List of Archived Posts

2002 Newsgroup Postings (11/10 - 12/06)

Home mainframes

Home mainframes

Home mainframes

PLX

Mainframe Spreadsheets - 1980's History

Anyone here ever use the iAPX432 ?

Who wrote the obituary for John Cocke?

Are ssl certificates all equally secure?

Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM

PLX

Are ssl certificates all equally secure?

Home mainframes

Home mainframes

BOYD, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war

Home mainframes

Home mainframes

Home mainframes

PLX

Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe

IBM Selectric as printer

aads strawman/aSuretee at cardtech/securetech ID

Slow assemblers/Macros?

IBM Selectric as printer

Early computer games

Relocation, was Re: Early computer games

Relocation, was Re: Early computer games

TPF

6670

Computer History Exhibition, Grenoble France

Over-the-shoulder effect

I found the Olsen Quote

Over-the-shoulder effect

Follklore

META: Newsgroup cliques?

So I tried this //vm.marist.edu stuff on a slow Sat. night,

Follklore

META: Newsgroup cliques?

National ID

I found the Olsen Quote

META: Newsgroup cliques?

use of RADIUS

THIS WEEKEND: VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL 5.0

Help me find pics of a UNIVAC please

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

Question about hard disk scheduling algorithms

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

E-mail from the OS-390 ????

``Detrimental'' Disk Allocation

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

Certificate Authority: Industry vs. Government

Certificate Authority: Industry vs. Government

National ID

?smartcard+fingerprint

E-mail from the OS-390 ????

smartcard+fingerprint

Certificate Authority: Industry vs. Government

Certificate Authority: Industry vs. Government

smartcard+fingerprint

smartcard+fingerprint

Defeating telemarketers

smartcard+fingerprint

META: Newsgroup cliques?

So I tried this //vm.marist.edu stuff on a slow Sat. night,

Pismronunciation

Pismronunciation

So I tried this //vm.marist.edu stuff on a slow Sat. night,

They Got Mail: Not-So-Fond Farewells

They Got Mail: Not-So-Fond Farewells

They Got Mail: Not-So-Fond Farewells

(old) list of (old) books

Updated merged security glossary with glossary from NIST 800-37

Newsgroup cliques?

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 16:31:53 GMT

Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> writes:

So did Jay mean that CP/CMS sucks at batch?  Surely VM can support
batch just fine under some other supervisor?

cms has a cmsbatch ... that isn't even up to the level of os/360 PCP.
cmsbatch is sort of like automated terminal session.

but of course you can run some other (much more batch oriented)
operating system in a virtual machine ... and do you batch work there.
In fact, LPARS are a form of VM subset running in the microcode &
hardware (on the bare metal) ... and I would guess that nearly all of
the ibm mainframes these days run in LPAR mode. In that sense nearly
all ibm maainframe workload running in the world today is running in a
form of VM ... one way or another (including batch, oltp, dbms, etc)

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 16:40:46 GMT

ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:

At that shop (Alphatext), OS/VS1 was the "guest" operating system.
It's MFT on steroids.  There was an initiative to move to MVS in
guest mode, but the division was killed before that happened.
It would have been interesting to compare CMS and TSO on the 4381,
but not everyone is as blessed as, say, the Wheelers, in career
opportunities.   -->  B-)  <--

most guest operating systems run slower in a VM virtual machine than
they would on the bare metal (because of the need for VM to simulate
lots of the supervisor state instructions and various other
characteristics). However, starting on 148 with VS/1 & VM microcode
assists and various tweaking of VS/1 operations ... there were lots of
customers that were able to show VS/1 running faster under VM than on
the native hardware.

lets say i fell into the career opportunities ... by spending a lot of
late nights at the university computing center ... until they give me
the whole machine room from 8am sat. until 8am monday ... and the
responsibility for supporting the production operating systems. After
that I usually tried to schedule things so my first class on monday
wasn't until 10am ... it would give me a chance to shower. Pulling a
48hr shift w/o sleep and then doing monday classes sometimes was
interesting activity.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 16:51:36 GMT

and although i didn't get as much sleep pulling 48hr shifts (and then
going to class) it was more interesting than the job i had up until
then washing dishes in university cafeteria (and i was getting paid
for spending time at the computing center)

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

PLX

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: PLX
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 04:00:08 GMT

SEYMOUR.J.METZ@CUSTOMS.TREAS.GOV (Shmuel  Metz , Seymour J.) writes:

RPS was first introduced for the 2305 disk, on the 360/85 and 360/195. The
next RPS devices were the 3330-1, 3330-2 and 3330-11. RPS was old hat by
the time the 3350 came along, much less the 3350, 3375, 3380 and 3390.

Don't forget the 3340 and 3344, or the FBA disk drives (3310, 3370).

2305 also had multiple exposures ... eight logical addresses mapped to
the same physical device (all addresses could read all locations).

3344 was multiple emulated 3340s on a 3350 physical drive. the big
difference between 3344 & 3340 from programming standpoint was that
the 3344 needed special RAS alternate track support (and the number of
3340 cyls. reduced by the cyls used for alternate tracks).

3350 had a fixed-option for the first two cylinders. i tried to get
multiple exposures for the 3350 .. so i/o could be
initiated/performed/overlapped (on the fixed heads) while the arm was
in motion/busy ... but didn't happen.

misc from (in case anybody has rest of the code names):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#63 MVS History (all parts)

           2301       fixed-head/track (2303 but r/w four heads in parallel)
           2303       fixed-head/track r/w single head (1/4th rate of 2301)
Corinth    2305-1     fixed-head/track
Zeus       2305-2     fixed-head/track
           2311
           2314
           2321       data-cell "washing machine"
?Piccolo   3310       FBA
Merlin     3330-1
Iceberg    3330-11
Winchester 3340-35
           3340-70
           3344       (3350 physical drive simulating multiple 3340s)
Madrid     3350
NFP        3370       FBA
Florence   3375       3370 supporting CKD
Coronado   3380 A04, AA4, B04
EvergreenD 3380 AD4, BD4
EvergreenE 3380 AE4, BE4

           3830       horizontal microcode engine

Cybernet   3850       MSS (also Comanche & Oak)

Cutter     3880       jib-prime (vertical) microcode engine
Ironwood   3880-11    (4kbyte/page block 8mbyte cache)
Sheriff    3880-13    (full track 8mbyte cache)
Sahara     3880-21    (larger cache for "11")
??         3880-23    (larger cache for "13")

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Mainframe Spreadsheets - 1980's History

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Mainframe Spreadsheets - 1980's History
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 05:54:52 GMT

random other apl related refs:
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/APL-hist.html
http://home.stny.rr.com/wniehoff/apl/graphpakchron.htm
http://home1.gte.net/res057qw/APL_J/IversonAPL.htm
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=255659&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=5598838&CFTOKEN=9027172
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=803802&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=5598701&CFTOKEN=63129146
http://www.apl-online.de/Berlin2000/VP002.PDF
http://web.archive.org/web/20080211172614/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/G320-2094/G320-2094.htm

the one from SGML ... is goldfarb csc report ... mentioning APL at CSC
(in addition to cp/67, the internal network, and misc & sundry other
stuff .. gml also originated at CSC; gml is actually goldfarb, mosher
and lorie ... and i bet everybody thot it stood for generalized markup
language ... ancestor to to all the current MLs, HTML, XML, etc).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Anyone here ever use the iAPX432 ?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Anyone here ever use the iAPX432 ?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 08:42:35 GMT

David Ball writes:

I remember reading datasheets on the iAPX432 back in about 1981, but
I never heard much else about it. As I recall, it had some weird
things in the architecture, like bit addressed memory and some OS
primitives implemented in hardware.... Seems like I recall some kind
of job descriptor block and the CPU hardware could handle scheduling
with multiple CPU's.... OTOH, I read all this back in 1981 and I
could be mistaken...

Did anyone ever use one ? Whatever happened to it ?

-- David

i never used one ... but some past threads:
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/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?>

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Who wrote the obituary for John Cocke?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Who wrote the obituary for John Cocke?
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers,bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 20:47:42 GMT

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#61 who wrote the obituary for john cocke?

a 801/fort knox url that i stumbled across:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030301042035/http://www.midrangeserver.com/tfh/tfh042902-story07.html
misc. past 801/romp/rios/fort knox postings:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Are ssl certificates all equally secure?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Are ssl certificates all equally secure?
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:13:34 GMT

ga@braindamage.org (Beavis) writes:

It seems that the various certificate authorities have somewhat
different requirements for verifying identities. My question is this:
Does it matter?

