Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 19:45:05 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:40 year old article.
You'd use it for the same reason you'd use any other mainframe,
extremely high reliability with uptime measured in years and sometimes
decades. They can swap out entire hardware subsystems without
rebooting.
That’s all a complete myth.
There is an article from 1986 on Bitsavers, talking about maintaining
correct time on IBM mainframes. It recommends rebooting to turn
daylight saving on and off.
On Fri, 31 Jan 2025 21:30:10 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
What's your basis for that assertion?
It’s well known that the Unix creation-of-lots-of-processes model plays
poorly with every single proprietary OS out there.
The idea that a mainframe system, of all things, could handle process
creation efficiently, is laughable.
So your basis for casting doubt on his specific attestation of personal experience is "everybody knows?"
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme,
generating tons of interrupts instead of only one or two.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention,
just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating
tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. ...
IBM thought it wasteful too, that's why they developed all that block
mode stuff.
Still, when I was given the choice, I did all my mainframe editing on my Linux box.
Burroughs also used, primarily, block-mode terminals.
On 2025-02-01, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
Burroughs also used, primarily, block-mode terminals.
Univac did as well. A good editor would present you with a screenful of data; you could edit it using the terminal's built-in features (insert, delete, or overwrite characters or lines) and send the updated screenful
of data back to the mainframe. It wasn't a full character-by-character response, but it was tolerable.
I ported Adventure and Dungeon to OS/3; one of the most difficult tasks
was getting terminal I/O to work properly.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention, >>>> just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating >>> tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. ...
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 10:12:15 -0500, Dan Espen wrote:
... I wouldn't call z/OS an emulation layer. It looked and acted like a >>>>> Unix implementation.
Not a very good one, by your own admission:
One a mainframe, there are a few issues to deal with to run Unix.
The common use terminal, a 3270 is not character at a time, data is >>>>> transferred in blocks with a pretty complex protocol. z/OS unix
couldn't do things like run Emacs on a 3270 but it did a reasonably good
job of providing a working stdin/stdout.
Couldn’t even run Emacs?? What kind of “Unix” is this?
What the frack is Emacs? I’ve been using forms for unix for decades, and
have managed to avoid it so far.
Emacs was just an example. vi would also not run.
Anything that needed to react to a single character being typed would
not run.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention,
just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. As I said, I liked the 3270, I thought ISPF was one of the best editors I’ve ever used. Now my Linux editor is the closest I could find to ISPF, but there are still features I miss. I’ve thought of adding a Rexx interface, but it’s a ways down in my
priority list.
IBM thought it wasteful too, that's why they developed all that block
mode stuff. It's still pretty cool to be able to hit one key and have
stuff happen.
No argument from me about ISPF edit. It's pretty neat.
Still, when I was given the choice, I did all my mainframe editing on my Linux box.
On Sun, 02 Feb 2025 06:09:51 +0000, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-02-01, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
Burroughs also used, primarily, block-mode terminals.
Univac did as well. A good editor would present you with a screenful of
data; you could edit it using the terminal's built-in features (insert,
delete, or overwrite characters or lines) and send the updated screenful
of data back to the mainframe. It wasn't a full character-by-character
response, but it was tolerable.
I ported Adventure and Dungeon to OS/3; one of the most difficult tasks
was getting terminal I/O to work properly.
The operating system I helped to support for some years handled terminal
I/O in a PDP-11 used as a front end processor (sometimes more than one). >Characters were sent via an interface that used single characters or not,
as needed.
I ported Adventure and Dungeon to OS/3; one of the most difficult tasks
was getting terminal I/O to work properly.
So at peak times, response times went up, buteverything kept running
within available capacity.
Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
however, all 3270s were half-duplex and if you were unfortunate to hit a key same time system went to write to screen, it would lock the keyboard and would have to stop and hit the reset key. YKT developed a FIFO box
for 3277, unplug the keyboard from the 3277 head, plug the FIFO box into the head and plug the 3277 keyboard into the fifo box ... eliminating
the unfortunate keyboad lock.
Back in the late 60s I finished implementing my first online system on a S/360-30 and IBM 2260s.
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine
to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine
to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes. They were not battle-hardened by exposure to inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine
to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes. They were not battle-hardened by exposure to inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
On 04/02/2025 01:05, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine >>> to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes. They were not battle-hardened by exposure to
inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
Nonsense.
On 04/02/2025 01:05, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:machine
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the
to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes.
Nonsense.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine >>> to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes. They were not battle-hardened by exposure to
inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
Might the problem have been the controller for the 2260s? I recall they
were somewhat kludge, using delay-lines as display buffers.
Lol. One of the major compute engines used by undergrads when I
was young was an ES/3090-600S running VM/ESA. It certainly got
tested by inquisitive students.
The troll continues to show his ignorance.
On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 01:15:08 +0000, moi wrote:
On 04/02/2025 01:05, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the machine
to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do that again!
Fragile things, mainframes.
Nonsense.
The very post I was replying to gives the lie to your denial.
They were not battle-hardened by exposure to inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
I restore the context you omitted ...
