List of Archived Posts

2017 Newsgroup Postings (12/06 - 12/31)

Data Breach Notification
The 1970s engineering recession
The 1970s engineering recession
Pearl Harbor
The 1970s engineering recession
The 1970s engineering recession
The 1970s engineering recession
The 1970s engineering recession
IBM Mainframe
Origin of Term "User Friendly"?
architectural levels, was OS-9
thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment
India's British Army: the Honorable East India Company's Lasting Military Impact
THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
The 1970s engineering recession
THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
The Ultimate Guide to the OODA-Loop
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Converting programs to accommodate 8-character userids and prefixes
The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation
Net Neutrality
Bad History
Bad History
little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
IBM etc I/O channels?
CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
IBM etc I/O channels?
IBM etc I/O channels?
CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
IBM etc I/O channels?
Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines
Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
APL
Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
When did the home computer die?
When did the home computer die?
The 50 Largest Stashes of Cash Companies Keep Overseas
Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
Taxing Social Security Benefits
When did the home computer die?
Spending, Deficit Concerns Arise With New Tax Law
Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines
'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions
'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions
When did the home computer die?
Failures and Resiliency
branch avoidance on orthodox Stanford RISC
SABRE after the 7090
Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War
The Windows 95 chime was created on a Mac
SABRE after the 7090
Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
Intrigued by IBM
Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial
SABRE after the 7090
Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial
IBM/PC
Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered

Data Breach Notification

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Data Breach Notification
Date: 06 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
we were brought in to help wordsmith cal. state legislation, at the time they were doing the electronic signature act, data breach notification act and "opt-in" privacy sharing act.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

Some of the operations had been heavily involved in privacy and done detailed, in-depth public surveys and the #1 issue was identity theft involving fraudulent financial transactions ... mostly as a result of various kinds of data breaches. The issue was that little or nothing was being done about them and it was hoped that publicity from the notifications would result in corrective action. The problem turns out that most entities take security measures in self-protection ... however in the case of these breaches, the institutions weren't at risk, it was the publiic (and so there was no self-interest to do something about it).

more trivia: several of the financial fraud involve payment card transactions ... copying the merchant and/or transaction processor databases. Part of the problem is that the merchant is required to have access/keep the transaction details for dozens of different business processes (even encrypted, there is constant decryption going on as part of normal business processes). Another part is the value of transaction information to the merchant is profit on the transaction (possibly a couple dollars, and a couple cents to a transaction processor). The value of the information to the crook is the account balance (or credit limit) ... possibly hundreds to thousands of dollars .... so the crooks have significant incentive to spend a lot more money attacking systems than can be spent defending.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#harvest

Two decades ago, we authored a transaction standard that tweaked the current infrastructure, eliminating crooks being able to use information from previous transactions for new fraudulent transactions (eliminates many of the risks from breaches and significantly reduces need for lots of encryption) .... but there are a number of reasons why the status quo hasn't changed.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

Something similar (but different) in the OPM breach ... last decade there was enormous increase in outsourcing to for-profit companies ... especially those that had been bought by private-equity companies ... as in the case of the OPM breach as well as Snowden's employer and companies that were suppose to be doing security clearances (but found to be filling out the paperwork but not actually doing the background checks). Companies in the private-equity mills are under intense pressure to cut corners and turn over as much money as possible to their owners. Part of it is also that beltway bandits can't use money from gov. contracts to lobby congress .... however private-equity companies found that they could buy up gov. contractors and do as much lobbying as they wanted (on behalf of the companies they bought)

Just the intelligence community ... 70% of the budget and over half the people
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us
which significantly contributes to the rapidly spreading success of failure culture (more profit from series of failures)
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

success of failure posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

The private-equity that owned the OPM contractor was also getting billions in no-bid IRAQ contracts last decade.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/24/opm-contractor-veritas

Dataprocessing triva: AMEX was in competition with KKR for private-equity take-over of RJR, and KKR wins. KKR runs into trouble and hires away president of AMEX to help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco

IBM goes into the red and was being organized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company. The board then hires the former AMEX president who reverses the breakup using some of the same techniques used at RJR
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

Barbarians at the Capitol: Private Equity, Public Enemy
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/
Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87 billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James Baker III on its employee roster
... snip ...

Which acquires beltway bandit that will employ Snowden.

at least by the 80s, financial & gov. were using multi-party oeprations as countermeasure to insider threats for high value operations. A couple months after the Snowden event, the NSA director mentioned something about having to move to multi-party operations (apparently having been eliminated in the move to outsourcing to private-equity for-profit companies ... looking to increase their profit margin)

posts mentioning private-equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
posts mentioning former AMEX president, IBM CEO, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 05:42:46 -0800 (PST)
On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-5, RJH wrote:
Do you happen to know the name of the law?

We don't have anything like that in the UK - loans are IIRC regulated, and lenders always seem to be pushing at the envelope of whatever 'risk' means at any one time.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#89 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#100 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#101 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#102 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#105 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#106 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#107 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#108 The 1970s engineering recession

Lots of the regulation was put in place after '29 crash ... FDIC insured deposits also required FDIC regulation of FDIC insured depository institutions to make sure that deposits weren't put at risk through "risky" loans (using deposits for loans&mortgages). It wasn't so much regulating risk of loans ... but making sure that deposits weren't used for risky loans.

Black (a S&L regulator) wrote a book about the best way to rob a bank is to buy one. During the 80s S&L crisis, the vp (BUSH) claimed in knew nothing about the iran/contra affair because he was full-time deregulating the S&L industry. Basically there were lots of people buying and/or becoming S&L officers and then lending to themselves (and/or friends) ... especially really risky real estate activity (at least two of the BUSH sons involved in such activity, recent references posted).

Last decade non-FDIC insured, unregulated institutions got into mortgages ... by packaging them up, paying for triple-A ratings and then selling into (essentially) wallstreet bond market (deposits at FDIC-insured depository institutions weren't directly being put at risk). Number one time's list of those responsible for the economic mess ran one such institutions.

However, at the end of the century, repeal of Glass-Steagall was added to GBLA. Glass-Steagall had been passed in the 30s to help protect depository institutions by preventing them engaging in non-regulated and risky investment banking activities. With the repeal of Glass-Steagall, an institution that owned a regulated depository institution, could also own a non-regulated investment bank that practiced all sorts of non-safe activity ... which could take down the whole operation (including the depository institution ... putting tax payers on the hook thru FDIC-insurance ... for their unsafe activities).

Repeal of Glass-Steagall also enabled these mega-financial operations (intermixing safe & unsafe activities) ... leading to Too big to fail, Too big to prosecute and Too big to jail. End of 2008, the four largest Too Big To Fail were carrying $5.2T in offbook, toxic assets (out of the $27T done 2001-2008) ... not on their regulated, insured depository institution side ... but on their unregulated, investment banking side. Earlier in 2008, few tens of billions in those toxic assets had been selling at 22cents on the dollar. For the aggregate portfolio for those four institutions would have been four trillion in losses ... forcing all four institutions to be liquidated.

This corporate shell game with subsidiaries ... has been also used for profitable operations to separate their human/labor intensive operations into a business that is break even (or loosing money) and book substantial profit in a different subsidiary. Saw that with airlines, where they fixed the books so airlines operation subsidiary was loosing money and all the profit booked in the ticket selling subsidiary. Even had case where airline operation subsidiary declared bankruptcy and dumped employee retirement plan into FEDs lap. The next stage was registering the subsidiary booking all the profit in an offshore tax haven (US company making, selling, delivering to US customers, created "distributor" subsidiary in offshore tax haven, the plant sells to the offshore distributor at cost, which then sells to the US customer at profit ... and all the profit is booked offshore, the actual equipment goes directly from US plant to US customer).

S&L crisis posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#s&l.crisis
Pecora Hearings and/or Glass-Steagall posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
"economic mess" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2017 06:06:31 -0800 (PST)
On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 4:00:50 AM UTC-5, maus wrote:
AFAIK, the boom (bubble?) was caused by efforts to mitigate the losses in the 2000ish Internet bubble, which threatened the ecomomy, so A.Greenspan loosened the strings, and once the horses (metaphorically) had bolted, there were no ways to stop them.

That is mostly obfuscation and misdirection. In 1999, when I was asked to help try and prevent the coming economic mess ... the description was some investment bankers had walked away "clean" from the S&L crisis, where then internet IPO mills (invest a few tens of millions, hype for a couple years, and then IPO for a couple billion, they should fail, leaving the field open for the next round of IPOs) ... and were predicted to next get into securitized mortgages.

In the wake of the 2008 crash, federal reserve then bought up trillions in offbook toxic assets (at 98cents on the dollar, they had been going for 22cent on the dollar earlier in the year) and was providing tens of trillions in ZIRP funds. The too big to fail were using the ZIRP funds to buy treasuries and making something like $300B/year (aggregate).

However for this whole thing to work, the federal government had to have huge trillions in debt. This is earlier reference that current $20T federal debt was sort of confluence of Federal Reserve and wallstreet want huge federal debt (for the ZIRP fund game), DOD wanting huge spending increase (including 2 wars), and special interests wanting huge tax cut

I've pointed out before one of the unintended consequences of credit rating agencies selling triple-A ... before the final crash the muni-bond market froze. Issue was that investors were starting to become aware that rating agencies were selling triple-A (for things that weren't worth triple-A) and possibly no ratings could be trusted. Eventually warren buffet started offering muni-bond insurance in order to unfreeze the muni-bond market.

One of the more obvious consequence of letting the fiscal responsibility act expire in 2002 (with the subsequent enormous cut in taxes and enormous increase in spending, including for the two wars) ... is with the explosion in federal debt to $20T ... the other side of too big to fail making $300B/annum off using ZIRP funds for treasuries ... the federal budget for paying interest on the debt is getting to $500B/yr. They don't talk about that $500B/yr (as part of the budget) they created as result of letting fiscal responsibility act lapse in 2002.

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
ZIRP funds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp
Fiscal Responsibility Act posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#89 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#100 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#101 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#102 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#105 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#106 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#107 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#108 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#1 The 1970s engineering recession

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Pearl Harbor

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Pearl Harbor
Date: 07 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
The Battle of Bretton Woods:
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Bretton-Woods-Relations-University-ebook/dp/B00B5ZQ72Y/

Another part of Bretton Woods is the primary US person, asst SECTREAS White ... was also working on behalf of Stalin. Stalin was dealing with nearly all of German military on one front and was afraid Japan would come in on his other front (already 2/3rds of Japan military was devoted to China). Stalin sent White a draft of demands for US to present to Japan, that Stalin felt would prompt Japan to attack US (which would preclude Japan attacking Soviets)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White#Venona_project
and the Hull Note, US Demands transmitted to Japan just prior to attack on Pearl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations

in the Allied invasion of Europe, fortunately 3/4s of German military was occupied with Soviets.

US assistant secretary of treasury Harry Dexter White was operating on behalf of Stalin. Stalin was worried that Japan would attack from the east (opening another front) when he was already dealing with 3/4ths German military. He wanted to draw Japan into attacking US, so he sent White draft demands for US to transmit to Japan ... in US Hull note (ultimatum) which was major factor in Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White#Venona_project
hull note
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations
More Venona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

also:
Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed to execute.
... contributing to Nationalist loosing China. In the Allied invasion of Europe, fortunately 3/4s of German military was occupied with Soviets

Benn Stein in "The Battle of Bretton Woods" spends pages 55-58 discussing "Operation Snow".
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Bretton-Woods-Relations-University-ebook/dp/B00B5ZQ72Y/

pg56/loc1065-66:
The Soviets had, according to Karpov, used White to provoke Japan to attack the United States. The scheme even had a name: "Operation Snow," snow referring to White.

... also

Eric Rauchway Battles "The Battle of Bretton Woods"
https://www.cfr.org/blog/eric-rauchway-battles-battle-bretton-woods
Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Snow-Soviet-Triggered-Harbor-ebook/dp/B009KN1RUU/
Pearl Harbor: Operation Snow
https://www.historyonthenet.com/pearl-harbor-operation-snow/
The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy
https://books.google.com/books?id=pbyAycr32g4C&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=operation+snow+karpov&source=bl&ots=ioSWDtclcy&sig=8BERLSlsda8OHpZzLlA7oc64jw0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEremg6ebXAhUU1WMKHQ2tDuYQ6AEIRDAF#v=onepage&q=operation%20snow%20karpov&f=false

Milton Miles Different Kind Of War
https://www.amazon.com/different-kind-war-little-known-guerrilla/dp/B0007IYOFW/
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Different_Kind_of_War.html?id=U4pBAAAAIAAJ

Last part of book, Miles attributes OSS & Army (Wedemeyer) giving China to the communists, even before the end of the war (OSS/ARMY wanted to take over responsibility for the Nationalists ... but were rebuffed by Navy & Chiang ... so they turned to the communists where they could take full responsibility).

Marine account of Miles in China
https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2009/11/marines-china
and
http://www.saconavy.com/

Stilwell's biography puts a slightly different spin on it. After defeat of the Germans, Marshall turned his attention to Japanese. The chinese communists were being portrayed as not "real" communists and Marshall believed that he needed Soviet army help in defeating the Japanese ... and to placate Stalin, he provided arms & supplies to the Chinese communists.
https://www.amazon.com/Stilwell-American-Experience-China-1911-1945-ebook/dp/B00KUQITNE/

Later, Marshall was SecSTATE (i.e. Marshall Plan in Europe) and in 1949 the state department puts out a white paper trying to absolve State for loosing china
https://archive.org/details/VanSlykeLymanTheChinaWhitePaper1949
also
https://web.archive.org/web/20090813223215/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804381,00.html

recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#90 Economist, Harry Dent Hints: Global Banks Facing a Serious Crisis in Months Ahead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#91 Godwin's Law should force us to remember & fear our shared heritage with Nazi Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#55 Should America Have Entered World War I?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#18 5 Naval Battles That Changed History Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#4 Mapping the decentralized world of tomorrow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#105 Iraq, Longest War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#28 WW2 Internment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#68 Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#75 WW II cryptography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#79 WW II cryptography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#81 WW II cryptography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#36 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#56 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#57 About Unconventional warfare

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 04:11:21 -0800 (PST)
On Friday, December 8, 2017 at 12:54:53 AM UTC-5, RJH wrote:
That's the bit I don't get - how unregulated lenders were able to buy ratings and sell their loan portfolio (or rather, persuade other banks to buy it). The actual money lending isn't that unusual.

I suppose my 'surprise' is naive - it was all part of the wave of deregulation that started in the 80s (maybe earlier in the US). 'How could such a thing happen?'. On hindsight, even I would have figured out the scam if I'd worked in financial services. Maybe :-) It takes a particular form of hunger to realize that type of fraud - I felt the Big Short dramatised it well.


Being able to pay for triple-A and sell into the bond market turned lending into transaction business (some percent of the loan) before unloading (as fast as possible). Previously mortgages had been regulated depository institutions using depository institutions making "safe" loans and making money off the loan/mortgage payments.

Nearing the end ... the bond market wasn't buying (like muni-bond market freezing as buyers starting to believe that ratings might not be trusted because of their selling triple-A ... when they knew they weren't worth triple-A) ... then guys running the operation were cutting deals with other too big to fail operations where they would sell equal amounts to each other ... their institutions paid them commission on the "sale" transaction ... even as they were buying equivalent amounts from the other institution. There were however some number of sales to outside operations near the end ... like the few tens of billions that had gone on summer/fall of 2008 for 22cents on the dollar.

With the over $27T done 2001-2008 ... estimate is wallstreet managed to skim off $4T-$5T in commission and fees ... and the financial services industry tripling in size (as percent of GPD) during the period ... while destroying the real estate market and nearly taking down the US economy. Also NY state commissioner published report that total/aggregate wallstreet bonuses quadrupled in the period (rather than banks making & holding mortgages, running the transactions through wallstreet bond market was all new wallstreet business ... which significantly increased business being run through their operations)

economic mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:08:29 -0800 (PST)
from earlier post, 1999, I had been asked to help prevent the coming economic mess. Securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages (posterchild were office bldg mortgages in Dallas/Ft.Worth area that turned out to be empty lots). I was told there were some investment bankers had walked away "clean" from the S&L crisis and were then running Internet IPO mills (invest a few million, hype for year or two, IPO for a couple billion, should then fail leaving the field clear for the next round of IPOs). They were then predicted to next get into securitized mortgages (again).

I was to improve the integrity of the securitized mortgages supporting documents as countermeasure. However, they then find that they can pay rating agencies for triple-A (even when rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A). Triple-A trumps supporting documents and they can start doing no-documentation, liar loans, securitize, pay for triple-A and sell off into the market (initially as fast as they can be made) .... enabling over $27T 2001-2008.

economic mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

however, from recent WW2 post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?

My wife's father was command of engineering combat group in Europe and towards the end was frequently ranking officer into enemy territory (including some camps) ... getting collection of German officer daggers in surrenders (I've found his european status reports at national archives). After hostilities, he refused further command in Germany (even when promised promotion to general) ... possibly based on experience from camps. In any case, in 1946 they sent him to Nanking to be military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek and he brought his family over in 1947. Somebody that knew his history recommended Milton Miles account of Miles time in China during the war
https://www.amazon.com/different-kind-war-little-known-guerrilla/dp/B0007IYOFW/
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Different_Kind_of_War.html?id=U4pBAAAAIAAJ

Last part of book, Miles attributes OSS & Army (Wedemeyer) giving China to the communists, even before the end of the war (OSS/ARMY wanted to take over responsibility for the Nationalists ... but were rebuffed by Navy & Chiang ... so they turned to the communists where they could take full responsibility).

Marine account of Miles in China
https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2009/11/marines-china
and
http://www.saconavy.com/

Stillwell's biography puts a slightly different spin on it. After defeat of the Germans, Marshall turned his attention to Japanese. The chinese communists were being portrayed as not "real" communists and Marshall believed that he needed Soviet army help in defeating the Japanese ... and to placate Stalin, he provided arms & supplies to the Chinese communists.
https://www.amazon.com/Stilwell-American-Experience-China-1911-1945-ebook/dp/B00KUQITNE/

Later, Marshall was SecSTATE (i.e. Marshall Plan in Europe) and in 1949 the state department puts out a white paper trying to absolve State for loosing china
https://archive.org/details/VanSlykeLymanTheChinaWhitePaper1949
also
https://web.archive.org/web/20090813223215/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804381,00.html

Something I posted a year ago today on facebook:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#54 CFTC Reproposes Position Limits Rule

CFTC used to have a rule that significant position in a commodity was required in order to play, because speculators cause wild, irrational price swings. Then 19 "secret letters" go out allow speculators to play ... results include the huge spike in oil&gas summer of 2008 (speculators pump&dump on the way up and short on the way down, enormous profits on volatility they cause).

A senator then publishes transaction detail showing those responsible; the mainstream press lambastes the senator for violating those corporations' privacy (corporations are people too)

Earlier, chair of CFTC had proposed regulating derivatives ... and was quickly replaced by the wife of senator that is #2 on time's list of those responsible for the economic mess, while the senator gets law passed preventing derivative regulation. The wife then resigns and joins ENRON board & audit committee. It was originally billed as gift to ENRON, but then used by those creating securitized mortgages designed to fail, paying for triple-A rating, selling to their victims, and then taking out derivative gambling bets that they would fail).

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, loc4985-88:
The final result, Jefferson believed, was "the least bad of all the turns the thing can take." 90 It was true that he hated the financial speculation that would result from the Hamiltonian vision of commerce. "It is much to be wished that every discouragement should be thrown in the way of men who undertake to trade without capital," Jefferson said.
... snip ...

griftopia posts (references CFTC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#griftopia

... yesterday was bombing of pearl harbor ... another ww2 post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html# Pearl Harbor

US assistant secretary of treasury Harry Dexter White was operating on behalf of Stalin. Stalin was worried that Japan would attack from the east (opening another front) when he was already dealing with 3/4ths German military. He wanted to draw Japan into attacking US, so he sent White draft demands for US to transmit to Japan ... in US Hull note (ultimatum) which was major factor in Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White#Venona_project
hull note
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations
More Venona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

also:
Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed to execute.
... snip ...

... contributing to Nationalist loosing China. In the Allied invasion of Europe, fortunately 3/4s of German military was occupied with Soviets

Benn Stein in "The Battle of Bretton Woods" spends pages 55-58 discussing "Operation Snow".
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Bretton-Woods-Relations-University-ebook/dp/B00B5ZQ72Y/

pg56/loc1065-66:
The Soviets had, according to Karpov, used White to provoke Japan to attack the United States. The scheme even had a name: "Operation Snow," snow referring to White.
... snip ...

also

Eric Rauchway Battles "The Battle of Bretton Woods"
https://www.cfr.org/blog/eric-rauchway-battles-battle-bretton-woods
Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Snow-Soviet-Triggered-Harbor-ebook/dp/B009KN1RUU/
Pearl Harbor: Operation Snow
https://www.historyonthenet.com/pearl-harbor-operation-snow/
The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy
https://books.google.com/books?id=pbyAycr32g4C&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=operation+snow+karpov&source=bl&ots=ioSWDtclcy&sig=8BERLSlsda8OHpZzLlA7oc64jw0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEremg6ebXAhUU1WMKHQ2tDuYQ6AEIRDAF#v=onepage&q=operation%20snow%20karpov&f=false

posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#89 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#100 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#101 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#102 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#105 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#106 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#107 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#108 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#1 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#2 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#4 The 1970s engineering recession

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:28:55 -0800 (PST)
I also got brought into meetings held at the Mortgage Bankers Association ... across the park from IMF and World Bank in DC. Turns out it wasn't really about improving integrity of the supporting documents in securitized mortgages. They apparently wanted help in pushing MERS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_Electronic_Registration_Systems

which was really about being able to turn over mortgages faster ... as well as bypassing state & local laws about registration and fees ... associated when things were securitized and sold.

trivia: when things were crashing, president of Mortgage Bankers Association was telling TV and the press that people shouldn't just walk away from their (especially underwater) mortgages. Then one of the TV news (CNN, CBS?) found out that he & Mortgage Bankers Association had walked away from the mortgage on their new bldg (across the park from IMF and world bank).