Suppose that I buy my somesite.com certificate from agent X, which
goes to great lengths to verify that I am in fact the owner of
somesite.com.

Now suppose that "hacker B" buys a somesite.com certificate from agent
Y, who is not as careful and ends up giving "hacker B" a somesite.com
certificate even though he has no rights to somesite.com.

Now it seems that "hacker B" can intercept "secure" connections to
somesite.com using his bogus certificate.

If this is true then is there any point in my buying from agent X? It
seems that the whole system is as weak as its weakest certificate
authority.

If not, why not?

SSL certificates security:

1) integrity of the certificates themselves

2) integrity of the business processes that the certification
authorities use for creating certificates (side note ... technically
they aren't certificate authorities, they are certification
authorities; aka they are certifying somebody else's information).

3) integrity of the business processes of the authoritative agency
responsible for the information being certified by the certification
authority (aka frequently the certification authority is not the
authoritative agency with regard to the information being certified).
In SSL certificates ... it is who owns the domain name ... and so the
domain name infrastructure is the authoritative agency as to actually
who owns which domains. one of the failure modes has been domain name
takeover, and then get a certificate.

basically the browsers just accept all certificates that have been signed
with a private key ... which the browser has the corresponding public key
in an internal table.

So the strength of the infrastructure is effectively as strong was the
weakest length ... which might actually not be the crypto integrity of
the certificate or the business integrity of the certification
authority ... but could extend all the way back to the authoritative
agency responsible for the information being certified.

misc. past postings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 23:06:38 GMT

Robert Myers writes:

The book, apparently, is Exploring IBM's New Age Mainframes, by John L
Young, but it's nowhere to be found, at least not with google.

I found lots of hits ... but no actual online book (book listed
as published in 96):

one of the hits:
http://search390.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid10_gci212940,00.html

and one of my past comments:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

the z/architectue principles of operation is online,
url in previous post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#74

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

PLX

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: PLX
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 23:15:35 GMT

SEYMOUR.J.METZ@CUSTOMS.TREAS.GOV (Shmuel  Metz , Seymour J.) writes:

Memorex reliability may not have been as good as IBM, but it was far
better than Itel. However, The STC Superdisk (we called it superdog) was
reminiscent of Itel, or the 2321 on an off day; 4 3330 stacks with a
single access mechanism.

one of the guys that i worked with was being recruited for CTO at a
hardware RDBMS company (after their current CTO had left to form a
software RDBMS company) ... and I was asked to come along also.  The
two that had originally formed the company (hardware RDBMS company
carried their name) had previously done memorex disks/controller
... and before that one of them had been engineer on 2321 (there has
been this joke about there only being 200 people in the industry).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Are ssl certificates all equally secure?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Are ssl certificates all equally secure?
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 01:16:05 GMT

... in some sense certification authorities are analogous to notary
public, they will certify that they've seen something like a driver's
license.

one problem might be that the notary doesn't examine the driver's
license close enuf to see if it is really valid. another problem might
be that the driver's license is so simple that everybody in the world
might be running around with a fraudulent/counterfeit driver's
license.

in a hypothetical situation, just because the notary's seal is
impossible to duplicate ... and every notary is absolutely guarenteed
to faithfully have executed the appropriate process .... it still
might not be true if the driver's license a trivial to counterfeit.

as mentioned previous posts in
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

one of the primary, original reasons for ssl certs is concern about
the integrity of the domain name infrastructure. however,
certifications authorities are dependent on domain name infrastructure
as the authoritative agency regarding domain name ownership. so there
is something of a catch-22 (aka you want a ssl cert to be used because
you can't trust the domain name infrastructure ... but the
certification authorities are dependent on the domain name
infrastructure for the information they are certifying ... the same
information you aren't trusting).

in any case, some of the proposals (by the certification authority
industry) for improving the integrity of the domain name
infrastructure (so that they can trust it) ... also goes a long ways
towards allowing everybody to trust it (significantly negating the
need for ssl certificates).

there was a glitch today on the IETF PKIX mailing list and brought
up some specific threads from a year ago (also listed in the above
sslserts discussion):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki5 Software for PKI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki12 Software for PKI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki13 Software for PKI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki14 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki15 DNSSEC RFCs, was Software for PKI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki16 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki19 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm8.htm#softpki20 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm9.htm#softpki21 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm9.htm#softpki22 DNSSEC (RE: Software for PKI)

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 17:03:30 GMT

jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:

I doubt seriously that any of the regular readers of this newsgroup
need to have the concept of "late night work on the computer" explained
to them... <g>

Joe Morris (who for many years saw sunrise only when leaving the office)

it wasn't so much the all nighters and then rest ... it was the 48hr
shift and then go to class. later there was this joke about working
1st shift in bldg.28/sjr, 2nd shift in bldgs14/15/disk engineering,
and 3rd shift in bldg90/STL.

I was at dinner 3-4 weeks ago with a group and somebody was telling
story about (20+ yeargs ago) sitting in a 1st floor conference room in
bldg.90/STL and watching the sun come up over the east hills ... and a
janitor caming around outside sweeping the concret footing of the bldg
(and wishing he could change places with the janitor since some
acceptance testing we were working on hadn't been going well; he was
with a non-ibm hardware vendor).

bldg.90/stl is set in coyote valley (was almost named the coyote lab)
and since it was built has been the only bldg (although at one time
tandem had option to build big campus complex and move all its
operations ... and then later cisco seemed to have bought the
option). the area around the bldg. is somewhat natural. The data
center is underneath everything and when it was first built ... was
subject to flooding.

sometimes i would work in bldg.90/stl during the day and ride my bike
to work. the valley had the interesting characteristic that there was
typically a strong head wind heading both directions (in the morning
the bay is warmer than the south valley/salinas ... and the air rises
over the bay and sucks air from south valley between the santa cruz
mountains and the east hills, in the afternoon, the south valley is
warmer than the bay and the wind reverses). This is the effect that
also moderates SanFran weather ... since the hotter it is in the south
valley ... the more air is being sucked from the bay ... and
eventually pulling it from the pacific thru the gap at the golden gate
(typically the hotter it is in the south valley, the greater the air
conditioning effect at the golden gate with stronger pull of cooler
air from the pacific)

some old bldg.90/stl stories
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#16 Why Mainframes?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#36 why is there an "@" key?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#65 Old naked woman ASCII art
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#75 Read if over 40 and have Mainframe  background
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#110 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#212 GEOPLEX
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#18 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#77 Mainframe operating systems
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#56 South San Jose (was Tysons Corner, Virginia)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#58 South San Jose (was Tysons Corner, Virginia)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#72 Microsoft boss warns breakup could worsen virus problem
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#65 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#49 How did Oracle get started?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#18 OT?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#30 OT?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#22 Disk caching and file systems.  Disk history...people forget
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/2001d.html#64 VTOC/VTOC INDEX/VVDS and performance (expansion of VTOC position)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#64 Design (Was Re: Server found behind drywall)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#22 Early AIX including AIX/370
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#32 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#33 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#34 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#37 Thread drift: Coyote Union (or Coyote Ugly?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#29 checking some myths.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#11 YKYGOW...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#22 ESCON Channel Limits
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#46 3270 protocol
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#11 OCO
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#10 index searching
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#30 OS Workloads : Interactive etc
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#13 Secure Device Drivers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#55 Multics hardware (was Re: "Soul of a New Machine" Computer?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#60 Java, C++ (was Re: Is HTML dead?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#61 Java, C++ (was Re: Is HTML dead?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#67 history of CMS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#22 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#24 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#69 Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#6 HONE was .. Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#67 Total Computing Power
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#74 Itanium2 power limited?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#9 Avoiding JCL Space Abends
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#47 Do any architectures use instruction count instead of timer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#71 Faster seeks (was Re: Do any architectures use instruction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#36 VR vs. Portable Computing
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#66 Mainframe Spreadsheets - 1980's History

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 17:17:57 GMT

... although when i was at 545tech sq .... sometimes i would be
working late and miss the last B&M train out of north station ... and
have to work thru the west of the night and then walk over to north
station in the morning and catch the first train. this is when
lechmere was still big warehouse looking bldg with a large paved lot.
now that area has gone all really upscale (and the hotel that used to
be called the chart house is now a sonesta or renaissance or something
... and surrounded by lotus bldgs.)

