List of Archived Posts

2010 Newsgroup Postings (04/30 - 05/25)

Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
45 years of Mainframe
The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Program Work Method Question
Idiotic programming style edicts
Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
Cloud.com takes on virty infrastructure
How to analyze a volume's access by dataset
Program Work Method Question
How to analyze a volume's access by dataset
Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
Idiotic programming style edicts
Program Work Method Question
Program Work Method Question
Retailers blamed for making people vulnerable to credit card fraud and ID theft
Idiotic programming style edicts
Favourite computer history books?
someone smarter than Dave Cutler
someone smarter than Dave Cutler
IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler
IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Death by Powerpoint
System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Idiotic programming style edicts
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Idiotic programming style edicts
floating point, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Idiotic programming style edicts
Calling Oracle & IBM Outdated, Tibco Launches Enterprise 3.0
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Idiotic programming style edicts
"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Program Work Method Question
someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Swipe this card; shopping could be cheaper
SAP recovers a secret for keeping data safer than the standard relational database
"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Ten examples of why the humble ATM = innovation in 2010
Visa fraud alert puts banks, payment processors on guard
Favourite computer history books?
Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Cyber Self Defense: Reduce Your Attack Surface
Favourite computer history books?
Duke To Shut Down Usenet Server
IBM to announce new MF's this year
blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
Software Platforms Will Rule the Future of Payments, Expert Argues
Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
IBM to announce new MF's this year
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
Favourite computer history books?
History: Mark-sense cards vs. plain keypunching?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
IBM to announce new MF's this year
Favourite computer history books?
Favourite computer history books?
BMC reveals 'free money' mainframe and DB2 tools
Favourite computer history books?
The Evolution of the Extended Enterprise: Security Stategies for Forward Thinking Organizations
Idiotic programming style edicts
Idiotic programming style edicts

Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:57:13 -0400
"Del Cecchi" <delcecchi@gmail.com> writes:
Power7? Blue Waters?

PC based thinking is designing chips for relatively mass market applications since otherwise the development expense makes them not cost effective?


although incremental cost for moving into niches may work.

IBM goes elephant with Nehalem-EX iron; Massive memory for racks and blades
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/01/ibm_xeon_7500_servers/

from above:
With so much of its money and profits coming from big Power and mainframe servers, you can bet that IBM is not exactly enthusiastic about the advent of the eight-core "Nehalem-EX" Xeon 7500 processors from Intel and their ability to link up to eight sockets together in a single system image. But IBM can't let other server makers own this space either, so it had to make some tough choices.

... snip ...

from a thread in ibm-main mainframe mailing list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#25 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#27 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#28 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#32 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#35 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe

and a reference that w/o competition can charge $18m for $3m computer

Financial Matters: Mainframe Processor Pricing History
http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=346

from above (2006) article:
is that the price per MIPS today is approximately six times higher than the $165 per MIPS that the traditional technology/price decline link would have produced

... snip ...

in this thread (from same mailing list):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#66 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#70 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#71 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#79 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#81 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 30 Apr 2010 05:33:07 -0700
... and

IBM's Unix poaching slows in Q1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/29/ibm_unix_takeouts/

from above
... despite a 17 per cent decline in both Power Systems and System z mainframe sales.

... snip ...

and ...
In November 2008, HP was perfectly happy to crow that it had converted more than 250 IBM mainframe shops to Integrity machines in the prior two years - which prompted IBM to retaliate about the 5,000 HP and Sun takeouts it had done in the prior four years.

... snip ...

although there may be some x-over with:

IBM goes elephant with Nehalem-EX iron; Massive memory for racks and blades
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/01/ibm_xeon_7500_servers/

from above:
With so much of its money and profits coming from big Power and mainframe servers, you can bet that IBM is not exactly enthusiastic about the advent of the eight-core "Nehalem-EX" Xeon 7500 processors from Intel and their ability to link up to eight sockets together in a single system image. But IBM can't let other server makers own this space either, so it had to make some tough choices.

... snip ...

from this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#25 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#27 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#28 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#32 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#35 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no  matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:32:29 -0400
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Part of this is the cost of RAS features (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability: others have substituted Scalability or Security for the last one), and part a hidden charge for access to IBM's quality software.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#0 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

the "Financial Matters: Mainframe Processor Pricing History" article
http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=346

was tracking mainframe (mip) pricing during the 70s, 80s, and early part of 90s when there were (similar) clone mainframes ... and the (ibm) mainframe price/mip system pricing curve changed after clone mainframes left the market in the 90s (i.e. the comment was that if the 70s, 80s, & 90s curve had continued up thru the date of the article, a mainframe selling for $18m ... would have been instead selling for $3m ... aka mainframe to mainframe pricing).

some number of complaints in the ibm-main mainframe mailing list is that (regardless of high mainframe hardware pricing), that mainframe software pricing is dominating costs.

A 25+ yr old RAS story was that the product manager for 3090 mainframe tracked me down after 3090s had been in customer shops for a year. There is a mainframe industry reporting service that collects customer mainframe EREP reports and publishes regular monthly summaries (at the time including the various clone vendors). The problem was that 3090 was designed to have something like aggregate 3-5 "channel errors" per annum in total across all installed machines. The reporting service turned up closer to 20 total "channel errors" that had occurred in aggregate across all installed 3090s.

I had done operating system driver for HYPERchannel ... allowing remote mainframe controllers and devices at remote locations, using HYPERchannel as a form of mainframe channel extension (for internal installations). In some case, when I had an unrecoverable error, I would reflect and emulated "channel check" which would result in various recovery and retry operations by the standard operating system RAS. I then tried to get the HYPERchannel driver released to customers, but various corporat factions objected. As a result, the HYPERchannel vendor effectively had to do a re-implementation. In any case, the 15 "extra" 3090 channel errors (aggregate across all installed 3090s for the first year) was some HYPERchannel installations (reflecting emulated channel check). So I did some research and selected emulated IFCC (iterface control check) to be substituted in place of CC (channel check) ... it turns out that IFCC follows effectively identical path thru error recovery as CC (but wouldn't show up as channel error in the industry reports).

Point is that there doesn't seemed to be anything similar in other markets (i.e. industry monthly error/RAS reports across all customer installed machines).

as an aside ... when we were doing ha/cmp in the early 90s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

I was asked to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document. The section got pulled because both Rochester (as/400) and POK (mainframe) complained (that they couldn't meet the availability criteria in my section). I had coined the term disaster survivability and geographic survivability when out marketing ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

that was separate/independent to work involving cluster scale-up in ha/cmp ... aka project started out as ha/6000 ... but I changed the name to ha/cmp to also reflect the work on cluster scale-up. when the cluster scale-up part of the effort was transferred and we were told that we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, they didn't bother to change the product name. recent thread in this n.g. on the cluster scale-up subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#6 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#31 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#41 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#44 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#50 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#52 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#55 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#56 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#57 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#58 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#60 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#63 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#64 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#70 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#4 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#8 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#48 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no  matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:07:40 -0400
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
HP owns OpenVMS, a decent mainframe-quality operating system. It should really look into giving IBM some competition.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#0 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#2 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

from this post (in ibm-main mailing list)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#1 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

IBM's Unix poaching slows in Q1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/29/ibm_unix_takeouts/

from above:
In November 2008, HP was perfectly happy to crow that it had converted more than 250 IBM mainframe shops to Integrity machines in the prior two years - which prompted IBM to retaliate about the 5,000 HP and Sun takeouts it had done in the prior four years.

... snip ...

... Integrity (Itanium2) severs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Integrity_Servers
http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/us/en/systems/integrity-systems-overview.html

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 01 May, 2010
Subject: Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Feds open criminal probe of Goldman
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/04/30/general-financials-us-goldman-sachs-probe_7563895.html?boxes=Homepagetopnews
Goldman Sachs Downgraded by BofA on Federal Probe
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa33z7NPVyjg&pos=2
Financial Reform: Legal Vs. Right
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/goldman-jpmorgan-wallstreet-intelligent-technology-regulation.html?boxes=Homepagechannels
Justice Department Reviewing SEC Case Against Goldman Sachs
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/justice-department-reviewing-sec-case-goldman-sachs/story?id=10514528
After Round 2, It's SEC 2, Goldman Sachs 0
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/04/29/after-round-2-its-sec-2-goldman-sachs-0/?boxes=Homepagechannels
Prosecutors Said to Start Inquiry at Goldman
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/business/30case.html?dbk
Goldman Sachs Loses Room to Maneuver After Public Testimony
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avI7OhdudjWc&pos=1

One of the things that they don't talk about much is the big retirement funds (limited to buying triple-A) buying up the triple-A rated toxic CDOs (possible motivation for the toxic CDO originators paying the rating agencies for the triple-A ratings ... even when both the rating agencies and the sellers knew that the toxic CDOs weren't worth triple-A ... this was from the fall 2008 congressional hearings into rating agencies) ... which has lots of downstream affecting large numbers. For all we know, the email reference to widows and orphans may have been exactly that ... a large retirement fund (limited to buying triple-A rated investments)

recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#27 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#31 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 May 2010 07:00:45 -0700
lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) writes:
Financial Matters: Mainframe Processor Pricing History
http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=346

from above (2006) article:

is that the price per MIPS today is approximately six times higher than the $165 per MIPS that the traditional technology/price decline link would have produced

... snip ...


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#81 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

zjournal article references that lack of clone processors allowed charging $18m for a system that otherwise would have been $3m.

fergus&morris book references that shutting down 370 product pipelines during Future System, is what allowed clone processors to gain market foothold ... old post with fergus&morris book reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33

another reference to 370 product pipelines being shutdown during Future System effort:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

other references to Future System effort are here:
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm

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

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

45 years of Mainframe

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 45 years of Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 10:52:54 -0400
shmuel+ibm-main@PATRIOT.NET (Shmuel Metz , Seymour J.) writes:
No, assuming that by "/195" you mean the 360/195 and not the 370/195, which was essentially the same box. I believe that the bit mapping in 360/67 control registers was different from the S/370 control registers. The 370/195 had control registers, and I might consider that to be a S/360, but I don't know of any S/360 other than the 360/67 and 370/195 that had them.

360/67 functional specification
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/A27-2719-0_360-67_funcChar.pdf
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf

in above, layout of 360/67 control registers on pg. 16; cr0 was segment origin, cr2 was page fault (translation exception) address, cr4 was channel mask interrupt

360/195 functional specification
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/A22-6943-0_360-195_funChar.pdf

no reference to control registers &/or lctl/sctl instructions.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA22-6943-1_360-195_funcChar_Aug70.pdf

pg. 21 adds reference to 2880 block mux ... but references only control is on system control panel. also extended channels allows up to 14 channels, but psw bit 6 is summary mask for channels 6-13 (as group rather than channel 6 alone).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#29 45 years of Mainframe

no 370/195 functional specification (yet) here:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/funcChar/

370-0 (jun1970) principles of operation:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/princOps/GA22-7000-0_370_Principles_Of_Operation_Jun70.pdf

before virtual memory announcement, pg. 7; cr0 bits have control block-mux & extended external masking, cr2 extended i/o mask, cr14 & cr15 machine-check handling.

370-4 (sep1975)) principles of operation:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/princOps/GA22-7000-4_370_Principles_Of_Operation_Sep75.pdf

layout of 370 control registers on pg. 37; cr1 was segment origin

I got involved a little with the 370/195 guys ... they said that the biggest difference between 360/195 and 370/195 was some amount of instruction retry (error ras) had been added to 370/195.

I was doing various multiprocessing operating system stuff ... and the 370/195 were looking at doing an emulated two-processor system (hyper-threading with two instruction streams, two PSWs, two sets of registers, etc) ... and why they tracked me down. The 195 had 64 instruction pipeline and carefully crafted codes had 10mip thruput (any branches looping within pipeline). However, for most codes (w/o branch prediction & speculative execution), the branches would drain the pipeline and only operated at 5mip.

the idea with two instruction streams (simulated two processor systems) would be able to maintain full pipeline. instructions (and other resources) in the pipeline would have a one-bit tag indicating the instruction stream ("processor") association. this was never shipped or announced.

misc. past posts mentioning smp, multiprocessor, tightly-coupled, and/or compare&swap instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

other past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#30 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#33 45 years of Mainframe

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 02 May, 2010
Subject: The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-enablers-for-this-real-estate-crisis-willful-blindness-greed-or-more

The fall2008 congressional hearings into the rating agencies found that (unregulated) loan originators were paying the rating agencies for triple-A rating on toxic CDOs (even when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth the triple-A ratings). This enormously increased the funds available for the loan originating operations as well as eliminating any motivation for them to care about the borrower's qualification or loan quality (since they could immediately unload at premium price everything they originated, regardless of quality). Part of the triple-A rating motivation was opening up large markets that only dealt in triple-A (like retirement funds)

Loan originators, no longer having to care about borrower's qualifications or loan quality, were more than happy to sell no-down, no-documentation, 1% ARM, interest-only payments to speculators. With real-estate inflation at 20% or better in some parts of the country, speculators were gladly snapping up 1% payments (with speculation further fueling inflation; spread/ROI between costs and inflation were enormous). Real-estate industry, with commissions on every transaction were more than happy to see speculators flipping every year or two (inventory churn ... sort of like stock portfolio churning, driving fees & commissions).

in the 90s, we were asked to look at being able to identify mortgage fraud in (securitized mortgage) CDOs. CDOs had been used in the S&L crisis to obfuscate the underlying value ... but w/o the triple-A ratings, they never reached the prevalence of this century. The older kinds of mortgage fraud where things like fraudulent appraisals and/or mortgages on things that didn't exist (i.e. frequent example used was office bldg mortgage in Dallas at address that was empty lot).

However, with being able to pay for triple-A ratings (on the toxic CDOs) & gaining access to safe investment market (like retirement funds), the resulting loan originating frenzy seemed to came to dwarf the older kinds of mortgage fraud (... aka no fraudulent document mortgage fraud ... when mortgages don't require documents).

misc. recent posts mentioning real-estate speculators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#61 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#37 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#76 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#79 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#81 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.mac.system
Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 17:12:17 -0400
jamiekg@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) writes:
I read one book about Mitnick years ago, but I can't recall which. It did portray him in a negative light, though.

takedown ?

http://www.takedown.com/

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.mac.system
Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 18:33:01 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#8 Favourite computer history books?

quite a few of the people/authors (both fiction & non-fiction) mentioned in this thread were attendees at camp Swiq at one time or another ... mentioned here
http://aether.com/archives/the_curse_of_xanadu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu

also mentioned here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hackers_Conference

as the oldtimers aged, things were moved to more hospitable surroundings.

a couple random past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#21 AOL buys Redhat and ... (link to article on eweek)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#49 [Lit.] Buffer overruns

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 3 May 2010 07:32:41 -0700
timothy.sipples@US.IBM.COM (Timothy Sipples) writes:
Back when the Web was entirely new and barely developed at CERN, the IBM mainframe was the second type of machine in the world to offer a Web user interface -- and the first machine anywhere outside Switzerland. Stanford University did that, and Stanford also developed the world's first interactive/dynamic Web application (to access a VM find facility). Since then, the variety and scope of Web capabilities for the mainframe has grown to become thoroughly complete and incredible. It's not the mainframe's fault if you aren't providing Web UIs: it's entirely your (your company's?) fault.

1974, CERN made a report of its TSO/CMS comparison (bake-off) available at SHARE. The copies available inside the corporation were classified "CONFIDENTIAL - Restricted" (2nd highest corporate security classification, available on need-to-know only) ... in attempt to limit the number of corporate employees that had access to the report (they couldn't do much about SHARE members that had access to the report).

a couple references to HTML was evolution of SGML (& CMS SCRIPT clone from waterloo):
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/
http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/tp_history/Pr/

GML was invented at the science center in 1969 ... CMS SCRIPT started out as port of document formating RUNOFF from CTSS (using dot/"." formating commands). Then GML tag support was added to CMS SCRIPT:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

discussion of the early Stanford vm/cms web server:
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

above discusses using vm/cms webserver to access SPIRES, current (web) SPIRES
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/

SPIRES wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Physics_Information_Retrieval_System

misc. past posts mention TSO/CMS bake-off report:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#49 any 70's era supercomputers that ran as slow as today's supercompu
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#30 IBM OS Timeline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19 3270 protocol
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#14 Why did OSI fail compared with TCP-IP?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#51 Why did OSI fail compared with TCP-IP?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#64 vm marketing (cross post)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#54 SHARE MVT Project anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#54 XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#53 HASP assembly: What the heck is an MVT ABEND 422?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#69 OT: One for the historians - 360/91
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#19 Why did TCP become popular ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#13 What is timesharing, anyway?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#16 When nerds were nerds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#10 XDS Sigma vs IBM 370 was Re: I/O Selectric on eBay: How to use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#26 Moribund TSO/E
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#26 IEH/IEB/... names?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#35 Fw: Tax chooses dead language - Austalia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#38 Fw: Tax chooses dead language - Austalia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#34 PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#3 Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#23 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#29 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#40 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#40 Why isn't OMVS command integrated with ISPF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#65 How does ATTACH pass address of ECB to child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#89 CLIs and GUIs

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 03 May 2010 11:36:04 -0400
see@sig.for.address (Victor Eijkhout) writes:
Programmable in Basic and APL. Two ways to be truly productive.