"economic mess" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2017 07:48:58 -0800 (PST)
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession

and from National Archives (wife's father) status report
On 28 Apr we were put in D/S of the 13th Armd and 80th Inf Divs and G/S Corps Opns. The night of the 28-29 April we cross the DANUBE River and the next day we set-up our OP in SCHLOSS PUCHHOF (vic PUCHOFF); an extensive structure remarkable for the depth of its carpets, the height of its rooms, the profusion of its game, the superiority of its plumbing and the fact that it had been owned by the original financial backer of the NAZIS, Fritz Thyssen. Herr Thyssen was not at home.

Forward from the DANUBE the enemy had been very active, and an intact bridge was never seen except by air reconnaissance. Maintenance of roads and bypasses went on and 29 April we began constructing 835' of M-2 Tdwy Br, plus a plank road approach over the ISAR River at PLATTLING. Construction was completed at 1900 on the 30th. For the month of April we had suffered no casualties of any kind and Die Gotterdamerung was falling, the last days of the once mighty WEHRMACHT.

... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM Mainframe

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Mainframe
Date: 08 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
1980, STL con'ed me into doing channel-extender support. They were bursting at the seams and were moving 300 people from IMS group to offsite bldg. They had tried "remote" 3270 ... but found the human factors totally unacceptable. I did support to put channel attached 3270 controllers at the remote bldg (with connectivity back to STL datacenter) and they couldn't tell the difference (from service inside the bldg). There was an attempt to release it to customers, but some guys in POK that were playing with some serial stuff got it vetoed ... they were afraid that it would make it harder to get their stuff released.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

About that time there was (also) article in east coast paper (Wash times?) calling for 100% unearned profit tax on the auto industry. Supposedly congress had created foreign auto import quota to reduce competition, giving US industry enormous profits that they were to invest totally remaking themselves ... but they just pocketed the money and maintained the status quo.

1988, I'm asked to help LLNL standardize some serial stuff they'd been playing with ... which quickly becomes fibre channel standard ... including some stuff that I had done back in 1980.

Then in 1990, the POK serial stuff gets released with ES/9000 as ESCON when it is already obsolete.

Also in 1990, US auto industry has C4 taskforce to look at completely remaking themselves (finally?). Because they were planning on heavily leveraging technology, they had invited representatives from technology vendors. They explained part of their problem was it was taking 7-8yrs to turn out new model ... they typically ran two efforts in parallel, offset 3-4yrs so it looked like they were doing something more often (with cosmetic changes every year in between). Foreign competition had cut that time in half in the mid-80s and in 1990 were in the process of cutting it in half again (18-24 months to come out with something new, leveraging new technology and adapting to changing customer references). In addition to not being agile, they found that with increasing tight tolerances, design from 7-8yrs previously, some supplier parts no longer fit resulting in further delays and costly rework. Offline, I would chide the POK mainframe representatives how could they expect to help since they had many of the same problems.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

At the time, we had been doing IBM's RS/6000 HA/CMP product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... and working with RDBMS vendors on commercial cluster scale-up and with national labs (including LLNL) and others on scientific/technical cluster scale-up. Reference to JAN1992 commercial cluster scale-up meeting in Ellison's conference room
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
and some related email from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

within a few weeks of that Ellison meeting, the scale-up work is transferred, announced as IBM supercomputers (for scientific and technical *ONLY*) and we are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors. We decide to leave a few months later. Part of the problem possibly was that the mainframe DB2 people had been claiming if we were allowed to go ahead, we would be years far in advance of them.

IBM has also gone into the red and was being reorganized into the 13 "Baby Blues" in preparation for breaking up the company ... as well as lots of people being laid off. It was in this period that the POK email went out about would the last person to leave POK, please turn out the lights. We had already left, when we get a call from the bowels of Armonk about helping with the breakup. It turns out lots of business operations were using MOUs to piggy-back off supplier contracts in other divisions. With the breakup, these supplier-contracts would be in different companies ... and the MOUs needed to be inventoried and turned into their own contracts. Before we get started, the board has brought in a new CEO and the breakup is reversed. He had been president of AMEX when they were in competition with KKR for private equity take-over of RJR and KKR wins. KKR runs into some trouble and hires away the AMEX president to turn things around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
then the board hires him away ... and some of the same techniques are used (as at RJR)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions

Later some POK channel engineers define a heavy weight protocol for the fiber channel standard that drastically cuts the native throughput and is released as FICON.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

The most recent published "peak I/O" benchmark that I can find is z196 using 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre channel) getting 2M IOPS. About the same time a fibre channel is announced for E5-2600 blade claiming over million IOPS (two such fibre channel have higher native throughput than a 104 FICON running over 104 fibre channel).

z900, 16 processors, 2.5BIPS (156MIPS/proc), Dec2000
z990, 32 processors, 9BIPS, (281MIPS/proc), 2003
z9, 54 processors, 18BIPS (333MIPS/proc), July2005
z10, 64 processors, 30BIPS (469MIPS/proc), Feb2008
z196, 80 processors, 50BIPS (625MIPS/proc), Jul2010
EC12, 101 processors, 75BIPS (743MIPS/proc), Aug2012
z13, 141 processors, 100BIPS (710MIPS/proc), Jan2015
z14, 170 processor, 150 BIPS, (882MIPS/proc), Aug2017


z196 era e5-2600V1 blade was 530BIPS (ten times max. z1960) and around $3/BIPS, compared to something like $600,000/BIPS for z196 possibly down to $200,000/BIPS for z14. Current E5-2600-v5 blade (xeon, being rebanded gold & platinum) is 4-5 times BIPS of V1 blade and under dollar/BIPS. One of the issues is the migration to cloud and the selloff of IBM server business ... large cloud operators for more than a decade, claim they assemble their own servers for 1/3rd the cost of brand name boxes (cutting much of the remaining profit margin out of the hardware business).

Earlier in the 60s, there was ACS-360 effort, Amdahl describes IBM executives were afraid that it would advance the state of the art too fast and they would loose control of the market. This talks about the ACS-360 effort, its shutdown, and some of the features that show up more than 20years later in 1990 with ES/9000.
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Origin of Term "User Friendly"?

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Origin of Term "User Friendly"?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 10:05:00 -0800 (PST)
On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 8:21:51 AM UTC-5, Dario Niedermann wrote:
That sounds like a dogma...

video clip from Boyd about never mentioning doctrine in his works because day-2 doctrine turns into dogma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heWpHSOMAmY&feature=share

posts (and URLs from around the web) mentioning Boyd (&/or OODA-loop)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

architectural levels, was OS-9

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: architectural levels, was OS-9
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2017 10:20:06 -0800 (PST)
On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 12:22:18 PM UTC-5, J. Clarke wrote:
ISO 9000--adding toilet paper to a mountain of crap

ISO-9000, 6-sigma, etc ... manufacturing, consistently replicating parts. I remember ISO-9000 audit where part of it was asking people if their tasks were documented and if they had read the documentation.

note some of the scrum/agile have discovered Boyd's OODA-loop (a couple even have shown up at Boyd meetings) ... disclaimer, I use to sponsor Boyd's briefings at IBM ..
http://blog.aglx.consulting/2016/02/20/OODA-the-mindset-of-scrum/
https://blog.smartbear.com/development/john-boyd-and-the-origins-of-agility/
https://cm.engineering/defining-an-agile-delivery-plan-with-the-OODA-loop-c723b21b4f1c

posts (and URLs from around the web) mentioning Boyd (&/or OODA-loop)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 07:18:12 -0800 (PST)
On Saturday, December 9, 2017 at 10:01:11 PM UTC-5, Bernd Felsche wrote:
A decade ago, Fusion-IO brought out high-speed, long-life NAND for "prosumers".

I waited for the industry to discover the joys of NUMA for direct address mapping of all storage ... JEDEC 230 published, falling short of the "pluggable" support and no operating systems appear to have embraced what should be possible.

Reasonably-quick NAND is available on SATA M.2 in max sizes of about 1TB. Even if the bus is usable, operating system and application support falls short. Paradigms have to shift. IIRC, some way back to when all storage was core.


Mid-70s, I started claiming that disks relative system throughput was declining, by early 80s, I claimed that disk relative system throughput had declined by order of magnitude (disks had gotten 3-5 times faster, processor had gotten 50 times faster). As a result systems were using increasing larger memories for caching to compensate for "slowing" disks. Now, latency to memory when measured in count of processor cycles is comparable to 60s latency to disk (when measured in count of 60s processor cycles).

old refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#43 Bloat, elegance, simplicity and other irrelevant concepts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#55 How Do the Old Mainframes Compare to Today's Micros?
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

3090 was trying to design to "balanced" throughput configuration. However the amount of real storage needed ... latency started to physically exceed the specified processor specification (physical packaging). As a result they went to two level storage. "Regular" memory and (software managed) "expanded storage" (this was different from 60s mainframe LCS which operated as regular processor latency but much slower, 60s strategies was either 1) differentiate what was placed in LCS or 2) simulate electronic disk where records were moved to/from). Extended store was more like LCS #2 ... but had a special wide bus and a special synchronous instructions that moved 4k records to/from standard memory and "expanded store". The synchronous instructions were still enormously faster than the pathlength for asynchronous i/o.

Out in San Jose, executives had made a decision to significantly cost reduce the new 3880 disk controller (for 3mbyte 3380 disks) ... it had special hardware path for 3mbyte data transfer ... but the microprocessor for control operations was enormously slower than the previous 3830 controller (for 3330 disks). The 3090 processor people had anticipated that 3880 would be like 3830 but with 3mbyte data transfer. When they found out how bad it was (significantly increasing channel busy for I/O operations), they realized they had to double the number of channels to achieve the target throughput. Doubling the number of channels, required adding additional (expensive) TCM to 3090 manufacturing. The semi-joke, was 3090 people would bill the 3880 group for the increase in 3090 manufacturing cost.

The other problem was 3090 tried to (also) target for the supercomputer market ... adding vector facility ... although the 3090 complained that they had already improved floating point so the scalar floating point ran as fast as data could be transferred between processor and memory (vector was supposed to compensate for extremely slow floating point where memory speed could keep large number of floating point units feed). The real "problem" was that the supercomputer market had moved to disk arrays 10-20 times faster than 3090 channels (as part of keeping supercomputer operations feed). The only interface that was fast enough to handle HiPPI disk arrays was the "expanded store" interface. They designed real rube goldberg hack for HiPPI support cut into side of "expanded store" that used PEEK/POKE protocol to move data & control operations, 4k bytes at a time to/from HiPPI "reserved addresses".

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#9 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#39 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#3 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#50 The Subroutine Call
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#99 SHARE Blog: News Flash: The Mainframe (Still) Isn't Dead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#69 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#4 GREAT presentation on the history of the mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#63 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#50 System/360--detailed engineering description (AFIPS 1964)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 07:25:22 -0800 (PST)
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#11 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

Later, when it was possible to package all real memory directly ... management of "expanded store" was so integrated into page replacement algorithm ... they had to included special LPAR configuration that used blocks of real memory for simulating "expanded store" i.e. for several years, configuring all real memory as directly addressable processor storage had lower throughput than partitioning part of real processor storage emulating "expanded store" (several times over the years I got to ridicule some of the stuff that was being shipped to customers).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 08:18:39 -0800 (PST)
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#104 Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment

While I was at Boeing, they also moved the 360-67 two-processor SMP from Boeing Huntsville to Seattle.

The machine had been originally installed to run TSS/360 supporting several 2250 displays doing design work. When TSS/360 didn't reach maturity, the partitioned the machine into two single processors both running OS/360 MVT. They encountered the problem the problem with MVT storage management problem that was especially exacerbated by long running applications (like 2250 design applications) leading to increasing storage fragmentation & exhaustion.

As a result they did some simple modifications to MVT release 13 to support virtual memory. There was single virtual address space the same size as the real machine size ... and no paging. The sole purpose was countermeasure to MVT storage fragmentation ... where storage addresses could be reorganized into contiguous areas.

While I was at Boeing, they also moved the 360-67 two-processor SMP that had been at Boeing Huntsville to Seattle.

The machine had been originally installed to run TSS/360 supporting several 2250 displays doing design work. When TSS/360 didn't reach maturity, the partitioned the machine into two single processors both running OS/360 MVT. They encountered the problem the problem with MVT storage management problem that was especially exacerbated by long running applications (like 2250 design applications) leading to increasing storage fragmentation & exhaustion.

As a result they did some simple modifications to MVT release 13 to support virtual memory. There was single virtual address space the same size as the real machine size ... and no paging. The sole purpose was countermeasure to MVT storage fragmentation ... where storage addresses could be reorganized into contiguous areas. This is similar to the later justification to move all 370s to virtual memory motivated by the horrible MVT storage management problems ... discussed in this old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73

360/67 functional characteristics
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf
TSS documentation
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/tss/

MVT storage management problems also contributes to CICS implementation where it attempts to obtain all is resources (and open all its files) at startup ... and then does its own resource management ... relying as little as possible on MVT. past posts mentioning CICS (and/or BDAM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics

Boyd posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

India's British Army: the Honorable East India Company's Lasting Military Impact

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: India's British Army: the Honorable East India Company's Lasting Military Impact
Date: 11 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
India's British Army: the Honorable East India Company's Lasting Military Impact
http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD1038800

Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game (Craig Murray), loc7889-91:
As British India went through its conquest cycles, the frequent wars had always been expensive. But they had paid off with revenues bringing a return on the investment. Afghanistan was a dead loss – there was no prospect even in the medium term of Afghanistan becoming profitable.

loc7891-92:
The Secret Committee in London at the end of 1840 had suggested to Auckland that he consider pulling out. Auckland argued for more time time, and that expenditure could be reduced.
... snip ...

they reduced expenditure so much that they were overcome by the natives.

Part of "return on investment" was looting the county and changing from growing food to things like cotton .... resulting in massive famines and millions starving ... claims are Bengal had highest standard of living and literacy in the world before english take over

This says that in 1655, bengal was richest place in earth ... but by 1755, britain had reduced it to one of the poorest. also WW2, churchill was using shipping capacity to stockpile/hoard food for after the war resulting in 3m-6m indian startvation deaths
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VTZXC2/

past posts mentioning referencing above:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#16 Keydriven bit permutations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#35 Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#62 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#23 Frieden calculator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#18 5 Naval Battles That Changed History Forever

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
Date: 11 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
https://hackaday.com/2017/12/11/the-ibm-pc-that-broke-ibm/

mid-80s, top IBM executives were predicting that corporate revenue would double mostly based on mainframe business ... and there was massive internal bldg program to double mainframe manufacturing capacity.

however, a couple years later, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the internal, world-wide annual communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had stranglehold on datacenter with their corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely fighting distributed computing and client/server trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. They had come up with several solutions, but they were constantly vetoed by the communication group.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

note that the communication group stranglehold on mainframe datacenters wasn't just impacting disk sales ... but the whole mainframe business and a couple years later IBM has gone into the red and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company

Other triva: early 70s, IBM had "Future System" effort that was completely different than 370 and was going to completely replace it. During this period, internal politics were shutting down 370 efforts ... the lack of 370 efforts during this period is credited with giving clone system makers a market foothold. I continued to work on 370 stuff in this period and periodical FS stuff ... which wasn't exactly career enhancing activity. Then when FS finally failed there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines. Ferguson & Morris, "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Time Books (FS reference)

... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with "sycophancy" and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

... and ...

But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its wrongheadedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive

... snip ...

Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

Last product we did at IBM was HA/CMP.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
We were starting working on HA/CMP cluster scale-up ... both for scientific/technical with national labs and for commercial with RDBMS vendors. Old post with reference to JAN1992 commercial scale-up meeting in Ellison's conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
and old email from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

a couple weeks after the Ellison meeting, cluster scale-up was transferred, announced as supercomputer for scientific/technical *ONLY* and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. We leave IBM a few months later on the next "early out".

Actually, Boca/PS2 did a lot to mess up RS/6000. The precursor ROMP with PC/AT bus (PC/RT) did their own cards. Then for RS/6000 with microchannel, AWD were told that they couldn't do their own cards, they had to use PS2 microchannel cards. For the PC/RT, they had done a PC/AT bus (16bit) 4mbit token-ring card ... but for RS/6000, they were forced to use the PS2 microchannel (32bit) 16mbit token-ring card. It turns out the PC/RT 4mbit T/R card, had higher per-card throughput than the PS2 16mbit T/R card (dictated by the communication group as part of its dumb terminal emulation strategy). The joke was if RS/6000 was restricted to only using PS2 cards, it wouldn't have any higher throughput than PS2. As part of strategy to get around corporate mandate, they came out with RS/6000 730, a machine with VMEbus (instead of microchannel) ... and since there were no PS2 VMEbus cards, they could actually use cards designed for high performance.

801, romp, pc/rt, rios, rs/6000, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

trivia: (PC/RT) ROMP was originally going to be the follow-on to the display writer ... running CP.r and programmed in PL.8. When the displaywriter follow-on got canceled (lot of the market was moving to PCs), they decided to retarget to the machine to the unix workstation market and got the company that had done the AT&T unix port to the IBM/PC for PC/IX ... to do one for the PC/RT. However, they needed something for all the IBM PL.8 people to do ... so they defined a high level abstract machine interface that was to be implemented in PL.8 ... and the outside UNIX company had to implement to this abstract interface (rather than bare hardware(). Claim at the time that total effort than if the outside company had to implement directly to the hardware. It did cause lots of problem for traditional UNIX users that were use to adding support for new devices with traditional unix drivers ... now needed a lower level PL.8 driver and a higher level C-language driver to the abstract interface.

Later the Palo Alto group that was doing port of UCB BSD unix to 370 ... got redirected to do the port directly to the native ROMP hardware for "AOS" ... which was less effort than the port for AIX to the abstract machine interface (not even taken into account the PL.8 effort for the abstract machine implementation) .... negating the earlier claims about effort justifying the PL.8 abstract machine implementation. --
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2017 07:02:45 -0800 (PST)
On Monday, December 11, 2017 at 3:54:21 PM UTC-5, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
If memory serves, no reboot was necessary on our S/360-40 DOS (Rel > 26) to run emulation.

old thread reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#89

this previous thread discusses whether the 1401 microcode emulation was switch on the front panel or a diagnose instruction ... which would have required some 360 software to execute the diagnose instruction ... a small number of instruction on cards would have executed the instruction (and front panel system reset button would have brought things back to "normal" operation).

... snip ...

reference to bitsavers 360/30 documentation
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/1401_emulator/A24-3255-1_Model30_1401_Compatibility_Apr64.pdf

and "compatibility deck" ... which would be executing a "diagnose" instruction to enter compatibility mode ... much more detailed quotes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#16

discussion of two possible implementations, one with 360 sofware and one where the hardware of 360/30 is switched to 1401 mode and 360 software is lost:
INITIALIZATION

A specially produced initialization deck accompanies the System/360, Model 30, equipped with the 1401 compatibility feature. This deck is used each time the system is used in 1401 compatibility mode. It is normally reproduced several times and placed in front of any 1401 program to be run on the system. Examples of setup information entered by initialization control cards include: status of the check-stop-switch function, tape densities, and I/O unit-selection numbering.

... and ...
An 8,192-byte System/360, Model 30, can accommodate a 1401 object program requiring up to 8,000 positions of core storage. A 16,384-byte System/ 360, Model 30, can accommodate a 1401 program requiring up to 16,000 positions of core storage. System/360 core storage above 16,000 positions is not available to the system when it is being operated in the 1401 compatibility mode.
... snip ..

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 1970s engineering recession

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The 1970s engineering recession
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2017 07:42:37 -0800 (PST)
Lehman brothers was one of the first to get into it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman_Brothers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse.asp

stories from the time had NYFED with examiners sitting on site at Lehman long before the crash looking at what they were doing ... and one of the examiners raised red flags ... and Lehman got NYFED to remove that person ... so things continued right up to disaster. Implication was that many of the main principles walked away well off while the company was going down in flames.

"economic mess" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Too Big To Fail posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(Triple-A rated) toxic CDOs posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
Date: 12 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#15

Original, early prototype was 3mbit before "listen before transmi" 1988, long after the actual standard which was 10mbit and listen before transmit, IBM was publishing comparison between 16mbit token/ring and Ethernet (w/o saying it was prestandard prototype)

1988 ACM SIGCOMM enet studies had 30 station with all stations in low level device driver loop constantly transmitting minimum sized packets, aggregate effective thruput drops off to 8mbit ... which was still better than 16mbit TR

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

past 88 SIGCOMM refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#38 Ethernet efficiency (was Re: Ms employees begging for food)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#39 Ethernet efficiency (was Re: Ms employees begging for food)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#20 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#38 Buffer overflow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#4 Microcode? (& index searching)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#40 ibm time machine in new york times?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#41 ibm time machine in new york times?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#46 Fast TCP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#13 packetloss bad for sliding window protocol ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#17 were dumb terminals actually so dumb???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#55 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#18 Ethernet, Aloha and CSMA/CD -
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#80 IBM to the PCM market(the sky is falling!!!the sky is falling!!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#80 A Faster Way to the Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#83 A Faster Way to the Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#41 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#39 Van Jacobson Denies Averting 1980s Internet Meltdown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#32 Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#83 Metcalfe's Law: How Ethernet Beat IBM and Changed the World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#18 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#30 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#128 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#41 Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#28 ARM Cortex A53 64 bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#29 ARM Cortex A53 64 bit

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 12:36:11 -0800
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
I know a lot of people who would disagree with you, including several who typeset their books on 1403 printers. Its print quality was very good, probably the best until the advent of laser printers.