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

BOYD, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: BOYD, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.military
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 21:11:07 GMT

new Boyd biography just hit the streets. I had pre-ordered it from
amazon.com and it just showed up today: Boyd, the fighter pilot who
changed the art of war, robert coram, little, brown, & company.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316881465/qid%3D1037135329/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr_11_1/102-2143828-2808942

previou biography was:
The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security, Grant T. Hammond,
smithsonian institution press (the picture on the back cover of this
book is the cover for the new biography).

misc. postings (including threads on the earlier biography from last year):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#boyd

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 22:47:48 GMT

Peter Flass writes:

"Well" is really all in your definition.  IMHO, if what you want to do
is run a bunch of compiles in the background it's fine, but you don't
get all the queueing and selection features MVS has.  You also don't get
the facilities of JCL which, for all its faults, is a failrly powerful
languahe in itself.  Think rinning a series of steps with condition code
testing.  Think running a job that uses lots of tapes.

the other way of looking at batch vis-a-vis interactive paradigm
.... is that the batch sysetms evolved over a period of 40 some years
assuming that there was no human participation in the computing
process (outside of telling an operating to mount a tape) ... while
the interactive platforms have evolved over a 30plus year period
assuming that a human was there telling them what to do.  The
assumptions are radically different and the solutions that evolved are
significantly different.

Lots of the interactive platforms, when something anomolous occurs are
expected to punt back and interact with the human. A lot of batch
systems have evolved to being dim/dark room operations .... where
there might not be a knowledgeable person within miles/hours.

An interesting aspect is trying to adopt interactive/desktop evolved
platforms for dim/dark room operations (no matter what happens, the
service keeps running 7x24). Everything that used to interrupt out to
the human for them to take care of ... has now got to be handled
automagically.

A couple examples/correllaries have been

1) large financial network that attributed 100 percent availability for
a six plus year period (at the time) to

  a) automated operator
  b) IMS hot standby

aka involving a human eventually results in some mistake, misc past
automated operator refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#2 Schedulers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#71 High Availabilty on S/390
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#107 Computer History
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#128 Examples of non-relational databases
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#22 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#12 Amdahl Exits Mainframe Market
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#43 Life as a programmer--1960, 1965?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#13 LINUS for S/390
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#70 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#71 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#44 Where are IBM z390 SPECint2000 results?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#47 Where are IBM z390 SPECint2000 results?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#8 VM: checking some myths.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#14 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#18 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#47 five-nines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#47 Sysplex Info
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#85 The demise of compaq
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#24 Buffer overflow
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#68 Blade architectures
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#73 Where did text file line ending characters begin?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#62 Itanium2 performance data from SGI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#27 why does wait state exist?

2) for the original payment gateway as part of the invention of
e-commerce ... i contended that after the straight line application
code was written and fully operational ... that there was about four
times as much more code written (that was possibly ten times more
complex) to turn the "application" into a "service" (for 7x24
operation). related assurance references
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#assurance

misc high availability, continuous availability, 7x24 refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#33a High Speed Data Transport (HSDT)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#7 Why Do Mainframes Exist ???
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#16 middle layer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#27 Mainframes & Unix
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#4 Mythical beasts (was IBM... mainframe)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#14 Galaxies
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#16 Old Computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#87 1401 Wordmark?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#145 Q: S/390 on PowerPC?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#64 distributed locking patents
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#83 Ux's good points.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#77 write rings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#22 Is a VAX a mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#58 360 Architecture, Multics, ... was (Re: X86 ultimate CISC? No.)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#25 what is interrupt mask register?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#60 monterey's place in computing was: Kildall "flying" (was Re: First OS?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#69 Wheeler and Wheeler
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#70 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#45 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#52 Compaq kills Alpha
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#63 Blinkenlights
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#76 Other oddball IBM System 360's ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#45 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#13 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#47 Sysplex Info
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#34 Does it support "Journaling"?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#63 Filesystem namespaces (was Re: Serving non-MS-word .doc files (was Re: PDP-10 Archive migrationplan))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#17 Blade architectures
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#45 M$ SMP and old time IBM's LCMP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#64 History of AOL
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#15 Large Banking is the only chance for Mainframe
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#62 Itanium2 performance data from SGI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#5 Dumb Question - Hardend Site ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#22 DOS history question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#41 Home mainframes

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:12:39 GMT

Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> writes:

Were any of the VM microcode assists ever explained in documentation
available to customers?

Have the same VM assists been available on most models since then, or
are they model-specific?

there were essentially two types of microcode assists

1) privilege instruction execution using virtual machine rules
.... aka instead of generating a program interrupt for the privilege
instruction, the microcode of the machine recognized that it was in
virtual machine mode and executing the instruction using virtual
machine rules. The first such set of this started with assist
microcode on the 370/158. Various machines have extended until the SIE
instruction in 370-XA and then carrying forward until present day with
LPARs. This eliminated having to interrupt the CP kernel to simulate
the privilege instruction. I believe that all machines that supported
370-XA (and later architectures, aka starting with 3081 20-some years
ago) supported SIE. I believe all current machines support LPARs.

2) vm cp kernel code that was copied into microcode originally for
138&148 machines. 370 on the low & mid range machines was
microcode on some native processor engine with a typical microcode:370
instruction ratio of about 10:1 (aka there were about 10 microcode
instructions executed for every 370 instruction). Basically a
variation on the "B2xx" op-code was inserted into the 370 instruction
stream with various parameters (including pointer to various 370
addresses when it was done). The various B2xx functions would
duplicate (in microcode) the 370 kernel instruction sequence at
approximately ten times performance improvement.

This was VM ECPS for the 138/148 and started out with the microcode
group in endicott saying that they had 6000 bytes of microcode space
and they wanted to pick approximately 6000 bytes of the highest used
CP kernel instructions. The following describes the 6000 bytes of cp
kernel 370 instruction that were selected for replication in
microcode:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ecps vm

The selected 6000 bytes accounted for 79.55 percent of kernel excution
time.

The 138/148 also supported the #1 enhancement for various privilege
instructions that was done for the 370/158 plus a couple additional
instructions that hadn't been done by the 158 microcode assist. For
the most part, these "assisted" instructions executing in almost the
same time/performance as they would in non-virtual machine mode
(nearly zero virtual machine simulation overhead).

For the situations were CP kernel was necessary (privilege
instructions not simulated by the microcode, task-switch, virtual
memory page exceptions, page i/o, etc), the special ECPS B2xx
instruction reducted 80 percent of kernel execution time to 8 percent.

VS1 operating system then also had ECPS microcode assists done for it
on 138/148 machines. And there were also a different sent of things
done for the VS1 operating system where, if it knew it was running in
a virtual machine utilized some new interfaces to operate much more
efficiently (in some cases relying on the CP kernel to perform
functions that it would otherwise do itself ... eliminating some
exectuion duplication).

The overall effects might cut cp kernel execution as a percent of
total execution from possibly forty percent (with absolutely no
microcode help and/or guest operating system sensitivity) to possibly
4-5 percent. In some cases with the VS1 guest operating system
enhancements, that 4-5 percent CP kernel time might have originally
been 6-10 percent VS1 operating system time (if running on the bare
iron) .... resulting in the situation that some customers saw higher
thruput with VS1 running in a virtual machine than if it had been
running on the bare metal.

there are all sorts of documentation with respect to to SIE (start
interpretive execution), PR/SM (processor resource/system manager),
LPAR (logial partitioned).  Search some of the IBM documentation
sites. some random places:
http://www.vm.ibm.com/perf/tips/lparinfo.html
http://www.vm.ibm.com/perf/tips/prgccw.html
http://www.vm.ibm.com/perf/tips/prgvse.html

misc past references to SIE, PR/SM, &/or LPAR:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#37 SIE instruction (S/390)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#45 Why can't more CPUs virtualize themselves?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#57 Reliability and SMPs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#191 Merced Processor Support at it again
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#8 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#63 Mainframe operating systems
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#86 Ux's good points.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#50 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#51 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#52 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#61 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#62 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#8 IBM Linux
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#50 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#68 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#76 Is a VAX a mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#78 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#72 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#5 SIMTICS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#61 Estimate JCL overhead
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#17 Accounting systems ... still in use? (Do we still share?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#23 MERT Operating System & Microkernels
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#2 Alpha:  an invitation to communicate
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#33 D
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#71 IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#73 Most complex instructions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#71 Encryption + Error Correction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#24 mainframe question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#38 CMS under MVS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#53 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#26 Open Architectures ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#31 Hercules etc. IBM not just missing a great opportunity...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#32 Hercules etc. IBM not just missing a great opportunity...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#6 Microcode?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#44 PDP-10 Archive migration plan
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#53 VAX, M68K complex instructions (was Re: Did Intel Bite Off More Than   It Can Chew?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#31 2 questions: diag 68 and calling convention
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#25 Crazy idea: has it been done?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#75 Computers in Science Fiction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#6 Blade architectures
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#57 IBM competes with Sun w/new Chips
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#6 Tweaking old computers?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#27 why does wait state exist?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#28 why does wait state exist?

