List of Archived Posts

2016 Newsgroup Postings (07/04 - 08/22)

Is it a lost cause?
Rust project still needs a lot of polish
S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?
S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?
Play the Pentagon-Funded Video Game That Predates 'Pong'
After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates
Is it a lost cause?
"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
Intel spyware chip?
Is it a lost cause?
IBM OS/2 developers
"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Who Said What When
Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
Is it a lost cause?
The Boeing Century
FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range
47 Years of CICS
Is it a lost cause?
Is it a lost cause?
The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover--and Retired With a $220,000 Pension
US Refused To Prosecute HSBC Over Fears Of "Global Financial Disaster"
Is it a lost cause?
Eric Holder's Longtime Excuse for Not Prosecuting Banks Just Crashed and Burned
The World Crisis, Vol. 1
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Yes, Intel Needs to Reinvent Itself
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
How the internet was invented
China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps
Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
CIA Reactions to Finding No WMD in Iraq
New, better way to build circuits for world's first useful quantum computers
China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps
How the internet was invented
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
Social Security Trust Fund IOUs
E.R. Burroughs
IBM 1401 vs. 360/30 emulation?
E.R. Burroughs
Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now?
How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President
Honeywell 200
5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
E.R. Burroughs
One Thing Both Parties Want: Break Up the Banks Again
Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
E.R. Burroughs
Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
PROFS
Honeywell 200
Honeywell 200
And the Award for Best Financial Crisis Book
Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
Why you need a strong authentication platform
Honeywell 200
Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
E.R. Burroughs
Honeywell 200
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
Google and Facebook put their fierce rivalry aside to save money in this key area
E.R. Burroughs
How the internet was invented
Delta Outage
E.R. Burroughs
IBM History
IBM Wild Ducks
IBM History
E.R. Burroughs
Delta Outage
Don't be Delta: Four pillars of high availability
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
August 12, 1981, IBM Introduces Personal Computer
E.R. Burroughs
Washington Corruption
Blogs
some computer and online history
Some (IBM-related) History
Why Aren't Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis?
Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas
Success of Failure
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
IBM History
IBM History
How the internet was invented
E.R. Burroughs
E.R. Burroughs
OT: Japanese navy, was Re: E.R. Burroughs
Memory management on x86_64
Busting The Banksters---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall
U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business
E.R. Burroughs
Early Networking
Iraq War
Five myths about the Web
Early Networking
This Day in History: 22Aug1955, The First Computer User Group Is Founded
IBM is Absolutely Down For The Count
3380 & 3081 history
Five myths about the Web

Is it a lost cause?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 10:00:10 -0700
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
So, Bitsavers probably has old JCL manuals. Go check. Among a number of 360 systems I worked on I never saw paper tape. I guess it was more common in Europe, for some reason. In the US it was common for typesetting, and I would guess for driving CNC machines, and neither of these were (AFAIK) big System/360 applications. More 1130s had paper tape, but All the ones I saw were card only.

TTY had paper tape ... univ. had a some 33 and one 35
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1319357
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33
the Model 33 ASR, (Automatic Send and Receive), which has a built in 8-level punched tape reader and tape punch;

The Model 33 was one of the first products to employ the then new ASCII code. A companion Model 32 used the more established five-level Baudot code. Because of its low price and ASCII-compatibility, the Model 33 was widely used with early minicomputers.


... snip ...

I don't remember seeing 1052 with 1054/1055 paper tape reader/punch (but common with tty)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1050

some people at science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

came out Jan1968 to univ. installing CP67, it had 1052 & 2741 terminal support ... including dynamic terminal identification ... it played games switching the SAD CCW to switch port-scanner type on line and some trivial transmission to determine terminal type. I added the TTY/ASCII to support the univ ascii tty devices ... extending the dynamic terminal type games with SAD CCW for ascii tty.

I then wanted to setup single dialin phone number for all terminals (single "hunt group") ... but it didn't quite worked because they had taken short-cut ... while SAD CCW would change port-scanner type, the line speed was hard wired for each port. It worked for 1052 & 2741 because they operated at same line speed ... while TTY terminals were different line speed (requiring different dial in numbers for 1052/2741 and TTY). The dynamic terminal type still worked ... as long as the terminal was connected to port with correct line speed.

this was part of motivation for the univ to start clone controller project, take an Interdata/3 programmed to emulate mainframe terminal controller ... and do dynamic terminal line speed, reverse engineer channel interface and build channel interface board for Interdata/3. Later this was enhanced with an Interdata/4 to handle the mainframe channel interface and cluster of Interdate/3s handling the port scanner functions. Four of us get written up as responsible for (some part of) mainframe clone controller business with Interdata is marketing the box. When Perkin/Elmer buys Interdata, it is continued to be sold under P/E logo.

some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

note that IBM help originate ASCII
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/ASCII.HTM
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/FATHEROF.HTM
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/HISTORY.HTM

and tale of "the biggest computer goof ever", mainframe became EBCDIC (instead of ASCII)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM

and for other drift, recent thread in ibm-main group referencing connection between cp/67 and ms/dos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#103 Multithreaded output to stderr and stdout

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

Rust project still needs a lot of polish

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Rust project still needs a lot of polish
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 13:58:03 -0700
Mozilla emits nightly builds of heir-to-Firefox browser engine Servo; Rust project still needs a lot of polish
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/04/mozilla_servo_nightly_builds/
Servo hopes to avoid the usual use-after-free() and buffer overflows bugs present in other software, particularly browsers and their plugins, and thus give users a more secure window to the internet.

... snip ...

lots of past posts on the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#overflow

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

S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2016 07:54:51 -0700
David Wade <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> writes:
All the IBM Mainframe "VM" operating systems consist of at least two operating systems.

CP which is often called VM, which is there to provide virtual Machines. Originally these were pretty basic Virtual Machines which looked exactly like a real S/370 to any program running in them.

Internally CP has a large number of control blocks which are chained together to manage the real hardware, the virtual machines and virtual hardware, and how they are mapped. I am not aware of any stack.

There is some use of OS type register save areas.

traditionally, when used to provide an interactive computing environment, CP was used to provide each used with a Virtual 370.

The user then loads the CMS Operating system into the VM. CMS is a single user operating system that provides a native CMS environment and DOS and OS emulated environments. Internally it uses OS style call/save/return mapping.

I don't believe that modern Z hardware has a hardware stack. There are still no PUSH/POP type instructions. For languages that need a stack generally a stack area is allocated when a program is loaded and one of the 16 General Purpose Registers is then used as a stack pointer, but in general it has to be incremented/decremented by a second instruction...


original cp67 had a form of (software) stack ... 100 pre-allocated save areas. all calls/return were done by SVC call ... SVC interrupt handler would allocate/deallocate savearea for use by called routine. the svc call accounted for significant percentage of total CPU time spent in the kerenel.

As undergraduate in the 60s, I made two changes, 1) svc call routine when it ran out of pre-allocated saveareas would extend the number of saveareas by calling the page allocation routine with special parameter ... that would look for first non-changed page for replacement (didn't require delay waiting for write-out replacing changed page) and 2) there were a whole bunch of routines that were simple call/return ... and I changed them to straight BALR/BR call/return and to use a dedicated save area in page0 (works in multiprocessor since each processor has its own dedicated page0). I also cut the instruction time in the SVC call/return by 2/3rds. I also made a whole lot of other pathlength optimizations ... in same cases improvement by factor of 100. Overall as undergraduate in the 60s, I reduced CP67 kernel CPU time by 3/4s. A lot of this was picked up and shipped in standard CP67 product. Part of presentation that I made at 60s SHARE user group meeting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18 CP/67 & OS MFT14

as undergraduate I was hired by the univ. to be responsible for production operating systems. the above presentation includes references to changes I made of os/360. On 709 IBSYS tape-to-tape (with 1401 front-end doing tape<->unitrecord student fortran jobs ran under 1second elapsed time). Initial move to os/360 360/65 (360/67 running as 360/65), student fortran jobs ran over minute ... because of enormous disk i/o intensive operation. Adding HASP (spooling system), cut elapsed time/job to a little over half a minute. I started hand-crafted OS/360 system build/sysgen to carefully place/order system data on disk which got it down to a little under 13seconds.

For CP67 I also redid a lot of the I/O, added ordered seek queuing and for page activity, chained multiple page transfers into single I/O channel program. I also implemented dynamic adaptive resource manager (frequently called "fair share" for default resource policy)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare

I also did global LRU, clock-like page replacement algorithm ... this was at a time when the academic papers were all about local LRU. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#clock

I've mentioned that when Jim Gray left research for Tandem, he palmed off bunch of stuff on me:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#104 Is it a lost cause?

At Dec81, ACM SIGOPS, Jim asked me if I could help one of his co-workers at Tandem get his Stanford PHD ... which was on global LRU page replacement. The "local LRU" forces (from the late 60s) were strongly lobbying Stanford to not award any PHD that had to do with global LRU. Jim knew I had a lot of performance data comparing local LRU CP67 and global LRU CP67 implementations (showing global LRU much better) ... much of the other claims on the subject were just opinion and hand waving. Past post on the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#46
with this reply that I wrote
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email821019

aka it took me almost a year to get IBM management to send a replay. Conjecture is that IBM management thought it was a form of punishment because they blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network (larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid-80s). Folkore is that when the corporate management committee were told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me. Some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

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

S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: S/360 stacks, was self-modifying code, Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:38:23 -0700
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> writes:
It has a linkage stack, used by some specialized call and return instructions. The linkage stack is complex enough that I never figured out all the details, but it was largely to enable programs to span multiple 31-bit address spaces back on the 32 bit systems.

Z has it because it has nearly everything its predecessors did, but with the address space limits gone, the motivation for the linkage stack is now just backward compatibility.


migration from real memory os/360 to MVS involved giving each task/applications outside the kernel its own 16mbyte virtual address space. However, os/360 is extremely pointer passing intensive paradigm so they included an 8mbyte kernel image in every 16mbyte virtual address space (so kernel calls could easily continue with pointer passing ... and kernel code simply address parameters&returns like it always had).

Problem was that a lot of subsystems (outside the kernel) also got their own 16mbyte virtual address spaces ... and also required pointer passing API. This required creating a "COMMON SEGMENT", 1mbyte area mapped into every 16mbyte application virtual address space ... where global space was allocated for parameter & return passing between applications and subsystems (running in their own address space). However, the amount of common space was somewhat proportional to system size, number of concurrent applications and concurrent subsystems. In late 370 days ... before 31bit and 370-xa, on large systems, the common areas were threatening to grow to 8mbytes ... leaving nothing for applications (8mbyte kernel image plust 8mbyte common area out of 16mbyte virtual address space left nothing for applications).

For 370/xa both "access registers" and program call/return were defined for subsystems. Early simple implementation, application made a kernel call to transfer to subsystem. Kernel would load application address space pointer into secondary address space (access) register, load the subsystem virtual address space into primary virtual/home address space register and invoke the subsystem (passing the calling routines registers). Subsystems could use special instructions to retrieve/store data in the calling application virtual address space. Program call/return would reference a hardware defined table that had pointer for every valid subsystem and its virtual address space pointer. An application could call a subsystem, where the program call did the address space pointer changes all in hardware (w/o requiring a kernel call). Similarly a subsystem could make a program return ... which reverse the virtual address space pointer changes .... back to the calling application virtual address space.

Applications could now efficiently call a routine that exists in different address space ... which had authorization to fetch/store the calling application virtual address space (w/o requiring pathlength through the kernel).

There has since been some use of access registers for use to define "dataspaces" ... effectively a virtual address space that was all data ... with application using "access registers" to access the data in different virtual address space. However, the original purpose of access registers was for a subsystem in its own address space to access passed parameters in the calling application address space (and store return values).

recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#78 Mainframe Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#35 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#57 Introducing the New z13s: Tim's Hardware Highlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#104 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")

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

Play the Pentagon-Funded Video Game That Predates 'Pong'

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Play the Pentagon-Funded Video Game That Predates 'Pong'
Date: 5 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Play the Pentagon-Funded Video Game That Predates 'Pong'
https://warisboring.com/play-the-pentagon-funded-video-game-that-predates-pong-fbc4696e32dc

One of the MIT people went to IBM science center on the 4th flr of 545 tech square
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and ported space war to IBM 1130(/2250m4) in the mid-60s. My kids would camp on the 2250 keyboard when I brought them in on weekends Boyd would talk about vocally claiming electronic monitoring trail wouldn't work ... so possibly as punishment they put him in command of spook base ... this reference gone 404, but lives on at the way back machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html
Acoubuoy, Spikebuoy, Muscle Shoals and Igloo White

Before Pac Man, Pong, or Space Invaders, there was Igloo White - the original computer video game - where the loser paid in real blood, so that the winner did not have to.


... snip ...

also mentions IBM 2250s

Boyd biographies claim spook base was $2.5B windfall for IBM (in 1970 dollars) ... some posts & web URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

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

After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates
Date: 5 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates
http://qz.com/723127/after-10-years-and-billions-in-fines-the-uk-has-convicted-precisely-five-people-for-rigging-interest-rates/
Three former Barclays traders were found guilty by a jury in a British court of conspiring to manipulate Libor, a London-based international financial benchmark linked to some $300 trillion worth of mortgages, loans, and derivatives.

... snip ...

too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
LIBOR
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor

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

Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.raspberry-pi, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:37:15 -0700
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
In 1980, the burroughs B4955 would run ten MICR reader-sorters, each at 2500 dpm (documents per minute). The flow path between the read-head and the pocket-select station was very short, if the host didn't select the pocket in 10 milliseconds, the check would miss the select station and processing would stop with a "too late to pocket select".

When the host was running the full ten sorters, it had about 2 milliseconds to process the MICR line and select the destination pocket for the document - stopages were discouraged as one could cost a bank hundreds of thousands in float.


90s, I was semi-facetiously saying I would take a $500 milspec part, agressive cost reduce by 2-3 orders of magnitude while making it more secure ... including at panel discussion in standing room ballroom at this event:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/conference-paper/1998/10/08/proceedings-of-the-21st-nissc-1998

the objective was to be much more secure than the card association payment chip ... which had a whole lot of vulnerabilities, less than 1/10th the cost, and significantly faster (still running something like 10secs). early part of the century the card association was characterized as having spent billions of dollars to prove that chips were less secure than magstripe ... old trip report to cartes2002 (gone 404 but still lives on at wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20030417083810/http://www.smartcard.co.uk/resources/articles/cartes2002.html

near the bottom of the trip report ... possible to create a YES CARD chip as easily as magstripe (and less secure). past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

In the 90s, I was approached by the transit industry and asked if I could also make the chip do a transaction in the transit turnstyle timing limits (1/10th of a second) ... without increasing the cost, not reducing integrity and still be used for payment transactions (so person could use the same card for transit and payment, including both point-of-sale and e-commerce/internet). Prototype was demoed at 1999 annual world-wide, BAI retail banking show in Miami
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ansiepay.htm#x959bai

the issue for the transit industry is that they are subsidized with public money and under lots of pressure to get out of (heavily subsizied) payment transaction business ... and move to industry standard payments (but would require that the banking industry enormously increase their performance and enormously reduce their cost per transaction).

the problem for the banking industry was the enormous increase in integrity eliminated a lot of fraud and justification for something like 90% of interchange fee on electronic payment transactions (with US banks at the time making avg of 40-60% of their bottom line from payment/interchange fees, a 90% cut in the fees would be a big hit to bottom line).

Note, 1999 was also GLBA ... which is now better known for having added repeal of Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
enabling too big to fail (too big to prosecute and too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

however, the original rhetoric on the floor of congress was that the purpose of GLBA was if you already had a banking charter you got to keep it, but if you didn't already have one, you couldn't get one ... i.e. protect the banking industry oligarchy and keep new competition with new (more efficient) technology out of banking.

patent portfolio, all assigned, including covering being able to transition from institution centric cards to person-centric chipcard (aka person being able to use single chipcard for all authentication requirements). Originally the claims were going to be packaged as over 100 patents, then some executive directed that they be packaged as 9 patents (reduce the filing cost), then the patent office comes back and says to repackage as at least two dozen (humongous patents filing fee wasn't even covering cost of reading all the claims)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadssummary.htm

other topic drift ... 1999 I was asked to help prevent the comming economic mess ... this is long winded post about conference for me sponsored by Atalla (ATM cash machine technology, had been bought by tandem, which had been bought by compaq)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay3.htm#riskm

securitizing mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages (poster child was office buildings in dallas/ft.worth that turned out to be empty lots) and I was asked to improve the integrity of mortgage supporting documents as countermeasure. they then find that they can pay the rating agencies for triple-A rating (when both the sellers and rating agencies know they weren't worth triple-A, from Oct2008 congressional hearing testimony).

With triple-A rating, the can sell securitized mortgages as fast as they can be made (w/o having to worry about borrower's qualification or loan quality) ... including to large funds restricted to only dealing in "safe investment" (like large public & private pension funds, resulting in large hit to those funds), largely responsible being able to do over $27T 2001-2008. It also met that they could start doing no-down, no-documentation, liar loans (and with no-documentation, there was no longer issue of supporting document integrity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

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

"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 07:50:01 -0700
Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> writes:
Britain is perhaps one of the least corrupt states in the world. They have a culture for openness and transparancy (that has unfortunatly been undermined by some recent legislation).

We have had some corruption in the awarding of public contracts, but they are struck down hard when discovered. One recent case gave everyone involved jail time in the order of 5 years or more.

When I was involved in such bids we had a rule that no contender was to surrender any form of gifts, even pens or buttons; and could pay at most $100 for food during a whole year.

We were invited to some parties that instantly discqualifed the ones throwing it for any bids during the next three years.


maybe madulo "city of london" ... characterized behind a lot of world-wide tax evasion/havens ... also on forefront of corporations are citizens, something like 9k human voters and 32k corporate voters.

"tax evasion", "tax havens"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

also this recent news item:

After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates
http://qz.com/723127/after-10-years-and-billions-in-fines-the-uk-has-convicted-precisely-five-people-for-rigging-interest-rates/

too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
LIBOR
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor

past posts mentioning "city of london"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#3 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#26 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#0 copyright protection/Doug Englebart
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#39 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#2 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#8 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#35 Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#56 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#60 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#94 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#92 Thanks Obama

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

Intel spyware chip?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Intel spyware chip?
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 08:36:50 -0700
Aleksandar Kuktin <akuktin@gmail.com> writes:
Waaaaaiiit a minute!

Quote from the article: The ME firmware is verified by a secret boot ROM embedded in the chipset that first checks that the SHA256 checksum of the public key matches the one from the factory, and then verifies the RSA signature of the firmware payload by recalculating it and comparing to the stored signature.

This makes no sense because of double or redundant work performed.

First, that's not how digital signatures work. One party (the ME) is supposed to have the public key. The other (Intel) has the private key, uses it to sign stuff and sends the signature TOGETHER with stuff to the ME. You don't keep the RSA signature in the ME. You keep the public key.

If you DO keep the signature, and recalculate it, then you *must* also have the private key in the ME, because there is no other way to (re)calculate the signature.

In this case, calculating SHA256 of the "public key" - what ever key that may be - is completely redundant. You don't even send the "public key" together with the stuff. It also means the private key is present on the ME chip, but it doesn't matter because each chip is hard linked with a specific bitstream of ME software.

More on that: the author states the ME chip compares the "recalculated RSA signature" to the one stored in the chip. This makes it impossible to change the bitstream of ME software (the stuff) because the signature would be off. But, in that case, why even go to the trouble of using RSA when a simple SHA256 would suffice! Calculate the checksum for the bistream, compare with the stored value. Supposedly, it already does that for the "public key".

Which is redundant, by the way. The ME can use whatever key is provided with "the stuff", calculate the supposed checksum and compare to the stored one. If there is a mismatch, either the stuff is wrong or the key shipped is wrong. No need for SHA256. Not that you would send the public key with the stuff anyway...

The rest of the article does not fare any better on ANY level (mostly political/social and power-play, but also technical). 'Tis a crock full of shit, and it smells as of a sewer. PSYOP?

Whether this is due to incompetence or malice is left to reader discretion.


the "digital signature" is the SHA256 encrypted with private key. You validate the "digital signature" by decrypting the "digital signature" with the "public key" (asymmetric cryptography), getting the original SHA256. You calculate the current SHA256 and compare it with the decrypted digital signature (checking that they exactly match).

anybody can have the public key ... an attacker can't generate a valid digital signature (for that private/public key) pair) because they don't have the original private key. any modifications means that the currently calculated SHA256 ... wouldn't be the same as any decrypted digital signature.

the descripting seems to imply that secret boot ROM insn't keeping the factory public key in tamper-resistent storage ... but the SHA256 of the public key (possibly to save bits needed in tamper-resistent storage?). They validate that the public key hasn't been modified by checking the current SHA256 against what is saved in tamper-resistent storage ... before using the public key for decrypting the digital signaature.

recent post in alt.folklore.computer about doing public key chip ... and blathering about taking $500 milspec part and cost reducing by 2-3 orders of magnitude while improving the integrity.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#6

the technical director to the deputy director of information assurance directorate is running an assurance session in the trusted computing track at the intel developer's forum and possibly because of my blathering, I'm invited to be on the panel ... old reference gone 404, but lives on at the wayback machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20011109072807/http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/sessiondescription.asp?id=stp%2bs13

I comment to the technical director that it is as secure as anything the agency is doing, but at enormously reduced cost. The head of trusted processor module (TPM) is also in the front row ... and I quip that it is nice that the chip he is doing has started to look more&more like my chip over the previous year. He quips back that I don't have 200 people helping me design the chip.

later work on the chip was reducing from a couple hunmdred thousand circuits to 40,000 circuits (easily embedded in existing chips) ... while maintaining integrity and performance.

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

Is it a lost cause?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.raspberry-pi, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 08:51:13 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#6 Is it a lost cause?

for other trivia ... just posted some more about the chip in thread over in comp.arch ... about giving a talk at session in the trusted computing track at the intel developer's forum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#8 Intel spyware chip?

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

IBM OS/2 developers

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM OS/2 developers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 09:51:27 -0700
"Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> writes:
Are there any IBM OS/2 developers (kernel, drivers, apps) on here from back in the day?

a very little bit, Boca OS2 people contacted Endicott about scheduling and resource management .... Endicott sent them to me ... some 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

scheduling and resource management posts (customers frequently called it fairshare scheduling, since the default policy was fairshare)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare

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

"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:00 -0700
mausg writes:
One report had it that the CIA bribed the Northern Allience to take the US side by delivering 40million dollars, in a standard CIA package, smallish bills shrinkwrapped on a pallet. Next year, they wanted the same again.

a big part of the Iraqi surge (and reduction in violence) in 2007-2008 supposedly was $60B in pallets of shrink wrapped $100s airlifted to Iraq ... apparently not all of it actually paid out in bribes/tribute.

2010 CBO report was that after fiscal responsibility act was allowed to expire in 2002, tax revenue was cut by $6T and spending increased by $6T (2003-2009) for $12T budget gap (first time taxes were reduced to not pay for war)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

middle of last decade, US comptroller general was including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable of middle school arithmetic for how badly they were savaging the budget.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

included enormous increase in DOD spending ... however only half of the DOD spending increase was attributed to the two wars (including the $60B in shrink wrapped 100s) ... but the other half of the DOD spending increase, CBO couldn't find anything to show for ... just evaporates into the military-industrial complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

the increase in spending for two wars also includes enormous amounts that went to for-profit companies ... including tens of billions to Halliburton in no-bid contracts (after SECDEF Cheney becomes CEO of Texas oil-services and logistics firm and transforms it into one of the largest military contractors). past posts mentioning Halliburton
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#1 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#24 What were the complaints of binary code programmers that not accept Assembly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#22 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#25 Gerstner after IBM becomes Carlyle chairman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#60 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#47 Thanks Obama
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#105 How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA

however, my son-in-law 1st tour was Fallujah 2004-2005 and 2nd tour was Baqubah 2007-2008 ... described as worse than Fallujah (but didn't get the coverage because administration said things were better) ... past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#21 The Age of Unsatisfying Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#2 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#8 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#64 Early use of the word "computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#54 Singer Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#49 Cultural attitudes towards failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#86 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq, Sequestration and the U.S. Army
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#30 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#38 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#5 Lessons Learned from the Iraq War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#79 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#52 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#60 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#10 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#48 John Boyd's Art of War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#10 Why the Death of the Tank Is Greatly Exaggerated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#13 Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#42 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#47 McCain: Send Petraeus back to Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#61 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#79 Army Modernization Is Melting Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#38 Can America Win Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#36 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#68 Revamped PDP-11 in Brooklyn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#69 Revamped PDP-11 in Brooklyn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#36 The Designer Of The F-15 Explains Just How Stupid The F-35 Is
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#48 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#16 Keydriven bit permutations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#37 C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#76 Greedy Banks Nailed With $5 BILLION+ Fine For Fraud And Corruption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#43 No, the F-35 Can't Fight at Long Range, Either
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#78 New hard drive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#33 The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#50 Thanks Obama
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#88 The Pentagon's Pricey Culture of Mediocrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#50 A National Infrastructure Program Is a Smart Idea We Won't Do Because We Are Dysfunctional

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

"Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:24:41 -0700
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
After 10 years and billions in fines, the UK has convicted precisely five people for rigging interest rates
http://qz.com/723127/after-10-years-and-billions-in-fines-the-uk-has-convicted-precisely-five-people-for-rigging-interest-rates/


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#7
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#5

from the article
Three former Barclays traders were found guilty by a jury in a British court of conspiring to manipulate Libor, a London-based international financial benchmark linked to some $300 trillion worth of mortgages, loans, and derivatives.

... snip ...

the joke about eventually small change can add up to real ($300T) money

LIBOR
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor

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

Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 21:52:56 -0700
NickB <nickpb@hotmail.com> writes:
Thanks Dave, I'm actually one of the (volunteer) curators of the Hursley museum. We've been searching for one for some time now, but it seems that they were all leased so when the customer no longer wanted them, they were scrapped.

We do however live in hope that one might have escaped, hence my post.


IBM 3624
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3624
The IBM 3624 was a late 1970s second-generation automatic teller machine (ATM), a successor to the IBM 3614. Designed at the IBM Los Gatos lab, the IBM 3624, along with the later IBM 4732 model, was manufactured at IBM facilities in Charlotte, North Carolina and Havant, England until all operations were sold to Diebold, tied to the formation of the InterBold partnership between IBM and Diebold

... snip ...

I had offices and labs for a time in Los Gatos lab (since been plowed under and sold off for a housing development) ... but it was after the 3614 time ... I did hear stories from some of the people that had been there.

One of the projects that I had out at los gatos lab was some of high speed data transport ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

IBM had put in collins digital radio (T3 microwave) between bldg 12 on the main plant site ... to repeater over the hill down to STL (since renamed silicon valley lab) and repeater above Los Gatos lab (and the hill above los gatos dump).

HSDT put in 4.5M tdma satellite dish in the Los Gatos back parking lot another in back lot behind IBM Yorktown research ... and a 7M dish in Austin.

Los gatos had also done LSM (specialized chip design logic simulator that ran something like 50,000 times faster than 168-3 ... doing logic simulation) ... and Austin was shipping RIOS (RS/6000) chip logic design to Los Gatos for validation. some RISC/ROMP/RIOS/etc past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

after I left IBM ... was involved in designing electronic payment transaction protocols and chipcards ... recent mention
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#6 Is it a lost cause?

reference to nacha/star did pilot of part of one of the protocols; 23july2001 (gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20070706004855/http://internetcouncil.nacha.org/News/news.html

other posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

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

Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
Date: 7 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-cutting-redundant-jobs-is-permanent-business-model-says-email-2016-7

HONE was formed in the wake of 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

.... originally with CP67 to provide online virtual machine service to branch office for SEs to practice with operating systems. However, science center also ported apl\360 to CP67 for CMS\APL and HONE started also providing (mostly APL-based) sales&marketing tools ... which soon came to dominate all HONE activity (worldwide) and virtual machine guest operating system use evaporated.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

One of my hobbies was providing enhanced CP67 ... and then enhanced VM370 production systems to internal datacenters ... including HONE. In the late 70s, started to see cycle of branch managers being promoted into DPD hdqtrs in HONE chain of command ... who were horrified to find that HONE was VM370 based (and not MVS based) ... who then figured that they would make their corporate career from being known as having moved HONE from VM370-base to MVS. These efforts would fail, the executive would move on and replaced with new face ... who would repeat the process. Eventually by the mid-80s they decided that it was my fault that they weren't able to migrate HONE off VM370 to MVS (because of my advanced VM370 systems). They then started telling HONE that they had to stop using my systems ... because what would happen if I was hit by a bus. The MVS group was also responsible for various ploys to get rid of me.

Current strategy is also good at eliminating people that threaten corporate status quo (Watson's "wild ducks") ... aka corporate "sycophancy" and make no waves

Employment is threatened when people not fit the corporate "sycophancy" and make no waves ... change from Watson's "wild ducks" ... claim that corporate culture change started with the failure of FS ... because top executives had invested ... discussed in this article by former executive at IBM Europe
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

it was example of bucking the system ... which Watson valued .... but over the years the culture changed and bucking the system became more & more a threat to corporate status quo ... the example wasn't so much an expert on things VM ... but personal knowledge of case of worldwide use of VM used for sales&marketing support (which I happened to supply) ... which wasn't viewed as strategic by many in corporate hdqtrs (even perception that corporate careers would be made by eliminating VM ... and Watson's culture of "wild ducks" and bucking the system was disappearing).