I enjoyed learning APL on one in the early 80s, but the thought of actually programming something serious in it frightens me.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#77 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

internal world-wide, sales&marketing support (virtual machine based) HONE system extensively used APL for the applications. HONE applications included configurators ... basically enter some amount of customer configuration data and it would come up with the features that needed to be specified in the order. some of this was heavy computing performance related calculations ... and the computation load on the HONE systems was so high ... that some of the calculations were recoded in FORTRAN ... requiring a way for APL to invoke the FORTRAN code.

misc. past posts mentioning APL &/or HONE (possibly largest online deployment in the world in the 70s):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

5100 was port of apl\360 (acutally aplsv) subset with some 360 emulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ibm5100/index.htm
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/5100/

HONE apl applications had started out with cp67 cms\apl ... which was port of apl\360 to cms virtual machine environment. native apl\360 was typically a 16kbyte (or 32kbyte) workspace (real storage, swapped as complete unit). cms\apl opened the workspace up to the virtual address size (which required reworking apl\360 storage allocation & garbage collection for paged virtual memory environment) ... and added API for invoking CMS system services. The combination (of large workspaces and system service API) opened APL up to a lot of "real-world" applications (that weren't possibly in the apl\360 contrained environment).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 03 May, 2010
Subject: Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Blog: Greater IBM
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#83 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

The big cloud operations have been trailblazing a lot of this (mega datacenters ... also TCO ... including power & cooling).

The zjournal article from 2006 mentions that w/o competition from clone vendors, they've been able to charge $18m for system that would have otherwise been $3m.

There have been various stories over the past couple years that the big cloud operations have been able to cut costs by about 2/3rds for huge number of blade racks ... compared to buying from traditional vendors. They've published studies of detailed price, RAS & lifetime costs for components ... helping with the selection.

To be competitive with buying cloud as service from these operations & bring such stuff in house ... they would need to try and approximate similar price points.

other recent posts mentioning zjournal article:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#81 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#0 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#2 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#5 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 03 May 2010 17:54:00 -0400
bbreynolds <bbreynolds@aol.com> writes:
During those years in the late 1970s when Sun Company (as in Sun Oil) became a wide-ranging holding company, the VM group of Sun Information Systems (SIS) in Philadelphia wrote an APL-based corporate financial reporting system in APL, somewhat as a practice piece to gear up for commercial offerings, and also as quick way to gather data from the many subsidiaries whose connection to Sun Company was thin at best, and made mainly through the quarterly dial-ins to the APL system. I had some exposure to APL on the 5100 at a PPOE, and was slightly familiar with the financial reporting system, but I am now curious how FORTRAN code was invoked from within the APL space used by HONE, and ask Lynn to expand on his throwaway.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#77 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#11 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

cp67 had "shared pages" that were part of "named system" definition that was accessed via the "IPL" command. This carried over to vm370. In order to have APL interpreter (something like three 16page segments) defined as shared pages ... it had to be included as part of an IPL "named system" ... that included a saved system image of CMS along with APL.

actually, the original 370 virtual memory architecture allowed for r/o shared-segments ... but that was one of several things dropped when 370/165 ran into problems & delays retrofitting virtual memory ... that would have held up virtual memory announcement. when the features were dropped to help with the 370/165 schedule ... other models that had already implemented full 370 virtual memory ... had to go back and remove the dropped features. vm370 also had to drop back to the protected shared page hack used by cp67 (rather than the original implementation using r/o protected shared segments).

In any case, HONE had a large tailored online environment all implemented in APL called SEQUOIA. It would have been possible for SEQUOIA to setup things to drop out of APL, execute the desired FORTRAN program which then returned to APL & SEQUIOA (with SEQUIOA having left around sufficient information to resume the endusers environment).

The gotcha was with the IPL CMSAPL ... simply exiting APL (back to CMS) ... still left the protected APL shared page image in the address space (which would have interfered with executing most other applications). Implicit in all this was that falling back to having a non-shared page APL ... would have resulted in severe HONE performance degradation (that would have not been offset by the benefit from having thruput improvement from having some FORTRAN implementations). HONE also had a special hack to include large part of the SEQUIOA APL code as part of the APL interpreter shared-page image (significantly reducing paging overhead).

HONE needed a new kind of mechanisms for invoking protected shared pages ... having standard "IPL CMS" for the protected cms shared pages and a totally different mechanisms for invoking protected shared pages for APL. I had done page-mapped filesystem for cp67/cms ... and in these old email refs ... migrated the page-mapped filesystem and other features from cp67 to vm370:
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 supplying enhanced production systems to many internal sites ... including HONE ... going back to when HONE started with CP67 systems. HONE converted to vm370 based system ... prior to my moving (mentioned in the email references) to vm370. However, after I moved changes to vm370 base ... HONE was one of my first CSC/VM installations. In any case, as part of the page-mapped filesystem ... there was ability to have files mapped into virtual memory with portions defined to be "shared", r/o protected ... which HONE took advantage of to enable being able for SEQUIOA to drop out of APL, have FORTRAN application executed, and then resume APL/SEQUIOA execution (i.e. shared page APL/SEQUIOA was invoked separately from the "IPL CMS").

A small subset of the CMS and VM370 CSC/VM changes were then picked up by the product group .... w/o the paged-mapped filesystem support, and shipped as DCSS in vm370 release 3.

misc past posts mentioning HONE SEQUIOA:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#9 HP-UX will not be ported to Alpha (no surprise)exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#76 HONE was .. Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#0 HONE was .. Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#3 HONE, Aid, misc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#5 HONE, xxx#, misc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#21 "Super-Cheap" Supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#27 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#30 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#53 DCSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#52 The Fate of VM - was: Re: Baby MVS???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#53 The Fate of VM - was: Re: Baby MVS???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#62 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#77 More named/shared systems

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Program Work Method Question

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Program Work Method Question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 04 May 2010 10:20:47 -0400
Charles Richmond <frizzle@tx.rr.com> writes:
Even at that time, most programmers were *not* assured of always having access to a terminal. So printing out the program listing and penciling it up was still sometimes used. Also, programs were sometimes created on paper (with a pencil) and then later typed into the terminal.

there was period when the terminals were slow and even if there each person might have more than one terminal (at work, at home, etc), the amount of information easily stressed the terminal bandwidth

some old pictures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

the cdi miniterm on desk at home is next to compact microfiche reader; get program listings redirected to microfiche printer ... several dozen pages on 3x5 card. had "library" of couple hundred cards.

however, on this business trip referenced here (in the mid-80s):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#5 computers on tv
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#6 computers on tv

I was tracked down at the hotel for conference call about system failure that a customer was having. The other end of the call had program listings and access to source (on channel connected, 640kbyte/sec, 3270 terminals) and detailed customer provided failure information. I had to work off the program listing source from memory.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 04 May 2010 11:07:05 -0400
Joe Makowiec <makowiec@invalid.invalid> writes:
Not to worry. S/he has been promoted and is now working in another division.

the old adage that heads roll uphill.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 May, 2010
Subject: Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/

The quote from Greenspan of no evidence that mega banks are more efficient/effective than more modest sized banks seems to correspond with analysis I did of numbers from industry publication several yrs ago. The publication had several thousand numbers showing the avg. for the largest national banks compared to the avg. of all the major regional banks. The regional banks came out slightly better than the national banks.

past reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Cloud.com takes on virty infrastructure

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 May, 2010
Subject: Cloud.com takes on virty infrastructure
Blog: Greater IBM
Cloud.com takes on virty infrastructure
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/cloud_com_launch/

from above:
Cloud.com, formerly known as VMOps, has come out of stealth mode today as it raised its second round of funding and launched its first products for managing virtual server infrastructure across private and public clouds.

... snip ...

The 60s & 70s version of this were the online timesharing systems ... a major player at the time was the ibm virtual machine based mainframe system ... for both in-house operations as well as commercial timesharing service bureaus. misc. past posts about these operations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

One of the largest was the internal HONE system providing world-wide sales&marketing support (one example was before submission, mainframe orders first had to be verified by HONE applications). Recent thread discussing one of my hobbies was providing operating system and support for internal operations, including HONE system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#13

Above thread also gets into a little of evolution of sunguard for disaster backup.

misc. past posts mentioning HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

How to analyze a volume's access by dataset

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: How to analyze a volume's access by dataset
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 4 May 2010 18:58:37 -0700
LarryChenevert@VERIZON.NET (Larry Chenevert) writes:
Amdahl had an internal tool that did this.

there were two different simulators done in late 70s ... one used standard i/o vm370 trace and modeled activity. it was modified to take a full 3330 configuration and output the configuration for migration to 3350 ... with load-balancing across 3350 drives.

The other was DMKCOL (internal mods to vm) which did super high performance cchr capture and drove it various thru cache design and replacement algorithms. There was also work on abstracting the information in real time so that it could be run as part of normal production operation for providing input into dynamic disk allocation. While the initial work was under vm370 ... it was used for capturing information from production cms-intensive operations as well as guest operating systems (under vm370) ... the methodology could be added to other operating systems.

Early cache simulation results was looking at optimal placement of fixed amount of electronic storage cache ... i.e. trade-off between disk-level cache, controller level cache, channel level cache, (303x channel) director level cache or system level cache. One of the results was that single system level cache was more efficient than dividing the electronic memory available multiple smaller caches. This result was purely from the standpoint of cache hit ratios and aggregate amount of fixed electronic storage. The limitation at the time (late 70s) was no way to have system level managed addressability for large amounts of cache ... and no easy way to have independent processor managing the information. Even tho it showed that multiple 8mbytes in 3880 controller caches was less efficient (in terms of cache hit ratios) than single large system cache ... there was no easy way of packaging and shipping the system cache (although it might have contributed to justifying expanded store in 3090).

I had done a lot of work for DMKCOL ... and it was somewhat satisfying that the different cache level simulation showing that single global cache had higher hit ratio than equivalent electronic storage partitioned into different 3880 controllers. This corresponded to the work I had done as undergraduate in the 60s as undergraduate and showing global replacement was more efficient than local/partitioned replacement.

Slightly later I got pulled into academic dispute over global versus local ... there was some amount of concerted opposition to granting a stanford PHD on global replacement. At acm sigops '81 meeting, I was asked to provide supporting evidence on global replacement from my 60s undergraduate days. Presumably some sort of internal corporate politics resulted in my not being allowed to respond until oct82 (sounds better than assuming that they were taking sides in the academic dispute)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email821019
in this post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#46

a couple past posts mentioning DMKCOL work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#35 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#3 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?

misc. past posts referencing global replacement work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

Longer term DMKCOL collecting (several months) ... after identifying relatively short term use patterns (used for things like cache design) ... started turning up other kinds of longer period patterns ... certain collections of accesses done on periodic basis.

some of this shows up backup/archive "containers" ... collections treated as single unit ... I had done the original CMSBACK that then morphed into workstation datasave facility, then ADSM and is now TSM ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#cmsback

misc. past backup/archive posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#backup

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Program Work Method Question

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Program Work Method Question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 09:14:32 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
some old pictures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

the cdi miniterm on desk at home is next to compact microfiche reader; get program listings redirected to microfiche printer ... several dozen pages on 3x5 card. had "library" of couple hundred cards.

however, on this business trip referenced here (in the mid-80s):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#5 computers on tv
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#6 computers on tv


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#14 Program Work Method Question

last night on NCIS, they are searching a bookstore in wash dc, owned by recently deceased deep-cover russian spy ... gibbs turns up a microfiche card ... explaining it is a 1970s version of the doodad that plugs into side of PC (aka flashdrive).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

How to analyze a volume's access by dataset

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How to analyze a volume's access by dataset
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 11:08:21 -0400
BillF@MAINSTAR.COM (Bill Fairchild) writes:
I remember now about Amdahl's CSIM. Thanks for the lengthy post on it.

Cache and NVS sizes were indeed vanishingly small in the 1980s compared to today's models. I remember attending a SHARE session, ca. 1989, in which an IBM cache control unit person from Tucson said that IBM had modeled vast amounts of traced user I/O requests and decided that 4M, or at most 8M, of NVS was all that anyone would ever need to support DASD fast writes. This reminds of me T. J. Watson's prediction in 1943 that "there is a world market for maybe five computers." lol


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#18 How to analyze a volume's access by dataset

I had gotten into some disputes with Tucson over some of their cache conclusions. The first two 3880 cache controllers were ironwood (3880-11) and sherif (3880-13) ... they were both 8mbyte cache controller caches ... ironwood was 4k "page" cache, and sherif was full-track cache.

(hardware) fast-write allowed system logic to continue as soon as record was in controller cache ... but before arm had been moved and data actually deposited on disk. for no-single-point-of-failure ... this required that the electronic storage was replicated and could survive power-failure (marketing would tend to claim that whatever was shipping was what was actually needed). in some sense, it is temporary staging area to compensate for disk arm delay (and possibly being able to optimally re-arrange order of writes tailored to disk arm motion).

fast-write logic shows up in 1980s DBMS implementation (not necessarily mainframe) where the DBMS is directly managing cache of records ... and transaction is considered commuted as soon as the transaction image log record has been written ... but the actual data record hasn't yet been written to disk "home" location. The aggregate amount of (outstanding) "fast-write" records would tend to be related to how fast the system was executing transactions. I ran into some issues with this attempting to extend to cluster environment ... frequently used past reference (jan92 meeting in ellison's office)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

some number of the (non-mainframe) implementations were getting the DBMS vendors to move their vax/cluster implementation over to ha/cmp. at the time, when a record had to be moved from one cluster member to another, their vax/cluster implementation was to first force any "fast-write" records to their home disk location ... before the other cluster member read it off disk. This ignored the fast interconnect technologies that would allow direct cache-to-cache (of fast-write records) transfers. It turns out to get them off the first write to disk scenario ... there were some tricky issues with correctly merging transactions commits from multiple (cluster) logs during a recovery (say after total power outage). Early on there was apprehension of deploying direct cache-to-cache transfer (of potentially fast-write records) ... because of the complexities with log merging during recovery. misc. ha/cmp posts (direct cache-to-cache transfers, w/o first forcing to disk, was part of cluster scale-up in dbms environment):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

This is somewhat independent of cache size issues and (re-use) hit ratios (i.e. once in cache, what is the probability that the same record would again be requested). The early 3880-13 (full-track) cache documentation claimed 90% hit rates. Their model was sequential read of track formatted with ten records. The first record read from a track would bring in the whole track ... and then the next nine sequential record reads would be found in the cache. I raised the issue if the application switched to full-track sequential read, it would drop the numbers to zero percent cache hit ratio.

The 3880-11 was being pitched as paging device ... to somewhat compensate for lack of 2305 follow-on. I had done page migration and some work on dup/no-dup algorithms in the 70s. Relative large system storage with relatively same amount of paging cache could result in zero percent hit rate. The issue is that if the page is brought into the system ... and the sizes of aggregate cache and system storage were comparable ... then every page that was in the cache would also be in system storage (and therefor would never be requested) ... only pages that weren't in system storage would be requested (but they then weren't likely to be in cache ... because cache was full of duplicates of what was in system storage). In that situation, I created a dynamic "no-duplication" switch ... heavily loaded 2305s would deallocate any record read into system storage.

So when 3880-11 was announced, a typical system configuration was 3081 with 32mbytes of real storage. Adding four 3880-11 to the configuration would only have total of 32mbyte of cache. There would easily be the situation that every page in cache would also be in 3081 memory ... and therefor would never be used again. Only pages that would be read into the 3081 would be pages that had very low probability of also being in cache (zero percent hit rate). I proposed a "no-dup" strategy for 3880-11, similar to what I had done for 2305s in the 70s. 3880-11 had a special read CCW ... that if the record was in cache ... would read it from cache and purge it from cache ... and if it wasn't in the cache, would do a direct cache-bypass read from disk. The result, was that the only way a page could get into cache was on a write (presumably when it was being replaced in system storage).

3880-11 & 3880-13 were later upgraded from 8mbyte to 32mbyte cache as 3889-21 & 3880-23 (if total aggregate controller cache size was much larger than system memory, it mitigates the need for no-dup strategy).

misc. past posts mentioning dup/no-dup paging:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#13 managing large amounts of vm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#13 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#55 mainframe question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#10 hollow files in unix filesystems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#20 index searching
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#11 What are some impressive page rates?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#20 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#62 1teraflops cell processor possible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#17 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#18 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#20 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#19 fast check for binary zeroes in memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004i.html#1 Hard disk architecture: are outer cylinders still faster than inner cylinders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#27 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#28 IBM's mini computers--lack thereof
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#8 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#41 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#11 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#0 old discussion of disk controller chache
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#60 FBA rant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#61 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#19 Fantasy-Land_Hierarchal_NUMA_Memory-Model_on_Vertical
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#84 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#80 How to calculate effective page fault service time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#47 locate mode, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#73 Interesting presentation

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 05 May, 2010
Subject: Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#16 Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks

from (wall street?, senate?) dept. of dirty tricks; somebody yesterday reported "the baseline scenario" blog URLs as "abusive" on facebook (for "blacklisting").

It was after this URL had been posted to baseline facebook entry:
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/05/04/fake-debate-the-senate-will-not-vote-on-big-banks/

... and at least after I had made comment on the URL regarding industry publication that shows thousands of numbers with the avg. for national banks side-by-side with the avg. for the regional banks.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 11:26:39 -0400
Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
This was done in the transition from the EAM and 1401 world to the System 360s and the corporations did not like the trauma.

And again the conversion from mainframes to micros did not go at all smoothly and several project failed.


Amdahl gave talk at large MIT auditorium in the early 70s. There was several questions about business case to get funding for his new clone processor startup. He said that corporations had already spent $200B on 360 application software and even if IBM were to totally walk away from 360(/370) ... that software base would be sufficient to keep him in business through the end of the century.