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Home mainframes

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Home mainframes
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:34:08 GMT

Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:

This was VM ECPS for the 138/148 and started out with the microcode
group in endicott saying that they had 6000 bytes of microcode space
and they wanted to pick approximately 6000 bytes of the highest used
CP kernel instructions. The following describes the 6000 bytes of cp
kernel 370 instruction that were selected for replication in
microcode:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ecps vm

at the same time I was working on 138/148 ECPS ... I was also working
on a thing called VAMPS ... which was a multiprocessor architecture
involving 370/125. The 115&125 basic hardware had a 9-ported
internal bus for up to 9 microprocessors. In the 115, all the
microprocessor engines were the same ... just with different
programming; implementing the various controller functions as well as
the 370 cpu (i.e. 370 microprocessor engine was identical to the other
microprocessor engines ... but with microcode that implement 370
instruction set). The 125 was identical to the 115 except the
microprocessor engine used for the 370 CPU was unique and faster than
all the other microprocessors. VAMPS was a project that would deploy
two to five 125 processor engines on the internal 9-port internal bus.

A problem was that the 138/148 ECPS effort was trying to make the
whole 138/148 product line VM (i.e. all machines would be shipped with
VM ... in much the same way all machines currently ship with LPAR
support). The 138/148 group then viewed the 5-way VAMPS effort moving
up into their targeted market segment. So things eventually escalated
until there was an executive meeting with the 138/148 group on one
side of the table and the VAMPS group on the other side of the table
...  and I had a seat on both sides. I also had to carry the majority
of the argument for both sides ... logically switching sides of the
table depending on which side of the argument I was taking at that
particular moment.

random VAMPS references:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#68 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#10 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#11 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#6 Ridiculous
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#7 Ridiculous
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#2 Most complex instructions (was Re: IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#18 I hate Compaq
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#19 I hate Compaq
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#48 Pentium 4 SMT "Hyperthreading"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#80 HONE
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#82 HONE

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

PLX

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: PLX
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 01:52:59 GMT

tjpo@AIRBORNE.COM (Patrick O'Keefe) writes:

Hmm.  The 1130 I remember had cartridge about a foot in diameter, one platter or maybe 2.
Could be the "frisbee" mentioned above.  I think the 1130 had a lot of scientific or engineering
programs available.  I know it had an available CALCOMP drum plotter with an IBM label on it.

cambridge science center had a 2250mod4 (I had used a 2250m1 at the
university, which was direct 360 channel attach controller) 2250m4
basically was a 2250 with 1130 as the "controller". somebody ported
spacewars from pdp1(?) to the 1130 (2250m4). The 2250 keyboard was
split in half for two players ... each player using their half of the
keyboard for direction control, movement and firing.

the same person did the initial "network" connection done between the
1130 and the 360/67 ... and evolved it into cpremote, vnet, rscs (and
the internal network).

One of the things that both SNA and early arpanet did wrong was not
having a gateway layer. One of the reasons that the internal network
was larger than the arpanet/internet into the 1985 timeframe was that
the internal network effectively had gateway support in every node
... something that the internet didn't get until 1/1/83 ("great
switchover").

There is also the point that SNA never even had a "network layer"
(besides not having a gateway layer).

random past 2250m4 &/or 1130 refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#2 IBM 1130 (was Re: IBM 7090--used for business or science?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#3 IBM 1130 (was Re: IBM 7090--used for business or science?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#67 oddly portable machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#15 APL version in IBM 5100 (Was: Resurrecting the IBM 1130)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#15 internet preceeds Gore in office.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#71 HASP vs. "Straight OS," not vs. ASP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#24 A question for you old guys -- IBM 1130 information
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#71 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#75 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#12 Blame it all on Microsoft
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#16 Pre ARPAnet email?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#13 5-player Spacewar?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#23 IA64 Rocks My World
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#45 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#22 When did full-screen come to VM/370?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#12 Author seeks help - net in 1981
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#34 Does it support "Journaling"?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#39 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#9 Security Proportional to Risk (was: IBM Mainframe at home)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#6 LISTSERV(r) on mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#32 What goes into a 3090?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#19 PowerPC Mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#60 Java, C++ (was Re: Is HTML dead?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#20 6600 Console was Re: CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#44 Unisys A11 worth keeping?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#22 Computer Terminal Design Over the Years
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#75 30th b'day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#16 s/w was: How will current AI/robot stories play when AIs are
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#18 Unbelievable

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Everything you wanted to know about z900 from IBM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 03:30:52 GMT

"del cecchi" writes:

One could look at LPAR as VM (not cms) in Hardware.  After all, in the
old days people used to run MVS under VM for some of the same reasons
they now use LPAR.

I'm sure Lynn Wheeler or one of the others can explain it better.

del cecchi

a recent thread that touches on many of the issues in alt.folklore.computers ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#41 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#73 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#0 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#1 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#2 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#11 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#12 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#14 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#15 Home mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#16 Home mainframes

cms, guest operating systems, batch vis-a-vis interactive, microcode
assists (which evolved into SIE and then PR/SM & LPARs,
specifically in the next to last ref. above), etc.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 04:24:19 GMT

SEYMOUR.J.METZ@CUSTOMS.TREAS.GOV (Shmuel  Metz , Seymour J.) writes:

There was a multiple utility program for the 1401 that let you run copies
concurrently, but it didn't let you run other applications in parallel
with that. The SPOOL support for the 1410/7010, like the SPOOL for the
7070, 7080 and 7090, let you run the utility functions in parallel with
another application.

my first student programming job was duplicating a 1401 program that
did UR<->tape as front-end for 709. The 1401 bootable carddeck
had "MPIO" written on it. While I was working on it, the unit record
gear was switched back & forth between the 1401 and the 360/30
... when the 1401 was then removed and the 360/30 alternated between
1401 emulation mode and 360 mode. I never programmed the 1401. I did
run MPIO ... testing to see if MPIO and what I was doing generated the
same results.

I got to design my own interrupt handler, device driver, storage
management, dispatcher, etc ... and eventually could handle both
tape->printer/punch and cardreader->tape simultaneously ... and
assembler deck grew to somewhat less than a box of cards (2000). I had
conditional assembly for either stand-alone operation (my own device
drviers, interrupt handlers, etc) or under os/360 (I believe at the
time PCP release 6).

One of the issues was that assembling it for running under PCP ... I
had five DCB macros. The stand-alone version would assemble in around
20 minutes. The PCP version (with DCB macros) would take more than
twice that, .... you could watch the lights on the 30 when it hit a
DCB macro ... each one taking approx. five minutes elapsed time (and
adding nearly a half hour to the total assembly time).

Rather than read/feed/select-stacker ... I would do separate read and
feed/select-stacker CCW operations. If the card was BCD the read would
complete and then I would do feed/select-stacker. If the card was
binary, the read would fail, and I would reread in column binary (read
80 rows into 160 bytes).

from trusty green card ... gx20-1703-7

2540
                                   CCW op-code
read, feed, select stacker SS      SSD00010
read                               11D00010
feed, select stacker SS            SS100011
PFR punch, feed, select stacker SS SSD01001
punch, feed, select starker SS     SSD00001

where
SS     stacker          D    data mode
00       R1             0      EBCDIC
01       R2             1     column binary
10       RP3

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 19:27:24 GMT

"Charlie Gibbs" writes:

I realize that the 360 assembler's macro language is a real bear,
but I still couldn't understand why it took so damned long to
assemble.  The disk-based assembler on the Univac 9300 (Univac's
answer to the 360/20) took similarly long - I had one program
of about 2000 statements which took 40 minutes to assemble.
I wrote my own assembler, which satisfied my design criteria by
supporting the full language and doing the job in half the time.
(It also added a cross-reference listing, which the Univac
assembler lacked.)  On a single-tasking machine where programmers
had the lowest priority, this boosted my productivity significantly.

