You can get a z/OS VM on the IBM cloud, but it costs at least $5/hour. Would be wise to have some automation to turn it on and off as you need. You will be able to SSH to it and, with some configuration, connect to it with x3270 or other emulator.
IBM also offers free courses and a lot of materials.
A lot of the ideas in modern z/OS and z/VM are present in MVS 3.8 and VM/370, which run on the Hercules emulator. You can run modern z/OS on it, but it violates the license.
That said, z/OS is very alien to people coming from Windows and Unix. It’s a new world of acronyms, metaphors and ideas that evolved from a very different set of constraints. It’s like octopuses and mammals - both highly intelligent, but radically different at the same time.
IBM also offers free courses and a lot of materials.
A lot of the ideas in modern z/OS and z/VM are present in MVS 3.8 and VM/370, which run on the Hercules emulator. You can run modern z/OS on it, but it violates the license.
That said, z/OS is very alien to people coming from Windows and Unix. It’s a new world of acronyms, metaphors and ideas that evolved from a very different set of constraints. It’s like octopuses and mammals - both highly intelligent, but radically different at the same time.