... in bad faith
Lawrence's ability to make blanket assertions on things outside his own window of experience with complete authority - in spite of the testimony
of those with firsthand knowledge of the domain in question ...
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:03:10 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:Might the problem have been the controller for the 2260s? I recall they
I couldn't even interrupt my own program. They had to reboot the
machine to fix it and I was told in no uncertain terms to never do
that again!
Fragile things, mainframes. They were not battle-hardened by exposure
to inquisitive students, the way interactive timesharing systems were.
were somewhat kludge, using delay-lines as display buffers.
On Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:33:17 +0000, Bill Findlay wrote:
I restore the context you omitted ...
So you admit that your claim only applied to the subsidiary point, not the main one.
... in bad faith
Does not making your point clear count as “bad faith”?
I do not accept that ...
Early Jan1992 in meeting with Oracle CEO, IBM/AWD Hester tells Ellison
that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system clusters
by ye92.
On Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:52:15 -1000, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
Early Jan1992 in meeting with Oracle CEO, IBM/AWD Hester tells Ellison
that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system clusters
by ye92.
Was it Sun or Oracle that was making a big deal out of shipping video streaming servers around that time? Nobody really understood what the
market was for, or whether the products were more than vapourware, and in the end it all fizzled out.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> posted:
On Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:52:15 -1000, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
Early Jan1992 in meeting with Oracle CEO, IBM/AWD Hester tells Ellison
that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system clusters
by ye92.
Was it Sun or Oracle that was making a big deal out of shipping video
streaming servers around that time? Nobody really understood what the
market was for, or whether the products were more than vapourware, and in >> the end it all fizzled out.
I think that would have been Oracle, they had a video-streaming group that >got spun off as "Thirdspace" and was later accquired by Alcatel as their
ICE unit. I did sysadmin for ICE in 2004-5, but for the life of me I can't >remember now what the letters stand for :-/
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> posted:
Was it Sun or Oracle that was making a big deal out of shipping video
streaming servers around that time?
I think that would have been Oracle, they had a video-streaming group
that got spun off as "Thirdspace" and was later accquired by Alcatel as
their ICE unit. I did sysadmin for ICE in 2004-5, but for the life of
me I can't remember now what the letters stand for :-/
On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:54:33 GMT, Colin Macleod wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> posted:
Was it Sun or Oracle that was making a big deal out of shipping video
streaming servers around that time?
I think that would have been Oracle, they had a video-streaming group
that got spun off as "Thirdspace" and was later accquired by Alcatel as their ICE unit. I did sysadmin for ICE in 2004-5, but for the life of
me I can't remember now what the letters stand for :-/
Found some docs here <https://portal.cs.umbc.edu/help/oracle8.bak/video217/A43822_04/ntstart.htm>, which look like they’re from the right time period, anyway.
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 10:12:15 -0500, Dan Espen wrote:
... I wouldn't call z/OS an emulation layer. It looked and acted like a >>>>>> Unix implementation.
Not a very good one, by your own admission:
One a mainframe, there are a few issues to deal with to run Unix.
The common use terminal, a 3270 is not character at a time, data is >>>>>> transferred in blocks with a pretty complex protocol. z/OS unix
couldn't do things like run Emacs on a 3270 but it did a reasonably good >>>>>> job of providing a working stdin/stdout.
Couldn’t even run Emacs?? What kind of “Unix” is this?
What the frack is Emacs? I’ve been using forms for unix for decades, and >>>> have managed to avoid it so far.
Emacs was just an example. vi would also not run.
Anything that needed to react to a single character being typed would
not run.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention,
just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating
tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. As I said, I liked the 3270, >> I thought ISPF was one of the best editors I’ve ever used. Now my Linux
editor is the closest I could find to ISPF, but there are still features I >> miss. I’ve thought of adding a Rexx interface, but it’s a ways down in my
priority list.
IBM thought it wasteful too, that's why they developed all that block
mode stuff. It's still pretty cool to be able to hit one key and have
stuff happen.
No argument from me about ISPF edit. It's pretty neat.
Still, when I was given the choice, I did all my mainframe editing on my Linux box.
Yes, after leaving Oracle they backronymed OVS to *Open* Video Server
:-)
Actually, the idea is now widely applied: one can think of web browser
as a glorified 3270. Interactive processing is done on user machine in
web browser, and user submits form and get a page withe with results.
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 10:12:15 -0500, Dan Espen wrote:
... I wouldn't call z/OS an emulation layer. It looked and acted like a >>>>>>> Unix implementation.
Not a very good one, by your own admission:
One a mainframe, there are a few issues to deal with to run Unix. >>>>>>> The common use terminal, a 3270 is not character at a time, data is >>>>>>> transferred in blocks with a pretty complex protocol. z/OS unix
couldn't do things like run Emacs on a 3270 but it did a reasonably good
job of providing a working stdin/stdout.
Couldn’t even run Emacs?? What kind of “Unix” is this?
What the frack is Emacs? I’ve been using forms for unix for decades, and
have managed to avoid it so far.