I admit to be biased on the subject of retribution for bucking the system. In the late 70s and early 80s, I was blamed for online computer conferencing (precursor to social media) on the internal network. Folklore is that when the executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me. One conjecture why they didn't was so many of the internal datacenters (including worldwide HONE marketing&sales) ran my production systems.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

I also used to sponsor Boyd's briefings at IBM ... who was also subject to such things. By the time he passes in 1997, the air force had pretty much disowned him. However, once he was gone, they were possibly less threatened so in 1999 they finally dedicate Boyd Hall at Air Force Weapon School (when Boyd was instructor there, he was considered the best in the world):
"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To Be or To Do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997

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


... snip ...

When Boyd was instructor at Nellis he was known as 40sec Boyd, he had challenge to all fighter pilots in the world, he would give them advantage on his tail and reverse it it in 40secs; he never lost ... managing to do it in 20secs; he allowed an extra 20secs just in case.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

past posts mentioning "wild ducks"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#25 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#18 IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#30 IBM Centennial Film: Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#33 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#79 Innovation and iconoclasm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#1 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#45 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#93 John R. Opel, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#105 5 ways to keep your rockstar employees happy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#121 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#59 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#3 Time to Think ... and to Listen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#26 Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#19 SnOODAn: Boyd, Snowden, and Resilience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#23 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#31 History--punched card transmission over telegraph lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#65 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#12 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#72 In Command, but Out Of Control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#3 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#4 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#52 IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#97 Where does the term Wild Duck come from?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#98 How to groom a leader?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#105 Happy 50th Birthday to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#52 First 2014 Golden Goose Award to physicist Larry Smarr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#53 Not Wild Ducks but Wild Geese - The history behind the story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#8 Microsoft culture must change, chairman says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#33 Can Ginni really lead the company to the next great product line?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#59 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#79 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#80 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#7 You can make your workplace 'happy'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#56 This Chart From IBM Explains Why Cloud Computing Is Such A Game-Changer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#80 Here's how a retired submarine captain would save IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#17 There's No Such Thing as Corporate DNA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#60 [Poll] Computing favorities

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

Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model
Date: 7 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#14 Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model

Middle 80s, top executives were predicting that income doubles mostly based on mainframe revenue ... and there was massive internal building program to double mainframe manufacturing capacity. There were a whole lot of new (fast track) MBAs being rotated around various positions every 6months or so ... apparently grooming them for the new much larger IBM ... although some of the victim organizations were suffering in the process. Note that mainframe business was already starting to move in the other direction ... although to point that out wasn't exactly appreciated at the highest levels. my wife would periodically really annoy IBM executives reminding them that i had never been wrong ... later in my executive exit interview I was told that they could have forgiven me for being wrong, but they were never going to forgive me for being right.

Late 80s, a senior disk engineer got at talk scheduled at internal annual world-wide communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but open the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve their (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the data center to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with several solutions to address the problem but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

AMEX had been in competition with KKR for LBO take-over of RJR and KKR wins. KKR is then is in trouble with RJR and hires away the president of AMEX to turn it around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco

IBM has gone into the red and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company ... when the board brings in the former president of AMEX to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... using some of the same techniques he used at RJR. i.e.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions

folklore/trivia ... after leaving but before the breakup was reversed, we were contacted by somebody in the bowels of Armonk about helping with the mechanics of the breakup. Lots of operations had MOUs with other divisions about using supplier contracts ... all the supplier contracts had to be cataloged and all the dependent MOUs had to be identified and turned into contracts (since these MOUs would then be across different corporations).

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

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Who Said What When

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Who Said What When
Date: 7 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: Who Said What When
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/07/iraqs-weapons-of-mass-destruction-who-said-what-when/

80s, US was supporting Saddam in Iran/Iraq war, including supplying WMDs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war

early 90s, sat. recon analyst notified administration that Saddam was preparing to invade Kuwait. The administration said Saddam would do no such thing and proceeded to discredit the analyst. Then the analyst notifies that Saddam was preparing to invade Saudi Arabia, he administration now has to choose between Iraq and Saudi Arabia
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2/

early last decade, cousin of White House chief of staff Card, was dealing with Iraq in the UN and given proof that the WMDs (tracing back to the US in the 80s) were decommissioned. The information was provided to Card, Powell and others, however before it went public, cousin was committed to Texas Military Hospital
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/

NY times series from fall 2014 about finding the decommissioned WMDs (tracing back to the US) and the information was kept classified for a decade (note Card's cousin book about the decommissioned WMDs was published in 2010, four years before the information was declassified).
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
WMDs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2016 19:03:35 -0700
Cory Heisterkamp <coryheisterkamp@gmail.com> writes:
Hi Nick, I have it on good authority from one of the engineers involved with the 2984 project that it was developed by the Advanced System Development Division lab in San Jose, CA. The project manager was Ed Murphy, and his development managers were Jerry Bemus and Herm Ziegler.

Apparently it used a check sorter feed mechanism to feed the bills. -C


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#13 Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624

ASDD lab morphs into the Los Gatos lab after ASDD is eliminated.

Folklore is that after Future System implodes .... and there is mad rush to get 370 products back into the pipeline (370 efforts were being shutdown or suspended during FS period)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

lots of advanced systems orgs were thrown into the development breach. I've mentioned before that I believe the last advanced system conference in 1976 which included presentations on 801/risc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
and we did presentation on 16-way SMP 370.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

until I held one at San Jose Resarch the spring of 1982 ... old past with some of the agenda of that conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a

one of the ATM folklore is that basement of Los Gatos Lab. had a vault that use to contain a ATM cash machine load of bills for dozens of different currancies ... for testing bill feed mechanism.

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

FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
Date: 7 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook

FBI director seem to split hairs when he said that nobody has been convicted under the 1917 statute. The people involved in this
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

reported to the congressional oversight committee as required and then were charged under the 1917 statute and it took 5yrs before a judge threw out the charges ... and they plea bargained down to misdemeanor, in the mean time their lives were ruined. Claim is that Snowden (also charged under the 1917 statute) tried reporting but after what he saw in the previous case, went public and fled (so hasn't been convicted either ).
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/07/glenn-greenwald/greenwald-nsa-leaker-snowden-has-no-whistleblower-/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/multimedia/espionage/

Note that Snowden was Dell employee under contract to CIA, then BAH employee under contract to NSA, last decade saw enormous uptic in gov. outsourcing to (frequently private equity) for-profit companies, including 70% of intelligence budget and over half the people
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us/

We were involved in some of the Success of Failure early in the century, but didn't realize it. We had effectively consulted for free on dataprocessing for the 2000 census ... and when they had an audit, I was asked to standup in front of the room all day and answer questions (likely the person doing audit was from the agency). Then early in the century we got a call to answer an unclassified BAA that closed that day which basically said none of the tools they had, did the job. We got a response in and then had a couple meetings showing we could do what was required and then nothing. We have since speculated that they only let the person release the BAA anticipating no responses (and he would stop complaining). Disclaimer: I have no clearances.

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

not the 1st time for email problems

President Bill Clinton Lost One Million Emails: The First Clinton Email Scandal
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/president-bill-clinton-lost-one-million-emails-first-clinton-email-scandal

but also the following administration

Bush White House email controversy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy

note that much of the Iran-Contra affair hinged around emails ... when it was an IBM mainframe system ... where it was much harder for emails to disappear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair

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

Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.raspberry-pi, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 09:02:53 -0700
"J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
Have you _looked_ at Visual BASIC? The notion that BASIC can "only do simple jobs" is like the notion that "COBOL is always slow". It is a nice homily that bears little resemblance to reality.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In corporate America the only programming languages available to the average person who is not part of the IT department are Visual Basic for Applications, the Windows console command processor, Powershell, and Javascript running in a browser. And people who need to get work done use those and do remarkable things with them.


1996 MDC at Moscone ... all the banners said "Internet" ... but the constant refrain was "Preserve Your Investment" ... aka 80s/90s business, safe, closed, local area networks ... with convention of business apps with embedded visual basic that automatigically executed. The network support was extended to network w/o any countermeasures to the wild, anarchy of the internet (and all the automagic visual basic paradigm would continue to exist).

Most of the 90s, the majority of internet related exploits was because of various c language related programming bugs ... but by the start of the century ... the automagic execution exploits had increased to match the c language programming bugs

past posts about c language bugs/exploits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#buffer

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

The Boeing Century

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Boeing Century
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 09:08:44 -0700
boeing 100th anniv article "The Boeing Century"
https://issuu.com/pnwmarketplace/docs/i20160708144953115

including long article "Scrappy start forged a company built to last", has analysis of the Boeing merger with M/D ("A different Boeing") and the disastrous effects that it had on the company ... and even though many of those people are gone, it still leaves the future of the company in doubt. One was the M/D (military-industrial complex) culture of outsourcing to lots of entities in different jurisdiction as part of catering to political interests ... as opposed to focusing on producing quality products ... which shows up in the effects that it had on 787.

I've heard references to political catering dating back to C5A responsible for many of the C5A problems. I had been brought into Boeing the summer of 1969 to help with consolidating dataprocessing into BCS independent business unit (to better monetize the significant investment, including providing dataprocessing services to non-Boeing entities, sort of early "cloud computing"). I rented basement apartment from one of the 747 engineers and heard some amount of lore about the 747 ... including placing cockpit above the nose ... allowing nose to open up (for freight and C5A competition).

military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
Date: 9 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#18 FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook

not the 1st time for email problems

President Bill Clinton Lost One Million Emails: The First Clinton Email Scandal
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/president-bill-clinton-lost-one-million-emails-first-clinton-email-scandal

but also the following administration

Bush White House email controversy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy

note that much of the Iran-Contra affair hinged around emails ... when it was an IBM mainframe system ... where it was much harder for emails to disappear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair

NSA Whistleblower: Clinton Emails Damaged U.S. National Security Much More than Manning, Assange Or Any Other Whistleblower
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-07/nsa-whistleblower-clinton-emails-damaged-us-national-security-much-more-manning-assa

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

Local DC news will periodically refer to DC politics as Kabuki Theater .... what you see publicly has little to do with what really goes on ... just show for the public (including apparent conflict between the parties). Note that a major item in the democratic 2008 campaign was to reverse the enormous uptic in gov outsourcing to for-profit (frequently private-equity) companies (and rapidly spreading success of failure culture, see upthread reference) that happened in the previous administration... little evidence of reversing outsourcing.

.. some of the Kabuki Theater articles reference that the apparent conflict between parties is in large part to distract public from what is really going on.

Kabuki Theater posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

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

Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range
Date: 9 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range; New over-the-horizon radar negates stealth advantage
https://warisboring.com/iran-can-now-detect-u-s-stealth-jets-at-long-range-765efd6253e2

this is long winded (older) discussion of some of the radar issues as well as locating vis-a-vis targeting at different wavelengths (in addition to some dicussion of stealth design issues affecting radar signature).
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

what it doesn't talk about is the latest generation of computer chips (put on DOD export control list spring 2015) significantly improve realtime signal analysis ... including radar (claim that it can reduce the number of transmit/receiver pairs in F22/F35 AESA radar by nearly two orders of magnitude w/o loss of capability) ... which can be used in multi-band radar system, first locating low-observable aircraft and then handing off for targeting. Last fall, China demonstrated at supercomputer conference that it was building its own latest generation chips ... and recently it demonstrated largest supercomputer in the world using those chips (i.e. besides radar and other signal processing applications, latest generation of computer chips are used in the tens & hundreds of thousands for supercomputers).

recent refs to "export control" of advanced computer chips
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#20 DEC and The Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#55 How to Kill the F-35 Stealth Fighter; It all comes down to radar ... and a big enough missile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#89 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#89 China builds world's most powerful computer

another recent post mentioning ausairpower article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#75 American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare

military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

47 Years of CICS

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 47 Years of CICS
Date: 9 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
As undergraduate in the 60s, Univ. hired me fulltime responsible for support of the production IBM dataprocessing. Univ. library got an ONR grant to do online catalog and used some of the money to get a 2321 datacell. Effort was also selected to be betatest for orignal CICS product (some CICS before that ... but this was for the product 47yrs ago). I had to shoot a number of bugs ... in part the original implementation at a customer had hard coded some BDAM options (not documented) and the Library was using a different set of BDAM options.

lots of CICS history at this website ... gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20071124013919/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm
and
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm

past posts mentioning CICS &/or BDAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics

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

Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:19:41 -0700
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
It is very nice, but the structured macros actually go way back. The Bell Labs site I mostly worked at had a few different structured Assembler packages. This was in the 70s.

With the advent of HLASM, there is a structured assembler macro package from IBM (finally). With a macro package the readability of assembler goes way up.

Those labels and lack of indentation in assembler without a macro package make a real mess.


there were structured assembler macro packages predating HLASM ... I believe some amount of HLASM came from SLAC. reference to slac assembler mods at SHARE (1993) which had been going on for some years
http://computer-programming-forum.com/10-asm370/de9f41f48e726586.htm

SLAC also did bit-slice 370 clones (at least enuf to execute fortran problem state; also used by CERN) for placing along the line for initial sensor data reduction ... initially "168e" (supposedly thruput of 168) and then "3081e" (throughput of 3081).

SLAC (vm370 system) was also first webserver (outside europe).
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml
recent posts mentioning SLAC's early webserver
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#6 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#14 client/server & HTML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#33 The Network Nation, Revised Edition

past posts mentioning HLASM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#19 REXX still going strong after 25 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#20 REXX still going strong after 25 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#21 REXX still going strong after 25 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#13 What part of z/OS is the OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#53 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#55 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#61 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#64 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#1 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#2 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#16 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#62 CSA 'above the bar'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#3 Assembler programs was Re: Delete all members of a PDS that is allocated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#89 Is there an SPF setting to turn CAPS ON like keyboard key?

past posts mentioning 168e &/or 3081e
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#43 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#8 The IBM 5100 and John Titor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#72 zEC12, and previous generations, "why?" type question - GPU computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#27 World's worst programming environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#85 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#69 Remembrance of things past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#79 Ancient computers in use today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#87 a bit of hope? What was old is new again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#28 The joy of simplicity?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#52 The Stack Depth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#78 Microcode

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

Is it a lost cause?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:30:12 -0700
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
I've mentioned the story of how a Structured Programming zealot went up one side of me and down the other for committing the sin of uttering the profane word GOTO while suggesting ways to optimize a program whose CPU usage was prohibitively high. Said genius was the one who declared all subscripts as COMP-3 (packed decimal); simply changing them to COMP-4 (binary) cut 30% off the CPU time.

early 70s, I wrote a PLI program to analyze assembler listings ... contructing instruction representation & instruction flow, looking for register use before set ... also generate psuedo-code representation using structure if/then/else, while, etc. constructions.

Used for analysis of cp67 and vm370 assembler source listings, one of the issues is that assembler condition had two-bit condition setting ... and some highly optimized kernel code could effectively make use of 3-way & 4-way condition branch/goto. In some case it could be easily understood on 60line listing (paper) page ... but converted to structured psuedo-code could be nested depth >15 that was almost impossible to understand.

some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#12 360 "OS" & "TSS" assemblers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#26 S-P-F (was Mainframe operating systems)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#36 Assembly language formatting on IBM systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#38 GOTOs cross-posting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#34 Macros and base register question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#21 REXX still going strong after 25 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#36 Vintage computers are better than modern crap !
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#35 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#16 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#52 Where should the type information be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#32 transputers again was: The demise of Commodore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#1 Greatest Software Ever Written?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#27 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#21 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#9 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#57 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#65 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#49 Any benefit to programming a RISC processor by hand?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#30 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#43 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#32 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#65 You know you've been Lisp hacking to long when
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#37 Language first, hardware second
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#49 "How do you feel about 'gotos'"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#14 Dennis Ritchie
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#60 New HD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#69 [Poll] Computing favorities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#24 You thought IEFBR14 was bad? Try GNU's /bin/true code

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

The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover--and Retired With a $220,000 Pension

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover--and Retired With a $220,000 Pension
Date: 11 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover--and Retired With a $220,000 Pension Why hasn't David Petraeus faced the same career-ending consequences as other leakers?
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-general-who-lost-2-wars-leaked-classified-information-to-his-lover-and-retired-with-a-220000-pension/

Lots of military is part of military-industrial complex and Perpetual War culture (keeps up flow of money, part of Eisenhower's goodbye speech). Other beltway bandits have their version, keeping up the flow of money with the Success of Failure culture (never any real success) military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
perpetual war
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

By the turn of century large private-equity companies were buying up beltway bandits and then lobbyiing on their behalf ... which saw a enormous increase in gov. outsourcing to their subsidiaries last decade ... with lots of the money flowing back to their parents. The OPM failure was one such operation, another buys a major beltway bandit that employs Snowden ... some of the Success of Failure culture story here
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
other private equity detail (70% of intelligence budget and over half the people)
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us/
reference to the private-equity owner of OPM beltway bandit
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/24/opm-contractor-veritas/

Note that when Petraeus resigns, he joins one of these major private-equity operations.

Success of Failure posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree
Private Equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

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

US Refused To Prosecute HSBC Over Fears Of "Global Financial Disaster"

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: US Refused To Prosecute HSBC Over Fears Of "Global Financial Disaster"
Date: 12 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Note: Jan2009, I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s senate hearings into '29crash, resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal HREFs and URLs between what happened then and what happened this time (remarks that the new congress might have appetite to do something). I work on it for awhile and then get a call saying it won't be needed after all (reference to enormous piles/mountains of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill).

Pecora Hearings and/or Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

US Refused To Prosecute HSBC Over Fears Of "Global Financial Disaster"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-12/us-refused-prosecute-hsbc-over-fears-global-financial-disaster
Congress: Too Big to Jail: Inside the Obama Justice Department's Decision Not to Hold Wall Street Accountable
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/07/11/congress-too-big-to-jail-justice-department-decision-not-to-hold-wall-street-accountable/
Congress Exposes That DoJ Overruled Recommendation to Indict Money Launderer HSBC Over Too Big to Fail Worries
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/congress-exposes-that-doj-overruled-recommendation-to-charge-money-launderer-hsbc-over-too-big-to-fail-worries.html

money laundering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#money.laundering

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

Is it a lost cause?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is it a lost cause?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 08:43:10 -0700
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Couldn't you make the background stripey like the listings used to be? That would help with the long lines if you ever have to deal with them.

see background at vmshare archive
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

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

Eric Holder's Longtime Excuse for Not Prosecuting Banks Just Crashed and Burned

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Eric Holder's Longtime Excuse for Not Prosecuting Banks Just Crashed and Burned
Date: 13 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Eric Holder's Longtime Excuse for Not Prosecuting Banks Just Crashed and Burned
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/12/eric-holders-longtime-excuse-for-not-prosecuting-banks-just-crashed-and-burned/

too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

Securitized mortgages had been used during S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages ... but didn't find much of a market. 1999, I was asked to help try and prevent the coming economic mess by improving the integrity of mortgage supporting documents as countermeasure. However, they found they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A (when both sellers and rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from Oct2008 hearings, during the hearings a TV news commentator predicted there wouldn't be any federal prosecution), largely enabling being able to do over $27T (TRILLION) 2001-2008, including selling to funds restricted to only dealing in "safe" investments like large public & private pension funds. Triple-A trumps supporting documents and they start doing no-documentation, liar loans (and with no documentation, there is no longer issue with documentation integrity). toxic CDOs (securitized loans):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

Rhetoric on floor of congress was that Sarbanes-Oxley would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee that executives and auditors did jailtime, but it required SEC to do something. Middle of last decade, possibly because GAO doesn't believe SEC is doing anything, GAO starts doing reports of public company fraudulent financial filings, even showing uptic after SOX goes into effect, and nobody doing jailtime. Less well known, is that SOX required that SEC also do something about the rating agencies.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

Jan2009, I'm asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s senate hearings into the '29 crash, resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal xrefs and URLs between what happened then and what happened this time (comments that the new congress might have an appetite to do something). I work on it for awhile and then get a call saying it won't be needed after all (reference to enormous piles/mountains of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

The congressional Madoff hearings had the person that tried unsuccessfully for a decade to try and get SEC to do something about Madoff (SEC's hands were forced when Madoff turned himself in, speculation Madoff was looking for federal protection after defrauding some bad people). They ask him if new regulations are needed. He says while new regulations may be needed, much more important (since existing regulations weren't being enforced) was transparency and visibility (something antithetical to wallstreet culture).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff
regulatory capture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#regulatory.capture

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

The World Crisis, Vol. 1

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The World Crisis, Vol. 1
Date: 13 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#78 The World Crisis, Vol. 1

and more, loc2151-56:
This led to enormous expense and to tremendous opposition on the Naval Estimates. Yet it was absolutely impossible to turn back. We could only fight our way forward, and finally we found our way to the Anglo-Persian Oil agreement and contract, which for an initial investment of two millions of public money (subsequently increased to five millions) has not only secured to the Navy a very substantial proportion of its oil supply, but has led to the acquisition by the Government of a controlling share in oil properties and interests which are at present valued at scores of millions sterling, and also to very considerable economies, which are still continuing, in the purchase price of Admiralty oil.

... snip ...

and then "The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command"
https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Game-Jutland-British-Command-ebook/dp/B00B6TZGLM

pg8/loc296-301:
But here was another gamble, for whereas South Wales was made of coal, Britain had no indigenous sources of oil, and an oil-fired Fleet might be cut off from overseas fuel supplies in time of war. That risk, with all its political and military implications, was lightly shouldered, and Churchill extracted GBP2.2m. from Parliament to buy a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company: a transaction second only to Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Canal shares in strategic ramifications for Britain and the Middle East.

... snip ...

military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 08:42:31 -0700
How the internet was invented
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/15/how-the-internet-was-invented-1976-arpa-kahn-cerf

Note that networks in the 60s/70s tended to be homogeneous and frequently proprietary ... which was inhibition to growth. The ARPANET had homogeneous IMPs which tended to be hard to obtain and IMPs were all periodically taken down at one time for service. The internal network was larger than the ARPANET/Internet from just about the beginning until sometime in the mid-80s. It had well structured layers with form of gateway in most nodes ... so it was fairly easy to interconnect other protocols. At the time of the great cutover to internetworking protocol on 1Jan1983, there were approx. 100 IMP nodes and around 255 connected hosts. By comparison, the internal network was rapidly approaching 1000 nodes all over the world.

The internal network had a different kind of growth inhibitor, all the connections required link encryptors ... which frequently required all sorts of battles with governments around the world, especially when links cross national boundaries. In the mid-80s, a vendor claimed that the internal network had well over half of all link encryptors in the world. some past internal network email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vnet

Note that the same technology was also used for the corporate sponsored university BITNET (and EARN in Europe) which for time in the first half of the 80s was also larger than the Internet.

The person responsible for the internal network was former co-worker at the cambridge science center (4th flr, 545 technology sq)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

Note starting in the early 80s, we were working with the director of NSF to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers and were suppose to get $20M. Then Congress cuts the budget, some number of other things happen, and finally NSF releases an RFP (in part based on what we already had running). Internal politics prevent us from bidding, the director of NSF tries to help by writing the company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies but that just makes the internal politics worse (as did comments that what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all RFP responses). As the regional networks connect into the centers, it becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to the modern internet. some past NSFNET related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

Internal politics were also at play spreading misinformation forcing the internal network to be converted to SNA/VTAM.

Internally I was doing HSDT project with T1 and higher speed links. I really hated what I had to pay for T1 link encryptors and faster encryptors were really hard to come by. I then got involved in doing link encryptors ... objective was $100 or less to build and handle multiple megabyte (not bit) speeds. The corporate crypto group claimed that implementation compromised crypto strength ... it took me three months to figure out how to explain that rather than significantly weaker crypto than the crypto standard, it was actually much stronger; but it turned out to be a hollow victory, I was told that there is only one customer in the world for such crypto, I could build as many boxes as I wanted, but they all had to go to address on the east coast. It was when I realized there was three kinds of crypto in the world: 1) the kind they don't care about, 2) the kind you can't do, and 3) the kind you can only do for them. some past crypto email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#crypto
past hsdt email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#hsdt

nsfnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
bitnet (& earn) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 09:18:20 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented

other trivia: GML had been invented at the cambridge science center (other co-workers) in 1969, a decade later it morphs into ISO standard SGML and another decade it morphs into HTML at CERN. The first webserver outside Europe was on the SLAC VM370 (virtual machine operating system also created at the cambridge science center)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml

trivia ... "GML" was chosen because "G", "M", and "L" are the first letter of the inventor's last names

some past GML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
cambridge science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 11:07:08 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented

possibly because the pervasive assumptions about homogeneous technical and administrative operation of other networks and general lack of interoperability, the internal network supporting interoperability grew significantly faster than these other networks.

these homogeneous assumptions and lack of interoperability was also very pervasive in other parts of the corporation, especially the corporate mainframe favorite son batch systems. An early 80s study opened with a typical case study with corporation with lots of shop floor controllers with leased lines back to datacenter. One of the shops wanted to install dialed line (instead of leased), which required upgrading controllers to new release, which required upgrading NCP to a new release, which required upgrading VTAM to new release, which required upgrading MVS to a new release (this all required to be done synchronously and any glitch in any part of the process required unwinding the whole thing). The standard batch system host-to-host networking also required all host networking in the infrastructure to be operating at the same release level, minor changes in host networking release could precipitate failure of networking at other release levels resulting in bringing down the host operating system. In the internal network such network nodes were restricted to edge nodes. A large internal network software library grew up that was responsible for making sure traffic was always converted to exact format expected by the receiving batch system host (as countermeasure to system failures). Even a few standard batch system network would tend to have all traffic flowing through an internal network node (with reformating support) ... which would otherwise require that all batch system maintenance was synchronized across all machines.

some past internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
some past HASP, JES, NJI/NJE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 11:19:52 -0700
Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
That last step is incorrect - HTML was an SGML defined by a DTD the same as other SGMLs such as Docbook and the Elsevier article SGMLs. The next morph after SGML was not HTML but XML and many SGMLs were superceded by XMLs such as XHTML, Docbook-XML.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented

depends on how you define morph ... initial implementation was straight browser code that had code format formating specific tags.

The original software, SCRIPT, was reiplementation of CTSS RUNOFF on CP67/CMS in mid-60s. After GML was invented, GML tag processing was added to CMS SCRIPT.

Univ. of Waterloo had produced a CMS SGML processor that was in use by lots of vm370 installations including CERN. CERN built a browser that formated using tag semantics similar to SGML.
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

from above:
1992

With 1992 came (some) stability. See the HTML page.

One of the related files contains a very important idiom:-

It is required that HTML be a common language between all platforms. This implies no device-specific markup, or anything which requires control over fonts or colors, for example. This is in keeping with the SGML ideal.

However, HTML suffered greatly from the lack of standardization, and the dodgy parsing techniques allowed by Mosaic (in 1993). If HTML had been precisely defined as having to have an SGML DTD, it may not have become as popular as fast, but it would have been a lot architecturally stronger.

Standardization?

The first official standard for HTML (HTML 2.0) came out in November 1995: way too late!

HTML has been in use by the World Wide Web (WWW) global information initiative since 1990. This specification roughly corresponds to the capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).


... snip ...

As previously mentioned, SLAC on their vm370 was first web server/browser outside europe.
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml

It was some time before all the DTD definition stuff was defined for HTML.

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 15:13:55 -0700
hancock4 writes:
As mentioned, the Western Union Telegraph Company envisioned itself as a player and had contracts with ARPA, including working with packet switching.

They also foresaw people at home connecting in. A sticking point for that in 1965 was getting the connectivity cost low enough to be affordable for home use. One problem was that back then there weren't many truly low cost terminals; the popular Teletype 33 was too expensive for home use ($700 in 1965 was a lot of money).

Notably, when personal computers came along, usually people bought them to do multiple tasks, so the cost was spread over different applications (i.e. communication, word processing, spreadsheet/accounting, gaming, hobby.)

Sadly, the original Internet protocols failed to provide enough basic security and identification to prevent the massive frauds and abuse perpetrated through the Internet today.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented

Early popular browser was MOSAIC out of National Center for Supercomputer Application at Unif. of Illinois. Note that in the period when we were talking to the director of NSF about connecting the NSF supercomputer centers, we also had discussions with NCSA.