Those wheel printers we attached to the DEC machines, though ...


note that for high quality they would switch 1403 from cloth ribbon to film ribbon ... something like difference between cloth ribbon for selectrics (& computer based selectrics) and film ribbon switch

I've mentioned before some principles of operation were done on 1403 after architecture "red book" (superset of principles of operation) was moved to CMS script. major difference was that vertical lines in box diagrams were quite solid (and there wasn't proportional spacing).

posts mentioning film ribbon
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005l.html#5 Book on computer architecture for beginners
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#4 The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#57 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#18 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#60 Daisywheel Question: 192-character Printwheel Types
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#32 The Vindication of Barb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#3 IBM PCjr STRIPPED BARE: We tear down the machine Big Blue wouldrather you f
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#53 IBM 1403 Printer Characters

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 12:52:47 -0800
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
The 360/30 had an integrated channel, which meant that the CPU microcode also ran the channel. While it was doing disk operations, the CPU stopped. But it was still adequate to do plenty of useful work.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19

integrated channels didn't necessarily have to stop cpu (just timeshared between executing cpu microcode and channel microcode)

the slow down shows up in going from 370 to 303x. they took the 370/158 w/o the 370 microcode, just the 158 integrated channel microcode to create the 303x external channel director.

3031 was 370/158 engine with just the 370 cpu microcode (and no integrated channel micrcode) and a 2nd 370/158 engine for the channel director with just the 158 integrated channel microcode (and no 370 cpu microcode). A two processor 3031 multiprocessor was actually four 370/158 enginess (two for 3031 cpus and two for 303x channel director).

a 3032 was 370/168 using 303x channel director (370/158 engine with just integrated channel micrcode)

a 3033 started out being 370/168 logic mapped to 20% faster chips.

Early 1979, I ran the national RAIN benchmarks on a number of machines (looking at getting 70 4341s as compute farm (sort of leading edge of cluster supercomputing). 3031 was 37.03secs ... compared to 45.64 secs for 370/158 (the 158 engine was executing integrated channel microcode even when no I/O was going on). Note this compare to 4341 at 36.21 secs ... and the 4341 had integrated channels (RAIN came from CDC6600 days which ran it in 35.77 secs).

The 4341 integrated channels performance were so fast ... that with small tweak the disk engineering labs were using 4341s to test 3380 3mbyte/sec transfers (before getting POK mainframes with 3mbyte/sec channels).

poast posts mentioning getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

a little drift, old 4341 email (some referencing RAIN)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 13:04:27 -0800
Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> writes:
This was due to the woeful memory bandwidth of single byte wide memory. Also, you were not able to put higher-bandwidth peripherals on a model 30 for that reason. Higher-end machines had wider memory words, so the channels could buffer up a memory-word-size buffer before causing a memory cycle.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20

by the time got to 360/65 (67&75) memory bus was 8bytes wide ... and had external channel boxes.

the single processor 360/65 and 360/67 were pretty similar ... except for the DAT box that support virtual memory operation.

however, there were quite a few more differences between the 360/65 multiprocessor and the 360/67 multiprocessor. The 360/65 multiprocessor still had single memory bus for all storage shared by cpu and I/O. For the 360/67, they went to multi-ported memory boxes ... could have concurrent cpu &/or i/o going on using different memory boxes
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf

past refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#79 Unisys vs IBM mainframe comparisons
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#46 IBM 360 memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#20 MVCIN instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#6 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#22 TOD Clock the same as the BIOS clock in PCs?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#62 Cycles per ASM instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#63 Cycles per ASM instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#10 what does xp do when system is copying
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#78 memory latency, old and new
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#78 IBM to announce new MF's this year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#10 program coding pads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#65 FAA 9020 - S/360-65 or S/360-67?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#22 Assembler vs. COBOL--processing time, space needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#11 Relative price of S/370 AP and MP systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#111 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#74 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#29 1967 new computer installations

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 20:18:28 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Drums. Not sure about higher speed tapes.

2311 transfer 156kbytes/sec
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_2311

2303 drum was same transfer as 2314, 312,000 bytes/sec (twice 2311)
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2314.html

30 funcChar, pg17 (Input/Output Channels), talks about 2841 storage controller, and 2302, 2311, 2321, 2314, & 7320 drum.

2301 & 2303 drums were very similar; 2303 transfer single head at a time and 2301 transferring four heads in parallel; four times the 2303 (303.8kbyte/sec) transfer rate, 1.2mbytes/sec, 1/4th the number of 2303 tracks but each track was four times larger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360

Some of the most powerful early System/360s used high-speed head-per-track drum storage devices. The 3,500 RPM 2301,[38] which replaced the 7320, was part of the original System/360 announcement, with a capacity of 4 MB. The 303.8 KB/second IBM 2303 was announced on January 31, 1966, with a capacity of 3.913 MB. These were the only drums announced for System/360 and System/370, and their niche was later filled by fixed-head disks.

... snip ...

initial CP/67 delivered to univ, Jan1968 did 2301 single page I/O operation at a time. That met each transfer had 1/2 track avg revolution delay ... peak about 80 page transfers/sec. I did the changes to ordered chaining of pending/queued transfer requests ... peaking around 270 pages/sec (I also added ordered seek queuing for disks ... and chained requests for ordered queued requests for same disk cylinder).

recent ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#26 Multitasking, together with OS operations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#65 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#4 TSS/8, was A Whirlwind History of the Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#94 AI Is Inventing Languages Humans Can't Understand. Should We Stop It?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#44 VM/370 45th Birthday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#71 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

earlier posts in thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 20:33:30 -0800
other trivia from
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Of the 26,000 IBM computer systems in use, 16,000 were S/360 models (that is, over 60%). [Fig. 1.311.2]

Of the general-purpose systems having the largest fraction of total installed value, the IBM S/360 Model 30 was ranked first with 12% (rising to 17% in 1969). The S/360 Model 40 was ranked second with 11% (rising to almost 15% in 1970). [Figs. 2.10.4 and 2.10.5]

Of the number of operations per second in use, the IBM S/360 Model 65 ranked first with 23%. The Univac 1108 ranked second with slightly over 14%, and the CDC 6600 ranked third with 10%. [Figs. 2.10.6 and 2.10.7]

... snip ...

I've periodically mentioned that as undergraduate in the 60s, I was brought into boeing hdqtrs as part of the first half dozen employees to help with formation of boeing computer services (consolidate all processing in independent business unit to better monetize the investment). I thought possibly renton data center was largest in the world ... when I got there, 360/65s were arriving in renton faster than they could be installed ... boxes constantly staged in the hallways around the machine room. There was some politics between the CFO at hdqtrs (driving the BCS consolidation) and head of renton datacenter. At the time, CFO had single 360/30 used for payroll ... while renton had something approaching $300M (60s dollars) in IBM mainframes (mostly 360/65s, but there was one 360/75).

recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#21 History of Mainframe Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#46 Hidden Figures and the IBM 7090 computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#14 Check out Massive Amazon cloud service outage disrupts sites
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#14 Perry Mason TV show--bugs with micro-electronics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#75 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#90 Old hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#51 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#11 Mainframe Networking problems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#60 Mannix "computer in a briefcase"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#55 Pareto efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#83 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#104 Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment

posts in thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Ultimate Guide to the OODA-Loop

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Ultimate Guide to the OODA-Loop
Date: 13 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
The Ultimate Guide to the OODA-Loop
https://taylorpearson.me/OODA-loop/#1_Orientation_Orientation_Orientation

So from a completely different perspective ... Boyd would talk about all parts of OODA happening continuously and simultaneously ... as well as having to observe from every possible facet (as countermeasure to orientation bias) ... sort of like the story about the blind men and the elephant and what part of the elephant is most important ... or how to depict a 4-space object in 2-space.

from 1846: Elements of Military Art and Science Or, Course Of Instruction In Strategy, Fortification, Tactics Of Battles, & C.; Embracing The Duties Of Staff, Infantry (Henry Wager Halleck)
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Military-Instruction-Fortification-Embracing-ebook/dp/B004TPMN16/

loc5019-20:
A rapid coup d'oeil prompt decision, active movements, are as indispensable as sound judgment; for the general must see, and decide, and act, all in the same instant.
... snip ...

Could claim that Boyd takes see/decide/act ... replaces see with observe ... and then adds internal brain processing ... putting observation in context (orientate). There is an AI book from the 90s, where one of the "fathers" of AI (dating back to 60s) in intro says that all AI up until then had been done wrong because it wasn't placing information in "context"

Kahneman "Fast & Slow"
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA

"Slow" can be considered OODA-loop and "Fast" can be considered closer to "Halleck" see/decide/act ... although Boyd would stress that OODA isn't step-by-step sequential ... all four operations going on concurrently and simultaneously.

Also means that all four operations can operate at independent and their own varying rates.

.. can view intuition as something that we just don't have words for (possibly language just hasn't been developed yet)

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-toyota-turns-workers-into-problem-solvers
To paraphrase one of our contacts, he said, "It's not that we don't want to tell you what TPS is, it's that we can't. We don't have adequate words for it. But, we can show you what TPS is."

We've observed that Toyota, its best suppliers, and other companies that have learned well from Toyota can confidently distribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to the people who actually do the work, from the most senior, experienced member of the organization to the most junior. This is accomplished because of the tremendous emphasis on teaching everyone how to be a skillful problem solver

... snip ...

posts mentioning Boyd &/or OODA-loop
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 12:52:30 -0800
Renaissance <unknown@unknown.invalid> writes:
Oh, I/O channel architecture is far more performant than any other I/O architecture... :-)

IBM channel articture was half duplex ... as things got faster & faster, the turn around latency became an increasing problem. Also 3270 were half-duplex ... could be either sending or receiving. 3277 at least had electronics in the head and it was possible to do some local engineering. 3270 half-duplex would lock the keyboard if somebody tried to hit key when screen was being written. For 3270, a FIFO box was built ... unplug the keyboard from the head, plug in the FIFO box and plug the keyboard into the FIFO box. The FIFO box would cache keystrokes if the screen was being written avoiding keyboard lockup (keyboard lockup would then require person to stop what they had been doing and hit reset).

follow-on 3278 moved most of the electronics back into the controller ... couldn't do any of these tricks any more ... controller/terminal chatter and latency over coax cable also enormously increased. Later IBM/PC doing 3277 emulation ... upload/download speed was three times 3278 emulation (because of the enormous 3278 protocol chatter over coax cable). 3278 protocol chatter also made it impossible to get quarter second response. 3277 hardware response was (consistent) .08secs with system response of .11 seconds allowed .19 response seen by human. 3278 hardware respones was .3 to .5 (or higher) response. Letters were written to 3278 product administrator about it being horrible for interactive computing. The eventual response back was that 3278 was designed for interactive computing ... but data entry (i.e. computerized keypunch). old post with 3277/3278 comparison
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19 3270 protocol

1980 I was con'ed by STL into doing channel extender support. STL was bursting at seams and were moving 300 people from the IMS (DBMS) group to offsite bldg with service back into the STL datacenter. They had tried "remote" 3270 but found the human factors horrible (especially when compared to local vm370/cms in the bldg). I did the support and outboard of direct channel attach controller, it ran full duplex (concurrent transfer in both directions) out to the offsite bldg ... downloading channel programs (as data) for execution by a channel emulator running in the offsite bldg (supporting local channel attached 3270s ... couldn't tell the difference from what they were used to inside STL).

The vendor tried to get IBM to ship my support, but there was group in POK working on serial stuff and they got that vetoed, they were afraid that if it was in the market place, it would be harder to justify shipping their stuff. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

Then in 1988, I got asked to help LLNL standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... which quickly becomes fibre channel standard (including some stuff that I had been doing back in 1980).

Finally the POK people get their serial stuff released as ESCON with ES/9000 in 1990 when it is already obsolete (even tho they had pairs of serial fiber dedicated for transmission in each direction, they still insisted on operating as if it was half duplex).

Then some of the POK people get involved in fibre channel standard, defining a heavy weight protocol (again half duplex simulation) that drastically reduces the native throughput that is eventually released as FICON ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

Most recent published peak I/O benchmark I can find is for z196 that got 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre channel standard). About the same time there was fibre channel announced for E5-2600 blade getting over a million IOPS (two such native fibre channel standard having higher throughput than 104 FICON running over 104 fibre channel standard). Recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#8 IBM Mainframe

Earlier 3090 had tried to do "balanced" throughput configuration. However the 3880 controller (for 3380 disks) had drastically slower processor than earlier 3830 controller ... while 3880 had special hardware path for 3mbyte/sec data transfer, all the control operations, and channel protocol chatter was much slower and therefor drastically increased channel busy. When the 3090 people figured that out, they had to double the standard number of channels in configuration (to offset the increased 3880 channel busy) .... which then required adding another TCM. There was a joke that the 3090 product people were going to bill the 3880 business for the cost of the extra TCM. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#11 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#23 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 13:13:27 -0800
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
The 360/67 running MTS at UBC had a PDP-8 that front-ended the TTYs and 2741s.

when CP/67 was delievered to university Jan1968 for 360/67 ... it had 2741 & 1052 terminal support doing dynamic termainl type identification making use of the "SAD" CCW command for the terminal controller to switch the type of port/line scanner. The university had TTY terminals, so I added the TTY support extending the dynamic terminal type identification (with port/line scanner "SAD" switching) for TTY.

I then wanted to have single dial-in phone number all terminals, aka single "hunt group":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_hunting

but it didn't quite work, while it was possible to switch the type of line/port scanner ... the line/port speed was hard-wired. This in part motivated univ. to start a clone controller project ... started with doing channel interface board fo Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM terminal controller ... but would do automatic line speed by monitoring signal rise/lower on initial connection (and I could then have a single "hunt group"). This then evolved into Interdata/4 handling the channel interface and a cluster of Interdata/3s handling the lines/ports. This is marketing commercially by Interdata ... and then later under the P/E logo (when Perking/Elmer buys Interdata). Four of us got written up for (some part of) the clone controller business. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

old MTS references ... gone 404, but live on at way back machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20050212073808/www.itd.umich.edu/~doc/Digest/0596/feat01.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20050212073808/www.itd.umich.edu/~doc/Digest/0596/feat02.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20050212183905/www.itd.umich.edu/~doc/Digest/0596/feat03.html

mentioned in this recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#28 Tymshare SuperBasic Source Code

and MTS by guy involved in PDP8 terminal controller

Data Concentrator Project
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/gallery/gallery7.html
Michigan Terminal System
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/gallery/gallery8.html
This is an IBM 2703 Transmission Control Unit, at one time the only choice for an IBM customer to run a moderate to large number of remote terminals. It was clumsy, unforgiving and slow and the timesharing users hated it. I took on the job as chief designer for a team which built something better; see the Data Concentrator Project gallery for the results
... snip ...

trivia: note the above by person also responsible for the internet time protocol. from my internet rfc index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
Mills D. (mills@udel.edu)
5906 5905 4330 2783 2030 1769 1589 1361 1305 1241 1129 1128 1119 1059 1004 996 981 975 958 957 956 904 891 889 803 799 778


past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#23 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 16:14:40 -0800
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
Not meaning to change the subject but do any of you folks know of a good tutorial on HLLAPI?

I've told the story several times about the author of VMSG (70s email client on the internal network) ... a very early version was incorporated into PROFS as its email client. Later when the VMSG author tried to offer the PROFS group a much enhanced version, the PROFS group tried to get him fired (they had taken credit for everything in PROFS). The whole thing quieted down when the VMSG author showed his initials in non-displayed field in every PROFS note. Afterwards he would only share source with me and one other person ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_OfficeVision#Earlier_PROFS,_DISOSS_and_Office/36
also mentions PROFS (shows MTS logo on 3270 screen)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
recent mention 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
and MTS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#26 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

The VMSG author also wrote PARASITE/STORY ... a HLLAPI-like implementation predating IBM/PC ... application that ran in CMS 4k transient area. It leveraged the VM/370 psuedo-device interface to simulate virtual 3270s ... which could be done on the local machine or over the internal network to remote machines. post with PARASITE/STORY description & examples
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#35 Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#36 Newbie TOPS-10 7.03 question

example basically log into the RETAIN remote system (bug/fix online system used by customer support people), and retrieve all items/entries of specific type (which are saved).

posts mentioning internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
old email mentioning VMSG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmsg

Introduction to IBM Standard EHLLAPI, IBM Enhanced EHLLAPI and WinHLLAPI Programming
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEQ5Y_6.0.0/com.ibm.pcomm.doc/books/html/emulator_programming07.htm

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 19:38:20 -0800
Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> writes:
In the mid-70s, when they had a 370/168, there was a PDP-?? (11?) front-end.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#26 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

MTS Data Concentrator
https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/gallery/gallery7.html
The Data Concentrator shown here operated for some years through the early and middle '70s. It was eventually replaced by a more modern PDP11 and microprogrammed interfaces. One of the technicians bought the PDP8 and so far as I know has it still running in his basement. I expect the only extant copies of the 30-year old reports are in my office, but the lessons learned were later bottled in journal and symposium papers [1, 2, 3].
... snip ...

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2017 19:54:30 -0800
Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> writes:
I do not know how it was implemented, but in the mid-70s, the MTS editor had a full-screen mode that ran on 3270s.

another 360/67 system, Stanford did virtual memory operating system for their 360/67 system, Orvyl ... Wylbur was the editor and Milton was terminal front end interface. Wylbur editor was later migrated to MVS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORVYL_and_WYLBUR
also refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360_Model_67

above refers to Melinda's history, but doesn't reference that science center ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
had hardware modified did 360/40 with hardware virtual memory support (in anticipation of 360/67) and done cp/40 ... which morphs into cp/67 when 360/67 becomes available.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/cp40seas1982.txt

past orvyl/wylbur refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#62 nouns and adjectives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#78 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#79 history of RPG and other languages, was search engine history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#82 history of RPG and other languages, was search engine history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#67 Article says mainframe most cost-efficient platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#11 TSO region size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#42 Which non-IBM software products (from ISVs) have been most significant to the mainframe's success?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#6 IBM 360 display and Stanford Big Iron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#44 Colossal Cave Adventure in PL/I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#73 Wylbur, Orvyl, Milton, CRBE/CRJE were all used (and sometimes liked) in the past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#75 Wylbur, Orvyl, Milton, CRBE/CRJE were all used (and sometimes liked) in the past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#78 Wylbur, Orvyl, Milton, CRBE/CRJE were all used (and sometimes liked) in the past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#49 My first mainframe experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#63 Before the PC: IBM invents virtualisation (Cambridge skunkworks)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#19 From Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#61 Hybrid computing -- from mainframe to virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#25 VM370 40yr anniv, CP67 44yr anniv
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#63 The Atlas 2 and its Slave Store
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#20 Teletypewriter Model 33
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#71 assembler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#23 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#106 Fifty Years of nitpicking definitions, was BASIC,theProgrammingLanguageT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#67 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#52 The Stack Depth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#62 3705
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#6 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#75 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#25 MVS vs HASP vs JES (was 2821)

recent virtual memory, 360/67, cp/67 and/or vm/370 refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#66 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#71 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#78 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#79 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#81 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#82 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#83 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#84 VS/Repack
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#85 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#87 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#88 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#90 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#91 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#93 It's 1983: What computer would you buy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#95 why VM, was thrashing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#96 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#97 why VM, was thrashing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#98 OS-9
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#103 why VM, was thrashing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#11 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#13 Now Hear This-Prepare For The "To Be Or To Do" Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#26 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#27 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Converting programs to accommodate 8-character userids and prefixes

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Converting programs to accommodate 8-character userids and prefixes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 15 Dec 2017 10:15:35 -0800
john.archie.mckown@GMAIL.COM (John McKown) writes:
​TSO seems to be about as important to IBM as VSPC was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Storage_Personal_Computing


VSPC was to be low-end non-vm370/cms online. They had a performance "model" which predicted benchmark performance ... and required VM370/CMS to run equivalent benchmarks taking major part of the VM370/CMS group resources (and the predicted VSPC performance was always significantly better then the equivalent VM370/CMS benchmarks). Finally when VSPC was actually operational, it turns out that VSPC actual performance was much worse than their model predictions (as well as actual VM370/CMS performance)

afterwards, Endicott tried to get corporate approval to ship vm370/cms as part of every machine they made (sort of like LPARS today implementing a virtual machine subset). however, this was in the period after Future System imploding ... past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

and POK was convincing corporate to kill VM370/CMS product and move the group to POK for MVS/XA or otherwise MVS/XA wouldn't ship on time (some 7-8yrs later). Endicott eventually managed to acquire the VM370/CMS product mission, but they had to reconstitute a development group from scratch ... some customer comments about code quality during this period show up in the vmshare archives (TYMSHARE provided their CMS-based online computer conferencing free to share starting in August 1976).
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

Later still, endicott was selling so many vm/4300 machines that it got corporate to declare vm370/cms the corporate strategic online interactive platform (which really drove POK crazy, small payback for POK earlier getting vm370/cms product killed) ... even tho they still couldn't get corporate approval to ship vm370/cms as part of every machine sold.

large customers were ordering hundreds of vm/4300s at a time for placing out in departmental areas, sort of precursor to the coming distributed computing tsunami.

also, vm/4300 clusters were severely threatening high-end POK mainframes (better price/performance, smaller footprint, less environmentals) ... at one point POK managed to get allocation of critical 4300 manufacturing component cut it half. Before first 4341 shipped, I had got conned into doing benchmarks on engineering machines for national lab (national lab) that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm ... leading edge of the coming cluster supercomputing tsunami (grid computing which has huge technology overlap with the cloud megadatacenters, running hundreds of thousand of systems).

