List of Archived Posts

2008 Newsgroup Postings (04/12 - 05/17)

independent appraisers

subprime write-down sweepstakes

The original telnet specification?

America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom

You won't guess who's the bad guy of ID theft

TRANSLATE inst with DAT on

The Return of Ada

Xephon, are they still in business?

Xephon, are they still in business?

3277 terminals and emulators

What would be a future of technical blogs ? I am wondering what kind of services readers except to get from a technical blog in next 10 years

The Return of Ada

independent appraisers

How fast is XCF

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

The Return of Ada

handling the SPAM on this group

The Return of Ada

IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season

The Return of Ada

handling the SPAM on this group

To the horror of some in the Air Force

Toyota takes 1Q world sales lead from General Motors

IBM's Webbie World

The Return of Ada

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

The Return of Ada

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

subprime write-down sweepstakes

DB2 & z/OS Dissertation Research

Stanford University Network (SUN) 3M workstation

VTAM R.I.P. -- SNATAM anyone?

subprime write-down sweepstakes

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

Fixed-Point and Scientific Notation

Boyd again

IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers

3277 terminals and emulators

IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers

The Return of Ada

handling the SPAM on this group

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

How can companies decrease power consumption of their IT infrastructure?

Whitehouse Emails Were Lost Due to "Upgrade"

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

subprime write-down sweepstakes

subprime write-down sweepstakes

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

subprime write-down sweepstakes

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Why 'pop' and not 'pull' the complementary action to 'push' for a stack

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

independent appraisers

Long running Batch programs keep IMS databases offline

our Barb: WWII

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

Up, Up, ... and Gone?

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

how can a hierarchical mindset really ficilitate inclusive and empowered organization

New test attempt

Is a military model of leadership adequate to any company, as far as it based most on authority and discipline?

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

New test attempt

New test attempt

New test attempt

New test attempt

Mainframe programming vs the Web

SSL certificates - from a customer's point of view (trust)

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

New test attempt

Java; a POX

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Mainframe programming vs the Web

What mode of payment you could think of with the advent of time?

New test attempt

Annoying Processor Pricing

Credit Crisis Timeline

subprime write-down sweepstakes

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Annoying Processor Pricing

Annoying Processor Pricing

Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation

Old hardware

Old hardware

Is virtualization diminishing the importance of OS?

independent appraisers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: independent appraisers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:44:45

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

Bank Write-Downs: No End Yet
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1727462,00.html

from above:

UBS, of course, is hardly alone. It may be the current banking leader of
the write-down scorecard, but the implosion of the U.S. subprime
mortgage market and general deflating of home prices has hit Wall Street
all around. Merrill Lynch, which ousted CEO Stan O'Neal in October, has
written down some $25 billion worth of assets. Citigroup, which booted
CEO Chuck Prince in November, is approaching $24 billion. On April 1,
the same day as UBS, Deutsche Bank declared another $4 billion
write-down. Across the board, banks are out some $200 billion since the
beginning of 2007.

... snip ...

... also:

Then there is the Federal Reserve, which has started lending directly to
investment banks (which have very happily borrowed) in order to instill
confidence in the system. And if the federal government will take
mortgage-backed paper as collateral, how bad could it be, really?

The answer, it seems, is worse.

... snip ...

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#65 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#67 independent appraisers

Central Bankers Say Crisis Not Over, Urge Regulation
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXL58O.8xf1M&refer=home

from above:

Capital markets have seized up in the aftermath of $245 billion in asset
writedowns and credit losses tied to the collapse of the U.S. subprime
mortgage market. Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of
Seven nations yesterday endorsed a series of proposals from the
Financial Stability Forum including a 100-day action plan to strengthen
market regulation.

... snip ...

G-7 Signals Concern on Dollar's Slide, Weaker Growth
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7Yh8jULL1W8&refer=worldwide

from above:

The officials met after the International Monetary Fund this week
estimated a 25 percent chance of a global recession this year. A
collapse in the market for U.S. subprime mortgages has pushed the
U.S. toward its first contraction in seven years and prompted banks to
shun lending after $245 billion of asset writedowns and credit losses
since the start of 2007.

... snip ...

and ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#57 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#59 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#62 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

subprime write-down sweepstakes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: subprime write-down sweepstakes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:11:53

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

recent posts mentioning business tv shows ridiculing both UBS
and Citigroup
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#12 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#32 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#36 Lehman sees banks, others writing down $400 bln
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#51 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#64 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#67 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#0 independent appraisers

Citigroup, Merrill May Post $15 Billion Writedowns, Times Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a14SC3UVha.4&refer=home

from above:

Citigroup will have $10 billion of writedowns, taking its first-quarter
loss to about $3 billion, the newspaper said. Some analysts say the
Citigroup writedowns may stretch to $12 billion, it said. Merrill may
have a $5 billion writedown, taking it to a $2.7 billion loss, the
report said.

... snip ...

which will put Citigroup ahead ($35b?) in the write-down sweepstakes

U.S., Europe Warn of Further 'Bad News'; Strengthen Regulation
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ac5LB3Jb7nHk&refer=home

from above:

The collapse of the U.S. subprime-mortgage market led to a seizing up in
capital markets and has triggered $245 billion in asset writedowns and
losses since the start of 2007. Finance ministers and central bankers
from the Group of Seven are trying to strengthen market regulation and
want banks to speed disclosure of losses and improve the way they value
assets.

... snip ...

decade old post mentioning S&L crisis, issues with valuation of
mortgage-backed securities, & citibank, two decades ago, needing infusion
of private equity to stay afloat (because of problems with variable
rate mortgages)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

past posts mentioning toxic CDOs designed to obfuscate value of
subprime mortgages and other credit-backed instruments.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#71 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#2 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#4 CDOs subverting Boyd's OODA-loop
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#16 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#32 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#51 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#57 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#59 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#64 independent appraisers

other posts referencing repeal of Glass-Steagall allowing unregulated
investment banking activities to contaminate safety&soundness of
regulated banking
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#12 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#85 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#42 Banks failing to manage IT risk - study
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#59 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#1 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#13 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#17 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#43 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#46 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#53 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#73 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#75 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#79 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#94 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#96 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#97 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#52 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The original telnet specification?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The original telnet specification?
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:07:08

Andrew Smallshaw <andrews@sdf.lonestar.org> writes:

The earliest specification is probably RFC 318/NIC 9348 but as that
notes it is simply a description of the existing protocol which up
until that point had not been officially documented.  More recent
RFCs build on it, in paricular RFC 854, but that is in itself not
complete.


97
  First cut at a proposed Telnet Protocol, Melvin J., Watson R.,
  1971/02/15 (10pp) (.pdf=403375) (Ref'ed By 3675, 5198)

my rfc index:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

in the RFCs listed by section, click on Term (term->RFC#) and
then scroll down to "telnet"

the "oldest" listed is:

15
  Network subsystem for time sharing hosts, Carr C., 1969/09/25 (8pp)
  (.txt=10807)

as always, clicking on the ".txt=nnn" (or ".pdf=.nnn") field retrieves
that actual rfc. from above:

In addition to user program access, a convenient means for direct
network access from the terminal is desirable.  A sub-system called
"Telnet" is proposed which is a shell program around the network
system primitives, allowing a teletype or similar terminal at a
remote host to function as a teletype at the serving host.

... snip ...

as noted, RFC97 is now referenced by RFC3675 and RFC5198 (when I
generate summaries, I'm now doing both forward & backward refs).
RFC5198 has a Appendix A. History & Context

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:41:44

interview with (US Federal) comptroller general (that recently stepped
down)

America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/04/11/americas-prophet-of-fiscal-doom.html

from above:

Second, in the current subprime situation, there was a lack
of adequate transparency as to the magnitude of these transactions
and the nature of the risk.... You have the exact same thing with
regard to the federal government's off-balance-sheet
obligations. The problem is not current deficits and debt levels. The
problem is where we're headed in the $44 trillion-plus in unfunded
obligations for Social Security and Medicare that's growing $2
trillion plus a year.... Cash is key. We are already negative cash
flow for Medicare. We're going to go negative cash flow for Social
Security within the next 10 years...though Social Security is not the
real problem. It's healthcare that's going to bankrupt the country.