Later MOSAIC corporation was founded in Silicon Valley to produce commercial browsers and servers. When NCSA complained about the use of "MOSAIC", they changed their name to NETSCAPE (the name was donated by CISCO which had previously trademarked it). It was in this period that we were brought in as consultants. Two of the people we had previously worked with at Oracle on cluster/supercomputer scale-up of RDBMS systems, were then at NETSCAPE responsible for something called "commerce server" and we were brought in because they wanted to do payment transactions on the server (the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce").

some old email about cluster/supercomputer scale-up (for both commercial/RDBMS as well as technical/scientific)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa
past post about meeting in Ellison's conference room about RDBMS cluster scale-up ... including two people that are later at NETSCAPE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
posts about cluster work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

I had complete authority over everything on the payment gateway/server operation, but could only make recommendations on the server/browser operation ... and almost immediately some number of recommendations were violated ... that continue to account for exploits to this day. posts about payment gateway
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

Somewhat for having done "electronic commerce", in the mid-90s, we were asked to participate in the X9A10 financial standard working group that had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments. We did end-to-end detailed study of vulnerabilities and exploits for multiple different kinds of retailed payments and came up with a transaction standard that provided end-to-end strong authentication. The original commerce server implementation used SSL to hide transaction information while in transit over the internet. The new transaction standard used end-to-end strong authentication and no longer needed to hide information. It also didn't do anything about data breaches, since crooks couldn't (also) use information from data breach for fraudulent financial transactions. posts about transaction standard work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

In the mid-90s, consumer dialup banking operations were giving presentations that they were moving to internet ... the primary reason was the cost of supporting proprietary infrastructures (at the top of the list was supporting large number of different serial-port modem drivers; which would all be offloaded to ISPs). In the same time-frame the commercial dial-up banking operations were saying they would never move to the internet because of the large number of vulnerabilities (even with "SSL"). During this period there were increasing exploits involving the compromise of the consumer personal computer "end-points". posts about dailup banking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

Also about the same time was the MDC at SanFran Moscone where all the banners said "Internet" ... but the refrain in all the sessions was "preserve you investment". Basically a paradigm of Visual Basic code embedded in application files which would be automatigically executed ... that grew up in an environment of small, closed, safe, business networks. This networking support was expanded to the wild anarchy of the internet w/o any additional countermeasures.

Towards the end of the century, personal computer compromises and increased to the point that the EU FINREAD standard was defined for doing banking and financial transactions ... basically a hardened end-point (immune from the multitude of personal computer compromises and interfaced to hardware token) which would perform end-to-end transaction (complementing the transaction standard defined in X9A10 working group). posts mentioning EU FINREAD standard (as countermeasure to personal computer take-over/compromises)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#finread

A major hiccup then occurred, around the turn of the century, a major financial institution distributed free, serial-port interface for hardware tokens. Apparently the institutional knowledge about serial-port support had evaporated in the few years since serial-port dial-up banking and the resulting enormous consumer support problems created a pervasive opinion throughout the financial industry that hardware tokens weren't viable in the consumer market and financial industry pullback from hardware tokens and anything resembling the EU FINREAD standard (when it wasn't the hardware tokens' fault, but the serial-port device ... note that serial-port problems were also major motivation for development of USB)

Note that in the years since the mid-90s, many of the commercial dial-up online banking have (also) moved to the internet with some number of major exploits (commercial accounts aren't protected like consumer accounts are). Periodically, the Federal Reserve and other regulatory agencies have recommended that commercial operations have a PC that is dedicated to online internet transactions and *NEVER* used for any other purpose ... as countermeasure to the numerous kinds of PC compromises and take-over (partially approximating operation from the dial-up days).

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 18:35:07 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented

After monthly meetings at SLAC, we would adjourn to the "O" (Oasis on El Camino) or sometimes the Dutch Goose

from original article

During the course of its long existence, Rossotti's has been a frontier saloon, a gold rush gambling den, and a Hells Angels hangout. These days it is called the Alpine Inn Beer Garden, and the clientele remains as motley as ever.

... snip ...

http://www.alpineinnbeergarden.com/

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

How the internet was invented

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 20:21:17 -0700
"J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
Mainframe, Hell. When the Altair shipped the fastest computer in the world couldn't break the 1 million instruction per second barrier. Now a 40 buck Raspberry Pi does _hundreds_ of millions.

1974/1975
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800

158/370 was less than MIP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_second

168/370 was 2.5mips/sec ... later 168 cache size doubled (168-3) increasing to 3mips/sec.

earlier 65/360 was about half mip and 75/360 was 1mips/sec ... (although there was no cache so all storage accesses went over main memory bus and heavy i/o contention on memory bus could degrade MIP rate).

the 360/195 was pipeline and supported out-of-order execution ... optimized code ran around 10MIPS, but machine lacked branch prediction and speculative execution so conditional branches drained the pipeline ... and lots of standard codes ran at 5MIPs (because of conditional branches).
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2195.html

early '79, I was con'ed into doing 4341 benchmarks for national lab, machine hadn't shipped yet, but I had access to an engineering machine in disk product test lab. past posts geeting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

national lab was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm ... sort of the leading edge to the coming cluster computing supercomputers (engineer 4341 was 30% faster than 158-3/370, shipped production machine was somewhat faster, engineering 4341 test machines had slowed down machine cycle (as they worked out some timing issues).

some past 4341 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

posts in thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented

this has reference to red/blue flag for hyperthread pipeline machine ("Sidebar: Multithreading")
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

some past posts mentioned getting asked to help the 195 group do such multithreaded machine (which never shipped)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#33 PDP10 and RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#3 Hyperthreading vs. SMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#21 40th anniversary of IBM System/360 on 7 Apr 2004
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#27 dual processors: not just for breakfast anymore?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#4 System/360; Hardwired vs. Microcoded
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#34 Power5 and Cell, new issue of IBM Journal of R&D
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#6 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#29 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#0 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#21 Very slow booting and running and brain-dead OS's?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#92 CPU time differences for the same job
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#54 mainframe performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#5 registers vs cache
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#49 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#59 "Portable" data centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#6 "Portable" data centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#6 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#60 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#64 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#73 Execution Velocity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#79 NASA unplugs their last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#96 Indirect Bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#29 X86 server
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#56 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#32 390 vector instruction set reuse, was 8-bit bytes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#67 relative speeds, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#93 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#8 OT? IBM licenses POWER architecture to other vendors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#51 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#73 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#62 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#64 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#5 DEC Technical Journal on Bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#99 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#81 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#105 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#164 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#61 ou sont les VAXen d'antan, was Variable-Length Instructions that aren't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#69 A New Performance Model ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#23 A Modest Proposal (for avoiding OOO)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#82 IBM Automatic (COBOL) Binary Optimizer Now Availabile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#110 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 19:46:58 -0700
"J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
I stand corrected, however it doesn't alter the point. What was the first machine that actually outperforms a Raspberry Pi?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented

reference MIPS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_second

most recent entry:
Raspberry Pi 2 4,744 MIPS at 1.0 GHz 4.744 1.186 2014

some misc other stuff (some other supercomputers had much higher MIP rates earlier)
MOS Technology 6502 2.522 MIPS at 5.865 MHz 0.43 0.43 1981 Intel Pentium III 2,054 MIPS at 600 MHz 3.4 3.4 1999 Silicon Recognition 78 8,600 MIPS at 33 MHz 260.6 260.6 2000 AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 14,564 MIPS at 2.0 GHz 7.3 3.6 2005 AMD Athlon FX-60 18,938 MIPS at 2.6 GHz 7.3 3.6 2006 Intel Core i7 920 82,300 MIPS at 2.93 GHz 28.086 7.022 2008 ARM Cortex A7 2,850 MIPS at 1.5 GHz 1.9 1.9 2011 Intel Core i7 176,170 MIPS at 3.3 GHz 53.38 8.89 2011

...

in the 70s, I started pointing out that processors were getting faster, much faster than disks were getting faster. In early 80s, I claimed that between 360s and 3081, that disk relative system throughput had declined by order of magnitude. some disk division executive took exception and directed the division performance group to refute the claim. they worked on it for a few weeks and came back and effectively said that I had slightly understated the issues. they then respun it for SHARE presentation as how to configure/organize disks for improved system throughput. old post with part of original presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door

Current latency of processor access to main storage in count of processor cycles, is similar to 60s processor access latency to disk ... as a result processor hardware design is going through some of the same techniques used for overlapping execution while waiting for accesses (caches, out-of-order execution, hyperthreading, branch prediction, speculative execution, etc).

other posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented

recent posts mentioning increasing mismatch between processor performance and memory latency.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#35 mainframe CKD disks & PDS files (looong... warning)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#79 NASA unplugs their last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#4 Memory versus processor speed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#29 X86 server
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#59 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#73 PDP-10 system calls, was 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#24 Assembler vs. COBOL--processing time, space needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#10 From build to buy: American Airlines changes modernization course midflight
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#67 relative speeds, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#65 Linear search vs. Binary search
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#93 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#31 DRAM is the new Bulk Core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#8 OT? IBM licenses POWER architecture to other vendors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#17 OSI: The Internet That Wasn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#35 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#51 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#103 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#97 IBM ACS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#12 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#2 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#51 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#5 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#74 Bell Picturephone--early business application experiments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#81 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#87 Death of spinning disk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#106 [CM] How ENIAC was rescued from the scrap heap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#39 Virtual Memory Management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#81 IBM Automatic (COBOL) Binary Optimizer Now Availabile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#101 This new 'skyscraper' chip could make computers run 1,000 times faster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#110 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#27 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#68 Raspberry Pi 3?

old reference in SHARE B874 presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#18 AS/400 and MVS - clarification please
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#46 AS/400 and MVS - clarification please
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#3 using 3390 mod-9s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#68 DASD Response Time (on antique 3390?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#5 Poster of computer hardware events?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#9 Poster of computer hardware events?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#88 CPU time differences for the same job
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#71 308x Processors - was "Mainframe articles"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#7 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#34 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#52 Hercules; more information requested
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#67 ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#1 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#70 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#31 Wax ON Wax OFF -- Tuning VSAM considerations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#32 OS idling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#33 History of Hard-coded Offsets
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#18 Mainframe Slang terms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#30 IBM Historic computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#35 CKD DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#61 Speed of Old Hard Disks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#1 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#59 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#5 Why are organizations sticking with mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#32 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#73 Tape vs DASD - Speed/time/CPU utilization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#39 A bit of IBM System 360 nostalgia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#62 ISO documentation of IBM 3375, 3380 and 3390 track format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#72 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 years agotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#49 Mac at 30: A love/hate relationship from the support front
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#90 What's the difference between doing performance in a mainframe environment versus doing in others
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#87 Death of spinning disk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#0 Miniskirts and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#110 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#12 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#21 What was a 3314?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#68 Raspberry Pi 3?

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

JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Date: 18 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10153776081110665?pnref=story

"team B" fabricated Russian capability (to justify enormous military budget increase) but the CIA director won't agree to the analysis. White House Chief of Staff Rumsfeld asks the CIA director to resign and replaces him with somebody that would agree to the analysis, Bush1. Rumsfeld then becomes SECDEF and is replaced as chief of staff by his assistant Cheney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
80s, US is supporting Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
including supplying WMDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war
former CIA director and vp bush1 says he doesn't know anything about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair
because he was fulltime administration point person deregulating financial industry ... creating S&L crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
along with other members of his family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan
and another
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260

early 90s, sat. recon analyst notified administration that Saddam was preparing to invade Kuwait. The administration said Saddam would do no such thing and proceeded to discredit the analyst. Then the analyst notifies that Saddam was preparing to invade Saudi Arabia, the administration now has to choose between Iraq and Saudi Arabia (Bush1 is president and Cheney is SECDEF)
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2/

Last decade, the cousin of White House chief of staff (Card) is dealing with Iraq in the UN and given proof that the WMDs have been decommissioned ... which is forwarded to Card, Powell and others ... before it can be made public, the cousin is locked up in military hospital. (Bush2 is president, Cheney is VP, and Rumsfeld is SECDEF again). The cousin eventually gets out and publishes a book in 2010.
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/

NY times series from fall 2014 about finding the decommissioned WMDs (tracing back to the US) and the information was kept classified for a decade (corroborates details in Card cousin's book published 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

also last decade is the economic mess, 70 times larger than S&L crisis

"team b" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
"perpetual war" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
"WMDs" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds

past posts mentioning classified "28 pages" and/or 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia for responsibility
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#51 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#83 NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#11 NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#13 Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#42 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#99 Reducing Army Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#103 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#14 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#38 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#89 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#51 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#64 IBM Data Processing Center and Pi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#72 George W. Bush: Still the worst; A new study ranks Bush near the very bottom in history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#27 What were the complaints of binary code programmers that not accept Assembly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#73 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#78 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#54 The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#12 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#50 Iraqi WMDs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#87 Top secret "28 pages" may hold clues about Saudi support for 9/11 hijackers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#93 Qbasic

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

Yes, Intel Needs to Reinvent Itself

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Yes, Intel Needs to Reinvent Itself
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:57:16 -0700
timcaffrey writes:
The fact that Intel is trying to protect the x86 business is the problem, it is incredibly similar to the old mainframe companies trying to protect their proprietary ISAs and business model instead of moving on and trying to sell what the technology allowed them to build instead of trying to build the same thing, but just a bit cheaper and faster.

the story that i've heard is that they are in the fab business, objective is to keep the fab busy with target business objective of managing revenue/wafer ... revenue/wafer times wafers over the lifetime of the fab. technology has moved to smaller circuits and sometimes smaller chips with more chips/wafer ... also larger wafers for more chips/wafer, plus new wafer cutting technology so there is less waste/wafer (and therefor more chips) ... and of course the price/chip and the total chip market (whether they clear a profit on the fab).

claims were they avoided some markets because the revenue/wafer was below target objectives (not enough chips/wafer and/or revenue/chip)

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:30:55 -0700
hancock4 writes:
Actually, standalone 'dumb terminals' were significantly cheaper than a PC. The same advances that allowed cheap electronics were exploited by terminal makers, too. Indeed, we placed an order for terminals and they arrived discounted by 10%, since the price had dropped that much between order and delivery. The terminals were about half the price of an XT PC.

original IBM/PC was listed about the same price as 3270 terminal .... large corporations with business justification for buying tens of thousands of 3270 terminals could switch to IBM/PC with terminal emulation for little change to the business justification and get some local computing like spreadsheet, in single desk footprint.

the rapid growth of that business market attracted 3rd party developers ... which further fueled the market growth (snowball effect). The size of the market and the significant profit margin attackted the clone markets ... further accelerating market growth.

however, going into late 80s, PC capability had expanded past simple dumb terminal emulation and was well into client/server and distributed computing. The communication group was doing everything they could to fight off the change, trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm and install base. in the late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance but opened the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The communication group had stranglehold on datacenters with corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls ... and the disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the situation, but they were constantly vetoed by the disk division. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

a few short years later the company goes into the red and was being re-organized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company ... then the board brings in the former president of AMEX to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... some posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

there had been big explosion in the mid-range market in the late 70s through the mid-80s ... DEC VAX and IBM 4300 sold similar numbers in the small unit sales, the big difference was large corporate orders of hundreds of 4300s at a time. However, by the later half of the 80s, workstations and "large" PC servers were starting to take-over the mid-range market ... as can be seen in this old post of a decade of VAX sales ... sliced&diced by year, model, US/non-US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

Endicott had expected that the 4331/4341 follow-ons (4361 & 4381) would continue the explosive sales growth ... but by that time, the mid-range market was starting to collapse (moving to workstation and PC servers).

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:49:30 -0700
hancock4 writes:
I don't know the throughput speed of your Altair, but I do know that our old S/360-40, with a spooler, could run through some serious workloads. I'm not sure the Altair could handle simultaneous printing of 1,000 132 character lines per minute, reading of 1,000 cards per second, plus going through gobs of data from the 2314. Of course, the S/360 had separate I/O controllers for a lot of the function, but that was part of the machine.

one of the issues was that the enormous channel protocol chatter, half-duplex convention and latency was becoming a bottleneck as speeds increased.

In 1980, STL (since renamed silicon valley lab) was bursting at the seams and they were going to move 300 people from the IMS group to offsite facility with service back into the STL datacenter. The IMS people had tried "remote 3270" but found the human factors totally intolerable (especially compared to what they were use to with vm370/cms local channel attached controllers). I got roaped into do support for channel-extender so they could place local 3270 controllers out in the offsite bldg. Part of the support was running the channel extender full-duplex and downloaded channel programs to remote channel emulator for execution (enormously cutting latency and improving throughput). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

the hardware vendor then tried to get my support released, but it was vetoed by a group in POK playing around with some serial stuff ... they were afraid if my support was released, it would make it harder to get their stuff out.

in 1988, I was asked to help LLNL standardize some serial stuff they were playing with, which quickly becomes the fibre channel standard ... including some stuff that I had been doing back in 1980.

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

Then some of the POK people become involved with fibre channel standard and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically reduces the native fibre channel standard throughput which is eventually released as FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

The most recently published mainframe peak I/O benchmark that i've seen was done on z196 that got 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre-channel). At about the same time there was a (single) fibre channel announced for E5-2600 blade claiming over million IOPS (two such fibre channel have higher throughput than 104 FICON running over 104 fibre channel).

recent posts mentioning z196 peak i/o benchmark:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#74 Fibre Channel is still alive and kicking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#104 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#24 CeBIT and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#28 CeBIT and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#61 Can commodity hardware actually emulate the power of a mainframe?

posts in thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 13:06:03 -0700
hancock4 writes:
In one application, written in C, searches were done _serially_, and searching was a big part of the application. I think someone did rewrite that part which helped performance. (So much for the "smart consultants".)

TCP requires minimum of 7 packet exchanges and part of the protocol was FINWAIT processing, checking for dangling packets after the session was already closed. Initially implemented as list of closed sessions kept around for some period and linear searched to check if arriving packet is part of closed session. Assumption that TCP sessions were relatively long events and there would few or none on the FINWAIT list.

HTTP for what ever reasons decided to implement as TCP session, if those it was atomic transaction ... as a result, the number of sessions being opened and closed for a webserver exploded. As web activity ramped up typical webservers started spending 90% of their time doing linear searching of the FINWAIT list.

NETSCAPE started installing servers like mad to handle the load ... until they finally put in a Sequent server. Sequent had been in the commerical market and had configurations with 20,000 TELNET sessions ... and Sequent had previously encountered and fixed the FINWAIT problem. It was another six months or so before the other vendors redid their FINWAIT processing to look more like Sequent's.

In the 80s, I had been on the XTP technical advisery board which was doing a high-speed transaction protocol ... that had guaranteed delivery (like TCP) but would do it in a minimum of 3 packet exchanges ... and some number of other high performance characteristics ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

I tried to get the HTTPS protocl interested in doing an XTP implementation that piggy backed all the crypto stuff within the 3 packet exchange (HTTPS runs over a TCP session where there is also latency of a bunch of crypto handshake protocol chatter).

posts in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#42 How the internet was invented

past posts mentioning FINWAIT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#1 Early tcp development?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#164 Uptime (was Re: Q: S/390 on PowerPC?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#3 The demise of compaq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#14 index searching
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#46 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#42 TCP channel half closed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#33 X.509 and ssh
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#2 Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#37 Curiosity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#11 What part of z/OS is the OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#38 Problem with TCP connection close
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#28 Yet another squirrel question - Results (very very long post)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#36 Making tea
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#7 IBM in Talks to Buy Sun
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#76 Tiny-traffic DoS attack spotlights Apache flaw
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#44 Follow up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#62 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#51 Has there been a change in US banking regulations recently?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#9 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#11 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#6 Founders of SSL Call Game Over?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#20 Writing article on telework/telecommuting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#89 False Start's sad demise: Google abandons noble attempt to make SSL less painful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#15 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#8 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#46 OT: "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#48 Google takes on Internet Standards with TCP Proposals, SPDY standardization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#13 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#26 There Is Still Hope
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#76 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#2 Knowledge Center Outage May 3rd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#50 Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#25 The real story of how the Internet became so vulnerable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#71 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#96 TCP joke
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#113 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

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

How the internet was invented

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 15:06:25 -0700
hancock4 writes:
In the 1950s and 1960s, people bought very expensive stereo systems to show them off, not because they cared about good music. Also, in the 1950s, people bought fancy cars to show off. If you only drove a Chevy, your wife would nag you as to why you couldn't afford an Oldsmobile like your neighbors.

claim is that the big uptake for VHS/beta (video) players was porn and the biggest early uptake for e-commerce was also porn ... and suspect it was true for general internet also. There was claim by a large hosting operation .... that at the height of when there was big deal of publishing the #1 website each month (or the top 5 or 10) in terms of hits ... the hosting operation said they were running ten websites that each had higher hits per month than the #1 in public ranking (and were so successful they didn't have to bother with participating in such public rankings).

posts in the thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#42 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#43 How the internet was invented

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 09:55:02 -0700
"J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
He mentioned the Altair specifically. The Altair, as far as I know, never supported a GUI, at least not unless you put a board with an 8086 in it and found drivers for GEM or Windows.

However, there is no requirement that any modern computer "run a GUI". Even Windows, in its server form, runs from a command line and the Pi runs Linux, which can be pared down quite far.

As for "very good I/O", a 2305 was 5 or 10 meg and could transfer 3 MB/sec with a 2.5 ms average access time. A 3330 or 3340 had data transfer rates in the 800 kb/sec range and access times in the 25 ms range with capacity of up to around 500 meg in a maximal configuration. A 3410 would hold about 8 MB at 80 KB/sec.

The Pi can be configured with more than 200 gig of solid state memory in the microSD slot and a terabyte or so of SSD on the 480 Mb/sec SSD channel, without taxing the 100 Mb/sec Ethernet channel or the up to 200 or so Mb/sec wifi channel.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#42 How the internet was invented

there was big uptic lore about IBM mainframe channel throughput with the 3090 pointing to the enormous number of channels.

The issue starts out with the latency of the enormous half-duplex channel protocol chatter. For the transition from 3830 disk controller to 3880 disk controller then went from a very fast horizontal microprocessor to the much slower vertical JIB-prime microprocessor. To get from 800kbyte/sec to 3mbyte/sec transfer and max channel length from 200ft to 400ft, they went to dedicated hardware to handle data movement and relaxed requirement for handshake on every byte to up to every 8bytes ("data streaming"). However, protocol chatter still had to be handled by the microprocessor ... and during the latency of the half-duplex protocol chatter back&forth there was no data transfer.

The 3090 had originally designed the number of channels required to achieve system throughput was based on the assumption that 3880 would have the sustained performance of 3830 but with 3mbyte transfer transfer. However, the 3880 sustained performance fell well short of that because of enormous channel busy time lost to the long delays the 3880 had handling half-duplex protocol chatter. As a result 3090 had to double the number of channels in order to compensate for the significant 3880 channel busy overhead, which required adding an additional TCM .... there was internal joke that 3090 was going to charge of the additional manufacturing cost of the additional TCM to the 3880 group. Marketing then respun the requirement to double the number of channels (to compensate for 3880 half-duplex channel overhead) as how great the increased throughput was.

the 2305-2 had 11mbyte capacity, 1.5mbyte/sec transfer and 5ms avg access (10ms rotational) ... its own control unit and had trouble with much more than 80ft cable length. the 2305-1 had 5.4mbyte capacity 3mbyte/sec, and 2.5ms avg access, and special two-byte wide channel (and shorter cable length restrictions). The 2305-1 had same number of R/W heads as 2305-2, but two heads/track offset 180degrees, avg. rotation was only quarter of revolution because pairs of byte were written on opposite side of track and only had to come under either head before both heads could start r/w in parallel.

The mainframe protocol chatter overhead shows up later with the (mainframe channel) "FICON" protocol layered over fibre-channel standard ... peak i/o benchmark used 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre-channel) getting 2M IOPS ... when native single fibre-channel claiming over million IOPS.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

part of the native fibre-channel sustained native throughput ... was that it runs full-duplex protocol ... streaming both data & control down on the outbound cable and incoming data & control in the inbound cable.

In the late 80s, there was work in both the fibre-channel group (out of LLNL) and the scalable coherent group (out of SLAC) on sustained throughput compensating for protocol latencies using continuous streaming (I participated in both efforts). SCI got standards for I/O transfer and memory bus (used by sequent, data general, SGI, convex and others ... used for scalable shared memory multiprocessor).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface

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

China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps
Date: 19 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2016/07/19/china-takes-the-lead-in-supercomputing-98343/

super trivia: starting early 80s, we were working with director of NSF and were suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers, then congress cuts the budget, some number of other things happen and finally they release an RFP (in part based on what we already had running). Internal politics prevent us from bidding and the director of NSF tries to help by writing the company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other agencies (but that just makes the internal politics worse, as does comments that what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all bid responses). As regional networks connect into the centers, it becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to the modern internet. some old email from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

In the late 80s & early 90s we where doing HA/CMP and were working on cluster scale-up with national labs for technical/scientific and RDBMS vendors for commercial. This is reference to Jan1992 meeting in Ellison's on cluster scale-up for Oracle RDBMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

within a few weeks of that meeting, the scale-up work was transferred, announced as IBM supercomputer (for technical and scientific *ONLY*), and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors (part of it was the mainframe RDBMS group complained that if I was allowed to go ahead, it would be at least 5yrs ahead of them). Press article, 17Feb1992, for "scientific and technical *ONLY*":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1

press from 11May1992, "caught by surprise" in national lab interest in cluster supercomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2
old email from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

other trivia: I had first gotten involved with LLNL on large cluster computing back in 1979.

Modern generation of supercomputers use large number of advanced processors ... many of them are the same that are used in signal processing that are critical in applications like radar, sonar, guidance, etc. Presumably this is why in spring of 2015, DOD put these processors on export control (China had previously built largest supercomputer in the world using processors from the US). At fall 2015 supercomputer conference, China demonstrated that they had started producing their own advanced processors. Recently, China demonstrated they had started producing these processors in quantity with even larger, largest supercomputer in the world.

recent posts on the subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#20 DEC and The Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#55 How to Kill the F-35 Stealth Fighter; It all comes down to radar ... and a big enough missile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#89 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#89 China builds world's most powerful computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#22 Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range

other trivia: As a result for being told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, we had additional motivation not to stay with IBM. A couple years later, two of the other people in the Ellison meeting (that we had worked with at Oracle) show up at a small client/server startup responsible for something called the "commerce server". We are brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on the server. The startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
Date: 20 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/07/18/nightmare-on-wall-street-republicans-democrats-agree-on-reinstating-glass-steagall-act/

Folklore is that the congressional bill for repeal of Glass-Steagall was couple hundred million, evenly divided between the two parties. One of the issues that periodic comes up is how congress can get reoccurring payments. The "Kabuki Theater" theory for reoccurring payments is then to periodically propose reinstating a bill to keep the funds flowing.

The original rhetoric on the floor of congress as to the prime purpose for GLBA was if you already had a banking charter, you got to keep it, but if you didn't already have one, you couldn't get one (i.e. keep new competition out of banking, they called out specific new technology companies that would do banking much more efficiently). Later repeal of Glass-Steagall was added to GLBA. Originally the bill passed along party lines, but they then went back and bought both parties and it passed with nearly unanimous veto-proof.

posts mentioning Glass-Steagall (&/or Pecora hearings)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning DC is "Kabuki Theater" (what you see has little to do with what is really going on)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

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

CIA Reactions to Finding No WMD in Iraq

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: CIA Reactions to Finding No WMD in Iraq
Date: 20 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
CIA Reactions to Finding No WMD in Iraq
http://ritholtz.com/2015/07/cia-no-iraq-wmd/

"team B" fabricated Russian capability (to justify enormous military budget increase) but the CIA director won't agree to the analysis. White House Chief of Staff Rumsfeld asks the CIA director to resign and replaces him with somebody that would agree to the analysis, Bush1. Rumsfeld then becomes SECDEF and is replaced as chief of staff by his assistant Cheney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
80s, US is supporting Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
including supplying WMDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war
former CIA director and vp bush1 says he doesn't know anything about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair
because he was fulltime administration point person deregulating financial industry ... creating S&L crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
along with other members of his family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan
and another
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260

early 90s, sat. recon analyst notified administration that Saddam was preparing to invade Kuwait. The administration said Saddam would do no such thing and proceeded to discredit the analyst. Then the analyst notifies that Saddam was preparing to invade Saudi Arabia, the administration now has to choose between Iraq and Saudi Arabia (Bush1 is president and Cheney is SECDEF)
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2/

Last decade, the cousin of White House chief of staff (Card) is dealing with Iraq in the UN and given proof that the WMDs have been decommissioned ... which is forwarded to Card, Powell and others ... before it can be made public, the cousin is locked up in military hospital. (Bush2 is president, Cheney is VP, and Rumsfeld is SECDEF again). The cousin eventually gets out and publishes a book in 2010.
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/

NY times series from fall 2014 about finding the decommissioned WMDs (tracing back to the US) and the information was kept classified for a decade (corroborates details in Card cousin's book published 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

also last decade is the economic mess, 70 times larger than S&L crisis

"WMDs" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds
"team b" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
"perpetual war" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

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

New, better way to build circuits for world's first useful quantum computers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: New, better way to build circuits for world's first useful quantum computers
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:36:12 -0700
"D. Aaron Sawyer" <aaron@110.net> writes:
See also the IBM Research Quantum Computing website.
https://www.research.ibm.com/quantum/

Sign up and program a 5-qubit quantum computer!
https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/

IBM has moved on to 10's of qubits and has made its old 5 qubit chip accessible online.
http://quantumexperience.mybluemix.net/



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_quantum_computing
2015

Optically addressable nuclear spins in a solid with a six-hour coherence time.[167]

Quantum information encoded by simple electrical pulses.[168]

Quantum error detection code using a square lattice of four superconducting qubits.[169]

D-Wave Systems Inc., the world's first quantum computing company, announced on 22 June that it had broken the 1000 qubit barrier.[170]

Two qubit silicon logic gate developed.[171]


... snip ...

d-wave
http://www.dwavesys.com/
1000 qubit
http://www.dwavesys.com/d-wave-two-system

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps
Date: 21 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#46 China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps

Note the supercomputers of the 70s&80s were monolithic creations. The emerging generations of supercomputers starting using massive numbers of commodity, COTS chips ... in fact is enormous overlap between putting together supercomputers and the massive cloud computing megadatacenters. In fact, there are accounts of supercomputers being spun up on-demand from available processors in a cloud computing megadatacenter using a credit card.

recent megadatacenter posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#35 [CM] IBM releases Z13 Mainframe - looks like Batman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#46 Why on Earth Is IBM Still Making Mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#30 IBM Z13
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#69 Cambridge's HPC-as-a-service for boffins, big and small
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#5 Can you have a robust IT system that needs experts to run it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#35 Moving to the Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#83 Miniskirts and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#18 Miniskirts and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#19 Linux Foundation Launches Open Mainframe Project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#83 Term "Open Systems" (as Sometimes Currently Used) is Dead -- Who's with Me?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#93 HP being sued, not by IBM.....yet!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#93 Google joins Facebook's game-changing project that's eating the $140 billion hardware market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#104 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#24 CeBIT and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#61 Can commodity hardware actually emulate the power of a mainframe?