The reference to IBM totally wallking away from 360(/370) might be construed as a vieled reference to Future System project ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

which was going to completely replace 360/370 and was significantly different.

Some recent posts on IBM being able to charge $18M for system that otherwise would go for $3M (because of clone processors vendors no longer in the market) ... which can be construed as it is cheaper (or some other financial scenario ... like opportunity costs) for corporations to pay the hardware price than rewrite the software:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#83 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#0 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#2 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#5 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#12 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Program Work Method Question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Program Work Method Question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 14:27:14 -0400
Charles Richmond <frizzle@tx.rr.com> writes:
The problem with microfiche cards is that a small scratch can wipe out pages of information!!! The "PC doodads" have other problems (which I hope are less likely to happen).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#14 Program Work Method Question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#19 Program Work Method Question

slightly closer relationship would be cdroms.

when we were doing HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

and working with sites that were going to become NSFNET backbone sites (internal politics finally prevented use from doing NSFNET backbone)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

we were somewhat involved with company that had worked on encoding for CDROM ... they specialized in reed-solomon ... while we were working with them, they were bought by kodak. we also had a person on the project that had been grad student of reed's at caltech. misc. past posts mentioning the company:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#1 4M pages are a bad idea (was Re: AMD 64bit Hammer CPU and VM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#53 Free Desktop Cyber emulation on PC before Christmas
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#27 shirts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#37 Why doesn't Infiniband supports RDMA multicast
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#43 360 longevity, was RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005n.html#27 Data communications over telegraph circuits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#29 Just another example of mainframe costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#4 Even worse than UNIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#82 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#19 IBM-MAIN longevity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#23 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#61 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#66 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#46 Follow up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#0 Anyone going to Supercomputers '09 in Portland?

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Program Work Method Question

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Program Work Method Question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 17:19:55 -0400
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
Mauna Kea is less than 14,000 feet. There's no way a reasonably fit person should need oxygen, provided they are allowed to acclimatize.

early days when it was referred to as "berkeley 10m" ... i was called in to look at some of the stuff ... including remote observing ... I was already doing HSDT ... and they were talking about doing operations from the base (w/o having to acclimatize) and/or from the mainland. they then got money from keck foundation and it became "keck 10m".

some of the stuff was prototyping/testing at lick ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email830822
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email830830

Lick Observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_Observatory

W. M. Keck Observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keck_telescopes
Mauna Kea Observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea_Observatory

Howard B. Keck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_B._Keck
W. M. Keck Foundation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._M._Keck_Foundation

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

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Retailers blamed for making people vulnerable to credit card fraud and ID theft

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 08 May, 2010
Subject: Retailers blamed for making people vulnerable to credit card fraud and ID theft
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Retailers blamed for making people vulnerable to credit card fraud and ID theft
http://www.securitypark.co.uk/security_article264707.html

from above:
A tidal wave of credit card fraud and Identity theft is sweeping the UK as 44% of people said they have suffered from bank/credit card fraud and 42% have had their identity stolen. According to researchers from Infosecurity Europe
... snip ...

In the mid-90s, the X9A10 financial standard working group was given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for ALL retail payments. Early in the x9a10 financial standard work there was detailed, end-to-end threat & vulnerability studies of the different environments. There were a couple ways used to describe the current paradigm:

dual-use vulnerability; in the current paradigm, the knowledge of the account number may be sufficient to perform a fraudulent transaction (effectively authentication, as such it needs to be kept confidential and never divulged anywhere) ... while at the same time the account number needs to be readily available for a large number of business processes. The opposing/conflicting requirements (never divulged and at the same time readily available) has led to comments that even if the planet was buried under miles of information hiding encryption, it still couldn't prevent information leakage.

security proportional to risk; in the current paradigm, the value of the information (for business process) to the merchant is the profit on the transaction (possibly a couple dollars) and the value of the information (for business processes) to the processor can be a few cents per transaction ... while the value of the information (for authentication) to the crooks can be the credit limit and/or account balance (frequently 100 times or more, larger), as a result, the crooks may be able to outspend by 100 times (attacking the infrastructure) as the merchants/processors can spend (defending the infrastructure).

The X9A10 financial standard working group resulted in the X9.59 financial transaction standard ... which slightly tweaked the paradigm and made the account number and information from previous transactions useless to the attackers for fraudulent financial transactions (eliminating the financial fraud motivation for skimming, harvesting, evesdropping, snooping, dumpster diving, data breaches, etc).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 10:02:33 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
This is a much older problem than that. IBM 360s used to have 24-bit addresses, so the high-order byte got used for lots of stuff. VM didn't do this, probably because of its roots in CP67, since the 360/67 used 32-bit addresses. MVS was full of this including system code and control blocks. It's taken years to migrate and, AFAIK, isn't done yet. Each release you had to look to see which pieces of the system could use 31-bit addresses and which still couldn't. For some reason they decided to use only 31-bit addreses instead of the full 32.

360/67 had two (virtual) addressing modes ... 24-bit and 32-bit. The only thing that "really" took advantage of 32-bit was tss/360.

cp67 ran cms (cambridge monitor system ... renamed conversational monitor system in morph to vm370) which "borrowed" a lot of its language processors and libraries from os/360 and ran in 24-bit (virtual) address mode (it had an os/360 simulation layer for those language processors and libraries)

it wasn't just (assembler) applications looking for spare bits to stuff things in data structures (using high byte of address field) ... but in 24-bit mode (virtual or real), the psw had condition code and program mask in the high byte (of the address field). BAL and BALR (brank and link) instruction placed the full 32-bits from the PSW (ILC, condition code, program mask, and current instruction address) into a register.

BAL/BALR was extensively used for library calls ... with the called routine returnning to the callee based on the address from the BAL/BALR instruction ... standard convention was something like:


L    R15,=A(library-routine)
        BALR R14,R15

on entry, the library routine had its base address in R15 and the callee/return address in R14 (along with callee's ILC, condition code and program mask bits).

my q&d conversion of gcard ios3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html

PSW formats (basic is similar to standard 360)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html#5


Program Status Word Basic Control (BC)

      0-------------+-1-------+-------2---------------3---------------+
| Chan masks  |E| Key   |0 M W P| Interruption code             |
      0-------------+-1-------+-------2---------------3---------------+

4---+---+-------5---------------6---------------7---------------+
|ILC|CC | Mask  | Instruction address                           |
      4---+---+-------5---------------6---------------7---------------+
0-5 - Channels 0-5 masks             13 - (M) Machine check mask
      6   - Channels 6 and up masks        14 - (W=1) Wait state
7   - (E) External mask              15 - (P=1) Problem state

Program mask bit 0 (PSW bit 36) - Fixed-point overflow
                         1          37  - Decimal overflow
2          38  - Exponent underflow
                         3          39  - Significance

... snip ...

370/67 extended mode 1st byte of PSW is


0------------+
|spar|A|T|I|E|
      +0--3-4-5-6-7+

bits 0-3  spare
bit  4    24/32 bit address mode
bit  5    translation on/off
bit  6    i/o channel address mask
bit  7    external interrupt mask

... snip ...

360/67 introduced BAS & BASR linkage instructions for use in 32-bit address mode.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/A27-2719-0_360-67_funcChar.pdf

the explanation I've periodically heard with regard to 31bit choice for XA (instead of 32-bit used in 360/67) was that BXLE/BXH instructions wanted to treat address as 32bit signed integer (since increment added to address register might be negative):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#35 Why IBM use 31 bit addressing not 32 bit?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#49 Hardest Mistake in Comp Arch to Fix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#42 Moving assembler programs above the line

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.mac.system
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 13:39:19 -0400
"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm@cable.mendelson.com> writes:
Actually most if not all geosynchronous satellites don't correct at all for any of that. As they start to drift off, they are given commands by a ground control station to get back to where they belong.

i.e. they "wear out" when they run out of propulsion to correct drift.

hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

had transponder on sbs4 ... even got to attend its launch on 41d
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-41D.html

had done two different sets of custom specified earth station hardware (with two different vendors).

one of the vendors mentioned that they had been approached by the large telco and asked if the vendor would build a duplicate to our specifications for them (apparently an example of standard industrial espionage).

one of the pains was all corporate stuff (both terrestrial and satellite) had to be encrypted ... at one point in the mid-80s there was claim that the internal network had half (or more) of all the link encryptors in the world. the problem i had was getting T1 and higher speed encryption (aka lots of stuff out their for slower speeds). past posts mentioning internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

past reference to trying to do something of my own and discovering (that at least in mid-80s) there were three kinds of crypto:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#87 New test attempt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#14 August 7, 1944: today is the 65th Anniversary of the Birth of the Computer

misc. past posts mentioning 41d:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#27 Tysons Corner, Virginia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#28 Western Union data communications?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#29 IBM 3725 Comms. controller - Worth saving?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#14 Ping: Anne & Lynn Wheeler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#23 Health care and lies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#60 JES2 NJE setup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#21 Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#17 Ethernet, Aloha and CSMA/CD -
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#55 5963 (computer grade dual triode) production dates?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#11 An Out-of-the-Main Activity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#16 Why I use a Mac, anno 2006
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#31 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#41 Year-end computer bug could ground Shuttle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#61 Damn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#19 IBM-MAIN longevity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#20 IBM-MAIN longevity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#44 IBM-MAIN longevity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#27 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#76 And, 40 years of IBM midrange
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#36 U.S. students behind in math, science, analysis says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#57 watches

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

someone smarter than Dave Cutler

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 14:23:17 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
BTW, ULTRIX wasn't IBM. It was DEC's port of Unix to their PDP-11/VAX lines. (They also had Eunice, which was a Unix like environment running under a host DEC OS. Never used it, but everythign I heard about it screamed "Run away! Run away!") IIRC, there was a Unix environment for IBM mainframes whose name I've forgotten that effectively ran as a guest under VM, before AIX and Linux370 appeared as native versions. I ran across a story about a bored systems programmer on a DOS/VSE box who had a spare partition, and decided to play with the Linux version. He got up to 44,100 simultaneous executing Linux images before the box ran out of resources. :-)

there was pc/ix done for ibm/pc by outside company.

austin/opd was going to use 801/risc ("ROMP") for displaywriter follow-on (done using pl.8 & cp.r) ... when that got killed, they looked around and came up with the idea of using it instead for the unix workstation market ... and got the company that had done pc/ix port of the pc ... to do one of 801/risc. this was announced as pc/rt and aix (v2). There was an issue of what to do with the displaywriter people that had been programming in PL.8 for CPr. They came up with claim that the austin people would do a psuedo virtual machine layer (in PL.8) and the unix port would be done (by outside company) to the abstract virtual machine layer, because that would be quicker than having the unix port done to the bare metal.

in parallel with all that, there was the stripped down tss/370 supervisor, ssup ... that AT&T was "layering" unix interface on top of ... and a effort by the palo alto science center to do BSD that ran under vm370 ... with special hooks in vm to help with having lots of address spaces and forking.

I had been working with one of the people that had done (370) vs/pascal, on doing a C front-end. He up and left for metaware ... and I got the PASC to hire metaware to do the 370 C compiler for the 370 unix port. Before this was announced and shipped, PASC got redirected to do the BSD port to PC/RT (bare metal; result disproved the assertion that abstract virtual machine effort was faster, less resources, etc). This was "AOS" (bsd announced for PC/RT) and done continuing to use the metaware c-compiler (but with 801/risc/romp backend in place of 370 backend). misc. past posts mentioning 801, risc, romp, rios, power, power/pc, somerset, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

pasc had also been doing some stuff with UCLA's locus on 68k machines and series/1. Decision was then made to (also) turn UCLA's locus out as a product and was announced as "aix/386" (running on ps2) and "aix/370" (running under vm370).

A big issue with deploying unix under vm370 (both by ibm and other vendors) was field engineer declared that they wouldn't service the boxes w/o mainframe erep ... and the effort to add mainframe EREP to unix was significantly larger than the straight-forward port of unix to 370 (i.e. running under vm370, vm370 would provide unix guest with the necessary erep required by field engineering to service the box).

Then there was fear about AT&T unix licensing and threat of AT&T/SUN agreement. The other vendors then lined up to do "POSIX" support with implementation that was free of AT&T code.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation

Note that the 40+K linux images under vm370 ... wasn't even vm370 running on the bare metal ... vm370 was running in a test LPAR (that didn't have any significant part of the total mainframe resources).

misc. past posts mentioning tss/370 ssup for at&t unix (also somewhat erep motivated, aka using low-level erep in ssup):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#37 A Glimpse into PC Development Philosophy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#13 Relocating application architecture and compiler support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#20 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#61 Virtual Machine Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#34 Power5 and Cell, new issue of IBM Journal of R&D
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#26 Old PCs--environmental hazard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#30 Old Hashing Routine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#22 Admired designs / designs to study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#17 old Gold/UTS reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#38 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#3 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#43 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#69 Operating systems are old and busted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#1 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#49 Any benefit to programming a RISC processor by hand?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#21 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#17 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#72 Entry point for a Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#61 (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

misc. past posts mentioning (ucla's) locus:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#2 IBM S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#63 System/1 ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#64 Old naked woman ASCII art
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#64 distributed locking patents
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#8 IBM Linux
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#68 "all-out" vs less aggressive designs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#69 "all-out" vs less aggressive designs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#20 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#27 OCF, PC/SC and GOP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#44 Options for Delivering Mainframe Reports to Outside Organizat ions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#49 Options for Delivering Mainframe Reports to Outside Organizat ions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#20 VM-CMS emulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#22 Early AIX including AIX/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#17 mainframe question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#36 windows XP and HAL: The CP/M way still works in 2002
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#31 2 questions: diag 68 and calling convention
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#65 Bettman Archive in Trouble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#54 Unisys A11 worth keeping?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#81 McKinley Cometh
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#36 Difference between Unix and Linux?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#67 Mainframe Spreadsheets - 1980's History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#40 I found the Olsen Quote
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#45 Linux paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#8 IBM says AMD dead in 5yrs ... -- Microsoft Monopoly vs. IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#54 Filesystems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#35 UNIX on LINUX on VM/ESA or z/VM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#45 Question about Unix "heritage"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#52 Question about Unix "heritage"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#49 Any experience with "The Last One"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#72 ibm mainframe or unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#41 Interesting read about upcoming K9 processors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#42 Interesting read about upcoming K9 processors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#12 XML: The good, the bad, and the ugly
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#30 First single chip 32-bit microprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#37 A Glimpse into PC Development Philosophy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#38 CAS and LL/SC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#39 CAS and LL/SC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#22 The Mac is like a modern day Betamax
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#28 Where should the type information be: in tags and descriptors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#5 Single System Image questions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#26 IBM Plugs Big Iron to the College Crowd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#14 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#26 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#49 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#34 Power5 and Cell, new issue of IBM Journal of R&D
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#19 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#61 DMV systems?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#8 Free to good home: IBM RT UNIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#11 Mainframe Jobs Going Away
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#4 Another BIG Mainframe Bites the Dust
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#32 V2X2 vs. Shark (SnapShot v. FlashCopy)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#14 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#9 IBM S/360 series operating systems history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#2 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#7 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#87 Why is not AIX ported to z/Series?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#50 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#53 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#59 Govt demands password to personal computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#82 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#16 handling the SPAM on this group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#82 Yet another squirrel question - Results (very very long post)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#55 Virtual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#62 How did the monitor work under TOPS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#30 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#37 Timeline: 40 Years Of Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#75 Status of Arpanet/Internet in 1976?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#4 Status of Arpanet/Internet in 1976?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#5 Status of Arpanet/Internet in 1976?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#9 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#72 Entry point for a Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#61 (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

someone smarter than Dave Cutler

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 14:31:03 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
And divisions of IBM often competed with each other. The dancing around done by sales droids flogging RS-6000s running AIX to the same shops being flogged AS-400s could be amusing.

wasn't just as/400s. some old posts reference ha/cmp work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

i was asked to do a section in the corporate continuous availability strategy document ... but it then got pulled when both rochester and pok complained (that they couldn't meet the requirements). some availability posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

when i was doing cluster scale-up for ha/cmp, referenced in this old post about jan92 meeting in ellison's office
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

the mainframe db2 group made some mention that if i was allowed to go ahead in conjunction with ellison ... it would be at least five years ahead of where they were. this possibly contributed to the internal politics that transferred the cluster scale-up part and told use that we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. misc. past emails mentioning some of the cluster scale-up work (and it couldn't transferred and then being announced for numerical intensive only):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

some recent references to "release no software before its time":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#49 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#54 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#55 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#57 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#83 What would be a truly relational operating system ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#85 Anyone going to Supercomputers '09 in Portland?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#19 Mainframe running 1,500 Linux servers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#21 Is Cloud Computing Old Hat?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#42 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#4 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#9 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#33 While watching Biography about Bill Gates on CNBC last Night
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#45 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#0 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#4 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#33 SQL Server replacement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#44 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#48 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#77 IBM responds to Oracle's Exadata with new systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#81 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 09 May 2010 18:16:26 -0400
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> writes:
No kidding. I dunno what all the VRM did, but it sure spent a lot of time doing it. The initial plan was apparently to have multiple OSes on top, a la VM/370, but when it became apparent it'd just be Unix, the VRM was pretty pointless.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#28 someone smarter than Dave Cutler

but it was full employment for the austin people ... it wasn't just about retargeting the displaywriter follow-on to the unix workstation market ... but also giving the austin people something to do ... went along with it.

it wasn't just inflating the initial development and all the processor overhead ... for no other apparent reason ... but it also required that for new device drivers ... had to write both a new unix device driver as well as the corresponding new VRM device driver (sort of the inverse of unix under vm370 ... instead of eliminating needing to do unix mainframe erep by running under vm370 ... unix under VRM ... doubled new device driver effort).

however, there was another besides unix ... they also got pick running on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_operating_system

a few past posts mentioning PICK:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#29 windows XP and HAL: The CP/M way still works in 2002
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#71 Pismronunciation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#48 Data Display & Modeling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#40 Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 10:04:51 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#28 someone smarter than Dave Cutler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#29 someone smarter than Dave Cutler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#30 IBM Unix prehistory, someone smarter than Dave Cutler

There was presentation during the displaywriter days about over 200 people programming in pl.8. redirecting the product to the unix workstation market ... still required having all those people do something.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

Later during rs/6000 and moving from aixv2 to aixv3 ... I have vaque recollection of over 1000 (maybe >2000?) working on aix (many/most? were not direct employees but were from employment agency). There were all kinds of statements about the enormous added value to unix ... like putting in lots and lots of SNA stuff ... however, this also added enormous costs to AIX which had to be accounted for.

