List of Archived Posts
2024 Newsgroup Postings (07/29 - )
- 2314 Disks
- TYMSHARE Dialup
- DASD CKD
- TYMSHARE Dialup
- Private Equity
- For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
- 2314 Disks
- For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
- Ampere Arm Server CPUs To Get 512 Cores, AI Accelerator
- Saudi Arabia and 9/11
- For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
- Private Equity Giants Invest More Than $200M in Federal Races to Protect Their Lucrative Tax Loophole
- 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
- 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
- 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
- IBM Downfall and Make-over
- 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
- IBM Downfall and Make-over
- IBM Downfall and Make-over
- HONE, APL, IBM 5100
- TYMSHARE, ADVENTURE/games
- 360/50 and CP-40
- Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
- After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care for patients
- Public Facebook Mainframe Group
- VMNETMAP
- VMNETMAP
- VMNETMAP
- VMNETMAP
- VMNETMAP
- Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
- VMNETMAP
- The Irrationality of Markets
- IBM 138/148
- VMNETMAP
- Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
- Implicit Versus Explicit "Run" Command
- Gene Amdahl
- Gene Amdahl
- The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
- Instruction Tracing
- Netscape
- The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
- Netscape
- Netscape
- Netscape
- Netscape
- Netscape
- PROFS
- OSI and XTP
- Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
- Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
- IBM Token-Ring, Ethernet, FCS
- Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
- Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
- Article on new mainframe use
- IBM SAA and Somers
- DEBE
- IBM SAA and Somers
- Article on new mainframe use
- Early Networking
- Article on new mainframe use
- RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
- RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
- RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
- Amdahl
- The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
- The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
- The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
- Public Facebook Mainframe Group
- The Rise And Fall Of Unix
- The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
- The Rise And Fall Of Unix
- The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
- IBM San Jose
- IBM San Jose
- The Death of the Engineer CEO
- The Death of the Engineer CEO
- IBM DB2
- NSFNET
- IBM DB2
- IBM/PC
- The Internet's 100 Oldest Dot-Com Domains
- Scheduler
- IBM GPD/AdStaR Disk Division
- When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
- When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
- IBM San Jose
- IBM DB2
- Under industry pressure, IRS division blocked agents from using new law to stop wealthy tax dodgers
- Mainframe Processor and I/O
- When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
- IBM TPF
- The rise and fall of IBM
- IBM TPF
- RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
- IBM CICS
- COBOL history, Article on new mainframe use
- RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
- PROFS, SCRIPT, GML, Internal Network
- 360, 370, post-370, multiprocessor
- I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s - here's what I discovered
- Rise and Fall IBM/PC
- Rise and Fall IBM/PC
- Rise and Fall IBM/PC
- IBM 801/RISC
- IBM 801/RISC
- How the Media Sanitizes Trump's Insanity
- Auto C4 Taskforce
- Seastar and Iceberg
- Edson and Bullying
- Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
- Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
- 370/125, Future System, 370-138/148
- Seastar and Iceberg
- what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
- what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
- what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
- big, fast, etc, was is Vax addressing sane today
2314 Disks
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 2314 Disks
Date: 29 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM Wilshire Showroom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jglBy9LOI
when I graduated and join science center, had 360/67 with increasing
banks of 2314, quickly grew to five 8+1 banks and a 5 bank (for 45
drives) ... the CSC FE then painted each bank panel door with a
different color ... to help operator mapping disk mount request
address to a 2314 bank.
one of hobbies after joining IBM was enhanced production operating
systems for internal datacenters and online branch office
sales&marketing suppprt HONE systems was long time customer (1st
cp67/cms then vm370/cms) ... most frequently stopped by HONE 1133
westchester and wilshire blvd (3424?) ... before all US HONE
datacenters were consolidated in Palo Alto (trivia: when facebook 1st
moves into silicon valley it is new bldg built next to the former US
consolidated HONE datacenter). First US consolidated operation was
single-system-image, loosely-coupled, shared DASD with load-balancing
and fall-over across the complex (one of the largest in the world,
some similar airlines TPF operations), then a 2nd processor was added
to each system (making it the largest, TPF didn't get SMP
multiprocessor support for another decade).
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
SMP, loosely-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
Posts mentioning CSC & 45 2314 drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#72 I/O processors, What could cause a comeback for big-endianism very slowly?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#51 3090/3880 trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#50 Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet, 1974
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#60 The IBM mainframe has been the backbone of most of the world's largest IT organizations for more than 48 years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#16 Looking for a real Fortran-66 compatible PC compiler (CP/M or DOS or Windows, doesn't matter)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#14 Disk drives as commodities. Was Re: Yamhill
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
TYMSHARE Dialup
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: TYMSHARE Dialup
Date: 30 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM 2741 dialup at home, Mar1970-Jun1977, replaced by CDI Miniterm.
Note Aug1976, TYMSHARE starts offering their VM370/CMS-based online
computer conferencing to (user group) SHARE as VMSHARE ... archives
here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I cut deal w/TYMSHARE to get a monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE (and
later PCSHARE) files for putting up on internal network and systems
... one of biggest problems was lawyers concern that internal
employees would be contaminated by unfiltered customer information.