... snip ...

decade old post also mentioning off-balance-sheet obligations
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

some related x-over response to this thread
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#99 The Workplace War for Age and Talent
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#1 The Workplace War for Age and Talent
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#5 The Workplace War for Age and Talent

in a different discussion group:

> One of those unknowns is the incipient collapse of the health care
> system for baby boomers.  The number of geriatric physicians being
> trained is currently decreasing (at least in my State), and based on
> the experience my family just had with a long illness, it's not
> going to be pretty.

whether baby boomers have much longer life-span ... and effectively
spend a lot longer as retirees and therefor drives up the avg.  number
of retirees ... is somewhat 2nd order effects.

1st order effects is that baby boomers represent a large population
bubble. As workers ... they provided a large revenue base to support the
much smaller prior generation of retirees. Given the existing financial
funding for retirees ... they represent an enormous drain on the
following smaller generation.

There are some numbers that for baby boomer 50 or older ... that the
avg. life expectancy for both men and women is now 78 ... up from 72 for
prior generation. That contributes to avg. number of retirees ...  over
and above their absolute numbers. Some of the projected medical expenses
have to do with extending past 78.

This is coming at a time that country is feeling increasing effects of
global competition. There has been all sorts of quibbling about numbers
showing decline in education & skill level over the last 40-50 yrs. From
the standpoint of current global competitiveness ...  those statistics
can be completely ignored ... and just look at the country's education
level currently ranking 29 out of 30 industrial countries (unrelated to
whether or not SAT scores have risen or fallen over the last 50yrs).

Back to the original article on the size of worker base ... if the
overall number of workers is being cut nearly in half (compared to the
big baby boom worker bubble) ... then it can be expected that on the
avg. all categories of workers are going to see a decline of 50percent
...  which would extend also to geriatric physicians.

There have been articles about the retiring baby boomers starting to
affect nearly all economic areas.  One article was that oil field
development projects take an avg. of seven years and the number of such
projects are about 50 percent of what might be expected ... directly
attributed to expected retirement of baby boomers and not having enough
experienced workers to finish a larger number of such projects.

During congressional hearings on H1B visas ... one of the congressmen
raised the question of whether or not there be a educational level
requirement placed on general immigrants (the person given testimony
responded that it was totally outside the issue of H1B visas ... the
numbers which aren't even a tiny blip on the total number of
immigrants).

... snip ...

comptroller general was appointed in the 90s for 15yr term, he stepped
down in jan. ...  past posts mentioning comptroller general (some quotes
about nobody in congress for the last 50 yrs has been capable of middle
school arithmatic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#41 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#44 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#9 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#14 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#27 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#2 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#3 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#4 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#17 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#19 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#33 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#61 Health Care
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#17 Health Care
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#0 Cray-1 Anniversary Event - September 21st
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#26 Universal constants
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#20 IBM Unionization
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#91 IBM Unionization
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#19 Another "migration" from the mainframe
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#74 Horrid thought about Politics, President Bush, and Democrats
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#22 U.S. Cedes Top Spot in Global IT Competitiveness
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#7 what does xp do when system is copying
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#1 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#13 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#14 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#15 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#24 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#25 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#33 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#35 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#26 2007 Year in Review on Mainframes - Interesting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#57 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#40 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#50 fraying infrastructure
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#86 Banks failing to manage IT risk - study

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

You won't guess who's the bad guy of ID theft

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: You won't guess who's the bad guy of ID theft
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:06:59

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

the other metaphor that we've used is "naked transactions" ... lots of
related posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#payments

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#17 Hannaford breach illustrates dangerous compliance mentality

You won't guess who's the bad guy of ID theft
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080414/tc_usatoday/youwontguesswhosthebadguyofidtheft
You won't guess who's the bad guy of ID theft
http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2008-04-13-zero-day-threat_N.htm

from above:

Despite the currency of the subject, nobody has written a book about
identity theft quite the way Byron Acohido and Jon Swartz have
done. Both technology reporters for USA TODAY, Acohido and Swartz have
ferreted out scandal within the identity-theft realm that is bound to
lead to reader outrage. Whether the revelations will lead to meaningful
reform by Congress and federal regulatory agencies remains to be seen.

... snip ...

this is somewhat related to "naked transaction" metaphor threads
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#payments

in the mid-90s, the x9a10 financial standard working group had been
given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial
infrastructure for all retail payments. after some detailed, end-to-end
vulnerability and threat analysis, the x9.59 financial standard was
generated
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

one of the features of x9.59 financial standard was that rather than
attempting to prevent the large variety and myriad number of data breaches
& security breaches ... it instead focused on nullifying the
threat of such breaches (i.e. making the information obtained from
such breaches useless to the attackers for account fraud transactions).

other recent posts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#8 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#10 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#11 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#27 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#28 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

TRANSLATE inst with DAT on

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TRANSLATE inst with DAT on
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:34:39

steve writes:

The Prin of Operations, programming notes on using the TR with DAT on,
state that there will be a performance hit if the second operand
actually crosses the 4096 line.  This is because it will do a 'mock'
execution first.

Assuming DAT on, is the performance hit related to the possibility
that the following 4096 page is not in virtual memory?

way back on 360/67 ... (actually all 360s) TR used to test start &
start+255 (end) address of the table ... which met that if it crossed a
4k page ... it would catch both ... aka page fault both pages ... before
starting instruction execution.

somewhere along the way ... something was raised that TR only uses that
much of the table that the input data-stream might used ... for
instance, if the translation input stream only had values 0-9 ... and
the table was within 256 bytes of the end of an addressable region
... then the instruction might fail (with start+256 precheck) ... even
tho it otherwise could succesfully execute. so the TR instruction was
"fixed" ... if the table start is within 256 bytes of the end of an
addressable boundary... it "pre-executes" the instruction to see if any
input stream bytes would index the table across the boundary.

this would also theoritically have been a problem with 2k key fetch
protect ... and the table was within 256 bytes of a 2k boundary (with
the next 2k, fetch protected) and the input data stream never indexed
anything (in the table) across the addressable boundary.

a past thread that also got into this subject:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#36 A second look at memory access alignment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#37 A second look at memory access alignment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#39 A second look at memory access alignment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#40 A second look at memory access alignment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#43 A second look at memory access alignment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#44 A second look at memory access alignment

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:06:27

The return of Ada
http://www.gcn.com/print/27_8/46116-1.html

mentioned in the above:

En Route Atomation Modernization
http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/technology/eram/

2001 GAO report on ATC modernization
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-01-725T

from above:

ATC Modernization Is an Ambitious Undertaking

ATC modernization, which was announced in 1981 as a 10-year, $12 billion
program, has expanded and is now expected to cost more than $44 billion
through fiscal year 2005. Of this amount, the Congress appropriated
over $32 billion for fiscal years 1982 through 2001. The agency expects
that approximately $12 billion will be provided for fiscal years 2002
through 2005.

... snip ..

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Xephon, are they still in business?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Xephon, are they still in business?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:39:15

pcs305@GMAIL.COM (Ian) writes:

I think its time for us(old mainframers) to jump on the "new " age
technologies like blogging, forums and wiki's to preserve our knowledge and
pass it on to the next mainframe generation.

the science center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

developed cp40 for a 360/40 with special modified hardware that
supported virtual memory. cp40 morphed into cp67 when 360/67 with
standard virtual memory support became available. 3 people came out
from the science center to the univ. to install it the last week in
jan68. It was "officially" announced at the spring 68 SHARE meeting in
houston.

besides traditional customer dataprocessing installations ... there
were some number of commercial online timesharing services built on
cp67 and the later vm370 available on 370s
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#timeshare

one of these services providing commercial online timesharing services
with vm370 was Tymshare. Tymshare opened a version of their online
conferencing system to SHARE as VMSHARE in aug76. Archives are here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

The science center was also responsible for the networking technology
used for majority of the internal network ... which was larger than
the internet/arpanet from just about the beginning until approx.
mid-85
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

various old email mentioning the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vnet

The same technology was used for the educational bitnet (& earn in
europe) ... was in the early 80s was approx. the same size as
arpanet/internet
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

One of the largest (virtual machine) online commercial
timesharing services was the internal HONE system.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

initially after the 23jun69 unbundling announcement
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#unbundle

there was concern that new system engineers had lost much of their
learning avenue. prior to unbundling announcements, new system
engineers gained much of their experience somewhat as apprentice as
part of vendor teams onsite at customer locations. after unbundling,
system engineering time at customer locations was charged for ...  and
charging for "apprentice" system engineers wasn't justified.

