List of Archived Posts

2001 Newsgroup Postings (09/11 - 10/08)

Are client certificates really secure?
Are client certificates really secure?
Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
hot chips and nuclear reactors
OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
Is VeriSign lying???
hot chips and nuclear reactors
Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt
OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt
ESCON Channel Limits
more old RFCs
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
signature and other stuff.
microsoft going poof [was: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.]
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
3270 protocol
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Private key
3270 protocol
A thought on passwords
Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
3270 protocol
Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?
3270 protocol
SMP idea for the future
3270 protocol
SMP idea for the future
Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please
Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?
DEC midnight requisition system
I-net banking security
E-mail 30 years old this autumn
SMP idea for the future
I-net banking security
intranet security and user authentication questions
Defrag in linux? - Newbie question
I-net banking security
SMP idea for the future
how to start write a Firewall authentication client software
Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)
SMP idea for the future
SMP idea for the future
SMP idea for the future
Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please
Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)
Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Encryption + Error Correction
HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Expanded Storage?
Expanded Storage?
Disappointed

Are client certificates really secure?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Are client certificates really secure?
Newsgroups: comp.security.misc
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:06:08 GMT
"Tor Rustad" writes:
Well, protecting trust points (e.g. CA certificates) is an important issue. Too many protocols and standards don't address this basic point.

Some tokens are just memory cards, they will export the private key outside the token and do the cryptographic operations in an insecure environment.

Some tokens protect the cryptographic operations, but ignore protecting the PIN and the display.

FINREAD address this, but the technology isn't really mature yet. When I read the specs., I couldn't even see that the minimum size of the display was specified... Grrr.


I've been playing with E4-high chips in various configurations for ECC digital signatures ... as well as being at the most recent FINREAD conference ... and using some terminals that exceed FINREAD standard (whatever they are).

one of the issues looked at early in the X9.59 secure electronic payment standard work (for all account based payments ... regardless of type, credit, debit, point-of-sale, internet, etc) was not only is a secure terminal a necessity ... but there needs to be proof that a secure terminal was, in fact, used (in much the same way that there was proof that a secure hardware token, was in fact, used). this led to formulation in the x9a10 standards work group that the secure terminal needed to sign every transaction (in addition to the secure hardware token) ... in order to proove that such a terminal was used (not just mandate that they exist, but also proove that they were used).

there still exists the possible exploit that the hardware token was used at some non-finread terminal at some time and the PIN-exposed. However, subsequent finread terminal use would preclude trojen-horse providing previously compromised PIN automagically to the hardware token w/o the owner's knowledge ... the hardware token would have to be in the hands of somebody fraudulently using the token.

The issue then is while the relying party can proove whether or not a finread-like (or better) terminal was used (with the terminal also signing the message) ... it is more difficult for the token owner to know whether they are actually dealing with a finread-secure terminal.

misc. x9.59
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#privacy X9.59, Identify, Authenticate, Privacy

random finreads postings:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#57 Q: Internet banking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#60 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#61 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#62 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#64 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#25 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#26 No Trusted Viewer possible?

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

Are client certificates really secure?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Are client certificates really secure?
Newsgroups: comp.security.misc
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:10:26 GMT
"Tor Rustad" writes:
The main problem with this type of autentication, is that it does not provide intregrity of an important message (e.g. transaction). MITM can alter the message without being detected.

An other thing with symmetric key systems, is risk management in the case one secret is broken/known, its important that not the whole system breaks down by this. Such systems can be build, and in real life we have POS and ATM security which uses mainly symmertric key cryptography. These real-life systems take care of both autentication and integrity, and in some cases confidensiality by only using symmetric keys.

The main advantages with asymmetric key systems, is for off-line processing and the less demand on number of keys (don't need one key per zone).


shared-secret biometric systems have similar type of problems to shared-secret pin/password/symmetric-key systems ... with one additional disturbing aspect; if shared-secret pin/password/symmetric-key gets compromised, it is possible to do some remediation and issue new pin/password/symmetric-key. Given current state of the art, it is somewhat more difficult to issue a new fingerprint in the case of an electronic fingerprint pattern being compromised.

some random biometric postings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#privacy Identification and Privacy are not Antinomies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#stall EU digital signature initiative stalled
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#straw AADS Strawman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech4 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech5 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech12 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#kiss2 Common misconceptions, was Re: KISS for PKIX. (Was: RE: ASN.1 vs XML (used to be RE: I-D ACTION :draft-ietf-pkix-scvp-00.txt))
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#kiss9 KISS for PKIX .... password/digital signature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#shock revised Shocking Truth about Digital Signatures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#shock2 revised Shocking Truth about Digital Signatures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsmore.htm#bioinfo1 QC Bio-info leak?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsmore.htm#biosigs biometrics and electronic signatures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsmore.htm#biosigs2 biometrics and electronic signatures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#passwords Passwords don't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#x959risk3 Risk Management in AA / draft X9.59
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay4.htm#nyesig e-signatures in NY
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#cacr7 7th CACR Information Security Workshop
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#157 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#160 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#165 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#166 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#168 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#170 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#172 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#189 Internet Credit Card Security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#235 Attacks on a PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#57 RealNames hacked. Firewall issues.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#60 RealNames hacked. Firewall issues.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#1 Why trust root CAs ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#4 Why trust root CAs ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#7 Why trust root CAs ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#30 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#39 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#42 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#60 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#11 FREE X.509 Certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#38 distributed authentication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#7 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#25 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#36 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#44 Does "Strong Security" Mean Anything?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#52 Are client certificates really secure?

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

Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 19:34:01 GMT
Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> writes:
From personal conversations with some of the engineers and managers involved, it is definitely the case that some of the company thought that the 432 was either not going to succeed, or not going to be competitive at the low-end to midrange market, and those people expected the 8086 to fill that market. Others thought that the 432 would succeed, but that it would take a while, and they needed to stay competitive until the 432 displaced things, so they viewed the 8086 as a stopgap measure.

a late '70s? sigops at asilomar there was talk on 432 ... big unresolved issue was how to apply fixes ... the "code/algorithms/ideas" that had been sunk into silicon was significant ... as were the associated bugs that were being found. unresolved 432 issue was how to fix silicon (software downloads didn't work) ...

random past 432 threads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#57 iAPX-432 (was: 36 to 32 bit transition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#62 iAPX-432 (was: 36 to 32 bit transition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#6 Ridiculous
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#48 Famous Machines and Software that didn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#36 What was object oriented in iAPX432?

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

Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:17:05 GMT
jmfbahciv writes:
There is something you've overlooked. Take a look at any TOPS-10 SMP implementation; it will be version 7.nn. Actually take a look at any PDP-10 implementation especially TOPS-10 or TOPS-20. They knew how to take prioritized interrupts, do the minimal necessary and be ready for the next one.

There was a trade-off in CP/67 and the revision of the "CP" kernel for VM/370. In CP/67, it would handle I/O interrupt up-thru "channel level" processing (i.e. things specific to channel level operation, i/o operations tended to be viewed as hierarchy: channel, control unit, device) and then flag things clear and be ready for next interrupt (and/or another processor could do some things). In VM/370, processing went thru until device-level processing was complete ... there were some increased CPU pathlength overhead issues in CP/67 allowing the earlier processing (namely the processing emboddied in the "CHFREE" macro ... aka channel free ... which disappeared in VM/370).

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

hot chips and nuclear reactors

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: hot chips and nuclear reactors
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:14:12 GMT
cruff@ucar.edu (Craig Ruff) writes:
I have no direct experience with the Cray 2 systems, but our Cray 1, Cray X-MP, Cray Y-MP and Cray C90 systems all used chiled water to cool the systems indirectly via a heat exchanger to a chilled freon loop.

the large 370s, 308x, 3090, etc used closed (distilled) water inner loop with heat exchange to external chilled water cooler.

there was a thermal sensor on the inner loop ... however, at one customer they lost flow on the external chilled water side ... and by the time the (internal) thermal sensor was tripped ... there was enuf latent heat and so little reserve capacity in the inner loop that the machine fried.

Subsequently, flow sensors on the external chilled water side were installed.

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#36
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#37
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#38

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

OT - Internet Explorer V6.0

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,comp.lang.cobol,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:31:55 GMT
James Johnson writes:
Pure MIPs have never really been the basis for deciding if it is a mainframe. A good interpretation would be a fair amount of processing power combined with a hugely large I/O, or in another words, its moves a lot!!!!!!!!!! of bits. Supercomputers far outstrip mainframes as far as computational power in calculation intensive operations, but they don't have the I/O bandwith of a business mainframe.

actually a lot of "cluster" supercomputers started to significantly exceed mainframe i/o capacity by the early '90s ... however they tended to be configured for enormous amounts of disk sequential transfer as well as enormous amounts of low-latency inter-processor communication (i.e. in some cases tens of giga-byte channels, not giga-bit; large numbers 32+8 disk arrays using 10mbyte/sec disks for individual 320mbyte/sec data transfers, etc).

part of related discussion in this n.g. 18monts ago
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#38

also part of the reason that some of the DB2 people claimed that what my wife and I had done with fiber-channel cluster scale-up and distributed lock manager was possibly five years ahead of where they were at.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13 SSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#15 tcp/ip

but notice that nothing prevented them for being configured with lots of disks for individual transaction processing as opposed to parallel sequential processing ... in fact, lots of mainframes now have adopted such installations (i.e. configured with lots of small disks in various kinds of mirroring &/or raid configurations ... something picked up from this other market segment).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#41 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#43 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#52 misc loosely-coupled, sysplex, cluster, supercomputer, & electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#16 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#23 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#43 Disaster Stories Needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#45 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0

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

Is VeriSign lying???

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is VeriSign lying???
Newsgroups: comp.security.misc
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 04:39:13 GMT
Bernd Eckenfels writes:
This depends on the level of verification they offer. In case of Class 1 Certificates (or "Free" or "E-Mail based" or however you call it), all it takes is a reply-able E-Mail address. Since most other certificates which have a paper baes process are not more secure (I dont think a american or south africa based company is able to verifiy the exisitence of a german company by receiving some faxes), I think the process with the E-Mail or a Web of Trust is good enough mor most purpose. As a comapny doing serious business wth SSL you have to send the Fingerprint to your custoemrs anyway.

typically it means that for the type of information in the certificate ... they have checked with the authoritative agency(s) for that particular type of information ... and then effectively certify that the information in the certificate passed that particular agency check.

for SSL domain name certificates ... it means that they checked with the authoritative agency for domain name ownership ... the domain name infrastructure.

note that the basic justification for SSL domain name certificates boils down to integrity questions regarding the domain name infrastructure ... the very same infrastructure that is the authoritative agency for domain name ownership questions (which the certification authorities have to check with, with regard to certifying domain name ownership).

... for what ever information that is being certified in a certificate, the level of trust is dependent on 1) the process used to check with the authoritative agency responsible for that information and 2) the process used by that authoritative agency for accurately keeping that information (aka frequently the certification authority, certifying and manufacturing certificates ... is not the same as the agency responsible as the final authority regarding the accuracy of the information being certificates).

for instance, identity theft where valid driver licenses and other documents are obtained ... undermines the ability in what a certificate authority can do in the certification process where "identity" is certified (aka traditional x.509 certificates are nominally couched in terms of identity certificates). that is totally aside from the issue of identity certificates representing a significant privacy problem.

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#privacy

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

hot chips and nuclear reactors

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: hot chips and nuclear reactors
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:56:09 GMT
"del cecchi" writes:
The TCM was the Thermal Conduction Module in which aluminum pistons contacted the chips which were mounted face down flip chip to a multilayer ceramic substrate. It was developed as a replacement for the LEM Liquid Encapsulated Module in which the module was filled with a coolant fluid. The LEM proved to not be reliable.

a quick query on alta-vista yields
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/3rd/case/940801p.html
http://www.chips.ibm.com/micronews/vol6_no1/wargo.html
http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/comp/Courses/473/1997/Lect3/sld010.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20001008110727/http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/comp/Courses/473/1997/Lect3/sld010.htm
http://searchpdf.adobe.com/proxies/2/42/32/76.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20020216205713/http://searchpdf.adobe.com/proxies/2/42/32/76.html
http://ecs.electrochem.org/sc/pack.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20001204234500/http://ecs.electrochem.org/sc/pack.html
http://domino.int-evry.fr/IntranetDSI/EuroFret/ibm3090.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20010815154949/http://domino.int-evry.fr/IntranetDSI/EuroFret/ibm3090.htm
http://www.fr.com/publis/antitrustcom.html

the first ref is legal case about TCM introduction in 3081s impacting some after-market business (contains summary of gov. anti-trust case against ibm).