Part of the POK plan to kill vm370/cms was to not tell the group about their move to POK until the very last minute ... to minimize the number that could escape. However the news leaked early and lots managed to escape in local Boston/Cambridge area ... many to DEC (there is joke that head of POK was one of the largest contributors to the DEC VMS product). In the wake of the leak, there was witchhunt for the source ... fortuantely for me nobody gave up the source.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation
Date: 15 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Jefferson constantly battling for separation of church & state and individual freedom, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, loc6457-59:
For Federalists, Jefferson was a dangerous infidel. The Gazette of the United States told voters to choose GOD—AND A RELIGIOUS PRESIDENT or impiously declare for "JEFFERSON-AND NO GOD."
... snip ...

Jefferson felt the Federalists striving for British form of government with Lords and eventually a Monarch, starting with things like loc6254-58:
The alien laws collectively invested the president the authority to deport resident aliens he considered dangerous. The sedition bill criminalized free speech, forbidding anyone to "write, print, utter or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, with intent to defame or to bring them into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States."

loc6266-67:
Once sedition legislation passed and was signed by Adams, the speaking of one's mind—a foundational freedom—could result in fines up to $2,000 and up to two years in prison.
... snip ...

In both Jefferson and Burr biographies it appears that Hamilton was master of "fake news". It is somewhat portrayed that Hamilton believed himself to be an honorable man, but also that in political and other conflicts, he believed that the ends justified the means. "The Life of Aaron Burr" pg263/loc5119-24:

Yet even this defensive pose is a cover story. It was Hamilton who had instigated gossip. It was Hamilton who had invented the decadent Burr. It was Hamilton who had attacked him first (as did his self-protective father-in-law, Philip Schuyler). Hamilton was not, as he pretended, a solitary voice within a large chorus of those denouncing Burr. The truth is that Hamilton began attacking Burr's private character in 1792; and in 1800, he accused Burr of every crime he could bring to mind. Hamilton's charges, all along the way, were outrageous, hypocritical, even hysterical, and not, as he rationalized at the end, occasional political criticisms enunciated with the utmost "sincerity."
... snip ...

note that John Foster Dulles (& US corporations) played major role in rebuilding Germany industry and military 20s through the early 40s.
https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Foster-Dulles-Allen-Secret-ebook/dp/B00BY5QX1K/

loc865-68:
In mid-1931 a consortium of American banks, eager to safeguard their investments in Germany, persuaded the German government to accept a loan of nearly $500 million to prevent default. Foster was their agent. His ties to the German government tightened after Hitler took power at the beginning of 1933 and appointed Foster's old friend Hjalmar Schacht as minister of economics.

loc905-7:
Foster was stunned by his brother's suggestion that Sullivan & Cromwell quit Germany. Many of his clients with interests there, including not just banks but corporations like Standard Oil and General Electric, wished Sullivan & Cromwell to remain active regardless of political conditions.
... snip ...

from the law of unintended consequences, when 1943 US Strategic Bombing program needed industrial & military targets in Germany, they got the targets and coordinates from wallstreet.

sometime later 5000 industrialists from across the US had conference at NYC Waldorf-Astoria and in part because they had gotten such bad reputation for the depression and supporting Nazi Germany, they approved a major propaganda campaign to equate capitalism with Christianity, in part (in the early 50s), it leads to "In God We Trust" on money and "under God" in the allegiance.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate-ebook/dp/B00PWX7R56/

later John Foster Dulles would claim he was building up Germany as counter to the Soviets.

past Jefferson posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#20 What Makes weapons control Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#37 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#0 IBM is Absolutely Down For The Count
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#54 CFTC Reproposes Position Limits Rule
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#83 "I used a real computer at home...and so will you" (Popular Science May 1967)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#4 Separation church and state
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#40 Equality: The Impossible Quest
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession

recent "John Foster Dulles" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#63 One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#54 Mary Jo White Seriously Misled The US Senate To Become SEC Chair
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#64 Jean Tirole's Proposal to Appoint Felons to Monitor CEOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#36 Trump's S.E.C. Nominee Disclosure Offers Rare Glimpse of Clients and Conflicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#91 Godwin's Law should force us to remember & fear our shared heritage with Nazi Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#38 Imperial Hubris
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#55 Should America Have Entered World War I?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#22 Ironic old "fortune"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#23 Ironic old "fortune"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#60 The Illusion Of Victory: America In World War I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#69 The knives are out for Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#18 5 Naval Battles That Changed History Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#41 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#85 Early use of word "computer", 1944
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#99 The Real Reason You Should See Dunkirk: Hitler Lost World War II There
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#3 Dunkirk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#34 Disregard post (another screwup; absolutely nothing to do with computers whatsoever!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#97 Business as Usual: The Long History of Corporate Personhood
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#98 endless medical arguments, Disregard post (another screwup)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#102 75 years ago, Hitler invaded Poland. Here's how it happened
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#28 WW2 Internment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#74 When Working From Home Doesn't Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#21 Norden bombsight
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#35 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#36 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Net Neutrality

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Net Neutrality
Date: 15 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
possibly more than you really want to know ...

They nickled & dimed people to death. In the early 80s, they got themselves into real bind ... they had defined ISO OSI standard which still preserved telco isolated proprietary domains w/o transparent cross-over. They were doing per use billing but enormous amount of fiber optic being installed (increasing available bandwidth by millions of times) ... and couldn't figure out how to make the switch-over from the existing per use billing to having millions more bandwidith. New generations of applications weren't going to be developed for the huge bandwidth increase w/o enormous change in existing change. The telcos couoldn't change those use charges, because it would take years to evolve new generation of bandwidth hungry applications ... they were in real deadlock ... if they drastically cut the use charges, they would run enormous losses for several years (waiting for the bandwidth hungry applications).

The internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until mid-80s. At the time of the great cutover to internetworking protocol on 1Jan1983, the arpanet/internet had 100 IMP nodes with 255 connected host computers and the internal network was rapidly approaching 1000 nodes (which it passed a few months later). I also had a project I called HSDT and was working with the director of NSF to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers and was to get $20M. Then congress cuts the budget, some other things happen and finally NSF releases RFP (in part based on what we already had running). Internal corporate politics prevent us from bidding and the NSF director tries to help by writing the corporation a letter (with support from other gov. agencies), but that just makes the internal politics worse (as does comments that what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all bid responses). As the regional networks connect into the centers,it evolves into the NSFNET backbone (precursor to the modern internet).
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/

part of this late 80s environment was the telcos were strongly encouraging the evolution of the "free" internet ... but for university, non-commercial use only ... sort of as a testbed incubator for the development of the new bandwidth hungry applications (to use the enormous capacity sitting idle in "dark" fiber optics) ... while maintaining their profits from commercial per-use charges.

in the early 90s when it was opened up for commercial use, it was readily apparent that the old nickle&dime model severely limited innovation and growth ... and it was only going to be successful with bulk charge model where people didn't have to worry about every use they made. Some of the current large corporates now see that they can make more short term profit from being able to add nickle&dime financial model ... even if it is at the cost of long term innovation (reverything to the pre-internet model, when they eventually get themselves into another deadlock situation).

Trivia: late 80s and early 90s ... part of the federal government actually had mandate to kill the internet, replacing it with the ISO OSI standard ... where individual corporate entities had their proprietary domains isolated from other offerings At the 1988 Interop open standards conference, there were lots of booths with ISO OSI offerings appealing to government clients. Fortunately the ISO OSI effort wasn't successful.

More trivia: in the 90s, before he passes, the Internet standards editor, Postel, would let me help with the periodically updated STD1.

internal net posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
Interop88 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88
part of internet standards related work ... RFC index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Bad History

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Bad History
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 16 Dec 2017 09:33:17 -0800
0000000433f07816-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
I imagine:

RFE: We want UNIX.

IBM: Be more specific.

Both: (After much deliberation) Single UNIX specification.

And so it went. There's no formal specification of GNU Linux.

Sigh.


some of the CTSS (IBM 7094) people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System

went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics

others went to the IBM cambridg science center on the 4th flr and did virtual machines, internal network, invented GML (letters taken from last names of 3 inventors), lots of online and performance work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS

folklore is that the belllabs people working on Multics on the 5th flr, return home and do UNIX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics#Unix

In the early 80s, a group from Stanford approached the IBM Palo Alto Science Center about IBM doing a workstation, PASC invites several internal groups for review ... who all claim that they were doing something better (and IBM turns down the offer). The group then starts their own company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems

late 80s, there appears to be agreement between SUN & AT&T to make UNIX exclusive. the other vendors form organization to create an "open" unix work-alike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation
The organization was seen as a response to the collaboration between AT&T and Sun on UNIX System V Release 4, and a fear that other vendors would be locked out of the standardization process. This led Scott McNealy of Sun to quip that "OSF" really stood for "Oppose Sun Forever".[4] The competition between the opposing versions of UNIX systems became known as the UNIX wars.
... snip ...

Unix wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_wars

in the 90s, they merge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation#Merger
By 1993, it had become clear that the greater threat to UNIX system vendors was not each other as much as the increasing presence of Microsoft in enterprise computing. In May, the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative was announced by the major players in the UNIX world from both the UI and OSF camps: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun, Unix System Laboratories, and the Santa Cruz Operation. As part of this agreement, Sun and AT&T became OSF sponsor members, OSF submitted Motif to the X/Open Consortium for certification and branding and Novell passed control and licensing of the UNIX trademark to the X/Open Consortium.
... snip ...

triva ... recent mention of joke about head of POK being major contributor to DEC VMS ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#30 Converting programs to accommodate 8-character userids and prefixes

one of the DEC executives at OSF meetings had previously worked in the (Burlington Mall) vm370/cms development group.

Not all of AT&T was UNIX. In 1975, I had moved a lot of enhancments from CP67 to VM370 ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

one of my hobbies was providing & supporting enhanced operating systems for internal datacenters. However, some deal was cut with AT&T Longlines to get a copy (this was version w/o multiprocessor support). AT&T Longlines had all the source and over the years, continued to move it to more current IBM mainframes. Finally in the 80s, the IBM AT&T national account rep tracks me down about helping longlines move to current version (with multiprocessor). This was in 3081 period which was announced as multiprocessor only and clone vendors were coming out with faster single processors.

Eventually IBM did come out with 3083 (3081 with processor removed) ... mostly for the ACP/TPF market (ACP/TPF didn't have multiprocessor support, concern that the ACP/TPF customers would all move to non-IBM clone processors).

IBM CSC, 545 tech sq posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
SMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Bad History

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Bad History
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 16 Dec 2017 20:03:58 -0800
john.archie.mckown@GMAIL.COM (John McKown) writes:
​Not as I was told. U.S. Government said, basically, you can only bid a POSIX compliant (and branded?) system for any I.T. purchase. To keep their business, IBM grafted OpenEdition (original name) onto MVS. As time goes on, it does get a bit better.​

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#33 Bad History

it wasn't just FEDs POSIX compliance. had several conversations with the disk division (GPD morphs into adstar, during the period that IBM was being reorged into "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company) executive that initially had posix support grafted onto MVS.

late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at the internal annual worldwide communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that communication group had corporate strategic responsibility (stranglehold) for everything that crossed the datacenter walls, they were fiercely fighting off distributed computing and client/server trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm (and install base). The disk division was seeing data fleeing datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platform with drop in disk sales. They came up with a number of solutions ... which were constantly vetoed by the communication group.

"terminal emulation" (also numerous mentions of above account) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

Since openedition was purely MVS software ... the communication group didn't have any justification for veto'ing it. The other thing that GPD could get away with, was investing in non-IBM startups that were doing distributed computing that would involve IBM disks (communication group could only veto IBM products that involved something that physical crosses the datacenter walls). Some number of these investments the executive would ask if we could stop by and lend any support that we could.

adstar ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSTAR
28DEC1992 13 "baby blues" time article, gone behind pay wall, but part of it avail at wayback machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
more adstar april 1993
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/24/business/company-news-ibm-gives-adstar-storage-unit-more-autonomy.html

and more May 1993: One of the biggest dominoes from the breakup of IBM is about to fall on the West Coast, where AdStar is preparing to launch a search for a global age
http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/adstar-set-launch-global-review-bby-michael-mccarthbbr-clearnonebr-clearnonenew-yor/
As recently as two years ago, AdStar sold only to and through IBM, but in 1992 it generated nearly $500 million in revenues via sales to other companies. During 1993, AdStar officials expect this figure to grow by roughly 70% to $850 million.
... snip ...

past posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

I had also done CMSBACK late 1970s for internal datacenters. after some number of internal releases ... it is modified to include backup for distributed systems and released to customers as Workstation Data Save Facility ... which is then morphs into ADMS (ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager) ... and is rebranded as TSM (when adstar is unloaded). some old CMSBACK email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#cmsback
posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#backup

cmsback, WDSF, ADSM, TSM ref (cmsback originally done a decade earlier than date mentioned here)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Tivoli_Storage_Manager

other trivia: after having left IBM ... we get a call from the bowels of Armonk asking if we could help with the breakup. Business units were using MOUs to leverage supplier contracts in other divisions. With breakup, these would be different companies and the MOUs would have to be turned into their own contracts. We were to help inventory and catalog the MOUs ... however a new CEO was brought in and the breakup was (mostly) reversed (for a time).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 09:10:42 -0800
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
The 5-CPU TOPS-10 SMP system had 500 users with a login queue of 100 users. During prime time, both were at maximum level.

cambridge science center cp67 768k 360/67 (104 pageable pages after fixed storage requirements) supported 75-80 users (with global LRU), by comparison the grenoble science center cp67 1mbyte 360/67 (155 pageable pages after fixed storage requirements) support 30-35 users ... running similar workload ... grenoble had modified their cp67 to implement local lru "working set" dispatcher (from academic literature). CACM paper about the work on cp67 at grenoble (50% more pageable pages with 1/2 the throughput)
J. Rodriquez-Rosell, The design, implementation, and evaluation of a working set dispatcher, cacm16, apr73

mentioned in this recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#84 VS/Repack

posts mentioning local/global LRU, other page replacement, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

Then 10-15yrs later, I compared vm370 3081 with 50 times the processor power and 60 times the storage ... supporting 4-5 times as many users ... which was proportional to the increase in disk throughput ... old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door

recent posts mentioning disk division executive taking exception to the comparison and assigned the division performance group to refute the claims, after a few weeks and basically come back and say I slightly understated the problem.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#32 Virtualization's Past Helps Explain Its Current Importance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#70 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#61 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#5 TSS/8, was A Whirlwind History of the Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#28 MVS vs HASP vs JES (was 2821)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#46 Temporary Data Sets
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#96 thrashing, was Re: A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

for other topic drift ... recent mention of disk division in this post in ibm-main mailing list thread about "Bad History"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History
also
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#33 Bad History

previous posts in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#19 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#21 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#23 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#26 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#27 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#28 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#29 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM etc I/O channels?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM etc I/O channels?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2017 21:43:51 -0800
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
Right. The original channels on the 709 were little more than DMA but on the 360 they were special purpose programmable computers with skip and branch instruction. For CKD disks, which had a physical key field in each disk record (variable length block) you could write a channel program that would seek to the track, then loop doing a compare key greater or equal and then read the record with the found key. That's how ISAM worked. On the 360/30 the channel tied up the microcode so the CPU stopped while the channel was working, but in those applications the CPU probably didn't have much to do other than wait for the disk anyway.

(At least) VTOC & PDS directry (and other stuff) used multitrack search ... start at cylinder ... and search the whole cylinder ... tieing up device, controller and channel. 3330, 19tracks, 60rev/sec ... almost 1/3rd sec. elapsed time.

Part of the issue was channel architecture precludes prefetch ... allowing for modification search argument on the fly ... each compare required refetching the search argument from processor storage (thus requiring tieing up channel, controller, and disk). Small single thread environment ... no problems with other stuff going on concurrently.

I've periodically mentioned that I would get brought into customer situation when all else fails. Large national retailer ... with multipe large 370 systems in loosely-coupled (cluster) configuration sharing commong disk farm ... shared single large PDS application library with 3cylinder PDS directory. Whole national throughput would nearly implode during peak load (no graceful degradation). Every application invokation required search PDS director ... avg 1.5 cycliners ... two i/os, first required 1/3rd sec, 2nd required quarter second ... plus seek and load application module ... approx. 1/2 second ... disk throughput was approx. 6+ I/Os per second (also controller & channel) for two applications loads per second. Resolution was to split PDS application library file into multiples ... and then replicated set per system.

basically mid-60s 360 traded off excess channel capacity for CPU ... however by at least mid-70 the trade-off had inverted ... multi-track search trade-off had inverted. contributed to relative system throughput of disk declining by order of magnitude (factor of ten times). recent posts mention channel program
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#34 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#84 VS/Repack
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#26 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#35 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

posts mentioning multi-track search, CKD, dasd, fixed-block architecture, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

the channel architecture precluding channel program (& search argument) prefetching also impacted some other issues ... like how large a dummy record needed between data records needed to allow track switch to pickup max. number of data record transfer in single revolution. old post mentioning 3330 (dummy record) formating for page I/O operations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#7 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#3 YKYGOW...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#17 index searching
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#22 303x, idals, dat, disk head settle, and other rambling folklore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#64 System/360 40 years old today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#65 System/360 40 years old today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#66 System/360 40 years old today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#38 storage key question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#22 MVCIN instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#40 REAL memory column in SDSF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#19 old vm370 mitre benchmark
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#8 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#83 old 370 info
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#65 Speed of Old Hard Disks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#61 32760?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#26 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#57 The Stack Depth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#88 Formal definition of Speed Matching Buffer

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 18 Dec 2017 08:58:45 -0800
Peter.Farley@BROADRIDGE.COM (Farley, Peter x23353) writes:
I may not get to try your XMITMSG tool for a while due to other commitments, but the VM facility I miss the most is the SMSG / WAKEUP SMSG facility that permits "server" VM's to run and respond to remote requests from "users". In a prior lifetime my coworkers and I used that facility to implement a nicely featured SCLM for an ISV.

I realize that a git server is the modern incarnation of that concept and git is certainly a much more sophisticated SCLM tool, but it would be interesting anyway to have something resembling SMSG / WAKEUP SMSG available in z/OS.

XMITMSG would be very helpful in a "disconnected server" setup for sure.


triva: SPM ... special message was a superset of SMSG & IUCV combined. It was original done for CP/67 by the IBM Pisa Scientific Center ... and ported to vm370 in POK. I included it in my internal CSC/VM system distribution for internal datacenters and supported by internal VNET (even included in the original VNET version shipped to customers). Reference in this old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#8
and email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430
more detailed description
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html1#16

I had also done autolog facility ... originally for doing automated benchmarks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#benchmark

but was included in my internal CSC/VM distribution and quickly picked up for starting service virtual machines ... which could use SPM for doing things like early automated operator implementations.

It was used by the author of REXX in his multi-user (client/server) space wars implementation ... client supported 3270 display and client/server communication was via SPM. Since VNET internal network supported SPM ... space war players could be on the same machine or anyplace on the internal network. One of the problems was bot players fairly early appeared which were beating all the human players (because they could make moves much faster). Server was then modified that increased energy user non-linearly as interval between moves dropped below some (human) threashold. part of old (client) MFF PLI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#4

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 18 Dec 2017 11:24:41 -0800
smetz3@GMU.EDU (Seymour J Metz) writes:
Back in the Paleolithic era IBM ported VMPC to MVS for use by TCP/IP. The Pascal stack has been dead for lo these many years. Is it conceivable that the VMCF port is still present in z/OS V2?

I've periodically commented about how the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division ... communication group had corporate strategic responsibility ("stranglehold") for everything crossed datacenter walls and was fiercely fighting off distributed computing and client/server (trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

Part of this was doing its best to prevent shipping TCP/IP. Eventually it shipped but only got 44kbytes/sec transfer using whole 3090 cpu. I did the enhancements for rfc1044 and in some throughput tests at Cray research, got mbyte/sec channel speed throughput between 4341 and Cray using only modest amount of 4341 processor (possibly 500 times improvement in cpu used per bytes moved) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

sometime later, it was ported to MVS by emulating VM370 function on MVS. However later, the communication group hired subcontractor to add TCP/IP support to VTAM. His initial implementation had TCP/IP performing much faster than LU6.2. He was told that everybody "knows" that a "correct" TCP/IP implementation is much slower than LU6.2 and they would only be paying for a "correct" implementation.

recent post in thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#37 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
recent post about communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM etc I/O channels?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM etc I/O channels?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2017 20:16:59 -0800
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
The /67 does seem to have used WRD for a doorbell between the CPUs.

recent ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#36 IBM etc I/O channels?

MVT 360/65MP (multiprocessor) had kernel global spin lock (interrupts into supervisor would spin on test&set instruction until obtain the kernel lock (if the other processor was executing in the kernel,

360/67 func char
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf

pg. 18&19 describes extended direct control ... write direct for multiprocessor operation.

At the science center, charlie was working on fine-grain multiprocessor locking ... (enabling much higher degree of concurrent execution) and invented compare&swap instruction (mneumonic CAS are charlie's initials) ... which eventually was incorporated into 370 ... over objections from the POK favorite son operating system people. SIGP also was introduced in 370 for "tightly-coupled" SMP operation (compared to "loosely-coupled" ... shared disk and CTCA, but not shared memory). SMP &/or compare&swap posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

Initial vm370 multiprocessor support made very excessive use of compare&swap with queued work and very, very light use of SIGP (in some cases getting better than twice throughput in part because of some cache effects).

Later in the 80s, for VM/SP (on 3081) they liberally sprinkled SIGP instructions throughput multiprocessor kernel ... prior vm370 multiprocessor customers saw 10% or higher throughput degradation because of the additional SIGP overhead.