Doing ha/cmp we were looking for unix expertise and subcontracted a lot of work out to small startup in Cambridge (with several people that had been at project athena).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

IBM & DEC jointly funded Project Athena for $25m each ... and both IBM & DEC got assistant directors on the project ... for a time, the ibm assistant director, was somebody I had worked with at the science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and had invented the compare&swap instruction (compare&swap are taken from his initials, CAS) ... misc. past posts mentioning smp and/or comapre&swap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

Parts of IBM would periodically send people to project athena to review what was going on ... and we had gotten to do some of those reviews (one week we were there, was when they were working out the gorp for Kerberos "cross-domain" operation). some past posts mentioning kerberos and/or pkinit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos

IBM also put $50m into CMU Andrew (mach, camelot, andrew, etc). I've joked that when IBM bought Transarc outright ... it was the 3rd round of money (1st time when they put the original money into CMU, 2nd time when they put money into transarc when it spun off from cmu, and 3rd time when they bought transarc outright). Of course, mach shows up in various places, like apple.

80s was era of lots of places doing unix-like systems, BSD at berkeley, Locus at UCLA, mach at cmu, etc.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Death by Powerpoint

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 19 May, 2010
Subject: Death by Powerpoint
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Predating powerpoint ... we used to joke about people that seemed their *ONLY* activity was writing presentations ... in gml/sgml ... especially after GML became an international standard and fed. gov. adopted it (GML was invented at the science center in 1969). This was similar to jokes about people who didn't do anything but "manage" their career ... something of a Boyd To Be Or To Do scenario.

SECDEF is now even quoting Boyd's To Be Or To Do ... recent
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1443

I had sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM in the 80s.

somebody's blog entry on powerpoint in iraq (from year ago) ... also mention's Boyd's OODA-loop
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/07/print/draft-draft-draftpowerpoint-1/

from above:
asked current Army commanders and platoon leaders in Iraq what they spent most of their time doing. One officer, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, answered flat-out: 'Making PowerPoint slides'.

... snip ...

misc. past posts mentioining Boyd (&/or his OODA-loops)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

misc. past posts specifically mentioning To Be Or To Do:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#35 War, Chaos, & Business (web site), or Col John Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#61 Lean and Mean: 150,000 U.S. layoffs for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#45 windows time service
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#5 mainframe replacement (Z/Journal Does it Again)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#71 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#74 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#50 "Portable" data centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#62 some '83 references to boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#4 While watching Biography about Bill Gates on CNBC last Night
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#41 Why Coder Pay Isn't Proportional To Productivity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#84 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#39 Agile Workforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#40 Byte Tokens in BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#20 How many mainframes are there?

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 17:44:59 -0400
Charles Richmond <frizzle@tx.rr.com> writes:
Hmmm.... I had heard that the IBM 5100 emulated the IBM 1103 so that it could run 1103 APL. Where did I hear that???

re:
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/5100/

5100 used PALM ... which emulated 360 for running apl

precursor/prototype involved SCAMP which emulated 1130 for APL\1130

wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

SCAMP (prototype) done at palo science center in '73 ... but 5100 used PALM

misc. past posts mentioning 5100, PALM, SCAMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#69 APL on PalmOS ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#70 APL on PalmOS ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#15 APL version in IBM 5100 (Was: Resurrecting the IBM 1130)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#24 A question for you old guys -- IBM 1130 information
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#46 A new "Remember when?" period happening right now
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#45 First OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#56 Why SMP at all anymore?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#71 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#39 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#43 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#45 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#47 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#79 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#82 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#84 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#0 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#6 The IBM 5100 and John Titor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#8 The IBM 5100 and John Titor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#8 IBM operating systems and APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#32 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#44 John Titor was right? IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#12 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#2 IBM 5100 luggable computer with APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#3 IBM 5100 luggable computer with APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#50 winscape?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#4 Privacy issue - how to spoof/hide IP when accessing email / usenet servers ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#53 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#54 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#64 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#42 The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#10 For the History buff's an IBM 5150 pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#28 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#35 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#36 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#54 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#80 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#83 Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#77 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#11 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#13 IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.programming, comp.lang.c
Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 11:24:38 -0400
raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) writes:
One might only do so correctly if one left out the word "just". Yes, the culture around him was corrupt; but he was _the_ prime example of it.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#69 Idiotic programming style edicts

something interesting seems to be going on with (at least) my news server. The post (in this thread) from 26apr mentioning the name "Madoff" is still at the news server ... but your followup ... my followup and several other followups ... my news server claims have been canceled or expired(?).

The person that tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff ... testified that environment of transparency and visibility is more important than new regulation (towards fixing the current environment). As per previous post ... slightly more than decade ago, I got called in to enhancing/redoing protocol used in the industry for doing trades ... but the work was suspended fairly early when it turned out that a side-effect was significantly increased transparency and visibility.

The "Madoff" testimony basically said that w/o transparency and visibility in how things operated ... then the investors are totally dependent on oversight and regulatory enforcement by the gov. regulatory agencies ... and during much of the period, the gov. was doing very little (congress repealing Glass-Steagall, preventing commodity futures from being regulated, SEC doing little or nothing regarding SOX).

Numerous aspects of the financial mess, in aggregate, are much larger than Madoff ... and specifically things like AIG are individually larger. Huge amounts of institutional retirement funds went into triple-A rated toxic CDOs ... and one of the justifications for current fed. obfuscation is to not show how big that risk really is (trillions, not simply billions). The congressional hearings into the rating agencies had testimony that the unregulated mortgage originators were paying the rating agencies for triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs when both the sellers/originators and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A rating (claim was that something like $27T in toxic CDOs were cycled during the period).
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

Wharton business school article estimated that something like 1000 people are responsible for 80% of the current financial mess and it would go a long way towards fixing things if the gov. could figure out how they would loose their jobs. The message in the Madoff hearings was that the current environment enables all sorts of bad things ... but it has been in the vested interest of significant parties to maintain the status quo (a side-effect was enabling Madoff activities).

There have been some articles referencing poor computer risk applications being responsible ... but the counter has been that the business people were directing the risk departments to fiddle the inputs until they got the desired outputs (the increased compensation for the business people was so large that it eliminated any motivation regarding what it would do to their institution, the economy, and/or the country). ... the magnitude of the problem is so large ... that it is way outside of the bounds of even the worst risk applications (and any common sense ... unless there are significant financial motivations to ignore/disregard the indications).

SOX had provision for SEC to do something about rating agencies ... but nothing other than a report appeared to have been done. It appeared that SEC was doing so little during the period, that it prompted GAO to start auditing financial filings of public companies. GAO started database of the financial filings that they identified as fraudulent and/or accounting errors (supposedly under SOX, required action by SEC ... including putting the responsible executives in jail).

some recent posts reference gao audit/database:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#36 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#81 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#33 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#16 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 11 May, 2010
Subject: Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Blog: Greater IBM
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#83 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#12 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

somewhat related

Large companies save more with private clouds -- sometimes; By going with in-house systems, larger companies can match the economies of scale that cloud computing service providers offer
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/large-companies-save-more-private-clouds-sometimes-627

Some of this is whether there is the available expertise to create and operate a large operation that achieves the efficiencies of some of the large cloud operators like Google and Amazon.

IBM recent item:

IBM Tackles Cloud Integration With Cast Iron Systems Buy
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/cnews/article.php/3879961/IBM+Tackles+Cloud+Integration+With+Cast+Iron+Systems+Buy.htm

and then

Amazon Web Services sees infrastructure as commodity; Low prices mean cloud computing providers need to offer value-added services to justify higher margins
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/052010-industry-players-collaborate-on-cloud.html

Google exec: Microsoft too far behind in cloud apps; Q&A: Google's Dave Girouard says when it comes to competition, there's Microsoft ... and Microsoft
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176509/Google_exec_Microsoft_too_far_behind_in_cloud_apps

In early days of GRID ... I remember seeing both SLAC and Google going thru very similar process creating long rows of racks of commodity blades (in SLAC's case it was in what had been a large mainframe machine room). Then same cast of characters (referenced above), were out looking to monetize/commercialize their investment in GRID (originally done for the technical community) ... and found early adopters in the financial community (finding competitive advantage in being able to reduce the elapsed time for certain kinds of calculations and operations).

The cloud scenario seems to be further adapting GRID technology to the old time (mainframe) online timesharing (from the 60s, 70s, and 80s). One of the largest such examples of the old time online timesharing was the internal HONE system that used virtual machine technology for world-wide sales & marketing support. Misc. past references to HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

I don't suppose anybody remembers ... but at one point the "old" BofA had hired one of the people out of STL and he had put together a larger IMS development group (at the bank) than IBM's (IMS development group).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 17:44:38 -0400
Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@newsguy.com> writes:
That runs under Emacs too, doesn't it? I'm in the Emacs-hating camp, so it's out for me.

in the 70s, i routinely got in the habit of writing lots of EXEC files ... and then RED editor came along with its own execution/macro files (EDIMAC) ... and I wrote loads of EDIMACs to do various kinds of things.

When REX(x) first appeared on the scene ... I moved from EXEC files to writing a lot of REX. I strongly advocated that endicott pick up RED as the product editor (instead of xedit) ... since at the time, RED was much more mature and had evolved a lot more function. Eventually I had to move off RED to XEDIT ... which supported REX for its macro language ... and I got use to implementing a lot of stuff in REX (including for xedit macro environment).

When I moved off mainframe to unix ... emacs was about the only thing I found that offered similar level of scripting/programmability (as I was use to on the mainframe with REX).

One of the last things I did on mainframe was CMS REXX implementation for translating mainframe email to/from 822/smtp (that was distributed internally). One of the things allowed it to be setup up running "disconnected" on your mainframe userid waiting for incoming email, convert a lot of different mainframe formats to 822/smtp ... and send it off for tcp/ip email processing to a specified workstation userid.

Currently, I've got quite a bit invested in various pieces of emacs lisp ... and some amount customizing gnus for newsreading. Possibly because I'm so use to it ... I believe gnus news provides environment that does what I want in the fewest keystrokes & number of (manual) operations.

the upfront learning curve moving from cms/xedit/rexx to emacs/lisp was rather steep ... but that was over 20yrs ago.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

floating point, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: floating point, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 08:41:47 -0400
JW <none@dev.null> writes:
Yes, it's true beginning with the i486DX. The i486SX and i486SL was the last mainstream x86 from Intel without a built in FP unit.

the claim at the time was that i486sx was actually a dx with some lines laz'ed so the FP wasn't functional (aka cheaper to have single FAB runs of DX than to have separate FAB runs of different DX and SX).

typically there is power-on/test process ... while the chips are still in the wafer. then some lines may be cut that involve the power-on/test operation (disabling the functions). failed chips are physically marked ... so when the wafere is sliced&diced (into individual chips) ... failed chips are discarded.

486 wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486

above references that SX had the FP either disabled or missing. mentions plain SL was low-power version DX ... but mentions a SL-NM being low-power SX version (w/o FP). The above mentions there was a 497SX "upgrade" for 486SX systems ... which was actually a 486DX that when installed ... it "disabled" the existing 486SX.

there was speculation that six-core offerings might actually be eight-core where one or two cores fail test ... but there are at least six cores that pass (similar speculation about three-core ... being four-core where one of the cores failed test).

there was 386 dx & sx ... but 386sx referred to 16-bit bus version (somewhat akin to 8088 was 8bit bus version of 8086).

recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#7 Happy DEC-10 Day

referencing wiki 386
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 11:34:39 -0400
Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
The really horrible thing is that the combined intellect of the entire world's equivalent of the TSA seems to be unable to anticipate any threat that hasn't already happened, after which that particular threat needs to be protected against for the rest of eternity.

a lot of that is bureaucrats with little or no experience; they are able to chronicle/list something that has already happened. They don't have the experience or understanding of the domain to theorize about things that haven't happened.

some of that is the big system integrators, consultants and beltway bandits. They have a few experienced people and attempt to monetize that by hiring hoards of people fresh out of school and teaching them a process that has been cloned from having done something similar in the past. Between the bureaucrats and the process-trained ... there may be very little actual domain specific knowledge involved (in order to adequately defend and/or create countermeasures ... there are requirements to understand the fundamentals of the infrastructure and the possible ways it could be attacked).

some of this leaks over into boyd's to be or to do advice ... misc. recent references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#84 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#39 Agile Workforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#40 Byte Tokens in BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#55 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#20 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#32 Death by Powerpoint

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Calling Oracle & IBM Outdated, Tibco Launches Enterprise 3.0

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 03 May, 2010
Subject: Calling Oracle & IBM Outdated, Tibco Launches Enterprise 3.0
Blog: Greater IBM
Calling Oracle & IBM Outdated, Tibco Launches Enterprise 3.0
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225701468

from above:
Column about Tibco CEO Vivek Ranadive's strategy to drive a new model for Enterprise 3.0 that gives companies the power to anticipate what they customers want and need in real time.

... snip ...

While the data explosion creates opportunity for new types of data use ... it doesn't outdate/obsolete the need for transaction operations that provide integrity for whole class of operations ... including financial.

Past references to Father Of Financial Dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27 Father Of Financial Dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#28 Can Smart Cards Reduce Payments Fraud and Identity Theft?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#30 Automation is still not accepted to streamline the business processes... why organizations are not accepting newer technolgies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#31 FC5 Special Workshop CFP: Emerging trends in Online Banking and Electronic Payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#57 What happened in security over the last 10 years?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#69 ATM PIN through phone or Internet. Is it secure? Is it allowed by PCI-DSS?, Visa, MC, etc.?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#3 GPG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#25 Web Security hasn't moved since 1995
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#34 How do group members think the US payments business will evolve over the next 3 years?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#78 Boffins bust web authentication with game consoles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#2 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#25 Wrong Instrument for Recurring Payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#39 repeat after me: RAID != backup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#65 The 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#87 Cleaning Up Spaghetti Code vs. Getting Rid of It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#33 H5: Security Begins at the Application and Ends at the Mind
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#34 Is the Relational Database Doomed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#4 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#6 ATMs At Risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#2 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#63 New standard for encrypting card data in the works; backers include Heartland
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#71 Barclays ATMs hit by computer fault
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#73 A Guide for Full Field Background Checks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#1 Is it possible to have an alternative payment system without riding on the Card Network platforms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#33 Trouble in PKI land
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#35 Microsoft Is Among the First to Try out PayPal's New Payments API
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#63 The satate of software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#20 Cyber attackers empty business accounts in minutes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#29 IBM launches integrated mainframe packages for payments, data warehousing and SOA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#57 IBM halves mainframe Linux engine prices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#64 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#78 ATMs by the Numbers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#3 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#19 Mainframe Hall of Fame: Three New Members Added
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#23 COBOL Celebrates 50 Years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#51 8 ways the American information worker remains a Luddite
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#77 Is it time to stop research in Computer Architecture ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#81 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#0 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#34 Amateur Computing Society
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#4 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#41 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#61 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 13 May, 2010
Subject: Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Blog: Greater IBM
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#83 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#12 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#35 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

A problem is that the private clouds would actually have to compete with the public clouds ... not against some install base of existing software. As in other references, the public clouds have invested huge amounts into turning infrastructure into commodities.

In the mid-80s, CHQ people predicted that the mainframe business was going to double by the early 90s and as a result there was a massive build-out of mainframe product manufacturing capacity. However, the next 6-7 years weren't exactly what CHQ people predicted (in the mid-80s, it probably wasn't exactly career enhancing to point out hardware was becoming increasingly commoditized and how that might affect the corporation).