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 08:04:41 -0700
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
And so usually a 360 shop, if it had 3270s, would have them only talking to CICS. One can think of it as a sort of restricted shell which provides limited functionality - so that many terminals can be in use, by people doing data entry, even though a batch-only operating system without timesharing capabilities is in use.

I have not ever used CICS, but I believe it is reputed to be difficult to program for.


OS/360 was enormous resource hog ... especially startup & shutdown. CICS was done at customer for lightweight online environment running its own monitor. It would startup ... do all the initialization, "open" all the necessary files ... and then run its own lightweight system services, scheduler/tasking, etc ... attempting to minimize as much as possible any access to the heavy-weight os/360 services.

as undergraduate in the 60s, the univ. hired me to be responsible for the ibm production systems. the univ. library got an ONR grant to do online catalog, some of the money went to getting an IBM 2321 datacell. The univ. was also selected to be betatest site for the original CICS product (and I was tasked to support/debug) lots of CICS, gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20071124013919/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm
and
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm

one of the issues, was that CICS ran under single OS/360 TCB (task) ... and as multiprocessor became more of standard scale-up, CICS was still limited to running on only one processor (and therefor no matter how many tasks CICS was running, it still only ran serialized on single processor at a time). Large processor/installations might have over 100 copies of CICS running concurrently on single system ... to make use of all the processors available.

it wasn't until 2004, before CICS shipped multiprocessor support (and it took some customers a few years to upgrade)
https://web.archive.org/web/20090107054344/http://www.yelavich.com/history/ev200402.htm

past posts mentioning CICS &/or BDAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics

early 80s, there were some number of internal studies showing improved productivity when interactive computing response was guarter sec or better. 3272/3277 controller/terminal had .086sec hardware response ... so needed .164sec system response for human to see .25sec response.

Follow-on 3274/3278 controller/terminal moved lots of the electronics back into the controller (reduce terminal manufacturing cost) ... and introduced enormous new coax cable protocol chatter and latency ... typical hardware response increase to .530sec (but was datastream dependent, could be more, minimum was around .28secs) ... so it was impossible to achieve .25sec response for human. This was direct channel attached controllers ... SNA/VTAM connected controller would futher increase this.

Some of us complained to 3274/3278 product administrator about it was much worse for interactive computing ... eventually got response 3274/3278 wasn't for interactive computing, but for data entry.

Note that MVS-based (TSO, editors, etc) interactive computing typically had one second or worse system response ... so they didn't notice the degradation moving to 3274/3278.

Note that at one point, one of the internal IBM locations were claiming that they had the best online, interactive computer service in the company with .2sec avg trivial system response (but with 3272/3277 .086sec hardware response, couldn't make .25 interactve response). However, I had several internal systems with .11sec 90th percental trivial interactiver response, giving .196sec human response.

One of the issues with 3270 block-mode interacive computing is that if you happened to be typing at the same time the system wrote to the screen, it would lock the keyboard ... and you had to stop and hit reset button to unlock the keyboard. A "FIFO" box was built, unplug keyboard from terminal head, plug in the "FIFO" box and plug the keyboard into the "FIFO" box, it would queue keystrokes if screen write was in progress ... eliminating really annoying 3270 human factors. We also did a little hardware hack inside the keyboard to speedup the key repeat start delay and rate. The transition to 3274/3278 (with move of electronics back to controller) eliminated such improvements ... and some of us kept our 3277 around until could upgrade with ibm/pc terminal emulation.

From law of unintended consequences, the enormous 3274/3278 protocol chatter and latency shows up in IBM/PC emulation. A 3277 IBM/PC emulation card had three times the upload/download throughput of a 3278 IBM/PC emulation card. posts mentioning various terminal emulation issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

past posts mentioning 3272/3277 having much faster response that 3274/3278
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19 3270 protocol
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#6 IBM 327x terminals and controllers (was Re: Itanium2 power
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#22 What is timesharing, anyway?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#12 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#15 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#42 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#19 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#53 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#72 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#31 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#43 My first mainframe experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#61 Migration off mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#13 From Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#15 Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#19 Writing article on telework/telecommuting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#87 Just for a laugh... How to spot an old IBMer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#15 cp67, vm370, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#37 Why File transfer through TSO IND$FILE is slower than TCP/IP FTP ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#37 PDP-10 and Vax, was System/360--50 years--the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#1 3270 response & channel throughput
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#14 Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 50-Pound Portable PC, 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#21 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#41 System Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#23 Three Reasons the Mainframe is in Trouble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#26 Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#106 TSO Test does not support 65-bit debugging?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#127 How Much Bandwidth do we have?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#15 Dilbert ... oh, you must work for IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#8 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#42 Old Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#104 Is it a lost cause?

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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 12:49:10 -0700
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> writes:
More than one or two teachers got upset with me for reading above my grade level. I kept reading, but stopped using multisyllable words at school unless it was necessary for context.

just (re-)posted in military command discussion group

Anti-intellectualism In the Army: The bureaucracy or the people?
http://www.thestrategybridge.com/the-bridge/2014/1/14/anti-intellectualism-in-the-army-the-bureaucracy-or-the-people

somebody commented that while they were working as concept developer for joint forces command ... he tried using epistemology and it was rejected because it was too difficult to explain, "inexorability" had too many syllables, and several other examples.

I remember something about program that calculates reading grade level for gov. documents ... lots try and target for the 4th grade reading level.

afc has had discussions in the past about high school graduation proficiency tests being rejected that required 7th grade math proficiency because they assumed too many students wouldn't be able to pass.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#57 Govt demands password to personal computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#43 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#47 TARP Disbursements Through April 10th
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#36 The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#39 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:05:39 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#52 E.R. Burroughs

bullying and hazing in our culture to force conformity ... especially in US military academies ... mentions that Marshall (army chief of staff during WW2) was injured so badly that he almost had to drop out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Marshall
discussed in this long winded post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

other threads about bullying and hazing to force conformity and not stand out intellectually (or otherwise). There is a anti-bullying book written about a former co-worker at the cambridge science center,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

"It's Cool To Be Clever"
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cool-to-be-clever-edson-hendricks/id483020515?mt=8
and
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Cool-Be-Clever-Hendricks/dp/1897435630/

past posts mentioning "It's Cool To Be Clever"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#10 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#12 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#15 Any candidates for best acronyms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#16 Two new (internal network related) wiki entries
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#17 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#29 It's Cool To Be Clever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#35 How old is the oldest email in your current email inbox?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#2 Soups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#16 ARPANET's coming out party: when the Internet first took center stage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#33 Last Word on Dennis Ritchie
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#65 Teachers Don't Like Creative Students
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#73 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#66 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#80 Term "Open Systems" (as Sometimes Currently Used) is Dead -- Who's with Me?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#99 PROFS & GML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#66 IMPI (System/38 / AS/400 historical)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#73 Miniskirts and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#96 Systems thinking--still in short supply
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#103 Median Age of US Managers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#108 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#101 Internal Network, NSFNET, Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#8 What Does School Really Teach Children

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

Social Security Trust Fund IOUs

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Social Security Trust Fund IOUs
Date: 24 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
Social Security Trust Fund IOUs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund

Congress lets fiscal responsibility act expire in 2002 (spending couldn't exceed tax revenue, on its way to eliminate all federal debt). CBO 2010 report was that between the act expired and CBO 2010 report, tax revenue was cut by $6T and spending increased by $6T for $12T budget gap compared to fiscal responsible budget (first time tax revenue was cut to not pay for wars). In the middle of last decade, the US Comptroller General was including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable of middle school arithmetic (for how badly it was savaging the budget). fiscal responsibility act
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act
comptroller general
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

In the 2nd half of 90s, in order to pay for the baltic wars, the intelligence community required to cut their budget by equivalent amount (so baltic wars were budget neutral, i.e. Clinton operating under fiscal responsibility act) ... we saw turfed people from intelligence community applying for security jobs in silicon valley.

There is long winded analysis why Greenspan, wallstreet, banks, and several other players didn't want federal debt eliminated, in fact wanted enormous increase in federal debt ... and were paying congress billions in order to get their way.

Part of analysis is currently significant numbers of too big to fail banks are using the tens of trillions in federal reserve ZIRP funds (zero percent interest) to buy treasuries (federal debt, approaching $20T) and making $300B/yr off the spread (w/o federal debt, there would be no treasuries). The unintended consequences, is that with tens of trillions in ZIRP funds, institutions have little motivation to pay interest to attract investments and deposits. There is a joke that if the federal reserve were to use the ZIRP funds directly to buy treasuries, the federal debt wouldn't cost anything, but then wallstreet would be out the $300B/yr subsidy. too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

The federal reserve had lost a long fought legal battle to prevent public disclosure of what it was doing (with tens of trillions in ZIRP funds). When it lost, the new chairman had press conference and said that he assumed the TBTF would use the tens of trillions in ZIRP funds to help mainstreet and when they didn't he had no way to force them (but that didn't stop the ZIRP funds). Note that the new chairman was selected in part because he was a student of the depression. However, the FED had tried something similar during the depression with the same results (so he should of had *NO* expectations that they would do something different this time). fed chairman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fed.chairman
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp

Disclaimer: Jan2009 I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s congressional hearings into '29 crash, resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal HREFs and URLs between what happened this time and what happened then (comments that the new congress might have appetite to do something). I work on it for awhile and then get a call saying that it won't be needed after all (comments that capital hill was totally buried with enormous mountains of wallstreet money). posts mentioning Pecora hearings and/or Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 12:20:19 -0700
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
When I was in high school I got bullied (physical, or at least the threat of physical bullying), but I discovered one could stand up to quite a bit of it, that the bark was worse than the bite. The bullies had an expectation that you be submissive, and if you weren't they were a bit lost.

But one time a boy scout (he was) told me I was a slob. And I didnt' quantify that is bullying at the time. But decades later I thought about it, and wondered. Was he like the sheep dog keeping the sheep in line? I wasn't "the norm" so he felt an obligation to correct me? It was an odd situation since I got good marks, sometimes top of the class, but I wasn't putting effort into it, my hobbies at home were way more important to me. So now I think maybe he was bullying, and the whole thing about bullying is to keep everyone the same. If you don't fit in, you are trouble.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#52 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#53 E.R. Burroughs

I was mostly big for my age and did lots of heavy labor so harder to physical bully (they had to be much older, and there was much reduced cross-over when large gap in classes).

I went through all the bookmobile math books summer between 5th & 6th grade (had up through trig). 6th grade I got 15mins/week with junior high math teacher on high school algebra (that I had already done). In his 8th grade math classes, I read science fiction books ... I got "100" on all tests and exercises ... but a zero for class participation.

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

IBM 1401 vs. 360/30 emulation?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 1401 vs. 360/30 emulation?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 16:18:56 -0700
Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> writes:
If it is truly I/O bound, speeding up the CPU does not help at all.

modulo interrupt architectures and redrive time ... latency between the end of the previous operation and redrive of the device with next operation. Big part of SSCH in 370/xa was the enormous MVS parthlength between the time of an interrupt and starting the next (queued) operation ... when the device was sitting idle (SSCH supposedly would significantly improve disk I/O throughput by cutting the significant idle because of MVS redrive pathlength).

I mention that I did a lot of rewrite of I/O supervisor for disk engineering and product test labs (bldgs 14&15) .... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

part of it was to make it bullet proof and never fail (they had tried MVS in that environment and found it had 15min MTBF that required manual reboot/re-ipl).

Another part was to cut the device I/O redrive latency to as close as possible to SSCH (pending queue in hardware and hardware capable of picking next requests off the queue and redriving the hardware). It turned out it was "too good" for the new 3880 disk controller.

Going from 3830 with superfast horizontal microcode engine to 3880 with dedicated hardware for data movement, but a really slow JIB-prime vertical microcode engine for control ops. To try and make the 3880 look like it was fast as 3830 ... they decided to present operation finished interrupt early ... before it actually finished ... and figured they could do the actual finishing cleanup overlapped with the host operating system redrive code. Unfortunately, I did redrive in less time than it took the 3880 to finish cleanup ... as a result it had to signal SM+BUSY (control unit busy) in response to the SIOF ... which required the device driver to requeue the operation ... and wait for a subsequent CUE (control unit end) interrupt ... significantly increasing overhead.

recent posts mentioning 3880 controller:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#79 Asynchronous Interrupts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#81 Asynchronous Interrupts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#24 What was a 3314?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#42 Old Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#45 How the internet was invented

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 16:26:40 -0700
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Anti-intellectualism In the Army: The bureaucracy or the people?
http://www.thestrategybridge.com/the-bridge/2014/1/14/anti-intellectualism-in-the-army-the-bureaucracy-or-the-people


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#52 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#53 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#55 E.R. Burroughs

I've been reading "The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command"
https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Game-Jutland-British-Command/dp/B00B6TZGLM/

for the past few weeks. A couple weeks ago attended a talk on US shore defense forts built late 1800s and early 1900s. Talked about requiring approx. 1000 men per battery ... a fort with a few batteries could require several thousand men. They used manual trig calculations for firing solutions (wind, range, motion, etc) ... to hit ships that could be on the horizon. At US entry to WW1, many of the those men went to Europe and operated anti-aircraft batteries. During the talk somebody brought up the long time it took the British to calculate firing solutions played a significant role at Jutland.

The book starts off talking about Jutland and then goes back 30-40 years and examines a great deal of British minutia leading up to Jutland (British fleet against German fleet). One of the issues was that British was provided option to deploy a slow human calculated firing solution and an analog computer that quickly and accurately calculated firing solution ... even over the horizon ... and chose the manual method (goes into some of the political leverage behind the manual calculation forces).

I interpret that it then spends quite a bit of time on the rigid command&control forces epitomized by the "signal book" and maneuverists. They look at a fleet manuver exercise following the "signal book" where the flagship was struck and sunk with loss of many lives ... supposedly wouldn't have happened if they were maneuverists. Then after the investigations, they managed to portray it as they needed even more rigid command&control (rather than the other way around).

pg212/loc4648-51:
One can readily understand the stresses which manoeuvring without signals placed upon captains and divisional leaders, especially in the early days. The C-in-C was enjoined by Queen's Regulations "to ascertain [their] skill, capacity and intelligence"; but they had not bargained for this. They had been brought up to regard independent thinking, at least within signalling reach of a superior, as "a form of mutiny", 70 and many were content to find refuge in that philosophy.

pg332/loc7430-32:
It must be apparent by now – at least to the ‘profane' reader – that the codes and conventions of the Craft (if taken seriously) harmonize broadly with the ‘authoritarian' personality traits defined by Professor Dixon in On the Psychology of Military Incompetence and described here in Chapter 9

pg353/loc7906-9:
There was much more to Nelson than merely ‘engaging the enemy more closely' – "Do not imagine that I am one of these hotheaded people who fight at an immense disadvantage without an adequate object" – but the Edwardian Navy, with its anti-intellectual tradition, still sheltered and promoted men whose repertoire of military skill (when explicit orders defaulted, and sometimes even when they did not) amounted to gallantry, muscle and frontal assault.

... snip ...

It makes me think of more recent case of a parody by anonymous from the marine gazette
https://web.archive.org/web/20160326155408/https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/attritionist-letters-archives

and Boyd and Maneuver warfare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare#Boyd_and_US_acceptance_of_maneuver_warfare
According to the writer Grant Hammond, Boyd believed that the Battle of Marathon, Battle of Leuctra, Battle of Arbela and the Battle of Cannae were battles of maneuver warfare with "unequal distribution of forces to gain a local advantage and decisive leverage to collapse adversary resistance".[6]

Recent theorists

Aside from Boyd, other recent military theorists of a non-firepower focus include H. John Poole, Robert Leonhard, Robert Bateman, Michael Wyly, and Donald Vandergriff.


... snip ...

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

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

Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 19:21:17 -0700
Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now?
http://www.itworld.com/article/2826737/development/programmers-who-defined-the-technology-industry--where-are-they-now-.html?platform=hootsuite

this was recently posted to small online facebook discussion group ... includes the author of the above article and (at least) Bob Frankston. Bob (w/Brinklin) was responsible for visicalc ... however before that he worked at (one of the first virtual machine) cp67/vm370 service bureau that move up value stream and specialized in services for the financial industry. Bob mentions the book was suppose to be the start of a series (that would have covered a lot more of the industry) but apparently there was not enough interest.

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

How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President
Date: 26 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
How Putin Weaponized Wikileaks to Influence the Election of an American President
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/

... much of the focus on possible source of the hack appears to be attempts to distract from the contents of the email.

Case for rise of Putin as reaction to Harvard & cohorts looting Russia: John Helmer: Convicted Fraudster Jonathan Hay, Harvard's Man Who Wrecked Russia, Resurfaces in Ukraine
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/convicted-fraudster-jonathan-hay-harvards-man-who-wrecked-russia-resurfaces-in-ukraine.html
If you are unfamiliar with this fiasco, which was also the true proximate cause of Larry Summers' ouster from Harvard, you must read an extraordinary expose, How Harvard Lost Russia, from Institutional Investor. I am told copies of this article were stuffed in every Harvard faculty member's inbox the day Summers got a vote of no confidence and resigned shortly thereafter.

... snip ...

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

... snip ...

note that president of Harvard had also been involved in some of the economic mess last decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury. While working for the Clinton administration Summers played a leading role in the American response to the 1994 economic crisis in Mexico, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the Russian financial crisis.

... snip ...

President of AMEX was in competition to be the next CEO and wins. The looser leaves and takes their protegee and goes to Baltimore taking over what has been described as loan-sharking business. They make some number of other acquisitions eventually acquiring CITIBANK in violation of Glass-Steagall. Greenspan gives them exemption while they lobby Congress for repeal of Glass-Steagall (enabling too big to fail). They enlist some number in DC to help them, including the secretary of treasury, to get repeal of Glass-Steagall added to GLBA. Once that is underway, the secretary of treasury resigns and joins CITI as what is described at the time as co-CEO.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

there were some recent interviews claiming that nobody has been recently convicted under 1917 treason law. However those involved in the success of failure case
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

had reported to the responsible congressional oversight committee as required by law ... and were then charged under the 1917 law. Congress then puts the agency on probation and not allowed to manage their own projects for 5yrs ... but that might have just been a gimmick to further outsource federal gov. ... aka 70% of the budget and over half the people outsourced to for-profit companies
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us/

The judge eventually threw out the 1917 charges, but not until after the peoples' lives were ruined. In any case, Snowden had that as an example of how the system works. Note that the president of AMEX ... eventually goes on to head up the private-equity company that does an LBO of the company that will be Snowden's employer. As referenced in the article, victim companies in the private-equity mill are under intense pressure to generate revenue for their parents in every way possible ... in the case of those doing outsourced security clearances, they were filling out the paperwork, but not actually doing background checks. Victim companies in the private-equity mill also are responsible for over half of corporate defaults (because of the intense pressure to generate revenue for their parents). posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

Note that it is illegal for gov. agencies to lobby congress ... and also gov. contractors to use money from gov. contracts to lobby congress, beltway bandits that only have gov. contracts as revenue source, can't lobby. After turn of the century there was 1) big uptick in private-equity companies taking over beltway bandits and 2) big increase in gov. outsourcing to for-profit companies (large private equity companies can lobby on behalf of their victims and congress sees big upswing in lobbying money for outsourcing to for-profit companies).

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

Honeywell 200

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Honeywell 200
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 11:39:48 -0700
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
I think that perhaps there is some confusion here about the details.

IBM's "You Bet Your Company" approach to bringing out the original System/360 was widely admired as a bold competitive move.

Antitrust issues began to emerge for IBM later, when the popularity of the System/360 increased the magnitude of their dominance of the industry.

What eventually became the System/360 Model 91, the computer in which modern out-of-order execution with register renaming via the Tomasulo algorithm (actually, it had reservation stations instead, so it didn't rename registers, but that's a detail) _was_ rushed to market... because IBM was embarrassed by a much smaller company, Control Data, selling the world's fastest computer, the Control Data 6600.

That model was originally announced as the Model 90 (just as changes in specs led to the models 65 and 75 coming to market, when they were originally announced as the models 60 and 70) a considerable time in advance of the Model 90 being available. So one of the prominent features of the Control Data antitrust lawsuit against IBM was that it had announced a machine that it didn't really know that it could make specifically to discourage customers from buying Control Data, encouraging them instead to wait for IBM.


60&70 was originally announced with 1mic memory access, 65&75 renamed when memory was replaced with 750ns memory access.

2nd hand story was that in the antitrust hearings, the BUNCH testified that by the late 50s, everybody in the industry realized that the single most important business criteria was becoming compatible architecture across the line ... people installed computer, wrote software and combination of growing business and computer use required to upgrading to faster computers ... needing to rewrite applications from scratch was major market inhibitor. their testimony was that for one reason or another, only IBM Watson was able to force all the plant managers to toe the line on maintaining architecture compatibility.

Other part was IBM customer care with everything bundled .... as part of settlement, IBM announed unbundling 23Jun1969 ... starting to charge for maintenance, application software, SE services, etc. ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

slightly related ... story about shutting down ACS because IBM executives felt it would advance state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of market.
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
recnet refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#33 IBM STRETCH repricing decision?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#23 IBM's 3033; "The Big One": IBM's 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#3 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#10 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#89 China builds world's most powerful computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented

past posts mentioning antitrust testimony about needing compatible line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#20 1401 series emulation still running?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#34 IBM 8000 ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#9 CA to IBM product swap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#45 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#14 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#69 Who was the Greatest IBM President and CEO of the last century?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#105 Burroughs B5000, B5500, B6500 videos

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

5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
Date: 26 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
looks at F35 stealth signature by aspect and band
http://ausairpower.net/XIMG/JSF-RCS-Qualitative-A-XLVHF.png
discusses compromise of F35 stealth (compared to "real" stealth)
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

strongly optimized for its mission as "bomb truck" for taking out ground defenses assuming F22 is flying cover to handle (high treat adversaries). also discusses of some of the F35 thermal issues
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html#mozTocId142087
and net/conclusion
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html#mozTocId61836

The F-35 Is Still Horribly Broken
https://warisboring.com/the-f-35-is-still-horribly-broken-16abd647cf7a

other references are that this maintenance is extremely time-consuming and very exacting ... with big backlogs in the maintenance bays ... and easy to messup that isn't visually obvious.
http://www.tyndall.af.mil/News/Features/Display/tabid/6651/Article/669883/lo-how-the-f-22-gets-its-stealth.aspx

Why Lockheed CEO's F-35 Remarks Ring Hollow
http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2016/why-lockheed-ceos-f-35-remarks-ring-hollow.html

the original F22 coating was fragile and susceptible to moisture (reputation for not being able to go out in the rain). Since then a "better" coating has been developed ... comments about it being retrofitted to F22 and used for F35 .... however there is some concern that there may be wear problems at F22 higher top speed. If it weren't for all the resources being diverted into the F35 ... could almost describe what happen has been F22 technology demonstrator.

This is F-22: Can't Fly Won't Die
http://nypost.com/2009/07/17/cant-fly-wont-die/
Pilots call high-maintenance aircraft "hangar queens." Well, the F-22's a hangar empress. After three expensive decades in development, the plane meets fewer than one-third of its specified requirements.

...
Anyway, an enemy wouldn't have to down a single F-22 to defeat it. Just strike the hi-tech maintenance sites, and it's game over. (In WWII, we didn't shoot down every Japanese Zero; we just sank their carriers.) The F-22 isn't going to operate off a dirt strip with a repair tent.

But this is all about lobbying, not about lobbing bombs. Cynically, Lockheed Martin distributed the F-22 workload to nearly every state, employing under-qualified sub-contractors to create local financial stakes in the program. Great politics -- but the result has been a quality collapse


... snip ...

military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
Date: 26 July 2016
Blog: Facebook

But this is all about lobbying, not about lobbing bombs. Cynically, Lockheed Martin distributed the F-22 workload to nearly every state, employing under-qualified sub-contractors to create local financial stakes in the program. Great politics -- but the result has been a quality collapse
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#61 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
There is recent long winded article about 100th anniversary of Boeing. Part of it goes into after the M/D merger, the MIC practice of distributing piece-meal work scattered all over the place was infused into the Boeing business practices ... and that may still result in the demise of Boeing. recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#20 The Boeing Century

military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 14:16:28 -0700
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
It makes me think of more recent case of a parody by anonomous from the marine gazette
https://web.archive.org/web/20160326155408/https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/attritionist-letters-archives


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs

for those w/o subscription ... "Attrtionist Letters" in style of C.S. Lewis "Screwtape Letters"
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2011/05/11/27461/
From your lessons at The Basic School (TBS), you no doubt recall the great 1989 victory won in Quantico by those who called themselves "maneuverists." Then-Commandant, Gen Alfred M. Gray, arrayed his forces against us -- we the noble "attritionists" -- to do battle over the philosophy upon which the Marine Corps would operate. Gen Gray's forces attempted to redefine the Marine Corps with a new interpretation of military theory, that of "maneuver warfare."

... snip ...

I've characterized as Gray leveraged Boyd as make-over of the Corp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

and calculating fire solution pg351/loc8761-64:
In opting for Captain Frederick Dreyer's cheaper, inferior system, the Admiralty, in effect, shelved its campaign to master long-range gunnery and forgot that in 1905 (with the switch to dreadnoughts) it had boldly gambled for qualitative, over crudely quantitative, superiority. Dreyer's cost-saving package prolonged the Royal Navy's submission to the courtly convention of parallel battle-lines, for it was unable to assimilate erratically changing ranges and bearings --and indeed its inventor tendentiously argued that foreseeable tactical needs made such capabilities unnecessary.

... snip ...

not choosing the analog computer solution for calculating fire solution had significant impact; sacrificed accuracy and firing rate (longer time to calculate much less accurate solution) ... basically political forces behind much worse solution.

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

One Thing Both Parties Want: Break Up the Banks Again

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: One Thing Both Parties Want: Break Up the Banks Again
Date: 26 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
One Thing Both Parties Want: Break Up the Banks Again
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/business/dealbook/one-thing-both-parties-want-break-up-the-banks-again.html

... or just a ploy to get another round of enormous mountains of money. Jan2009 I'm asked to HTML'ize the Pecora hearings (30s senate hearings into '29 crash that resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal HREFs and URLs between what happened this time and what happened then (references that the new congress might have an appetite to do something). I work on it awhile and then get a call saying it won't be needed after all (references to enormous mountains of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill).

repeal of Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
enabling too big to fail (too big to prosecute and too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

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

Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 14:12:15 -0700
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Well, today we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

It is true that the IBM System/360 Model 195 - the one which had both out-of-order pipelined execution _and_ a cache - pretty much embodied all the same basic principles that are found in today's advanced microprocessors.

At that point, pretty much all the basic architectural concepts that could be used in making a single CPU work more effectively on a single thread of execution appeared to have been found.

And, so, as silicon densities increased, microprocessors simply retraced the path upwards from something comparable to a PDP-8 to something comparable to a 360/195 on a chip as more transistors became available.


as i mentioned before, 195 didn't have branch prediction (and speculative execution) so conditional branches drained the pipeline ... and lots of code only kept the execution units half busy (running full speed tended to require careful coding). I got roped into helping look at hyperthreading for 195 (that was never announced/shipped); two instruction streams, two sets of registers, same pipeline with instructions & registers flagged as to instruction stream ... patents on hyperthreading mentioning here in discussion of shutting down ACS
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

i.e. executives were worried that it would advance state of art too fast and they would loose control of the market. recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#33 IBM STRETCH repricing decision?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#23 IBM's 3033; "The Big One": IBM's 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#3 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#10 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#89 China builds world's most powerful computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#60 Honeywell 200

SMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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

Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 14:17:29 -0700
hancock4 writes:
IMHO, what we call computing today originated in 1890 with Herman Hollerith's invention of punched card tabulating. At that time he developed a method for mechanizing the categorization, sorting, and tabulating. He developed the idea of a data field and a record of various fields.

as I've mentioned recently ... one of the problems that British had at the battle of Jutland
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#63 E.R. Burroughs

that there was competing forces for calculating navy gun firing solutions ... and the British did not choose the analog computer, pg351/loc8761-64:
In opting for Captain Frederick Dreyer's cheaper, inferior system, the Admiralty, in effect, shelved its campaign to master long-range gunnery and forgot that in 1905 (with the switch to dreadnoughts) it had boldly gambled for qualitative, over crudely quantitative, superiority. Dreyer's cost-saving package prolonged the Royal Navy's submission to the courtly convention of parallel battle-lines, for it was unable to assimilate erratically changing ranges and bearings --and indeed its inventor tendentiously argued that foreseeable tactical needs made such capabilities unnecessary.