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

Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:14:44 GMT
mirian@trantor.cosmic.com (Mirian Crzig Lennox) writes:
None of those instructions is MP-atomic per se. What I think you may be referring to is the LOCK prefix. It's a kludge from a hardware design standpoint, because the x86 was not really architected with MP in mind, and the LOCK prefix (which came about as late as the 486, IIRC), just engages an external mechanism not actually specified in the x86 architecture. Also, they make your code non-portable to 386-and-before, which means realistically you need separate binaries for MP and non-MP. In contrast, the VAX interlocked instructions have rigidly specified behavior as part of the CPU architecture, which is guaranteed to work consistenly in both UP and MP modes, and on any VAX.

as an outgrowth of the 360 test&set (TS) atomic instruction for MP operation, Charlie invented atomic compare&swap (aka CAS are charlie's inititals). The architecture/POP group in POK (namely Padegs & Ron Smith) said to get it into 370 architecture, it needed to have a non-MP programming paradigm defined for it ... giving rise to the POP programming notes for C&S operation in non-MP world (serializing multi-threaded, not necessarily MP, applications).

370 also had some privileged instructions that were also defined for serialized operation in MP environment ... namely PTLB, IPTE, ISTE, & ISTO (for managing virtual memory tables). When 370m165 engineers said that it would take an extra six months to design/build support for IPTE, ISTE, & ISTO for virtual memory hardware retro-fit to 165, all but PTLB was dropped.

PTLB - purge table lookaside buffer (on all processors) IPTE - invalidate page table entry (and any associated TLB entries) ISTE - invalidate segment table entry (and any associate TLB entries) ISTO - invalidate segment table (origin) (and any associate TLB entries)

later for the 3033, the IPTE selective invalidate was (re-)introduced.

for aix (rios/power, non-mp & power/pc) defined a C&S macro for uniprocessor operation was defined ... however, this just generated an svc interrupt and executed some "disabled" code in the FLIH that simulated a C&S instruction. This was to support non-kernel, multi-threaded application serizlization operation (i.e. the original stuff that was done in cambridge for the POP programming notes to get C&S accepted for 370).

misc ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#0 360/67, was Re: IBM's Project F/S ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#14 S/360 addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#28 370 ECPS VM microcode assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70 Series/1 as NCP (was: Re: System/1 ?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#204 Core (word usage) was anti-equipment etc.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#16 360/370 instruction cycle time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#32 Multitasking and resource sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#63 Are the L1 and L2 caches flushed on a page fault ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#64 Are the L1 and L2 caches flushed on a page fault ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#37 John Mashey's greatest hits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#7 LINUS for S/390
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#87 "Bootstrap"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#42 IBM was/is: Imitation...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#73 CS instruction, when introducted ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#41 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#61 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#69 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#70 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#73 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#74 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#75 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#76 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#4 Extended memory error recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#8 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#9 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#17 IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#2 Most complex instructions (was Re: IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#34 IBM OS Timeline?

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:54:21 GMT
jeffreyb@gwu.edu (Jeffrey Boulier) writes:
HP does, or did resell Stratus' fault tolerant boxes, which probably explains the confusion. Stratus had moved from the i860 to the PA-RISC. It sells their own HP-UX systems, along with their proprietary VOS (which has some similarities to Multics), FTX, a fault tolerant Unix (well, it used to sell them; I think FTX is now dead), and lately Windows NT/2000 systems.

wasn't HP also trying to sell sequoia ft in the early '90s. ibm was marketing s/88 during this period ... a logo'ed stratus.

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 19:37:40 GMT
"Bill Todd" writes:
But they don't in general offer the same level of reliability, because they don't guard against undetected hardware faults that allow a node to continue running but produce incorrect results. The Stratus and Tandem approaches, which compare the results generated by replicated hardware before allowing them to become externally visible, do protect against such faults.

however, at the time we were doing ha/cmp and talking to the people at 1-800 number system, stratus (& s/88) boxes still required scheduled system downtime for system maint. ... and the 1-800 number system is spec'ed at 5-nines availability (which stratus/s/88 couldn't meet ... one system maint. period exceeded several years allowed downtime).

the status/s/88 approach was then to cluster (i.e. two) the machines ... but then there was essentially no measurable availability difference between a stratus cluster & a ha/cmp cluster ... but there was significant cost difference.

misc. ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#20 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#69 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#56 Need explaination of PKI and Kerberos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#48 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#49 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 19:31:17 GMT
jeffreyb@gwu.edu (Jeffrey Boulier) writes:
Forgot about the s/88. I've heard about them, but know next to nothing. What operating system did they run?

it was a straight stratus system that had been logo'ed by ibm and called the s/88.

i believe there were some issues with stratus (& other) salesmen competing with ibm salesman for the same customers with essentially the same machine ... and then whether it was a "stratus" machine that went in or a "s/88" machine that went in and which salesmen got credit.

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

Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 19:44:23 GMT
Terje Mathisen writes:
Not only was LOCK part of the original x86 architecture, the XCHG reg,[mem] opcode was specified to have an implied LOCK prefix, i.e. there was no way to use that opcode in a non-atomic manner, even on cpus that didn't support SMP.

It could still be useful in a system which had DMA or some other form of assymetric MP.


note that one of the uses of the atomic compare&swap work (from the late '60s and early '70s resulting in CAS going into system/370) was to support multi-threaded, pre-emptable application code (i.e. enabled for interrupts, non-kernel, etc). the MP barrier semantics from the '60s (and earlier?) with test & set type instruction had non-atomic type operations (set barrier, do whatever, clear barrier) which implied non-pre-emptable execution (unless you were very, very, very careful).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 03:50:15 GMT
"Bill Todd" writes:
Triple-modular redundancy ('TMR' - the Tandem 'Integrity' platform approach, which is operationally similar to the 'pair and spare' quad-redundant approach used by Stratus) really has little in common with VMS clustering, HSC or otherwise.

I think that as early as the mid-80s there was something about 90-95+ percent of system outages had nothing at all to do with hardware failures ... aka non-FT hardware (except maybe in the PC market) was becoming significantly more robust (fault tolerant?).

issues were becoming things like scheduled downtime, software failures, operator mistakes, disaster&geographic survivability (terms we had coined when we were doing ha/cmp).

misc. ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

and

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#71 High Availability on S/390

to repeat a quote from the above ... one of the large financial settlement infrastructures credited the two primary things contributing to them having 100 percent availability for the last six years were

1) ims hot standby
2) automated operator

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 04:12:46 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
1) ims hot standby
2) automated operator


that should have been automated operator (contributing significantly to 100 percent availability for the previous six years) ... but in general, implies automated operations.

from past threads ... & slightly related ... that batch paradigm derived platforms and interactive/online paradigm derived platforms tend to have some amount of different perspective.

interactive/online paradigm derived platforms frequently assume that the computer/program/application is interacting with a human and involve implementations based on that assumption.

batch paradigm derived platforms tend to not assume that humans are involved and also tend to have evolved much more sophisticated infrastructure for automagically dealing with exceptions and anomolies.

I remember trying to deploy some production web-oriented platforms in the '95/'96 time-frame and having to deal with little things like when space was exausted standard svid unix sort (i.e. interactive paradigm derived platform) just continued with output of (truncated) data that it was able to process. there was no obvious programming paradigm to automagically recognized and recover from filespace full scenerio (that is frequently part of many mainframe production operations).

ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#27 Mainframes & Unix

some disk engineering related refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#197 Computing As She Really Is. Was: Re: Life-Advancing Work of Timothy Berners-Lee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#83 Ux's good points.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#44 WHAT IS A MAINFRAME???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#43 Life as a programmer--1960, 1965?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#70 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:44:42 GMT
"Stephen Fuld" writes:
Jim Gray, when he was at Tandem, did a study on the causes of downtime. HW failure was way down the list. I don't know if the paper is online anywhere, but I think I have a paper copy I can try to dig out if people are interested.

totally random refs:
https://web.archive.org/web/20011004023230/http://www.hdcc.cs.cmu.edu/may01/schedule.html Second High Dependability Computing Consortium Workship
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#5 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#6 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#7 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#31 Title Inflation

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

Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:42:11 GMT
Konrad Schwarz writes:
Are the 370 Principles of Operation still available on the net? (I know this has been discussed before...but I can't find it via IBM's search or via Google.)

now "390" pop ...

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/CCONTENTS

appendix has differences:


D.0           Appendix D.   Comparison between ESA/370 and ESA/390
D.1           New Facilities in ESA/390
D.1.1         Access-List-Controlled Protection
D.1.2         Branch and Set Authority
  D.1.3         Called-Space Identification
D.1.4         Checksum
  D.1.5         Compare and Move Extended
D.1.6         Concurrent Sense
D.1.7         Immediate and Relative Instruction
D.1.8         Move-Page Facility 2
  D.1.9         PER 2
D.1.10        Perform Locked Operation
  D.1.11        Set Address Space Control Fast
D.1.12        Square Root
D.1.13        Storage-Protection Override
D.1.14        String Instruction
  D.1.15        Subspace Group
D.1.16        Suppression on Protection
D.2           Comparison of Facilities

E.0           Appendix E.  Comparison between 370-XA and ESA/370
E.1           New Facilities in ESA/370
  E.1.1         Access Registers
E.1.2         Compare until Substring Equal
  E.1.3         Home Address Space
E.1.4         Linkage Stack
E.1.5         Load and Store Using Real Address
E.1.6         Move Page Facility 1
  E.1.7         Move with Source or Destination Key
E.1.8         Private Space
E.2           Comparison of Facilities
E.3           Summary of Changes
E.3.1         New Instructions Provided
E.3.2         Comparison of PSW Formats
  E.3.3         New Control-Register Assignments
E.3.4         New Assigned Storage Locations
  E.3.5         New Exceptions
E.3.6         Change to Secondary-Space Mode
E.3.7         Changes to ASN-Second-Table Entry and ASN Translation
E.3.8         Changes to Entry-Table Entry and PC-Number Translation
  E.3.9         Changes to PROGRAM CALL
E.3.10        Changes to SET ADDRESS SPACE CONTROL
E.4           Effects in New Translation Modes
E.4.1         Effects on Interlocks for Virtual-Storage References
E.4.2         Effect on INSERT ADDRESS SPACE CONTROL
E.4.3         Effect on LOAD REAL ADDRESS
  E.4.4         Effect on TEST PENDING INTERRUPTION
E.4.5         Effect on  TEST PROTECTION

F.0           Appendix F.  Comparison between System/370 and 370-XA
F.1           New Facilities in 370-XA
F.1.1         Bimodal Addressing
  F.1.2         31-Bit Logical Addressing
F.1.3         31-Bit Real and Absolute Addressing
  F.1.4         Page Protection
F.1.5         Tracing
F.1.6         Incorrect-Length-Indication Suppression
F.1.7         Status Verification
F.2           Comparison of Facilities
F.3           Summary of Changes
  F.3.1         Changes in Instructions Provided
F.3.2         Input/Output Comparison
F.3.3         Comparison of PSW Formats
F.3.4         Changes in Control-Register Assignments
  F.3.5         Changes in Assigned Storage Locations
F.3.6         Changes to SIGNAL PROCESSOR
  F.3.7         Machine-Check Changes
F.3.8         Changes to Addressing Wraparound
F.3.9         Changes to LOAD REAL ADDRESS
F.3.10        Changes to 31-Bit Real Operand Addresses

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:00:33 GMT
hack@watson.ibm.com (hack) writes:
The project was stopped, unfortunately. I can imagine no-downtime software upgrades by building a new checkpoint boot image offline (for a new AIX), and by maintaining a compatible application checkpoint structure when rolling in a new version of the primary application.

i once did something similar but at the application level for airline res application .. i.e. prebuilt a large part of the image AND also did rolling cluster cut-over (one of the ten "impossible" things that was suppose to be addressed was existing several hour cut-over time).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#29 Mainframes & Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#31 Mainframes & Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#153 Uptime (was Re: Q: S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#61 64 bit X86 ugliness (Re: Williamette trace cache (Re: First view of Willamette))
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#20 Competitors to SABRE?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#69 Block oriented I/O over IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#74 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?

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

HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:25:25 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
1) ims hot standby 2) automated operator

common term (at least in mainframe) has been RAS ... reliability, availability, and serviceability. As RAS of core technology has significantly improved over the last 30-40 years ... attention to outages has shifted to monitoring, service level agreements, geographic disaster survivability (i.e. replicated clustering at geographic distances) and people mistakes (aka automated operator & operations).

in the area of monitoring & SLAs ... all errors and outages are actually monitored in detail, (industry) reports generated, and contracts based on such features are standard.

One indication of whether something is interesting technology RAS feature and/or really part of nuts & bolts business is whether there is industry-wide monitoring and reports of RAS information (as well as people paying serious attention to the reports).

One example I know about involved some software I wrote once. One of the new mainframes had been out for a year ... and there is this industry wide service that gathers from customers the RAS/(LOGREC) files and publishes reports. For this new mainframe they expected that there would be something like 3-5 total errors of a particular kind across all machines for all customers over a period of a year. The industry reports showed that there was in fact a total of 15 errors of this particular kind across all machines for all customers for a period of a year (not per machine & not per customer ... all machines at all customers).