Much earlier ... Endicott had con'ed me in with helping them with a lot of the 138/148 ... including running around the world doing sessions with business planners. At the time, there was a significant difference in attitude between world trade business planners and domestic US business planners with regard to taking into account competitive forces.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 13:17:43 -0400
Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
Oh, yes. Cobol was used for fiscal systems, that were maintained at 3 AM on the fly by junior programers. <Shudder> But the programs *had* to run.

past references to 450+k statement cobol program that ran all 3rd shift, every night (7days/week, 365days/year) on some $1+B worth of mainframes.
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/2009s.html#9 Union Pacific Railroad ditches its mainframe for SOA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#77 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)

In this post ... i mentioned one of the last mainframe things I did (aka programmed) was smtp mail processing in rexx
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#36 Idiotic programming style edicts

the analysis I did for the above ... was getting their system performance organization to provide me with all the data on cdrom ... and I did all the analysis on souped up PC.

it was one of those overnight batch window things ... that financial institutions started looking at reengineering for straight through processing in the 90s ... and w/o very judicious look at speeds&feeds of new technology ... ran into some momential foobar. some past references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#51 Mainframe not a good architecture for interactive workloads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#40 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#31 Quote from comp.object
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#15 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#36 Future of System/360 architecture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#19 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#21 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#37 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#44 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#61 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#19 Education ranking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#27 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#64 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#69 Controlling COBOL DDs named SYSOUT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#72 whats the world going to do when all the baby boomers retire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#81 Tap and faucet and spellcheckers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#74 Too much change opens up financial fault lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#92 CPU time differences for the same job
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#30 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#31 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#73 Price of CPU seconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#87 Berkeley researcher describes parallel path
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#89 Berkeley researcher describes parallel path
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#55 performance of hardware dynamic scheduling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#50 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#56 Long running Batch programs keep IMS databases offline
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#26 What is the biggest IT myth of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#30 Automation is still not accepted to streamline the business processes... why organizations are not accepting newer technolgies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#7 If you had a massively parallel computing architecture, what unsolved problem would you set out to solve?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#87 Cleaning Up Spaghetti Code vs. Getting Rid of It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#43 Business process re-engineering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#14 Legacy clearing threat to OTC derivatives warns State Street
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#55 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#1 z/Journal Does it Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#2 z/Journal Does it Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#21 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#23 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX? (Are settlements a good argument for overnight batch COBOL ?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#26 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#30 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#38 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#43 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX? (Are settlements a good argument for overnight batch COBOL ?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#57 IBM halves mainframe Linux engine prices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#81 A Faster Way to the Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#13 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#81 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#57 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#35 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#47 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#77 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#16 How long for IBM System/360 architecture and its descendants?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#19 STEM crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#77 Madoff Whistleblower Book
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#56 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#37 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#47 COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#78 Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 13 May, 2010
Subject: "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2521

from above:
Interview with Alan Bachman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. The magnitude of fraud schemes has grown - the scale and the losses. But the basics of fraud investigation remain sound

... snip ...

sometimes fraud will attempt to obfuscate by claiming stupidity. there has been a lot of claiming stupidity recently ... except it creates something of a catch-22 for some ... since claim of stupidity should negate justification/qualification for their mega-bonuses.

Financial misstatements are particular kind ... supposedly SOX was going to have fixed all this for public companies. Possibly because SEC didn't appear to have been doing anything (either before or after SOX) ... GAO started doing audits of public company financial statements and publishing reports and database of statements that it believed were fraudulent and/or accounting errors (things that at least under SOX, SEC would be sending responsible executives to jail).

The person that tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff ... testified that having transparency and visibility was much more important than new regulations ... also that tips turn up 13 times more fraud than audits (and that SEC didn't have a tip line but it had a 1-800 number for companies to complain about audits).

or that is what they want you to believe while they are banking their multi-million dollar bonuses. ny state attorney general had report that wall street bonuses spiked 400% during the height of the financial mess ... and since then there has been a lot going on that appears directed towards not having the bonuses returning to their pre-mess levels.

There was an (book tour) interview a month or so ago with the person that tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff. He commented that all the people at SEC were lawyers, not trained in financial forensics ... so were not capable/qualified to deal with the issues. He made some reference to replacing everybody at SEC with people that had qualifications suited to the job.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Program Work Method Question

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Program Work Method Question
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 19:36:39 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
In so many bad ways ... The focus problem occurs on several OS's, and I don't think anyone has a good solution. On the other hand, M$ doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between background tasks (startup folder, "daemons", etc.) and foreground tasks (user interaction). OS/2 solved that one back in '87, and, as a result, seems much "snappier", even on older, slow, low-memory machines. There's also the problem that every application and its brother seems to want to put something in the startup folder, usually without asking during the install. Getting rid of that cr@p takes major work. In addition, since M$ went to all the bother to put in the dumb "registry", what would be wrong with "registering" the name of the started tasks to make it easier to look them up?

Boca was sent to me about os/2 scheduling ... old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#email871124
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#email871204
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#email871204b

in these posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#8 Alpha performance, why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#60 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

someone smarter than Dave Cutler

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 08:15:03 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
Yes, thank you. I was indeed thinking of UTS, but didn't remember the name.

One of the primary os/360 HASP people that moved to white plains and did a project called RASP ... somewhat like MTS ... a heavily paged oriented os/360 (including data management and interfaces to disk storage ... as opposed to vs1 & vs2 ... which were basically os/360 adapted for running in virtual memory). RASP was getting nowhere ... and he took position as Amdahl "fellow" back in Texas ... where he set out to recreate RASP (there was some corporate legal conflicts over whether or not the recreated RASP was actually "clean room" and whether or not it contained any code from the original RASP).

A couple of us tried unsuccessfully to get corporate authorize to make an offer to somebody that had done a straight unix 370 port ... the person took offer from Amdahl ... where he worked on GOLD (for Au ... aka Amdahl unix ... eventually announced as UTS).

There was some conflict between the (new) RASP people in Dallas and the GOLD people in sunnyvale ... I was acquated with both parties and somewhat tangentially got involved in the conflict ... suggesting that they might come together for a SSUP type solution (i.e. the stripped tss/370 that was getting AT&T unix on top). This was an alternative to the UTS/VM370 scenario (aka avoiding having to add all the mainframe EREP & RAS stuff to unix ... which was many times larger than the straight-forward port of unix to 370).

recent reference to the mainframe erep/ras unix issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#61 (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#28 someone smarter than Dave Cutler

misc. past posts mentioning gold, uts, aspen, RASP, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#68 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#70 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#75 30th b'day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#44 hasp, jes, rasp, aspen, gold
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#45 HASP/ASP JES/JES2/JES3
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#2 Article in Information week: Mainframe Programmers Wanted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#26 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#24 Seeking Info on XDS Sigma 7 APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#19 Over my head in a JES exit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#0 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#7 Google Architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#30 Old Hashing Routine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#33 When Does Folklore Begin???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#32 Very slow booting and running and brain-dead OS's?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#17 old Gold/UTS reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#24 IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#3 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#36 Future of System/360 architecture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#69 Operating systems are old and busted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#54 new 40+ yr old, disruptive technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#78 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#72 Curiousity: largest parallel sysplex around?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#75 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#47 U.S. begins inquiry of IBM in mainframe market

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Swipe this card; shopping could be cheaper

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 14 May, 2010
Subject: Swipe this card; shopping could be cheaper
Blog: Payment Systems
Swipe this card; shopping could be cheaper
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100513/ap_on_bi_ge/us_financial_overhaul

from above:
Banks and retail organizations squared off Thursday as the Senate sought to make it possible for merchants to offer customers discounts if they use cash, checks or debit cards

... snip ...

also ...

Senate Approves Debit-Card Swipe-Fee Limits in Bill
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-02/at-t-verizon-to-target-visa-mastercard-with-phones.html
Retailers poised for victory in debit card fee fight
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/14/smallbusiness/interchange_fees/index.htm

and then there is

Visa's Big PIN-Debit Rate Hike Further Closes Gap with Signature Debit
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2528

from above:
The gap in acceptance costs between PIN-based and signature debit, once wide, continues to narrow, payments executives say. The trend is most apparent in the new interchange schedules for Visa Inc.'s Interlink electronic funds transfer network and the signature-based Visa check card.

... snip ...

There was an article a couple years ago about signature-debit fraud being 15 times that of PIN-debit (in the era when large fraction of interchange fee was supposedly related to fraud).

aka

Study: Signature Debit Fraud Runs 15 Times Higher Than on PIN Debit
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=738

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

SAP recovers a secret for keeping data safer than the standard relational database

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 14 May, 2010
Subject: SAP recovers a secret for keeping data safer than the standard relational database
Blog: Financial Cryptography
SAP recovers a secret for keeping data safer than the standard relational database
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001240.html

In the mid-90s, there were a lot of predictions that the telco industry was going to take over payments business. The issue was that telco had done a lot of work for high-volume call-record processing ... helping a number of "in-memory" DBMS operations. These defaulted to the data being in memory with periodic checkpoints as opposed data being on disk with in-memory caches (in-memory DBMS claims of ten times performance when compared to traditional RDBMS even when all data was also "cached" in memory).

The prospect was that the looming micropayments volumes could only be addressed by the efficiencies of the telco call-record processing. Then the telcos would leverage that to move up stream and take-over the remaining parts of the payment industry.

Micropayments has been a long time taking off. Also the foreys that some of the telcos had into payments floundered ... frequently because they had a different business model for dealing with fraud.

The intervening years has seen some of those in the payment industry installing "in-memory", ten-times DBMS ... starting to position for much higher payment transaction volumes.

I had worked on original relational/SQL implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

and some of the people show up later at "in-memory", ten-times DBMS startups (although there has been some consolidation with startups being gobbled up by larger/traditional RDBMS vendors).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 15 May, 2010
Subject: "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#42 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

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

the article notes that near the start of financial mess in 2002, total wall street bonuses were $9.8B

Then in 2008, when the financial mess was coming crashing down, there was report that just goldman's 2007 bonus pool was $21B (greater than total 2002 wall street bonuses).

There are also references that during the financial mess period, the financial sector tripled in size (as a percent of GDP, w/o showing any economic added value; in fact, just the opposite) ... a lot of it was cycling the reported $27T in triple-A rated toxic CDOs thru the infrastructure (along with all the fees, commissions, and other revenue on the transactions). It might be considered comparable to Madoff's operation ... just cloaked in a lot more obfuscation and complexity (and involves significantly larger amount of money).
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

past references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#76 Bush - place in history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#52 IBM CEO's remuneration last year ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#66 independent appraisers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#42 The Return of Ada
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#4 A Merit based system of reward -Does anybody (or any executive) really want to be judged on merit?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#52 Technology and the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#53 Your thoughts on the following comprehensive bailout plan please
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#56 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#69 Another quiet week in finance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#82 Fraud in financial institution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#18 Once the dust settles, do you think Milton Friedman's economic theories will be laid to rest
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#26 SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), is this really followed and worthful considering current Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#28 Does anyone get the idea that those responsible for containing this finanical crisis are doing too much?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#31 The human plague
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#32 How much is 700 Billion Dollars??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#61 The vanishing CEO bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#64 Is This a Different Kind of Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#32 How Should The Government Spend The $700 Billion?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#33 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#41 Executive pay: time for a trim?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#73 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#80 Are reckless risks a natural fallout of "excessive" executive compensation ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#41 The subject is authoritarian tendencies in corporate management, and how they are related to political culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#45 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#49 US disaster, debts and bad financial management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#57 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#3 Congress Set to Approve Pay Cap of $500,000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#17 Why is everyone talking about AIG bonuses of millions and keeping their mouth shut on billions sent to foreign banks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#31 OODA-loop obfuscation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#36 Average Comp This Year At Top Firm Estimated At $700,000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#11 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#19 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#26 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 15 May, 2010
Subject: "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#42 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#47 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Critical part of the cycle was the sellers paying the rating agencies for triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A ratings ... this is from the fall 2008 congressional hearings into the rating agencies). SOX did require SEC to look at the rating agencies, but nothing appeared to have been done other than:

Report on the Role and Function of Credit Rating Agencies in the Operation of the Securities Markets; As Required by Section 702(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/credratingreport0103.pdf

but then SEC appeared to have been doing little or nothing during the whole period.

For topic drift regarding feedback cycles ... there is Boyd's OODA-loop (I sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM in the 80s) ... misc. URLs from around the web referencing Boyd &/or his OODA-loops
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd2

and some recent legislative activity regarding the rating agencies:

Two Credit Rating Agency Reforms Amended Into Dodd Bill
http://washingtonindependent.com/84791/two-credit-rating-agency-reforms-amended-into-dodd-bill

misc. past references to SEC study of rating agencies:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#68 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#71 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#19 Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#8 Top financial firms of US are eyeing on bailout. It implies to me that their "Risk Management Department's" assessment was way below expectations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#20 Five great technological revolutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#24 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#15 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#52 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#73 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#37 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#57 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#80 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#1 Audit II: Two more scary words: Sarbanes-Oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#37 NEW SEC (Enforcement) MANUAL, A welcome addition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#42 Bernard Madoff Is Jailed After Pleading Guilty -- are there more "Madoff's" out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#51 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#7 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#12 IBM identity manager goes big on role control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

"Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 May, 2010
Subject: "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#42 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#47 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#48 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

Prosecutors Ask if 8 Banks Duped Rating Agencies
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/13street.html

from above:
The New York attorney general has started an investigation of eight banks to determine whether they provided misleading information to rating agencies in order to inflate the grades of certain mortgage securities, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.

... snip ...

Congressional testimony from fall 2008 already said that sellers/issuers of toxic CDOs just used money to get triple-A ratings from rating agencies. Testimony was that seeds for the "conflict of interest" and "misaligned business process" were sown in the early 70s when the rating agencies changed from the buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings.

Wall Street probe widens
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100513/bs_afp/usfinancebankingprobe
US banks may have 'misled ratings agencies'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7718144/Morgan-Stanley-shares-slide-on-reports-of-SEC-investigation.html
Andrew Cumo Investigating Whether Banks Duped Rating Agencies
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/andrew-cumo-investigating_n_574428.html

I had interviewed with a computer services company in the late 60s ... but didn't join. They were quickly moving up the value chain into offering financial information and other services to financial industry. In the early 70s, they bought the pricing services division from one of the rating agencies ... about the same time the rating agencies changed to sellers paying for ratings. misc. reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#79 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#70 When did "client server" become part of the language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#41 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#49 Is the current downturn cyclic or systemic?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#40 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#68 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#4 alphas was: search engine history, was Happy DEC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#52 LPARs: More or Less?

Wharton business school had article that estimated approx. 1000 were responsible for 80% of the financial mess and it would go a long way to correcting things if the gov. could figure out how they would loose their jobs (never work/trade again). The personal financial motivation seems to have been so large that it overrode any consideration regarding the risks to the institutions, economy, and/or country.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Ten examples of why the humble ATM = innovation in 2010

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 May, 2010
Subject: Ten examples of why the humble ATM = innovation in 2010
Blog: Payment Systems Network
every cell-phone/pda becomes it own atm (with transactions become purely electronic and eliminating "physical" services provided by current ATMs)

Chinese consortium chases NFC business mode
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/china_alliance/

however, the backends may not change:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_System

from above:
In fact, much of the world's banking industry relies on IMS, including the U.S. Federal Reserve. For example, chances are that withdrawing money from an automated teller machine (ATM) will trigger an IMS transaction. Several Chinese banks have recently purchased IMS to support that country's burgeoning financial industry.

... snip ...

Then there is this reference to Jim Gray
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27 Father Of Financial Dataprocessing

when he left for Tandem, he tried pawning off some amount of stuff on me ... including consulting to the IMS group.

other references to above ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#28 Can Smart Cards Reduce Payments Fraud and Identity Theft?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#30 Automation is still not accepted to streamline the business processes... why organizations are not accepting newer technolgies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#31 FC5 Special Workshop CFP: Emerging trends in Online Banking and Electronic Payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#57 What happened in security over the last 10 years?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#69 ATM PIN through phone or Internet. Is it secure? Is it allowed by PCI-DSS?, Visa, MC, etc.?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#3 GPG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#25 Web Security hasn't moved since 1995
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#34 How do group members think the US payments business will evolve over the next 3 years?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#78 Boffins bust web authentication with game consoles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#2 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#25 Wrong Instrument for Recurring Payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#39 repeat after me: RAID != backup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#65 The 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#87 Cleaning Up Spaghetti Code vs. Getting Rid of It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#33 H5: Security Begins at the Application and Ends at the Mind
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#34 Is the Relational Database Doomed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#4 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#6 ATMs At Risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#2 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#63 New standard for encrypting card data in the works; backers include Heartland
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#71 Barclays ATMs hit by computer fault
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#73 A Guide for Full Field Background Checks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#1 Is it possible to have an alternative payment system without riding on the Card Network platforms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#33 Trouble in PKI land
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#35 Microsoft Is Among the First to Try out PayPal's New Payments API
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#63 The satate of software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#20 Cyber attackers empty business accounts in minutes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#29 IBM launches integrated mainframe packages for payments, data warehousing and SOA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#57 IBM halves mainframe Linux engine prices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#64 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#78 ATMs by the Numbers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#3 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#19 Mainframe Hall of Fame: Three New Members Added
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#23 COBOL Celebrates 50 Years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#51 8 ways the American information worker remains a Luddite
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#77 Is it time to stop research in Computer Architecture ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#81 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#0 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#34 Amateur Computing Society
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#4 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#41 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#61 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#66 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#39 Calling Oracle & IBM Outdated, Tibco Launches Enterprise 3.0

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Visa fraud alert puts banks, payment processors on guard

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 May, 2010
Subject: Visa fraud alert puts banks, payment processors on guard
Blog: Information Security Network
Visa fraud alert puts banks, payment processors on guard
http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-05-11/visa-fraud-alert-puts-banks-payment-processors-on-guard.html

also

Visa Warns of New Fraud Scheme
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2510
Visa fraud alert puts banks on guard
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/security/cybercrime/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsId=20232

Note that extended validation SSL digital certificates are independent of the batch settlement fraud. EV SSL digital certificates are consumer-facing ... either merchants and/or banks. Batch settlement are between the merchant and the merchant acquiring ... which is independent of whether internet is involved.