I heard a story that the person that was writing the decoder was told
that they only had ??bytes (some very small number) ... and so
(re)read the records of the lookup table from disk on every
statement. DCB macro was in library and was at least several hundred
records by itself. Say nominal 20 I/Os per second from 2311 .. 1200
I/Os per minute ... 6000 i/os in five minutes (or possibly 6000 disk
i/os for every DCB macro).

Suppsedly somebody investigated and realized that the person doing
that part of the implementation had been terribly over constrained and
relaxing it a little bit (keeping lookup table in memory instead of
sequentially reeading records from disk) speaded up the assembler
significantly.

Things were significantly faster by release 9.5 (over release 6).

Later ... HASH had both significant additional function and speedup.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

IBM Selectric as printer

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Selectric as printer
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 06:09:20 GMT

jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:

Question for the audience: if the console for the S/360 was a model 7,
what were the earlier flavors of the 1052?

"terminal" 1052 ... from cp-67/CMS Version 3 PLM GY20-0590-0

1051/1052 Model 2 Data Communication System

Data Set Attachment (#9114)
IBM Line Adapter (#4647)
Receive Interrupt (#6100 or RPQ E27428) Required
Transmit Interrupt (#7900 or RPQ E26903) Required
Text Time-Out Suppression (#9698) Required

sortly after going to 545tech sq I got to take home a "portable" 2741,
if I remember correctly a Anderson/Jacabson in two 40(?)lb suitcases
and an acoustic modem. After a couple months this was replaced with a
real 2741.

Cambridge had a clear plastic flat cover to place over the top opening
(holes cut for the paper release) made for all the 2741s to help cut
down on the noise (about 1/4in plexiglass, it rested on the paper
release, front & sides leaving gap in the rear for paper feed).

They also had table tops made. They were basically 3/4in plywood with
formica laminate that sat on the 2741 frame with a cut-out for the
typewriter case ... about 24in on one side and back and 6in on the other
side. This table top could be flipped over ... placing the 24in side
for paper to either the right or the left (of the keyboard). I had
kept the table top and plastic cover long after I no longer had a 2741
(until just 4-5 years ago). I still have a APL golf ball tho.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/2741.html

past discussion of 2741 keyboard correspondance & PTTC/EBCD:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#62 ASR33/35 Controls

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

aads strawman/aSuretee at cardtech/securetech ID

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: aads strawman/aSuretee at cardtech/securetech ID
Newsgroups: alt.technology.smartcards,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 16:40:08 GMT

aads strawman
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

at cardtech/securetech ID
http://www.ctst.com/conferences/CTST/ID2002/sponsor.html

it has been almost three years since AADS strawman in booths at dec99
BAI
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#224

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Slow assemblers/Macros?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Slow assemblers/Macros?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 20:50:23 GMT

"Charlie Gibbs" writes:

I remember "air conditioner wars" between myself, who believes that
the purpose of air conditioning is to make things comfortable, and just
about everybody else, who believe that the purpose of air conditioning
is to make things COLD.  What these people failed to realize is that
the machines could tolerate any of a fairly wide range of temperatures,
as long as it remained constant.  Once I got the temperature set so
that both I and the machines were comfortable, there were no problems.
But these people just couldn't stand the thought of a shirtsleeve
machine room environment, so they'd crank the thermostat back down.

there was a story about everybody getting pc/rts in their office in
the relatively new almaden research building. supposedly the pc/rts
put out so much heat that if everybody turned them off at the end of
the day and turned them back on in the morning ... the building air
conditioning never was able to stabilize because the BTU swings were
so large inside the building ... so they recommended just leaving them
on all the time.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

IBM Selectric as printer

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Selectric as printer
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 21:28:40 GMT

lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) writes:

For some reason, IBM sold us a 6670 in the early 1980s to use
as an inexpensive low volume mainframe report printer in a remote
location.  It was a bit of pain since we had to add PL/I to our
system and it did not appear as a normal HASP remote unit.

6670 first showed up in the late '70s (I think we got our first one
sometime in 79) ... it was pretty much an IBM copier/3 with a computer
interface. one of the research groups put some amount of time in
supporting postscript for the 6670. the print qaulity was excellent,
it could duplex (print both sides), and it had two paper feed drawers
... i.e. you could put colored paper in the alternate and use it for
easy output job seperator. since most of the job seperator page was
empty ... one of the people hacked the line driver to print random
entries from the jargon file on the rest of the seperator page.

this caused an incident during an audit ... when one of the top cover
sheets sitting on the 6670 when an auditor came around ... had the
definition for auditor (i.e. people that go around stabbing the
wounded) ... and they thot it was done on purpose for them to read.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Early computer games

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Early computer games
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 19:23:42 GMT

"keep-it-clean" <keep-it-clean@worldnet.att.net> writes:

In any case, it certainly seems fair to include "relocatability" in this
context as part of an assembler's functions assuming the underlying hardware
design is amenable to it.

360 had registers that could be used for addressing and mechanism for
establishing current address (balr rX,0) for relative addressing (to
"using" off some register).

"relocating" in os/360 was a combination of assembler/compiler and
loader convention. assemblers & compilers generated ESD and RLD
"object" entries. ESD were "entry" symbolic names (1-8 chars) and
relative address in object deck. RLD entries provided mechanism for
resolving internal/external address "constants". Loader (link/editor)
would build symbol table (and address) from all the ESD entries ..
and resolve "relocatable" adcons by looking up the the corresponding
RLD information in the (ESD) symbol table.

All this was (normally) done before program began execution. Once
program started execution it was effectively bound to a specific
physical address.

The original stuff that I had done in late CP/67 time frame and ported
to early vm/370 was paging access method (mapping the cms file system
to a page mapped paradigm) and relocating shared segments (R/O shared
segments). The CP support for relocating shared segments was physical
address insensitive/agnostic (aka the same shared image/segment could
appear simulataneously in different address spaces at different
logical addresses). A subset of the relocating shared segment support
was released in VM/370 version as "discontiguous shared segment"
support.  The released version of the code only supported fixed
address sharing (aka the same shared object/segment had to occupy the
same logical address in in every address space). At least one problem
was that relocatable paradigm in os/360 ... which CMS tended to follow
...  was that relocatable adcons were actually fixed addresses at
execution/runtime ... they were only relocatable in the sense that the
relocation was done early at bind/load time ... so what appeared in
memory at runtime was a fixed address.

For code that occupied truely relocatable shared segments ... I had to
go thru and sensitive all the address constants for address
independent operation. I had to make them "abolute" at least as far as
the loader/binder was concerned (aka had no RLD entry and had
difference between two ESD entries). Basically, I manually created
"relative" (or displacement) adcon/address that was then combined with
a dynamic (process/address space specific) address in a register (at
execution/run time).

A residual of all this appeared in bits and pieces of the product code
shipped to customers ... including a CMS SVC202 defined in page zero
(aka NUCON dsect). If the first byte following the svc202 was a zero
(invalid instruction), the whole four bytes following the svc202
instruction was assumbed to be a four byte address constant
field. Standard CMS SVC202 processing had a normal return to the
instruction following the svc instruction, unless the first byte was
zero, in which case the normal return is four bytes after the svc
instruction ... and any immediately following address constant is
assumed to be the non-normal/error return. Frequently this adcon was
AL4(+4) (but could be the address of an error handling routine, the
"L4" was telling the assembler to ignore forcing to a four byte
boundary which was normal for address constants) which is a relative
adcon from the syntactical standpoint ... but is turned into a
relocatable adcon ... and then is filled in with a fixed address by
the loader. If there was an error and no adcon, the system call would
invoke a system error handler rather than returning for application
specific error handling (which might include terminating the program).