HONE (hands-on network experience) systems were initially setup for
branch office system engineers to gain experience using operating
systems running in (initiall cp67) virtual machines.

The science center had also ported apl\360 to cp67 for cms\apl ...
and a lot of cms\apl tools were developed. Internally there were a
large number of sales and marketing tools developed and were also
starting to be deployed on HONE systems. Eventually this use came to
dominate all HONE activity ... and running guest operating systems
in virtual machines pretty much disappeared. Eventually
customers orders couldn't even be processed w/o first having been
processed by HONE applications ... and HONE systems were replicated
around the world.

From very early HONE days, until approx. the mid-80s ... i provided
highly modified cp67 kernels ... and later vm370 kernels for numerous
internal locations ... including HONE operations. some old email
mentioning transition from cp67 to vm370
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

I also did some amount of early computer conferencing on the internal
network as well as working with external customers ... including
Tymshare. At one point, a procedure was established where i would
obtain monthly copies from tymshare of all the vmshare information
... which i would make available internally ... some old email
mentioning vmshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare

including making copies available on hone systems ... some old email
mentioning HONE
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#hone

for other topic drift ... recent post mentioning internal computer
conferencing like activity from over 25yrs ago
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#47 My last post in this forum

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Xephon, are they still in business?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Xephon, are they still in business?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:57:56

Tom.Schmidt@OASSOFTWARE.COM (Tom Schmidt) writes:

The mainframe community also supported city, area and regional user groups
for quite a few of its subcomponents for many, many years -- up until the
advent of the internet, which brought communication without travel
requirements.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#7 Xephon, are they still in business?

70s use of the internal network (mostly vm370) included rexx evolution

REXX Symposium, May 1995
http://www.rexxla.org/Symposium/1995/report.html

... from above:

Mike discussed his ideas for a new scripting language with colleagues at
Hursley and with other IBMers over IBM's VNET network, which then had
300 nodes in Europe and North America. He sent out the first language
specification and began incorporating the feedback. He typically wrote
and circulated the documentation for each new feature to get feedback on
the desirability of the new function before doing the implementation. He
also typically first wrote a few programs to exercise the new feature
and see whether it was right.

The first implementation was distributed via VNET on May 21, 1979. "From
then on, the good ideas came from the users." For example, David
N. Smith, the father of VMSHARE, insisted upon being able to nest
comments

... snip ...

at the time of the arpanet/internet great switch-over to tcp/ip on
1jan83, depending on how counted, there were something between
100 and 250 nodes ... old post with reference
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#7 Was FORTRAN buggy?

by comparison, in 1983, the internal network exceeded 1000 nodes
(again mostly vm370 machines) ... prepping for the announcement
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#email830422
in this post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#43 Arpa address

the actual announcement included in this post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#112 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

3277 terminals and emulators

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3277 terminals and emulators
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:25:40

mike@CORESTORE.ORG (Michael Ross) writes:

So far, the only leads I have are that the 3270 card in the XT/370 desktop
mainframe machine did 3277 emulation - but I don't know if it supported
Model 1 mode. Ditto for the 'Appleline' external 3270 box for early Mac &
Lisa machines; again I've heard that supported 3277, but don't know about
Model 1 specifically.

the signals on the cable change between 3272/3277/ANR and 3274/3278/DCA
(although 3274 supported the attachment of 3277)

part of the difference was reducing the manufacturing costs of the
terminal, they moved a lot of the electronics that had been in the 3277
"head" back into the controller. there had been some amount of work on
modifying 3277 to improve the 3277 human factors ... which were then no
longer possible with 3278 (since all the logic was now back in the
controller). One of the issues was (because of the fundamental
half-duplex) ... if you were typing when the system wrote to the head
... the keyboard would lockup and you needed to hit the reset key. A
3277 keystroke "fifo" was created that would handle the input/output
sequencing and hold keystrokes in the buffer to avoid the keyboard
lockup. Another was being able to modify the repeat key/delay timing to
significantly increase the rate.

another aspect was because so much processing had been moved back into
the (3274) controller ... that interactions that were nearly
instantaneous on 3272/3277 would be around 1/2 second on 3274/3278 ...
making .25 second interactive response impossible .... the jokes at the
time was that the data entry applications were fairly insensitive to
system response and TSO with minimum of 1second response already never
saw the difference.

misc. past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#17 3270 protocol
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19 3270 protocol
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#6 IBM 327x terminals and controllers (was Re: Itanium2 power
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#0 were dumb terminals actually so dumb???
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#10 IBM System/3 & 3277-1
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#40 Why isn't OMVS command integrated with ISPF?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#42 What do YOU call the # sign?

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

What would be a future of technical blogs ? I am wondering what kind of services readers except to get from a technical blog in next 10 years

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@xxxxxxxx>
Date: April 20, 2008
Subject: What would be a future of technical blogs ? I am wondering what kind of services readers except to get from a technical blog in next 10 years.
Blog: Database

Browser-based infrastructures are still clunky compared to various
non-browser interfaces evolved over the years for usenet.

browser-based infrastructures are quite similar to throw back to
various dumb terminal form-oriented infrastructures from the 70s&80s
... before local programming/tailoring was possible.

here is couple posts in (mainframe) thread that appears in listserv
(mailing list) and also gatewayed to usenet ... about online technical
discussion groups
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#7
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#8

mentioning tymshare opening up its computer conferencing interface to
the SHARE organization for "VMSHARE" technical discussions ("blog")
starting in 1976.
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

This is semi-related recent post about efforts to improve human factors of
dump (3270) terminals
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#9

what evolved in the 80s were various PC based programming facilities
for improving the human factors of the emulated dumb terminal
interfaces.

for other drift ... i've pontificated a bit about being able to
leverage browser tab support to regularly being able to have a couple
hundred tabs open and move around in them .... w/o having to suffer
the synchronous delays associated with standard URL clicking
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#32
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#35

for some database topic drift ... various past archived posts related
to having worked on original relational/sql implementation
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#systemr

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:16:06

Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:

This all comes from peak oil. The event has been predicted for
40 years. It is drastic, but not apocalyptic. We are not running
out of oil, we just can't produce it faster. And get used to the
fact that what we have now IS cheap oil.

old posts about the value of gas is possibly $10-$15/gal (or more)
... and people filling up (environmental) economic niche living off the
difference between the value and what they charged. one of the
possibilities is that if the difference between the cost and the value
is large (aka "cheap") ... there can evolve very profligate, inefficient
use (resulting in difficult adjustments if the difference between the
cost and the value is narrowed).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#4 some VLIW (IA-64) projections from January, 1999...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#7 Big Brother -- Re: National IDs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#9 Big Brother -- Re: National IDs

also mentioning environmental, economic niches:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#56 hammer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#20 Parallel programming again (Re: Intel announces "CT" aka
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#65 China overtakes U.S. as top Web market

and recent threads mentioning that oil field development is significantly
less than would otherwise be expected ... because so many baby boomers
are retiring that there isn't enuf skilled resources around to handle
larger number of projects
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#42 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#63 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#43 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#3 America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom

supply & demand scenario ... with large world-wide increase in demand
and not a similar significant increase in supply

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

independent appraisers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: independent appraisers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:59:22

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

recent posts mentioning business tv shows ridiculing both UBS
and Citigroup
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#12 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#32 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#36 Lehman sees banks, others writing down $400 bln
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#51 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers

ongoing ridiculing UBS and Citigroup

Kurer Pressured to Dismantle House Ospel Built at UBS
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCH93fqMagMw&refer=home

... when they recently replaced the head of UBS with the general
counsel ... they commented that Citigroup had already tried that
... and then still had to replace the general counsel (last fall)

somewhat related recent threads ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#61 Is Basel 2 out...Basel 3 in?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#63 Is Basel 2 out...Basel 3 in?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#65 Would the Basel Committee's announced enhancement of Basel II Framework and other steps have prevented the current global financial crisis had they been implemented years ago?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#66 Would the Basel Committee's announced enhancement of Basel II Framework and other steps have prevented the current global financial crisis had they been implemented years ago?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#67 Would the Basel Committee's announced enhancement of Basel II Framework and other steps have prevented the current global financial crisis had they been implemented years ago?