We were brought in to consult with a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their servers ... and they had invented a technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use (the result is now frequently called electronic commerce)

Part of the effort was deploying something called a "payment gateway" which sat on the internet and acted as gateway between merchant webservers and merchant acquiring (auths, batch settlements, etc). The gateway used SSL for communication over the internet ... but the gateway was pre-registered at the merchant webservers and the merchant webservers were pre-registered at the payment gateway ... resulting in the SSL digital certificates being redundant and superfluous (purely a side-effect of the software crypto library being used; aka merchant webservers were validated as part of the standard merchant validation processes unrelated to any digital certificate business process).

misc. past posts about deploying payment gateway and what has come to be called electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

Another part of the work on electronic commerce was doing walk through/audits of some number of these new business operations calling themselves Certification Authorities and reviewing their operations for issuing these things called (ssl domain) digital certificates. misc. past posts mentioning ssl domain digital certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 09:11:25 -0400
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
It failed, but not miserably. It did make back its investment, just didn't provide a profit. Plenty of real estate speculators wish they had done as well.

that was just those left standing when the music stopped ... and even some of those actually neted out positive from prior transactions; no-documentation, no-down, 1% ARMs with interest-only payments ... there could still be 1500%-2000% ROI in parts of the country with 20+% real estate inflation.

the lore in silicon valley was that by far those that did the best were the real estate people (despite any publicity about what startup wonderkids may have gotten).

and there is also common joke that m'soft in seattle was really a real estate development ... supposedly the aggregate salaries & other compensaton paid so far ... is small piece of what the real estate developers got selling homes to the employees.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 17 May 2010 06:21:22 -0700
charlesm@MCN.ORG (Charles Mills) writes:
Um ... the Y2K "thingie" was real. Without the efforts of a lot of the people on this list data processing as we know it WOULD have come to an end.

Y2K remediation also contributed heavily to outsourcing uptik. Y2K remediation was competing for resources with on-going projects and the internet bubble ... so lots of institutions were forced to go overseas for the temporary resources to handle Y2K remediation. Y2K remediation then created business relationships that continued after Y2K activity finished.

Then there are the stories involving at least one large financial institution that outsorced Y2K remediation to the lowest bidder w/o adequately checking their references (and later found interesting extra pieces of code in places where they shouldn't have been).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 13:53:29 -0400
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
It was obvious to everyone that the colonies would become independent soon well before Concorde development started.

Twice the speed in the air does not, alas, lead to twice the speed getting troops deployed. The time to decide whether to send troops, which troops to send, and getting them ready will still dominate the time. Given that, it's probably better to arrive a few hours later with enough troops and equipment to do something useful once they get there.


seattle had its SST ... that never got very far ... but at the same time it had 747. at the time, one of the explanations for the pilot cabin above ... was so that the nose could have doors that open in freight configuration ... to compete for some of the C5A business. The C5A proponents came back with the C5A was purposefully designed for short takeoff & landings as well as low ground profile ... making it easier to load/offload in areas with limited facilities.

c5 wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy

747 wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747

747 #3 was making certification flts in the skies of seattle the summer of '69. I had been brought into boeing the summer of '69 to help with setting up BCS (and deploying cp67 online timesharing).

sst wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707

past several weeks gates has been making comments about having to kill-off some number of the huge gold-plated military programs ... especially since they make less sense in the evolving mission profiles for the current world (as well as general gov. need for budget reductions). gates has made mention that this was really at the bottom of the efforts that replaced rumsfeld ... rumsfeld made a lot of powerful enemies when he was attempting to cut various big-ticket military programs ... aka rumsfeld out pushing boyd's maneuver warfare.

gates has also been mentioning boyd recently (OODA-loops, "to be or to do", etc)
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1443

a couple past rumsfeld references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#14 Dangerous Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#13 News Release
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#45 News Release

misc. boyd references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 17:14:33 -0400
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
I don't think the freight version of the 747 has a nose door that opens.

The wikipedia article about the C-5 says one reason for the high cockpit is so that if the cargo shifts during an accident, it won't all shift into the cockpit and crush the crew.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#54 Favourite computer history books?

following have pictures with nose door raised
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_aircraft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Cargo_aircraft
http://www.nwa747.com/747%20Pics/slides/Nose%20door.html

747 family
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_classic_back.html

from above:
From the beginning, the 747 was designed to serve as an all-cargo transport. The first 747 Freighter could easily carry 100 tons (90,000 kg) across the Atlantic Ocean or across the United States. Its operating cost was 35 percent less per ton mile than the 707 Freighter. The 747 Freighter has a hinged nose to allow cargo loading through front of the airplane, with the option of a large side-cargo door.

... snip ...

UPS Air Cargo Aircraft
http://www.ups.com/aircargo/using/services/services/domestic/svc-aircraft.html

from above:
The 747-400 freighters have a hinged nose that flips up to allow extra large or extra long shipments to be loaded and unloaded. This will be a useful feature for large cargo or freight shipments.

... snip ...

747 Spotting
http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/aviation/spot747.html

from above:
The 747 actually began its design life as a cargo aircraft proposal for the US military. The contract went to Lockheed, which produced the C-5A. Most of the new technology (in particular the new higher-thrust by-pass engines) was developed to meet military requirements rather than those of the commerical market. The 747 wound up with its distinctive hump as a result of earlier military design proposals in which its nose swung up to permit loading of outside cargo on the lower deck. The cockpit and support crew would be housed 'out of the way' in the upper deck 'hump.'

... snip ...

This is Airsider; Airbus has rebutted a stinging attack on the freighter version of its A380 by Boeing, which claims that an advanced version of its 747 will be a much more efficient freighter.
http://www.airways.ch/files/2005/0805/001/boeing-airbus-freighter.htm

from above
The nose door of 747 is costly in terms of extra space needed at airports, extra weight and additional maintenance. About a half of the world's 747 Freighters do NOT have nose-doors - these are the converted ones, since if you buy a new factory-built 747 Freighter, it comes with a nose-door, whether you want it or not.

The 747 was originally conceived as a freighter for the USAF and that when Boeing lost, to the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, it took the losing design and turned it into a passenger airliner - which is why the 747 has a nose-door, and why the cockpit is perched on the top of the fuselage, where drag, cockpit-noise and visibility are at their worst.


... snip ...

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 09:37:55 -0400
Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
It does have one advantage though. They get rid of lots of dead zones from the view of the cockpit; so they can manouver with some agility when taxiing around. The Concorde was the other way around. Very difficult to taxi.

Taxiing actually matters; it is a significant source of small, but bery costly accidents.On the other hand, they need the upper landing lights on all airports. Not many other aircraft do.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#54 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#55 Favourite computer history books?

i worked with somebody that had been 747 service technician at kennedy ... and one night the 747 they were working on needed to be moved ... and he had a little traffic accident.

cockpit visibility during taxi'ing is major criteria for cockpit visibility

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 09:54:51 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
We (USA) had our own problems because the services seemed to want larger armored vehicles than could be transported by air. I think they've both improved the lift capabilities and reduced the size of the vehicles. I know the Marines, in particular, understandably, demanded to be able to airlift all their equipment with them when they deployed.

marines were forced (possibly directed appropriations? ... aka no additional money, just redirected on how to spend their existing budget) to take some number of abrams (65-70 ton, in part, to get the army a bulk price deal) when 90+% of the marine mission profiles involve parts of the world with 35ton load limit ... independent of air deployment issue.

a couple recent abrams references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#34 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

marine mission profiles were part of the reasons that they adopted boyd and his maneuver warfare ... at arlington, it was the marines that were there ... and his stuff went to quantico (some quote that boyd is the best marine that the air force ever produced).

gates (& rumsfeld) quoting boyd ... more of the world's conflicts looking like marine mission profiles (and boyd's maneuver warfare, there are some number of references that his maneuver warfare was influenced by his jet figter experience; instructer at Nellis, he was "40sec Boyd" ... he would take challengers from nearly anyplace in the world, give them the advantage in dogfight and reverse the positions within 40sec)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#54 Favourite computer history books?

misc. past posts mentioning boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd1

misc. URLs from around the web mentioning boyd &/or OODA-loops
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd2

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Cyber Self Defense: Reduce Your Attack Surface

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 18 May, 2010
Subject: Cyber Self Defense: Reduce Your Attack Surface
Blog: Information Security Network
Cyber Self Defense: Reduce Your Attack Surface
http://blogs.forbes.com/firewall/2010/05/18/cyber-self-defense-reduce-your-attack-surface/

This is somewhat the line we looked at in what is the most common breach in the news ... attacks on payment infrastructure. The x9a10 financial standard working group had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for ALL retail payments. Part of the resulting x9.59 financial payment standard slightly tweaked the paradigm to eliminate the usefulness of information gathered by attackers in breaches (didn't eliminate the breaches, just made the information useless to the attackers for doing fraudulent financial transactions).

Related was characterization of the existing paradigm:

dual-use vulnerability; in the current paradigm, the knowledge of the account number can be sufficient to perform a fraudulent transaction (effectively authentication, as such it needs to be kept confidential and never divulged anywhere) ... while at the same time the account number needs to be readily available for a large number of business processes. The opposing/conflicting requirements (never divulged and at the same time readily available) has led to comments that even if the planet was buried under miles of information hiding encryption, it still couldn't prevent information leakage.

security proportional to risk; in the current paradigm, the value of the information (for business process) to the merchant is the profit on the transaction (possibly a couple dollars) and the value of the information (for business processes) to the processor can be a few cents per transaction ... while the value of the information (for authentication) to the crooks can be the credit limit and/or account balance (frequently 100 times or more, larger), as a result, the crooks may be able to outspend by 100 times (attacking the infrastructure) as the merchants/processors can spend (defending the infrastructure).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 11:29:18 -0400
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
I used to think that Vancouver wanted to be another New York. Now, after the Olympics, I realize that it really wants to be another Beijing.

I thot vancouver wanted to be the new hong kong ... leading up to the take-over ... there were stories of large numbers of 747 arriving into hong kong nearly empty but all the seats leaving hong kong were sold.

we once had a snafu with scheduled departing flt... and were stuck in hong kong for an extra week because of problem getting reservation out.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Duke To Shut Down Usenet Server

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Duke To Shut Down Usenet Server
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 08:48:42 -0400
Duke To Shut Down Usenet Server
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/05/18/2342241/Duke-To-Shut-Down-Usenet-Server
A Piece of Internet History
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM to announce new MF's this year

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM to announce new MF's this year
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 15:56:10 -0400
ibm-main@TPG.COM.AU (Shane Ginnane) writes:
I remember much levity in my time at Amdahl and IBM's inability to build a machine that scaled past 10 (?) engines. We managed to skip past that o.k. - didn't have anything to do with limitations in the OS - all the relevant control blocks had plenty of width ... Given the current powerPC architecture you'd have to think IBM have the smarts to do massively parallel these days.

part of the issue was both the hardware cache serialization protocols scaling ... as well as the operating system locking scaling ... these scaling issues are somewhat independent of whether the operating system had fields reserved for additional processors.

in the late76-early77 timeframe we had a 16-way 370 project with some POK (3033) processor engineers ... who were working on it in their spare time. things were going fine until somebody let slip to the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating could (effectively) support 16-way. Then some number of people got invited to never show up in POK again ... and the 3033 processor engineers were told that they weren't allowed to spend time on anything but 3033.

More recently, IBM bought sequent which had SCI NUMA-Q ... SCI standard was 64-port memory access ... Sequent (& Data general) did four processor board (with shared cache) which then interfaced to SCI port ... 64 4-processor boards gave 256 processors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems

above mentions that ibm's sequent scale-up activity with aix support ... but then somewhat evaporated with attention shifting to linux:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Monterey

Convex did two HP-RISC processor board ... 64 2-processor boards gave 128 processor Exemplar. HP eventually bought Convex ... and superdome eventually superceded Exemplar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_Computer

SCI was standards activity out of SLAC ... that started about the same time that LANL was pushing HIPPI standards activity and LLNL was pushing FCS standards activity (FICON eventually shows up as a flavor of FCS).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel

wiki sci reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface

above mentioning futurebus eventually reformed into infiniband (similar to sci)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfiniBand

We had participated in SCI, FCS, and HIPPI activities ... but were doing ha/cmp (with no shared memory) ... because at the time 801 (RIOS/POWER) had no provisions for cache consistency ... and so had to do scale-up operations via clustering ... w/o shared memory ... i.e. reference to commercial dbms clustering scale-up meeting early jan92
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

above references that we had wanted 9333 (serial pre-cursor to SSA) to morph into being interoperable with FCS ... however as noted in FCS wiki reference ... SSA got positioned as competitor to FCS (at the same time there was FCS FICON work going on):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Storage_Architecture

and old email about numerical intensive clustering scalup ... with LLNL and other gov. labs (just hrs before the effort was transferred and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#email920129

then press item a couple weeks later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1 17feb92
and then
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2 11May92

other old email mentioning cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

somerset was formed joint between ibm, motorola, apple, etc ... to do some number of things ... one chip 801 as well as adding cache consistency (one might somewhat characterize it as marrying 801 with the Motorola 88000 risc shared memory). The executive we reported to when we started ha/cmp ... went over to head up the new somerset operation. past posts mentioning romp, rios, 801, risc, somerset, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
past posts mentionin ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

slightly related ... reference to long ago and far away ... my wife was con'ed into going to pok to be responsible for (mainframe) loosely-coupled architecture. While there she created Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture ... which except for ims hot-standby, saw very little uptake until sysplex ... misc. past posts mentioning Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

more recent reference from annals of release no software before its time:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#77 IBM responds to Oracle's Exadata with new systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Prior to IBM's purchase of Sequent, Steve Chen was CTO at Sequent and we did some consulting for him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Chen_%28computer_engineer%29

Steve had earlier been at Cray and then spun off to form his own supercomputer computing ... along the way getting a lot of funding from the IBM (kingston) supercomputer group (but was eventually acquired by Sequent).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

blasts from the past -- old predictions come true

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 29 May, 2010
Subject: blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
Blog: Financial Cryptography
re: blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001243.html

Equivalent in the US was 99 bank modernization act (aka GLBA, known for repeal of Glass-Steagall and opt-out privacy sharing provisions ... somewhat federal preemption of cal. legislation in progress requiring opt-in for privacy sharing) ... where the rhetoric on floor of congress was saying a major purpose of the act was that if you were already a bank, you got to remain a bank ... but if you weren't already a bank, you couldn't become a bank (specifically calling out walmart and microsoft).

Since then there was somewhat low profile of number of operations getting ILC charters ... but then when walmart tried to get an ILC charter (claiming it would just be used for being its own acquiring institution .... eliminating that part of its interchange fees) ... there was big cry from S&Ls and community banks that it was going to sneak into local consumer banking (walmart supposedly represents 25-30 percent of retail transactions in the US ... so just becoming its own acquirer would have huge impact on a couple large acquiring institutions).

In the recent aftermath of financial mess ... some of the large unregulated investment banks were given banking charters ... as part of helping them get out of the financial hole that they had dug for themselves ... aka allowing them to go to the federal reserve for free money (which in theory would have been counter to the earlier stated purpose of GLBA).

there had been work for walmart to deploy x9.59 standard ... for stored-value, debit, and credit ... all for about the cost of mag stored-value transaction. chip (planned for issuing) was more secure than current generation (and much cheaper) ... could do both contact & contactless ... and could do secure contactless within the distance, power, and elapsed time constraints of transit turnstile.

as periodically mentioned, side-effect of using x9.59 standard was slight change to the paradigm that (also) eliminated breach and skimming threats ... didn't do anything to eliminate breaches and skimming; just eliminated the threat that crooks could use the information for fraudulent transactions (and therefor eliminated any fraudulent financial motivation for doing breaches and skimming)

result would have been significant larger impact on interchange revenue than any of the current legislative activity.

misc. past posts mentioning ILC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm23.htm#36 3 of the big 4 - all doing payment systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#32 z900 and Virtual Machine Theory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#42 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#47 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#62 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#58 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#7 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#12 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#25 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#65 Banks failing to manage IT risk - study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#19 Does anyone know of merchants who have successfully bypassed interchange costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#77 Financial Regulatory Reform - elimination of loophole allowing special purpose institutions outside Bank Holding Company (BHC) oversigh
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#1 Is it possible to have an alternative payment system without riding on the Card Network platforms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#70 Post Office bank account 'could help 1m poor'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 21 May, 2010
Subject: Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
Blog: Payment Systems Network
Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177056/Wal_Mart_to_support_smartcard_payments

also reference here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#62 blasts from the past -- old predictions come true

also

Smart credit cards arrive in U.S. -- finally
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176936/Smart_credit_cards_arrive_in_U.S._finally

from above:
Credit cards featuring smartcard technology have been standard fare in Europe and elsewhere for years -- but not in the U.S., where financial institutions still use cards based on less-secure magnetic stripe technology.

... snip ...

There was large pilot in the US nearly a decade ago ... but that was in the YES CARD period ... and it appeared to disappear with hardly a trace.

The rhetoric on the floor of congress with regard to major purpose of '99 bank modernization act (aka GLBA, also repeal Glass-Steagall and provided for opt-out privacy sharing ... somewhat federal preemption of cal. legislation in progress that would have been opt-in privacy sharing) was that if you were already a bank, you got to remain a bank, but if you weren't a bank, you couldn't become a bank (specifically calling out walmart and microsoft).

In the past decade, there were some low-profile acquisitions of ILC ... but when Walmart announced plans to obtain an ILC ... there was hue & cry from S&L and community banks that somehow Walmart would sneak into consumer banking. Walmart does something like 25-30% of US retail transactions and stated that the ILC would be used to become its own acquirer (eliminating that part of interchange fee) ... which would have (actually) affected a few large acquiring institutions.