... snip ...

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

Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 08:34:17 -0700
Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/max-unleashed-and-unfettered/4442452/Was-Microsoft-built-on-stolen-goods-

before ms/dos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
there was seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before seattle computer there was cp/m,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before cp/m, kildall worked with cp/67 (precursor to vm370) at npg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School

trivia: I did a lot of work on cp/67 as undergraduate in the 60s, which IBM picked up and shipped as part of the product.

posts mentioning science center (responsible for cp/67)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

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

Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 12:59:32 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#67 Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

from (somebody's posting) in thread in another venue:
Before all this, Gates stole BASIC from Harvard and Dartmouth.

He recompiled the BASIC interpreter to which Harvard held a license (which did not permit that) for the Intel 8080 instruction set, and licensed that interpreter to users for the Altair. By exceeding the scope of Harvard's license from Dartmouth he created an unauthorized derivative work and infringed copyright... Generally called stealing.

Daniel Golden and John Yemma, Globe Staff. "Harvard amasses a colossal endowment." The Boston Globe (Boston, MA). The New York Times Company. 1998. HighBeam Research. 28 Jul. 2016


... snip ...

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

Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:54:51 -0700
Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
It's a little hard to see just what is yours, what is someone elses, and what is from today's Boston Globe. But, it seems pretty well attested that Gates, Allen, and Davidoff did write their Altair BASIC themselves. Chunks of commented 8080 assembly code (though not the whole things) with annotations are at
https://web.archive.org/web/20011224185248/http://www.rjh.org.uk/altair/4k/int_dis_5.htm

I've found stories saying Harvard was less than pleased that they used a campus DEC 10 to write it, but that's a different issue.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#67 Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#68 Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

from colon/: in line from (somebody's posting) in thread in another venue:

until "... snip ..." is all from somebody else ... who somewhat paraphrased globe ... and then provided reference to globe article.

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 07:55:31 -0700
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
pg212/loc4648-51:

One can readily understand the stresses which manoeuvring without signals placed upon captains and divisional leaders, especially in the early days. The C-in-C was enjoined by Queen's Regulations "to ascertain [their] skill, capacity and intelligence"; but they had not bargained for this. They had been brought up to regard independent thinking, at least within signalling reach of a superior, as "a form of mutiny", 70 and many were content to find refuge in that philosophy.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#63 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#66 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

pg589/loc13042-44:
First, by the Royal Navy as a whole - and this no doubt applies to other navies and other services - an essential principle continues to be under-acknowledged: (20) There is an inverse law between robust doctrine and the need for signalling.

pg589/loc13048-49:
The other side of this coin is that (21) Heavy signalling, like copious orders, is symptomatic of doctrinal deficiency, and is often the preamble to disaster.

... snip ...

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

The Boyd doctrine/dogma scenario is process w/o need for understanding (as is heavy signalling and copious orders), implicit in observation->orientation (OODA-loop)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)#The_OODA_Loop

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

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

Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 12:32:29 -0700
"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
The idea of "batch spreadsheets" done on computers is from around 1961:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet#Early_implementations


before spreadsheelts ... I've periodic mentioned that RDBMS was optimized for regular tables for financial records and financial transactions ... to enormously improve performance of financial transactions ... financial industry being early adopter ... original SQL/RDBMS implementation, System/R done on VM370/CMS at san jose research ... past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

Visicalc originally done by Bricklin and Frankston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

I've mentioned before Brankston had been employed at one of the original CP67/CMS commercial online service bureaus (which had moved over to vm370 in the 70s) ... and had move up the value stream into financial information tailored for the value stream. recent refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#62 Which Books Can You Recommend For Learning Computer Programming?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#58 Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now?

posts mentioning commercial online (virtual machine based) cp67/vm370 service bureaus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online

other trivia was 4th generation languages done at cp67&vm370 commercial service bureaus ... financial industry being early adopters.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#64 Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#69 Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#56 10 choices that were critical to the Net's success
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#15 CA-RAMIS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#17 CA-RAMIS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#48 Who said DAT?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#33 MAD Programming Language
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#12 Dreaming About Redesigning SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#15 Dreaming About Redesigning SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#15 Pre-relational, post-relational, 1968 CODASYL "Survey of Data Base Systems"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#52 Losing colonies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#44 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#35 PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#37 PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#12 Special characters in passwords was Re: RACF - Password rules
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#37 Quote from comp.object
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#17 Newbie question on table design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#38 It's No Secret: VMware to Develop Secure Systems for NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#87 CompUSA to Close after Jan. 1st 2008
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#66 Computer History Museum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#40 Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#54 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#55 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#58 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#21 What non-IBM software products have been most significant to the mainframe's success
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#26 Global Sourcing with Cloud Computing and Virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#63 VMSHARE Archives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#55 Maybe off topic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#69 "Best" versus "worst" programming language you've used?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#1 Deja Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#60 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#51 From Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#84 Time to competency for new software language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#30 General Mills computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#33 360/20, was 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#42 360/20, was 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#56 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#57 Article for the boss: COBOL will outlive us all
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#63 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#16 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#62 Google F1 was: Re: MongoDB
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#77 Bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#34 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#32 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#101 Flat (VSAM or other) files still in use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#40 How Larry Ellison Became The Fifth Richest Man In The World By Using IBM's Idea
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#74 Ancient computers in use today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#27 the legacy of Seymour Cray
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#14 1970--protesters seize computer center

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

Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 12:49:33 -0700
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> writes:
I know we had analog computer in the US Navy in WW2 and later. Probably in WW1 to. I find it weird that the RN didn't use them. But from reading the book 'Wheezers and Dodgers' talked about the Admiralty not doing things in a way to win the war.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#63 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#66 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

today (somewhat followup to recent Jutland discussions) we have Bismark v.s Iowa
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/nazi-germanys-battleship-bismarck-vs-americas-iowa-class-who-17172
and Yamoto vs. Iowa
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737

with slight advantage to Iowa for better fire control computer (unless the foe got a lucky hit)

There is a lot of preserving status quo and not adapting well to change. For decades British seapower was based on close-in, short range fire power moving in massed organized formation.

Move from sail to coal to oil, faster ships and more powerful long range guns, it still took a long time to change from earlier doctrine.

and previously mention in
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#78 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1

the British move from coal to oil is significant contributor to the mess in the middle east today.

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

The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
Date: 30 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
http://qz.com/717876/the-chip-card-transition-in-the-us-has-been-a-disaster/

Specification is from 1996 targeted solely for POS.

About the same time we were asked to participate in X9A10 financial standard working group (because we had done electronic commerce) which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments (aka not just POS, ALL). some refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Part of the standards effort was hardware token that suffered from none of the security vulnerabilities of their specification, was nearly 100 times faster and nearly 100 times less expensive (late 90s). some refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

There was large pilot deployment of their specification in the US around the turn of the century ... in their YES CARD vulnerability period. At the 2003 ATM Integrity task force meeting ... a federal LEO went into some detail ... and there was comment from the audience that they managed to spend billions of dollars to prove that chips are less secure than magstripe.

In the wake of the YES CARD problems, all evidence of the large pilot appeared to disappear w/o a trace. There was speculation that it would be a long time before it was tried again in the US ... while they worked out more of the kinks in other jurisdictions. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

About the same time as the large pilot POS around the turn of the century ... one of the other card brands had internet focused chipcard deployment ... and as part of that program, they were giving away free chipcard readers (with a PC serial port interface).

Now in the mid-90s, there were several financial industry presentations from consumer dialup banking about the motivation for their move to the internet ... at the top of the list was the enormous consumer support costs associated with serial port modems. At the same time there were presentations by commercial dialup banking operations that they would *NEVER* move to the internet because of a long list of vulnerabilities (and even tho they have since moved to the internet, many of the vulnerabilities continue to this day). dial-up banking posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

Now roll forward a few years to the (serial port) chipcard reader give away and the institutional memory of the enormous consumer support costs for serial-port devices has been lost. There was then a rapidly spreading opinion in the industry that chipcards weren't practical in the consumer market because of those consumer support problems ... when in actuality it wasn't the chipcards but the serial-port reader problems. In the wake of that program ... there was massive industry pullback from consumer chipcard activity. We had some postmortems identifying the problem was the serial port reader, not the chipcards themselves ... but it was too late to turn the industry around. As an aside, all the consumer serial port problems were also major motivation for the USB standard ... and possibly the free give-away of the (obsolete) serial-port readers was they got them on the cheap at some fire sale.

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

The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 14:14:14 -0700
The chip card transition in the US has been a disaster
http://qz.com/717876/the-chip-card-transition-in-the-us-has-been-a-disaster/

Specification is from 1996 targeted solely for POS.

About the same time we were asked to participate in X9A10 financial standard working group (because we had done electronic commerce) which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments (aka not just POS, ALL). some refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Part of the standards effort was hardware token that suffered from none of the security vulnerabilities of their specification, was nearly 100 times faster and nearly 100 times less expensive (late 90s). some refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

There was large pilot deployment of their specification in the US around the turn of the century ... in their YES CARD vulnerability period. At the 2003 ATM Integrity task force meeting ... a federal LEO went into some detail ... and there was comment from the audience that they managed to spend billions of dollars to prove that chips are less secure than magstripe.

In the wake of the "YES CARD" problems, all evidence of the large pilot appeared to disappear w/o a trace. There was speculation that it would be a long time before it was tried again in the US ... while they worked out more of the kinks in other jurisdictions. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

About the same time as the large pilot POS around the turn of the century ... one of the other card brands had internet focused chipcard deployment ... and as part of that program, they were giving away free chipcard readers (with a PC serial port interface).

Now in the mid-90s, there were several financial industry presentations from consumer dialup banking about the motivation for their move to the internet ... at the top of the list was the enormous consumer support costs associated with serial port modems. At the same time there were presentations by commercial dialup banking operations that they would *NEVER* move to the internet because of a long list of vulnerabilities (and even tho they have since moved to the internet, many of the vulnerabilities continue to this day). dial-up banking posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

Now roll forward a few years to the (serial port) chipcard reader give away and the institutional memory of the enormous consumer support costs for serial-port devices has been lost. There was then a rapidly spreading opinion in the industry that chipcards weren't practical in the consumer market because of those consumer support problems ... when in actuality it wasn't the chipcards but the serial-port reader problems. In the wake of that program ... there was massive industry pullback from consumer chipcard activity. We had some postmortems identifying the problem was the serial port reader, not the chipcards themselves ... but it was too late to turn the industry around. As an aside, all the consumer serial port problems were also major motivation for the USB standard ... and possibly the free give-away of the (obsolete) serial-port readers was they got them on the cheap at some fire sale.

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

Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 17:45:06 -0700
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> writes:
Well, it would also depend on who had control of the combat air over the battle.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#63 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#66 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#72 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

as the articles mention, the matchup is purely hypothetical. and this
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737

recommends Parshall's "Shattered Sword" ... Shattered Sword references Japanese from carriers believed that the time of the battleship has passed and it is now the era of the carriers.

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

PROFS

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: PROFS
Date: 30 July 2016
Blog: Facebook
PROFS group collected various internal applications and packaged them up ... including a very early version of VMSG as the email client. Later the VMSG author offered them a very enhanced version ... and PROFS group tried to get him terminated (they apparently took credit for everything in PROFS). Everything quieted down after the VMSG author demonstrated that every PROFS email in the world contained his initials in non-displayed field. After that the VMSG author only shared the source with me and one other person.

from ibmjargon:
PROFS - profs n. Professional Office System. A menu-based system that provides support for office personnel such as White House staff, using IBM mainframes. Acclaimed for its diary mechanisms, and accepted as one way to introduce computers to those who don't know any better. Not acclaimed for its flexibility. PROFS featured in the international news in 1987, and revealed a subtle class distinction within the ranks of the Republican Administration in the USA. It seems that Hall, the secretary interviewed at length during the Iran-Contra hearings, called certain shredded documents PROFS notes as do IBMers who use the system. However, North, MacFarlane, and other professional staff used the term PROF notes. v. To send a piece of electronic mail, using PROFS. PROFS me a one-liner on that. A PROFS one-liner has up to one line of content, and from seven to seventeen lines of boiler plate. VNET

... snip ...

Virtual machines were done by ibm cambridge science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

... and the ibm internal network technology was done by former co-worker at the ibm cambridge science center (internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid-80s).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

I was blamed for online computer conferencing (early form of social networking) on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s. Folklore is that when the corporate executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

also from ibmjargon:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality products.

... snip ...

past posts referencing ibm jargon:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#5 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#6 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#7 New IBM history book out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#31 Title Inflation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#79 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#45 REXX and its designer (was: IBM 7090 instruction set)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#7 disk write caching (was: ibm icecube -- return of
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#39 Vnet : Unbelievable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#73 They Got Mail: Not-So-Fond Farewells
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#19 Card Columns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#43 Early attempts at console humor?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#49 Rant (Re: Programmer's unpaid overtime)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#0 Weird new IBM created word
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#23 Jargon Files Wanted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#61 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#69 IBMism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#50 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#48 1403 printers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#51 1403 printers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#19 DOS/360: Forty years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#29 Job seperators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#36 Special characters in passwords was Re: RACF - Password rules
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#45 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#50 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#13 Why is switch to DSL so traumatic?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#70 Is computer history taught now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#33 Internal DASD Pathing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#30 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#71 Password Rules
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#35 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#19 Disksize history question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#68 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#45 Taglines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#49 GML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#61 Mainframe Slang terms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#32 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#1 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#4 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#25 Melinda Varian's history page move
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#31 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#33 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#67 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#83 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#84 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#86 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#87 A History of VM Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#90 A History of VM Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#1 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#2 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#5 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#6 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#10 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#12 I actually miss working at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#13 I actually miss working at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#16 I actually miss working at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#41 Is email dead? What do you think?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#53 3270 Terminal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#71 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#79 Mainframe technology in 2011 and beyond; who is going to run these Mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#81 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#14 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#19 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted that mainframes would disappear in future and it still has not happened
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#20 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#44 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#45 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#55 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#57 SNA/VTAM Misinformation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#78 Internet pioneer Paul Baran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#83 History of APL -- Software Preservation Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#92 PDCA vs. OODA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#2 Car models and corporate culture: It's all lies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#11 History of APL -- Software Preservation Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#13 Car models and corporate culture: It's all lies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#16 Jean Bartik, "Software" Pioneer, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#21 WHAT WAS THE PROJECT YOU WERE INVOLVED/PARTICIPATED AT IBM THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#36 Early mainframe tcp/ip support (from ibm-main mailing list)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#78 Wylbur, Orvyl, Milton, CRBE/CRJE were all used (and sometimes liked) in the past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#21 program coding pads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#43 My first mainframe experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#78 The Unix revolution -- thank you, Uncle Sam?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#42 assembler help!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#25 computer bootlaces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#41 computer bootlaces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#45 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#84 Any candidates for best acronyms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#81 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#84 Is there an SPF setting to turn CAPS ON like keyboard key?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#12 Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#71 What's your favorite quote on "accountability"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#2 The PC industry is heading for collapse
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#31 PC industry is heading for more change
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#59 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#88 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#90 IBM Doing Some Restructuring?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#93 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#15 Authorized functions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#17 5 Byte Device Addresses?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#16 IBM cuts more than 1,000 U.S. Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#19 Writing article on telework/telecommuting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#37 IBM cuts more than 1,000 U.S. Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#47 You Don't Need a Cyber Attack to Take Down The North American Power Grid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#49 Do you know where all your sensitive data is located?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#6 Origins of "User-friendly"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#55 Just for a laugh... How to spot an old IBMer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#66 Typeface (font) and city identity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#67 Typeface (font) and city identity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#76 Companies struggling to fill mainframe skills gap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#87 Just for a laugh... How to spot an old IBMer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#3 Time to Think ... and to Listen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#73 Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#90 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#21 Closure in Disappearance of Computer Scientist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#65 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#55 Transition to Retirement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#65 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#1 Time to choose the Knights of 2012
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#6 Some fun with IBM acronyms and jargon (was Re: Auditors Don't Know Squat!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#0 PDP-10 system calls, was 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#15 cp67, vm370, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#37 Why File transfer through TSO IND$FILE is slower than TCP/IP FTP ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#37 PDP-10 and Vax, was System/360--50 years--the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#6 Real Hackers use Big Iron (Humor)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#7 Why former IBMers who left maybe years ago for any reason are still active on the Greater IBM Connection?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#46 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#64 IBM Is Changing The Terms Of Its Retirement Plan, Which Is Frustrating Some Employees
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#43 AT&T Holmdel Computer Center films, 1973 Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#47 AT&T Holmdel Computer Center films, 1973 Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#55 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#58 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#58 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#81 How Criticizing in Private Undermines Your Team - Harvard Business Review
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#58 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#19 It was 30 Years Ago Today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#49 Internet Mainframe Forums Considered Harmful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#11 50th anniversary S/360 coming up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#52 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#21 23Jun1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#24 Tandem Memos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#44 System Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#47 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#81 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#7 You can make your workplace 'happy'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#49 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#68 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#140 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#170 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#80 Here's how a retired submarine captain would save IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#48 IBM's One Hundred Year History Is About Cash, Culture and Mutualism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#9 PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#20 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#31 The joy of simplicity?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#60 [Poll] Computing favorities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#80 Term "Open Systems" (as Sometimes Currently Used) is Dead -- Who's with Me?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#98 PROFS & GML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#67 IMPI (System/38 / AS/400 historical)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#113 Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#49 Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#56 Compile error
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#4 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#8 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#72 Fridays

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

Honeywell 200

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Honeywell 200
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2016 08:34:42 -0700
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Good grief. they reinvented IBM's long boot times. Doing updates on the fly like that just gives me the heebie-jeebies. Thanks all for the explanation.

lets say the various batch systems. CP67 had fast boot time, then as part of move to offshift operation and darkroom operation ... CP67 was upgraded with fast automatic reboot.

In the 60s, ibm rented/leased mainframes and charges was based on "system meter" which ran whenever the processor and/or any I/O channel was busy. As part of starting to offer 7x24 service ... initially offshift use was relatively light ... so there were all sort of effort to minimize as much as possible offshift cost.

Part of that was move to minimal or no human operators ... the other part was to minimize when "system meter" was running when there was little or no operation. One of was hack a channel program for terminal input that would let the channel go idle (allowing "system meter" to stop) but be prepared to immediately receive incoming characters.

science center had extended its service to 7x24 ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and it was even further motivated when the first two online commercial service bureau spun-off (one was from people at the science center, there other from people at MIT Lincoln Labs) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online

Moving into the 70s (and transition from cp67 to vm370) more and more services were being provided by applications running in virtual machines (sort of like demons, but referred to virtual appliances in recent generations of virtual machine). Fast (re)boot had the system up ready to login ... this is tale of somebody at MIT making modification to CP67 (on system in bldg on other side of tech sq from 545) ... where system crashed and auto-reboot 27 times in single day (and was somewhat motivation to improve MULTICS to significantly enhance its boot time, science center was on 4th flr 545, MULTICS was on 5th flr 545)
http://www.multicians.org/thvv/360-67.html

In my porting from CP67 to VM370 (the CP67 develpment group and split off from the science center and in morph to VM370 moved out to the vacant SBS bldg at Burlington Mall), I was doing enormous amount of benchmarking. As part of that I created command that could login simulated users (under software control) to run automated benchmarks ... this included ability to auto-reboot and autolog simulated users between each benchmark. The autolog command ... including bringing up default user at boot ... was then leveraged by operations to support automatically brining up service virtual machines at boot time. Autolog then was picked up and incorporated into vm370 release 3 shipped to customers. a couple old emails on the subject from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

The mad rush to get stuff in 370 product pipeline ... after the demise of Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

contributed to decision to release some of my stuff for Release 3 ... but a bunch of my performance (& integrity stuff) was then selected as guinea pig to start charging for kernel software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

As part of final release of this "charged-for" kernel package, did 2000 automated benchmarks that took 3months elapsed time to run
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#benchmark

In the wake of the legal action at the 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement, it included starting to charge for software, but the company had made the case that kernel software should still be free
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

The dearth of 370 products during the FS period is credited with giving the clone processor makers a market foothold. The FS implosion, the mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline, and the rise of clone makers is then motivation to start transition to charging for (eventually all) kernel software. The initial transition was only newly released kernel software (not including direct hardware support, device drivers, etc) would start to be charged for as addon kernel features.

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

Honeywell 200

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Honeywell 200
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:06:42 -0700
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
What an opportunity for the spin doctors...

Users: This system crashes constantly.

Salesman: Look at how fast it reboots!


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#77 Honeywell 200

MULTICS scenario was it was taking an hour or more to reboot ... so a couple times a day and it was down more than up.

Science center installed CP67 end of Jan1968 at the univ ... with 1052 & 2741 terminal support. The univ. had some number of ascii/tty terminals so I added ascii/tty support ... and did a hack in calculating number of line input chars with a single byte field (max 80 char minus residual).

Some group down at harvard had got some sort of ascii device (plotter?) connected to the MIT (Urban System Laboratory) online cp67 system (datacenter across the technology center courtyard from 545) that needed 1200 char length lines. They changed all the max. lengths from 80 to 1200 ... but failed to catch the issue with one byte calculatio ... and resulted in miscalculated length which overlaid other data ... resulting in crash. The MIT cp67 system would then crashed when something was done with the ascii device up at harvard.

MIT urban system lab archives
https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-ac/ac366.html

past posts mentioning the 27 crashes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#77 write rings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#4 virtualizable 360, was TSS ancient history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#47 Vintage computers are better than modern crap !
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#43 Vintage computers are better than modern crap !
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#48 New machine code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#14 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#22 Who hasn't caused an outage? What is the worst thing you have done?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#22 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#57 The Stack Depth

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

And the Award for Best Financial Crisis Book

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: And the Award for Best Financial Crisis Book ...
Date: 02 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
And the Award for Best Financial Crisis Book ...
https://baselinescenario.com/2016/08/02/and-the-award-for-best-financial-crisis-book/
The substance of the argument has been well known for years, so I'll try to pack it into one sentence: The banks creating mortgage-backed securities failed to properly transfer notes (the documents proving a borrower's obligation) to the trusts that issued the MBS, so not only was the securitization itself faulty, but the trust did not have legal standing to foreclose on homeowners--so the banks paid third-party companies to forge the required paper trail, and lawyers knowingly submitted fraudulent evidence to courts, who usually accepted it.

... snip ...

Trivia: The Mortgage Banker's Association hosted some X9 (financial standard) meetings in their hdqtrs (across park from world bank and IMF) to discuss electronically signed documents (including titles). After things imploded, the head of MBA was doing press conferences talking about how bad it would be for people to walk away from their mortgage (at the same time they had walked away from the mortgage on their hdqtrs bldg).

Other trivia: we had been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature legislation

toxic CDO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning brought in to help wordsmith cal. electronic signature legislation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

past posts mentioning MBA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#36 The Incredible Con the Banksters Pulled on the FBI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#111 Maine Supreme Court Hands Major Defeat to MERS Mortgage Registry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#14 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#15 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#40 Poor People Caused The Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#41 Poor People Caused The Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#95 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#92 Leaked Seattle Audit Concludes Many Mortgage Documents Are Void
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#1 Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?

past posts mentioning robo-signing mills
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#126 Wall Street's Revenge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#131 Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#17 Cromnibus cartoon
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#48 The 17 Equations That Changed The Course Of History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#54 How do we take political considerations into account in the OODA-Loop?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#90 NY Judge Slams Wells Fargo For Forging Documents... And Why Nothing Will Change
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#92 Ocwen's Servicing Meltdown Proves Failure of Obama's Mortgage Settlements
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#0 S&L Crisis and Economic Mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#5 Swiss Leaks lifts the veil on a secretive banking system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#8 Shoot Bank Of America Now---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall Is Overwhelming
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#20 $2 Billion City Of Tampa Pension Story Major Media Missed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#22 Two New Papers Say Big Finance Sectors Hurt Growth and Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#24 What were the complaints of binary code programmers that not accept Assembly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#49 Global Fragility and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#53 Servicers in DOJ s Crosshairs Following JPM Robo-Signing Settlement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#108 Occupy Democrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#4 "Trust in digital certificate ecosystem eroding"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#5 7 years on from crisis, $150 billion in bank fines and penalties
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#18 Can we design machines to automate ethics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#20 Wall Street Bailouts Are Finally Over, Right?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#28 Bernie Sanders Proposes A Bill To Break Up The 'Too Big To Exist' Banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#76 Greedy Banks Nailed With $5 BILLION+ Fine For Fraud And Corruption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#34 43rd President
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#39 Poor People Caused The Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#40 Poor People Caused The Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#47 Do we REALLY NEED all this regulatory oversight?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#71 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#80 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#93 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#95 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#4 Jeb: George W. Bush is a top foreign policy adviser
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#27 Federal Subsidies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#36 Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#67 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#25 After 6 Years Of QE, And A $4.5 Trillion Balance Sheet, St. Louis Fed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#56 The long, slow death of the rule of law in America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#65 Michael Hudson's New Book: Wall Street Parasites Have Devoured Their Hosts -- Your Retirement Plan and the U.S. Economy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#70 AIG freezes defined-benefit pension plan
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#73 Economists' Tribal Thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#81 Now the DOJ Admits They Got it Wrong
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#44 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#53 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#8 Too Big To Fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#10 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#11 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#16 1970--protesters seize computer center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#26 1970--protesters seize computer center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#71 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#94 Pension Funds at Risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#99 Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#0 Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#1 Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#98 Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

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

Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act
Date: 02 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#47 Nightmare on Wall Street: Republicans & Democrats Agree on Reinstating Glass-Steagall Act

More Banking Mystifications
https://baselinescenario.com/2016/07/26/more-banking-mystifications/

posts mentioning Pecora hearings and/or Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

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

Why you need a strong authentication platform

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Why you need a strong authentication platform
Date: 02 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Why you need a strong authentication platform
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3102880/security/why-you-need-a-strong-authentication-platform.html
According to Symantec's annual Internet Security Threat Report, up to 80 percent of breaches could be eliminated with strong authentication.

... snip ...

AADS patent portfolio (all assigned):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadssummary.htm

Some (AADS) X9.59 financial transaction standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

In the mid-90s, somewhat for having worked on "electronic commerce" we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial standard working group (that had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments). We did end-to-end threat & vulnerabiilty studies of various retail payments methods and came up with X9.59 financial transaction standard which slightly tweaked the current infrastructure and specified that financial transactions for account nos. designated as "X9.59" would only be executed if strongly authenticated.

SSL for "electronic commerce" addressed by hiding transaction details during transmission. X9.59 eliminated the threat of crooks using information from previous transactions to perform fraudulent transactions ... and therefor eliminated the need to hide transaction information. X9.59 didn't do anything about breaches, but eliminated the threat and motivation for breaches (since crooks couldn't use the information for fraudulent financial transactions) ... and also eliminated the need for using SSL to hide transaction information.

Part of the end-to-end analysis came up with the security proportional to risk metaphor. The value of a transaction information to a merchant is the profit from the transaction, which can be a couple dollars or less. The value of the transaction information to a transaction processor can be a few cents. The value of the transaction information to a crook can be the account balance or credit limit. As a result, a crook could afford to outspend by a couple orders of magnitude attacking as can be spent defending. X9.59 didn't address breaches, but eliminated the treat and motivation for breaches. Also the current attack surface is enormous with tens or hundreds of millions of points around the world (X9.59 significantly reduced the attack surface).

a long-winded recent post on the subject in "How the internet was invented" thread: https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35

We were tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach notification legislation (original in the country) having been brought in to help wordsmith the electronic signature legislation. Many of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done in-depth public surveys and found the #1 issue was fraudulent financial transactions. A problem was that there was little or nothing being done about data breaches (resulting in fraudulent financial transactions). The issue was that normally entities take security measures in self-protection, however it wasn't the institutions that were at risk from data breaches, but the public. It was hoped that publicity from data breach notification might motivate institutions to take data breach countermeasures. Note in the wake of the Cal. legislation, there have been several Fed. notification bills introduced (none passed) about evenly divided to those equivalent to the Cal. legislation and those that would effectively eliminate requirement for notification.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

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

Honeywell 200

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Honeywell 200
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 10:26:35 -0700
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
To a certain extent, the boot time was variable; it depended on several factors, like whether the system had been shut down normally, or if it had crashed due to power-failure or MCP bug. If it had crashed, the reboot (called Halt/Load) time would be extended by enough time to recover the disk directory and any pack directories/metadata that had files open during the crash. This holds true for modern unix systems as well (although journaling filesystems make this recovery time very short in normal cases).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#60 Honeywell 200
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#77 Honeywell 200
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#78 Honeywell 200

CP67 was done automated fast boot/ipl w/o human intervention (including automated "fast" failures & reboot) ... except for the growing number of service virtual machines ... which I later addressed with autolog ... originally for doing automated benchmarks.

original 801 included "transaction memory" and CP.r demo'ed DBMS using "transaction memory" to drive logging ... rather than explicit journaling/logging calls. ROMP/801 was originally for displaywriter follow-on ... but then when that was canceled, it was retargeted to the unix workstation market ... becoming PC/RT and AIX (at&t unix port by company that had done PC/IX).