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

How fast is XCF

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How fast is XCF
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:20:50

ibm-main@TPG.COM.AU (Shane) writes:

I guess RFC2549 would be no good either then ... ???

one of the april 1st RFCs

from my rfc index
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

click on Term (term->RFC#) in RFCs listed by section and scroll
down to "April1"

April1
 5242 5241 4824 4042 4041 3751 3514 3252 3251 3093 3092 3091 2795 2551
 2550 2549 2325 2324 2323 2322 2321 2100 1927 1926 1925 1924 1776 1607
 1606 1605 1437 1313 1217 1149 1097 852 748

clicking on the RFC # (in the index) brings up the RFC summary in the
lower frame.

2549
 IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service, Waitzman D., 1999/04/01
 (6pp) (.txt=9519) (Updates 1149) (Refs 1149) (Ref'ed By 3117)

as always ... clicking on the ".txt=nnn" field (in the summary), fetches
the actual RFC.

as noted, 2549 references 1149:

1149 E
 A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers,
 Waitzman D., 1990/04/01 (2pp) (.txt=3215) (Updated by 2549) (Ref'ed By
 1543, 1818, 2321, 2549)


--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:09:33

vandys writes:

I am not--at all--a big fan of Microsoft.  But giving credit where
credit is due, their folks working on the Singularity research OS are
realy doing a good job of rethinking the starting point for systems
design:

http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/

Dangerous, pointer-ish languages which lean upon bulky and poorly
granular address space mechanisms.  It's so... 1960's.  Hats off to them
for drilling down into a new approach.

this can also be considered the original 801/risc from better than three
decades ago
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

there was no (hardware) protection domains. the operating system (cp.r)
would only load "correct" (pl.8) programs ... and pl.8 would only
generate "correct" programs.

it was 32bit virtual addressing with 256mbyte segments ... 16 "segment"
registers (and inverted tables). i once complained that limitation of
only 16 "segments" made it hard to implement various memory mapped
abstractions. the explanation was that programs could change segment
register values as easily as they could change general/address register
values ... so an application needing access to an additional virtual
memory object could switch a segment register value ... as easily as
general register value can be changed.

in the early 80s, once of the 801/risc efforts was romp chip targeted
for opd displaywriter followon. when that project was canceled, some
investigation came up with retargeting the hardware to the (emerging)
unix workstation market. the company that had done the unix port to pc
(pc/ix) was hired to do one to romp. it was eventually announced as
pc/rt with aixv2. hardware projection domain had to be implemented in
romp for the unix system paradigm.

another dependable microkernel effort is the eros, coyotos, capros
activity
http://www.eros-os.org/
http://www.coyotos.org/
http://www.capros.org/

that traces directly to KeyKOS ("eros derivative of KeyKOS for
Intel-family machines")
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/

which was project started by Tymshare on 370 as GNOSIS. When M/D
bought Tymshare ... GNOSIS was spun-off as KeyKOS (disclaimer, I was
brought in to review GNOSIS as part of the spin-off process)

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:12:52

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#11 The Return of Ada

Emerging Market Oil Use Exceeds U.S. as Prices Rise
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a_YCEx7do3LQ&refer=home

from above:

China, India, Russia and the Middle East for the first time will consume
more crude oil than the U.S., burning 20.67 million barrels a day this
year, an increase of 4.4 percent, according to the International Energy
Agency in Paris. U.S. demand will contract 2 percent to 20.38 million
barrels daily, the IEA says.

... snip ...

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

handling the SPAM on this group

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: handling the SPAM on this group
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:52:03

D.J. <solosam75@cableone.net> writes:

I noticed that sometimes the letter options for a command varies
by version of Unix.

The university I worked at some years ago had 386 unix on a few
computers we could telnet to up on the main campus, and we had an
AIX system in the local computer room for email. The commands
were, as you point out, identical. But the option letters for the
AIX system were not the same as the option letters, for the same
command, as used by the 386 unix. 386 in this instance being an
Intel desk top computer.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#14 Two views of Microkernels

AIX V2 for pc/rt (risc)  was an at&t unix port by the company that had
done the port to the pc for PC/IX.

other references
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

aix/386 (and aix/370) was port of UCLA's Locus system (which supported
BSD unix semantics).

a Unix History
http://www.levenez.com/unix/

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:14:55

"Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj" <urjlew@bellsouth.net> writes:

For the employers and Politicians and the tax collectors illegal
immigrants are most convenient. The employers get cheap labor with an
implicit threat over the employees with regard to wages and
benefits. The politician has a ready target and no worry about these
people voting. The Social security and other tax people can collect
their taxes but deny benefits.

GAO has done a study of that ... and found that illegal immigrants
receive about 50percent more in benefits than what they contribute.
Other organizations have done similar studies ... with similar findings
... but some have discounted various organizations/results as having
political agendas ... while the GAO has had a fairly solid reputation of
being non-biased (making it harder to discount)

a different interpretation of the numbers is that employers, paying
substandard wages, pocket the difference between what they pay them and
what it costs the rest of society to provide the necessary care&feeding
(in effect general society, govs, etc ... are providing tens/hundreds of
billions in subsidies to employers hiring illegal aleans).

some recent posts/threads:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#70 illegal aliens
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#79 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#81 illegal aliens
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#22 U.S. Cedes Top Spot in Global IT Competitiveness
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#61 Horrid thought about Politics, President Bush, and Democrats
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#46 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#39 competitiveness

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:40:48

IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season
http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/08/04/21/IT-full-of-ducks-Declare-open-season.html

from above:

Every organization has some "ducks." Ducks are employees who have a
detrimental effect on productivity. Their work is consistently
substandard, they rarely meet deadlines, and their skills are out of
date. They hate change, resist taking responsibility, and blame their
failures on co-workers. They constantly complain about their projects,
their teammates, their workloads and their managers. They stifle
innovation by shooting down new proposals, claiming that changes "just
can't be done."

... snip ...

there used to be a "wild duck" metaphor ... that had the exact opposite
characteristics (listed in the above for "ducks") ... constantly thought
outside the box and provided much of the productivity for the
organizations. However, institutional "open season" on "wild ducks"
tended to be much more active than anything done about "ducks".

misc. past posts mentioning "wild duck"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#38 'Innovation' and other crimes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#25 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:10:18

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

a different interpretation of the numbers is that employers paying
substandard wages, pocket the difference between what they pay them and
what it costs the rest of society to provide the necessary care&feeding
(in effect general society, govs, etc ... are providing tens/hundreds of
billions in subsidies to employers hiring illegal aleans).

it is possible to draw an analogy with cheap labor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#17 The Return of Ada

and cheap oil
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#11 The Return of Ada

and cheap water as gov/public subsidies to special interests ... those
that can make significant profit and/or take other benefit from the
subsidy.

a few years ago there was an article about rice growers in the delta
getting large amounts of water at five cents on the dollar (from the
gov.) during periods of significant draught and rationing (growing rice
in that area wouldn't have been remotely justified w/o the significant
supply and subsidy).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#4 some VLIW (IA-64) projections from January, 1999...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#17 Spam Bomb
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#15 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#24 The Pankian Metaphor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#41 The Pankian Metaphor

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

handling the SPAM on this group

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: handling the SPAM on this group
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:28:22

jmfbah <jmfbahciv@aol> writes:

Not at all.  Shells exist and all shells are apparently different.  And
it takes me forever to circumnavigate through the BUI mess.
It doesn't help that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  How in
the world does the rest of the world manage?  No wonder there are
security problems.

recent comments about significant percentage of the security problems
all swirling around information leakage that represents one hundred
times more value to the attacker than it does to the defender ... aka
from simple kindergarten security 101 ... and security proportional
to the risk.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm15.htm#39 FAQ: e-Signatures and Payments
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm19.htm#40 massive data theft at MasterCard processor
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#60 Seeking expert on credit card fraud prevention - particularly CNP/online transactions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#64 Seeking expert on credit card fraud prevention - particularly CNP/online transactions

and the attackers can afford to outspend the defenders 100-to-1, the
only viable, practical, long-term solution is to change the paradigm,
eliminating the value of the information to the attackers.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

To the horror of some in the Air Force

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: To the horror of some in the Air Force
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:47:51

for a little boyd topic drift ...

