried .Net. Did you know that ‘.NET is more than just a programming language; it is a powerful framework that supports application development across various environments?’ I do now after I saw that in the MC ChatMaster results.

Upping the ante, I asked what I needed on my i to write and run a C# program. Didn’t think you could do that, but I stand corrected (although much of the preliminary writing work has to be done in VS Code and the .NET Framework). Still counts, and it gave me a detailed set of tools to use and steps to follow to do this.

Nor is the information strictly high-level write-ups. Most MC Press articles and books are written for the techies among us, and so they reach a level of detail not often found in standard internet articles, often including sample code.

The Very Real Advantages of MC ChatMaster

As mentioned previously, MC ChatMaster, unlike all other AI Chatbots, has been trained on four decades of MC Press books and articles written by widely respected experts. Seven very important advantages of MC ChatMaster can’t be found in other IT-oriented AI Chatbots.

First and foremost, this is a tool designed specifically for the IBM i and its community. Yes, there are things about other technologies, but the focus is definitely on the i.

Second, because it is not a general-purpose tool like MC ChatGPT, you don’t have to worry about someone spending the day researching the top 10 opera stars of the past century.

Third, it uses consistent terminology and descriptions for all topics. No calling it one thing in one article and something else in another, which can happen in a more general-purpose AI tool.

Fourth, provides access to multiple articles by multiple authors to generate diversity of viewpoints for a particular subject.

Fifth, every response from MC ChatMaster includes links to the MC Press material it used to craft its answer so that you can go right to the source. Frankly, it’s a great way to just quickly access articles about a particular issue. You also get access to the author’s profile to see what type of expertise they have. And it gives a list of MC Press books that are available if you want to dig deeper into the topic.

Sixth, did you look something up a few months ago and now you need that info again? The history tab is available to help you look back at previous prompts and see what was available. You can search, filter, mark favorites, and delete answers you have looked up before.

And finally, since it is trained only on MC Press data, there is a reduced chance of AI hallucinations being introduced into the answer.

Access the Bot 

To access MC ChatMaster, go to the MC Press Store or directly to the MC ChatMaster website.

If you start at the MC Press Store page, you can read all about it, review the subscription options, and access MC ChatMaster by clicking on the “Ask 8 IBM i Questions Free” icon.

If you go to the MC ChatMaster home page, enter your email, and create a password to get started, you can ask up to 8 questions for free.

Once you create an account on the MC ChatMaster website and log in, one of two things will happen.

You will come face to face with the prompt, in which you can enter your questions.

If you have not purchased a plan, reminders will appear to let you know how many free questions you have left and to allow you to subscribe if you choose to.

Selecting Your Plan

MC ChatMaster is a pay-to-use service. It is at the user, not organization, level so that each person gets their own history to look back on. 

So, the first thing you have to do is select which plan you want.

There is no free tier per se, but by using the blue button on the subscription page ( ‘Ask 8 IBM i questions for free’), you can get a look at the product and gauge the quality and depth of the information available. Doing that may help you decide which plan will work best for you.

There are three real plans, and after you use up your 8 questions, you will have to select one. You can also select a plan right off the bat; it's up to you.  

First, if you can’t decide whether to use MC ChatMaster using the 8 questions or if you only want to use it sporadically, you can sign up for 30 days, beginning on the day you purchase this plan. The cost is $10.95, and it will expire at the end of 30 days; no auto-renewal. Use it as much as you want during that period, but you don’t have to worry about recurring billing. You could use this long term, just signing back up every month, but that would be the expensive way to go, and re-signing up each month would drive me crazy, and I always picture my readers being a lot like me.

Second, you can grab the month-to-month plan, with automatic renewal, costing $9.86 per month. Subscriptions renew on the same calendar day each month, not every 30 days. This will continue forever, and you have to cancel it, which is not hard. This represents a 10% discount over using the 30-day plan throughout the year.

Third is a yearly commitment with an automatic renewal. The cost for the year is $98.55, which is a savings of 25% over the $10.95 per month amount. Even though it is auto-renewal, you can cancel at any time (but not get any money back for the unused part of the year).

Not too complicated, but it offers some choice. If the app is not going to work for you, you do not need to commit right off the bat. You can start slow, free, then single months, and then, when you are sure this is the real thing, go to something more permanent and less of a bother.  Or you can dive in and always know MC ChatMaster has your back.

Final Thoughts

Knowledge, finding it quickly and digesting it, is a key skill today, and MC ChatMaster is the best tool to find that knowledge, especially when you consider the breadth and depth of the articles and books available in the MC Press Library.

All in all, MC ChatMaster is a solid tool that can provide quality information about any IBM i-oriented topic for a very low cost. It’s a keeper.

David Shirey is president of Shirey Consulting Services, providing technical and business consulting services for the IBM i world. Among the services provided are IBM i technical support, including application design and programming services, ERP installation and support, and EDI setup and maintenance. With experience in a wide range of industries (food and beverage to electronics to hard manufacturing to drugs--the legal kind--to medical devices to fulfillment houses) and a wide range of business sizes served (from very large, like Fresh Express, to much smaller, like Labconco), SCS has the knowledge and experience to assist with your technical or business issues. You may contact Dave by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at (616) 304-2466.

---

MC Press books written by David Shirey available now on the MC Press Bookstore.

		21st Century RPG: /Free, ILE, and MVC Boost your productivity, modernize your applications, and upgrade your skills with these powerful coding methods. List Price $69.95 Now On Sale