To make this work in relocating shared segments ... making executable
code address location insensitive, I replaced all "inline" svc202
calls with a BALR (branch and link) to a fixed svc202 system call
instruction in page zero (CMS NUCON dsect) of the address space. Later
CMS implemented the convention that if the adcon was AL4(1)
.. i.e. absolute address of one, that return was to be made to the SVC
address plus four (regardless of whether there was an error or not
... basically the equivalent of AL4(+4) but w/o need of real address.
The calling program could then determines if there was some sort of
unusual return from the system call by checking the condition code
and/or a register contents.

Relative addresses (as opposed to what os/360 calls relocatable
addresses) have not been a os/360 standard construct.

note in the following:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=STRANGE&ft=MEMO&line=171

the code wasn't necessary for standard discontiguous shared segments
released in the product ... however, it was part of all the CMS fixups
that I had done to put put additional CMS code in shared segments and
make that code "address location" insensitive (i.e. no inline
"relocatable adcons"). while not all the CP code to support address
agnostic shared segments was included in the initial "discontiguous
shared segment" product offering ... all the the CMS changes that I
had done shipped pretty much "as is" (i.e. they weren't going to
distinquish between changes to make CMS program code "R/O" as opposed
to the changes needed to make CMS program code address constant free).
After doing some amount of CMS kernel code ... I also did fixup on
IOS3270, BROWSE, and FULIST in similar manner.

also:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=CMSSPR2&ft=MEMO&line=147

some past relocatable shared segment discussion:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#75 Mainframe operating systems
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#9 Theo Alkema

some ios3270, browse, fulist:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#41 IBM 4361 CPU technology
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#60 Living legends
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#61 Living legends
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#108 IBM 9020 computers used by FAA (was Re: EPO stories (was: HELP IT'S HOT!!!!!))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#50 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine, the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#76 Is a VAX a mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#83 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#8 Theo Alkema
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#9 Theo Alkema
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#5 What goes into a 3090?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#79 Fw: HONE was .. Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?

page-mapped stuff
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Relocation, was Re: Early computer games

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Relocation, was Re: Early computer games
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 20:22:13 GMT

ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:

Another relocation was the first 4K of real addresses.  (No handy
PoO book now.)  Why was this specified, where and when was it ever
done?  It was defined for more than one processor accessing a bank
of core, but did VM ever use it physically?

in a real shared memory multiprocessor ... all processors shared the
same physical address structure. however, must interrupt handlers were
in the habit of storing their current registers in "absolute" (as well
as the hardware storing the interrupting address in absolute page
zero). This didn't work well with multiple processors sharing the same
page zero. For multiprocessor mode, there was a processor specific
control register that contained the real address of that processors
page zero. Each processor as it came up was to uniquely select some
real 4k page and load it into the page zero control register. All real
page zero addresses for a processor (program or things like hardware
interrupts) would be retargeted to the 4k location specified in the
page zero location. The 370 implementation had an "interesting" side
effect that if a processor attempted to address the 4k page address in
the page zero register ... it would be retargeted to the absolute page
zero (otherwise there was no way of referencing the real/real/absolute
page zero). (assuming i remember correctly) the 360 implementation
didn't have this reverase retargeting side effect (aka 360/67
multiprocessing "lost" the real page zero).

and as to my referenced post

some past postings on ESD, TXT, RLD, etc record formats:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#14 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#31 Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#45 Commenting style (was: Call for folklore)

and for more than you ever wanted to know about current RLD record
format, from:
http://www.vm.ibm.com/pubs/cp31032/OBJSTMT.HTML

0000    0 Bitstring    1               Col 1 X'02'
0001    1 Character    3               Col 2 C'RLD'
0004    4 Character    6               Col 5 Blanks
000A   10 Signed       2 OBJRLDLL       Col 11 Length of OBJRLDDT
000C   12 Character    4               Col 13 Blanks
0010   16 Bitstring   56 OBJRLDDT       Col 17 Rld entries, 8|4 bytes ea
0048   72 Character    8               Col 73 Sequence field

0010   16 Signed       2 OBJRLD1R       Byte 00 Relocation ESDID
0012   18 Signed       2 OBJRLD1P       Byte 02 Position ESDID
0014   20 Bitstring    1 OBJRLD1F       Byte 04 Flag Byte
0015   21 Address      3 OBJRLD1A       Byte 05 Absolute address to be
                                        relocated
          00000018       OBJRLD1N
0010   16 Bitstring    1 OBJRLD2F       Byte 00 Flag Byte
          1111 ....      OBJRLDTP       X'F0' RLD type 0000 .. A-type or
                                        Y-type constant 0001 .. V-type
                                        address constant 0010 .. Q-type
                                        address constant 0011 .. CXD type
                                        entry
          .... 11..      OBJRLDTL       X'0C' RLD entry length .... 00..
                                        1 byte .... 01.. 2 bytes ....
                                        10.. 3 bytes .... 11.. 4 bytes
          .... ..1.      OBJRLDTS       X'02' RLD relocation sign .... 0.
                                        add .... 1. subtract
          .... ...1      OBJRLDTT       X'01' RLD next entry type .... .0
                                        has P & R, use RLDT1DAT .... .1
                                        no P & R, use RLDT2DAT
0011   17 Address      3 OBJRLD2A       Byte 01 Absolute address to be
                                        relocated
          00000014       OBJRLD2N

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Relocation, was Re: Early computer games

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Relocation, was Re: Early computer games
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 21:55:46 GMT

ok, multiprocessing page zero prefixing, esa/390 pop:
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/CONTENTS?SHELF=#I%2e0

set prefix instruction
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/10.37?DT=19970613131822

store prefix instruction
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/10.48?DT=19970613131822

discussion of prefixing:
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/3.7?DT=19970613131822

lots of references where "prefix" is a consideration
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/SEARCH?Book=dz9ar004&searchRequest=prefix&SEARCH=Search&Type=FUZZY&SHELF=&DT=19970613131822&searchTopic=TOPIC&searchText=TEXT&searchIndex=INDEX&rank=RANK

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

TPF

Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 07:19:12 -0700
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: TPF
Newsgroup: bit.listserv.vmesa-l

on 16nov2002 11:59:59 wrote:

Once converted from 360 to 370 architecture (real fun!), PARS
was (and TPF is) one of the few systems that runs significantly better under
VM than native.

PARS/ACP/TPF didn't have multiprocessor support. One of the initial things
for 3081 was using VM to support two processors and then running two copies
of TPF under VM (one for each processor). Eventually there was a single
processor 3083 delivered ... I believe pretty much because of the TPF market.

misc random tpf/pars/acp/3083 postings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#29 Mainframes & Unix
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese
Solve Y2K)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#100 Why won't the AS/400 die? Or, It's
1999 why do I have to learn how to use
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#103 IBM 9020 computers used by FAA (was
Re: EPO stories (was: HELP IT'S HOT!!!!!))
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#152 Uptime (was Re: Q: S/390 on PowerPC?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#233 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#0 2000 = millennium?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#31 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#94 Those who do not learn from history...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#20 How many Megaflops and when?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#61 VM (not VMS or Virtual Machine,
the IBM sort)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#65 oddly portable machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#60 Disincentives for MVS & future of
MVS systems programmers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#9 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#21 Competitors to SABRE?  Big Iron
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#22 Is a VAX a mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#20 Competitors to SABRE?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#69 TSS ancient history, was X86
ultimate CISC? designs)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#37 John Mashey's greatest hits
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#13 LINUS for S/390
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#2 Block oriented I/O over IP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#35 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital
Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#45 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital
Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#46 The Alpha/IA64 Hybrid
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#47 The Alpha/IA64 Hybrid
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#49 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital
Equipment in the 70s?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#17 I hate Compaq
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#0 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#9 IBM Doesn't Make Small MP's Anymore
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#2 Computers in Science Fiction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#3 Why are Mainframe Computers really
still in use at all?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#43 IBM doing anything for 50th Anniv?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#63 Hercules and System/390 - do we
need it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#83 HONE
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#67 Tweaking old computers?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#29 why does wait state exist?

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler      lynn@garlic.com,  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

6670

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 6670
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:37:22 GMT

cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) writes:

I sometimes think that TLA recycling is getting out of hand... when
I glimpsed "OPD" I immediately thought of ICL's remodelled Sinclair
QL.  Oh well...

and then there is ROMP ... Research OPD Mini Processor ... which was
going to be the processor in the OPD displaywriter follow-on. When
that project got can'ed they were searching around for something to
use it for and came up with unix ... and so it was retargted as the
PC/RT with the company that had done the AT&T unix port for pc/ix
... doing a port for ROMP (so it has C language and unix operating
system instead of pl8 language and the cpr operating system). This
then spawns RIOS follow-on chip to ROMP and rs/6000 (and eventually
power/pc).