Why the Air Force Bugs Gates
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1733747,00.html

from above:

To the horror of some in the Air Force, Gates cited the late John Boyd,
who attained the rank of Air Force colonel, as an example young officers
should emulate. Gates called him "a brilliant, eccentric and stubborn
character" who had to bulldoze his way through the Air Force hierarchy
to launch the F-16 fighter, now regarded as perhaps the best value in
the skies.

... snip ...

other blogs:

The Ghost of Boyd Invoked
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/04/journal-the-gho.html
SECDEF Gates honors John Boyd
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2008/04/21/secdef-gates-honors-john-boyd/
War, Chaos, and Business
http://www.chetrichards.com/

... other past posts mentioning boyd
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Toyota takes 1Q world sales lead from General Motors

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Toyota takes 1Q world sales lead from General Motors
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:47:43

GM barely held sales lead last year while racking up an enormous
($38.7b) loss (compared to Toyota's appox $17b profit)

Toyota takes 1Q world sales lead from General Motors
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080423/gm_global_sales.html?.v=8

from above:

GM barely won the global sales race with Toyota last year, but Toyota
overtook it as the world's top automaker as measured by global vehicle
production in 2007.

... snip ...

recent posts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#80 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#84 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#85 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#86 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#55 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#56 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#59 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#75 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#76 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#1 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#5 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#6 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#7 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#8 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#12 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#13 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#14 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#16 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#17 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#19 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#20 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#21 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#22 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#25 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#44 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#46 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#56 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#63 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#66 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#68 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#69 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#71 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#89 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#90 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#91 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#0 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#4 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#5 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#7 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#9 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#10 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#21 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#22 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#26 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#30 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#31 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#85 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

IBM's Webbie World

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM's Webbie World
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:23:29

IBM's Webbie World
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/21/ibm-social-netwo...

from above:

IBM's spokespeople claim it has 24,000 Facebook users and 155,000
LinkedIn users, giving it one of the biggest corporate representations
on both sites.

... snip ....

when i got blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal
network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

in the early 80s (there was short datamation article about it, i think
nov81) .... I had a "names" file with only something like 15,000.

various old email about the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vnet

somewhat as result of various corp hdqtrs investigations into the
phenomena ... I got an investigator that sat in the back of my office
and took notes on how I communicated. They also got copies of all my
incoming and outgoing email and logs of all instant messaging activity.
The report was also a stanford phd thesis (joint between language and
computer AI) as well as material for books and papers. some related
posts on computer mediated communication
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:14:39

greymaus <greymausg@mail.com> writes:

I have a box of floppies from work, say,  20 years ago. The thought
of trying to read them is offputting, even if I had a machine with a
floppy drive. Whole different world. Just thought, must be 25 years.
Wow.

old thread (partially succesful):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#35 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#36 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#37 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#56 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#57 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:16:58

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:

Yes, they did.  As I recall the CPUs used asymmetric multiprocessing
(master-slave), but otherwise it was comparable to the systems of
today -- in 1968.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#14 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

360/67 ... early '67 ... had virtual memory and segment. cp40 morphed
into cp67 when it was moved from 360/40 with custom virtual memory
hardware to 360/67 with standard virtual memory hardware.

standard 360/65 could be used in both loosely-coupled as well as tightly
coupled (symmetric multiprocessor). however, 360/65 multiprocessor was
independent 360/65 machines that were wired together so that they would
address common memory ... but could also be configured to operate as
independent uniprocessors. the issue with 360/65 multiprocessor was
nothing was done about i/o. For 360/65 to simulate multiprocessor i/o,
the device controllers had to be configured with multi-channel
interfaces and each processor had its own channel attachment to every
controller (this was the same strategy used for loosely-coupled
operation w/o common real memory addressing; symmetric multiprocessor
i/o was simulated by configuring the processor private channels at the
same addresses).

while, the 360/67 uniprocessor was pretty much a 360/65 with virtual
memory hardware added as standard feature. however, 360/67
multiprocessor was something of a new beast ... since it had support for
all processors being able to access all channels in the configuration.

As an aside, charlie invented compare&swap instruction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

when he was working on cp67 smp fine-grain locking at the science center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

compare&swap, after some resistance was included in 370.

while all processors in the 370 line eventually got virtual memory
support ... the 370 smp support continued the 360 i/o smp
implementation, all processors addressing common real stroage ... but
having their own private i/o channels.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:39:12

krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> writes:

It's fine if your employer does this on its own.  It's fine if you
give 90% of your income to the "poor" too, but unfunded mandates are
wrong.

unfunded mandates are worse than analogy to living off principle and/or
non-renewable resource ... when its gone ... infrastructure crashes
and/or has to undergo radical change.

this has been the comptroller general's tirad for some time
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#3 America's Prophet of Fiscal Doom

another consideration affecting many of the unfunded mandates:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#1 The Workplace War for Age and Talent
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#5 The Workplace War for Age and Talent

current infrastructure has much the funding for the retired being
funding by the dramatically larger number of workers in the baby
boomer population bubble. as the baby boomers reach retirement
... there is an enormous increase in the number of retirees ... while
the following generation (of workers) is only half as large. As a
result the income revenue base per retiree is reduced to possibly only
1/16th (the current ratio). a large part of the unfunded mandates is
supplying benefits to the enormous increase in (baby boomer) retirees
from a much smaller revenue base.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:40:17

peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

Process isolation is not the only purpose of VM.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#14 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#25 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

ala the original 801/risc from the 70s ... led to romp being described
as having 40bit (virtual) addressing.

the machine was 32bit address ... 28bit segment displacement 4bit
segment register index.

however, since there was no protection domain and inline application
code could change segment table register value (and it was inverted
table architecture) as easily as addresses could be change it general
purpose register .... changing a segment register value as equivalent to
changing addressing with a general purpose register. romp support 12bit
segment register values ... so 28bit segment displacement plus 12bit
segment register value ...  yields 40bit virtual addressing.

the convention still lingered on with there being some descriptions of
RIOS being a 52-bit (virtual) addressing (still 32bit addressing, 4bits
for segment register ... but segment register value doubled from 12bits
to 24bits). the machine line (romp originally for displaywriter
followon) had already been retargeted to unix workstation and requiring
privileged hardware domain for changing segment register values ... by
the time of RIOS was done for rs/6000 & power.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

801/risc also had database/transactional memory support ... system could
go around behind the scenes figuring out what transaction storage
"lines" had been changed and required logging ... w/o application
needing explicit calls to log transactional changes.

this aspect was used for original implemention of JFS (journaled
filesystem) in aix3 on rs/6000 (later versions of JFS were made
"portable" by changing paradigm to have explicit log calls when
filesystem metadata was being changed).

some past posts mentioning database/transactional memory
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#27 transactional memory question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#33 Power5 and Cell, new issue of IBM Journal of R&D
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#44 Why so little parallelism?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#6 Is Parallel Programming Just Too Hard?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#36 How to flush data most efficiently from memory to disk when db checkpoint?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#12 more transactional memory for mutlithread/multiprocessor operation
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#10 Kernels

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

subprime write-down sweepstakes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: subprime write-down sweepstakes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:15:31

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

Citigroup, Merrill May Post $15 Billion Writedowns, Times Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a14SC3UVha.4&refer=home

from above:

Citigroup will have $10 billion of writedowns, taking its first-quarter
loss to about $3 billion, the newspaper said. Some analysts say the
Citigroup writedowns may stretch to $12 billion, it said. Merrill may
have a $5 billion writedown, taking it to a $2.7 billion loss, the
report said.