Turns out that sometime in the past I had written some software simulation support for doing "channel I/O extension" of mainframe I/O over telco links. When certain types of uncorrected telco transmission errors occurred, the software simulation would emulate this particular kind of error. They were able to track down some customers that were running channel I/O extension software and account for the extra 10-12 errors that had shown up in the industry reports. Also, the software simulation code was changed to report a different kind of emulated error condition.

random ras references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#7 Why Do Mainframes Exist ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#8 Why Do Mainframes Exist ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#16 middle layer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#18 IBM 4381 (finger-check)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#27 Mainframes & Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#28 Mainframes & Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#33 Mainframes & Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#14 Galaxies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#23 Fear of Multiprocessing?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#16 Old Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#34 why is there an "@" key?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#38 1968 release of APL\360 wanted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#87 1401 Wordmark?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#145 Q: S/390 on PowerPC?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#155 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#184 Clustering systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#207 Life-Advancing Work of Timothy Berners-Lee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#64 distributed locking patents
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#83 Ux's good points.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#77 write rings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#58 360 Architecture, Multics, ... was (Re: X86 ultimate CISC? No.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#15 360/370 instruction cycle time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#16 360/370 instruction cycle time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#27 Could CDR-coding be on the way back?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#22 Disk caching and file systems. Disk history...people forget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#26 Disk caching and file systems. Disk history...people forget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#33 Where do the filesystem and RAID system belong?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#41 Where do the filesystem and RAID system belong?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#42 Where do the filesystem and RAID system belong?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#19 FW: History Lesson
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#20 HELP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#25 what is interrupt mask register?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#46 anyone have digital certificates sample code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#41 Where are IBM z390 SPECint2000 results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#15 Medical data confidentiality on network comms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#4 Extended memory error recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#44 The Alpha/IA64 Hybrid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#45 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#46 The Alpha/IA64 Hybrid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#52 Compaq kills Alpha
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#63 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#41 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#43 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#52 misc loosely-coupled, sysplex, cluster, supercomputer, & electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#16 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#23 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#43 Disaster Stories Needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#45 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#5 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#13 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:08:06 GMT
schaef@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) writes:
as it apparantly did. For two largely one-product companies they apparantly didn't think through their approach to Windows very well. Some form of Windows contingancy plan would have been nice, especially considering the money they were both sinking into Unix, Macintosh, NeXTStep, etc.

not to mention efforts going into SAA mainframe version(s).

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

OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:24:28 GMT
jcmorris@mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:
One of the points that we stressed to budding speakers was that handouts are almost always a Good Thing, and one of the reasons for that is exactly what your lecturer recognized: if the listener already has in hand printed material that contains the structure of the presentation as well as all of the critical information (including equations, tabular data, and the like), then the audience can actually think about what is being said and needs to write only brief notes to flesh out what's printed. (Of course, this assumes that the handouts are available before the presentation begins. The value is far less if they are handed out only at the end of the session.)

I once did a Performance History presentation at European Share; SEAS, held that year on the isle of Jersey ... misc. ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#4

I had about 30 overheads/handouts for a one hr talk; relatively sparse ... not like some of boyd's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd

at the end of the hr, i had finished 2-3 overheads ... so they scheduled a room right off the ballroom for BOF (birds of feather) to finish the talk. The evening ballroom was typically where SCIDS (society for continuous inebriation during share) was held (part of the reason for SCIDS function dated from TJW when alcohol wasn't a permitted corporate activity, and you couldn't turn in travel expenses for alcohol ... so the SCIDS event was open bar covered under the general SHARE registration fee). Anyway, the talk lasted from 6pm to 12pm ... with several intermissions for periodic refreshments out in the main ballfoom (which i thot contributed to the general quality of the talk).

one of my first share presentations (done while an undergraduate)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

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

OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: almost lost LBJ tapes; Dictabelt
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 03:02:00 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
I once did a Performance History presentation at European Share; SEAS, held that year on the isle of Jersey ... misc. ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#4


same month i gave presentation in Raleigh to the SNA architecture review board (ARB) about a project we were working on to replace 37xx & NCP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#21
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#31

just about anyway you sliced it, it was significantly better


System verses 3725NCP System:

Higher availability
More reliable
More function
 Improved Useability
Non-IBM Host Support
 Much better connectivity
Much better performance
Fewer components
Easier to tune
 Easier to tailor
Easier to manage
 Less expensive

course as previously noted, I've also been blamed for originating the ibm pcm control unit business (which may have provided some of the motivation for the original 3705/ncp design).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#networking

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

ESCON Channel Limits

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: ESCON Channel Limits
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:32:29 GMT
JO.Skip.Robinson@SCE.COM (Skip Robinson) writes:
The main problem seems to be the synchronous nature of ESCON protocol. Only one I/O to a control unit can be active on an ESCON CHPID at one time. If CHPID activity is delayed because of distance--that old speed of light thing--the next I/O is held up until a response is received from the previous one. This makes the CHPID look 100% busy even though the actual data flowing across it is only a tiny fraction of 'native' capacity.

FICON protocol on the other hand is asynchronous, allowing multiple I/Os to flow down the pike concurrently. Hence the response time for each I/O should not take such a toll on throughput. This is still conjectural on our part.


there was a lot of heat & churn in 90/91 time-frame in the FCS standards process ... which might be described as trying to define a half-duplex ESCON emulation for fiber channel.

misc. fcs standard ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#56
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#59

misc. other FCS reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#5

doing asynchronous channel extension runs into some misc. issues. I had written software support for asynchronous channel extension in 1981 (20 years ago) ... which allowed STL to remote a couple hundred people in the IMS support group. there was actually more of a problem with speed-matching and collisions ... trying to tunnel channels thru telco T1/1.544mbit/sec link ... which became severely aggravated by allowing a large number of simulataneous asynchronous channel operations (needed to add smarts about collision management & recovery). fiber channel should be much less of a challenge (since the physical bandwidth is significantly larger rather than significantly smaller).

recent reference to that support:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#18

other recent hsdt ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#21

random refs to HSDT:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

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

more old RFCs

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: more old RFCs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:16:52 GMT
there is a activity for paople to manually generate softcopy from old RFCs that currently only exist in paper form ... appended iis list of the latest that went up today.

The RFC-Online Project: http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-online.html

RFC Editor pointer
http://www.rfc-editor.org/

Pointer to various RFC indexing (including pointer to mine)
http://www.rfc-editor.org/repositories.html

& of course my page
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
0033 New Host-Host Protocol. S.D. Crocker. Feb-12-1970. (Format: TXT=44167 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC0011) (Updated by RFC0036, RFC0047)
0114 File Transfer Protocol. A.K. Bhushan. Apr-10-1971. (Format: TXT=38981 bytes) (Updated by RFC0133, RFC0141, RFC0171, RFC0172)
0136 Host accounting and administrative procedures. R.E. Kahn. Apr-29-1971. (Format: TXT=8016 bytes)
0153 SRI ARC-NIC status. J.T. Melvin, R.W. Watson. May-15-1971. (Format: TXT=8573 bytes)
0157 Invitation to the Second Symposium on Problems in the Optimization of Data Communications Systems. V.G. Cerf. May-12-1971. (Format: TXT=3159 bytes)
0203 Achieving reliable communication. R.B. Kalin. Aug-10-1971. (Format: TXT=9253 bytes)
0209 Host/IMP interface documentation. B. Cosell. Aug-13-1971. (Format: TXT=2566 bytes)
0221 Mail Box Protocol: Version 2. R.W. Watson. Aug-27-1971. (Format: TXT=9805 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC0196) (Obsoleted by RFC0278) (Status: UNKNOWN)
0381 Three aids to improved network operation. J.M. McQuillan. Jul-26-1972. (Format: TXT=9305 bytes) (Updated by RFC0394) (Status: UNKNOWN)
0467 Proposed change to Host-Host Protocol: Resynchronization of connection status. J.D. Burchfiel, R.S. Tomlinson. Feb-20-1973. (Format: TXT=14325 bytes) (Updated by RFC0492)
0477 Remote Job Service at UCSB. M. Krilanovich. May-23-1973. (Format: TXT=40535 bytes)
0518 ARPANET accounts. N. Vaughan, E.J. Feinler. Jun-19-1973. (Format: TXT=12880 bytes)
0529 Note on protocol synch sequences. A.M. McKenzie, R. Thomas, R.S. Tomlinson, K.T. Pogran. Jun-29-1973. (Format: TXT=9068 bytes)
0534 Lost message detection. D.C. Walden. Jul-17-1973. (Format: TXT=3227 bytes)
0537 Announcement of NGG meeting July 16-17. S. Bunch. Jun-27-1973. (Format: TXT=2695 bytes)
0563 Comments on the RCTE Telnet option. J. Davidson. Aug-28-1973. (Format: TXT=10788 bytes)
0565 Storing network survey data at the datacomputer. D. Cantor. Aug-28-1973. (Format: TXT=9307 bytes)


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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 02:51:22 GMT
Richard Drushel writes:
In 1994, when it seemed that everyone in our ADAM community wanted to have a hard drive system or an ADAMnet floppy drive bigger than the original 160K, yet balked at paying $150-300 to the last remaining ADAM hardware vendor, I had an idea:

Everybody was dumping XTs and ATs for 486s and early Pentiums. Even the lowly XTs had a 20MB hard drive, 360K floppy, and serial/parallel porst. There were plenty of ADAM serial boards around, both new and used, for $35 or less. Why not create a serial link between an ADAM and a PC, and let the ADAM use the PC hardware? The PC runs a server and listens for I/O requests. The ADAM EOS operating system is patched to reroute I/O requests for ADAMnet devices to the server. So long as the EOS function calls are handled properly (i.e., correct error codes, exit flags, updated internal data structures), the user application will never care that it's not talking to a genuine ADAMnet device. Voila, instant ADAM serial ports, parallel ports, floppy and hard drives, plus maybe even (some day) access to the PC graphics screen, real-time clock, etc. All using PC hardware you already had and were going to junk...just the price of a serial cable, null modem, and ADAM serial board if you didn't have one already. I called it ADAMserve.


effectively that was what cp88 did 10 years earlier ... in support of xt/370 (i.e. the 370 card using the xt as a server using xt devices instead of 370 devices).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#42 bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#46 Rethinking Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#23 Old IBM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#5 IBM XT/370 and AT/370 (was Re: Computer of the century)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#29 Operating systems, guest and actual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#75 Mainframe operating systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#52 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#55 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#69 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#89 database (or b-tree) page sizes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#28 IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#53 S/370 PC board
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#19 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#20 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)

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

signature and other stuff.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: signature and other stuff.
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:13:25 GMT
paige@rcnchicago.com (Mojo B. Nichols) writes:
I have a program that produces a signature rather then a file how do I use this instead of a signature file?

previous ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#77

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

microsoft going poof [was: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.]

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: microsoft going poof [was: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:34:34 GMT
Steve O'Hara-Smith writes:
Pick an app that you want to write, write it without a UI and just a socket interface (or similar) and document it as a published API of the app. Now write a UI that goes between the user and this API. You have just done what I have been advocating, your app is now ready to have multiple UIs and even to be integrated into other applications smoothly.

actually did something like that for routes ... ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#17

the standard interface was command line with something of the form

00/abc,xyz,parm="a;jfd",.../

collapsed three of the above type queries into a single transaction and then had a couple UI front-ends.

one was command line similar to the original and just listed the information

another was a client GUI app which would put up a map and a list of the routes that satisfied the query. locally on the client, a person could sort the list by departure time, arrival time, elapsed travel time, most airline points (some people, possible on business travel, attempted to maximize their airline miles). Highlighting a specific flight would draw the route on the map. It also had an option to download from the web, the latest "weather" map ... so the route was drawn over weather patterns.

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:48:58 GMT
Jon Tveten writes:
I think I am the only "thing" here able to read punched cards. :)

-- Jon Tveten A Norwegian in Australia


the holes in the card or printed text across the top?

when i was in school, i had a 2000 card assembler program that took 30-60 minutes to assemble and produce a TXT deck (depending on whether i used DCB macros or used my own SIO and device drivers). I soon found that it was frequently faster to PATCH the TXT deck by finding the appropriate TXT card and DUP'ing it in an 026, applying the changes by using multi-punch on the 026 (somewhat similar to C-q in emacs) ... aka the (TXT) cards punched by the 2540 didn't having any printing across the top (and there wasn't any symbols for the most of the punched values in any case).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#15 unit record & other controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#17 unit record & other controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#23 MTS & LLMPS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#53 How Do the Old Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#4 1401 overlap instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#21 IBM 1401's claim to fame
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#9 Old Vintage Operating Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#15 S/360 operating systems geneaology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#9 IBM S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#59 Living legends
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#130 early hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#79 Mainframe operating systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#8 finding object decks with multiple entry points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#14 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#60 Text (was: Review of Steve McConnell's AFTER THE GOLD RUSH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#22 HELP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#27 HELP

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:11:21 GMT
gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) writes:
I thought the way it was done was to punch additional TXT cards and place them at the end. If a later TXT card had an address that overlapped it would write over the already loaded data. This way they could be easily changed without removing the original cards.