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

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Computer History Exhibition, Grenoble France

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Computer History Exhibition, Grenoble France
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 22:01:57 GMT

hansp@aconit.org (Hans B Pufal) writes:

Among the classic exhibits are a Bull Gamma 3, the panel from an IBM
360/67, a (working) 1130, a (working) PDP-8/m, a Telemechanique 1600,
a Micral N, a Thomson MO5, and a Goupil 2.

... aka (ibm) grenoble science center. in the early '70s they had a
1mbyte 360/67 running CP/67 release 3. They modified it to implement
what they called a "working set dispatcher" (and eventually wrote an
article that appeared in ACM). About the same time, I was doing some
work on CP/67 release 3 ... incoporating some page thrashing controls
that I had originally started while an undergraduate at the university
... and the summer I spent helping sent up BCS at boeing. This had
some fundamental differences compared to the grenoble work
... including using (clock) global LRU replacement algorithm
... instead of a local LRU replacement algorithm aka working set
dispatcher. In any case, the cambridge system with 768k real storage
(about 105 available 4k pages after kernel fixed storage reguirements)
supported nearly twice as many users at approximately the same thruput
as the grenoble system with 1mbyte real storage (about 155 available
4k pages after kernel fixed storage requirements) ... aka the grenoble
system had nearly 50 percent more real storage for applications and
ran nearly the same CMS type workload ... on nearly the same operating
system on nearly the same hardware (and the cambridge system supported
nearly twice as many users at approximately the same
thruput/response).

This became important when approx. ten years later somebody was trying
to get their PhD from stanford with a thesis regarding clock global LRU
replacement strategies.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Over-the-shoulder effect

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Over-the-shoulder effect
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 15:17:57 GMT

Brian Inglis writes:

...thus the teddy bear as the IBM VM (Virtual Machine) OS mascot.
And our group uses rubber ducks... "Ask the duck".

the teddy bear started out as the SHARE VM user group mascot ... in
much the same way as the paddle for the SHARE MVT user group symbol
(as in "up the creek w/o a paddle"). the share issue was that the
official corporate position has been to kill the product (pretty much
consistent since before cp/67 product announcement 35 years ago)
... and the only thing keeping it alive was customer demand ... and
one of the customer's last refuge was the SHARE VM user group ... as
in place of last resort ... or security blanket.

random refs:
http://www.princeton.edu:80/~melinda/

share has this sticky labels in the shape of teddy bear ... for
putting on your share badge ... indicating committee
affiliation. sometimes they are just plain paper with sticky back
... and sometimes they have actually have a fuzzy layer.

scids (evening share ... nominally society for continuous inebriation
during share) now has committee tables where people can get together
and ask questions. the committee tables now have their symbol or totum
(which has somewhat turned into asking the teddy bear questions or
getting answers from the teddy bear ... at least at the vm committe
table).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

I found the Olsen Quote

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: I found the Olsen Quote
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:00:52 GMT

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

AFAICT the only thing that the shipping OSF/1 on the Alpha took from IBM
was the license. DEC OSF/1 was pretty much a stright 4.3-Reno on Mach, with
the good bits of System V userland ported on top of it. The non-AT&T BSD
was Net-2 and 4.4-Lite, and that was after Reno shipped.

but who funded the organization that did mach, andrew, camelot,
etc. athena at mit was jointly funded by dec and ibm ... however cmu
got all its money from one source. there was some story that they paid
at least three different times for the same set of code that came from
there (as part of the cmu & then transarc saga).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Over-the-shoulder effect

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Over-the-shoulder effect
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:11:15 GMT

Brian Inglis writes:

BTW if any regulars ever wondered what Lynn looked like, I just
came across this photo from John Hartmann's (CMS PIPES) 50th
birthday party greetings a couple of minutes ago -- hope Lynn
doesn't mind me sharing this?
http://vm.marist.edu/~piper/party/small/wheeler1.jpg

the full part reference is at:
http://vm.marist.edu/~piper/party/jph-12.html#wheeler

note the above reference should read that ibm decided not to produce
sun machine ... and so SUN was formed. ... also the company in provo
that was spawned out of the DataHub effort is still around ... but not
doing quite as well as it once was.

there is a more recent of me at the san fran Share meeting this
past august. look at
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

about 2/3rds the way down the page there is pointer to the jpg file.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Follklore

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Follklore
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:23:08 GMT

Joe Morris writes:

...and I'm chuckling as I wonder how many new readers of any of the
"green card" threads in this newsgroup are wondering why we're
discussing immigration matters and/or Cantor & Siegel (sp?)...

in the mid-90s ... i was once having dinner in old town mexican
resturant in scottsdale. a couple and a man came in and was seated
behind me. I then got to listen to the man for an hour explain to the
couple the intricate ins & outs of spamming, how he could send out
email to everybody in the world, how he frequently got shutdown
... but he had pre-initialized a hundred userids at ISP around the
country and he could switch userids faster than the ISPs could shut
him down. He also had suggestions for the couple about configuring
their servers so that they had nothing that could accept incoming
email (which would likely to be complaints about the spamming).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

META: Newsgroup cliques?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: META: Newsgroup cliques?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 14:31:50 GMT

jmfbahciv writes:

He may even have had a valid point with his complaint.  It's just
too bad he had to spoil it with his final line.  Until I read
that last line, I was going to reply to him and suggest he write
the FAQ.  Instead, I revised the spelling and told him to something
more productive....for him, that is.

and if you consider the thousands of newsgroups ... the idea that they
all should show some uniformly consistent, standard whose sole purpose
is for the education of others ... the next step after asking about
only having politically correct styles ... is about having politically
correct subjects and replies.

some newsgroups could actually be for the practitioners (past or
present) actually discussing something w/o regard for
non-practitioners. comp.arch might be a more extreme example ... where
people that haven't done their prep (or ask for help in doing homework
assignment) can get taken to task or even ignored.

A counter analogy might be a 9 year old wandering into some post-doc
project in say related to subatomic particles and complaining that it
is their fault that he (the 9 year old) doesn't understand and can't
contribute.

there are some mailing lists and newsgroups that actually have a heavy
orientation towards major objective of education and knowledge sharing
and they are the most likely to have FAQs. taking an alternative view,
one might make the position that any reasonable person would interpret
the absence of a FAQ as possible indication that the major motivation
for participating in the newsgroup isn't knowledge sharing for
addressing the latest & badest security failures.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

So I tried this //vm.marist.edu stuff on a slow Sat. night,

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: So I tried this //vm.marist.edu stuff on a slow Sat. night,
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 13:58:24 GMT

ab528@freenet.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:

and up pops a pic of a regular contributer _wearing a tie_.
I'm sorry sir, that's a disgrace to the newsgroup.

i had to put on a tie for the picture (it went up on display wall of
people getting corporate awards) ... however you can see that i'm also
wearing a wool (woolrich) hiking shirt ... and you can't see that i'm
wearing hiking boots with deep treads; before they put sidewalk on
stretch of cottle (which has since been turned into highway 85)
... there used to be problem about me tracking mud around the halls of
bldg. 28.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Follklore

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Follklore
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 14:07:36 GMT

jmfbahciv writes:

I admire your restraint (I'm assuming you didn't bop him in
the nose).

and for those that don't remember cantor & siegel as one of the first
large scale spammings ... they were from this little town near phoenix
that starts with an S.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

META: Newsgroup cliques?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: META: Newsgroup cliques?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:05:42 GMT

Brian Inglis writes:

We do -- as a bunch of consistently curmudgeonly Auld Farts of
Computing -- nothing was said to you that hasn't been said by one
of the regular posters to another regular poster -- and possibly
more abruptly in those cases.
Our community norm for consideration may be expressed somewhat
differently than in other communities -- just 'cos mama bear
whacks baby bear a couple of hundred metres down the mountain
does not mean she's not considering baby's welfare.
I've been at sessions where HR people sat in and were
amazed/appalled/shocked at how computer people interacted
together to get decisions made and get a job done -- it ain't
pretty but it's pretty functional.