... snip ...

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#1 subprime write-down sweepstakes

just now one of the business shows had two recent nobel winners in
economics answering questions ... one comment was that he hoped that
when congress gets around to punishing the "investment bankers" for the
current mess, that they also didn't punish the VCs.

one issue might be will Congress take any responsibility for repealing
Glass-Steagall?

part of this is the analogy to CDOs being designed to defeat "observe"
in Boyd's OODA-loop ... i.e.  were used two decades ago in the
S&L crisis to obfuscate the underlying value.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#4 CDOs subverting Boyd's OODA-loop

long-winded, decade old post including mention of needing visibility
into underlying value for CDO-like instruments
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

mortgage originators used to have to pay attention to mortgage quality
since their subsequent revenue would include performance of the loan.
Being able to immediately unload mortgages as toxic CDOs (w/o
regard to quality) met that their revenue became how fast they could
originate and unload mortgages. Subprime loans (w/o regard to quality,
qualifications, etc) allowed them to expand their mortgage origination
markets (people that wouldn't otherwise qualify, speculators that were
looking to minimize their investment and maximize ROI on holding and
then flipping the property).

investment bankers had been buying the (sub-prime) toxic CDOs
... and then borrowing full-value against the toxic CDO and
using that to buy another CDO. Repeated 50-100 times met they would
only have 1-2 percent of the total value in actual capital. When the
sub-prime mortgage values did eventually start to leak thru ... there
were 20-40 percent (more) write-down in those ("crap". a technical
term used by one of the nobel winners) toxic CDOs.

misc. past posts mentioning investment bankers:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#13 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#17 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#43 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#53 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#71 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#73 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#77 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#94 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#95 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#2 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#12 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#51 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#52 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#59 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#67 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#0 independent appraisers

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

DB2 & z/OS Dissertation Research

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: DB2 & z/OS Dissertation Research
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:02:27

promos@BURCHWOODUSA.COM (Todd Burch) writes:

Going waaaaay back, look into the instigators for cross memory (AKA XA), and
you'll find DB2's names at the top of the list.

x-memory/dual-address for 3033 ... was Q&D solution to address exploding
size of common segment in larger installations.

way before DB2.

relational dbms was system/r all done on vm370 at san jose research in
bldg. 28 ... lots of past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#systemr

there was system/r technology transfer from sjr to endicott for sql/ds
about the timeframe of 3081.

there was some amount of competition between the "60s database" in stl
and system/r in sjr. STL pointed out relational doubled the physical
database size (additional space needed by the indexes) and
significantly increased the physical disk accesses (mostly related to
transversing the indexes). SJR pointed that "60s databases" exposed
direct pointers which required a lot of system administrative overhead
and increased the application complexity. Going into the 80s, disk
space became significantly cheaper (mitigating the relational increase
in disk space requirements for indexes) and real storage sizes became
significantly larger (allowing relational indexes to be cached
... eliminating a lot of the index physical disk reads). This allowed
relational to move into much broader market (decreasing hardware
costs, increasing hardware resources and needed much lower people
skill and resources for database care & feeding).

one of the people mentioned in this meeting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

claimed to have handled much of the technology transfer from endicott
back to stl/bldg90 for DB2.

for some other random topic drift ... old email when jim was leaving
fro tandem and foisting off consulting/contacts to me ... including
consulting to the IMS group:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016

recent posts discussing dual-address space (sort of subset of access
registers that would show up with xa):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#33 New Opcodes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#35 New Opcodes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#69 Regarding the virtual machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#14 Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#33 IBM Preview of z/OS V1.10

and mentioning that one of the main itanium architects is also
credited with dual-address space for 3033
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#60 Different Implementations of VLIW

part of the issue was that the 370 product pipeline had gone
dry during the future system project period (which was going to
completely replace all 370). when FS got killed
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys

old post with some extracts from fergus/morris book discussing effects
of FS effort:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33

there was a mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipeline
... overlapped with getting XA moving ... which was going to take 7-8
yrs. Interim stop-gap was 303x. The integrated channel microcode from
370/158 was repackaged as 303x "channel director". The 370/158 was
repackaged as a 3031 (w/o the integrated channel microcode) with a
(2nd 158 microengine) channel director. The 370/168 was repackaged as
3032 (with 1-3 channel directors). The 3033 started out as 168 wiring
diagram mapped to faster chip technology.

there was "eagle" ... which wasn't relational.  The databases that
would have been consideration at the time of the XA architecture being
specified (i.e. referred to as "811" for the nov78 document dates)
would have been IMS and possibly some misc. stuff related to eagle.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Stanford University Network (SUN) 3M workstation

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Stanford University Network (SUN) 3M workstation
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:24:44

harker writes:

I have now found Andy's "The SUN Workstation Architecture" paper on
line at:
ftp://reports.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/82/229/CSL-TR-82-229.pdf
If you have his SIGGRAPH '80 paper, I would love to get a copy of it.

old post mentioning people at palo alto science center being approched
about producing sun workstation product:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a John Hartmann's Birthday Party

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

VTAM R.I.P. -- SNATAM anyone?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: VTAM R.I.P. -- SNATAM anyone?
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:52:21
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.vmesa-l

Jim Bohnsack wrote:

I remember the SNATAM name now.  There was an Englishman, Graham Pursey,
who used to attend the  VNET Project Team meetings that were held once
or twice a year.  It seems to me that he was involved in some kind of VM
based VTAM project.  Was that it or was there something else?  It seems
to me that there was something besides SNATAM.

Getting old and memory is the second thing to go.  Don't remember what
the first was.

from the 26-28feb80 VMITE schedule:

Graham Pursey - SNATAM. This system is being perfected in
                Hursley to operate SNA devices from a CMS
                based system. The current direction is to
                make this into a product. 45 minutes to 1 hr

... snip ...

there were constant battles with the communication group ... I got
into all sort of problems with hsdt (high speed data transport)
project ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

to place things in better perspective ... SNA wasn't networking ... it
was dumb terminal communication.

example of gap between the communication group and hsdt project;
recent retelling
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#45

of an announcement (one friday) by the communication group for a new
internal conference.  included in the announcement were these
definitions (to be used for the conference):

low-speed:      <9.6kbits
medium-speed:   19.2kbits
high-speed      56kbits
very high-speed 1.5mbits

the next monday on a business trip to the far east, definition on the
conference room wall

low-speed       <20mbits
medium-speed    100mbits
high-speed      200-300mbits
very high-speed >600mbits

also working with various parties associated with getting NSFNET
going.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

eventually we weren't allowed to bid on NSFNET backbone ... even tho a
NSF audit of our high-speed backbone claimed that what we already had
running (internally) was at least five years ahead of all NSFNET bid
submissions. some related old email from the period
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

including some stuff forwarded to us about communication group
spreading FUD that sna & vtam could be used for NSFNET.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109

for other topic drift, the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

(which wasn't SNA until the late 80s) was technology from the science
center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning
until sometime mid-85. this was about the time that serious efforts
were made to try and get the internal network converted over to sna
(and also contributed to the internet exceeding the internal network).

in this period there was a big explosion in internet nodes from
workstations and PCs. SNA was still treating internal network as
something that was purely (mainframe) host-to-host ... and the
exploding numbers of PCs were to continue to be served by terminal
emulation. some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

subprime write-down sweepstakes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: subprime write-down sweepstakes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:07:10

jmfbah <jmfbahciv@aol> writes:

One of the callers of this radio show asked for the definition of
sub-prime.  Nobody could answer.  So the term has become the kleenix
of all the US' economic problems.  Congress critters will take
advantage of this ignorance.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#28 subprime write-down sweepstakes

just because it isn't explained on a radio show ... doesn't mean that it
isn't known. that is somewhat independent of whether or not they want to
explicitly lay blame.

in general, sub-prime are ARM/VRM (adjustable rate/variable rate) with
sub-prime "teaser" rate that adjusts upwards after initial period.
mortgage originators would use them in conjunction with other
inducements (i.e. circumventing standard business practices that would
represent difficulty in approving loan) like no down payments,
interest only payments (during the teaser period), no documentation,
etc. These were especially attractive to speculators ... who were
anticipating on flipping the property before the end of the teaser
period. It was the increasing/alarming number of risk factors
associated with typical subprime loan toxic CDOs (along with
lack of any visibility) that made them especially vulnerable.