Also, many programs would supply a patch area near the end, so that there was a place to add new instructions.


there was a "REP" card/statement that could go at the end of the deck that could be punched in "character" hex (as opposed to "binary" hex).

the REP card argument specified displacement in the deck and the data to be inserted/replaced. REP cards could refer to any displacement in the deck ... a common batch process might involve replacing a 4byte instruction with a branch & link instruction to a dummy data patch area (frequently defined at the end of the program) with new instructions then inserted in the patch area.

I started using the multi-punch process (and learned to read the holes in the cards) before I ran across any documentation referring to REP cards.

misc. REP card references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#17 unit record & other controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#4 1401 overlap instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#14 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#15 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#17 IBM 1142 reader/punch (Re: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#27 HELP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#13 High Level Language Systems was Re: computer books/authors (Re: FA:

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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:45:49 GMT
mschaef@eris.io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) writes:
Okay. Can you run an OpenVMS binary compiled for a VAX machine (11/780 or whatever) on a Alpha machine running OpenVMS? I know that IBM offered, at various times, emulation systems for running older binaries on newer machines. Didn't they do something like this for the System/360? Did Digital do anything similar during the transition to Alpha?

the 360s for the most part were microcoded machines ... where native (micro-)code running on the native engines provided support for the 360 architecture (and the different 360 processor models tended to have different native engine architecture and different microcode).

several of the 360 models had provisions for installed (& having installed) microcode that support earlier ibm machines like 1401, 7090/7094, etc. and a switch on the front panel that selected whether the machine was operating in 360 personality or 1401 (7090, whatever) personality. Not only did the binaries for eariler architectures run the machines ran the operating system (and/or monitor) for the earlier machines.

misc. 360 emulation refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#20 1401 series emulation still running?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#11 IBM 1460
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#10 VM: checking some myths.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#24 "Hollerith" card code to EBCDIC conversion

there were also some packages that provided (at least) 1401 simulation on 360 ... i.e. the ability to execute a 1401 application binary within a 360 application providing 1401 simulation.

there was a cp/67 project that also provided the reverse ... that simulated 370 virtual machines on 360/67 running cp/67. This wasn't a major effort since for the most part, 370 was a superset of 360 and it required support in cp/67 kernel for simulation of the new 370 instructions. The somewhat exception was the virtual memory and control register structure was different on 370s than it had been on cp/67 so there was quite a bit more simulation work that had to be done in the cp/67 kernel for that part of the 370 architecture.

one of the stories is that the full 370 simulation was running for a year (as well as a version of cp/67 that was modified on 370 virtual memory architecture rather than 360/67 virtual memory architecture) before the first hardware engineering 370 relocate (virtual memory) machine was built. So when the engineers asked for a copy of the 370'ized cp/67 as a test case to boot on the first engineering hardware (to give some idea the level of "engineering" ... there wasn't a boot/IPL button ... to boot/IPL machine, a knife switch was used).

In any case, the 370'ised CP/67 was booted/ipled on the machine and very shortly failed. After some diagnostic, it was determined that the engineers had implemented something wrong ... so the 370'ised CP/67 was quickly patched to correspond to the incorrect hardware implementation and testing then proceeded.

misc. "H" & "I" cp/67 refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#48 Rethinking Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#33 why is there an "@" key?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#16 360/370 instruction cycle time

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

3270 protocol

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 3270 protocol
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:31:32 GMT
a couple days ago somebody sent me a question on 3270 protocol which I didn't know the answer to ... but it jog'ed some memory cells that i've been trying to remember what were the terms used for the 3272/3277 and 3274/3278/9 protocol. I have some vague recollection that one of the terms was CUT and may refer to the 3272/3277 protocol ... but I can't remember the other term (and/or even sure CUT is one of the terms).

does anybody remember the two terms?

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:02:10 GMT
sarr@engin.umich.edu (Sarr J. Blumson) writes:
I thought this was pretty much routine in the early to mid 60s. I don't think _any_ of the DTSS software ever had a clean assembly, we patched (octal in this case) the binary and ran that way. A reassembly took a couple of hours and you always (because you would "fix" other things you noticed) the editing process would never converge anyway.

the standard process was to use REP cards ... I had just taken my first programming course, a 2hr introduction to Fortran programming class and then they gave me this summer job to port 1401 MPIO to 360 (so 360/30 could act as front end to the 709) ... that eventually became my 2000 assembler card program ... and all i got was an assembler manual, 360 pop manual and couple other pieces; but nothing that documented REP cards.

I did get the machine room and all the facilities dedicated from 8am sat. until 8am mon. (which continued in the fall for other projects, but made it a little hard to go to mon morning class). I eventually reverse engineered TXT cards and figured out how to repunch a binary TXT card on a "character" keypunch (and only later got some documentation about REP, TXT, ESD, END, RLD, etc cards).

While patch areas could be used with REP cards, I think (360) patch areas became somewhat more common with load modules and superzap. The TXT decks had already gone thru the linkage editor and the result was stored on disk. superzap could read a load module, verify/replace bytes and write out the updated load module.

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

Private key

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Private key
Newsgroups: comp.security.misc
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:39:15 GMT
"Edward A. Feustel" writes:
In fact, when A and B copy "their" certificates on to their machine, the private key comes with them. It is in an implementation dependent addition to the X.509 certificate. Alternatively, A and B can generate their key pair and send their public keys to a Certificate Authority to manufacture and sign the public key certificates and return a copy to A, B, and who ever might be holding the public key certificates in a data base.

Ed


another simple example is PGP. Each user generates their own public/private key pair and (effectively) their own certificate. Users will distribute their own certificates (with their public key) to whoever.

PGP puts the private key in the private key file that is encrypted with password/passphrase. Public key "certificates" (both their own and others) go into an unencrypted public key file.

A "signed" message is sent by encrypting the HASH of the message with the person's private key and appending the signature to the message. Recipients of the message can verify the signature if they have the sender's public key certificate in their public key file.

An "encrypted" message can be sent if the sender has the recipient's public key. A random secret key is generated and the message is encrypted. The random secret key is then encrypted with the recipient's public key and added to the message.

The recipient can decrypt the message if the random secret key has been encrypted with their public key.

Certification Authorities (CAs) have added another layer of complexity to this. Certification Authorities (CAs) distribute their public key certificates to lots of people. Then CAs generate specially signed messages called certificates that attest to the binding of some characteristic (like a person's name or a domain name like in the case of SSL) to a public key. They sign this special certificate/message with their own public key.

Now rather than a sender having had to previously distributed their prublic key "certificate" via some mechanism ... a sender can now append their "CA" certificate to the end of each message they sign.

The recipient now validates the special "CA" appended certificate/message with the previously distributed public key of the CA. Once that is done, then they can take the public key in the appended certificate/message and use it to validate the signature of the sender.

This effectively adds one level of indirection compared to the PGP scenerio ... instead of every sender needing to use a special out-of-band process for the distribution of their publickey/certificate, only the CAs are required to have a special out-of-band process for the distribution of the CA publickey/certificate. This also adds one level of "trust" indirection. Certificates can also be organized into a hierarchy where there are multiple levels of indirection (as well as multiple levels of trust indirection).

Note however that for the transmission of encrypting messages, the CA-based mechanism and the PGP-based mechanism is basically the same; aka at some time previously the sender of an encrypted message must have acquired the recipient's publickey/certificate and nominally recorded/saved it in some local repository.

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

3270 protocol

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3270 protocol
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:24:51 GMT
Don Quixote writes:
CUT and DFT? in very broad terms, the first is dumb, the second smart.

note while the 3277 CUT was a "dumb" terminal ... in that no microcode could be downloaded ... it was much smarter than the 3278. A lot of the head & keybarod function that was implemented in the 3277 was moved back into the 3274 controller for the 3278.

we had done both a keyboard mod for fast cursor (actually control the repeat latency, plus the repeat rate for all keys). by appropriate selection of resister you wired inside the keyboard, you selected the rate that suited you. I had a keyboard set to the very short delay and fastest possible repeat. It did have the shortcoming that it was faster than the screen refresh rate ... so there was the effect of cursor "coasting" ... you held down a cursor motion key and then had to get use to when to let up on the key so that it would eventually stop at the desired location.

the other modification was the addition of a keyboard FIFO that went into the display head ... you unplugged the keyboaard from the display, plugged in the keyboard FIFO box and then plugged in the keyboard into the FIFO box.

the problem was that while 3270 could operate at speeds of kbytes, tens of kbytes ... they were actually half duplex devices and had a very unfortunate characteristic that if a screen update (from the system, as opposed to simple keystroke copy/record) occurred just as key was being depressed ... the keyboard lost the keystroke and "locked". You then had to hit the keyboard reset button to get it back. for people used to full-duplex and nominal typing rate ... the keyboard locking was a frequent and unpleasant human factor characteristic.

one justification that was given for this characteristic was that 3270s weren't designed for interactive computing ... they were designed for data entry, and data entry people didn't operate in full-duplex mode (there was almost no scenerio where screen would need updating by the system while data entry was going on).

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

A thought on passwords

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: A thought on passwords
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:20:49 GMT
"Fraser Orr" writes:
An interesting aspect of this is that, since the pass phrase contains more digits than the ultimate password, and since these original characters are relatively predictable, such a system could readily correct errors the user typed before conversion to the password itself. For example, spelling errors, and capitalization errors. (Allowing the elimination of the all to common caps lock password error amongst others.)

the problem with shared-secrets is that they have to be different for every different business and/or security domain (aka you don't want some kid at your ISP knowing your banking or stock account password). As online environment proliferates the number of different business and/or security domains goes up sharply ... as does the number of different business/security domains each requiring their own authentication process. In a shared-secret scenerio with passwords, that means that the number of unique shared-secrets increases dramatically also. So the problem becomes not only remembering a specific password ... but also remembering a very large number of different specific passwords. Attempts to improve the shared-secret paradigm for one specific security domain ... is ignoring the real-world that the requirement is for authentication in a large number of different and independent business/security domains.

The most difficult task at the moment is not to improve the characteristic of the something you know authentication requirement (aka passwords/passphrases), but to 1) eliminate the "identity theft" characteristic associated with shared-secret authentication schemes and 2) replace the use of shared-secrets for authentication with some other paradigm.

The design of password/pass-phrases as part of a something you know authentication process is still valuable (in conjunction with two or three factor authentication, i.e. something you know, something you have, something you are), but it needs to be in the context of a non-shared-secret paradigm ... aka being able to proove you know something w/o having to divulge what it is you know ... and therefore there is some possibility that the individual only has to remember a very small number of password/pass-phrases instead of tens or hundreds of them.

passwords don't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#passwords Passwords don't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#36 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#52 Are client certificates really secure?

random shared-secret refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#strawm3 AADS Strawman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#pkikrb PKI/KRB
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech4 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech6 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#cstech8 cardtech/securetech & CA PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm3.htm#kiss8 KISS for PKIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm4.htm#7 Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#shock2 revised Shocking Truth about Digital Signatures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#websecure merchant web server security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#terror [FYI] Did Encryption Empower These Terrorists?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#votec (my) long winded observations regarding X9.59 & XML, encryption and certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#mcomm (my) misc. additional comments on X9.59 issues.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#aadsrel1 AADS related information
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#passwords Passwords don't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#x959b X9.59 Electronic Payment standard issue
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#harvest2 shared-secrets, CC#, & harvesting CC#
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#erictalk Announce: Eric Hughes giving Stanford EE380 talk this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#dspki5 use of digital signatures and PKI (addenda)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay7.htm#ssexploit Shared-Secret exploit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay7.htm#netbank net banking, is it safe?? ... power to the consumer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#214 Ask about Certification-less Public Key
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#226 Attacks on a PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#228 Attacks on a PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#235 Attacks on a PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#238 Attacks on a PKI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#39 "Trusted" CA - Oxymoron?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#53 Digital Certificates-Healthcare Setting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#90 Question regarding authentication implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#92 Question regarding authentication implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#4 Why trust root CAs ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#5 e-commerce: Storing Credit Card numbers safely
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#33 does CA need the proof of acceptance of key binding ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#34 does CA need the proof of acceptance of key binding ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#49 Use of SET?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#30 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#34 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#39 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#40 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#41 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#42 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#54 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#60 PKI and Non-repudiation practicalities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#25 Question about credit card number
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#31 Remove the name from credit cards!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#5 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#7 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#58 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#9 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#16 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#25 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#35 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#36 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#57 E-commerce security????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#0 E-commerce security????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#2 E-commerce security????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#9 E-commerce security????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#49 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#52 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#1 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#radius Client and Radius Authentication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#privacy X9.59, Identity, Authentication, and Privacy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#fraud Risk, Fraud, Exploits

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

Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,ed.general
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 00:42:24 GMT
cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) writes:
I believe that the product that really was written in every conceivable language was AllInOne (or All-In-Bits as it was more commonly known), DEC's answer to Uniplex (on UNIX) and PROFS (on IBM mainframes)

PROFS had some amount of internal politics. The core of PROFS was an early 0.x version of an internal email application called VMSG, an assembler-based application written by a programmer in the UK and freely distributed internally with source. After the co-op of an early deverlopment version by the PROFS group, the source distribution was restricted to two people by the author (me and one other person).