RIOS/801 (aka RS/6000) AIX was enhanced to implemented journaled filesystem (eliminating FSCK at boot) using transaction memory ... logging/journaling updates to filesystem metadata/control information. There was several claims about hos much more effecient transaction memory was.

Then the IBM Palo Alto group was tasked to port journaled memory to other platforms (w/o transaction memory) and had to go through and put in explicit journal/logging calls. It turns out that the version ported back to RS/6000 AIX ... ran faster than the transaction memory version.

we relied on journaled filesystem in HA/CMP for fast take-over/recovery and reboot ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

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

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

Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 10:11:42 -0700
NickB <nickpb@hotmail.com> writes:
Cory - Apologies for adressing you as Anne/Lynn - I didn't read the header properly.

Just to add that in the basement of IBM Hursley, there was an environmental chamber where they tested the 2984 (that's the only model I saw there, but there may have been others) in all sorts of temperatures.

When I was there they were testing in hot and humid conditions, although the chamber was capable of replicating sub-zero temperatures as well. And they were testing with real bills, although I saw only UK bills - probably because the 2984 was primarily a UK only machine.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#13 Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#17 Looking for info on IBM ATMs - 2984, 3614, and 3624

trivia: part of the time I was allowed to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15 ... some posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

the only environmental chamber I remember was in bldg. 15 (disk product test lab) ... temperature, humidity and air pressure ... it had to be large enough for large controllers and disk drives ... and looked like decompression chamber ... fairly heavily armored for low-pressure and high-pressure.

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:44:09 -0700
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
And GWB and Cheney for de-stabilizing the entire Middle East.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#78 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1

trace back to British Navy needing oil as part of moving from coal to oil and 13.5in to 15in guns (many of our administrations since that time trying to manipulate the status quo in the middle east)

loc2151-56:
This led to enormous expense and to tremendous opposition on the Naval Estimates. Yet it was absolutely impossible to turn back. We could only fight our way forward, and finally we found our way to the Anglo-Persian Oil agreement and contract, which for an initial investment of two millions of public money (subsequently increased to five millions) has not only secured to the Navy a very substantial proportion of its oil supply, but has led to the acquisition by the Government of a controlling share in oil properties and interests which are at present valued at scores of millions sterling, and also to very considerable economies, which are still continuing, in the purchase price of Admiralty oil.

... snip ...

and then "The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command"
https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Game-Jutland-British-Command-ebook/dp/B00B6TZGLM

pg8/loc296-301:
But here was another gamble, for whereas South Wales was made of coal, Britain had no indigenous sources of oil, and an oil-fired Fleet might be cut off from overseas fuel supplies in time of war. That risk, with all its political and military implications, was lightly shouldered, and Churchill extracted GBP2.2m. from Parliament to buy a controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company: a transaction second only to Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Canal shares in strategic ramifications for Britain and the Middle East.

... snip ...

other recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#31 I Feel Old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#49 Corporate malfeasance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#64 Isolationism and War Profiteering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#75 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#49 Fateful Choices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#102 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

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

Honeywell 200

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Honeywell 200
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2016 08:24:09 -0700
David Wade <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> writes:
I must say that until some twit ported VTAM to VM/SP it had a fast re-boot time. When I worked at NERC on the odd occasion it crashed on our 4381 the VM/370 logo appeared before you had realized it had crashed.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#60 Honeywell 200
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#77 Honeywell 200
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#78 Honeywell 200
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#82 Honeywell 200

in prior life, my wife had been in JES group ... help with move of ASP to JES3 product and was co-author of JESUS (JES Unified System, all the things in JES2 and JES3 that neither community could live without, for various reasons, never shipped). She was then con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of loosely-coupled (mainframe for "cluster") architecture ... where she did Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture .... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

She didn't stay very long because 1) the communication group was constantly trying to force her into using SNA/VTAM for cluster operation and 2) except for IMS Hot-Standby, there was very little uptake (until SYSPLEX and Parallel SYSPLEX).

Note a research group had done an vm370 8-way cluster implementation using trotter/3088 (8-way channel-to-channel) but before they could release it, the communication group did forced them into re-implementation using SNA/VTAM. The original (non-VTAM) implementation did any cluster update/coordination operation in under a second elapsed time. The SNA/VTAM took well over 30seconds elapsed time to perform same operations.

In the mid-80s, I got sucked into effort to take a VTAM/NCP emulation one by one of the original baby bells on Series/1 platform that implemented real network with outboard session control (as "cross-domain" emulation) with RUs enapsulated running over *real* networking (what communication resorted to making sure it never got shipped can only be described as truth is stranger than fiction). a couple past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#67 System/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70 Series/1 as NCP (was: Re: System/1 ?)

Did some work with IMS group ... because while the MVS hot-standby could do take-over and operational in a few minutes ... a large configuration with 30k-60k terminals/sessions ... it could take VTAM well over an hour to re-establish the sessions (VTAM session establishment was resource hog and increased non-linear). The VTAM/NCP emulator had the capability of keeping shadow sessions on the hot-standby in sync with "primary" session ... so take-over was near instantaneously.

later we were doing (RS/6000) HA/CMP product (and *NOT* SNA/VTAM) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

including cluster scale-up for both technical (aka supercomputers) and commercial (RDBMS scale-up) ... frequently referenced post about Ellison meeting January 1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

some old email from period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

and as frequently mentioned, within a couple weeks of the Ellison meeting, cluster scale-up was transferred, announced as supercomputer for technical and scientific *ONLY* ... and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. Possibly contributing, the (mainframe) DB2 group were complaining that if I was allowed to proceed, it would be at least 5yrs ahead of them.

Helping with RDBMS cluster was that the RDBMS vendors we were dealing with, had VAX-cluster support in the same source base as their unix implementation ... and they had strong views on what DEC had done wrong in VAX-cluster implementation. To simplify the port, I implemented semantics of the VAX-cluster API ... while addressing all of the issues that they felt had been done wrong.

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 07:25:04 -0700
Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:
Readers of a.f.c wil have heard of the "complexity catastrophe" concept. The contemporary world -- finance, politics, net-mediated arborization of religions, ideologies and conspiracies, the flash-crowd nature of near-instant global introduction of new bio- and digital technologies -- is approaching (if it hasn't already passed) some kind of complexity threshold beyond which it's arguable that the consequences of any rational and calculated choice of action is little (or no) more predictable than a random choice. So, in Stuart Kauffman's terms, a "long jump" on the high-dimensional, complex "fitness landscape" may be surmised to be as promising in finding a non-local "optimum" as a reasoned "hill climbing" move.

crypto/cybersecurity frequently refers to over complex implementations as typical of "snake oil" ... fabrication to make the product appear worth more than it actually is (obfuscated by the complexity).

along with this is KISS ... and poorly designed implementation is mistaken for complexity ... and it would be harder to actually do a well designed, "simple" implementation.

a case where complexity may be considered well designed is when they eliminate redundancy as part of infrastructure cost savings ... the problem is that they've eliminated redundancy and it becomes more and more prone to systemic failures (which could also be considered a subset of poor design , because they've sacrificed understanding of failure modes in pursuit of saving money). the other way of looking at it is they've optimized short term cost savings at the expense of long term resiliency (in many cases, assuming they would be long gone before things hit the fan).

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 07:31:58 -0700
hancock4 writes:
FWIW and IMHO, bankruptcy laws are too lenient. People and businesses get to keep too much and creditors are screwed even when there are assets available to pay them. Corporations stiff employees out of pensions, or small business contractors out of their fees. In personal bankruptcies, landlords and small contractors get screwed and they can't afford it.

big institutions have played both sides of this ... focusing on the small guys scamming the system for a few million ... scammers representing a few percent of the valid cases ... while large private equity companies take out tens of billions to buy victim companies, place the loan on the victim company, loot it for everything they can and then unload it (it has been compared to "house flipping" except rather than paying off the original mortgage when it is flipped, the loan goes with the victim company; they can even sell for less than they paid and still walk away with billions in the deal) .... over half of corporate defaults are these victim companies (and the victim companies take the hit on the credit rating, not the original private equity borrowers).

Private Equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 07:54:26 -0700
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
My idea of law and order doesn't involve Hillary suppressing possible evidence. Then the courts could have a look. Maybe Rusis does have her 30,000 emails. Maybe the NSA des and they're suppressing tyem.

remember the clintons had "accidentally" turned off backup in the 90s and lost a million emails.

in iran/contra period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_affair

they were using PROFS ... which automatically backed/kept email ... even when the user deleted their copy ... subsequent administrations learned from that (aka ... following administrations had to come up with more sophisticated techniques to eliminate email).

I had created a convention of triple redundant backup for my files and emails in the 70s ... unfortunately in the mid-80s at the IBM Almaden Research Center all three copies of 70s backup tapes were in the Research Center tape library ... when they went through an operational problem where random tapes were being mounted for scratch ... and managed to loose nearly all my files from late 60s and early 70s.

In the late 70s, I did CMSBACK for internal datacenters (unfortunately I didn't transfer my 60/70s files to CMSBACK which included process for offsite copies) ... which was used at Research, HONE (world-wide online sales & marketing support)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
and various other internal locations. some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#cmsback

CMSBACK went thru a number of internal releases ... and then a reserarch group upgrades CMSBACK for WDSF product released to customers ... which included support distributed PC/workstation networked client backup. It was then transferred to the disk product division and renamed ADSM (adstar storage manager), this was in the period when the company was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company, and the disk division had been rebranded adstar. The breakup was eventually reversed ... but later the decision was made to unload the disk division anyway ... and ADSM was transferred to Tivoli (which the company had acquired) and rebranded TSM.

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

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 11:03:37 -0700
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
Mr. Reagan - lowered taxes, then had to raise them for 7 straight years to fix the problems caused by lower revenue. His administration tripled the national debt, created a humongous deficit and he left office in the midst of a self-inflicted recession. His successor, attempted to fix it (by raising taxes) and was pilloried by those you claim have a better understanding of economics. His approval rating was in the swamps. It was only a decade later that modern republicans rewrote his story to make him some form of hero by ignoring pretty much everything he did during his term.

2002, congress allowed the fiscal responsibility act (required that spending could not exceed tax revenue, was on its way to eliminate all federal debt) 1st time taxes were cut to not pay for wars) to expire. 2010 CBO report was that in the interval, tax revenue was cut $6T and spending increased $6T for $12T budget gap compared to fiscal responsible budget (taxes have not been restored, only moderate cut in spending since then ... so rate of debt increase has slowed, pushing $20T).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

in the middle of last decade, US comptroller general was including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable middle school arithmetic (for how they were savaging the budget).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

the first major bill after fiscal responsibility act was allowed to expire was medicare part-d. CBS 60mins did expose on it ... the 18 republicans responsible for getting the bill passed, just before the final vote they insert one sentence and prevent CBO from distributing report on the change. comptroller general says that medicare part-d eventually comes to be a $40T long-term item, totally swamping all other budget items. CBS 60mins finds that within 6months after passing, all 18 have resigned and are on drug industry payroll.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#medicare.part-d

Note that some analysis that Greenspan and wallstreet were some of those pushing for enormous federal debt ... looking at clearing enormous amount off interest on the debut (currently pushing half trillion).

End of 2008, just the four largest TBTF were carrying $5.2T in off-book toxic assets (at the time going for 22cents on the dollar, if forced to bring back on the books, would have been declared insolvent and force to be liquidated).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

TARP appropriation was $700B to buy the toxic assets couldn't cover the problem ... so were used for other stuff ... and the federal reserve does the real bail-out behind the scenes. Federal reserve fights long legal battle to prevent public release of what they are doing (buying trillions in toxic assets at 98cents on the dollar and providing tens of trillions in ZIRP funds). Finally when they loose, Bernanke holds press conference and says that he had expected wall street to use the funds to help mainstreet, but when they didn't he couldn't force them (but that doesn't stop the ZIRP funds). TBTF are using the tens of trillions in ZIRP funds to buy treasuries (federal debt) and making hundreds of billions per annum on the spread. Not supposedly Bernanke was selected at least in part because he was a depression era scholar ... but the FED had tried something similar then with the same results ... so Bernanke would have had no reasonable expectations for something different this time.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fed.chairman
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp

And possibly(?) from the law of unintended consequences ... since the TBTF are getting tens of trillions in ZIRP funds from the fed, they have no motivation to pay interest to attract deposits ... which is wrecking havoc with retirement plans. That is separate from what the economic mess done to pension plans. They found that they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings on the securitized mortgages and loans (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from oct2008 congressional hearing testimony). The triple-A rating largely enabled the over $27T done 2001-2008 in part being able to sell to institution funds restricted to only *SAFE* investments (like the large pension funds, which took something like a 30% hit as a result).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

note that the 80s administration also had the Iran/Contra affair ... where PROFS email played a role ... resent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#88 E.R. Burroughs

The VP claimed that he knew nothing about it because he was fulltime administration point person deregulating the financial industry causing the S&L crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
along with other members of his family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan
and another
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260
who then: Lehman's Gift To Jeb Bush For Funneling Pension Money: A $1.3 Million Consulting "Job"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-19/lehmans-gift-jeb-bush-funneling-pension-money-13-million-consulting-job
more recent: Wall Street Fine Print: Retirees Want FBI Probe Of Pension Investment Deals
http://www.ibtimes.com/wall-street-fine-print-retirees-want-fbi-probe-pension-investment-deals-2250476

That VP then goes on to be the next president ... and last decade his son is president presiding over the economic mess, 70 times larger than the S&L crisis.

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

Google and Facebook put their fierce rivalry aside to save money in this key area

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Google and Facebook put their fierce rivalry aside to save money in this key area
Date: 09 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Google and Facebook put their fierce rivalry aside to save money in this key area
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-facebook-open-rack-2016-8

One of the issues is that for the large cloud operations, computer hardware isn't a profit center, it is a cost .... and they have been on the bleeding edge of aggressively cutting computing costs. They've managed to cut computer system hardware costs so dramatically, that power and cooling have become increasingly major cost for operating megadatacenters

increasing computerization has been eliminating jobs for (at least) 50yrs ("The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command" has details of Britain before WW1 had option of selecting between humans calculating naval gun fire control or ship central analog computer calculating for all guns on battleship ... enabling coordinating fire control for all guns on battleship faster with much greater accuracy at much greater distance ... and for various human politics chose the human calculating). recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#30 The World Crisis, Vol. 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#57 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#66 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#72 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#84 E.R. Burroughs

recent posts mentioning megadatacenters:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#57 Introducing the New z13s: Tim's Hardware Highlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#93 Google joins Facebook's game-changing project that's eating the $140 billion hardware market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#104 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#24 CeBIT and mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#61 Can commodity hardware actually emulate the power of a mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#50 China takes the lead in supercomputing while America sleeps

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2016 21:40:14 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#89 E.R. Burroughs

Stockman was Reagon's budget director ... one of the ways to get money to pay for (some of the) military spending ... w/o increasing (income) taxes ... was to increase SS taxes ... and then "borrow" the money from the SS Trust fund to pay for military spending.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman
and
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/about-david-stockman-and-contra-corner/

The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed
https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Politics-Reagan-Revolution-Failed-ebook/dp/B00BSETVI4
As Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the early 1980s, David Stockman was a chief architect of the Reagan Revolution -- bold plan to cut taxes and reduce the scope and cost of government. The Triumph of Politics was Stockman's frontline report of the miscalculations, manipulations, and political intrigues that led to its failure. A major publishing event and New York Times bestseller in its day, The Triumph of Politics is still startling relevant to the conduct of Washington politics today.

... snip ...

some past posts mentioning Stockman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#3 What Makes a thread about the European debt crisis Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#4 What Makes a thread about the European debt crisis Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#5 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#13 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#30 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#36 Fed proposes annual assessments for large financial companies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#48 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#49 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#63 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#5 SAS Deserting the MF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#69 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#2 IBM Relevancy in the IT World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#50 IBM Furloughs U.S. Hardware Employees to Reduce Costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#51 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#57 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for those that have never seen them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#57 What the Orgy of "Lehman Five Years On" Stories Missed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#24 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#37 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#61 IBM now employs more workers in India than US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#84 3Q earnings are becoming the norm at IBM. What is IBM management overlooking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#85 How do you feel about IBM passing off it's retirees to ObamaCare?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#60 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#14 Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#15 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#16 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#48 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#14 IBM to invest 1.2B into Cloud Data Centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#25 IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#48 IBM Dumps Its Server Business On Lenovo For $2.3B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#79 Shocking news: Execs do what they're paid to do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#101 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#24 IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#55 Maximizing shareholder value: The goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#75 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#1 Why IBM Is Tumbling: BRIC Sales Plunge, Total Revenue Lowest Since 2009
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#33 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#48 IBM hopes new chip can turn the tables on Intel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#0 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#3 The Decline and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#35 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#36 IBM 'major announcement' points to deal on chip manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#50 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#60 IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure -- It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#89 Forbes perspective on IBM's troubles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#94 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#4 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#37 Income Inequality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#39 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#43 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#61 Decimation of the valuation of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#83 OT: article on foreign outsourcing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#120 Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#131 Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#150 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#8 Shoot Bank Of America Now---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall Is Overwhelming
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#25 What were the complaints of binary code programmers that not accept Assembly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#51 bloomberg article on ASG and Chpater 11
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#58 Neocons Guided Petraeus on Afghan War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#80 Moody's Has a Cow, Slams GE's Masterful Financial Engineering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#15 Blogger Ben's Basically Full Of It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#69 Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#80 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#68 Yes, Computers Have Improved. No, Communism Hasn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#51 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#70 Department of Defense Head Ashton Carter Enlists Silicon Valley to Transform the Military
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#91 Happy Dec-10 Day!!!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#75 Another Private-Equity LBO Queen Bites the Dust

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

How the internet was invented

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:35:17 -0700
Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> writes:
A lot faster. The 370-145 a little faster and had a lot more memory than an s/360-75 which was the top of the line in the /40's day.

360/75 was about mip ... 370/145 was about 1/3 mip (i.e. 145 was little slower than 360/65).

360/60 & 360/70 were originally announced with 1mic memory, the model numbers were upgraded to 65 & 75 when memory was changed to 750ns. 360 functional characteristics with detail instruction timings, 75 add is .8mics
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/

and 370 functional characteristics, 145 "add" is 1.373 mics.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/funcChar/

note that 145 CPU speed was further degraded under normal operation because the processor execution was shared with integrated channel while 65&75 external channels.

360/75 (& 360/65) had up to 1meg memory (from IBM), and did 8byte fetches and interleaved memory banks
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2075.html
370/145 was up to 512kbytes (for 370, max order ould be a little more since loadable microcode used the same storage)
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3145.html

370/148 got faster memory and much faster floating point and bunch of microcode enhancements ... more like 1/2+ mip. I got roped into helping endicott with the ECPS microcode for 37/148 ... old reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

This was in the wake of the demise of Future System (FS period is credited with giving clone processor makers market foothold) ... and the mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipelines. Endicott also con'ed me into periodically running around the world ... pitching to product/market planners around the world ... who would then forecast number sold in their region/market.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

Endicott wanting to leverage ECPS to make every 370/148 shipped with VM370 builtin (sort of like current LPAR feature). Outside the US, they really wanted every unique product feature possible because they were starting to experience significant competition from the clone makers. For the US, there was still the effort by the POK forces to kill VM370 ... and the clone market competition hadn't ramped up as much.

Outside the US, product planners would make forecast and the country would order that many machines to sell ... and if they didn't, that country business ate the additional machines ... and product planners could loose their job over forecast miss. For the US regions, the product planners would forecast what ever corporate said was strategic ... but regions didn't actually book machines, and manufacturing plants had to eat missed forecasts by US regions (plants would pretty much take world trade forecasts at face value, but had to redo US region forecasts). As a result US product planners gotten promoted for how well they matched corporate strategic direction (and didn't get fired for big forecast misses). US corporate strategic statement was that IBM machines would sell the same number regardless of the features (and competition didn't play a part) ... and was used to shoot down making VM370 part of every machine shipped (even tho the rest of the world wanted every additional feature they could get while the US strategy was planning on killing VM370 and wasn't worrying about clone competition).

The 138/148 line was then followed with 4331/4341 in very late 70s ... and were part of enormous spike in sales in the mid-range.

past posts in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#42 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#43 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#44 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#45 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#51 How the internet was invented

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

Delta Outage

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Delta Outage
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 10 Aug 2016 14:33:19 -0700
Jesse1.Robinson@SCE.COM (Jesse 1 Robinson) writes:
Airlines are no longer 'heavily regulated'. They used to be. Telecom was deregulated. Banks were deregulated. There was more competition in all these industries when regulation was in place. The 'natural tendency' of any industry is to consolidate to maximize profits and to dodge regulatory intervention. That's why Delta is so big and independent. And so unaccountable.

So it's cheaper to fly than ever before. Whoopee. This is what we get for lower fares.


1st part of 90s (after I had left IBM), I was brought into the largest airline res system to look at the ten impossible things that they couldn't do. It turns out it was a mainframe implementation left over from a 1960s paradigm. With significant change in technology over 30yrs ... it was possible to adopt totally different paradigm. After a couple months, I came back with a different implementation (for routes ... find flts for person to get from A-to-B), that was implemented on ten RS6000/990s ... ran 100 times faster, could handle all transactions for all airlines in the world and implemented all ten impossible things. They then wrung their hands for 6-12 months and finally said that they hadn't intended that I fix the ten impossible things (many because they were still using 60s paradigm requiring large staff to supplement/complement), they said they just wanted to tell the board that I was working on it (for next 5yrs, they hadn't planned on I would actually do it).

Now they had reorged things so that the airline operations and the airline reservation system were in different subsidiaries with nearly all the profit booked in the res subsidiary ... airline operations was loosing money at the time, but the res subsidiary was making such large profits ... the parent company showed significant overall profit.

Large human intensive operations were doing things like that starting in the 80s ... moving profit out of human intensive operations into subsidiary that had much fewer number of humans.

Last decade a new twist was added ... moving the subsidiary where the profit is booked, into a tax haven where tax rate had been negotiated to be nearly zero. The poster child is large equipment manufacture that built and sold to customers in the US. They created distribution subsidiary in an over seas tax haven, paper "transfer" US built equipment to the (offshore) distribution subsidiary at cost, which then sells to US customers and the profit is all booked offshore (and the US manufacturing plant still ships directly to US customers). some more scenarios here:
https://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks

"tax avoidance", "tax havens", "tax loopholes", "tax evasion"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

some past airline res posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#20 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#10 Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#54 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#101 Costs of core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#53 transactions, was There Is Still Hope
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#84 History--error checking in Baudot (5 bit) transmissions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#34 50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#41 50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#54 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#57 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#58 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#29 Power grid groans, blackouts roll through L.A. area as heat wave nears peak
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#29 IBM 1401 emulation on 360 processors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#69 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#75 How Russia's S-400 makes the F-35 obsolete
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#107 crash, restart, and all that, was Your earliest dream?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#117 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#75 American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#34 Qbasic

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:56 -0700
hancock4 writes:
Nobody is asking what Homeland Security, TSA, and extended local police anti-terrorism work costs the taxpayer. We really need to ask the tough questions on what we are actually getting, can we afford it, and is it worth the cost. The security industry has become a huge empire in itself (even has trade magazines).

one of the gimmicks ... is they declared large amounts of DOD military hardware surpluse and supplied to DHS and police departments (significantly changing the character of "policing" in many places) ... then they have DOD come back and ask for huge increase military equipment because they don't have enough equipment. One of the battles that the MIC is having with some of the spending caps ... is trying to force cuts in number of people and veterans benefits ... so that the money can go to them. posts mentioning military-industrial(-congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
posts mentioning strategy of "perpetual war" to keep the funds flowing to MI(C)C (i.e. Eisenhower's warning in his departure speech)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

DHS, militarizing nation's police forces also overlaps with the privatizing of prisons ... and keeping the funds flowing to those for-profit entities ... some posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#37 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#43 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#61 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#82 copyright protection/Doug Englebart
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#34 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#25 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#74 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#85 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#27 OT: efforts to repeal strict public safety laws
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#32 I Feel Old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#89 Qbasic

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

IBM History

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM History
Date: 10 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Ferguson & Morris, "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Time Books, 1993 (talking about the "Future System" project in the early 70s, was going to completely replace 370 and 370 efforts were being shutdown, the lack of 370 products during the period is credited with giving clone processor makers market foothold):

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

another quote from the book:

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

... snip ...

trivia: I continued to work on 360/370 activities during this period and would even periodically ridicule FS ... which wasn't exactly a career enhancing activity.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I had HSDT project during the 80s and was working with Clementi's E&S group in Kingston ... but carrying on periodic running battle with the supercomputer project there ... they would complain when I visited national labs.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

more trivia: Later half of 70s, Amdahl was making headway in technical and university market, but hadn't broken the true blue commercial market. I was good friends with people at one of the largest commercial customers on the east coast. At some point the branch manager had horribly offended the customer and in revenge they announced they were going to order an Amdahl machine (single red box in a very large room with a vast sea of blue). I was asked to go sit at the customer site for 6months to make it look like it was a technical issue and misdirect from the true reason (had long talks with the customer and they were installing that machine regardless). I refused to take the bullet for the branch manager ... and was told that the branch manager was good sailing buddy of the CEO and this would ruin his career if I didn't do it. Furthermore, if I didn't do it, I could forget about having a career in IBM (just one of long list of being told I could forget promotions, raises, and/or career).

1979, I got roped into doing 4341 benchmarks for national lab that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm, sort of leading edge of cluster supercomputing. some 4300 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

Later in the early 80s, large corporations were ordering hundreds of 4341s at a time for distribution out in departmental areas, leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami. Starting in lates 80s, we were doing the HA/CMP product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... including cluster scale-up for both technical/scientific with national labs and commercial RDBMS. This is old post referencing Jan1992 meeting in Ellison's conference room about commerical RDBMS scale-up (projecting 128-way by YE1992)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

End of Oct1991, a senior EVP retires and there is audit of several of the projects he was backing, including Kingston supercomputing. Afterwards a new executive was brought for supercomputing group and a internal technical conference for mid-Jan 1992 (trolling the company for technology). By the end of January, the cluster scale-up was transferred to Kingston, announced as a supercomputer and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. some old email from the period ... also has copies of supercomputer press from Feb and May of 1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

The US auto industry had C4 taskforce 1990 to look at completely remaking themselves .... and since they were planning on heavily using technology, representatives from technology vendors were asked to attend. One of the issues was that US auto industry was taking 7-8yrs from concept to rolling off the line (they would run efforts in parallel offset 3-4 years ... so something new could come out every 4yrs with cosmetic changes in between). The foreign competition had previously cut that to 3-4 years and were in the process of cutting it in half again (18-24months) ... making foreign competition significantly more agile and responsive to changing technology and marking conditions.

In the early 80s, there were articles calling for 100% unearned profit tax on the US auto industry. Supposedly the foreign auto import quota was to reduce competition giving US auto industry significant profits that they were to use to completely remake themselves; however they just pocketed the money and continued business as usual.

The recent bailouts indicate that the US auto industry didn't do any better after the C4 taskforce.

trivia: offline at the meetings, I would chide the POK mainframe attendees how could they expect to help since they suffered (at the time) from some of the same problems.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

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

IBM Wild Ducks

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Wild Ducks
Date: 10 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
consistent with Watson's "wild ducks" .... from military reform group today ... ht/DV
"Take the mavericks in your service, the ones that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and protect these people, because if they are not nurtured in your service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you."

Gen. James Mattis, USMC (ret.)


past "Wild Ducks" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#25 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#18 IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#30 IBM Centennial Film: Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#33 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#79 Innovation and iconoclasm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#1 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#45 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#93 John R. Opel, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#105 5 ways to keep your rockstar employees happy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#121 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#59 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#3 Time to Think ... and to Listen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#7 Leadership Trends and Realities: What Does Leadership Look Like Today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#26 Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#19 SnOODAn: Boyd, Snowden, and Resilience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#23 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#31 History--punched card transmission over telegraph lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#65 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#12 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#72 In Command, but Out Of Control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#3 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#4 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#52 IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#97 Where does the term Wild Duck come from?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#98 How to groom a leader?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#105 Happy 50th Birthday to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#52 First 2014 Golden Goose Award to physicist Larry Smarr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#53 Not Wild Ducks but Wild Geese - The history behind the story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#8 Microsoft culture must change, chairman says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#60 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#29 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#33 Can Ginni really lead the company to the next great product line?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#59 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#79 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#80 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#7 You can make your workplace 'happy'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#56 This Chart From IBM Explains Why Cloud Computing Is Such A Game-Changer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#64 IBM Data Processing Center and Pi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#80 Here's how a retired submarine captain would save IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#17 There's No Such Thing as Corporate DNA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#60 [Poll] Computing favorities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#14 Leaked IBM email says cutting 'redundant' jobs is a 'permanent and ongoing' part of its business model

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

IBM History

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM History
Date: 11 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History

Late 80s Japan had an economic policy to become the #1 technology country in the world .... they told all their large successful manufacturing companies that they had to invest at least 5% of their profit in technology or it would be taken in taxes. Through the 90s you saw Japanese manufacturing companies provide significant percentage of the funding for US technology startups. Oracle was in financial trouble and signed a deal to be bought by NIPPON Steal ... before it could be finalized Oracle backed out of the deal (having gotten a large corporate 6000 "seat" contract with Shell Oil ... every Shell operation and drilling platform).