CDOs were used for lots of credit related activity ... other than
sub-prime loans ... but the sub-prime loan toxic CDOs ... as a
category ... carried the largest systemic risk (most likely to
have problem at the end of the teaser period). sub-prime toxic
CDOs represented both a large percentage of all toxic CDOs
and especially a large percentage of toxic CDOs that had built
in problems and risk.

A combination of lack of visibility into underlying value of
all toxic CDOs (used two decades ago during S&L crisis to
obfuscate underlying value) and large percent of sub-prime toxic
CDOs all experiencing problems at approx the same time (end of
"teaser" period) precipitated lack of confidence in all toxic
CDOs ... leading to the enormous write-downs.

It wasn't necessarily that all toxic CDOs were having significant problems
... it was that toxic CDOs were designed to obfuscate the underlying value
... and when some toxic CDOs started to have significant problems ... then all
toxic CDOs became suspect. This is somewhat related to use of term toxic for
CDOs ... and making an analogy to contaminated consumer food/drug products. 
All of it can get pulled off the shelves and dumped ... even if only
an extremely small percentage is affected.

long-winded, decade old post referring to needing visibility into
underlying value of CDO-like instruments
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

past reference to estimate that 1000 are responsible for 80% of the
current mess (and it could go a long way if the gov. could figure
out how they would loose their job)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#32 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#52 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#57 Who do we have to blame for the mortgage crisis in America?

also reference to analogy of toxic CDOs to subverting "observe"
in Boyd's OODA-loop
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#4 CDOs subverting Boyd's OODA-loop

the rush to dump all toxic CDOs (analogous to dumping
contaminated consumer food/drug products) caught the investment
bankers off guard who were leveraged 40-50 times ... estimate of
possibly something like $45 trillion in such instruments. There may
have been only one trillion of actual investment ... with 20-40% (or
larger) writedowns dumping toxic CDOs ... these investment
bankers could be wiped out.

the mess was aggravated by the repeal of Glass-Steagall a
decade ago. In the wake of crash of '29, Glass-Steagall was put in
place to keep the unregulated risky activity of investment bankers
from contaminating the safety&soundness of regulated banking.

other past posts mentioning Glass-Steagall:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#12 Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#85 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#42 Banks failing to manage IT risk - study
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#59 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#1 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#13 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#17 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#43 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#46 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#53 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#71 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#73 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#75 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#79 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#94 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#96 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#97 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#2 Bush - place in history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#16 independent appraisers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#51 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#57 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#59 Credit crisis could cost nearly $1 trillion, IMF predicts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#67 independent appraisers

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:29:45

Greg Menke <gusenet@comcast.net> writes:

How can a "proof checker" possibly detect code that computes additional
code at runtime?  By that I mean, the proof checker observes a perfectly
reasonable set of instructions legitimately messing around with memory,
but the thing it doesn't realize is the data that the program generates
is another program- which can then be executed without having been
examined by the proof checker.  To discover this behavior the proof
checker will have to run the program itself (basically it will have to
scrub all possible code paths- even those which appear to be impossible
to reach).  Oh, and by the way, the proof checker has to be able to
detect the legitimate use of run-time code generation and differentiate
it from the unsafe.

the "proof checker" checks the original code ... and directly executed
code isn't allowed (unless it has been run thru some sort of "proof
checker"). in the 801/risc case from the 70s with cp.r & pl.8 ...  cp.r
would only allow load/run/execute of valid (acceptable) produced code
(by pl.8 compiler). in this scenario ... pl.8 compiler effectively has
the proof checker integrated with code generation ... and cp.r only
would only allow pl.8 generated code to be load/run/execute.

there is always programs that exhibit different executable behavior
because of different inputs. there is the scenario about how does the
"proof checker" handle the case of all possible inputs. this scenario
then can be extended to an interpreter where the possible inputs form
some sort of programm language.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#14 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#25 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#27 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

a somewhat related side-effect of 801/risc was separate (non-coherent)
I&D (store-in) caches. Compiler/loader managed code would show up in the
D-cache. To even get it to the I-cache ... it first has to be flushed to
main memory (in order for the I-cache to be able to fetch it). Loaders
(even in unix paradigm) on 801/risc had to have special instruction to
flush D-cache back to real storage ... before there was some chance that
the I-cache would see it (and therefor be available to the instruction
execution unit).

misc. past 801/risc posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:30:13

peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

OSI is no more a walled garden than TCP is. No network protocol stack that
isn't built around a cryptographic layer can be a walled garden if you have
physical access to the network. And you have to have physical access to the
network to use the network.

I've used OSI TP0/CLNP and TP4/CONS networks, and they were just as open as
TCP/IP.

OSI was product of the copper telco mentality for traditional
homogeneous network service.

the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just
about the beginning until approx. mid-85.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

i've claimed a big contribution was that the internal network nodes had
a form of gateway implementation from the beginning ...  something that
arpanet/internet didn't get until the great change over to
internetworking protocol on 1/1/83.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

OSI never did. ISO further exacerbated the situation by mandating that
there could not be any standards that didn't conform to OSI model. we
were involved in trying to interest X3S3.3 (us/asc iso chartered
standards body responsible for osi level 3&4 standards) in HSP
(high-speed protocol). it wasn't possible because:

1) HSP went directly from transport interface to lan/mac interface
... bypassing level3/level4 interface ... violating OSI

2) HSP supported LAN/MAC interface which sits somewhere in the middle of
level3 ... something that wasn't defined in OSI model

3) HSP supported internetworking ... something that doesn't exist in OSI
model

misc. past posts about HSP and getting rejected by X3S3.3 because
of ISO requirements to conform to OSI model
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

For a little other drift ... ISO doesn't require that a standard
actually have an implementation and/or be implementable. IETF requires
that there be interoperable implementations before progress in the
standards process.

ISO charges for standards documents

IETF standards are openly available ... for instance my IETF RFC
index
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

RFC summaries show up in the lower frame; clicking on the ".txt=nnnn"
field retrieves the actual RFC.

for additional topic drift ... recent posts with references to my IETF
RFC index
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#2 The original telnet specification?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#13 How fast is XCF

for other recent post with some additional topic drift
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#31 VTAM R.I.P. -- SNATAM anyone?

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:49:55

Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> writes:

For the 432, an FPGA emulation would probably be overkill, since a
software emulation on today's PC's would probably be many times faster
than the original.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#14 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#25 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#27 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#33 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#34 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

intel people gave presentation on 432 at sigops ('81?). one of the
things they mentioned was that 432 had several significantly complex
functions defined in hardware, implemented directly in silicon.  the
complex functions were subject to some amount of bugs and 432 process
was running into significant problems with producing corrected silicon.

misc. past posts mentioning 432
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#57 iAPX-432 (was: 36 to 32 bit transition
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#62 iAPX-432 (was: 36 to 32 bit transition
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#6 Ridiculous
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#48 Famous Machines and Software that didn't
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#54 FBA History Question (was: RE: What's the meaning of track overfl ow?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#36 What was object oriented in iAPX432?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#2 Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#27 iAPX432 today?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#46 IBM Mainframe at home
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#19 Computer Architectures
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#5 Anyone here ever use the iAPX432 ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#11 computers and alcohol
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003.html#5 vax6k.openecs.org rebirth
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003.html#6 vax6k.openecs.org rebirth
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#17 diffence between itanium and alpha
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#54 Reviving Multics
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#55 Reviving Multics
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#56 Reviving Multics
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#23 Intel iAPX 432
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#24 Intel iAPX 432
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#47 Intel 860 and 960, was iAPX 432
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#45 hung/zombie users ... long boring, wandering story
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#12 real multi-tasking, multi-programming
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#52 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#60 Will multicore CPUs have identical cores?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#64 Will multicore CPUs have identical cores?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#73 Athlon cache question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#64 Misuse of word "microcode"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#46 Performance and Capacity Planning
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#31 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#47 IBM 610 workstation computer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#42 Why is zSeries so CPU poor?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#44 Any resources on VLIW?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#15 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#57 Turbo C 1.5 (1987)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#7 32 or even 64 registers for x86-64?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#61 ISA Support for Multithreading
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#17 Oddly good news week: Google announces a Caps library for Javascript
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#36 Oracle Introduces Oracle VM As It Leaps Into Virtualization
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#78 CPU time differences for the same job
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#54 Throwaway cores

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:52:03

Pat Farrell <fishytv@pfarrell.com> writes:

But wasn't DEC (or Digital) a major player in OSI?  With DECnet
directly mapping into OSI, and DEC trying to sell us all on DECnet
rather than TCP/IP?