A later dispute about whether the core of PROFS was really an early semi-functional, development version of VMSG was resolved by pointing at that every PROFS message in the world had the VMSG author's initials (HSL) tagged in an (not normally displayed) header control field.

He was a very prolific programmer. One of his other applications that saw wide internal use was Parasite & Story ... basically a virtual terminal scripting application ... it allowed that anybody could run a (3270) terminal emulation to nearly any system on the internal network (ala telnet) with extensive scripting that including sophisticated output string matching and conditional programming (in some sense a precursor to some the later PC-based "screen-scrapping" applications).

from some dark archive (REX was the early, internal name for what is now called REXX) ... comment header from story assemble:


• Generating the module :-
•
•        GLOBAL MACLIB HSLMAC CMSLIB
•        HASM STORY ( NOPRINT
•        LOAD STORY ( CLEAR ORIGIN TRANS
•        GEN  STORY MODULE A2 ( SYSTEM
•
•   This  program runs  as  a "pre-processor"  in  conjunction with
•   PARASITE. It is  invoked by  adding "X=STORY"  to  the PARASITE
•   command. i.e.
•
•              PARASITE name X=STORY
•
•   The Story progamme looks for a file with the attributes of
•
•              "name STORY "
•
•   This  implies that  "name" should  NOT contain  none alphameric
•   characters. I can however contain an imbedded ".",  this causes
•   The  story  program  to  use  the  characters  up  to  but  not
•   including the  "." as  the file  name of  the story  file. This
•   allows one story file to be used by several differant  names at
•   the same time. e.g.
•
•              PARASITE H5.one X=STORY
•
•   Will use a story file "H5 STORY " but will assign the  name of
•   "H5.one" to the port.
•
•   REX variables can be used in the STORY's ( but cannot be  set )
•   they must  be prefixed by  "&". They may  be used where  ever a
•   "string" is used.
•   A reserved REX  variable name "@STORY" can  be used to  force a
•   particular  story to  run  regardles of  the name  used  on the
•   PARASITE command.
•
•   The file sould contain statements corresponding to the following
•   formats.
•
•
EJECT
•
•
• Statements :-
•
•        label  ID   < ON | OFF | RESPONSE | 'string' >
•
•             Defines the character string displayed in the ID  field
•             If no "string" then the id reverts to whatever the user
•             specified with the "ID=" command. The string is limited
•             to 8 characters.
•
•                 Id1   ID   '(.wait.)'
•
•
•        label  IF  token  test  token  statement
•
•             token      can be a REX variable, a 'string' or ID
•                          ( ID is the current ID value )
•             test       can be   =  or  ^=
•             statement  can be any valid STORY statement
•
•                 label  If  &REXVAR  =  'WINVMC'  Goto RLSS
•
•
•        label  ITEM  < SBA=xxxx > < 'string' > < SBA=xxxx > .....
•
•             Defines a data item to be used in a test or to be
•             sent to the port
•
•                 Item  ITEM  SBA=5B60 'LOGON MYID'
•
•
•        label WAIT < INDEFINITELY | < < UNTIL | WHILE >  item > >
•
•             Will cause the story to wait for the next block
•             of data, or until a block of data matches the
•             specifed data item ( item may be the label of
•             an ITEM statement or "'string'" )
•
•                 Wait  WAIT  UNTIL  'VM READ'
•
•
•        label  SEND  aid  < cursor  < item < item ..... > > >
•
•             Will send the specifed aid ( ENTER, PF1 .. PF24 )
•             along with the cursor address ( 4 hex characters )
•             and specifed data item ( item may be the label of
•             an ITEM statement or "'string'" )
•
•                 Enter SEND  ENTER 5B60 Item
•
EJECT
•
•        label  GOTO  label
•
•             Go to the specifed label.
•
•                       GOTO  Loop
•
•
•        label  WHEN  < item < statement > >
•
•             When the recieved data matches the specified
•             data item then execute the statement.
•
•                 Loop  WHEN  'VM READ'  SEND ENTER 5B60
•
•        label  WHEN  EVER( CASE name ) < item < statement > >
•
•             This sets up a condition statement that  is similar
•             to a PL/I "ON"  condition I.E. when ever  that test
•             is  satisfied  the  "statement"  will  be executed.
•             "name"  is any  non-blank string  used  to identify
•             the  "EVER" clause  ( another  WHEN  EVER statement
•             with the same name will replace the current one  )
•
•                 Loop  WHEN EVER( CASE one )  'MORE...'  SEND CLEAR
•
•
EJECT
•
• Sample story files:-
•
• Sample 1 - Automatic logon of a userid
•
•            ID    '< wait >'
•            Wait  Until 'VM/370'
•            Send  CLEAR
•            Wait  Until 'CP READ'
•            When  ever( case ScrFull ) 'MORE...'  Send CLEAR
•   Login    Send  ENTER 5B60 SBA=5B60 'LOGIN userid Q'
•            ID    '< Pswd >'
•    User will have to type in the password
•   What     When  'VM READ'    Goto Enter
•            When  'RECONNECT'  Goto Begin
•            When  'ALREADY LOGGED ON'   Goto Logoff
•            When  'PASSWORD INCORRECT'  Goto Login
•            Wait
•            Goto  What
•    The ID is logged on elsewhere
•   Logoff   Send  ENTER 5B60 SBA=5B60 'LOGOFF'
•            Stop
•    The ID has been reconnected
•   Begin    Send  ENTER 5B60 SBA=5B60 'BEGIN'
•            Stop
•    The ID has been logged on
•   Enter    ID    '< wait >'
•            Send  ENTER 5B60
•            Wait  Until 'R;'
•            Stop
•
EJECT
•
• Sample 2
•
•
•    Collect VM LOGO's from the PVM network
•    Rex variable "@NODE" contains the target node name
•
•            ID    Off
•            Wait  Until 'VM/370'
•            Send  CLEAR
•            Wait  Until 'CP READ'
•            Send  ENTER _ SBA=_ 'DIAL VMNET'
•            Wait  Until 'APPLICATION ID'
•            Send  ENTER D5C6 SBA=D5C6 'KGVM3'
•    Now on the main Kingston PVM node
•            Wait  Until 'VM/370'
•            Send  CLEAR
•            Wait  Until 'CP READ'
•            Send  ENTER _ SBA=_ 'DIAL PVM'
•            Wait  Until 'Pass-Through'
•            Send  ENTER 5D4A SBA=5DC5 &@NODE
•    See if the target node is there
•   Through  When  'NODE INVALID'    Goto GiveUp
•            When  'LINK IS DOWN'    Goto GiveUp
•            When  'VM/370'          Goto GotIt
•            Wait
•            Goto  Through
•    It's there copy the LOGO
•   GotIt    Wait  Until 'VM/370'
•            Send  Control 'C '
•            Send  ENTER _ '####'
•            Wait  Until 'Pass-Through'
•    Send "PA1" through RLSS to PVM
•   GiveUp   Send  PA1
•            Wait  Until 'LOCAL TERMINAL CONTROLLER'
•            Send  PF2
•            Wait  Until 'DROP FROM'
•            Send  CLEAR
•    Now logoff from Kingston
•            Wait  Until 'VM/370'
•            Send  CLEAR
•            Wait  Until 'CP READ'
•            Send  ENTER _ SBA=_ 'LOGOFF'
•            Wait  Until 'RUNNING'
•            Send  ENTER
•    Wait untill dropped from RLSS
•            Wait  Until 'RLSDIO'
•            Send  ENTER
•            Wait
•            Send  ENTER

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

Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,ed.general
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 01:21:32 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
GLOBAL MACLIB HSLMAC CMSLIB
HASM STORY ( NOPRINT
LOAD STORY ( CLEAR ORIGIN TRANS
GEN STORY MODULE A2 ( SYSTEM



https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#35 Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

some might think that story wasn't all that remarkable but also consider that its total executable size was under 8k bytes (instructions plus all data areas).

another story ... retrieve updates/fixes from the online field engineering system, aka RETAIN:


*
• BUCKET --  Automatic PUT Bucket Retriever
*
ID    '< wait >'
             Wait  Until 'VM/370'
Send  CLEAR
Wait  Until 'CP READ'
When  ever( case ScrFull ) 'MORE...'  Send CLEAR
             When  ever( case Holding ) 'HOLDING'  Send CLEAR
Send  ENTER 5B60 SBA=5B60 'DIAL PVM'
             Wait Until 'SPECIFIC NODE ID'
Send  ENTER 4166 SBA=4166 'RETAIN'
check1       When 'FIELD ENGINEERING' goto go1
When 'SIGNED OFF' goto go1
             When 'PORT NOT AVILABLE' goto quit
Wait until 'SIGNED OFF'
             goto check1
go1       Send  ENTER 5B6D
Wait  Until 'ENTER EMPLOYEE NUMBER/PASSWORD'
Send  ENTER 4C66 SBA=4C66 &PASSWD
             Wait  Until 'ENTER UPGRADE/SUBSET IDS'
Send  ENTER 406B SBA=406B &SSID
             Wait  Until 'CHG/INDEX'
Send  PF11 C450 SBA=4150 'Y' SBA=4160 'Y' SBA=C450 'Y'
Wait  Until 'OUTPUT QUED'
Send ENTER
             Wait  Until 'UPGRADE:'
Send Control 'C '
          Send ENTER 5952
Wait  Until 'UPGRADE:'
Send Control 'C '
When Ever( Case Wrap ) 'PG 001' goto  done
next      Send ENTER 5952
Wait  Until 'UPGRADE:'
          Send Control 'C '
Goto next
done      Send ENTER 5952 SBA=5952 'SIGNOFF'
Wait Until 'TERMINAL'
          Send Enter 4F4F SBA=4F4F '####'
Wait  Until 'SPECIFIC NODE ID'
quit      Send  PA1
Stop

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:13:55 GMT
jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard) writes:
Uhm, it's in the base distribution of OS/360 21.8F. Might have been added late in life, but it's definitely there as IMASPZAP. Was OS/360 revved some after the introduction of SVS?

i remember it at least using it at least in the 14 - 15/16 time-frame for (some) PTF application.

remember 15 didn't really ship, it was a consolidated 15/16 release. 15/16 was also the first release that allowed you to specify where the vtoc went i.e. you could place the highest accessed data in the middle of the pack and then array data out in both directions.

I had been doing "hand" built sysgens since 9.5, aka I would take the stage2 output of stage1 (and "in-queue" build since 11, aka rather than do sysgen with starter system, build with production system) ... and rather than single job with large number of exec steps, would place a job card on each exec step, completely re-arrainge each job order so that data would be built on the drives to create optimal arm access order, and also re-arranged major move/copy statement ordering to also create optimal arm access ordering.

The elapsed time to run a FORTG (single-step) fortran compile was reduced from approx. 30 secs elapsed time (a straight starter-system built MFT14 system with HASP) to 12.9 seconds elapsed time with my hand-built custom MFT14.

The problem of course, was that standard PTF (load-module replace/relink) activity had major downside effect on data placement on disk. Load-module (in places like sys1.linklib & sys1.svclib) replacement would effectively invalidate the old PDS member and write the new PDS member at the first available location in the dataset. After six months, such activity could degrade the sample FORTG test job elapsed time from 12.9 to 20 seconds or more. "COMPRESS" of the PDS would remove the no-op'ed PDS member and recover the space, but didn't allow any careful member placement ordering.

Basically, every six months would have to rebuild the system (if not doing it for other reasons like going to a new release).

Atlantic City '68 share presentation on both mft14 & cp/67 performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

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

3270 protocol

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3270 protocol
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:18:05 GMT
ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:
Speaking of the TD4000, in the latter 70's I had one in my office to communicate to a 370-based service bureau in both ordinary text (ASCII) and VS/APL mode (when I switched the daisy wheel).

actually we had translate tables for both ASCII apl as well as ebcdic apl (there was actually tables for two types of 2741, plus tty, with apl translate tables for all three).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#6

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

Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,ed.general
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:36:25 GMT
cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) writes:
That sort of thing is all too common; I think I've had enough of that type of politics to last me a lifetime!

What was the outcome? PROFS went on to be quite a profitable application, so I suppose that the issue regarding VMSG was either resolved or otherwise forced?


they (eventually) closed peterlee and he was transferred to hursley (peterlee closing not related to this) and told he could only work on cics (even on his own time) ... or it could mean his job. we participated in a little subterfuge ... i gave him a userid on a west coast system that he could use and we covered the tracks.

PROFS group never did really fix their crippled, early development implementation of VMSG (superior technology doesn't necessarily count for much, as people have frequently discovered).

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

Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,ed.general
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:33:53 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
PROFS group never did really fix their crippled, early development implementation of VMSG (superior technology doesn't necessarily count for much, as people have frequently discovered).

and opportunity for some real topic drift
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#5
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#48
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#49

random internal network & internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#19
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#7
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#21

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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:06:00 GMT
CBFalconer writes:

Any group, on any type of project, that exceeds 5 is grossly
overstaffed and fundamentally self-defeating.