one boyd story was when he was head of lightweight fighter design at
the pentagon ... a one star observed him repeatedly in long stormy
arguments with mear lieutenants and captains ... and thot it was
unmilitary and used it as an excuse to fire him (not exactly one of
the stories in the latest biography). of course ... all of these
lieutenants and captains were PHDs in aeronautics ... so they at least
had some modicum of qualifications to participate in the discussions.

just saw a B&N that had the new biography on both the new biography
shelves and the new non-fiction table. random boyd refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#boyd

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

National ID

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: National ID
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:10:40 GMT

i have a supermarket loyalty card ... i turned in application w/o
filling in a single field (completely blank) and they gave me the card.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

I found the Olsen Quote

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: I found the Olsen Quote
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 14:19:50 GMT

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

AFAICT the only thing that the shipping OSF/1 on the Alpha took from IBM
was the license. DEC OSF/1 was pretty much a stright 4.3-Reno on Mach, with
the good bits of System V userland ported on top of it. The non-AT&T BSD
was Net-2 and 4.4-Lite, and that was after Reno shipped.

the other thing that went on in the early OSF meetings was the
distributed file system stuff ... meetings had people from UCLA Locus,
CMU AFS, austin DFS, and some apollo (hp). AFS could do local (disk)
caching of full objects. Locus could do partial object (disk) caching
as well as process migration (including heterogeneous under specific
conditions). There was also some of the MIT Kerberos stuff for
distributed authenticated tokens.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

META: Newsgroup cliques?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: META: Newsgroup cliques?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 15:38:33 GMT

Howard S Shubs writes:

This isn't a public resource.  None of USENET is public.  Ever since NSF
stopped funding the internet, and possibly before, USENET was paid for
by the people using it.

usenet grew up pretty much independent of internet. there was various
kinds of gov. funding for arpanet and internet ... but by the time of
NSFNET-1 backbone ... the NSF funding was small percentage of total
resources (even for NSFNET-1 backbone itself). a contrived argument
might be that various commercial entities may have declared some their
internet contributions as educational/deductable contributions and
therefor got a (gov) tax break.

random refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#networking
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindex.html#network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindx2.html#network

random usenet &/or uucp refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#0 Early tcp development?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#1 Early tcp development?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#40 [netz] History and vision for the future of Internet - Public Question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#138 Dispute about Internet's origins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#140 Dispute about Internet's origins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#146 Dispute about Internet's origins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#147 Dispute about Internet's origins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#34 Those who do not learn from history...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#26 The first "internet" companies?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#29 The first "internet" companies?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#56 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#19 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#39 I'll Be! Al Gore DID Invent the Internet After All ! NOT
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#50 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#28 So long, comp.arch
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#57 I am fed up!
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#5 what makes a cpu fast
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#19 What is "IBM-MAIN"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#21 What is "IBM-MAIN"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#74 database (or b-tree) page sizes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#24 April Fools Day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#26 Can I create my own SSL key?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#62 Modem "mating calls"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#60 JFSes: are they really needed?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#65 UUCP email
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#66 UUCP email
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#5 YKYGOW...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#19 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#20 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#45 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#53 Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#75 Disappointed
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#0 Disappointed
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#43 FA: Early IBM Software and Reference Manuals
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#12 Author seeks help - net in 1981
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#87 A new forum is up! Q: what means nntp
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#37 Buffer overflow
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#53 Computer Naming Conventions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#57 Computer Naming Conventions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#59 Computer Naming Conventions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#11 OS Workloads : Interactive etc
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#33 LISTSERV(r) on mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#6 LISTSERV(r) on mainframes
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#13 Hardware glitches, designed in and otherwise
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#1 User two factor authentication on laptops
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#44 Unisys A11 worth keeping?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#75 30th b'day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#21 Vnet : Unbelievable
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#26 DEC eNet: was Vnet : Unbelievable
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#48 History of The Well was AOL

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

use of RADIUS

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: use of RADIUS
Newsgroups: comp.security.firewalls
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 20:24:01 GMT

"W. B." writes:

Check out page 296 on that manual that I previously gave you a link to.
They have an example on how to use the authentication+ssl.  The actual
authentication mechanisim be it RADIUS or internal, is up to you however.
Looks like the Netscreen would probably be a sound choice for your
application.

radius supports a number of authentication schemes ... there is even
a public key mode ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#radius

this public key mode is akin to the public key mode defined in the
ietf pk-init draft for kerberos (aka be able to register a database of
users and their public keys ... nearly identical to the way that
userid/passwords are registered ... and then be able to authenticate
a digital signature using user's registered public keys).

this is different than using SSL to establish an encrypted session and
then enter a password ... basically a digital signature is used instead
of a password ... and the userid/password database has the user's public
key registered in place of a password

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

THIS WEEKEND: VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL 5.0

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re:  THIS WEEKEND: VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL 5.0
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 01:56:22 GMT

"Charlie Gibbs" writes:

Maybe it's security - there's only one entrance or exit to watch.
I first saw this technique with the latest generation of Safeway
stores, although that might just be because (since we're in Canada)
the Wal-Mart invasion is still in its early stages in our area.
(It's strange how people are so up in arms about big-box stores
moving in, considering how enthusiastically they flock to such
stores once they open.)

there are some numbers regarding the use of greaters at the store
entrance significantly cutting amount of shoplifting (the use of
greaters more than pay for themselves in reduction in crime)
... apparently there is some psycology with thieves and being
greeted. i've also heard of some study about the introduction of the
stores in the UK showing up in reduction in the national avg. cost of
living.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Help me find pics of a UNIVAC please

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Help me find pics of a UNIVAC please...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 02:46:45 GMT

Sam Yorko writes:

Wasn't that a 360/195?  That's what I remember running programs on.

my memory may be slipping; i'm looking for positive information
regarding whether it was 360/195 or 370/195 ... they were very similar
machines (370/195 had a couple extra of the pre-virtual memory 370
instructions & 370 TOD clock but never got virtual memory ... 370/195
also had better hardware fault retry than 360/195).  the machine was
decommisioned at sjr sometime in late nov. or early dec '78).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 14:03:20 GMT

jorn@enteract.com (Jorn Barger) writes:

But human motives are at the root of the XML/semantic-web
problem-- even Yahoo's root categories offer a crude model
of human motivations (business, entertainment, reference,
etc).

So the 'irresistible force' of TimBL's W3C is now in full
collision with the immovable object of psychological
analysis. [2]  And if something's got to give, I'd predict
it will be a more-general appreciation of this _blind spot_
in the sciences, and a deeper critique of the current
methodology of the social sciences. [3]

When I talk about my various projects over the last three
decades, involving literature, Joyce, timelines, Anti-Math
[4], and fractal-thickets [5], the compsci crowd has been
inclined to snicker (and the lit crowd to sneer, as well).

But there we have XML, and there we have a billion poorly-
classified webpages, and the twain just ain't meetin',
using any known knowledge-representation.  So who's in
denial now?

one you missed was ted nelson & xanadu ... the originator of
hypertext. a basic issue between xanadu and w3c was bi-directional
links. w3c allowed lots of links to appear and grow with-out reguiring
the overhead of bi-directional syncronization. as a result there is
lost information at the convenience of significant distributed
freedom. this is an issue that there is possibly more knowledge in the
(bi-directional) relationship of web pages ... than possibly in any
specific classification of the pages themselves. to some degree the
classification issue is a characteristic of search engines and the
desire to use search engines to discover similar things.

possibly the most thoroughly implemented taxonomy is UMLS at NLM
(something like 25,000 concepts and 250,000 terms last time i worked
on it) that is used to classify medical knowledge. There was recent
presentation that I was at claiming that there is still at least a 50
percent variation in the classification of medical documents by
professionals at the NLM (i.e.. two professional classifiers with the
same training would have a 50 percent difference in the
classifications they gave a medical document). Some have made the
observation that the "web" is starting to reach the seach complexity
level that NLM reached around 1982.

random refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#26 Misc. more on bidirectional links
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#26 Who Owns the HyperLink?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#27 History of Microsoft Word (and wordprocessing in general)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#1 Off-topic everywhere [was: Re: thee and thou

by comparison the merged glossaries and taxonomies that I have put out
are much simpler
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html#glossary
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html#glosnote

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler   | lynn@garlic.com -  http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Question about hard disk scheduling algorithms

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Question about hard disk scheduling algorithms
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 13:44:49 GMT

Brian Inglis writes:

D