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#34 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

remember that some people believed the fed gov, GOSIP, mandates about
internet being replaced with osi, etc.

old post with old INTEROP 88 announcement with OSI comments, also comments
from rfc2441 about GOSIP, osi, etc.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#5 YKYGOW...

other posts mentioning various things about INTEROP 88 (sort of during
heyday of some believing in fed. mandates; they didn't understand how
fundamentally important internetworking is):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88

some past posts mentioning dec & osi (including some old
decnet/OSI articles):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#17 Pre ARPAnet email?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#32 Blame it all on Microsoft
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#34 Blame it all on Microsoft
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#30 diffence between itanium and alpha
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#71 GOSIP

and as before, misc. past posts mentioning HSP, OSI:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

for other topic drift ... huge explosion in mid-range market sales;
both vax/vms and 43xx machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers

post about decade plus of vax market numbers, sliced & diced by model,
year, us/non-us, etc. can see that by mid-80s, mid-range market was
starting to decline (giving way to workstations and large PCs)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0 Computers in Science Fiction

a big reason that 43xx outsold vax were large corporate orders of
machines in quantities of multiple hundreds (until they started to give
way to workstations and large PCs).

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Fixed-Point and Scientific Notation

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Fixed-Point and Scientific Notation
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:02:19

dsh1@TAMPABAY.RR.COM (Don Higgins) writes:

DFP Decimal IEEE 754r FP
Significant digits  7       16      34
Maximum exponent    96      384     6144

All of these formats are supported by z390 on Windows and Linux with CTD
and CFD conversion routine macros and supervisor calls for converting
between EBCDIC/ASCII character scientific notation and any of the above
binary formats.  All corrections and comments welcome.

Don Higgins
don@higgins.net
www.z390.org

Mike gave talk on 754r decimal FP, thursday at HILLGANG meeting
... included some interesting background and performance numbers about
decimal FP justification (as well as how long things can get dragged out
in standards process).

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

Boyd again

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Boyd again
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:21:09

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:

Well he didn't show up there because he was discussed here.

We all face a constant wave of information flowing at us.  Most of it
flows around us, because it either doesn't interest us or has no
relevance.

Two weeks ago, any reference to the guy (I have no idea who you are
talking about) would have flowed around you because it didn't mean
anything.

Now, it does so it hits you in the head rather than flowing around.

A different analogy would be that your filters changed, so now
he can be let in.

i've mentioned boyd sporadically ... lots of past posts mentioning
boyd ... many in this n.g. going back to '94
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd
and some number of Boyd URLs from around the web
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd2

google search just now claims that there are approx. 27,300 english
pages

i was introduced to boyd in the early 80s and was fortunate enuf
to sponsor some of his briefings.

at one time Boyd ran possibly the largest datacenter in the world ...
or at least in the far east at "spook base" (one of the biographies
mentions the datacenter as a $2.5b windfall for ibm).

Boyd has been credited with battle plan for the earlier gulf conflict
... and the VP has been quoted as problem going into the current gulf
conflict was that Boyd had died in '97.

post last wed in this n.g.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#21 To the horror of some in the Air Force

referencing Gates recently paying tribute to Boyd mentioned in this
time magazine article (21apr2008):
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1733747,00.html

there have been articles that even tho Boyd was a retired air force
col (and credited with at least the f16 and also instrumental in
design of several other planes) ... when he was buried at arlington
... it was the marines that showed up ... not the air force ... and
his works went to the marine museum.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject:  IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:19:17

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

for other topic drift ... huge explosion in mid-range market sales;
both vax/vms and 43xx machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers

post about decade plus of vax market numbers, sliced & diced by model,
year, us/non-us, etc. can see that by mid-80s, mid-range market was
starting to decline (giving way to workstations and large PCs)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0 Computers in Science Fiction

a big reason that 43xx outsold vax were large corporate orders of
machines in quantities of multiple hundreds (until they started to give
way to workstations and large PCs).

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#36 Two views of Microkernels (Re: Kernels

IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9080499

from above:

In an interview with Computerworld, Bell talked about his favorite
computer of all time, the state of telepresence and what he wishes
people knew about his good friend and Microsoft research colleague Jim
Gray who was lost at sea last year.

... snip ...

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

3277 terminals and emulators

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3277 terminals and emulators
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:47:45

patrick.okeefe@WAMU.NET (Patrick O'Keefe) writes:

I thought the AS/400 grew out of the 8100, but I suppose it may
have had mixed parentage.  (Or I may be remembering wrong.)

previous post in thread:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#9 3277 terminals and emulators

the folklore is that after future system project was terminated
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys

also this old post:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33

some number retreated to rochester and did the s/38.

i've claimed that somewhat in parallel, the 801/risc project went on
... with an objective of going to the exact opposite extreme of future
system hardware complexity.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

somewhere along the line, a project was started to replace the large
variety of internal microprocessors with 801/risc. there was "fort knox"
and iliad chips. One of these "iliad" efforts was to replace all the
microprocessors in entry and mid-range 370s with (801/risc) iliad chips;
the 4381 (4341 followon) microprocessor originally started out to be a
iliad chip. iliad chip was also going to be used for the as/400
microprocessor (follow-on to the s/38). Both efforts were still born.
Custom cisc chips were eventually done for both the 4381 as well as for
the as/400.

8100 used a totally different chip, uc.5 ... significantly underpowered.

there is old email about the MIT Lisp machine project asking IBM for
801/risc chips for their machine ... and being offered 8100 instead;
old email reference:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#email790711
in this post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#3 Architectural support for programming languages

as an aside ... at one point they sent my wife in to audit the 8100
effort and she recommended the whole thing be killed off.

much later there was the power/pc project (i.e. somerset, joint with
ibm, motorola, apple, et al) ... and as/400 finally did move off a cisc
processor to 801/risc (power/pc).

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:57:15

eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) writes:

Yeah, we are working on the Memorial.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#39 IT vet Gordon Bell talks about the most influential computers

anne got our plane tickets nearly two months ago ... it is little more
difficult coming from the east coast.

--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70

The Return of Ada

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Return of Ada
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:06:46

Larry Elmore <ljelmore@verizon.spammenot.net> writes:

And if employees could get away with demanding $1M/yr for 1 hr of work
they would.  So what?  People act in their own self interest.  *Why*
can businesses offer low wages and still get employees?  It's called
supply and demand.  To the extent that government can legislate wages
upward, it's only at the cost of reducing overall employment.  If you
don't believe that, then why can't the government just set a minimum
wage of $20 or even $50/hr and make everyone at least comfortably
middle class?

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#17 The Return of Ada
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#19 The Return of Ada

i.e. gov/public have to make up the difference with the necessary social
services to support workers earning substandard wages (in effect a
gov. subsidy to their employers).

and from the people that generated hundreds of billions of dollars in
losses in the write-down sweepstakes

The Fed's Too Easy on Wall Street
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/mar2008/pi20080318_697440.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusive

from above:

Here's a staggering figure to contemplate: New York City securities
industry firms paid out a total of $137 billion in employee bonuses from
2002 to 2007, a