Time_on_project       = Wall_time - sigma(argue_time, N);
argue_time_per_cohort = Wall_time / 5;
Total_project_time    = N  Time_on_project;

For Wall_time = 100
N         Sigma(argue_time, N)   Total_project_time
1                0                    100
2               20                    160
3               40                    180
4               60                    160
5               80                    100
6              100                      0
7              120                   -140

sometime in the past, somebody made the observation that too many skilled/smart people on a project can prevent any solution in projects with more than a few unknowns (the highest skilled people advocate conflicting solutions and the rest of the group is unable to resolve because at least, a minimum of one solution is required first in order to resolve the unknowns).

there is another measure of group dynamics which represents the aggregate intellectual/skill capacity that the group is able to bring to the task


1. sum i=1,n of IQi
2. max(IQn)
3. (sum i=1,n of IQi)/n
4. min(IQn)
5. (min(IQn)/n

too frequently aggregate group intellect/skill it is #4 and sometimes it is even #5.

and there is obvious collorary that for certain types of projects ... given aggregate intellectual capacity below some thresholds, solutions can not be found even with infinite amount of time.

so combining the two, multiple high intellect/skiled individuals can not only nullify each other ... but can actually degrade effectiveness of everybody's skills ... say

for some number of m with IQm > threshold

6. (min(IQn)/(mn)

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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 18:36:57 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
so combining the two, multiple high intellect/skiled individuals can not only nullify each other ... but can actually degrade effectiveness of everybody's skills ... say

there was an actual project that spent a couple years arguing over various issues and effectively had resolution paralyzes ... the total resources to implement and deploy all possible solutions (and come to resolution based on real world data) was nearly an order of magnitude less than the resources that went into arguing, attempting to come up with an up-front resolution before starting the effort (not to mention that having even the least optimal solution in the market-place was orders of magnitude better than having no solution).

this led to some number of successful executives who could make snap decisions, even if they were all least technically optimal ... and still come out way ahead (even random selection can work & don't confuse me with facts).

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

Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?
Newsgroups: comp.security.unix
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 18:56:09 GMT
Scot Wilcoxon writes:
Yes, Unix doesn't isolate users as thoroughly as some other systems (the obvious example for Unix is its inspiration Multics, where Unix intentionally is simpler than Multics). But is this security philosophy which protects against virus/worm attacks.

When the system itself cannot be altered by users, a malicious program is restricted to damaging user resources. The most common Unix weakness is that user programs can use more than their fair share of resources such as memory and I/O channels. Malicious programs can damage user data -- although to classic Unix systems that is indistinguishable from other user programs.


a major percentage of unix & network exploits have been

1) buffer overruns, number and frequency a direct result of common C-language string handling semantics (aka systems with other semantics are far, far less prone to such explits)

2) becoming much less frequent over time (at least in unix), university &/or novice developed applications targeted for co-op environment with significant back-doors for things like ease-of-maintenance

#1 has been a common characteristic in all C-language based environments (regardless of the system)

More recently, a whole new category has appeared associated with automatic scripting (& misc. other "ease-of-use" based) exploits. I first ran into such a (network auto-scripting) problem in the early '70s and it was addressed at that time .... but it appears to have come back with a vengence in the past couple years.

random past referernces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70 Series/1 as NCP (was: Re: System/1 ?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#85 Perfect Code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#163 IBM Assembler 101
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#219 Study says buffer overflow is most common security bug
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ansiepay.htm#theory Security breach raises questions about Internet shopping
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#25 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#30 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#17 ooh, a real flamewar :)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#22 ooh, a real flamewar :)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#40 Domainatrix - the final word
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#50 Egghead cracked, MS IIS again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#47 what is interrupt mask register?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#58 Checkpoint better than PIX or vice versa???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#66 KI-10 vs. IBM at Rutgers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#58 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#52 misc loosely-coupled, sysplex, cluster, supercomputer, & electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#54 Computer security: The Future

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

3270 protocol

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3270 protocol
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 12:35:42 GMT
jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) writes:
"Crippled?" Doesn't that depend on the design of the application?

the original comment was that we had a list of complaints about 3270 (like if you were typing at the wrong moment when the system updated the screen), the keyboard would lock and you would have to hit reset (and anything you happened to type in the period was lost). the response was that 3270 was designed for data entry ... not interactive computing. That doesn't imply that it wasn't better than many things that had been supposedly designed for interactive computing (sometimes raw speed can count) ... it just that the 3270 could have been better (like the FIFO keyboard buffer in 3277 to overcome the keyboard lockup problem). Not only was it designed for data entry, that who would possible want to be typing when the system had something to do. Another was trying to reposition the cursor on the screen, the speed was ... chug, ... chug, ... chug, ...

So does anybody remember the up/down, scroll-up/scroll-down, page-up/page-down editor wars with edgar/red/xedit/etc (from the early to mid 70s)???? aka in effect, "were the commands done with respect to the program or the human"? edgar was with respect to the program, "scroll-up", in effect moved the document "up" (viewing moved down).

misc refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#33

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

SMP idea for the future

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.intel
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 12:48:02 GMT
"Tzvetan Mikov" writes:
I am not sure what you mean by "multithreaded kernel". The nature of the tasks performed by the kernel usually doesn't require a thread. Although worker threads are used to carry out some tasks internally, most of the work in the NT kernel is not done in such a context. There are asynchronous queues for IO requests, timers, interrupt processing, etc. Each queued procedure is executed as soon as possible on any available CPU without a context switch.

If by "kernel" we mean all parts of the OS that happen to execute in privileged mode (file system drivers, IO drivers, etc), then the kernel is most definitely multithreaded. On the other hand, I don't think the term "multithreaded" can be applied to the micro-kernel.


frequently it means to the degree that multiple different processors/CPU can be executing in the kernel concurrently. Sometimes this is dependent on the locking model ... does it apply to code or to data structures ... and the granularity of the locks (i.e. how many different processors be executing the same low-level code concurrently, even microkernel ... or are some processors/cpu going to be held up ... either in spin-locks are other serialization methods?).

this sometimes shows up in less than linear scale-up as you increase the number of processors ... for certain types of workloads ... say an ip-intensive workload, that based on ip kernel pathlengths is capable of consuming 16 processors just in kernel code; would going from 8-processor configuration to 16-processor configuration double the ip thruput?

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

3270 protocol

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 3270 protocol
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 01:10:15 GMT
"GerardS" writes:
On the VM/CMS systems, as soon as the user pressed enter (or some other function key for example), the VM system immediately sent back an unlock, thereby minimizing the amount of time the keyboard was locked. On channel-attached 3270s, this was almost instantaneous, so that I could hold down the ENTER key (making use of the typomatic key), and the CMS (VM) system would be able to process all the ENTERs. I would do this while in XEDIT mode, or plain CMS mode, and the system would be able to keep up with the multiple (if not infinite) ENTERs). One could also XEDIT a very large file and just keep the PF8 (down) depressed and watch XEDIT scroll down the file.

STL was bursting at the seams ... to they needed to relocate about 300 people from the IMS group to remote, leased building about half-way between STL and the main plant site. Rather than make them endure the horrors of remote 3270s, they were going to get local 3270s with (HYPERchannel) as channel extenders. There was some issues getting the support to run over a dedicated T1 line since it was only 1.5mbytes/sec ... even tho the aggregate data rate didn't tend to exceed the line rate, the channel attach 3270s had a higher burst rate and so there were some speed-matching and pacing issues.

One of the unexpected outcomes of the whole thing was that the mainframes back in STL started running 10-15% better thruput. Standard operating procedure up until then had been to spread the 3274 control units across all available channels on the same channels with disks controllers (just because the disks had been spread across available channels for load-balancing leaving a lot of unit addresses available on each channel).

The HYPERchannel support that I wrote used a single HYPERchannel A220 on the mainframe end to drive the T1 and the 3274 controllers (for 300+ 3270s) and misc. other channel controlers at the remote site.

The problem was that 3274 controller could burst data transfers at channel speed to the 3270s ... it had significant control overhead that resulting in significant channel busy. It turned out that the bad 3274 channel busy overhead was causing signficiant interface for disk activity.

The HYPERchannel A220 controller hung on the mainframe channel had significant better (tremendously less) channel busy overhead compared to the 3274s. Remoting all the 3274s out to HYPERChannl A51x channel simulators (and performing the actual channel operations on an A220) turned out to not degrade the thruput perceived by all of the 3270s AND signficiantly reduced overall channel busy across all the mainframe channels significantly improving disk thruput resulting in a 10-15% overall system thruput increase (hows that for a run on sentence).

The above helped overall system thruput and helped mask the poor channel busy characteristics of channel attach 3274 controllers. After that, there started being a lot more recommendations about 3274 controller placement to minimize interference with disk thruput. SNA 3274s couldn't really be considered an option since the resulting 3270 performance characteristics were really terrible for interactive computing.

Those controller characteristics were orthogoanl to keyboard lockup issues ... I kept my trusty modified 3277 (fifo keystroke buffer and modified repeat key operation) up until almost 1990 (as backup, long after I had 3270 emulation on PC and could program around the short comings).

misc. hyperchannel & hsdt refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

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

SMP idea for the future

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 01:28:02 GMT
"Tzvetan Mikov" writes:
It seems that NT should be doing well in that respect since it has been designed from the ground up for SMP. I haven't had the luck to examine its kernel sources :-), so I can't say anything with certainty, but it seems so. On the other hand, I haven't had first-hand exerience with NT running on more than 2-CPUs and of course I have heard the rumours that NT doesn't scale well for more than 16 (or even 8?). I don't know whether it is true and to what extent it has to do with x86 server hardware design (aren't x86 servers just pumped up PCs?)

i don't know what it is now ... but a couple years ago ... I was told by numerous knowledgable people that ip-intensive workload wouldn't even come close linearly scale from 2-processors to 4-processors and that extensive kernel work was going on to fix large numbers of non-fine-grain locks (and 2-processor thruput was based on one processor basically executing application and one processor executing kernel).

Something can be designed to have locking support for SMP ... but still not be able to scale. Lots of easy SMP implementations would do gross-level serialization locks on major blocks of code ... allowing the kernel to run on multi-processor hardware (put effectively kernel only executing on one processor at a time) ... typically relying on large amounts of non-kernel application execution to achieve thruput aka little or no "effective" kernel SMP threading with horrendous resulting thruput characteristics for workload requiring significant kernel pathlength.

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

Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer?  Help!!  Please
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 16:43:00 GMT
Contavia@excite.com (Contavia) writes:
Can anyone help me? I really need some help ASAP.

Describe some common uses of multiprogramming on mainframe computers.


misc. refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:07:11 GMT
"Hank Murphy" writes:
Several people have already referred to the presence of assembler in banks. Even in banks which are successful in re-engineering their old assembler mainline processes into C++, there will still be a need for assembler programs and programmers to work with something called CPCS (Check Processing Control System). There are only two makers of large-scale check sorting equipment (IBM and Unisys (ex-Burroughs)). NCR and some smaller manufacturers concentrate on the smaller end of the business. So, if you maintain an IBM mainframe, you are going to have assembler in banks.

slightly related threads on check processing:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#155 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#156 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#157 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#160 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#165 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#166 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#167 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#168 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#170 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#171 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#172 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#173 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#178 checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#echeck Electronic Checks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#69 Block oriented I/O over IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#70 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#31 Remove the name from credit cards!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#1 distributed authentication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#45 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#7 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#24 "Hollerith" card code to EBCDIC conversion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#30 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#36 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#43 Disaster Stories Needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#52 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#1 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#17 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#18 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit

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

Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer?  Help!!  Please
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:19:10 GMT
Contavia@excite.com (Contavia) writes:
Can anyone help me? I really need some help ASAP.

Describe some common uses of multiprogramming on mainframe computers.


also
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindx2.html#mainframe

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:40:56 GMT
Allodoxaphobia writes:
Of course, no Good Idea goes un-noticed for long. Eventually, SuperZap 'escaped' into the user/customer world -- just like CICS did (he said, starting a new thread drift.)

Jonesy IBM MainFrame since 1966


CICS was developed at a customer shop .... that IBM then picked up an made a product. I was undergraduate at university that was one of the original IBM CICS beta-test sites and had to "shoot" some number of bugs for the university.

random "cics" refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#33 short CICS story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#35 mainframe CKD disks & PDS files (looong... warning)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#9 cics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#6 IBM Hursley?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#8 Ancient DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#30 How is CICS pronounced?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#33 ... cics ... from posting from another list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#34 ... cics ... from posting from another list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#58 When did IBM go object only
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#130 early hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#218 Mainframe acronyms: how do you pronounce them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#41 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#35 What level of computer is needed for a computer to Love?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#45 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#52 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#54 WHAT IS A MAINFRAME???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#69 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#51 Competitors to SABRE?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#62 California DMV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#56 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#69 Block oriented I/O over IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#2 Mysterious Prefixes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#24 XML: No More CICS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#60 Whom Do Programmers Admire Now???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#76 Other oddball IBM System 360's ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#30 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#37 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#38 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#49 Withdrawal Announcement 901-218 - No More 'small machines'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#16 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#20 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#24 Parity - why even or odd (was Re: Load Locked
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#25 Parity - why even or odd (was Re: Load Locked
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#39 Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

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

Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:45:09 GMT
ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:
Sure does: the midterm exam is a _closed book_ test of any and all JCL used in OS/360 MVT rel. 21!

how 'bout the new release exercise where you had to debug all the procs and decks that no longer worked ... and you did the (semi) random walk looking for the new magic JCL combination.