After the cluster scale-up transfer (and being told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, mentioned upthread), we decide to leave and in middle of a lot of silicon valley stuff. Two of the Oracle people we worked with on commercial cluster scale-up and in the Ellison meeting (mentioned upthread) had left and were at a small client/server startup responsible for something called "commerce server". They wanted to do payment transactions on their server and we were brought in as consultants, the startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

Late 80s, a senior disk engineer got at talk scheduled at internal annual world-wide communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but open the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve their (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the data center to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with several solutions to address the problem but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group.

A few short years later, the company had gone into the red and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company ... when the board brings in the former president of of AMEX to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... using some of the same techniques he used at RJR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
i.e.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

folklore/trivia ... after leaving but before the breakup was reversed, we were contacted by somebody in the bowels of Armonk about helping with the mechanics of the breakup. Lots of operations had MOUs with other divisions about using supplier contracts ... all the supplier contracts had to be cataloged and all the dependent MOUs had to be identified and turned into contracts (since these MOUs would then be across different corporations).

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:08:04 -0700
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
The decline of the steel industry was the union's fault. They did not want the mills to modernize so one kind of steel continued to made. Speciality steel manufacturing went to small mills and overseas.

it was significantly accelerated by not fully funding pensions ... just paying out of current revenue (leaving significant amounts for bonuses and dividends). then aging work force from big upswing in 40s&50s started retiring (and money hadn't been set aside) and even w/o any downturn in the business could trivially send bottom line to the negative. They then declare bankruptcy and dump the pensions on the government (the money that should have been going into fully funded pension plan had long ago been dispersed).
http://www.pbgc.gov/

Airlines played the game by creating a separate subsidiary for the airline operations ... and organize the financials so that most of the profit was booked in airline reservation subsidiary. The airline operations easily run into the red (allowing it to declare bankruptcy and dump pension plans on PBGC) at the same time the parent company was making significant profit (profit from reservation subsidiary more than offset loss from airline operations, all in how you organize the books).

past posts mentioning PBGC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#61 Health Care
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#91 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#65 As Expected, Ford Falls From 2nd Place in U.S. Sales
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#38 What do YOU call the # sign?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#13 Michigan industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#24 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/2010i.html#77 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#94 Bankruptcy a reprieve for some companies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#4 copyright protection/Doug Englebart
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#8 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#10 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#24 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#90 Is IBM Suddenly Vulnerable To A Takeover?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#7 weird apple trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#59 IBM Data Processing Center and Pi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#81 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#88 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#89 prices, was Western Union envisioned internet functionality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#83 Qbasic - lies about Medicare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#98 Qbasic - lies about Medicare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#94 Pension Funds at Risk

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

Delta Outage

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Delta Outage
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 11 Aug 2016 11:22:45 -0700
0000000248cce9f3-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Edward Finnell) writes:
Which company had their primary in the South tower and the backup in the North tower?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#93 Delta Outage

the previous scenario
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

one of the disaster recovery/backup companies had a datacenter on low floor and was affected by the 1993 case.

Earlier we had been doing the IBM HA/CMP product ... and marketing included meeting with SIAC (ran the datacenters for exchange trade transactions) ... had offices in the WTC. They had a datacenter in manhatten bldg that was carefully chosen to have different two water mains on two sides of the building, two different power feeds (to different substations) on two different sides on of the building and different telco feeds (to different central offices) on four sides of the building. They had a recent outage when a power transformer (with PCBs) exploded in the basement ... and the building had to be evacuated and shutdown.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

I had coined the term disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as alternative to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. I was then asked to write a section for the corporate strategic continuous availability document ... but the section got pulled when Rochester (AS/400) and POK (mainframe) complained that (at the time) they couldn't meet the requirements.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

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

Don't be Delta: Four pillars of high availability

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Don't be Delta: Four pillars of high availability
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:46:07 -0700
Don't be Delta: Four pillars of high availability
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3106286/application-development/dont-be-delta-four-pillars-of-high-availability.html

couple recent posts on Delta & high availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#93 Delta Outage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#99 Delta Outage

over in ibm-main group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bit.listserv.ibm-main/RizydHz-ylQ

ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 07:33:52 -0700
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
I don't think I ever owned a Toyota. Many years ago I had a second-hand Datsun that rusted so bad I picked up an abandoned road sign and hammered it into shape to serve as a drivers-side floor panel ( worked well). OTOH I now have a 2001 Nissan. Other than the usual muffler, brakes and such the only problem I've had is the window motors don't seem to have a very long life, the second motor on the driver's side is now on its last legs - oh, and the ignition lock just started jamming.

The US auto industry had C4 taskforce 1990 to look at completely remaking themselves .... and since they were planning on heavily using technology, representatives from technology vendors were asked to attend. One of the issues was that US auto industry was taking 7-8yrs from concept to rolling of the line (they would run efforts in parallel offset 3-4 years ... so something new could come out every 4yrs with cosmetic changes in between). The foreign competition had previously cut that to 3-4 years and were in the process of cutting it in half again (18-24months) ... making foreign competition significantly more agile and responsive to changing technology and marking conditions.

In the early 80s, there were articles calling for 100% unearned profit tax on the US auto industry. Supposedly the foreign auto import quota was to reduce competition giving US auto industry significant profits that they were to use to completely remake themselves; however they just pocketed the money and continued business as usual.

The recent bailouts indicate that the US auto industry didn't do any better after the C4 taskforce.

trivia: offline at the meetings, I would chide the POK mainframe attendees how could they expect to help since they suffered (at the time) from some of the same problems.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

Leading up to the foreign auto import quoto ... there were large number of foreign autos selling well below the US auto prices ... the volume of foreign autos as well as their low price but significant downward price pressure on what US makers could charge. After the foreign auto quota, the foreign auto markers determine that they given the quota, they could sell that many high priced cars (as they could sell low priced cars) ... and completely changed the kind of car they were making over a couple years. The limited number of foreign autos and their move from low-end to higher end market significantly reduced the competition on US auto makers as well as reducing price pressure, allowed US makers to significantly increase the numbers they sold as well as the price they were charging (enormous spike in their profit which was supposed to have been used to completely remake themselves).

One of the downsides for nearly doubling US auto price over short period was that they had to move from standard 3yr auto loan to 6yr loan. This put enormous strain on US auto maker quality (which was also under pressure because of strain with dealing with much better foreign auto car quality) ... since loan period was now exceeding auto normal lifetime.

The foreign auto makers then (also) responded by building manufacturing plants in the US ... there were some periodic stories showing some foreign auto makers having larger US content than some of the US auto makers.

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 07:38:53 -0700
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
They seem to have been relatively successful at terraforming Israel.

Eventually, when it becomes possible to rectify Poland's frontiers, by giving it back the areas in the East taken from it, then the part of Poland that came from Germany can be given to Israel, making the Israelis less reliant on the limited waters of the Jordan river to feed themselves.

At present, they do need to support a higher population density than traditional forms of agriculture in Palestine would be able to support. I had not been aware that Israeli agriculture was ecologically unsound or unsustainable, even if it is different from what was there before, and requires additional water.


there are some past articles that Israel become so expert at terraforming that some of the neighbors hired Israel companies to do similar projects for them. The problem was that given their official gov. position regarding Israel, who was doing the work had to be obfuscated.

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

August 12, 1981, IBM Introduces Personal Computer

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: August 12, 1981, IBM Introduces Personal Computer
Date: 12 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
August 12, 1981, IBM Introduces Personal Computer
http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/August/12/

TYMSHARE got a copy off Adventure from Stanford DEC10 system and ported it to their VM370/CMS system. I then got a copy and made the executable available inside IBM ... and would send anybody that got all points a copy of the source.

TYMSHARE had made their online CMS based computer conferencing system available for free to IBM user group SHARE starting in Aug1976 ... archive here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

I got TYMSHARE to make me a copy of all VMSHARE files once a month so I could make them available on internal systems (including the world-wide online sales&marketing vm370/cms based HONE system). The hardest part was dealing with the IBM lawyers that believed that customer information would contaminate internal IBM employees.

I also ordered IBM/PC on employee plan when it was 1st announced, delivery took so long that by the time it was delivered, the IBM/PC street price was less than the original IBM employee price.

recent posts mention ibm/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#52 Compile error
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#77 DEC and The Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#101 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#5 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#8 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#70 Microprocessor Optimization Primer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#42 Old Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#54 PL/I advertising
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#76 IBM plans for the future - an imaginary tale
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#51 How the internet was invented

recent posts mentioning tymshare and/or vmshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#29 1976 vs. 2016?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#78 Mainframe Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#14 Ancient History (OS's) - was : IBM Destination z - What the Heck Is JCL and Why Does It Look So Funny?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#28 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#99 You count as an old-timer if (was Re: Origin of the phrase "XYZZY")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#12 What Would Be Your Ultimate Computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#27 Old IBM Mainframe Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#33 The Network Nation, Revised Edition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#34 The Network Nation, Revised Edition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#47 PL/I advertising
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#77 PDP-8 advertising
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#95 Is it a lost cause?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#28 Is it a lost cause?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#71 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 11:00:54 -0700
Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
By that logic the USA can't afford anything. Yet the facts remain. We can afford the F22, but that's not good enough. We seem to need the F35 too. Turns out, we can afford anything we want bad enough.

F22 eventually got cut in part because the "stealth" coating wasn't very durable ... severely degraded by moisture ... it got reputation for not being allowed out in the rain. It had been protected by MIC strategy parceling out bits&pieces in lots of congressional districts ... discusses MIC practice making it difficult to kill programs
http://nypost.com/2009/07/17/cant-fly-wont-die/

But this is all about lobbying, not about lobbing bombs. Cynically, Lockheed Martin distributed the F-22 workload to nearly every state, employing under-qualified sub-contractors to create local financial stakes in the program. Great politics -- but the result has been a quality collapse.

... snip ...

military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

since then a more durable stealth coating has been developed that is used for F35 and retrofitted to F22 ... but maintenance of the coating is still a major effort:
http://www.tyndall.af.mil/News/Features/Display/tabid/6651/Article/669883/lo-how-the-f-22-gets-its-stealth.aspx

F35 was original developed as "cost reduced" (cheap) bomb truck, assuming F22 would be flying cover to handle enemy threats. Assumed it would be deliverying bombs to take out enemy ground-to-air defense ... stealth primarily in the front approaching enemy ground radar. F35 stealth from different directions/aspects and different radar bands
http://ausairpower.net/XIMG/JSF-RCS-Qualitative-A-XLVHF.png
long-winded discussion of F35 "stealth" compared to "real" stealth
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

Also the software complexity exploded goring from F22 1.7M LOCs to F35 >25M LOCs.

recent posts mentioning F22 &/or F35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#57 Shout out to Grace Hopper (State of the Union)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#75 American Gripen: The Solution To The F-35 Nightmare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#4 Cyberdumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#8 Cyberdumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#10 What Will the Next A-10 Warthog Look Like?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#20 DEC and The Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#21 DEC and The Americans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#55 How to Kill the F-35 Stealth Fighter; It all comes down to radar ... and a big enough missile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#89 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#90 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#91 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#92 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#95 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#96 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#97 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#105 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#13 Computers anyone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#89 China builds world's most powerful computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#22 Iran Can Now Detect U.S. Stealth Jets at Long Range
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#61 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#62 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature

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

Washington Corruption

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Washington Corruption
Date: 13 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
2002 congress allows fiscal responsibility act to expire (required spending not exceed tax revenue, on its way to eliminating all federal debt). 2010 CBO did report that afterwards tax revenue was reduced by $6T and spending increased by $6T for $12T budget gap compared to fiscal responsible budget (1st time taxes were cut to not pay for wars).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

First major bill after fiscal responsibility act expired was Medicare Part-D. 60mins did program on 18 republican members in congress responsible for getting it passed; right before final vote, they insert one line change and prevent CBO from distributing report effect of the change, within 6m after bill passed, all 18 have resigned and on drug industry payroll. US Comptroller General claims that Part-D comes to be long term $40T item totally swamping all other budget items (term limits wouldn't have helped).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#medicare.part-d
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

1999 was asked to help try and help prevent economic crisis ... FED LEOs were predicting what they would do. Securitized mortgages had been used during S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages ... I was to improve the integrity of supporting documents as countermeasures. Then they find they could pay rating agencies for triple-A when both sellers and rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A (from Oct2008 congressional testimony), triple-A trumps supporting documents and they could do no-documentation liar loans ... largely enabling over $27T done 2001-2008.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

Jan2009 was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s Senate hearings into '29crash, resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal XREFs and URLs between what happened this time and what happened then (comments that new congress might have appetite to do something). I work on it and then get a call it won't be needed after all (comments that capital hill has been totally buried under enormous mountains of wallsteet cash).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

Spring 2011, new speaker of the house is on local DC radio program and highlights that he is putting the new (tea) party darlings on the tax committee because those members get the most money (from special interests). Local DC news outlets periodically refer to congress as Kabuki theater ... what is seen publicly is mostly staged and has little to do with what is really going on.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

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

Blogs

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Blogs
Date: 15 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
I was blamed for online computer conferencing (precursor to social media) on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about beginning until sometime mid-80s) in the late 70s and early 80s. Folklore is that when executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

from IBMJARGON:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.

... snip ...

trivia: I was doing semi-automated software up through tandem memos. Jim Gray had palmed off some number of things on me (related to DBMS, IMS, System/R, RDBMS, etc) when he was leaving for Tandem. A few of us went by to visit him after he had been there for awhile. Tandem memos were specifically kicked off when I distributed a trip report about that visit,

In the wake of tandem memos there were some number of task forces kicked off to investigate the phenomenon. One of them brought in Hiltz&Turoff authors of "Network Nation". There was also more automated software then developed (TOOLSRUN) for officially sanctioned discussion groups.

Somewhat as a result, there was also a researcher paid to study how I communicated, face-to-face, telephone, online, etc. Sat in the back of my office for nine months, went with me to meetings, got copies of all my incoming and outgoing email, logs of all instant messages. etc. Results were used in research reports, some number of conference papers, talks, books, and a Stanford PHD (joint between language and computer AI).

other trivia: Tandem had developed a CMS-based computer conferencing system and in Aug1976 started providing it for free to IBM user group SHARE ... starting as VMSHARE ... archives here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

later "PCSHARE" was also added. I arranged to get full copies of VMSHARE files from TYMSAHRE every month for putting up on internal IBM systems and also available over the internal network (with some automated software) ... including the world-wide online sales&marketing support HONE system (some people doubted that HONE would do such a thing, but one of my hobbies was providing enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE had been a long time customer since just about its original inception in the early 70s). The biggest problem I had making the VMSHARE available inside IBM was with the lawyers who were concerned that IBM employees would be contaminated by customer information. Some old email mentioning VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare

more trivia: internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid-80s. One of the biggest factor was the dominant internal network technology (VNET) had a form of gateway in every node ... which didn't happen until the great change-over to internetworking protocol on 1Jan1983 for the internet. At the time of the 1jan1983 change-over it had approx 100 IMP nodes and 255 connected hosts ... while the internal network was rapidly approaching a 1000 nodes ... old post with list of corporate sites that got one or more new network nodes during 1983
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

A flavor of the internal network technology was also used for the corporate sponsored university network ... which for a time also had more nodes that the internet ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

The IBM communication group was doing everything it could to block non-SNA networking, client/server, distributed computing, etc. Just after the mid-80s, it was distributing all sorts of misinformation about how the internet could be run on SNA, justifying why the internal network had to be converted to SNA (at a time when BITNET was being converted to TCP/IP and it would be much better to convert the internal network to TCP/IP instead of SNA).

Eventually the communication group could no long block release mainframe tcp/ip support ... but they had other dirty tricks up their sleeves and it shipped peaking around 44kbytes/sec using nearly full 3090 processor. I did the software enhancements to support RFC1044 and in some tuning testing at Cray research and a 4341, got sustained channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

comment ... It would have been before Dave worked at IBM; from long ago and far away:

Date: 10/06/80 11:19:34
From: wheeler

Tymshare runs a VM which (of course) is accessible via Tymnet. As a service to the share organization, tymshare provides a userid, VMSHARE on their machine. It has a number of CMS restrictions and also enhancements. Dave Smith sent up most of the procedures when he worked for Tymshare (he is now at YKT, YKTVMV/DNSMITH). There are a number of specialized programs for keyword look-up, etc. of the information entered into the VMSHARE userid which we don't have. All the data files tho are dumped to tape once a month and sent to me. The information can be found by linking to VMSHARE 291.


... snip ... top of post, old email index, HONE email

Before TYMSHARE, I think Dave was at BCS (Wichita?). trivia: as undergraduate in the 60s, the univ. hired me fulltime to be responsible for their os/360 production systems. Then summer of 1969, Boeing hired me as fulltime employee to help with the formation of BCS ... move dataprocessing into independent business unit to monetize the investment. I was at Boeing hdqtrs across from Boeing field ... which started with 360/30 for payroll. Was to take over the other datacenters which involved all sort of politics. Renton datacenter had something like $300M in IBM 360s, that summer 360/65s were arriving faster than they could be installed in Renton (there were always 360/65 boxes sitting around in the hallways outside the machine room). At the time, I thought Renton datacenter was possibly largest in the world.

SLAC (vm370 system) was also first webserver (outside europe).
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml

other silicon valley trivia: when facebook moved to silicon valley, it was into a new bldg, built next door to the former consolidated US HONE datacenter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

Blog is (online digital) log/journal and making a log/journal entry. Social networking is more like old time groups from 70s where entries were added by sending off email ... aka mailing or "posting" (a letter). Server would aggregate "posts" and redistribute aggregate ... could go directly to individuals or to distributed servers (where people viewed on their local servers). Servers ran mailing lists of subscribers for each group (individuals and or servers) ... enhancements required postings only from authenticated subscribers, subscribers having option of being sent individual posting as they arrived at server ... or receiving periodic aggregation. The tandem memo stuff .. I only partially automated ... I would read every one and then manually decide if it would be included (more like "moderated" groups)

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

some computer and online history

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: some computer and online history
Date: 16 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
old post with decade (78-87) of vax sales, sliced & diced by model, year , us/non-us
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

includes micro-vax. By the mid-80s, workstations and large PCs were starting to take over the mid-range market. IBM 4300 sold in the mid-range market (against VAX) in approx. the same numbers in small unit orders. The big difference was large corporate 4300 orders of several hundred at a time for distribution out in departmental areas ... sort of the leading edge of coming the distributed computing tsunami. IBM 4331/4341 follow-on (4361/4381) were expected to continue the explosion in the mid-range market sales ... but by that time the workstation/PCs were starting to take-over the mid-range market.

In the 60s, there were a couple spinoffs setting up (virtual machine) CP67 commercial online services ... but they quickly moved upstream to specialize in offering financial information for the financial industry. On the west coast, there was TYMSHARE started with SDS/XDS, but later also offered VM370 (follow-on to CP67) based services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare

In Aug1976, TYMSHARE started offering there VM370/CMS-based online computer conferencing system free to IBM user group SHARE as VMSHARE ... archives here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
sometimes(?) "404" ... but also at wayback machine
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

trivia: in the 70s TYMSHARE developed their own IBM mainframe (capability-based) operating system GNOSIS specifically for online computing services business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOSIS
When M/D acquired TYMSHARE, I was brought in to audit GNOSIS as part of its spinoff to Key Logic. documents
http://cap-lore.com/CapTheory/upenn/

other trivia: NCSS (one of the CP67-based service bureaus) starts offering 4GL RAMIS. TYMSHARE then starts offering RAMIS follow-on FOCUS on VM370 ... and NCSS then develops NOMAD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramis_Software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad_software
Computer History
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/RAMIS_and_NOMAD/RAMIS_and_NOMAD.National_CSS.oral_history.2005.102658182.pdf

online service bureau posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online

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

Some (IBM-related) History

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Some (IBM-related) History
Date: 17 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
some IBM-related history
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209383011627882&set=p.10209383011627882&type=3&theater

song books and
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209383026868263&set=p.10209383026868263&type=3&theater

67 blue card and vmshare card and
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209383063589181&set=p.10209383063589181&type=3&theater

1000 vnet nodes

There was latter some folklore that HTML was originally SGML DTD ... however ... this comes up periodically in afc ... recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
cites:
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

from above:
1992

With 1992 came (some) stability. See the HTML page.

One of the related files contains a very important idiom:-

It is required that HTML be a common language between all platforms. This implies no device-specific markup, or anything which requires control over fonts or colors, for example. This is in keeping with the SGML ideal.

However, HTML suffered greatly from the lack of standardization, and the dodgy parsing techniques allowed by Mosaic (in 1993). If HTML had been precisely defined as having to have an SGML DTD, it may not have become as popular as fast, but it would have been a lot architecturally stronger.

Standardization?

The first official standard for HTML (HTML 2.0) came out in November 1995: way too late!

HTML has been in use by the World Wide Web (WWW) global information initiative since 1990. This specification roughly corresponds to the capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).


... snip ...

First WEB server outside europe was on SLAC's vm370 system
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml

Internal network technology was (virtual machine based) developed by former co-worker (also) at sience center. It did store&forware using local node spool system ... which block date to 4k ... but used a synchronous interface (during which VNET didn't run) ... which could limit it to 4-5 4k records/sec (when there was other uses of spool system) ... aka 16kbytes-20kbytes/sec. This wasn't too bad with a node having a couple 9600 baud lines ... but increasingly became the bottleneck with 56kbit links. I had project I called HSDT that was supporting T1 and faster speed links and need multiple mbytes/sec throughput. I did a spool file rewrite with asynchronous non-blocking interface with read-ahead and write-behind multiple 4k block and contiguous allocation. I tried to get it into the CJN internal network backbone nodes ... but the communication group was in the process of trying to force the internal network to SNA ... and were excluding technical people from the CJN meetings (didn't want their dirty tricks confused with technical facts). Old email from one of the CJN meeting members:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#email870306
other old email reference that the communication group was telling the executive committee that PROFS was a "VTAM" application
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#email870302

some HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
some internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

as I've mentioned before communication group fought hard battle trying to prevent mainframe TCP/IP support from being release. When finally forced to do original release its monthly cost was nearly 10 times the original justification and performance was it got 44kbytes/sec using nearly whole 3090 processor. I then did the software enhancements to support RFC1044 and some tuning tests at Cray Research between a Cray and 4341 got sustained channel speed throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor (possibly 500 times improvement in number bytes moved per instruction executed).

some RFC 1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#rfc1044

another reference ... gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm

After Ed left IBM, I hired him as consultant for projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

and related to the SJMERC article, late 80s, a senior disk engineer got at talk scheduled at internal annual world-wide communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance ... but open the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The issue was that the communication group had strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve their (emulated) dumb terminal paradigm and install base. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the data center to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. The disk division had come up with several solutions to address the problem but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group.

some related posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

A few short years later, the company had gone into the red and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company ... when the board brings in the former president of of AMEX to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... using some of the same techniques he used at RJR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
i.e.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

folklore/trivia ... after leaving but before the breakup was reversed, we were contacted by somebody in the bowels of Armonk about helping with the mechanics of the breakup. Lots of operations had MOUs with other divisions about using supplier contracts ... all the supplier contracts had to be cataloged and all the dependent MOUs had to be identified and turned into contracts (since these MOUs would then be across different corporations).

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

Why Aren't Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Why Aren't Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis?
Date: 17 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Why Aren't Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/why-arent-any-bankers-in-prison-for-causing-the-financial-crisis/496232/

That is ignoring the repeated "deferred prosecution" for the same crimes, not just with mortgage securities, but also money laundering for drug cartels and terrorists, tax evasion, manipulating LIBOR, FOREX, commodities, etc. The joke is the aggregate $300B they've been fined is so small compared to the tens of trillions involved, it is just being viewed as cost of running criminal enterprise.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#libor
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

recent posts mentioning "deferred prosecution"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#10 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#0 Thanks Obama
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#73 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#29 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#41 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#99 Why Is the Obama Administration Trying to Keep 11,000 Documents Sealed?

disclaimer: 1999 I was asked to try and help prevent the coming economic mess. securitized mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages and I was asked to look at improving the integrity of mortgage supporting documents as countermeasure. They then find that they can pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings. The triple-A ratings mean that they can start doing no-documentation liar loans (triple-A trumps documentation), securitize, pay for triple-A and sell as fast as they can make them (no longer needing to care about buyers qualifications or loan quality). The triple-A ratings also open the market to operations that are restricted to "safe" investments (like large public & private pension funds). Federal Reserve, FDIC, and SEC that have jurisdiction do nothing. Oct2008 congressional hearings into the pivotal role that the rating agencies played say that both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A. This is largely the enabler to do over $27T done 2001-2008. A tv reporter during the hearings comments that he believes that there would never be any criminal prosecution (being able to blackmail the gov. over federal rating).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
and too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

With no-documentation mortgages, there is no longer any issue of supporting documentation integrity. From the law of unintended consequences, the largest fines for the too big to fail are for the robo-signing mills fabricating the documentation for the (no-documentation) mortgages.

A decade later, Jan2009 I'm asked to HTML'ize the Pecora hearings (30s senate hearings into '29 crash that resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal HREFs and URLs between what happened this time and what happened then (references that the new congress might have an appetite to do something). I work on it awhile and then get a call saying it won't be needed after all (references to enormous mountains of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

Note that in the wake of ENRON, the rhetoric in congress was that Sarbanes-Oxley would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee executives and auditors did jail time (prosecution becomes relatively trivial), but it required SEC to do something. Possibly because even GAO didn't think SEC was doing anything, GAO started doing reports of fraudulent public company financial filings (even showing increase after SOX goes into effect) and nobody doing jailtime. Less well known is that SOX also had requirement for SEC to do something about the rating agencies .... but they did as little about them as the public company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

Every now and then local DC press will refer to congress as Kabuki Theater .... what you see publicly has little to do with what is really going on. In this case, Congress can get a lot of public press on things like SOX&Enron, when they know that the responsible regulatory agencies aren't actually going to do anything. Something similar showed up in the Madoff congressional hearings, they had testimony from the person that had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to try and get SEC to do something about Madoff (SEC's hands were forced when Madoff turned himself in). Kabuki Theater
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff
regulatory capture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#regulatory.capture

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

Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas
Date: 17 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare#Tymshare_sold_to_McDonnell_Douglas

"After five years, peace was breaking out in many places in the world and McDonnell Douglas sold off MDNSC and MDFSC at a profit for much needed cash."

... snip ...

the countermeasure, of course, is "perpetual war"; posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

trivia: TYMSHARE had developed a capability-based IBM mainframe operating system ... GNOSIS. As part of MD purchasing TYMSHARE, I was brought in to audit GNOSIS as part of its spinoff to Key Logic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOSIS
and
http://cap-lore.com/CapTheory/upenn/

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

Success of Failure

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Success of Failure
Date: 17 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Black Widow loc5601:
Then the Suburban proceeded slowly to the forecourt of a large office building, the headquarters of the National Counterterrorism Center. On the opposite side of the court, connected by a convenient sky bridge, was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The complex, thought Gabriel, was a monument to failure. The American intelligence community, the largest and most advanced the world had ever known, had failed to prevent the attacks of 9/11. And for its sins it have been reorganized and rewarded with money, real estate, and pretty buildings.

... snip ...

outsourcing and the growing Success of Failure culture (higher profit off string of failures):
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
goes along with culture of "Perpetual War"
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html

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

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 14:07:25 -0700
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> writes:
One odd panel I went to in an early 1990s WorldCon discussed by several people who were at WorldCon when it was held in Berkely, California. They had not noticed the riots going on in the streets outside the convention hotel. They only noticed when they went back to their hotel which was downhill from there. They had left their hotel room windows open as the air conditioning was out. Their rooms had tear gas in them. I notice things like sirens and fire truck/police lights. Why they didn't, I have no idea. I suppose it was the times, but the guys wore suit and ties, and the women wore dresses like the ones that were typically worn at the office for secretaries. At the WorldCon I went to, I wore beach shirts and jeans. I fit right in.

We had X9 financial standards meeting in the new Seattle "W" ... we got invited to the "W" evening opening festivities that had lots of the city dignitaries ... turns out it was also the anti WTO demonstrations (and riots, marchers going past the "W" that night were peaceful ... the violence was further away) ... possibly except for some of the police dignataries, very few other people seemed to notice the demonstrators going past the "W".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 14:53:06 -0700
maus <mausg@mail.com> writes:
There were rich Australian relatives in the 1950's whose estates were largely taked over by the state for tax, nobody complained because the memory of the war, and the presence of a large Japanese Army in New Guinea that had to be stopped somehow( With, as it turned out, US airpower and Australian personnel) gave everyone a feeling of common purpose, which most Aussies I meet nowadays share.

reading shattered sword (based on released Japanese archives not previously available). Japanese Navy doctrine had been concentrated carrier air power, stike fast and hard and get out ... because they knew that US had at least 10:1 economic power and would win wars of attrition. however, they apparently were starting to feal smug/superior and decided to split their forces (violating their doctrine) for attacks on Midway, Aleutians, and several south pacific islands (to isolate Australia).