The justification was that they were trying to accommodate ACP/TPF customers because ACP/TPF didn't multiprocessor support (and IBM was planning all machines would be multiprocessor only starting with 3081) ... so to support sell the customers newer 3081 ... ACP/TPF had to run in single processor virtual machine. Normally VM370 ran virtual machine execution and the SIOF (channel program scanning) serially. A 3081 dedicated to ACP/TPF virtual machine ... would have little or no execution on the 2nd processor (while majority of VM/370 customers ran large number of concurrent virtual machines easily keeping both processor busy) ... all the additional SIGPs in VM/SP would specifically wakeup 2nd processor (in ACP/TFP dedicated environment) to doing the virtual machine SIOF simulation processing (while the 1st processor went back to executing virtual machine). However, for every other environment, all those additional SIGPs just degraded system throughput.

Trying to obfuscate the new VM/SP SIGP performance degradation, they tried to partially obfuscate it with some 3270 terminal obfuscation. Normal when virtual machine wasn't executing and waiting for terminal I/O, it would be dropped from queue. However, there was 3270 hardware operation where it would present two interrupts nearly back-to-back. They put in a fixed 300ms delay for all queue drops ... to mask the 3270 back-to-back interrupts (but that could cause working set problems in some environments) ... it also had no effect for customers htat were exclusively (or mostly) non-3270 terminals. some old email about having earlier done fixes for both 3270 terminals as well as non-3270 terminal environments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#email830420
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#57 any 70's era supercomputers that ran as slow as today's supercomputers?

Of course eventually, they come out with 3083 (mostly for the ACP/TPF market) ... a 3081 with one of the processors removed.

About the same time IBM came out with "spider" 3088 ... CTCA that was eight "armed" CTCA, inter-connecting eight systems. This was used in vm/4341 cluster implementations. The original prototype work was done at San Jose/Almaden research with some hardware enhancements to make it much more efficient. It did 8-way cluster coordination in under a second ... however the communication group forced it to use VTAM for doing cluster operation ... and operations like cluster coordinations that had been done under a second become 30 seconds or more.

some recent ibm-main mailing list posts with communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#19 Check out Massive Amazon cloud service outage disrupts sites
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#69 ComputerWorld Says: Cobol plays major role in U.S. government breaches
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#42 What are mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#81 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#82 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#11 The Mainframe vs. the Server Farm: A Comparison
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#89 z14 and zBX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#3 Somewhat Interesting Mainframe Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#28 Db2! was: NODE.js for z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#38 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

some recent 3083 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#20 {wtf} Tymshare SuperBasic Source Code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#84 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#94 GREAT presentation on the history of the mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#37 MVS vs HASP vs JES (was 2821)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#56 What is the most epic computer glitch you have ever seen?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#33 Bad History

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM etc I/O channels?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM etc I/O channels?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2017 09:42:07 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
At the science center, charlie was working on fine-grain multiprocessor locking ... (enabling much higher degree of concurrent execution) and invented compare&swap instruction (mneumonic CAS are charlie's initials) ... which eventually was incorporated into 370 ... over objections from the POK favorite son operating system people. SIGP also was introduced in 370 for "tightly-coupled" SMP operation (compared to "loosely-coupled" ... shared disk and CTCA, but not shared memory). SMP &/or compare&swap posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#36 IBM etc I/O channels?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#39 IBM etc I/O channels?

The online sales&marketing support system, HONE ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

... in the mid-70s, the US HONE datacenters were consolidated in Palo Alto (when facebook 1st moved into silicon valley, it was into new bldg. next door to the old HONE datacenter). By the late 70s, they had multiple large POK SMP processors in possibly the largest single-system-image, loosely-coupled configuration in the world ... all systems sharing common disk farm ... with load-balancing and fall-over.

Standard loosely-coupled convention was reserve/release I/O operation that was sort of like the SMP test&set serialization locking instruction. However, HONE developed a much more efficient channel program sequence that did the equivalent of charlie's compare&swap instruction (instead of whole device lock/unlock). It would do search data equal and if match, write (replace) data ... provided much more efficient multiple system shared serialization than reserve/release convention.

There had been ACP (airline control program) lock RPQ for 3830 controller (sort of like vax-cluster controller locking) ... basically array of loosely-coupled locks implemented in 3830 disk controller. 3830 with four channel feature connecting to four different mainframe systems ... could coordinate the I/O to all disks connected to that 3830 controller. Old email regarding Jim Gray looking at the characteristics of the ACP locking RPQ
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#email800325
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#39 American Airlines

The "problem" with the ACP RPQ ... was IBM disk strategy going forward was to use string switch to connect string of drives to two separate disk controllers (each controller providing four channel connectivity to four different systems, two such controllers allowing connection to eight different systems). The ACP RPQ only worked for serializing systems connected to the same controller ... with two different controllers there could be four other systems that weren't being coordinated.

The compare&swap channel program sequence provided something more efficient than reserve/release ... although not as efficient as the ACP RPQ ... it worked reguardless of the number of systems and controller paths to the same disk.

Long ago and far away my wife had been in the gburg JES group and was one of the "catchers" for ASP turning it into JES3 (multi-system loosely coupled operation) ... also one of the authors of JESUS specification ... all the things in JES2 and JES3 that the respective customers couldn't live w/o (which never got off the ground, and there is still different JES2 and JES3). She was then con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of loosely-coupled architecture (mainframe for cluster) ... where she developed Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

She didn't remain very long, in part because of little uptake (except for IMS hot-standby) until sysplex and parallel sysplex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Parallel_Sysplex

and in part because of frequent battles with communication group trying to force her into using SNA/VTAM for loosely-coupled operation. other recent posts mentioning communication group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#28 Db2! was: NODE.js for z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#33 How DARPA, The Secretive Agency That Invented The Internet, Is Working To Reinvent It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#109 It's 1983: What computer would you buy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#15 THE IBM PC THAT BROKE IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#38 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

somewhat related ... HA/CMP (last product we did before leaving IBM) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 19 Dec 2017 22:02:09 -0800
edgould1948@COMCAST.NET (Edward Gould) writes:
Thanks for reminding me to ask a question that I have never gotten IBM to answer. Whenever I have ordered TCP/IP I have always had to order PASCAL runtime library. Since we have lost SE's and salesmen are now non existent. There is no one left to answer this question. About 20 years ago, I asked IBM and was told that in order to answer this we would have to hire an IBM contractor and the minimum cost would be $1000. I said no thanks and just continued ordering it, The cost was small IIRC so it never reached VP approval. What is the reason why we have to order the PASCAL library?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#37 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#38 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

the mainframe TCP/IP product implementation was originally done in Pascal/VS ... the mainframe pascal originally by two people in the Los Gatos lab using Metaware's TWS for internal VLSI tool implementation

This implementation had none of the buffer exploits that are notoriously epidemic in C-language implementations.

5735-HAL IBM TCP/IP FOR MVS Version 2.2 (no longer available 13Dec1994)
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=sm&htmlfid=897/ENUS5735-HAL

Enhanced Socket Library
TCP/IP Version 2 for MVS has a more extensive socket library than provided by Version 1. This extended Socket Library support, based on Berkeley Socket Library**, BSD 4.3*, removes the requirement for the PASCAL Runtime library since all sockets are written to the C language interface. This support facilitates the port of UNIX** applications to the System/370*.
however later on it says running in "31 bit mode", pascal run time library is required.

10Sep1996 TCP/IP v3r2 for MVS/ESA
https://www-304.ibm.com/jct01003c/cgi-bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&htmlfid=897/ENUS296-317&appname=usn&language=enus

Note: IBM TCP/IP Version 3 Release 2 for MVS/ESA does not include the Pascal FTP server as stated in Software Announcement 294-529, dated September 13, 1994. Customers should migrate to the C FTP server prior to installing TCP/IP Version 3 Release 2.

this (updated 4Dec2017) mentions a pascal version SMTP & Pascal Sockets API
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27019687

This says pascal just needed for user written programs that interface to TCP/UDP/IP
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.1.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r1.e0zb100/pgmreqs.htm

same here
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.3.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r3.e0zb100/pgmreqs.htm

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM etc I/O channels?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM etc I/O channels?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 11:21:09 -0800
Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
Today an expert programmer like you... is seldom available to optimize disk accesses. So ISTM that we are much better off letting the disk drive take care of all the niggling details. IIRC if you read a sector or block from a disk track, the drive should read the entire track into the disk cache memory. The programmer does *not* (and probably *can* not in this day of dismal programmers) have to keep up with TOC and the alternate track table.

only marginal relationship between physical fixed-block format and old time CKD DASD (there hasn't been any real CKD DASD made for decades ... all CKD DASD being simulated on industry standard fixed block disks). It will have a CKD DASD track on some collection of fixed block tracks ... older FBA 512byte blocks or maybe newer FBA 4096byte blocks .... the "controller" implementing the CKD->FBA simulation would read in collection of FBA blocks for CKD track ... and then in software do the various CKD operations on the data ... before transfering the requested data from the controller simulation over (FICON protocol running on fibre-channeL) channel to mainframe. some posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

fixed-block
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-block_architecture
FBA 512->4096 migration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

last ibm "CKD" were 3390
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3390.html

current CKD emulation is commonly specified in terms of number 3390 cylinders ... standard 3390-9 (9-gbyte) 10,017 cylinders, 15 tracks/cyl, 56,664 bytes/track, 849,960 bytes/cyl. A 3390 track is now some number of 512byte (or possibly 4096byte) blocks.

original CKD DASD SEEK CCW format was BBCCHH (6bytes, BB was for 2321 "bin" number, CC cylinder number, HH track number ). Two bytes CC, is only half-word allowing up to 2**16 cylinders for fictional 3390 drive ... standard (fictional) "3390-54" or 54gbyte ... but it is possible to specify a fictional 3390 drive as non-standard number of cylinders

More recently is "EAV". HH is redefined to be only four bits (since 3390 only has 15tracks/cylinder) and the other 12bits (from head number) become part of cylinder number, 28bits. recent post referencing 3390 "EAV"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#37 learning Unix, was progress in e-mail, such as AOL

detailed descriptions has the first 2**16 cylinders being traditional track-based managed, any "cylinders" above 2**16 are restricted to cylinder-based management. EAV 3390s currently limited to 1TB ... but 2**28 cylinders will allow for up to 225TB.

How 3390 track &/or cylinders are simulated on (mapped to) fixed-block 512byte (or 4096byte) blocks is hidden from the system (3390 tracks and cylinders are simulated fiction).

posts mentioning CKD, FBA, multi-track search, etc.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

recent posts in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#36 IBM etc I/O channels?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#39 IBM etc I/O channels?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#40 IBM etc I/O channels?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 12:57:15 -0800
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
S/3 -> S/34 -> S/36 -> S/38 -> AS/400

AS/400 was more follow-on for both s/36 & s/38 ... they dropped some s/38 feature and added some s/36 features.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_i#History
The IBM System i, then known as the AS/400, was the continuation of the System/38 database machine architecture (announced by IBM in October 1978 and delivered in August 1979). The AS/400 removed capability-based addressing.[5] The AS/400 added source compatibility with the System/36 combining the two primary computers manufactured by the IBM Rochester plant. The System/36 was IBM's most successful mini-computer but the architecture had reached its limit. The first AS/400 systems (known by the development code names Silverlake and Olympic) were delivered in 1988 under the tag line "Best of Both Worlds"
... snip ...

folklore is that when Future System failed ... some past posts/refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

some people retreated to Rochester and did a simplified version as s/38 ... one of the big issues in the high-end mainframe market was performance (and was one of the things that contributed to FS demise), but wasn't so important in the low-end s/38 market. One of the simplification was treating all disks as single filesystem and doing file scatter record allocation (pieces of same file could be found on multiple disks). As a result backup required all disks as single filesystem ... and any single disk failure (common failure mode) required whole thing to be restored.

One of the people I had worked with in San Jose had gotten patent for the original RAID
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#History

... and S/38 was an early adopter ... to mask single disk failure ... because otherwise it was such a traumatic problem.

Note that 801/risc had been done in the 70s and around 1980 there was an effort to migrate all controllers and low-end processor to 801/risc ... including 4331&4341 follow-ons (4361 & 4381) as well as the new as/400. For various reasons nearly all of these efforts floundered and continued with custom CISC microprocessors. The as/400 had some extra delay with having to do custom CISC in place of 801/risc. However, a decade later, as/400 does migrate to 801/risc with variant of power/pc.

past posts mentioning 801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, fort knox, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 20 Dec 2017 12:32:42 -0800
cvitullo@HUGHES.NET (Carmen Vitullo) writes:
I remember DRUM storage, just never worked with it, the only other DRUM storage I saw was at a tour at a data center somewhere in Jersey, my BIL worked there, did some work with NYSE I believe, and they were mostly all Univac or PDP systems and I saw what I think was a solid state drum storage unit, at 19 or 20 I was quite impressed.

2303 drum was fixed-head per track about 4mbyte ... ran at 2314 transfer and could be connected to later 360/30 (recent discussion on facebook ibm retiree group). 2301 was pretty much 2303 ... but read/wrote four heads in parallel, 1/4th the number of tracks, tracks four times larger, four times the transfer speed (1.2mbytes/sec).

IBM System/360 Component Descriptions- 2841 and Associated DASD
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/28xx/2841/GA26-5988-7_2841_DASD_Component_Descr_Dec69.pdf

2302 (never heard of any actually installed) pg59-63 ... looks a little bit like the later 2305 fixed-head disk. has two access heads, one for the inner 250 tracks and one for the outer 250 tracks.

2303 "drum", pg 73-76.

2301 drum
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/28xx/2820/A22-6895-2_2820_2301_Component_Descr_Sep69.pdf

2301 drum was traditional "paging" drum for 360/67 virtual memory systems ... officially TSS/360 .... but IBM science center did virtual machine (cp67) system, Univ. of Mich did MTS system, Stanford did Orvyl (where Wylbur editor originated).

standard 2301 (paging) format was nine 4k pages on pair of tracks (with record spanning the end of one track and the start of next). Original CP67 delivered to the univ. Jan1968 did single page transfer per I/O and both disk & drum requests were executed purely FIFO. Drum requests would cost half rev. per each transfer ... peaking at 80 page I/Os per second. I did ordered chained I/O and could peak at 270 page I/Os per second. I also did ordered seek queuing for disk, helping with both (overflow) disk paging as well as file I/O operation throughput.

(later) 2305 fixed head disk, model 2 11.2mbytes, 1.5mbyte/sec transfer, avg access 5ms. model 1 had same number of heads but they were installed on half the number of tracks with pair of heads at 180degree offset on same track. 5.4mbyte capacity (half m2), 2.5msec avg. rational delay (half m2), and 3mbyte/sec transfer (twice m2). Transfer would occur on pairs of heads in parallel, and with pairs of head on opposite side of platter, it only had to avg. 1/4 revolution before start of record came under pair of heads (even/odd pairs on opposite side of platter).
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2305.html

In the early 80s, IBM cut deal with vendor for "1655" electronic disks used by internal datacenters ... they had two modes of operation, native mode and 2305 emulation mode. They were volatile (lost data when power was lost) ... so were limited to paging operations. They were limited to 2305 channel data transfer and were more efficient at low to medium loading (no rotational delay) ... but less difference at heavy loading (since 2305 ordered chained request would already be running at near transfer speed).

some recent posts mentioning 1655
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#24 What was a 3314?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#23 Frieden calculator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#68 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#69 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#26 Multitasking, together with OS operations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#63 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#65 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#36 National Telephone Day

I got to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15 from mid-70s through early 80s ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

3350 offered fixed-head feature for limited number of cylinders ... but didn't have multiple exposure support (like 2305) so couldn't do concurrent channel programs for the moveable head portion and the fixed-head portion. I had project to add multiple exposure to 3350 with fixed head feature (so could overlap fixed head transfer with seek operations). There was a group in POK planning on VULCAN, for electronic disk ... that got it killed because they thought it might compete with them in the paging market. Eventually VULCAN gets canceled, they were told that IBM was already selling all the electronic memory it could make for processor memory at higher markup ... but it was too late to resurrect multiple exposure support for 3350 fixed head feature.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

APL

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: APL
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 13:29:46 -0800
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
Really depends on what you're doing. Once you know the language the characters are quite readable. It was popular with actuaries because they didn't have to write a lot of looping to handle arrays--just about anything you wanted to do with one could be handled with a few keystrokes.

some of the activity drained off to spreadsheets.

science center had done port of apl\360 to cp67/cms for cms\apl ... and was providing online remote service ... some of it to non-employee boston area univ staff&students (not ncessarily apl) ... but also got some number of business people from inside the company. one of the business groups were from armonk who loaded the most prized corporate (detailed customer) data on the cambridge system ... and did business planning and forcasting in APL. Had to have pretty strong security to wall off the non-employees from the confidential corporate activity going on the same system.

4th flr, 545 tech sq, science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

other trivia, one of the people on the 5th flr (at project mac & multics) ... joins a science center virtual machine online service bureau spinoff out in waltham ... some past virtual machine based service bureau posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online

he then is one of the two people responsible for visicalc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Frankston

and more trivia; one of the biggest APL operations was the world-wide marketing&sales support (virtual machine based) HONE systems .... where a majority of the applications were implemented in APL ... not just limited to the machine&hardware "configurators". some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 20 Dec 2017 13:51:28 -0800
jcewing@ACM.ORG (Joel C. Ewing) writes:
Clearly from the picture the Seagate really is like the 3380/3390 solution.  Two completely independent actuators giving the appearance of two drives in one unit with a shared drive shaft and motor.  The doubling of throughput is ONLY because you have two drives that can be accessing or preparing to access totally independent data at the same time, not because of any faster access to a block of data or multiple blocks of data on a single track of one of those devices.  Dang!  My interpretation would have been a much more intriguing device.

recent ref
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#22 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#44 Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

or ibm 2302 IBM System/360 Component Descriptions- 2841 and Associated DASD
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/28xx/2841/GA26-5988-7_2841_DASD_Component_Descr_Dec69.pdf

2302 (never heard of any actually installed) pg59-63 (pg 59 picture looks a little bit like the later 2305 fixed-head disk picture but not fixed-head per track). has two access mechanism, one for the inner 250 tracks and one for the outer 250 tracks (figure 46, pg 60)

note that 2301 (fixed-head track) drum transferred four heads in parallel for 1.2mbyte/sec transfer (compared to 2303 319kbyte/sec transfer) and the 2305m1 transferred two heads in parallel for 3mbyte/sec transfer compared to 1.5mbyte/sec 2305m2 (mod1 also had heads offset 180 degrees on same track so it also cut avg. rotational delay in half ... but mod1 physically had the same number of heads, so only had half the tracks and half the capacity)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

When did the home computer die?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: When did the home computer die?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 17:23:45 -0800
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
Thank you for understanding. Linux and Open Source are fine for startups, but when you have systems in place and working reliably with good performance that were created when Brian Kernighan was still an undergrad, and other systems that were developed on every shiny new thing that has come along since, moving to open source is not so simple.

the enormous explosion in LINUX & open source started with cluster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_(computing)
and grid supercomputing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing

... "computer" with hundreds and thousands of systems ... it was verging on new computing paradigm and required full source for adapting to the new model. related article
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/

By late 90s, the SLAC ibm mainframe datacenter morphed into huge number of racks with enormous number of "white box" blades (commodity blade systems built to spec) with quite of bit of empty space left over ... running modified linux systems. as cluster & grid super computing was gaining traction, along came the exploding cloud datacenters market ... which had significant overlap with cluster&grid supercomputing ... again huge uptake for system with full source available for adapting to their evolving computing model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

By middle of last decade, large cloud megadatacenters were selecting their own components and assembling blade systems ... claiming 1/3rd the cost of brand name systems (all running modified linux systems). First part of this decade saw major processor chip makers claiming they were shipping over half their processor chips directly to large cloud megadatacenters (running hundreds of thousands of systems ... operating with staffs of 80-120 people). More recently major processor chip makers have said they are now doing custom chip manufacturing runs tailored to megadatacenter specificaion (i.e. modified custom chips analogous to what they were doing to custom modified Linux systems).

past posts mentioning both "grid computing" and "cloud megadatacnters"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#60 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#4 IBM Plans Big Spending for the Cloud ($1.2B)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#22 US Federal Reserve pushes ahead with Faster Payments planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#69 Cambridge's HPC-as-a-service for boffins, big and small
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#35 Moving to the Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#18 Miniskirts and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#89 z14 and zBX

some claim SLAC (& CERN) started moving to grid model started around 1980, with their large number of 168E & then 3081E machines ... custom bitslice 370-subset CPUs ... sufficient to run fortran programs that did initial data reduction from sensors ... with then results routed back to traditional IBM mainframes. recent posts mentioning 168E & 3018E processors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#43 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#8 The IBM 5100 and John Titor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#72 zEC12, and previous generations, "why?" type question - GPU computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#27 World's worst programming environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#85 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#69 Remembrance of things past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#79 Ancient computers in use today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#87 a bit of hope? What was old is new again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#28 The joy of simplicity?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#52 The Stack Depth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#78 Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#24 Is it a lost cause?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#10 SC/MP (1977 microprocessor) architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#78 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#81 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#82 A Computer That Never Was: the IBM 7095

A little earlier, start of 1979 was when I got con'ed into doing "RAIN" benchmarks on engineering 4341 for national lab that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm (leading edge of cluster computing supercomputing). posts mentioning RAIN bechmark
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#32 mainframe question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#12 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#19 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#0 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#9 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#12 Steve Chen Making China's Supercomputer Grid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#21 moving on
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#32 I/O in Emulated Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#50 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#37 COTS software on box ? to replace mainframe was Re: Curious(?) way to ZIP a mainframe file
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#86 F111 related discussion x-over from Facebook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#9 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#37 While watching Biography about Bill Gates on CNBC last Night
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#33 Why are TSO IDs limited to 7 characters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#65 Comparing YOUR Computer with Supercomputers of the Past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#40 IBM Watson's Ancestors: A Look at Supercomputers of the Past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#91 Mainframe Fresher
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#36 z/OS SYSLOG to UNIX syslog daemon?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#76 DG Fountainhead vs IBM Future Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#35 Last Word on Dennis Ritchie
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#64 Maintenance at two in the afternoon? On a Friday?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#41 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#46 Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#2 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#3 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#76 mainframe "selling" points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#22 Rejoice! z/OS 2.1 addresses some long term JCL complaints from here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#28 US money
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#49 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#87 GREAT presentation on the history of the mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#62 64 bit addressing into the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#63 64 bit addressing into the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#20 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

When did the home computer die?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: When did the home computer die?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:19:53 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#47 When did the home computer die?

before Reistad passes (this summer)
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.folklore.computers/EtH9DiVFLhY

he would claim things like:
70% of the total number of "real" computers run linux 10% run msoft 10% run ios 5% run Darwin 5% run other stuff

also embedded & process control industry, autos with ten or more linux systems, settop boxes, TVs, alarm systems (homes may have 30 linux systems)

"The ICL 2900" thread post by Reistad from Feb 23
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.folklore.computers/zct3VqQoAs0%5B651-675%5D

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The 50 Largest Stashes of Cash Companies Keep Overseas

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The 50 Largest Stashes of Cash Companies Keep Overseas
Date: 21 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
The 50 Largest Stashes of Cash Companies Keep Overseas
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-overseas-profits/

Stockman in "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" pg464/loc9995-10000:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

pg465/10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

New IBM Buyback Plan Is For Over 10 Percent Of Its Stock
http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2013/10/29/new-ibm-buyback-plan-is-for-over-10-percent-of-its-stock/
The company has represented that its dividends and share repurchases have come to a total of over $159 billion since 2000.
... snip ...