The terminal cost is actually quite low ... one issue would be if there was attempt to change burden of proof in dispute ... like has happened in the UK. The problem a decade ago in the US seems to have not been so much the cost of either the chip or the terminal ... but that there was the YES CARD vulnerability (at an ATM Integrity Task Force meeting at the time there was the comment about having spent billions of dollars to prove that chips are less secure than magstripe). past references to YES CARD vulnerability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

there had been work for walmart to deploy x9.59 standard ... for stored-value, debit, and credit ... all for about the cost of mag stored-value transaction. chip (planned for issuing) was more secure than current generation (and much cheaper) ... could do both contact & contactless ... and could do secure contactless within the distance, power, and elapsed time constraints of transit turnstile.

as periodically mentioned, side-effect of using x9.59 standard was slight change to the paradigm that (also) eliminated breach and skimming threats ... didn't do anything to eliminate breaches and skimming; just eliminated the threat that crooks could use the information for fraudulent transactions (and therefor any fraudulent financial motivation for doing breaches and skimming)

result would have been significant larger impact on interchange revenue than any of the current legislative activity

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Software Platforms Will Rule the Future of Payments, Expert Argues

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 21 May, 2010
Subject: Software Platforms Will Rule the Future of Payments, Expert Argues
Blog: Payment Systems Network
Software Platforms Will Rule the Future of Payments, Expert Argues
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2535

There was similar theme from mid-90s about how telcos were going to take-over the payment business. The issue at the time, was that the telcos had invested in technology to handle call-record volumes ... and those platforms would be the only ones that could handle the anticipated volumes of micro-payments. Telcos then would use micro-payments volumes to move upstream, taking over the rest of the payment industry.

For several reasons that didn't happen.

recent comment on subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#46 SAP recovers a secret for keeping data safer than the standard relational database

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 21 May 2010 07:31:21 -0700
elardus.engelbrecht@SITA.CO.ZA (Elardus Engelbrecht) writes:
Perhaps, but AFAIK, such systems stored the year in two fields. One field was used for century and another field for 2 digit year.

In this case I suspect, it was stored as x'13' for 19 in one field for century and another field x'64' for year. In such systems, the year 2000 should be stored/adjusted as x'14' and x'00'. Or perhaps fixed to have one field for year.

Then you get that formatting errors too resulting in 5 bytes of display values...


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#53 Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list

during old Y2K remediation thread from early 99
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)

I reposted somebody else's contribution from an internal (CENTURY) forum in the early 80s (discussing the upcoming Y2K problems)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#email841207

one of the items from above:
2.A bit of "cute" code I saw once operated on a year by loading a byte of packed data into a register (using INSERT CHAR), then used LA R,1(R) to bump the year. Got into a bit of trouble when the year 196A followed 1969. I guess the problem is not everyone is aware of the odd math in calendars. People even set up new religions when they discover new calendars (sometimes)

... snip ...

the reference item also mentions problem that the person encountered in Houston related to shuttle missions.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 21 May, 2010
Subject: Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Blog: Greater IBM
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#83 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#12 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#35 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#40 Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle

Microsoft admits future is in the 'cloud'
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/enterprise/microsoft-admits-future-is-in-the-cloud-20100521-vzi3.html
Microsoft Predicts 'Cloudy' Computing Future
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1868583/microsoft_predicts_cloudy_computing_future/index.html
Industry players collaborate on cloud computing
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/080310-smartphone-credit-cards.html

One of the differences with PC was that it was stand-alone box ... lots of corporations supported PC uptake since it reduced the explicitly allocated IT budget ... with each user becoming their own IT department. Some number of companies eventually found out this was false/poor economy.

Cloud computing ... whether in-house or out-sourced ... does tend to have professional IT support organization. In that sense, "cloud computing" is more like the time-sharing from the 60s-80s period. IBM's virtual machine system was used extensively for both in-house as well as commercial time-sharing service bureaus. As previously mentioned one of the largest such operations was the internal (vm-based) HONE system which provided world-wide sales and marketing support. However, there was others like IDC, NCSS, Tymshare, BCS (boeing computer services offering both in-house and external commercial time-sharing).

Another interesting early time-sharing was cambridge science center (originated virtual machine systems, cp67/cms) opened up their cp67 system to some number of educational institutions in the cambridge area ... as well as allowing remote dial-up access from other operations in the company.

One was the corporate hdqtrs business planning department in Armonk ... who loaded the most valuable of all corporate assets on the cambridge machine (some security issues with all the non-employees and students also using the same system). Planning people were doing models in APL. Standard APL\360 was limited to 16k-byte (or sometimes 32k-byte) workspaces with no interface other than terminal (significantly limiting class of problems). Science center had ported APL\360 to CMS (for cms\apl), raised workspace size to virtual address limits and added API to standard system services (like able to read/write files) ... enabling new class of real-world applications.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM to announce new MF's this year

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM to announce new MF's this year
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 12:04:31 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
and old email about numerical intensive clustering scalup ... with LLNL and other gov. labs (just hrs before the effort was transferred and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#email920129

then press item a couple weeks later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1 17feb92
and then
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2 11May92


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#61 IBM to announce new MF's this year

the 11May92 press item includes quote about clustering coming as complete surprise to the company.

the indifference to clustering also earlier had contributed to my wife not remaining very long in POK (responsible for mainframe loosely-coupled architecture); that and ongoing battles with the sna organization that the loosely-coupled operations needed to go thru vtam.

nearly all the top supercomputers are now clusters (although they may be various kinds of clusters involving clustered combinations of smaller units that have various kinds of shared memory)
http://www.top500.org/

LLNL wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Livermore_National_Laboratory

supercomputer wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 12:28:31 -0400
Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
Heinz Guderian was the driver behind making amoured cavallery a core part of the German military. He worked on this project from ca 1920 until mid-ww2 when he fell out with Hitler. He published his work "Achtung Panzer!" in 1936, and this was instrumental in forming the Blitzkrieg around a triangle of rapidly moving armoured vehicles, attack aircraft and tactical radio communications. He read and studied the works from Charles de Gaulle and B.H. Liddell-Hart, which he also translated into German. He also had extensive signal corps experience.

The German staff used cooperation with Russia as a way to get out of the Weimar limitations on German armarments and exercises.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/

Still the reference. Influenced US operations in the Gulf War substantially.


some amount of influence in gulf storm courtesy of boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

2-3 days into gulf storm, us news & report had story "The Fight To Change How America Fights", about boyd ... made refs to newest crop of majors and cols. as Boyd's Jedi Knights (there have been various refs that Boyd's battle plan for desert storm was over the objections of mainline army generals ... and comments about one of the biggest problems going into the current conflicts was that Boyd had died).

one of Guderian references in Boyd's briefings ... was the directive Verbal Orders Only ... going into the Blitzkrieg ... aka Guderian didn't want people worrying about paper trails that could be followed by monday morning quarterbacks ... wanted the person on the spot to make the best decision they could w/o having to worry about any review later.

doing stint in austin in the workstation group ... lived next door to guderian's nephew (retired us air force col) ... when dressed up in german uniform, he was spitting image of his uncle.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.mac.system
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 16:18:42 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
An old friend of mine worked for a Boeing unit in Seattle that did such things. She became part of a group called the Seattle 7, because a competitor was interested in them, and they told Boeing "Exceed their offer, or we leave." Boeing needed them badly enough to do the unthinkable and give them substantial out of band increases to keep them. My friend had clients who specifically asked that *she* handle their moves because they trusted her abilities. Boeing decided not to find out the hard way whether they would follow her if she moved to a competitor.

when they folded sbs ... most of the people went to mci (the old mci before getting absorbed by worldcom) and satellites were eventually picked up by hughes ... now known today as boeing satellite systems:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/601/dbs/dbs.html

all the uplink control and positioning that I remember was in castle rock ... mentioned at the bottom of the above web page.

part of the issue was the challenger disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

I was at the launch for sbs-4 on 41-d
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-41D.html

and newer satellites were designed for larger capacity of shuttle bay and had to wait for larger ariane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_4

sbs-6 ... went up 1990 (after sbs was dissolved and satellites taken over by hughes)
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/376/sbs_6/sbs_6.html

and mentioned here (12oct90)
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/business/ariane_milestones.html

SBS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Business_Systems

above mentions first commercial use of shuttle was flying sbs3.

supposedly one of the use of satellites was higher speed computer communication ... but a lot of people came over from the SNA organization ... which was very bad at handling (geo-sync) satellite propagation delay ... and the standard 3705/3725 offering didn't handle more than 56kbit. as a result ... their foreys into (sna) computer communication didn't go well ... and it then seemed SBS sort-of drifted into voice communication (which geo-sync delay was not also suited for).

my HSDT effort with T1 and higher-speed links ... got me pulled into also driving satellite links (and handling propagation delay ... in addition to terrestrial links)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

I've used anecdote from the mid-80s about the large chasm between SNA (mostly dumb terminal driver) paradigm and high-speed computer communication.

One friday, somebody from the communication division sent out on announcement on the internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internal

for a new discussion forum about computer communication that included the following definition:


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

that weekend, I left on business trip to the other side of the pacific ... and monday morning on the wall of conference room

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

about the same time, the communication group published an internal report claiming that mainframe users didn't need more than 56kbit links (i.e. could be considered justifying that 3705/3725 controllers didn't support more than 56kbit links) ... which projected that it wouldn't be until 1992 before mainframe customers would have requirement for T1 support.

Their analysis was based on study on "fat pipes" support by 3725 controller ... where two or more (separate) 56kbit links were treated as single logical link. They showed the number of customers with two, three, four, five, and six 56kbit links in single "fat pipes" ... where above five ... the number was dropping to zero.

what they didn't document was that (at the time) typical telco rates for T1 was about the same as five or six 56kbit links ... so when customer required more than about 256kbit ... they moved to T1 and supported it by some other vendors hardware. At the time of the "fat pipes" study ... it was trivial possible to find 200 mainframe customers with T1s installed (using other vendors products to support the links).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.mac.system
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 19:07:11 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
SBS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Business_Systems


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#69 Favourite computer history books?

the sbs wiki page claims that the sbs earth station and been produced from highly modified 8100.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_8100

when my wife was asked to review 8100 ... she turned thumbs down and it was killed. past reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#75 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#53 MVS History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#27 IBM 3705 and UC.5
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#46 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#55 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#40 3277 terminals and emulators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#6 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?

for other drift ... past posts with old email from jul79 telling story about MIT LISP machine people asking for 801s ... and being offered 8100s instead:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#65 801 (was Re: Reviving Multics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#3 Architectural support for programming languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#45 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#9 32 or even 64 registers for x86-64?

we did "custom" designed earth station for hsdt ... earlier reference (in this thread) to one of the companies that built a set ... was approached by a large telco asking if the company would build the telco a duplicate set to the same spec (aka form of industrial espionage):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#27 Favourite computer history books?

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 22 May, 2010
Subject: Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
Blog: Payment Systems Network
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#63 Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments

walmart not just picking on payments for commoditization

Wal-Mart Asks Suppliers to Cede Control of Deliveries
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aiL3Mymd_y_g&pos=12

from above
The retailer has sought to offer goods like cereal and laundry detergent for less to lure shoppers back to stores, and lowering transport costs provides room to do that. The strategy is part of what Wal-Mart calls its 'productivity loop' -- efficiency reflected in lower bills at the cash register.

... snip ...

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 09:41:08 -0400
Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
Which is why in some societies the retiree is supported by their own children - they have simply cut out the civil service middle men. Also why retirement age is being increased.

a couple years ago, there was a report that the baby boomer bubble was four times larger than the previous generation and twice as larger as the following generation and with the transition of baby boomers from prime working years to retirement there is a factor of eight reduction in the ratio of workers to retirees (aka ... with baby boomers in prime working years ... there was ratio of 4:1 of workers to the previous then-retired generation ... with baby boomers moving into retirement the ratio of the following now-working generation to baby boomer retirees is 1:2 ... a factor of 8 times reduction in ratio of workers to retirees).

it also effects things like the ratio of (geriatric) health care workers to retirees (requiring health care, aka only 1/8th as many).

misc. past posts mentioning effect of baby boomer bubble moving from prime working years into retirement (on ratio of workers to retirees)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#98 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#37 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#13 Michigan industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#18 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#29 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#58 Everyone is getting same deal out of life: babyboomers can't retire but they get SS benefits intact
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#61 August 7, 1944: today is the 65th Anniversary of the Birth of the Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#64 August 7, 1944: today is the 65th Anniversary of the Birth of the Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#37 Young Developers Get Old Mainframers' Jobs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#72 I would like to understand the professional job market in US. Is it shrinking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#38 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#24 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#56 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#57 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#59 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#46 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#45 not even sort of about The 2010 Census

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

History: Mark-sense cards vs. plain keypunching?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: History:  Mark-sense cards vs. plain keypunching?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 09:32:00 -0400
hancock4 writes:
Since 1948 IBM had reproducers that had a 'mark-sense' card option. This would allow the user to mark out columns on a card in pencil which could then be read by machine and punched cards generated for other processing.

This would allow data to be machine coded at its source instead of sending it down for an addition step of keypunching. Time and labor saving.

While I've seen plenty of mark-sense applications (the phone company used them for toll charge tickets and billing payments well into the 1970s), I sense that such machines didn't get that wide spread usage. That is, many applications, especially of coding numbers, were still keypunched in the traditional fashion.

Would anyone care to comment as to the choice of a method? Thanks.


I've mentioned that when I started at univ., in 60s, they used mark sense for class scheduling ... people lined up at tables for the class they wanted ... and card was marked with pencil.

cards were then punched and processed (originally on 709/1401). I was asked to write program for 2540 (reader/punch) when application was being moved to 360. the "punched" cards were read one at a time and routed to the middle stacker (3) in the 2540 ... the information was processed and if there appeared to be any error ... a blank card was punched ... to the middle (same) stacker (3) in the 2540 (reader and punch shared the middle stacker). The processed cards being read had all been punched on plan manilla stock ... the cards in the punch side were yellow stripe across the top (basically i wrote the i/o routine that selected middle stacker ... since standard processing read & punched to respective/non-shared stacker 1).

when the cards were moved from the stacker to card trays ... it was easy to identify cards that appeared to have some problem ... by the yellow stripe card immediately following.

2540 picture
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/2540.html

facing 2540 ... punch was on the left ... reader on the right, five stackers were in the middle (two on left for punch, middle shared stack between punch & reader, and two on the right for reader).

other pictures of cards & cards being loaded into 2540 to be read
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/roger.broughton/museum/iomedia/pc.htm

wiki mark sense page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_sense

above have URLs for 513/514 & 519 manuals at bitsavers

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 13:27:12 -0400
Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
To pay the pensions Britain and the USA are going to need lots of automated factories.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?

besides factor of eight reduction in ratio of workers to retirees ... there is all the stuff about the generation after baby boomers having lower SAT scores, lower education level, lower skill level, lower earning power ... along with increased globalization ... all contributing to the following generation (after baby boomers) having lower earning power. So amount of taxable income per retiree possibly declines by a factor of 16-32 (i.e. only 1/32 the amount of income to tax per retiree).

the conclusion is that it won't be possible to maintain the retiree status quo ... even if tax rate were to increase to well over 100% ... and it isn't even just a matter of total worker taxable income ... there is also the issue of having sufficient health care workers to take care of all the retired baby boomers.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 13:47:12 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#74 Favourite computer history books?

another example is the baby boomer workers in the auto industry ... during the foreign auto import quota period.

There have been TV spots about giving GM a 2nd chance.

The rhetoric in congress originally justifying the foreign auto import quotas was to give the auto industry a chance to remake themselves ... the import quotas represented an enormous (indirect) subsidy ... the money was supposed to have gone to completely remake the auto industry ...instead all the various auto special interests just pocketed it.

In the early 80s, as the result of all the auto industry interests just pocketing the enormous annual subsidy (represented by the import quotas) ... there was an article calling for a 100% unearned profits tax on the auto industry (not allowing them to keep any profits until after they had remade themselves and import quotas removed).

Each year import quotas have been in effect has been another big subsidy and another "chance" ... so currently it isn't 2nd chance ... so far, it is something over thirty chances.

it wasn't that the issues to remake themselves weren't well understood. i've made past comments about participating in the auto industry C4 task force meetings circa 1990 ... where all the issues and necessary corrective actions were articulated in great detail.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#51 [OT] Lockheed puts F-16 manuals online
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#22 Vintage computers are better than modern crap !
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#43 Sprint backs out of IBM outsourcing deal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#44 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#49 The Pankian Metaphor (redux)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#14 In Search of Stupidity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#31 IBM obsoleting mainframe hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#22 Toyota Beats GM in Global Production
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#30 VMware signs deal to embed software in HP servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#31 IBM announced z10 ..why so fast...any problem on z 9
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#50 Toyota's Value Innovation: The Art of Tension
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#65 Is a military model of leadership adequate to any company, as far as it based most on authority and discipline?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#31 Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#50 update on old (GM) competitiveness thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#58 Mulally motors on at Ford
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#21 Fraud due to stupid failure to test for negative
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#52 Are family businesses unfair competition?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#20 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#2 China-US Insights on the Future of the Auto Industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#3 IBM interprets Lean development's Kaizen with new MCIF product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#10 64 Cores -- IBM is showing a prototype already
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#31 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#67 I would like to understand the professional job market in US. Is it shrinking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#14 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#47 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#49 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#55 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#70 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#8 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 22:44:26 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#74 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#75 Favourite computer history books?

Fiscal crisis threaten Europe's generous benefits
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100523/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_europe_financial_crisis_welfare_state

from above:

LONDON - Six weeks of vacation a year. Retirement at 60. Thousands of euros for having a baby. A good university education for less than the cost of a laptop.