Emacs was just an example. vi would also not run.
Anything that needed to react to a single character being typed would
not run.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention, >>>> just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating >>> tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. As I said, I liked the 3270, >>> I thought ISPF was one of the best editors I’ve ever used. Now my Linux >>> editor is the closest I could find to ISPF, but there are still features I >>> miss. I’ve thought of adding a Rexx interface, but it’s a ways down in my
priority list.
IBM thought it wasteful too, that's why they developed all that block
mode stuff. It's still pretty cool to be able to hit one key and have
stuff happen.
Actually, the idea is now widely applied: one can think of web
browser as a glorified 3270. Interactive processing is done
on user machine in web browser, and user submits form and get
a page withe with results.
No argument from me about ISPF edit. It's pretty neat.
Still, when I was given the choice, I did all my mainframe editing on my
Linux box.
I used full screen edit in TSO with output to 3270. I do not know
if it was ISPF or something related. I used it as a student
during classes (to system was fully booked, and for me it was not
possible to gain access to terminal outside classes). Edit
worked, but my trouble (maybe during later contact with 3270) was
that IIRC it worked in overwrite mode, making correction much harder
than with editors having insert mode.
A 3270 starts out in overwrite mode, but you just hit the insert key to
get into insert mode.
There was a more primitive TSO Edit.
Not nearly as good as ISPF edit. CMS users also had a full screen
editor. (XEDIT?) The thing I remember about that is it started out
looking horrible, but if you set a bunch of options it was pretty nice.
When I started working on IBM S/34 it lacked a good full screen editor.
In my spare time, I developed my own, using COBOL, mimicking ISPF Edit.
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> posted:
When I started working on IBM S/34 it lacked a good full screen editor.
In my spare time, I developed my own, using COBOL, mimicking ISPF Edit.
You wrote a full-screen editor in COBOL - wow!!! 🤯
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> posted:
When I started working on IBM S/34 it lacked a good full screen editor.
In my spare time, I developed my own, using COBOL, mimicking ISPF Edit.
You wrote a full-screen editor in COBOL - wow!!! 🤯
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> posted:
When I started working on IBM S/34 it lacked a good full screen editor.
In my spare time, I developed my own, using COBOL, mimicking ISPF Edit.
You wrote a full-screen editor in COBOL - wow!!! 🤯
Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 10:12:15 -0500, Dan Espen wrote:
... I wouldn't call z/OS an emulation layer. It looked and acted like a
Unix implementation.
Not a very good one, by your own admission:
One a mainframe, there are a few issues to deal with to run Unix. >>>>>>>> The common use terminal, a 3270 is not character at a time, data is >>>>>>>> transferred in blocks with a pretty complex protocol. z/OS unix >>>>>>>> couldn't do things like run Emacs on a 3270 but it did a reasonably good
job of providing a working stdin/stdout.
Couldn’t even run Emacs?? What kind of “Unix” is this?
What the frack is Emacs? I’ve been using forms for unix for decades, and
have managed to avoid it so far.
Emacs was just an example. vi would also not run.
Anything that needed to react to a single character being typed would >>>>> not run.
A 3270 only transfers data when you hit enter, a PK key, hit attention, >>>>> just a few select keys.
The async terminals normally only react when you hit enter, (which
transmits a line), but they can be put in raw mode where the host
sees every character typed. The full screen editors rely on this.
I always thought that this was a tremendously wasteful scheme, generating >>>> tons of interrupts instead of only one or two. As I said, I liked the 3270,
I thought ISPF was one of the best editors I’ve ever used. Now my Linux >>>> editor is the closest I could find to ISPF, but there are still features I >>>> miss. I’ve thought of adding a Rexx interface, but it’s a ways down in my
priority list.
IBM thought it wasteful too, that's why they developed all that block
mode stuff. It's still pretty cool to be able to hit one key and have
stuff happen.
Actually, the idea is now widely applied: one can think of web
browser as a glorified 3270. Interactive processing is done
on user machine in web browser, and user submits form and get
a page withe with results.
No argument from me about ISPF edit. It's pretty neat.
Still, when I was given the choice, I did all my mainframe editing on my >>> Linux box.
I used full screen edit in TSO with output to 3270. I do not know
if it was ISPF or something related. I used it as a student
during classes (to system was fully booked, and for me it was not
possible to gain access to terminal outside classes). Edit
worked, but my trouble (maybe during later contact with 3270) was
that IIRC it worked in overwrite mode, making correction much harder
than with editors having insert mode.
You could use the ”insert mode” key IIRC. You might have to erase anything
on the end of the line.
You could use the ”insert mode” key IIRC. You might have to erase anything
on the end of the line.
Dennis Boone <drb@ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
It’s been a while, but that sounds like something you’d set in your profile. (profile xedit maybe?)
I never understood why the default for XEDIT was to fill with spaces,
instead of nulls (SET NULL ON). With that default, insert mode wasn't
very useful, as you had to go remove some of those spaces before you
could insert anything.
It’s been a while, but that sounds like something you’d set in your profile. (profile xedit maybe?)
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