... recent survey of CEOs about what they would do with any cash that they would bring back from overseas was it would go to bonuses and stock buybacks.

IBM earnings beat is a product of tax avoidance, and it's nothing new
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibm-earnings-beat-is-a-product-of-tax-avoidance-and-its-nothing-new-2017-10-18

Why the "Maximizing Shareholder Value" Theory of Corporate Governance is Bogus; One mantra you see regularly in the business and popular press goes something along the lines of "the CEO and board have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value."
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/why-the-maximizing-shareholder-value-theory-of-corporate-governance-is-bogus.html

If you review any of the numerous guides prepared for directors of corporations prepared by law firms and other experts, you won't find a stipulation for them to maximize shareholder value on the list of things they are supposed to do. It's not a legal requirement. And there is a good reason for that.

Directors and officers, broadly speaking, have a duty of care and duty of loyalty to the corporation. From that flow more specific obligations under Federal and state law. But notice: those responsibilities are to the corporation, not to shareholders in particular.

... snip ...

... however CEO bonus plans are frequently tied to share value ... resulting in stock buybacks resulting in CEO bonuses

posts referring to stock buyback refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#9 The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#137 The High Cost of Failing Artificial Hips
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#147 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#70 Regulatory Agency logo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#16 Interview of Mr. John Reed regarding banking fixing the game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#13 Study links ultrafast machine trading with risk of crash
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#42 Professor Coffee Hits a Nerve at SEC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#3 What Makes a thread about the European debt crisis Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#5 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#13 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#23 What Makes weapons control Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#30 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#34 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#49 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#63 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#5 SAS Deserting the MF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#69 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#6 Barclays, Traders Fined $487.9 Million by U.S. Regulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#2 IBM Relevancy in the IT World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#50 IBM Furloughs U.S. Hardware Employees to Reduce Costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#51 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#57 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for those that have never seen them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#24 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#61 IBM now employs more workers in India than US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#84 3Q earnings are becoming the norm at IBM. What is IBM management overlooking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#85 How do you feel about IBM passing off it's retirees to ObamaCare?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#14 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#60 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#14 Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#15 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#16 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#14 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#25 IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#91 Why do bank IT systems keep failing ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#107 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#32 The dark side of digital banking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#76 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#77 Why IBM Is Tumbling: BRIC Sales Plunge, Total Revenue Lowest Since 2009
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#33 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#43 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#82 The NSA and Snowden: Securing the All-Seeing Eye
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#84 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#111 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#0 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#7 You can make your workplace 'happy'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#4 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#55 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#69 LA Times commentary: roll out "smart" credit cards to deter fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#3 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#28 HP splits, again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#35 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#60 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#58 Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#62 Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#65 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#90 Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#132 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#147 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#36 IBM CEO Rometty gets bonus despite company's woes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#58 Neocons Guided Petraeus on Afghan War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#7 Mandated Spending
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#42 Remember 3277?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#80 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#81 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#24 IBM is struggling. But former CEO Sam Palmisano says he isn't looking back
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#33 IBM is struggling. But former CEO Sam Palmisano says he isn't looking back
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#17 There's No Such Thing as Corporate DNA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#60 [Poll] Computing favorities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#68 Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#3 I Feel Old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#65 A call for revolution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#14 Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#91 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#96 IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#54 Why the Pursuit of Shareholder Value Kills Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#62 Big Shrink to "Hire" 25,000 in the US, as Layoffs Pile Up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#43 when to get out???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#93 An OODA-loop is a far-from-equilibrium, non-linear system with feedback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#5 IBM's core business
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#77 Trump delay of the 'fiduciary rule' will cost retirement savers $3.7 billion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#3 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#24 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#47 The rise and fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#97 IBM Another Disappointment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#22 OT: book: "Capital in the Twenty-First Century"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#37 Disregard post (another screwup)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#46 Disregard post (another screwup)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#14 How to spot a dodgy company - never trust a high achiever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#35 IBM Shareholders Need Employee Enthusiasm, Engagemant And Passions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#23 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#46 How Economists Turned Corporations into Predators

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Dec 2017 10:30:23 -0800
0000000a2a8c2020-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Tom Marchant) writes:
The 3850 was much larger. When I was an Amdahl SE, one of my accounts had one. It was probably 20 feet long, maybe more. My impression was that it was a much improved version of the 2321.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#44 Can anyone remember "drum" storage?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#46 Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

2841 and Associated DASD ... 2311, 2302, 2303, 2321
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/28xx/2841/GA26-5988-7_2841_DASD_Component_Descr_Dec69.pdf

more 2321 from IBM
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2321.html
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_PH2321B.html
even more 2321
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2321_Data_Cell
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/datacell.html

magnetic stripes directly read/written

when I was undergraduate in the 60s, I got hired fulltime to be responsible for IBM mainframe systems. The univ. library got an ONR grant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Naval_Research

to do an online catalog. Part of the money went to getting a 2321. The project was also selected to be be betatest for original CICS product and I got tagged to support/debug the implementation. One troublesome "bug" to find was that CICS had (undocumented) hard-coded BDAM options for OPEN ... and the library was using files with different set of BDAM options. some past CICS &/or BDAM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
some more CICS history, gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/http://www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm

3850 from IBM
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3850.html
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3850b.html
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_PH3850A.html
other 3850
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3850
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/mss.html

3850 automated tape library with 200mbyte tape cartridges for 3330-1 caching/staging hierarchy. virtual 3330-1 would be staged to/from a pool of 3330-1 drives (hardware HSM mount/unmount 3330-1 pack ... rather than files). Later they would support 3330-11 drives simulating two 3330-1 drives. Even later they would support 3350 drives simulating 3330-1 drives (could be considered experience for current situation where industry standard fixed-block disks are used to simulate CKD DASD, real CKD DASD hasn't been made for decades).

from pg. 510
https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1975/5083/00/50830509.pdf

If the specific cylinder required by the CPU (1/404th of a Mass Storage Volume) is already on DASD, an I/O operation proceeds. If not, and data is being accessed, the MSC causes the cartridge containing the cylinder to be placed on a Data Recording Device (DRD), and the data contained in that cylinder to be transferred to the DASD staging buffer.

,,,
If the Operating System knows which cylinders will be accessed, it can cause the MSC to stage only those cylinders containing the data set; reducing the number of times cartridges need to be accessed.
... snip ...

aka a pool of real 3330 staging drives can be used to simulate a much larger number of "mounted" 3330 virtual packs.

trivia topic drift.

1980, I had been con'ed into doing extended channel support for IBM STL (rename silicon valley lab, SVL) ... moving 300 people from IMS group to offsite bldg. recent (ibm-main) posts referencing effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#1 GREAT presentation on the history of the mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#88 Paging subsystems in the era of bigass memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#94 Migration off Mainframe to other platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#3 Somewhat Interesting Mainframe Article

other posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

1985, I was considered IBM export on the vendors hardware used for the channel extender ... and the NCAR/UCAR IBM rep. tracked me down to help NCAR. NCAR had bunch of (non-IBM) supercomputers and 4381 implementing HSM function using some of the vendors hardware boxes (the vendor implemented their own channel protocol between their boxes). The 4381 would get supercomputer network request for file/data, it would stage the data (from tape) if required (to IBM DASD), and download a channel program (CCWs) into one of the vendor's A515 boxes ... and return the "handle" for that channel program to the requesting supercomputer. The supercomputer would then request that channel program to be executed, transfer the data to/from directly between supercomputer and IBM DASD.

I've mentioned before a senior disk engineer getting talk scheduled at communication group conference where he said that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division (i.e. stranglehold on datacenters, not only hitting to disk division but significant contributing to driving IBM business into the red in the early 90s) recent (ibm-main) references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#19 Check out Massive Amazon cloud service outage disrupts sites
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#69 ComputerWorld Says: Cobol plays major role in U.S. government breaches
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#42 What are mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#81 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#82 Mainframe operating systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#11 The Mainframe vs. the Server Farm: A Comparison
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#89 z14 and zBX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#28 Db2! was: NODE.js for z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#38 CMS style XMITMSG for Unix and other platforms

The disk division had come up with various solutions to reverse the situation, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group. Later, disk division is adstar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSTAR

and senior ADSTAR executive is investing in startups that would use IBM disks (as a way of circumventing communication group vetos) ... and would have us in periodically, asking us to lend a hand to some of these efforts. One of the efforts was NCAR spinoff of its HSM implementation as "Mesa Archival". trivia reference
https://spacefrontier.org/space-phoenix/

In addition to the Space Phoenix Program, the foundation is engaged in assisting UCAR with technology transfer and communication issues deriving from programs such as the "Airport of the Future" Doppler radar technology, which promises early warning of sudden atmospheric down-drafts (microbursts) near and over airport runways, and the commercial development by Mesa Archival Systems, Inc. of mass data file transfer software for supercomputers.
... snip ...

Implementation was upgraded to HIPPI channel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPPI

with "3rd party" transfers ... the channel program executed directly by the HSM server, but using HIPPI "3rd party" transfers to transfer data to/from the disk and the client. Part of the work then for fibre-channel standard was also support "3rd party" transfers for HSM implementations ... beginning to morph into network attached storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage
and storage area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_area_network

posts referencing communication group dumb terminal paradigm, including references to communication group stranglehold on datacenters and going to be responsible for demise of disk division
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Taxing Social Security Benefits

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Taxing Social Security Benefits
Date: 21 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Looting Social Security
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/19/looting-social-security/
Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as "putting Social Security on a sound basis."
... Stockman (Reagan budget director), frequently claims credit for starting to tax social security benefits .... also

Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception (George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller), pg154/loc2949-51:
Given the dependence of the vast majority of the population on Social Security, it is surprising that any politician would tamper with it. But the belief in New Story has been so great that there was a serious threat. In 2004, the George W. Bush Administration proposed to "privatize" a significant portion of the program.
... snip ...

Note during last decade, enormous amounts of gov. was also being outsourced ... for intelligence, 70% of the budget and over half the people
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us
significantly contributing to the rapidly spreading Success of Failure culture ... i.e. more profits from series of failure
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
success of failure posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

Privatizing social security would be to the same people that were running the economic mess last decade. They started out securitizing mortgages, paying for triple-A ratings (even when rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A) and selling into the bond market. The triple-A rating eliminated any need to care about borrower's qualification or loan quality (being able to immediately unload every mortgage they made). Then they found they could design securitized mortgages to fail, pay for triple-A, sell into the bond market and then take out CDS gambling bets that they would fail. This largely responsible for them being able to do over $27T 2001-2008.

economic mess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

When did the home computer die?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: When did the home computer die?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 15:29:09 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Z/OS. RAID disks and use "snapshot" for backup, which creates a virtually instantaneous backup (works like "copy on write".

recent raid ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#43 Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines
Snapshot discussion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_snapshot

these days z/OS still based on OS/360 CKD DASD dependencies even tho no real CKD DASD have been made for decades. CKD DASD done with industry standard controllers and fixed block disks with the addition of CKD DASD simulation. past posts mentioning CKD DASD, multi-track search, fixed-block, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd
recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#40 IBM etc I/O channels?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#42 IBM etc I/O channels?
CKD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_key_data
as mentioned they mostly specify some variety of 3390 (from the late 80s) simulation ... IBM discussion here (even tho all 3390s are just simulation)
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zos.zmainframe/zconc_mfhwdiskdevs.htm
3390 1989
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3390.html

trivia ... even the 80s 3380 & 3390 while officially CKD DASD ... they (also) were actually implemented as a collection of fixed-block cells (you can see this in records/track tables where record length has to be rounded up to integral number of cells). the motivation is similar to the FBA-512->FBA-4096 discussion which has error correcting being done on fixed number of bytes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

now there is not even any pretense that the physical disks are anything other than industry standard fixed-block

when I was out doing marketing for our HA/CMP product
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

I coined the terms disaster survivability and geographic survivability to differentiate from disaster/recovery. I was then asked to write a section for the corporation continuous availability document ... but the section got pulled after both roschester/as400 and pok/mainframe complained that they couldn't meet the objectives (it took them a couple more decades). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

in the early 70s, my wife had been in the gburg JES group and one of the catchers for ASP for turning into JES3. Then she was co-author of JESUS spec (all the things in JES2 and JES3 that neither customer sets could live w/o ... never got done for various reasons). She was then con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of mainframe loosely-coupled architecture (mainframe for cluster) where she did peer-coupled shared data architecture ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

she didn't remain long, in part because of poor uptake ... except for IMS hot-standby until sysplex and parallel sysplex ... and partly because of battles with communication group trying to force her into using SNA/VTAM for loosely-coupled operation. recent ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#40 IBM etc I/O channels?
sysplex ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Parallel_Sysplex

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Spending, Deficit Concerns Arise With New Tax Law

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Spending, Deficit Concerns Arise With New Tax Law
Date: 24 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Spending, Deficit Concerns Arise With New Tax Law
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spending-deficit-concerns-arise-with-new-tax-law-1514120400?mod=e2fb

2002 (republican) congress lets fiscal responsibility act lapse (spending can't exceed tax revenue, on its way to eliminating all federal debt, completely different republican congress that originally passed the act). 2010, CBO report that 2003-2009 spending increased $6T and tax revenue cut $6T for $12T budget gap compared to fiscal responsible budget (first time taxes cut to not pay for two wars). Sort of confluence of 1) Federal Reserve and wallstreet wanting huge federal debt, 2) military-industrial complex wanting huge spending increase, and 3) special interests wanting huge tax cuts. CBO report also that of the enormous DOD spending increase, there was over $1T that they could find nothing to show for (as if it evaporated crossing the Potomic from Treasury to Pentagon). Last administration some spending cuts, but republican house has not restored tax revenue, so debt has continued to increase.

CIA Director Cobly didn't agree with "Team B" Soviet analysis that justified huge DOD spending increase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

White House Chief of Staff Rumsfeld replaces Colby with somebody that will agree with Team B, he then resigns to become SECDEF and is replaced by his assistant Cheney. In the 80s, the former CIA Director is now VP and repeatedly claims he knows nothing about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair
because he was fulltime administration point person deregulating financial industry ... creating S&L crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
along with other members of his family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan
and another
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260

another family member presides over the economic mess last decade, 70 times larger than the S&L crisis. S&L crisis had 30,000 criminal referrals and 1000 criminal convictions with jailtime, proportionally the economic mess should have 2.1M criminal referrals and 70,000 criminal convictions.

Last decade, one of the former "Team B" members is now asst SECDEF and primary architect of Iraq strategy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
White House Chief of Staff Card's cousin was dealing with Iraq in the UN and given proof that the WMDs (tracing back to the US in Iran/Iraq war) were decommissioned. The cousin supplied the information to the white house and then was locked up in military hospital. The cousin finally gets out and publishes a book in 2010
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/

The decommissioned WMDs had been found early in the invasion, but the information was classified until fall of 2014 (four years after Card's cousin published book about the decommissioned WMDs).
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Fiscal Responsibility Act posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act
Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
"Team B" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
S&L crisis posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#s&l.crisis
economic mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
ZIRP funds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp
WMD posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Low end IBM System/360 (-30) and other machines
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2017 13:23:58 -0800
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
A former employer had lots of PL/I. Perhaps the majority of code was PL/I with HLASM, then C making up the rest. Not a single COBOL program in the whole site. Back in the late 60s they did an initial implementation in COBOL and it did not turn out well. They never looked back and wrote some pretty neat stuff in PL/I.

I had to learn PL/I and I think I did pretty well. I had a fairly complex problem to solve and the language seemed to help a lot. It is a pretty complex language, but you can stick with the simple stuff to get the job done. It helped me that after I wrote what I had to have someone that knew PL/I very well took a look and pointed out PL/I intrinsics that simplified things.

I'd still recommend COBOL over PL/I. I prefer simple and common over powerful and rare.


a lot of PL/I bloat was breaking up in small pieces both compiler and runtime library ... to support smaller storage sizes.

Multics system was done in PL/I
http://multicians.org/pl1.html

801/risc "group" did PL.8 ... in much the same way risc was suppose to be grealy simplified/efficient
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/8

The GNU 64-bit PL8 compiler: Toward an open standard environment for firmware development (note all R&D and System Journals now behind paywall at IEEE)
https://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/0b9bc46ed06cbac1852565e6006fe1a0/ef37d94a40fe90a885256eb500718f09!OpenDocument

PL/I and/or PL/I-like blanguages
http://teampli.net/plifamily.html
... PL/C Univ. Student language from Cornell ... PL/M Intel language used for CP/M

old email from 801 group comparing Pascal execution times done by different Pascal compilers ... including compiles done by Pascal front-end for PL.8 for some different platforms.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email810808

Perq 6m30sec, 68k pascal/pl8 4m55secs, 3033 pascal/vs 21.5secs, 3033 pascal/pl8 opt0 10.5secs 3033 pascal/pl8 opt3 5.9secs

other old 801 email in same post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email781128
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email790607
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email790711
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email811104

past 801/risc, Iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power/pc, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions
Date: 24 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/i-hope-i-can-quit-working-in-a-few-years-a-preview-of-the-us-without-pensions/2017/12/22/5cc9fdf6-cf09-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html

big boost in the late 80s/early 90s by private-equity take-overs that fiddled pension books to increase the money they could take. AMEX was in competition with KKR for private-equity take-over of RJR and KKR wins, KKR then runs into some problems and hires away the AMEX president to help turn it around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco

Then IBM has gone into the red and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company. Then the board hires away the former AMEX president who reverses the breakup ... and also uses some of the same techniques used at RJR
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

Some of the stories from the 90s, was big push for 401K by wallstreet ... the big corporate pension funds were really negotiating hard on management fees, but wallstreet realized that they could make significant more if the pensions were in individual 401Ks. Some of the same wallstreet forces also pushed really hard last decade on privatizing social security.

The other way wallstreet got pension funds last decade was with the triple-A rated securitized mortgages. They were making securitized mortgages, paying the rating agencies for triple-A (even when the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A) and selling into the bond market (even to entities restricted to "safe" investments like large pension funds). Triple-A rating met they no longer had to care about borrowers' qualifications and loan quality since they could immediately sell everything off. Then they realized they could create securitized mortgages designed to fail, pay for triple-A, sell into the bond market, and then take out CDS gambling bets that they would fail. Being able to pay for triple-A largely enabled the over $27T done 2001-2008.

Another corporate gimmick started with forming subsidiaries in the 80s where most of the profit was booked, while the operation with most of the employees operated at break even or loss. Airlines did that with moving the profit to ticket sales, airlines operations could be running at substantial loss while the parent company still shows a profit because it was all being booked in the ticket subsidiary. They could even declare bankruptcy for airline operations and dump the employee pension plan on the government
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation

Last decade, they also got congress to allow subsidiaries (where the profit was booked) to be moved to offshore tax havens. Poster child is large US equipment manufacturing that sells and delivers in the US. They created a "distributorship" in offshore tax haven, they do book transfer of equipment at cost to the distributorship, which then sells to customers in the US. All equipment is still made & delivered in the US, but the profit is booked in offshore taxhaven.

private equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
posts mentioning former AMEX president
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax havens
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
(triple-A rated) toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
economic mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions
Date: 24 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#55 'I hope I can quit working in a few years': A preview of the U.S. without pensions

related news item from today, one of the institutions selling triple-A rated securitized mortgages to pension funds fined ... although even at billions it is still trivial percentage ... joke that the fines started to be considered just part of the cost of running criminal enterprise.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3319964-crisis-era-settlements-rbs
Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE:RBS) has agreed to pay $125M to resolve claims that it made misrepresentations while selling mortgage-backed securities to two large California pension funds - CalPERS and CalSTRS - in the lead up to 2007-08.

In July, RBS agreed to pay $5.5B to resolve a similar lawsuit by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which followed a $1.1B MBS settlement with the U.S. National Credit Union Administration in September 2016.

... snip ...