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

Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why is UNIX semi-immune to viral infection?
Newsgroups: comp.security.unix
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:35:06 GMT
Len Budney <lbudney-usenet@nb.net> writes:
No, you've missed the point. Once you've grouped TWO unrelated services under one UID, the mistake is made. I don't give a crap how many MORE you then cram into the same UID. Therefore, qualifying ''catch-all'' in any way is pointless. Had Maclaren advocated putting two demons under one UID, let alone a ''catch-all for scruffy little services'', my reaction would have been the same. ...

Give me a break. Just stop hiring brain-dead administrators. ''We make a point of insecuring our systems, because securing them confuses the admins.''


at some point you need to recognize that while something is technically possible, that it may be practically difficult or near impossible (the line about "in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is", for instance it may be possible all the non-brain-dead admins have already been hired, or somebody just increased the salary bidding by a factor of three times). In those scenerios it may be necessary to change the paradigm in face of real world conditions in order to achieve the objective.

slightly related discussion with regard to if there was guaranteed perfect security at 20 million websites around the world with employees that have all been veted by gov. agencies, and there was never, ever a mistake made by any human on the face of the planet ... there might not be any security breaks.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#terror3 did encryption empower these terrorists
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#websecure merchant web server security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#terror5 did encryption empower these terrorists

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

DEC midnight requisition system

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: DEC midnight requisition system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 22:11:52 GMT
pechter@i4got.pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) writes:
I was at DEC in '85 -- which authorized me to break the logistics manager's door down at DEC's Penn Plaza NY location to get a set of roms to fix a problem which we in NJ were sufferring with for days when an idiot manager put a third-party controller under maintenance and had the controller type wrong and no parts or docs to fix it.

The logistics manager was out on his boat on Friday night. He was "unavailable" according to their staff.

They thought it was Emulex -- it was Plessey. They thought that they had spares... -- they did for the Emulex.

Anyway the roms needed to change the Emulex emulation to the same as the failed Plessey (so the customer's OS would work with it without a new sysgen) were under lock and key at the DEC logistics manager's desk. I was authorized to use the fire axe to free them and bring them to New Jersey.

When NY's managers heard I was headed their way someone got to him via Ship-To-Shore radio or he finally answered his beeper. They delivered up the parts before I got to crack the office and desk.

I also once stole 5 brand new RA81 HDA's from DEC's Princeton,NJ office to go to FMC's Princeton Vaxcluster.


ok, when lincoln labs discontinued the duplex 360/67 ... the moving van was called to pick up and deliver the machine back to the manufacturing plant in kinston.

cambridge wanted a duplex machine for doing the SMP work (in part directly responsible for charlie's work that resulted in compare&swap instruction) ... had a simplex 360/67 but not a duplex. The head of cambridge called the moving company and told them that there was a change in delivery, that the lincoln '67 was to be delivered to 2nd floor, 545 tech. sq. in cambridge (not to the kingston plant). It took the kingston plant another six months to track down somebody in cambridge to ask if a 360/67 duplex had been delivered there by mistake (all before my time).

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

I-net banking security

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: I-net banking security
Newsgroups: alt.computer.security
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 22:17:08 GMT
"Charlotte Cannaert" writes:
Hi folks, I am new on the net and I am very interessed in internetbanking; it's extremely easy and handy. In my opinion this is the future. Still I am very worried about the security of this. Nowadays the net isn't a safe place anymore... Is it really safe, can people 'steal' money? Does anyone has some experience with it? What can I do to protect myself to intruders? Please tell me lots of things about this issue... it would help me very much Thanks alot everybody, CS from Belgium

almost same thread from europe (brussels & amsterdam) within past couple months
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#websecure merchant web server security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#terror7 [FYI] Did Encryption Empower These Terrorists?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#pcards The end of P-Cards?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#pcards3 The end of P-Cards? (addenda)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay7.htm#netbank net banking, is it safe?? ... power to the consumer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay7.htm#netbank2 net banking, is it safe?? ... security proportional to risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay7.htm#netsecure some recent threads on netbanking & e-commerce security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#57 Q: Internet banking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#60 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#61 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#62 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#64 PKI/Digital signature doesn't work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#53 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#58 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#61 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#62 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#64 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#67 Would this type of credit card help online shopper to feel more secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#68 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#70 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#75 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#9 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#10 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#16 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#25 Net banking, is it safe???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#57 E-commerce security????
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#44 Does "Strong Security" Mean Anything?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#49 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#52 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#0 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#1 Are client certificates really secure?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#34 A thought on passwords
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#49 Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

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

E-mail 30 years old this autumn

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E-mail 30 years old this autumn
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 00:33:22 GMT
efinnell@SEEBECK.UA.EDU (Edward J. Finnell,III , Ed) writes:
Hard to believe. Guess I started out on PROFs in the early eighties.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/637088.asp


recent PROFs discussion:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#39
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#40

note that internal network & facilities were contemporary with arpanet although was a larger network with more participants from just about the beginning up thru circa '85 (including multiple PROFs precursors in the '70s).

electronic communication on the same multi-user time-sharing machine ala email dates from the 60s. that was extended to networked multi-machine "email" with pieces of the internal network in the 1970 time-frame (link between cambridge and endicott).

random other references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindex.html#network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subindx2.html#network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

in the business card title thread ... i made some claim as to managing most of my career to have had business cards w/o title ... but did have one of the first business cards (in the '70s) with email address on it.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#22 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#28 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#29 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#30 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#31 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#34 Title Inflation

unfortunately the day after i posted on managing to have business cards w/o title ... somebody dropped by a box of new business cards that did have a title on it.

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

SMP idea for the future

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 00:59:22 GMT
"Tzvetan Mikov" writes:
I naive question perhaps, since I am not a TCP/IP expert, but why does the TCP/IP stack need threads of its own at all? I imagine an implementation could be entirely event driven: user requests (send()/recv()/etc) are processed in the context of the calling thread, network packets are queued and dequeued on interrupt, timeouts are handled in an asynchronous timer routine. I don't see anything that needs to execute continously in a thread of its own.

low level IP code that utilizes some number of shared buffers and queues common for all IP. Lower-level device driver code that also has some number of shared buffers and queues. simple SMP implementations tends to implement locks &/or serialization primitives on logical code minimizing concurrent code SMP execution issues that would have to be handled.

With a large number of processors and applications all pushing IP output traffic down the stack threads can bottleneck on serialization primitives.

Very high-speed network hardware with lots of incoming traffic can generate (incoming) events that all bottleneck on serialization primitives.

This is true of almost any kernel function/resource that lacks extremely fine-grain locking & serialization primitives. At the simplest, the whole kernel has a single lock implementing large granularity serizliation (i.e. kernel can only be executing on one processor at a time, regardless of number of processors). At the other extreme every couple instructions has extremely fine-grained locking/serialization operation when possibly shared resources are involved (worst case is that there is more processor cycles executing serialization functions on the off-chance that two or more processors might be attempting to execute the same exact set of instructions concurrently). In part, because serialization semantics can result in consumption of CPU cycles ... there can be a trade-off based on the granularity and amount of serialization operations against the degree of concurrency that can be achieved.

One example to workaround solution can be to go back and totally redesign the implementation for high concurrency at the same time minimizing serialization semantics overhead. One such solution is to attempt to batch allocate and/or reserve all dedicated resources that have some possibility of being requested by the event, then dole out the resources as they actually requested from the event/thread specific pre-allocation (the penalty for pre-allocating some resources that aren't actually used is traded off against the reduction in the amount of serialization semantics that have to be used during the course of the event handling).

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

I-net banking security

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: I-net banking security
Newsgroups: alt.computer.security
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:57:29 GMT
"lyalc" writes:
ID and passowrds are the only widespread means of authentication today, and tomorrow if PKI gets adopted at all. Remember, certificate/private keys require passwords to allow their use.

but

1) you can have private key infrastructures w/o certificates ... my usual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

2) there is significant semantics & paradigm difference between shared-secret passwords and non-shared-secret passwords (recent thread in sci.crypt)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#34 A thought on passwords

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

intranet security and user authentication questions

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: intranet security and user authentication questions
Newsgroups: comp.security.unix,comp.os.linux.security
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 20:01:50 GMT
Webmaster writes:
once all 500 user accounts are created. Am I barking up the wrong tree here by using .htaccess? What's a better solution? I am also thinking ahead, ultimately I need the site to deliver content dynamically and specifically only to the particular user that logged in based on their sign-on. Is there anything (esp. in linux/Apache) that I can use to control this? Any advice, tips, sites, references that anyone can give is sincerely appreciated.

traditional web has been to place a hook in the webserver client authentication stubb (nominally effectively a no-op). this is frequently a roll-your-own implementation using a flat file with userid/passwords.

another approach would be to hook the client authentication stub with radius interface ... and then support all flavors of whatever radius supports (i.e. selectable on an account by account basis).

THe corporate environment may already be using radius for client authentication for internet->intranet or dial-up corporate intranet access.

some of the radius related discussion:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#radius

there are RFCs on authentication and radius (an internet authentication stnadard) ... reference go to
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietf.htm

and click on Term (term->RFC#)

and then click on RADIUS in the list of acronyms

and you will get a list of all RADIUS related internet IETF RFC documents (which can be selected)

you can also click (under radius) on authentication and get a list of all authentication related internet IETF RFC documents (including RADIUS related documents).

a recent RFC document in this area is
3127
Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting: Protocol Evaluation, Barkley S., Mitton D., Nelson D., Patil B., St.Johns M., Stevens M., Wolff B., 2001/06/29 (86pp) (.txt=170579) (was draft-ietf-aaa-proto-eval-02.txt)

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

Defrag in linux? - Newbie question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Defrag in linux? - Newbie question
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.os.multics
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 01:25:15 GMT
bq434@freenet.carleton.ca (Yvan Loranger) writes:
You contradict this below, 2 times. A program's pages can offer structure, especially if they are about to be paged back in. So readahead could be beneficial, (offhand I'd say especially at track boundaries).

MVS & VM introduced the concept of "big pages" around 1980 ... initially targeted for 3380s. When time came for certain page replace operations ... a collection of a task's pages were selected, equivalent to a track's worth and written out as a "big page". On a page fault, if a page was a member of a "big page", the "big page" was brought in as a unit. There were various rules about what was considered candidates for membership in big page ... and various kinds of trimming and segregation went on to try and cluster meaningful members of big pages. At that time, a 3380 track held 10 4k-byte pages ... and so the implementation adopted from doing nominal 4k-byte page I/O operations to 40k-byte page I/O operations.

... aka virtual page access patterns & virtual page reference bits prior to page-out ... provided "structure" for how "big pages" were formed and therefor provided the "structure" for how individual virtual pages were brought back in.

part of the motivation was the significant increase in 3380 data transfer (compared to prior disks) w/o any comparable increase in arm access and rotational delay. in effect, doing "big transfers", while it may increase real storage requirements ... was otherwise utilizing a resource (disk transfer) that was significantly underutilized.

some past refs on this subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#8 3330 Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#10 Virtual Memory (A return to the past?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#46 The god old days(???)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#4 IBM S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#6 3330 Disk Drives

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

I-net banking security

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: I-net banking security
Newsgroups: alt.computer.security
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 13:13:00 GMT
"whoever" writes:
Correct, as addressed in my initial post.

However, PKI is still a 2-factor system; something you have (the certificate), and something you know (the PIN).

Standard ID/Password systems are only 1 factor (something you know, you just happen to know 2 things).

(Conversely, you could add, in place of the "token" or certificate, something you are e.g., a voice print, retina print, finger print, etc.).


in 3-factor authentication, both something you know and something you are can be implemented as either a shared-secret paradigm or a non-shared-secret paradigm, (aka ... the PIN value and the biometric template ... can be considered somewhat equivalent authentication "values" ... one difference (in a shared-secret paradigm) between PIN and biometric ... is that if the value becomes compromised, it is somewhat easier to issue a new PIN than it is (at least given current technology) to issue new fingerprints (or fingerlength, or retina, or whatever).

it is possible for both something you know and something you are in 3-factor authentication ... to be implemented in non-shared-secret paradigm ... i.e. given a personal hardware token, the hardware token does a "match" on an entered PIN or an entered biometric value ... and then operates appropriately.

x9.84 (biometric financial) standard has huge amounts of security recommendations surrounding biometric authentication when implemented in a shared-secret paradigm (because of the significant risk and lack of easy remediation when a value has been compromised; aka new finger grafts?).