US also had advantage over Japanese with decryption and radar; decrypting messages warned the US about the Midway attack so they had beefed up airplanes on Midway ... and sent carrier forces (land-based on Midway and US carrier forces were both about equal to total forces Japan sent to attack Midway). Downside for US, was the ZERO was superior to what the US had at the time.

Also the US 4-engine B-17s were dropping bomb loads from 11,000+ ft and invariably missed (it was the dive bombers that accounted for the hits).

This somewhat mirrors the tactical ground support in Europe versus the strategic 4-engine high altitude bombers. An hypothesis is that switch to fire-bombing cities ... hard to miss a whole city even from 5-6miles up, Mcnamara was LaMay's staff planning fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities and possibly also accounts for when he came back as SECDEF for Vietnam, Laos becomes the most bombed country in the world. some past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#31 I Feel Old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#57 Shout out to Grace Hopper (State of the Union)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#60 For those who like to regress to their youth? :-)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#10 What Will the Next A-10 Warthog Look Like?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#49 Corporate malfeasance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#64 Isolationism and War Profiteering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#73 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#75 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#91 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#8 What Does School Really Teach Children
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#30 AM radio Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#49 Fateful Choices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#82 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#88 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#90 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

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

IBM History

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM History
Date: 18 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#97 IBM History

With the imploding of Future System project (was going to completely replace 370, was suspending 370 products, lack of 370 products during the FS period is credited with giving clone makers market foothold), there was mad rush to get 370 products back into pipeline. 3033 and 3081 kick off about the same time, 3033 starts out being 168-3 logic remapped to 20% faster chips. some FS, 3033, & 3081 history
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
FS posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I was involved in project to do 16-way 370 MP and we con'ed the 3033 processor engineers to working on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than what they were doing on 3033). At 1st everybody thot it was great until somebody told the head of POK it could be decades before the POK favorite son operating system had effective 16-way support (pok finally ships 16-way system in 2000, more than 20yrs later). Then the head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again, and directs the 3033 processor engineers to never be distracted again (they would still let me sneak into POK). SMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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

IBM History

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM History
Date: 18 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#97 IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#114 IBM History

iAPX432 people had presentation at SIGOPS (1981?) about 432 problems. They pushed a lot of complex stuff into silicon ... and the only way to "fix" was to replace the processor chips with new silicon. One of the things pushed into the 432 silicon was multiprocessor dispatching ... masking the number of processors from software. I had done something similar to that in 1975 for 370/125 effort (one of the mad rush to get features back into 370 product pipeline). The 115/125 was 9 position memory bus ... the 115 had up to nine identical microprocessors ... all with different microcode load ... i/o controllers ... and one with 370 emulation. The 125 was the same except the microprocessor running 370 emulation was 50% faster. They wanted to do configurations (which was eventually canceled before announce/ship) that had up to five "125/370" processors. I pushed a lot of stuff into microcode ... I had task queuing for both processor dispatching as well as I/O disk controller (something like later SSCH for 3081). The 432 multprocessor dispatcher was something like what I had done in spring 1975 for 5-way 370/125 ... but I did it in microcode and they did it in silicon. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce

One of the final nails in Future System coffin was done by Houston Science Center where they showed that Eastern Airlines ACP running on 370/195 .... if moved to the fastest Future System box projected ... would have the throughput of 370/145. Part of the issues was that so much of blue sky ideas had been poured into the design .... with absolutely no thought given to throughput. I continue to work on 360/370 during this period and periodically ridicule Future System activity (which wasn't exactly career enhancing). Part of translation to S/38 ... was the S/38 market was low-end and not particularly throughput oriented ... there was enormous room to throw hardware at the issue and mask performance throughput.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

One of the issues in Future System was page mapped filesystem with scatter allocation across all available disk drives. The result was to handle a single disk failure ... the complete filesystem had to be backed up as single entity (all disks) and restored as single entity ... which scaled very poorly. Even for low-end S/38 systems it could take 24hrs of down time for the process. One of the people I worked with in disk engineering is credited with disk "RAID" invention in the 70s ... and S/38 was driven to be an early RAID adopter because single disk failures were so traumatic.

The other part was Future System picked up TSS/360 page mapped filesystem model ... where file I/O was done with synchronous page fault operations (task was disabled during transfer). This was bottleneck for high-end, high-performance throughput. At the Univ. in the 60s, the IBM SE and I did identical fortran edit, compile, and executed benchmarks on TSS/360 and CP/67 using 360/67. I did CP67 simulated 35 user benchmark that had better response and throughput than his TSS/360 benchmark for 4 users. I then did page-mapped filesystem for CP67/CMS (and VM370/CMS) that I claimed avoided all the TSS/360 (and Future System) shortcomings ... and ran three times faster than standard CMS filesystem (on moderate I/O benchmarks). This was used internally, but never shipped to customers (possibly because page-mapped filesystems got such a bad reputation from Future System failure)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap

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

How the internet was invented

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How the internet was invented
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 23:59:34 -0700
Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> writes:
Nothing in between? 360/75 was old hat by 1970 and 4341s weren't in the field until 1980s.

370/155 & 370/158 almost 1mip, 370/155 product announce
http://www.ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProdAnn/370-155.pdf
370/165 & 370/168 around 2.5-3mip, 370/165 product announce
http://www.ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProdAnn/370-165.pdf

370/165&370/168 were horizontal microcode machine ... rather measured in terms of native instructions per 370 instruction, it was measured in avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction. 370/165 to 370/168 got faster memory and microcode optimized to reduce avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction from 2.1cycles for 370/165 to 1.6cycles for 370/168

precursor to the 370/165 was the 360/85 with cache. 360/85 product announcement
http://www.ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProdAnn/360-85.pdf

then there was also 360/91, 360/195 and 370/195
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2091.html
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2195.html
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_2423PH3195.html

4341s was 1979. I got roped into doing 6600 benchmark for national lab that was looking at getting 70 4341s for compute farm (sort of precursor to current cluster supercomputers).


                      158             3031              4341


Rain 45.64 secs 37.03 secs 36.21 secs Rain4 43.90 secs 36.61 secs 36.13 secs

also times approx; 145 168-3 91 145 secs. 9.1 secs 6.77 secs

rain/rain4 ran on 6600 in 35.77secs.
....

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

was going to completely replace 370, and 370 efforts were being shutdown (given credit for letting clone makers get market foothold). when the implosion of FS, there was mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipelines.

They took 370/158 engine with just integrated channel microcode and made it 303x externel channel processor. A 3031 was a 370/158 engine with just 370 microcode (and no integrated channel microcode) and a 2nd 370/158 (channel director) with just the integrated channel microcode (and no 370 microcode). A 3032 was 370/168 engine using 303x (370/158 engine) for external channels. 3033 (1977) started out 168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips, other hacks got it up to 4.5mips (around 50% faster).
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/3033/3033_intro.html

IBM very carefully controlled shipping by date order received. The first 3033 was going to be installed in vm370 account which was going to be great loss of face for POK favorite son operating system MVS. Since they couldn't fiddle the shipping order ... they were able to fiddle the arrival of the machine so that the first installation was an MVS customer (as mentioned in above URL).

However a cluster of 4341s was cheaper than 3033, cost significantly less than 3033, had higher processor and I/O throughput than 3033, used significantly less floor space and environmentals than 3033. 303x boxes were "high-end" POK and 4341 was mid-range Endicott. At one point POK internal politics got the allocation of critical 4341 manufacturing component cut in half (as means of reducing competition).

some old 4341 email from the period:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

4300s sold in mid-range market against VAX in approx. same numbers for small unit orders. Big difference was large corporations ordering hundreds of 4300s at a time for placing out in departmental areas ... sort of the leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami.

past posts in thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#32 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#33 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#34 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#35 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#36 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#37 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#38 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#41 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#42 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#43 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#44 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#45 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#51 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#92 How the internet was invented

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 08:25:45 -0700
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> writes:
I think that was the B-24s, not the B-17s.

from old posts:

"The European Campaign: Its Origins and Conduct" loc2574-77:
Two problems contributed to this ineffectiveness: First, the aircraft used by the American 8th Air Force were designed for strategic campaigns like the CBO and were built to operate effectively at high altitudes. The famed B-17 had a service ceiling of 35,800 feet, and the B-24 could operate at 28,000 feet. Despite all claims of that time and since the war, at that height even the fabled Norden bomb-sight was incapable in delivering precision bomb loads.

... snip ...

and then using strategic heavy bombers for low-level tatical battlefield bombing loc2582-85:
The bomber preparation of Omaha Beach was a total failure, and German defenses on Omaha Beach were intact as American troops came ashore. At Utah Beach, the bombers were a little more effective because the IXth Bomber Command was using B-26 medium bombers. Wisely, in preparation for supporting the invasion, maintenance crews removed Norden bombsights from the bombers and installed the more effective low-level altitude sights.54

... snip ...

past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#53 IBM Data Processing Center and Pi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#79 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#82 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#62 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#64 past of nukes, was Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#13 Fully Restored WWII Fighter Plane Up for Auction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#54 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#120 For those who like to regress to their youth? :-)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#91 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#88 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust

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

E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 08:30:57 -0700
Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> writes:
Few people can afford to keep something as expensive as a house empty. When interest rates go back up the rent will have to cover the mortgage payments. After about 2 years expect a series of forced sales reducing house prices.

private equity companies jumped into the foreclosure market and bought up loads of houses and then rented them out at increasingly outragious prices ... also affecting the affordable house purchase market. private equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

some articles:

Private Equity Funds Target Foreclosed Homes As Rental Play
http://nreionline.com/finance-amp-investment/private-equity-funds-target-foreclosed-homes-rental-play
How Housing's New Players Spiraled Into Banks' Old Mistakes
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/business/dealbook/private-equity-housing-missteps.html
Private Equity's Real-Estate Empire
https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/rent-wall-street-is-my-landlord
Private Equity Firms Repeat Banks' Past Errors?
http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2016/06/28/private-equity-firms-repeat-banks-past-errors
Housing Market's New Buyers: Private Equity
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443768804578034821658901916
Big boys entering Residential Foreclosure market via Hedge funds (again)
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/41/topics/74305-big-boys-entering-residential-foreclosure-market-via-hedge-funds-again
How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme--Again
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/wall-street-buying-foreclosed-homes

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

OT: Japanese navy, was Re: E.R. Burroughs

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Japanese navy, was Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 09:55:37 -0700
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
I see the Japanese Navy is building " helicopter carriers" that are much bigger than their previous models and fully capable of carrying VTOL aircraft. An upcoming one is going to carry the name "Kaga". The Japanese Navy now has more carriers than the British.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#61 5th generation stealth, thermal, radar signature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#75 Dinosaurisation of we oldies?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#97 IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#113 E.R. Burroughs

past posts mentioning (traitor) british lord that helped japanese with carrier technology ... instrumental in Pearl Harbor and fall of Singapore:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#72 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#49 channel islands, definitely not the location of LEO

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

Memory management on x86_64

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Memory management on x86_64
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 09:45:56 -0700
Ivan Godard <ivan@millcomputing.com> writes:
And some machine (early MIPS, Mill) put the translation *after* the caches so as to get the translation latency (and misses) out of the critical oath.

traditional 370 had TLB (virtual->real) in front of real address mapped cache. This is the discussion of 3090 which included a small directory of "logical" mapped addresses (mixture of virtual and real)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#email831118

it also helps with virtual machine "guests" translates (i.e. the virtual machine guest is running its own virtual->virtual/real translate).

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

Busting The Banksters---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Busting The Banksters---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall
Date: 20 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Busting The Banksters---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall, Part 1
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/busting-the-banksters-the-case-for-super-glass-steagall-part-1/
and: Busting The Banksters---The Case For Super Glass-Steagall, Part 2
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/busting-the-banksters-the-case-for-super-glass-steagall-part-2/

Disclaimer: Jan2009, I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (30s senate hearings into '29crash, resulted in criminal convictions and Glass-Steagall) with lots of internal HREFs and URLs between what happened then and what happened this time (remarks that the new congress might have appetite to do something). I work on it for awhile and then get a call saying it won't be needed after all (reference to enormous piles/mountains of wallstreet money totally burying capital hill).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall

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

U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business
Date: 20 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/19/nato-weapons-industry/

"Team B" spawns a political dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

White House chief of staff, Rumsfeld replaces director of CIA with somebody that agrees to "Team B" analysis, then Rumsfeld resigns to become SECDEF ... and his assistant Cheney becomes White House chief of staff.

also remember the important thing about U2 reconnaissance, it gave Eisenhower proof that USAF had fabricated the "bomber gap" ... contributing to his warning about military-industrial-complex in his farewell speech

"team b" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
"perpetual war" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
"WMDs" posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds

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

E.R. Burroughs

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: E.R. Burroughs
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:00:38 -0700
"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
Au contraire, the North *is* to blame also for slavery. The Northern states slaves in the 1600's and 1700's. There was a slave market New York City. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#1790_to_1850

... and check out "Abolishion in the North".


"Why Nations Fail", English occupation of America started out trying to emulate the Spanish, enslave the local population to support the invading English ... however North American native population weren't conducive for that ... and Jamestown nearly starved. They then switched from military to enslave the natives, to sending over English with no rights (slaves), pg27:
The clauses of the Fundamental Constitutions laid out a rigid social structure. At the bottom were the "leet-men," with clause 23 noting, "All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to all generations."

... snip ...

past posts reference english royal charter in america ... specified "leet-men"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#31 PC industry is heading for more change
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#15 Imbecilic Constitution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#7 Is there a connection between your strategic and tactical assertions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#17 Cultural attitudes towards failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#71 Is orientation always because what has been observed? What are your 'direct' experiences?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#61 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#84 LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#29 the previous century, was channel islands, definitely not the location of LEO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#62 Future of support for telephone rotary dial ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#38 Qbasic

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

Early Networking

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Early Networking
Date: 21 Aug 2016
Blog: Interesting People
Five myths about the Web
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-internet/2016/08/19/8d33ddf4-656f-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html

Ed was co-worker at the science center when he did the technology for the internal network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

... which was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime 85 or 86.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

the technology was also used for the corporate sponsored univ. bitnet ... which for a time was also larger than the arpanet/internet.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

the internal network had a form of gateway in every node from just about the beginning ... at the time of the arpanet/internet conversion to internetworking protocol on 1jan1983, there were approx. 100 IMP nodes and 255 hosts ... when the internal network was rapidly approaching a 1000 nodes ... which it passed a few months later. old post giving world-wide corporate locations that added one or more network nodes during 1983:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

We had HSDT project starting in the early 80s (T1 and faster speed links)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

and was working with the director of NSF to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cut the budget, some other things happened and finally NSF released an RFP (in part based on what we already had running).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

Internal politics prevented me from bidding. The director of NSF tried to help by writing the company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies, but that just made the internal politics worse (as did the comments that what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all RFP responses). As regional networks connect into the centers it matures into the NSFNET backbone ... precursor to modern internet. Trivia: the NSF RFP called for T1 links (since we already had them running), but the winning bid put in 440kbit/links ... and then for something of a facade to make it look like it met the RFP ... put in T1 trunks with telco multiplexors running multiple 440kbit links over T1 trunks (I would ridicule them why don't they claim T5 network, since some of their T1 trunks were in turn multiplexed over telco T5 trunks).

Science center, was on part of 4th flr 545tech sq, cambridge ... besides Ed's network work in the 60s... also responsible for virtual machines, bunch of online stuff and the invention of GML (in 1969, name taken from 1st letter of the inventor's last name).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

GML morphs into ISO standard SGML a decade later ... and after another decade morphed into HTML at CERN. First webserver outside Europe was at SLAC virtual machine system (previously invented at science center in the 60s)
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml
and
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/firstpages.shtml

Note that email lore goes back to MIT CTSS. Some of the CTSS people go to the 5th flr to do MULTICS and other of the CTSS people join the science center on the 4th flr.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

In the early 80s Ed leaves the company ... but I keep him on as consultant in HSDT. In the early 90s I leave the company ... but am brought in as consultant to small client/server startup that wants to do payment transactions on their server (people responsible for their "commerce server" I had previously worked with when they were at oracle), the startup had also invented "SSL" they want to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce". I have complete authority over the webserver to payment gateway operation ... but can only make recommendations over the client server interface .... some of which were almost immediately violated ... accounting for some of the exploits that continue to this day.

Also in the 90s, until he passes, Postel would let me do part of STD1.

note prior to the Ed's wiki 1973 references work between Tim & Ed .... there was link with Endicott and some other sites where we were doing distributed development of cp67 (on 360/67) supporting 370 virtual machines .... with 370 virtual memory architecture.

Because there were non-employees (students and staff from univ. in cambridge area) using the production CP67 system, the 370 virtual machine work was almost all conducted in virtual machines (wasn't yet announced and needed to be kept confidential and secure from all non-employees).

The real 360/67 ran CP67-L production system that provided 360/67 virtual machines

In 360/67 virtual machines ran CP67-H system that was modified to emulate 370 virtual machines

In 370 virtual machine, ran CP67-I system that was modified to support 370 architecture (rather than 360/67 architecture).

The CP67-I systems were running in regular operation a year before the first engineering 370 supporting virtual memory was available ... in fact, the CP67-I system was used for regression tests of that machine..

Then the CP67-I system were used internally for internal 370s ... before 370 was announced and shipped to customers ... and even for some time even after vm370 product (follow-on to cp67) had been developed.

The 1973 wiki Tim/Ed reference is that HASP/JES2 had a form of their own networking ... source had TUCC in cols 68-71 ... from where it was originally developed. Ed had layered gateway architecture ... and Tim implemented a HASP/JES2 driver for VNET. And because HASP/JES2 implementation was so bad .... intermixing networking fields with job control fields, the VNET HASP/JES2 drivers had to develop field format conversions specifically for the JES2 system it was talking to keep JES2 from bringing down MVS (VNET was used between two JES2 systems at different release levels where changes in field formats in one JES2 would crash other JES2/MVS systems at different release levels)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp

Other trivia:

When I was undergraduate at Univ. in 60s, four of us were written up responsible for (some part of) clone controller business. We had build our own telecommunication controller ... building hardware interface for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate 270x. Subsequent claim is that major motivation for Future System was countermeasure to clone controller business ... making the processor/controller interface so complex, that competitor would have a tough time keeping up.

Hypothesis is that much of SNA from that period ... had objective of satisfying those FS requirements ... but not as "networking" but as dumb terminal control communication infrastructure.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

However in the time-frame that SNA was being specified, my wife was co-author with Bert Moldow of (IBM internal) AWP39 "peer-to-peer" network architecture (had to use "peer-to-peer" qualifier because SNA had co-opted "networking" for their communication infrastructure).

Also in the time-frame that we were working with director of NSF on interconnecting the NSF supercomputers, the corporate communication group was spreading misinformation as part of justification to convert the internal network to SNA. I had a bunch of pathlength and other stuff for supporting T1 & faster speed links ... which I wanted to get into the corporate backbone ... but the communication group had tied up the corporate steering committee with the SNA conversion issue. Note also at that time ... the fastest communication link supported by SNA was 56kbit ... and besides the other misinformation they were generating ... they had to obfuscate the 56kbit link restriction.

Even more trivia:

I got involved with Greg Chesson and on the technical advisery board for XTP ... and we tried to take it as HSP to x3s3.3 (iso chartered standards body for OSI level3&4, network/transport) but ISO had a rule that it wouldn't standardize anything that violated OSI model. HSP was rejected because if violated OSI model:
1) supported LAN MAC interface ... which sits in the middle of layer 3 which doesn't exist in the OSI model

2) supported internetworking layer ... exists between network & transport ... doesn't exist in OSI model

3) went directly from transport to LAN MAC interface ... skipping level 3/4 interface.


some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

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

Iraq War

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Iraq War
Date: 21 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
Not just Cheney ... whole "Team B" and military-industrial complex looking for big uptick in military budget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
Team B posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
MIC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

Director of CIA won't agree to Team B analysis justifying big increase in military budget. White House chief of staff Rumsfeld gets the CIA director to resign, replacing him with somebody (Bush1) that would agree with the analysis, Rumsfled then resigns to become SECDEF and is replaced by his assistant Cheney.

80s, they are involved with supporting Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
including supplying WMDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war

more trivia: early 90s, sat. recon analyst notified administration that Saddam was preparing to invade Kuwait. The administration said Saddam would do no such thing and proceeded to discredit the analyst. Then the analyst notifies that Saddam was preparing to invade Saudi Arabia, the administration now has to choose between Iraq and Saudi Arabia (Bush1 is president and Cheney is now SECDEF)
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2/

Last decade, the cousin of White House chief of staff (Card) is dealing with Iraq in the UN and given proof that the WMDs have been decommissioned ... which is forwarded to Card, Powell and others ... before it can be made public, the cousin is locked up in military hospital. (Bush2 is president, Cheney is VP, and Rumsfeld is SECDEF again). The cousin eventually gets out and publishes a book in 2010.
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/

NY times series from fall 2014 about finding the decommissioned WMDs (tracing back to the US) and the information was kept classified for a decade (corroborates details in cousin's book published 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html
WMD posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds

MIC wanted a war so badly that corporate reps were telling former eastern block countries that if they voted for IRAQ2 invasion in the UN, they would get membership in NATO and (directed appropriation) USAID (for purchase of modern US arms).
https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-War-Lockheed-Military-Industrial-ebook/dp/B0047T86BA/

another "Team B" member (see wiki reference above)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
He is a leading neoconservative.[4] As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate."[5] In fact, "the Bush Doctrine was largely [his] handiwork."

... snip ...

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

Five myths about the Web

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Five myths about the Web
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:51:46 -0700
Five myths about the Web
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-internet/2016/08/19/8d33ddf4-656f-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html

In large mailing list ... somebody cited this wiki entry about former co-worker at the science center:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks#Technological_Innovations

and I have long winded stuff to say ... archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#124

recent posts mentioning edh:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#101 Internal Network, NSFNET, Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#8 What Does School Really Teach Children
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#31 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#53 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#108 Some (IBM-related) History

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

Early Networking

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Early Networking
Date: 21 Aug 2016
Blog: Interesting People
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#124 Early Networking

other trivia ....

in the early 80s, some of HSDT links were satellite ... and we moved to (dynamic) rate-based pacing. Then in XTP ... I wrote rate-based pacing into the spec.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

The summer that Jacobson presented "slow start" (adjusting window size) at IETF, annual ACM SIGCOMM had paper showing "slow start" was not stable in large heterogeneous network. One scenario was that returning ACKs tend to bunch at intermediate nodes and arrive at origin in large batch .... opening windows for multiple back-to-back packet transmissions ... which then saturates some intermediate node (as a result, "slow start" slowly opens window number of packets ... and then quickly shuts it down).

One scenario for "slow start" was a lot of the platforms being dealt with at the time had lacked adequate timer support ... making "rate based" pacing implementation difficult (but that almost immediately changed).

In the last decade or so there have been some "fast TCP" demonstrations ... which basically involved replacing "slow start" with rate-based pacing.

HTTP (& HTTPS) shortcut was to use TCP session management for atomic packet protocol. As HTTP/HTTPS server activity started to scale up ... server CPU went quickly to 100% trying to manage the TCP session FINWAIT list. It then took six months before vendors started deploying optimized FINWAIT list processing.

TCP requires a minimum of 7 packets for reliable packet delivery, XTP was optimized to do it in 3 packets. I wrote up HTTPS spec where all the HTTPS crypto protocol chatter (on top of the TCP 7 packet minium) could be piggy-backed on XTP 3-packet exchange ... but couldn't get it adopted.

People may have noticed some of this when NETSCAPE was increasing the number of NETSCAPEnn webservers .... telling users to manually load balance across those servers. That continued until until they installed SEQUENT machine ... SEQUENT had run into the FINWAIT problem some time previously when supporting commercial 20,000 TELNET configurations and encountering the FINWAIT problem (separate from a SEQUENT server having large number of tightly coupled multiprocessors).

One of the issues for the internal network was that the different divisions, regions, countries ... were different administration organizational operations ... something that arpanet may have been thinking about but needed internetworking support before dealing with the problem.

Another requirement was that the corporation required all internal networks to be encrypted ... which resulted in all sorts of problems to be dealt with ... especially when links crossed national boundaries (mid-80s, the major link encryptor vendor claimed that the internal network had more than half of all link encryptors in the world).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

I've referenced previously ... but this old post has list of world-wide corporate locations that added one or more network nodes in 1983:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s ... folklore is that when the corporate executive committee was told about online computer conferencing (and the internal network), 5of6 wanted to fire me.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

Some of the internal network technology was used in the corporate sponsored univ. network BITNET (which was also larger than arpanet/internet for some time)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET

In europe, it was referred to as EARN ... old email from person responsible for EARN asking about online applications.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320

I have the X3S3.3 HSP minutes ... including from summer 1990: X3S3.3 is not yet progressing TCP/IP as a national standard, because of procedural concerns and lack of official coordination between the Internet Activities Board and ANSI.

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

This Day in History: 22Aug1955, The First Computer User Group Is Founded

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: This Day in History: 22Aug1955, The First Computer User Group Is Founded
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Aug 2016 09:09:51 -0700
This Day in History: 22Aug1955, The First Computer User Group Is Founded
http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/August/22/
Following a Los Angeles symposium hosted by IBM, a group of representatives from seventeen groups that had ordered the IBM 704 mainframe computer met at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. The outcome of the meeting was the first computer user's group, SHARE. The name was chosen to promote the idea of sharing information and programs between installations. The group grew quickly, eventually producing new software and documentation for their IBM computers.

... snip ...

Back when software was free (& shared) ... before legal actions and 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement ... that started to charge for (application) software. Company was able to make the case that operating system software should still be free. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

Then the "Future System" effort in the early/mid 70s ... was completely different and replace 370 ... so 370 efforts were being shutdown ... the lack of 370 products during the period is credited with giving clone processor makers a market foothold. more discussion
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
and past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

when Future System imploded, there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline ... and also because of the clone processors ... decision to transition to charging for operating system software.

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

IBM is Absolutely Down For The Count

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM is Absolutely Down For The Count
Date: 22 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
IBM is Absolutely Down For The Count
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4000710-ibm-absolutely-count

This essay is in direct response to Daniel Katz's IBM Is Not Down for the Count.

... snip ...

i.e. IBM's Survival Instinct
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3999712-ibms-survival-instinct

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

3380 & 3081 history

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 3380 & 3081 history
Date: 22 Aug 2016
Blog: Facebook
After I transferred to SJR and they let me wander around San Jose plant site. I did some stuff for engineers in bldg14 (engineering development) and then they started wanting me to play disk engineer ... including sitting in on conference calls with POK channel engineers (I was being tapped because I knew a little about channel interface). past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

From long ago and far away.

Date: 09/17/82 10:40:29
From: wheeler

Talking to a GPD engineer he says that IBM has not technical talent to come out with another control unit. As an example, he said that when he joined the group out here, there were at least 10-12 people in his area alone that understood the channel interface ... he thinks that there might be one such person now in the whole GPD division ... the rest have left the company.

I've heard what sounds like contigency projects on the east coast with channel development that completely bypass control units and connects directly to drives. .... I was in meetings all day yesterday, but one time I stopped by my office two people down the hall were talking about head crash on 3380 and now might be a good time to sell all your IBM stock. SJRLVM1 took head crash on customer ship level of 3380s yesterday and they replaced the HDAs last night in the box. ...

Performance numbers for the 3084 seem to have some liberties. 4-way should have three times the performance interferance that a 2-way (cache invalidation signals from 3 other processors instead of one). They cheat with the 3083 versis 3081. for example, on a 158ap, running a UP generated system ... the processor runs 10% slower if the switch on the machine is in AP-mode rather than UP-mode (additional delay in each machine cycle just to listen for cache invalidation signals from the other processor ... this is w/o the other processor even executing anything generating storage alterations & cache invalidation signals). For 3083 the machine cycle invalidation listening delay was left in the machine. I've heard that the 3084 numbers are somewhat selected benchmarks that do minimal storage alterations ... extensive storage alteration programs can have disastrous effects on 3084 performance.

I've been told that almost every control unit that has attached to a 308x has had to undergo hardware ECs ... apparently it was easier for every control unit hardware group in the company (even on machines no longer with development group people available) to resolve the problems than for the 308x channels. Also did you see the message that ACP runs 20% slower on a 3081d than on a 3033. On a 3081k, ACP runs 5% faster than a 3033. POK is started a special 3081k CPU program where the 3081s coming down the line will be tested to see if they can run with their clock cranked down. If they pass, they will be special high performance 3081Ks which run slightly faster than normal 3081ks.


... snip ... top of post, old email index

some more about 3033 & 308x lore:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

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

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

Five myths about the Web

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Five myths about the Web
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:40:55 -0700
hancock4 writes:
He doesn't go back far enough.

As mentioned, Western Union published some basic concepts of a "national information utility" back in 1965. WU hoped to be the "backbone" of such a network of networks. They were working with ARPA in developing the packet switching concept.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#124 Early Networking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#126 Five myths about the Web

comment from mailing list ....

Western Union torn tape routing in telegraphy was well known at the time and it seems Davies and Baran deserve some mention.

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




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