(triple-A rated) toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

some recent CalPERS news:

New Study Undermines Rationale for Investing in Private Equity and CalPERS Strategy in Particular, as Oregon CIO Demonstrates that Public Pension Funds Are Dumb Money
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/new-study-undermines-rationale-investing-private-equity-calpers-strategy.html
CalPERS Corruption Watch: Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos Takes Illegal Business Solicitations From Recent Employee
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/calpers-corruption-watch-chief-investment-officer-ted-eliopoulos-takes-illegal-meeting-recent-employee.html
Incoming Board Member Margaret Brown Criticizes CalPERS' Plan to Hurt Beneficiaries by Hiring Unnecessary, High-Priced Private Equity Middlemen; CalPERS Violates Open Meeting Rules by Advancing Plan in Secret
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/incoming-board-member-margaret-brown-criticizes-calpers-plan-worsen-private-equity-results-hiring-high-priced-middlemen-calpers-violates-open-meeting-rules-advancing-plan-secret.html
CalPERS Doubles Down on Its Illegal Election, Makes "Absurd" Claim That It Is Above the Law
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/calpers-doubles-illegal-election-makes-absurd-claim-law.html
CalPERS Goes All-In On Pension Accounting Scam; Boosts Stock Allocation To 50%
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-19/calpers-goes-all-equity-bubble-boosts-stock-allocation-50
CalPERS Board Candidate Margaret Brown Objects to Unconstitutional, Non-Secret, Insecure, Unauditable Election; Vendor Handling Phone and Internet Voting Criticized for Incompetence, Exaggerating Security of On-Line Voting
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/calpers-board-candidate-margaret-brown-objects-to-unconstitutional-non-secret-insecure-unauditable-election-vendor-handling-phone-and-internet-voting-criticized-for-incompetence-exaggerating-secu.html
California Secretary of State Gives Unprecedented Qualified Certification for CalPERS Board Election; Vendor Everyone Counts Bars Public Viewing and Fails to Tabulate Paper Ballots as Required
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/california-secretary-of-state-gives-unprecedented-qualified-certification-for-calpers-board-election.html
Is the Sacramento Bee in the Business of Protecting CalPERS?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/sacramento-bee-business-protecting-calpers.html
"It's Not Sustainable" - Sacramento Lashes Out At Calpers After Raising Pension Payments
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-29/its-not-sustainable-sacramento-lashes-out-calpers-after-raising-pension-payments
CalPERS ballots aren't secret, candidates say
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article176244811.html
CalPERS' Three Card Monte: Makes Unheard of Benchmark Change to Hide Expected Poor Private Equity Performance to Help Staff at Expense of Beneficiaries, California Taxpayers
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/calpers-three-card-monte-makes-unheard-of-benchmark-change-to-hide-expected-poor-private-equity-performance-to-help-staff-at-expense-of-beneficiaries-california-taxpayers.html
Is CalPERS Going Private? - EL CERRITO PROGRESSIVES
https://elcerritoprogressives.com/2017/09/23/is-calpers-going-private/
Why Private Equity Isn't a Good Investment for CalPERS
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/15/why-private-equity-isnt-a-good-investment-for-calpers/
CalPERS Calls The Top: Largest Public Pension Fund Mulls Dumping $50 Billion Of Stocks
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-13/calpers-calls-top-largest-public-pension-fund-mulls-dumping-50-billion-stocks
CalPERS Can't Even Figure Out How to Count Ballots in Accordance With Its Own Election Regulation, Let Alone Comply With California Law
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/calpers-cant-even-figure-count-ballots-accordance-election-regulation-let-alone-comply-california-law.html
Reform Candidate for CalPERS Board, Margaret Brown, Beats Incumbent Handily; Staff and Board Apparently Shell-Shocked
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/reform-candidate-calpers-board-margaret-brown-beats-incumbent-decisively-staff-board-apparently-shell-shocked.html
CalPERS says no to adding leverage
https://www.top1000funds.com/analysis/2017/11/17/calpers-says-no-to-adding-leverage/
Calpers Needs to Think a Few Moves Ahead
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-11-20/calpers-needs-to-think-a-few-moves-ahead-on-allocation
CalPERS: Stop investing in deforestation
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article185212973.html
Can CalPERS Time the Market?
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b15yhh3y17bgnr/can-calpers-time-the-market

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

When did the home computer die?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: When did the home computer die?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2017 09:24:16 -0800
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Not only do processors keep getting bigger but you can cluster systems and put multiple CICS regions on each. Scaling not likely to be a problem.

max mainframe configs

z900, 16 processors, 2.5BIPS (156MIPS/proc), Dec2000
z990, 32 processors, 9BIPS, (281MIPS/proc), 2003
z9, 54 processors, 18BIPS (333MIPS/proc), July2005
z10, 64 processors, 30BIPS (469MIPS/proc), Feb2008
z196, 80 processors, 50BIPS (625MIPS/proc), Jul2010
EC12, 101 processors, 75BIPS (743MIPS/proc), Aug2012
z13, 141 processors, 100BIPS (710MIPS/proc), Jan2015
z14, 170 processor, 150 BIPS, (882MIPS/proc), Aug2017

...

processor performance increase 5.6 times (156->882), max number of processor increase 10.6 times (16->170), max. configuration thruput increase 60 times (2.5bips->150bips).

1st half of last decade, datacenter with 40+ max configured systems (@$30M, 15yrs later, max configured is still around $30M), found that parallel sysplex overhead, past modest threshold was significant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Parallel_Sysplex

I've mentioned before, last published mainframe peak I/O was z196 getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre-channel). About the same time, fibre-channel announced for e5-2600v1 blade claiming over million IOPS (two fibre-channel having higher throughput than 104 FICON ... running over 104 fibre-channel, aka FICON is heavy-weight protocol that significantly reduces the throughput of native fibre-channel, one of the reasons that mainframe needs so many "channels"). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

Around turn of century, was in datacenter that had mainframe configuration with 130 CICS instances ... CICS was developed with extremely short pathlength and lightweight processes ... so didn't scale well as systems got bigger and/or support symmetric multiprocessing. CICS didn't get any multiprocessor explotation until 2004 (so work around has been to run multiple CICS instances). posts mentioning CICS (&/or BDAM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
other CICS history, gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/http://www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20071124013919/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm
multiprocessor explotation
https://web.archive.org/web/20041023110006/http://www.yelavich.com/history/ev200402.htm
some CICS scale-up
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSGMCP_5.3.0/com.ibm.cics.core.help/topics/tasks/task_platform_region_add.html

e5-2600v1 blade benchmarked at 530BIPS ... over ten times that of z196 from the period. z14 benchmarks at 3 times z196, mostly from increase in number of processor. High-density rack somewhere around 60blades and e5-2600v5 blade (rebranded xeon gold) BIPS (TIPS) much more than ten times z14. some recent e5-2600 blade posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#61 computer component reliability, 1951
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#33 learning Unix, was progress in e-mail, such as AOL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#36 IBM Shareholders Need Employee Enthusiasm, Engagemant And Passions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#59 64 bit addressing into the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#73 When Working From Home Doesn't Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#3 Somewhat Interesting Mainframe Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#15 Blockchain on Mainframe ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#88 Ferranti Atlas paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#8 IBM Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#25 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?

past posts about working on 450K cobol statement application, number of max configured systems (40+) in large datacenter was number needed to finish settlement in overnight batch window.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#50 Where can you get a Minor in Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#20 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#21 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#24 Job ad for z/OS systems programmer trainee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#73 Price of CPU seconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#81 Intel: an expensive many-core future is ahead of us
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#5 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#76 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#55 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#20 IBM forecasts 'new world order' for financial services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#35 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#32 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted that mainframes would disappear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#25 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#45 Article for the boss: COBOL will outlive us all
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#83 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#65 A New Performance Model ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#112 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#43 The Pentagon still uses computer software from 1958 to manage its contracts

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Failures and Resiliency

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Failures and Resiliency
Date: 26 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
The last product we did before leaving IBM was HA/CMP (high-availability) ... and studied how things failed ... including looking at no single point of failure, no two points of failure, etc. Over the previous 20yrs, hardware had become increasingly reliable and the major availability outages were becoming 1) people mistakes and 2) environmental (floods, earthquakes, etc). Part of it was looking at resiliency ... how things keep running in the face of failures ... and partitioning/fencing off outages regardless of failure kind/source (preventing cascading/systemic failures).

As Boyd was first developing his Organic Design for Command & Control briefings, he would talk about former military officers (steeped in rigid, top&down command and control) starting to contaminate US corporate culture. However about the same time, there started to appear articles about MBAs starting to destroy US corporations with their myopic focus on short term return on investment. Part of this turns out to be eliminating all redundancy, even those designed to provide resiliency in the face of failures ... the CEO could take his bonus and long moved on before likelihood of some disastrous event having occurred. This is also when the obfuscation and coverups start to happen.

In 1999, I was asked to help try and prevent the coming economic mess ... as has been seen, they managed to counter the blocking measures. After the crash, there has been enormous misdirection about the sources of the problems and as well as claims nobody could have foreseen the problems.

While I was still undergraduate in the 60s, I was brought into Boeing Corporate hdqtrs to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all Boeing dataprocessing in an independent business unit to better monetize the investment). I the time, I thought the Renton Datacenter was possibly the largest in the world ($200M-$300M in IBM equipment, 60s dollars). There was a disaster scenario where Mt. Rainier could warm up and the resulting mud slide would take out the Renton datacenter and there was a plan to replicate Renton up at the new 747 plant at Paine Field (analysis was that being w/o Renton after a disaster while it was recreated, would cost Boeing more than the cost of Renton).

About the same time I was at BCS, Boyd was made command of Spook Base, one of Boyd's biographies claims it was a $2.5B windfall for IBM. Boyd would talk about spook base having the largest air conditioned bldg in that part of the world. Spook base reference done 404, but lives on at the wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html

2016, one of the "The Boeing Century" articles was about how the merger with MD has nearly taken down Boeing and may yet still (infusion of military industrial complex culture into commercial operation) ... references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#20 The Boeing Century
and
https://issuu.com/pnwmarketplace/docs/i20160708144953115

Boyd posts & URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
availability posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
economic mess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

trivia: looking at old Amazon orders ... small sample, books I ordered 14May2000 (as part of the effort to counter coming economic mess)

Advances in the Valuation and Management of Mortgage-Backed Securities
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/188324952X/
Credit Derivatives and the Management of Risk
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735201048/

and then 21Jan2001, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671675567/

(triple-A rated) toxic CDO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

branch avoidance on orthodox Stanford RISC

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: branch avoidance on orthodox Stanford RISC
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2017 15:54:26 -0800
"Chris M. Thomasson" <invalid_chris_thomasson@invalid.invalid> writes:
Wrt, ABA, the free-pool manipulation is still in use over in Appendix A.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg26480faec85f44e2385256d5200627dee&aid=1
(refer to appendix A-48, Free-Pool Manipulation)

ABA galore... :^)


compare&swap was invented by Charlie when he was working on fine grain CP/67 (kernel) multiprocessor locking at the science center (mnemonic chosen because CAS are Charlie's initials). Trying to get it added to 370 architecture was rebuffed because the POK favorite son operating system people said that all they needed was 360 test&set (supporting multiprocessor single global kernel spin-lock).

The 370 architecture owners said to get it added to 370, additional uses would be needed for justification. Thus was born several examples for use by multi-threaded applications (like large DBMS systems) ... that still appear in current mainframe principles of operation. Original addition to 370 was CS (compare and swap) for locks, counters, pointers, push/pop lists, etc ... as well as CDS (compare double and swap) for more complex structures (like forward/backward linked lists ... above cited example ... all cutesy of Charlie and the science scenter).

Over the next docade or two, saw other platforms adding instructions with similar semantics ... especially uptake by large commercial RDBMS operations (regardless of whether multiprocessor or not). Original POWER (RIOS) for RS/6000 had no multiprocessor and/or cache serialization capability and didn't bother with compare&swap. However, RS/6000 trying to move into the commercial RDBMS market put it at performance disadvantage because even simple serialization had to be done with unix kernel locking calls. Eventually AIX implemented compare&swap simulation as fastptath in the kernel call interrupt routine.

note following the above mentioned section in mainframe principles of operation appendix is about the more recently defined PLO ... which can perform operations on two or more discontiguous storage locations.

SMP and/or compare&swap posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

SABRE after the 7090

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SABRE after the 7090
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2017 17:16:46 -0800
hancock4 writes:
American Airlines pioneer online reservation system was implemented on IBM 7090 hardware (two machines) in the early 1960s.

But what happened to that after S/360 came out? At some point the 7090 installation would've been obsolete, plus, the airline undoubtedly sought new features that would require more CPU horsepower and memory. Would anyone know what kind of computer, environment, and language American Airlines used for the second implementation of SABRE?


Sabre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)
n 1972, the system was migrated to IBM System/360 systems in a new underground location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Max Hopper joined American Airlines in 1972 as director of Sabre, and pioneered its use.[6] Originally used only by American Airlines, the system was expanded to travel agents in 1976.

With SABRE up and running, IBM offered its expertise to other airlines, and soon developed Deltamatic for Delta Air Lines on the IBM 7074, and PANAMAC for Pan American World Airways using an IBM 7080. In 1968, they generalized their work into the PARS (Programmed Airline Reservation System), which ran on any member of the IBM System/360 family and thus could support any sized airline. The operating system component of PARS evolved into ACP (Airlines Control Program), and later to TPF (Transaction Processing Facility). Application programs were originally written in assembly language, later in SabreTalk, a proprietary dialect of PL/I, and now in C and C++.

... snip ...

Programmed Airline Reservations System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Airline_Reservations_System

Airline Reservation Systems History 101
https://www.cbtravel.com/blog/2013/11/airline-reservation-systems-history-101/
In 1953, American Airlines' CEO, C.R. Smith, met an IBM sales representative and invited him to see Reservisor system, to look for areas of improvement. From there, American Airlines and IBM began collaborating on an idea of an automated airline system. In 1959, the venture announced the Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment, commonly known as SABRE. The network was completed in 1964 and was the largest civil data processing system in the world.

In 1992 a consortium led by Air France and Lufthansa Airlines launched Amadeus, modeled after SystemOne. In 1990 Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and Trans World Airlines formed Worldspan and in 1993 another consortium including British Airways, KLM, and United Airlines formed Galileo International, based on Apollo.

... snip ...

trivia: my wife served short stint as chief architect for Amadeus. She backed European the decision to go with X.25 (rather than SNA) and the communication group got her replaced (it didn't do them much good because Amadeus went with X.25 anyway). recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#0 IBM & SABRE

TPF (ACP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facility
TPF evolved from the Airlines Control Program (ACP), a free package developed in the mid-1960s by IBM in association with major North American and European airlines. In 1979, IBM introduced TPF as a replacement for ACP — and as a priced software product. The new name suggests its greater scope and evolution into non-airline related entities.

TPF was traditionally an IBM System/370 assembly language environment for performance reasons, and many TPF assembler applications persist. However, more recent versions of TPF encourage the use of C. Another programming language called SabreTalk was born and died on TPF.

... snip ...

Core TCP/ACP was assembler and contributed to difficulty evolving it. I've periodically mentioned that while ACP/TPF had loosely-coupled (cluster) support, in the early 80s, it didn't have SMP, tightly-coupled multiprocessor support and IBM had decided to go multiprocessor only with new 3081. IBM was afraid that all the customers would migrate to non-IBM clone makers (that were still offering new, faster single processor machines) and some very unnatural things was done to VM370 3081 multiprocessor support, trying to speed up ACP/TPF running in virtual single processor machine ... that noticeably degraded throughput for all other VM370 multiprocessor customers.

Eventually IBM came out with single processor 3083 ... a 3081 with one of the processors removed. recent posts mentioning 3083
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#20 {wtf} Tymshare SuperBasic Source Code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#84 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#94 GREAT presentation on the history of the mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#56 What is the most epic computer glitch you have ever seen?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#33 Bad History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#39 IBM etc I/O channels?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War
Date: 27 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/bill-slim-wwii-forgotten-army.html

Both Miles book (A Differrent Kind of War) and Stilwell's biography has Allies constantly pressuring Chiang Kai-shek to launch a Burma campaign ... but he continued to make a condition that British participate also.

Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945 (Barbara W. Tuchman), loc5853-56:
Major Frank Merrill, a former Japanese-language officer who had come from the Philippines after Pearl Harbor to act as liaison with the British, told Stilwell the story of the Burma campaign up to now: "no plan, no reconnaissance, no security, no intelligence, no prisoners," in contrast to the Japanese who had excellent communication, great aggressiveness and high mobility.

loc6116-18:
On the Irrawaddy front three days later the Japanese broke through, bypassing the 1st Burma Division and heading for the oil fields at Yenangyaung. General Slim could get no effective action out of demoralized troops and gave the order to destroy the oil fields on April 15

loc6143-45:
The British preferred to give up Burma, he reported, rather than be indebted to the Chinese or make concessions to Burmese nationalists in order to retain it. They intended to regain it at the peace table in any event and wanted it free of any commitments as to future form of government.

loc6445-47:
The implication of his report was that the British performance allowed only one interpretation: that they had never intended from the beginning to hold Burma and had deliberately scuttled it in order to weaken China. What is true in history is often less important than what people believe to be true.

log6894-95:
For the same reasons that the British had not aggressively defended Burma to begin with, he wrote on July 31, they now "have no intention of attempting to retake Burma in the foreseeable future."

loc7370-71:
The United States had not yet adopted the Clausewitz concept of war as a continuation of policy. War was still considered an aberration, something to be finished off as quickly as possible so that society could go about its regular business.

loc7388-90:
The Ledo Road was yet another project of the American "Support China" policy which was unwanted and disliked by the British. They would have preferred to maintain the roadlessness of the frontier in the interests of the shipping monopoly, and even more because they wanted no access to India for the Chinese.

loc7466-68:
This time pressure by Washington on London had no effect. "They will by one means or another do everything possible to block any Chinese forces from operating in Burma," advised Colonel Roberts, Stilwell's former G-2 who was now at the War Department.

loc7484-87:
On January 8 the Generalissimo formally declined to undertake the offensive. He did not need to wait until Roosevelt consulted Churchill. It was evident enough that they were not going to fulfill his condition and he was determined not to be pushed into fighting for Burma, even in China's interest, unless the Allies were fully committed to the campaign.
... snip ...

recent posts mentioning Mile's "A Different Kind Of War"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#105 Iraq, Longest War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#68 Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#36 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#56 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#57 About Unconventional warfare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#3 Pearl Harbor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Windows 95 chime was created on a Mac

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Windows 95 chime was created on a Mac
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2017 13:17:32 -0800
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
In any case, the correct statement is that any code that uses a 32-bit signed integer to represent seconds elapsed since 1 Jan 1970 has this issue. I'm pretty sure that lets Z/OS out as it existed in some form prior to 1970 (although that does not mean that it won't simply have an issue earlier, although I haven't heard any suggestion that it would).

360 had 32bit location 80 timer (in main memory required memory bus for update ... which could interfere with other memory bus uses). 360/67 had "high resolution" that update every 13+microseconds. TOD was maintained with external box and/or updated by incremental elapsed updates from location 80 timer.

370 went to 64bit TOD timer ... along with 64bit clock comparator and 64bit elapsed timer ... all separate "registers" with special instructions. bit12 was microsecond, making bit32 a little greater than a second (frequency of actual updates was defined as related to the specific model machine cycle)

Lots of places started off setting TOD clock was based on zero starting at 1970. Official specification was starting at beginning of century. Shortly after joing IBM, I spent 3months looking at leap second updates and whether start of century was 1900 or 1901. Rolls over 143yrs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_formatting_and_storage_bugs#Year_2042
While IBM has defined and implemented a longer (128-bit) hardware format on recent machines, which extends the timer on both ends by at least 8 additional bits, many programs continue to rely on the 64-bit format which remains as an accessible subset of the longer timer.
... snip ...

i.e. another 25yrs to finish transition to 128bit format.

recent afc ref
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#26 Programmers Who Use Spaces Paid More
longer format from 2004 principles of operation (after y2k)
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/4.6.1.1?SHELF=&DT=20040504121320&CASE=
1997 still original 370 64bit format (pre-y2k)
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/4.6.1.1?SHELF=EZ2HW125&DT=19970613131822&CASE=

early 80s, there was internal online forum discussing the coming y2k problem ... some past refs with "CENTURY" post from 7Dec1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#233 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#0 2000 = millennium?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#94 Those who do not learn from history...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#16 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#53 Long parms...again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#48 Qbasic

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

SABRE after the 7090

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SABRE after the 7090
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2017 11:42:01 -0800
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Sabre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)

n 1972, the system was migrated to IBM System/360 systems in a new underground location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Max Hopper joined American Airlines in 1972 as director of Sabre, and pioneered its use.[6] Originally used only by American Airlines, the system was expanded to travel agents in 1976.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#60 SABRE after the 7090

Max Hopper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hopper
In 1982, Hopper left AA to join Bank of America as VP. However, he joined American Airlines again in 1985, this time as the Senior Vice President of Information Technology. He retired in 1995, as the chairman of Sabre Group, a unit of AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines.
... snip ...

I've mentioned before that when Jim Gray left SJR for Tandem ... he palmed off some number of things ... consulting with the IMS group (in STL a couple miles down the road from SJR) and helping BofA ... an early System/R installation ... original sql/relational system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

there was a joke that Hopper had hired more IMS DBMS developers than STL employed (on the official IMS product)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_System

In early 90s, not long after leaving IBM ... was brought in as consultant to largest res systems in the world to look at the ten things their system couldn't do. They gave me softcopy of full OAG (official airline guide, all scheduled commercial flt segments in the world). I was asked to look at ROUTES first ... find flt segment/connections from origin to destination ... represented 25% of computer load on SABRE. I went away and came back a few weeks later with a implementation that did all the impossible ROUTE things as well as significantly faster.

Part of the issue was their base design/architecture implementation was from the 60s ... based on technology tradeoffs from that period. By the 90s, many of the trade-offs had significanlty changed and the new implementation would have been significantly disruptive to the way they did business as well as their whole organiation. They wrung their hands for several months and eventually said that they hadn't really figured I would fix the problems, they just wanted to be able to tell AMR board & Hopper for the next 5yrs that I was working on it (Hopper possibly remembering me from the early 80s when he was at BofA).