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

SMP idea for the future

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 15:12:16 GMT
Bernd Paysan writes:
The future is true zero-copying (with scatter-gather, so that the OS can create the headers in a separate memory). The main problem here is a brain-damage in the protocol, because it puts the checksum before the data, so you still have to read the data completely to create the correct header.

misc. discussion of high-speed protocol, protocol engine, and trailer checksum, even getting buffer copies down to only five (much of this went on in late '80s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

misc. other checksum discussions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#36 What is MVS/ESA?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#115 What is the use of OSI Reference Model?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#1 "Mainframe" Usage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#3 "Mainframe" Usage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#5 "Mainframe" Usage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#9 "Mainframe" Usage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#47 4M pages are a bad idea (was Re: AMD 64bit Hammer CPU and VM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#22 Intel's new GBE card?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#16 Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)

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

how to start write a Firewall authentication client software

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: how to start write a Firewall authentication client software
Newsgroups: comp.security.firewalls
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 16:30:37 GMT
chiang_zhang@ieee.org (Qiang) writes:
Hello,

I have a need to write a software for remote users to authenticate to the firewall, possibly via several methods: Radius, S/KEY, USER/PASSWD, LDAP

I am not sure how to start, and what protocols to follow, is there a public protocol address these ?

Thanks!

Qiang


similar thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#59

with reference to RFC3127

also
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#radius

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

Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 17:05:13 GMT
Eric Sosman writes:
My hope is that the latter will follow from the former more or less automatically. A programmer who reads code from diverse sources (or sources in diverse codes?) will form some ideas about what makes for Good or Bad code. If said programmer has the brains God gave little green apples, these ideas will come to influence his or her own output.

a programmer that does really well in a programming language would need to be proficient ... in the same way that people are proficient in natural language. There is the old saying about thinking & dreaming in the language ... as opposed to thinking in some other semantic context and having to translate; aka the programmer would literially "think" in the (programming) language.

The standards for "good" &/or "proficency" in a language for people that don't actually think in the subject language are totally different (i.e. it is usually pretty easy to recognize speakers who are constantly having to translate from some other context when they are speaking as well as programming).

In the mid-80s there was somebody that sat in the back of my office for 9 months and took notes on all my communication. All my email and immediate messages were also logged and analysed (there was some statistic that for the 9 month period, that I avg'ed email communication with 275-some different people per week). It resulted in a Stanford PhD thesis ... joint with language and computer AI (i.e. it was looking at computer mediated communication and how it compared to natural language communication). There was some comment that the analysis indicated that I might be more proficient in some programming languages than in my native english.

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

SMP idea for the future

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 20:12:57 GMT
tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) writes:
Actually, lockless manipulation of data structures is a technique from Henry Massalin's Synthesis work -- it's more like c. 1988 than 1998. :-)

(atomic) lockless manipulation of data structures is from Charlie's work at Cambridge Science Center on compare&swap instruction from the late '60s and made it into the 370 mainframe machines (early '70s). The original work was to address SMP serialization issues ... but got push-back about adding an instruction to the architecture that was SMP specific and POK architecture (padegs & smith) requested a paradigm/description showing its use in uniprocessor environments (birth of the compare&swap programming notes that appeared in the 370 principles of operation ... effectively multi-threaded applications regardless of uniprocessor or multiprocessor).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#0 360/67, was Re: IBM's Project F/S ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#14 S/360 addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#22 Assembly language program for RS600 for mutual exclusion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#02 Register to Memory Swap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#28 370 ECPS VM microcode assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#45 SMP, Spin Locks and Serialized Access
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#8a atomic load/store, esp. multi-CPU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#10 HELP! Chronology of word-processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#19 Why Mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#8 Old Vintage Operating Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#16 S/360 operating systems geneaology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#40 Comparison Cluster vs SMP?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#88 FIne-grained locking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#89 FIne-grained locking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#176 S/360 history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#80 Atomic operations ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#4 Ridiculous
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#22 Is a VAX a mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#25 Test and Set: Which architectures have indivisible instructions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#16 360/370 instruction cycle time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#32 Multitasking and resource sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#26 Disk caching and file systems. Disk history...people forget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#33 John Mashey's greatest hits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#35 John Mashey's greatest hits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#40 John Mashey's greatest hits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#26 why the machine word size is in radix 8??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#42 IBM was/is: Imitation...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#73 CS instruction, when introducted ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#21 Theo Alkema
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#41 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#61 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#69 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#70 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#73 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#74 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#75 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#76 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#4 Extended memory error recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#8 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#9 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#9 VM: checking some myths.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#17 IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#2 Most complex instructions (was Re: IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#34 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#39 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#8 Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#12 Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#54 DEC midnight requisition system

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

SMP idea for the future

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 20:16:56 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
(atomic) lockless manipulation of data structures is from Charlie's work at Cambridge Science Center on compare&swap instruction from the

also ... compare&swap ... for the CAS mnemonic was conjured up because C.A.S. are charlie's initials.

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

SMP idea for the future

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SMP idea for the future
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 02:59:51 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
(atomic) lockless manipulation of data structures is from Charlie's work at Cambridge Science Center on compare&swap instruction from the late '60s and made it into the 370 mainframe machines (early

compare and swap descriptions from esa/390 principles of operation:

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/7.5.22 Compare and Swap
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/7.5.23 Compare Double and Swap

descriptions that were originally in the 370 principles of operation "programming notes" for the compare and swap and compare double and swap instructions ... have been expanded and moved to

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/A.6 Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing Examples

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

Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer? Help!! Please

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Common uses of multiprogramming on mainframes computer?  Help!!  Please
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 14:23:57 GMT
Contavia@excite.com (Contavia) writes:
Can anyone help me? I really need some help ASAP.

Describe some common uses of multiprogramming on mainframe computers.


slightly related thread in comp.arch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#45
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#47
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#57
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#65
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#66
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#67

and from one of the above
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/A.6 Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing Examples

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

Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Programming in School (was: Re: Common uses...)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 15:47:07 GMT
"Walter Rottenkolber" writes:
I'm often surprised at how few new ideas there are in computing. What often seems new is really new technology that allows for an old idea to be implemented at an affordable price.

I imagine a lot of wheel reinventing happens because the old information is proprietary. It's also a time to take a second look and see if there isn't a better way.


i think there is an old(?) saying about computer science having a brain wipe every 5-6 years (allowing a lot of freedom with regarding to re-inventing wheels).

in my a.f.c. posting about the "SMP idea for the future" thread in comp.arch ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#68

there was a posting about a '98 paper regarding non-blocking semantics for multiprocessing concurrent operation ... and then somebody referenced that there was some even earlier work with some '88 paper. I got to reference the original compare&swap work that charlie did at the cambridge science center in the late '60s which resulted in the compare&swap instruction going into standard 370 machines in the early '70s and the description regarding non-blocking semantics for both multiprogramming as well as multiprocessing. Also, as an aside, the term compare&swap was something that had to be conjured up to go along with the mnemonic CAS ... because C.A.S. are charlie's initials.

& the current flavor of the 30+ year old description
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/A.6 Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing Examples

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

Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is anybody out there still writting BAL 370.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 16:01:02 GMT
Wild Bill writes:
It is the physical key of the record. It is pointed-to by a CCHHR stored in the VOL1 record, which is firmly planted at CCHHR 0,0,3 of every disk volume.

and the ability to specify the cylinder of the vtoc was introduced in os/360 15/16 ... prior to that the vtoc was at fixed location .. prior posting in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#37

it may not be so significant now with all the caching that goes on ... but it made a difference along with all the other stuff that i had done for careful disk location layout of system data (on 2314s).

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

Encryption + Error Correction

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Encryption + Error Correction
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2001 23:47:20 GMT
"John Hadstate" writes:
Suppose I am trying to transmit encrypted data through a relatively noisy channel. I can add enough redundancy to the message to allow me to recover almost all message blocks without requesting a retransmission. Could the addition of the error-correction envelope around the ciphertext in any way compromise the security of the encryption? Is it possible to combine the enciphering step with adding error-correction so that we produce a cipher with error-correcting properties?

that would imply that there were some very straight-forward operations that could be applied to ciphertext that would yield the plain text; if that turned out to be true ... those operations could be applied by anybody; which would imply weakness in the cipher.

in the '80s one of the companies prominent in reed-solomon encoding developed a strategy involving (for some FM-radio digital system)

1) nominal 15/16s reed-solomon on everything 2) selective resend of the Viterbi 1/2 rate code (not the original) 3) under high error rate, switch to continuously transmitting 1/2 rate Viterbi

on a 10--9 bit error rate channel, 15/16s reed-solomon gave about 6 orders of magnitude improvement ... effective 10-15 bit error rate channel

selective resend of the Viterbi 1/2 rate code implies that recovery could be performed even if the original and the selective resend were both received with uncorrectable errors (with 15/16s reed-solomon).

random refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#28 Log Structured filesystems -- think twice
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#115 What is the use of OSI Reference Model?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#210 AES cyphers leak information like sieves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#80 Disks size growing while disk count shrinking = bad performance

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

HP Compaq merger, here we go again.

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 18:52:45 GMT
ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:
And the personal hygiene facilities were extremely limited. One German submariner commented that he couldn't stand the smell of No. 4711 Ko'lnish Wasser after his stint in the Uboat. But if you think about it, having a shower in a sub is a little like the proverbial screen door - makes surfacing a bit dicey.

i went on a 100 mile hike in the sierras in the early '80s; coming down into yosemite valley from the back-side (up and over glacier(?) pass after having stopped at devils postpile on the back side) being up above 10k feet most of the trip ... most bar-soap and/or tobacco smell could be recognized a couple hundred yards away and resulted in a nausea re-action. It was a month before I could enter a public place like a large grocery store and not have a nausea re-action if there was even a single person on the opposite side of the store having recently smoked and smelled of tobacco.

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

Expanded Storage?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Expanded Storage?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 16:10:30 GMT
barry.a.schwarz@BOEING.COM (Schwarz, Barry A) writes:
Central storage is where your programs must reside to execute. It is where all data and instructions addresses resolve to. It is also where your data buffers must be to do I/O. It is addressed at the byte level.

Expanded storage is like cache or a ram drive that allows memory to be used as if it were an I/O device. One common use is for frequently accessed page frames that are not quite frequent enough to stay in central storage. It is addressed at the page level (I think I have this correct).


expanded storage original on 3090 had wide transfer bus and a synchronous page transfer instruction (i.e. the elapsed time for the instruction was significantly less than the pathlength to schedule a page i/o and process the resulting interrupt). the expanded storage bus on the 3090 was the only place that had the transfer rate that could tolerate a HiPPI connection (800mbyte/sec transfer) so instead of hooking it to any i/o inteface ... HiPPI interface & HiPPI devices (various disk arrays, processor-to-processor, etc connections) were grafted into the expanded storage bus. It was a little hoky since you couldn't do channel programming ... it was a little more like peek&poke PC I/O programming ... where transfer commands were moved to "reserved" axpanded storage addresses.

from some long ago archive
Re: Extended vs. expanded memory just to "refresh your memory"...

"Extended memory" refers to RAM at addresses 100000-FFFFFF. Although the PCAT only permits 100000-EFFFFF.

"Expanded memory" refers to the special Intel/Lotus memory paging scheme that maps up to 8 megabytes of RAM into a single 64K window beginning at absolute address 0D0000.

"Expended memory" refers to RAM that you can't use anymore. It is the opposite of Expanded Memory.

"Intended memory" refers to RAM that you were meant to use. It is the opposite of Extended Memory.

"Appended memory" refers to RAM you've got to add to make your application run.

"Upended memory" refers to RAM chips improperly inserted.

"Depended memory" refers to ROM that you cannot live without.

"Deep-ended memory" refers to RAM that you wish you had, but don't.


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

Expanded Storage?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Expanded Storage?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 16:13:36 GMT
Anne & Lynn Wheeler writes:
could tolerate a HiPPI connection (800mbyte/sec transfer) so instead

oops

could tolerate a HiPPI connection (800mbits/sec transfer) so instead

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

Disappointed

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Disappointed
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 18:17:35 GMT
Stewart Morin CES1999 writes:
I noticed that there were a lot of sarcastic and ignorant replies to Ryan's plea for help. I am also undertaking the essay which is a 3rd year masters introductory CAD essay. We realize there are the conventional avenues of research such as libraries and search engines. However being a news group dedicated to CAD we thought the advice from some, so called, experts would help us make a good start to the class. We also thought a news group was a forum for intelligent chat, conversation and sharing of ideas not an excuse to boast about ones intellect and belittle those with less knowledge than others. I hope this only applies to a minority of users in this news group and is not a reflection of all subscribers.

for quite some years ... there has tended to be a rash of homework requests around the start of fall semester posted to various usenet groups. strong negative response seems to have been the most effective in curtailing such extraneous & unwanted postings. Polite answers have tended to be much less effective ... in part because that population have been somewhat self-selecting; 1) not having done sufficient research in various of the usenet etiquette documents before having made the postings in the first place (aka RTFM), 2) not spent some amount of time lurking and experiencing usenet etiquette before jumping in as if they knew what they were doing (in effect, dis'ing the regular group participants).

Lastly, the observed behavior may be standard behavior for postings in some usenet groups (nothing personal).

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


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