... snip ...

in 82, i did a summer (corporate) teaching tour around europe ... including two weeks at corporate location in orleans (south of paris).

i would go in early hr or two in the morning (use corporate network back to the states) ... teach 8hrs and then a few hrs on the network before going to dinner. First Friday, I asked if I could also come in over the weekend. The lab director ... said of course, if I really needed to, but it would result in a significant amount more paperwork for them.

They explained that corporation had a week more vacation than the national requirement ... but that recently France had increased the national vacation by a week ... so that the national vacation was the same number of weeks as the corporation. A lot of company employees felt that the corporation should increase their vacation by another week (they were used to having a week more than the rest of the country). Since the company didn't also add an extra week, some of the employees were taking various of work related actions ... the entry guards were turning in gov. report everyday that I worked more than eight hrs ... requiring management to file detailed report every day (that I was guest from the US and not subject to French laws). If I also worked the weekend, they expected to have to file a whole lot more gov. paperwork.

I found something else to do over the weekend.

When I started setting up the trip ... I overlooked some European geography ... going from Boeblingen (outside Stuttgart) to Stockholm and then back to Zurich (if I was paying attention, I could have driven/trained between Stuttgart and Zurich).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 00:39:33 -0400
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
Or so we hope. If a really large employer goes under, PBGC would need a substantial infusion of tax dollars to remain solvent. It's said that was the main reason for bailing out GM and Chrysler: bailing them out we might get lucky and have some of the money paid back. If we bail PBGC out instead, it's for sure that we'll never get any of it back.

Also federal, state, and local government pensions are not protected by PBGC.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#74 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#75 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#76 Favourite computer history books?

at high, macro level ... the amount of money comes out of the economy ... if there isn't sufficient economy (and/or workers) to sustain the past level of payments (for a significantly larger number of retirees) ... then it is somewhat secondary whether companies are paying it directly or it is first being funneled thru the gov. in form of taxes.

for specific comapnies it may be an issue ... that they declare bankruptcy, all the workers are moved to PBGC ... and PBGC gets its money from a much larger base. however, if all companies try the tactic ... then everybody is placed in the same situation.

its like saying that the auto companies don't have to pay back the enormous (indirect) subsidies that were the result of the import quotas ... since the money didn't first travel thru the gov. tax machine. however, in aggregate it still cost the overall ecronmy (and from the stand point that they didn't actually do what was intended ... instead the money was just used to line the pockets of most of the players in the auto industry ... and it still required an additional bailout).

somewhat analogous to the (indirect subsidy) import quotas for the auto industry ... part of the subsidy for the too-big-to-fail investment banks was to give them banking charters. then all the too-bit-to-fail institutions with banking charters were able to get nearly free money from the fed. ... and then earn the profit on investing that money. For the scenario where they would take free money from the fed ... and then put it into us treasuries ... why couldn't the fed just provide free trillion directly to the us treasury ... and eliminate the us treasury having to pay interest to the intermediaries.

in the '99 bank modernization act (aka GLBA ... known for repeal of glass-steagall ... also opt-out privacy sharing ... somewhat fed. pre-emption of the opt-in privacy sharing cal. legislation that was in progress at the time) ... there was rhetoric on the floor of congress that a major purpose of the act was that if you were already a bank, you got to remain a bank ... but if you weren't already a bank, you didn't get to become a bank (specifically calling out walmart and m'soft).

giving out banking charters to the too-big-to-fail investment banks (an indirect subsidy being able to get free money from the fed) theoretically goes against that part of GLBA (limiting new banking charters and therefor limiting competition ... which was effectively what the auto industry also got with import quotas).

some recent post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#70 Post Office bank account 'could help 1m poor'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#98 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#82 Oldest Instruction Set still in daily use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#86 Oldest Instruction Set still in daily use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#74 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#36 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#44 Can't PIN be mandated in normal POS machines ? to avoid Losses / Frauds / NPA's ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#51 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#62 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#69 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#73 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#74 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#75 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#82 Costs Of Data Breaches Much Higher In U.S. Than In Other Countries, Study Says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#62 blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#63 Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#71 Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

IBM to announce new MF's this year

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: IBM to announce new MF's this year
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 23 May 2010 21:07:37 -0700
shmuel+ibm-main@PATRIOT.NET (Shmuel Metz , Seymour J.) writes:
It was 16 ;-)

At the time, IBM was shipping 2-way[1] MP systems. I don't know whether the limit was still 16 by the time MVS/XA came out. I'd be willing to be that both 64 and whatever number replaces it will be lifted internally well before hardware ships requiring larger numbers.

[1] Well, the standard models at least; I'm not counting, e.g., 9020, 360/67.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#61 IBM to announce new MF's this year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#67 IBM to announce new MF's this year

both mvs and standard vm ... had kernel storage reworked going from two-processor 3081 to four-processor 3084. Issue was to align all kernel storage on cache line boundaries and make them multiples of cache line in length. Issue was that if two different storage locations overlapped in the same cache line ... then two different processors could be accessing the different storage areas ... but in the same cache line ... resulting in cache "thrashing" between the two caches. Going from two-way to four-way ... increased the problem by factor of three (instead of contention from one other cache ... there was contention from three other caches).

traditional 370 two-way ... would slow the processor cycle down by 10% to accommodate simple cache invalidation single traffic between two caches (any actual cache invalidations and/or cache thrashing would futher degrade thruput). So base two-way hardware was 1.8times that of a single processor. Typical operating system smp overhead would further reduce that to 1.3 to 1.5 times the thruput of single processor.

I did some two-way SMP and had some cases of greater than two times thruput of single processor ... with some tricks for maintaining cache locality that improved cache hit ratios (along with very low smp coordination overhead). part was heavy use of compare&swap for concurrent execution with minimal use of locking of critical sections that would result in serialized operation (critical section locking impacts thruput increases as processors are added ... since more processors raise probability that processors will be in contention for same critical section).

originally 3081 wasn't going to have uniprocessor ... but in part because of lack of TPF (aka ACP) having smp support ... eventually they came out with 3083 which allowed removing the processor slow-down for cross-cache invalidation ... aka base 3083 started out have processor cycle nearly 15% faster (w/o the 10% slowdown). There was issue with default removing processor-1 in the middle of 3081 frame ... which left processor-0 at the top and the box top-heavy. Then there was special 3083 with additional customization of processor microcode for TPF operation.

recent mention of 3083:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#21 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#14 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#79 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#23 Item on TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#24 Program Work Method Question

original 360/67 announcement was for four-way ... but i don't know of any four-way built ... and i think there was only a couple of three-ways built. single processor was pretty much 360/65 with additional of associative array for virtual address translation. multiprocessor 360/67 had lot more differences from 360/65; multi-ported memory, "channel controller" (able to address all channels from all processors).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 08:14:01 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#74 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#75 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#76 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#77 Favourite computer history books?

one of the linkages between the financial mess and retirement plans ... is at the core there were these toxic CDOs being packaged up and the rating agencies being paid to give them a triple-A ratings.

Now toxic CDOs had been used in the S&L crisis ... but w/o the triple-A ratings ... they provided little financials to drive a disaster (aka unregulated loan originators had access to very little funds). Being able to pay for triple-A ratings .... opened the market for toxic CDOs to all the operations that don't deal in anything but triple-A ... like all the big retirement funds. The big retirement funds have always been viewed as ripe pickings by the fraudsters ... but repeatedly comes down to just how to go about scamming them.

recent posts mentioning toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#61 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#53 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#8 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#10 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#11 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#26 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#29 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#56 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#74 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#15 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#33 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#69 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#76 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#81 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#27 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#4 Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#7 The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#34 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#47 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#48 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#49 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 12:56:14 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
Pension obligations are one of the biggest hobbles for the US auto industry. There was some discussion about a possible sale of Chrysler, and who would want it. If a buyer could get Chrysler *without* the pension obligations, they'd have something, but doing so would be a neat trick. Chrysler did get bought by Cerberus Partners, a VC firm specializing in turning around troubled assets and selling the rehabilitated firm for a hefty profit, which prompted more discussion on whether they could *apply* their fix methods.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#74 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#75 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#76 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#77 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#79 Favourite computer history books?

there is the issue with companies specializing in reverse IPOs ... taking public companies private ... borrowing easy money during the past decade ... and then turning loose the company with the all the debt (basically making out on the fees and commissions associated with the transaction)

The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Will Cause the Next Great Credit Crisis
https://www.amazon.com/Buyout-America-Private-Equity-Credit/dp/1591842859/

from above:
The Treasury secretary is talking about private equity. It's not the private-equity firms themselves but the companies they own that are defaulting. During the boom years of 2001-7, private investors bought thousands of U.S. companies. They did it by having the acquired companies take on enormous loans using the same cheap credit that fueled the housing boom. That debt is now starting to come due.

... snip ...

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

BMC reveals 'free money' mainframe and DB2 tools

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: BMC reveals 'free money' mainframe and DB2 tools
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 24 May 2010 10:13:40 -0700
BMC reveals 'free money' mainframe and DB2 tools
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/bmc_ziiper_tools/

from above:
IBM could just drop the price of mainframe hardware and software and compete. But that kind of thing would be too simple - and would not allow IBM to extract so much cash from the 10,000 remaining customers who cannot easily (or even hardly) move workloads off the mainframe. I mean, the money from all those share buybacks has to come from somewhere, after all.

... snip ...

recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#81 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

referencing 2006 zjournal article:

Financial Matters: Mainframe Processor Pricing History
http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=346

from above:
is that the price per MIPS today is approximately six times higher than the $165 per MIPS that the traditional technology/price decline link would have produced

... snip ...

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Favourite computer history books?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite computer history books?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 19:17:28 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
But yes, Hitler would appreciate the victories. The German High Command was distinctly unhappy about his early moves, fearing what an Allied response could to the nascent Wermacht. But Hitler had a better political read on what the Allies were *willing* to do, and correctly predicted they'd sit tight. German High Command was a lot more supportive after he was right a few times, and later was too cowed to suggest he might be wrong.

been down at national archives ... researching records from unit my wife's father commanded during ww2 (lots of his stuff from ww2 had been stolen a few yrs ago) ....

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 ...

they were all originally restricted, secret or confidential ... but NARA has tag that I have to image on every copy I make ... indicating they have been declassified.

I'd had used hand-held digital camera taking pictures of page on table ... with the (declassification) tag on the table (next to the pages). I've since cropped the tag off the image ... resized the image ... forcing to 8.5x11 ... and then overlayed an image of the tag on lower left corner of each page (mostly automated gimp scripts). I did learn that desk lamp positioned over the top of the page ... resulted in bottom of page was much darker than top (took a bit of fiddling with gimp scripts to automate gradient brightening).

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

The Evolution of the Extended Enterprise: Security Stategies for Forward Thinking Organizations

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 25 May, 2010
Subject: The Evolution of the Extended Enterprise: Security Stategies for Forward Thinking Organizations
Blog: Information Security Network
The Evolution of the Extended Enterprise: Security Stategies for Forward Thinking Organizations
http://www.securityweek.com/content/evolution-enterprise-security-approaches-forward-thinking-organizations

In the good old days of the late 90s ... there was facade that security was defenses against external attacks. The countermeasures from the early 80s against insider threats (multi-party transactions, anti-collusion efforts) sort of faded into the background ... even though insider exploits continued to be the major problem. Part of this was organizations tended to suppress publicity about insider activity ... especially organizations with major dealings in trust.

In the late 90s, we were tangentially involved in the cal. breach notification legislation. we had been called in to help word smith the cal. electronic signature legislation and several of the parties were heavily involved in privacy issues. They had done detailed, in-depth consumer surveys and found the number one problem was identity theft ... a major component was account fraud involving fraudulent transactions as a result of breaches ... something like 70 percent involved insiders. Organizations seemed to be doing little about such activities ... frequently information about such happenings weren't even made public. It seemed that they believed the resulting publicity from breach notification would motivate organizations to take coutermeasures.

past posts mentioning cal. electronic signature legislaton
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

The cal. privacy interests were also working on opt-in privacy sharing legislation when GLBA passed. Among other things included in the bank modernization act of 1999 was provisions for opt-out privacy sharing ... sort of federal pre-emption of the cal. state (opt-in) effort.

Note to Facebook on Privacy: How About Opt-In, Not Opt Out?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/197060/facebook_privacy_tweaks_coming_how_about_optin_not_opt_out.html

At an annual privacy conference a few years ago ... there was a panel discussion of FTC commissioners ... and somebody in the back of the room asked them if they intended to do anything about even the opt-out provisions in GLBA. The person claimed to have personal knowledge that the major call-centers that handled "opt-out" requests ... didn't provide the people answering the phones, with any means of recording information about people requesting opt-out.

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 11:50:51 -0400
DMcCunney <plugh@xyzzy.com> writes:
He popped up down the road in the WSJ as first COO, then Co-CEO of a major firm. Eventually, he was fired as CEO of his shop. He'd come up with a bright idea that dramatically increased revenue and profitability. Unfortunately, that idea was tied to underlying assumptions about the state of the economy. When things changed and those assumptions were no longer true, his bright idea became a major loss, and the board lost confidence in him.

in the wake of S&L crisis there were some observations that in a heavy regulated industry ... the primary selection criteria for chief executive would be ability to repetitively follow prescribed steps ... and if those regulations were relaxed ... potentially majority of the individuals would be at a loss at what to do (the more caustic description was that if they weren't S&L executives they would have a hard time getting a job as used car salesmen). There is something of natural selection scenario regarding changing from long period of static status quo ... to rapidly changing ecological environment.

the scenario was that when the reserve requirement was cut in half ... those executives become prime target for wall street investment bankers with all sorts of schemes for what to do with the suddently freed up reserves (folklore is only a very small percentage of the investment bankers responsible were ever held accountable ... something that appears to be repeated in the internet bubble and the current financial mess ... along with claims that even some number of the individuals involved are the same).

part of boyd OODA-loops are agile and adaptable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

one of the claims in the 90s about startups in silicon valley ... was the successful startups tended to have one thing in common ... they all had completely changed their business plan at least once in the first two years ... past reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#15 I am an ageing techy, expert on everything. Let me explain the

past comments about consequences of relaxing regulations after long static period of heavy regulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#63 The 8008
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#24 Value of an old IBM PS/2 CL57 SX Laptop
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#24 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#53 Windows Monitor or CUSP? [was ReJohn W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#18 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic

In the wake of SOX ... SEC would have been putting executives in jail for fiddling financial reports ... however apparently because it looked like SEC wasn't doing anything ... GAO started publishing reports of financial reports of public companies that appeared to be financial fraud (i.e. executive bonuses would be tied to financial reports and even if the financials were later refiled ... the executives didn't forfeit their bonuses)

'Financial Statement Restatements: Trends, Market Impacts, Regulatory Responses, and Remaining Challenges'
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-138

from above:
While the average number of companies listed on NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex decreased 20 percent from 9,275 in 1997 to 7,446 in 2002, the number of listed companies restating their financials increased from 83 in 1997 to a projected 220 in 2002 (a 165 percent increase) (table 1). Based on these projections, the proportion of listed companies restating on a yearly basis is expected to more than triple from 0.89 percent in 1997 to almost 3 percent by the end of 2002. In total, the number of restating companies is expected to represent about 10 percent of the average number of listed companies from 1997 to 2002.

... snip ...

along with

Financial Statement Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03395r.pdf

and more recent update (2006)

Financial Restatements: Update of Public Company Trends, Market Impacts, and Regulatory Enforcement Activities
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06678.pdf

and:

Financial Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061053r.pdf
and update
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

from above:
The database consists of two files: (1) a file that lists 1,390 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between July 1, 2002, and September 30, 2005, and (2) a file that lists 396 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between October 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006.

... snip ...

so there was a significant increase in fraudulent filings during the period that there was enormous boatloads of money being spent on sox audits ... so how to spin it:

1) sox audits have no effect on fraudulent filings

2) sox audits motivated public companies to increase fraudulent filings

3) if it hadn't been for sox audits, every public company would have been making fraudulent filings

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 13:10:47 -0400
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
There were a number of kiddies who demanded that they be paid as much as JMF. They never saw him work either because the kiddles would refuse to come in at 03:00 and do stand alone. they also would refuse to come in on the weekends and refuse to "work" more than 40 hours/week.

there used to be a joke that I worked four shifts a week ... first shift in bldg. 28, 2nd shift in bldg. 14&15, 3rd shift in bldg. 90, and 4th shift (aka weekends) up at HONE.

misc. past references to original relational/sql implementation in bldg. 28
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

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

in bldg. 90 ... there was consulting for database groups ... some old email about jim palming off things like consulting to ims group when he left for tandem:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016

also for bldg. 90, doing some HSDT stuff ... supporting 300 people from the IMS group relocating to off-site bldg (i.e. bldg. 90 was starting to burst at the seams)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

and one of my hobbies was supplying highly enhanced systems for internal production use ... including the HONE system (world-wide sales & marking support operation):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

past posts mentioning 4shift work week:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#64 Design (Was Re: Server found behind drywall)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#29 checking some myths.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#10 index searching
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#22 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#11 Home mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#2 Orthographical oddities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#18 RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#62 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#1 4shift schedule
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#52 The Fate of VM - was: Re: Baby MVS???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#55 Capacity and Relational Database
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#57 The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#9 Obfuscation was: Definition of file spec in commands
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#68 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#59 ISPF Counter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#84 Anyone going to Supercomputers '09 in Portland?

--
42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970




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