Other SABRE trivial ... at the time, mainframe loosely-coupled disk farms were limited to eight systems ... each dasd string with string switch to two controllers with each controller having four channel switch. They were starting to use HYPERchannel to provide for larger complexes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HYPERchannel

I had first used HYPERchannel to implemente channel-extender for STL as part of moving 300 people from the IMS group to offsite bldg. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
past posts mentioning HSDT project, some of which used HYPERchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

recent post about NCAR using HYPERchannel for supercomputer HSM (using IBM disks and 4381) ... also disk division providing startup funding for NCAR HSM spinoff, "Mesa Archival":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#50 Can anyone remember "drum" storage?

HYPERchannel was done by NSC, founder James Thornton (from CDC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Systems_Corporation
past posts mentioning Thornton
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#11 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#27 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#6 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#80 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#75 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#10 the legacy of Seymour Cray

I had also done the rfc1044 support for the original IBM mainframe TCP/IP product which had been getting around 44kbytes/sec aggregate throughput using nearly full 3090 processor. In some rfc1044 turning tests at cray research, got sustained channel throughput between 4341 and cray (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

past posts mentioning working on ROUTES with full OAG:
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/2005o.html#24 is a computer like an airport?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#22 3 value logic. Why is SQL so special?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#22 Bidirectional Binary Self-Joins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#61 Up, Up, ... and Gone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#23 another item related to ASCII vs. EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#25 another item related to ASCII vs. EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#42 Outsourcing your Computer Center to IBM ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#22 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#73 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#80 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#53 Article says mainframe most cost-efficient platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#81 Hashing for DISTINCT or GROUP BY in SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#42 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#8 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#27 Why are organizations sticking with mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#87 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#5 Can you have a robust IT system that needs experts to run it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#109 Airlines Reservation Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016g.html#44 "I used a real computer at home...and so will you" (Popular Science May 1967)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#0 IBM & SABRE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#42 What are mainframes

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
Date: 28 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
https://warisboring.com/russia-invaded-japanese-islands-with-u-s-ships-after-japan-surrendered/

Stilwell biography has US/Marshall believing that after defeat of Germany, U.S. also needed Soviet military to help defeat Japan ... catering to Stalin included providing supplies to the (chinese) communists ... part of Milton Miles (Different Kind of War) theme that OSS & US Army gave China to the Communists

recent Stilwell posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#56 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#3 Pearl Harbor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#61 Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War

other recent posts reference Milton Miles:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#105 Iraq, Longest War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#68 Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#36 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#57 About Unconventional warfare

Soviet invasion of Manchuria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
As agreed with the Allies at the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union entered World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on 9 August 1945, exactly three months after the German surrender on May 8 (9 May, 0:43 Moscow time).

Although the commencement of the invasion fell between the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and only hours before the Nagasaki attack on 9 August, the timing of the invasion had been planned well in advance and was determined by the timing of the agreements at Tehran and Yalta, the long term buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East since Tehran, and the date of the German surrender some three months earlier; on August 3, Marshal Vasilevsky reported to Premier Joseph Stalin that, if necessary, he could attack on the morning of 5 August.

... snip ...

Soviet, 1,577,725 troops; Japan 713,729 troops, Manchkuo 170,000 troops, Mengjiang 44,000 troops

by comparison Okinawa, this lists japan 76,000 soldiers, 1/10th that in manchuria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Intrigued by IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Intrigued by IBM
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2017 11:28:02 -0800
Gareth's Downstairs Computer <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> writes:
Having cut my teeth on digital logic, minicomputers and then micros, I am intrigued by recent comments describing IBM mainframes with 170 processors.

What mix of software was run on these?

Did they all share the same memory?

How were they synchronised, for it seems that any operating system or executive would have a full time job just distributing the rasks over such a large number of processors.

Were they still the 360 instruction set?


recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#87 IBM z14 High-lights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#88 IBM Mainframe Ushers in New Era of Data Protection
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#18 IBM RAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#61 computer component reliability, 1951
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#95 PDP-11 question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#37 learning Unix, was progress in e-mail, such as AOL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#3 Somewhat Interesting Mainframe Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#8 IBM Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#57 When did the home computer die?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#57 When did the home computer die?

in theory zOS is distributing workload across 170 processors ... including large multi-threaded applications like IMS & DB2 DBMS which are simulataneously running on multiple processors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS

machines support 64bit mode ... but have 31bit modes and 24bit modes ... the last allowing 360-like execution.

However, these machines also have a subset of virtual machine capability built into the hardware PR/SM & LPARS ... and most customers typically run production using LPARS to logically partition the machine into multiple systems (different kinds of production, test, etc). LPAR support includes definition of how much of the BIPS processing power is allocated to each LPAR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_partition

Amdahl had original done this in early 80s with hypervisor (subset of virtual machine capability) for their clone mainframes ... and eventually IBM added similar capability to 3090 processors originally as PR/SM in 88.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PR/SM

360 multiprocessor serialization/locking was test&set instruction ... current defintion
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/7.5.139?DT=20040504121320

when charlie was working on fine-grain multiprocessor kernel locking for CP/67 at the science center ... he invented compaer&swap instruction (mnemonic CAS is also Charlie's initials). Initial attempts to get it added to 370 were rebuffed because the POK favorite son operating system people claimed that test&set was sufficient (they had a single kernel spin-lock implementation). 370 architecture owners said to get it added to 370 required uses other than multiprocessor kernel synchronization/serialization. Thus was born the examples that still appear in principles of operation about use by application multithreading.
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/A.6?DT=20040504121320
recent post in comp.arch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#59 branch avoidance on orthodox Stanford RISC
smp, multiprocessor and/or compare and swap posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

coordination of LPARS (logically separate systems) supported by SYSPLEX and coordination of real physically separate systems by Parallel SYSPLEX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Parallel_Sysplex
I've commented before in the 70s my wife had been con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of (mainframe) loosely-coupled (i.e. cluster) architecture ... where she did Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture ... she didn't remain long, in part because of little update (until SYSPLEX and Parallel SYSPLEX) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

detailed specification of machine operation is principles of operation. ... this is "z" 64bit (from 2004) ... possibly the last html/webpage version ... since then I believe they are only PDF versions.
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/CCONTENTS?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DN=SA22-7832-03&DT=20040504121320

section giving general instructions
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/7.0?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320
section with some discussion of 24-bit, 31-bit and 64-bit addressing mode.
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/7.5?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320&CASE=

privilege instruction setting 24, 31, 64 bit addressing mode
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/7.5.112?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320

some discussion of current (2004) z architecture compared to previous esa/390
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/1.3?DT=20040504121320
and esa/370 and 370-xa
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/1.3.1?SHELF=&DT=20040504121320&CASE=

most recent sa22-7832-11.pdf (12.08mb)
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg2b9de5f05a9d57819852571c500428f9a

see discussion of trimodel addressing (24-bit, 31-bit, 64-bit) chapter one, introduction.

original 360 principles of operation, from bitsavers:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/princOps/A22-6821-0_360PrincOps.pdf
here
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/princOps/
370 principles of operation
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/princOps/

other trivia ... there are actually more cores than the 170 ... including system assist processors ... running real-time operation for I/O control
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zos.zmainframe/zconc_mfhwPUs.htm

also zAAP and zIIP ... software licensing for regular software running on "central processors" is so expensive ... they have multiple classes of processors where software execution can be licensed at lower rate.

zAAP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Application_Assist_Processor
zIIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIIP
some more discussion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_zEnterprise_System
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/Architecture

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial
Date: 29 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
After the turn of the century there was significiant uptic in gov. outsourcing to for-profit companies. In the case of intelligence, 70% of the budget and over half the people
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us
which significantly accelerates the rapidly spreading success of failure culture, for-profit companies making significantly more gov. money off series of failures
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

success of failure posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

general military, it corresponds with Spinney's "Perpetual War" theme ... aka avoid finalizing a war, allowing it to drag on forever
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html
some of this even predating "war is a racket"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
and then later "economic hit man"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

overlaps "Is Harvard Responsible For Rise of Putin" ... after the fall of the soviet union, those sent over to teach capitalism were more intent on looting the country. John Helmer: Convicted Fraudster Jonathan Hay, Harvard's Man Who Wrecked Russia, Resurfaces in Ukraine
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/convicted-fraudster-jonathan-hay-harvards-man-who-wrecked-russia-resurfaces-in-ukraine.html
If you are unfamiliar with this fiasco, which was also the true proximate cause of Larry Summers' ouster from Harvard, you must read an extraordinary expose, How Harvard Lost Russia, from Institutional Investor. I am told copies of this article were stuffed in every Harvard faculty member's inbox the day Summers got a vote of no confidence and resigned shortly thereafter.
... snip ...

How Harvard lost Russia; The best and brightest of America's premier university came to Moscow in the 1990s to teach Russians how to be capitalists. This is the inside story of how their efforts led to scandal and disgrace.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160325154522/http://www.institutionalinvestor.com:80/Article/1020662/How-Harvard-lost-Russia.html
Mostly, they hurt Russia and its hopes of establishing a lasting framework for a stable Western-style capitalism, as Summers himself acknowledged when he testified under oath in the U.S. lawsuit in Cambridge in 2002. "The project was of enormous value," said Summers, who by then had been installed as the president of Harvard. "Its cessation was damaging to Russian economic reform and to the U.S.-Russian relationship."
... snip ...

Perpetual War posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

Part of the platform that the next administration ran on, was reversing the enormous outsourcing to for-profit companies that had occurred during the first part of the century. While they failed to reverse it, they did pretty much halted its enormous growth.

Part of it was the enormous influence that (frequently new) private-equity owners had in congress. Commercial companies are prohibited from using money from gov. contracts to lobby congress ... however, private-equity owners are not so limited.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/
Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87 billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James Baker III on its employee roster.
... snip ...

aka the case of private-equity owner of the company that employed Snowden, also the private-equity owner of the company responsible for the OPM breach as well as billions in no-bid Iraq contracts last decade
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/24/opm-contractor-veritas

posts mentioning private-equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
posts mentioning former AMEX president, IBM CEO, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

SABRE after the 7090

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SABRE after the 7090
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2017 16:53:17 -0800
hancock4 writes:
I can't help but wonder about a "one size fits all" system. They tried that with PCP and it didn't work.

I remember the S/360 summary suggesting the model 195 as appropriate for airline reservations.

(I sought my employer to upgrade our model 40 to the 195. They weren't interested.)


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#60 SABRE after the 7090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#63 SABRE after the 7090

Eastern's (ACP) "System One" res. system ran on 370/195 ... it was base for Amadeus (mentioned in upthread post). "Flying Eastern" from IBM Archives
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/valueone/valueone_flying.html
some more here
https://www.cbtravel.com/blog/2013/11/airline-reservation-systems-history-101/
a little more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_reservation_system

other triva: it was also used as part of putting the nails in Future System coffin ... past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

they showed that if "System One" res. system application was implemented on Future System machine made out of the fastest hardware then available (used in 370/195), it would have throughput of 370/145 (15-30 times slowdown).

note that previous references to some of the FS people retreated to Rochester to do a simplified version of FS as System/38 ... as implied in various references, a 30 times slowdown didn't play a significant factor in the System/38 market.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial
Date: 30 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#66 Innovation?, Government, Military, Commercial

John Boyd's Art of War; Why our greatest military theorist only made colonel.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/john-boyds-art-of-war/
Here too Boyd had a favorite line. He often said, 'It is not true the Pentagon has no strategy. It has a strategy, and once you understand what that strategy is, everything the Pentagon does makes sense. The strategy is, don't interrupt the money flow, add to it.'
... snip, and
"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To Be or To Do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997

From the dedication of Boyd Hall, United States Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. 17 September 1999

... snip, also Burton and Pentagon Wars, Corrupt From Top to Bottom
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/books/corrupt-from-top-to-bottom.html
But the larger story Mr. Burton recounts is enormously sad. After spending 14 years at the Pentagon in the business of buying weapons, he concludes that it is "a corrupt business -- ethically and morally corrupt from top to bottom." The reform movement he championed has faded. A culture of deception persists at the Pentagon, he says, and his courageous jeremiad mourns the likelihood that this culture will triumph in the end.
... snip, and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars
The film describes the dishonesty associated with the 17-year development of the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
... snip ...

In Organic Design For Command and Control briefings, Boyd would say that former military officers were starting to contaminate corporate culture with their rigid top-down command&control. However, about the same time, there was starting to appear articles that MBAs were destroying US corporations with their myopic focus on short term returns.

Supposedly founding fathers included patents in the constitution to protect individual inventors from large institutions trying to preserve the status quo.
https://patent.laws.com/patent-history/united-states-constitution

More recently they've managed to invert the role, business schools teach how to monopolize markets and use patents to control innovation and change, preserving status quo. The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future (Joseph E. Stiglitz) pg35/loc1169-73:
In business school we teach students how to recognize, and create, barriers to competition -- including barriers to entry -- that help ensure that profits won't be eroded. Indeed, as we shall shortly see, some of the most important innovations in business in the last three decades have centered not on making the economy more efficient but on how better to ensure monopoly power or how better to circumvent government regulations intended to align social returns and private rewards.
... snip ...

Perpetual War posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

IBM/PC

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM/PC
Date: 30 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
I remember being brought into resolve some performance problems for a national retailer that had its (large multi-system) mainframe datacenter in that area.

There was IBM group in south silicon valley that was working on PC software ... in part because Boca said it had no interest in software. Every month or so they double checked with Boca about not having interest in software. Then Boca changes its mind and told them if they wanted to work on PC software, they had to move to Boca.

I order PC when it is announced on employee purchase plan ... however, delivery takes so long that by the time it is delivered, the street price is less than paid in employee purchase plan price.

Some of the MIT CTSS people went to the 5th flr of 545 tech sq for Project MAC to do Multics. Others went to the IBM science center on the 4th flr, where CP40 and CP67 is done (virtual machine precursors to VM370), the internal network (larger than arapnet/internet from just about beginning until sometime mid-80s) and also technology used for corporate sponsored university BITNET (also for a time bigger than arpanet/internet), invention of GML in 1969 (precursor to SGML & HTML), lots of performance work as well as online and network applications.

science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
bitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
gml/sgml posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

One of the 5th flr people join scientific center spinoff commercial virtual machine company out at Waltham. Then is one of the two people responsible for spreadsheet (visicalc and software arts).

other trivia ... before ms/dos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
there was seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before seattle computer there was cp/m,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before doing cp/m, kildall worked with cp67 (precursor to vm370) at npg school
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
Date: 30 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
https://warisboring.com/russia-invaded-japanese-islands-with-u-s-ships-after-japan-surrendered/

Stilwell biography has US/Marshall believing that after defeat of Germany, U.S. also needed Soviet military to help defeat Japan ... catering to Stalin included providing supplies to the (chinese) communists ... part of Milton Miles (Different Kind of War) theme that OSS & US Army gave China to the Communists

recent Stilwell posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#56 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#3 Pearl Harbor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#61 Bill Slim and WWII's Forgotten Army - One Of The Most Successful Commanders Of The War

Soviet invasion of Manchuria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

As agreed with the Allies at the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union entered World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on 9 August 1945, exactly three months after the German surrender on May 8 (9 May, 0:43 Moscow time).

Although the commencement of the invasion fell between the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and only hours before the Nagasaki attack on 9 August, the timing of the invasion had been planned well in advance and was determined by the timing of the agreements at Tehran and Yalta, the long term buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East since Tehran, and the date of the German surrender some three months earlier; on August 3, Marshal Vasilevsky reported to Premier Joseph Stalin that, if necessary, he could attack on the morning of 5 August.

... snip ...

Soviet, 1,577,725 troops; Japan 713,729 troops, Manchkuo 170,000 troops, Mengjiang 44,000 troops. Iin comparison Okinawa, this lists japan 76,000 soldiers, 1/10th that in manchuria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa

1/3rd of US WW2 spending went to strategic bombing program (with high altitude 4engine heavy bombers). LeMay had even claimed that strategic bombing would win the war, and US wouldn't even need to invade Europe. However, it was almost impossible to hit targets from that altitude ... then they switch to fire bombing cities (they could claim they always hit something). McNamara was LeMay's staff planning fire bombing German and Japanese cities (fire bombing Tokyo had already killed more civilians than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki), later McNamara writes that LeMay tells him that if US had lost the war it would be them that would be tried for war crimes. Having slaughtered so many civilians already, US policy may have felt that they might not surrender easily (McNamara leaves for the auto industry but comes back as SECDEF for Vietnam where Laos becomes most bombed country in the world, more tons than Germany and Japan combined).

Trivia: John Faster Dulles plays major role rebuilding German industry and military from 20s up through early 40s. From the law of unintended consequences, when the US 1943 strategic bombing program needed targets in Germany, they get the targets and coordinates from wallstreet.
https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Foster-Dulles-Allen-Secret-ebook/dp/B00BY5QX1K/

loc865-68:
In mid-1931 a consortium of American banks, eager to safeguard their investments in Germany, persuaded the German government to accept a loan of nearly $500 million to prevent default. Foster was their agent. His ties to the German government tightened after Hitler took power at the beginning of 1933 and appointed Foster's old friend Hjalmar Schacht as minister of economics.

loc905-7:
Foster was stunned by his brother's suggestion that Sullivan & Cromwell quit Germany. Many of his clients with interests there, including not just banks but corporations like Standard Oil and General Electric, wished Sullivan & Cromwell to remain active regardless of political conditions.

June1940, Germany had a victory celebration at the NYC Waldorf-Astoria with major industrialists. Lots of them were there to hear how to do business with the Nazis (and circumvent the neutrality laws)
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Called-Intrepid-Incredible-Narrative-ebook/dp/B00V9QVE5O/

much later 5000 industrialists from across the US had conference at NYC Waldorf-Astoria and in part because they had gotten such bad reputation for the depression and supporting Nazi Germany, they approved a major propaganda campaign to equate capitalism with Christianity, in part (in the early 50s), it leads to "In God We Trust" on money and "under God" in the allegiance.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate-ebook/dp/B00PWX7R56/

other trivia: During "Battle of Britain", FDR's ambassador to Britain (papa Kennedy) was working with Nazis. FDR called him back to Washington and presented Kennedy with the proof and gave him an ultimatum. Kennedy mended his ways, even supporting FDR for reelection in speeches.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Called-Intrepid-Incredible-Narrative-ebook/dp/B00V9QVE5O/

loc2645-52:
The Kennedys dined with the Roosevelts that evening. Two days later, Joseph P. Kennedy spoke on nationwide radio. A startled public learned he now believed "Franklin D. Roosevelt should be re-elected President." He told a press conference: "I never made anti-British statements or said, on or off the record, that I do not expect Britain to win the war."

British historian Nicholas Bethell wrote: "How Roosevelt contrived the transformation is a mystery." And so it remained until the BSC Papers disclosed that the President had been supplied with enough evidence of Kennedy's disloyalty that the Ambassador, when shown it, saw discretion to be the better part of valor.

... snip ...

recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#63 One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#91 Godwin's Law should force us to remember & fear our shared heritage with Nazi Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#38 Imperial Hubris
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#55 Should America Have Entered World War I?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#22 Ironic old "fortune"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#60 The Illusion Of Victory: America In World War I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#69 The knives are out for Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#18 5 Naval Battles That Changed History Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#41 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#60 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#61 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#84 Early use of word "computer", 1944
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#53 Dunkirk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#99 The Real Reason You Should See Dunkirk: Hitler Lost World War II There
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#3 Dunkirk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#34 Disregard post (another screwup; absolutely nothing to do with computers whatsoever!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#28 WW2 Internment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#74 When Working From Home Doesn't Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#21 Norden bombsight
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#35 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#47 America's Over-Hyped Strategic Bombing Experiment

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered
Date: 30 Dec 2017
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#70 Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships -- After Japan Surrendered

US assistant secretary of treasury Harry Dexter White was operating on behalf of Stalin. Stalin was worried that Japan would attack from the east (opening another front) when he was already dealing with 3/4ths German military. He wanted to draw Japan into attacking US, so he sent White draft demands for US to transmit to Japan ... in US Hull note (ultimatum) which was major factor in Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White#Venona_project
hull note
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations
More Venona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

also:
Another example of White acting as an agent of influence for the Soviet Union was his obstruction of a proposed $200 million loan to Nationalist China in 1943, which he had been officially instructed to execute.
... contributing to Nationalist loosing China. In the Allied invasion of Europe, fortunately 3/4s of German military was occupied with Soviets

Benn Stein in "The Battle of Bretton Woods" spends pages 55-58 discussing "Operation Snow".
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Bretton-Woods-Relations-University-ebook/dp/B00B5ZQ72Y/

pg56/loc1065-66:
The Soviets had, according to Karpov, used White to provoke Japan to attack the United States. The scheme even had a name: "Operation Snow," snow referring to White.
... snip, also

Eric Rauchway Battles "The Battle of Bretton Woods"
https://www.cfr.org/blog/eric-rauchway-battles-battle-bretton-woods
Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Snow-Soviet-Triggered-Harbor-ebook/dp/B009KN1RUU/
Pearl Harbor: Operation Snow
https://www.historyonthenet.com/pearl-harbor-operation-snow/
The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy
https://books.google.com/books?id=pbyAycr32g4C&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=operation+snow+karpov&source=bl&ots=ioSWDtclcy&sig=8BERLSlsda8OHpZzLlA7oc64jw0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEremg6ebXAhUU1WMKHQ2tDuYQ6AEIRDAF#v=onepage&q=operation%20snow%20karpov&f=false

recent posts mentioning Harry Dexter White:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#91 Godwin's Law should force us to remember & fear our shared heritage with Nazi Germany
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#18 5 Naval Battles That Changed History Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#4 Mapping the decentralized world of tomorrow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#28 WW2 Internment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#79 WW II cryptography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#87 WW II cryptography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#24 What if the Kuomintang Had Won the Chinese Civil War?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#36 Tech: we didn't mean for it to turn out like this
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#3 Pearl Harbor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#5 The 1970s engineering recession

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970






previous, next, index - home