Much later with M/D acquiring TYMSHARE, I was brought in to review
GNOSIS for the spinoff:
Ann Hardy at Computer History Museum
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102717167
Ann rose up to become Vice President of the Integrated Systems
Division at Tymshare, from 1976 to 1984, which did online airline
reservations, home banking, and other applications. When Tymshare was
acquired by McDonnell-Douglas in 1984, Ann's position as a female VP
became untenable, and was eased out of the company by being encouraged
to spin out Gnosis, a secure, capabilities-based operating system
developed at Tymshare. Ann founded Key Logic, with funding from Gene
Amdahl, which produced KeyKOS, based on Gnosis, for IBM and Amdahl
mainframes. After closing Key Logic, Ann became a consultant, leading
to her cofounding Agorics with members of Ted Nelson's Xanadu project.
... snip ...
Ann Hardy
https://medium.com/chmcore/someone-elses-computer-the-prehistory-of-cloud-computing-bca25645f89
Ann Hardy is a crucial figure in the story of Tymshare and
time-sharing. She began programming in the 1950s, developing software
for the IBM Stretch supercomputer. Frustrated at the lack of
opportunity and pay inequality for women at IBM -- at one point she
discovered she was paid less than half of what the lowest-paid man
reporting to her was paid -- Hardy left to study at the University of
California, Berkeley, and then joined the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in 1962. At the lab, one of her projects involved an early
and surprisingly successful time-sharing operating system.
... snip ...
If Discrimination, Then Branch: Ann Hardy's Contributions to Computing
https://computerhistory.org/blog/if-discrimination-then-branch-ann-hardy-s-contributions-to-computing/
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
online virtual machine commercial services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
DASD CKD
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: DASD CKD
Date: 30 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
CKD was trade-off with i/o capacity and mainframe memory in mid-60s
... but the mid-70s trade-off started to flip. IBM 3370 FBA in the
late 70s and then all disks started to migrate to fixed-block (can be
seen in 3380 records/track formulas, record size had to be rounded up
to fixed "cell size"). Currently there haven't been any CKD DASD made
for decades, all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block
disks).
took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers, end of the semester
hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30. Univ getting 360/67 for
tss/360. to replace 709/1401 and temporary got 360/30 (that had 1401
microcode emulation) to replace 1401, pending arrival of 360/67 (Univ
shutdown datacenter on weekend, and I would have it dedicated,
although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). Within a year of
taking intro class, 360/67 showed up and I was hired fulltime
responsibility for OS/360 (tss/360 didn't come to production, so ran
as 360/65 with os/360) ... and I continued to have my dedicated
weekend time. Student fortran ran under second on 709 (tape to tape),
but initial over a minute on 360/65. I install HASP and it cuts time
in half. I then start revamping stage2 sysgen to place datasets and
PDS members to optimize disk seek and multi-track searches, cutting
another 2/3rds to 12.9secs; never got better than 709 until I install
univ of waterloo WATFOR.
My 1st SYSGEN was R9.5MFT, then started redoing stage2 sysgen for
R11MFT. MVT shows up with R12 but I didn't do MVT gen until R15/16
(15/16 disk format shows up being able to specify VTOC cyl ... aka
place other than cyl0 to reduce avg. arm seek).
Bob Bemer history page (gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180402200149/http://www.bobbemer.com/HISTORY.HTM
360s were originally to be ASCII machines ... but the ASCII unit
record gear wasn't ready ... so had to use old tab BCD gear (and
EBCDIC) ... biggest computer goof ever:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM
Learson named in the "biggest computer goof ever" ... then he is CEO
and tried (and failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists and MBAs
from destroying Watson culture and legacy ... then 20yrs later, IBM
has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies and was
being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up
the company
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
DASD CKD, FBA, multi-track search posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd
getting to play disk engineer in bldg 14&15 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
some recent posts mentioning ASCII and/or Bob Bemer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#107 Biggest Computer Goof Ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#105 Biggest Computer Goof Ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#99 Interdata Clone IBM Telecommunication Controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#74 Some Email History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#33 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#93 ASCII/TTY33 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#53 IBM 3705 & 3725
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#16 CTSS, Multicis, CP67/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#14 Bemer, ASCII, Brooks and Mythical Man Month
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#114 EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#113 EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#81 rusty iron why ``folklore''?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#59 Vintage HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#102 EBCDIC Card Punch Format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#100 Multicians
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#40 UNIX, MULTICS, CTSS, CSC, CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#31 MIT Area Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#26 1960's COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME Origin and Technology (IRS, NASA)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#12 THE RISE OF UNIX. THE SEEDS OF ITS FALL
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
TYMSHARE Dialup
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: TYMSHARE Dialup
Date: 30 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#1 TYMSHARE Dialup
CSC comes out to install CP67/CMS (3rd after CSC itself and MIT
Lincoln Labs, precursor to VM370), which I mostly got to play with
during my weekend dedicated time. First few months I mostly spent
rewriting CP67 pathlengths for running os/360 in virtual machine; test
os/360 stream 322secs, initially ran 856secs virtually; CP67 CPU
534secs got down to CP67 CPU 113secs. CP67 had 1052 & 2741 support
with automatic terminal type identification (controller SAD CCW to
switch port scanner terminal type). Univ had some TTY terminals so I
added TTY support integrated with automatic terminal type.
I then wanted to have single dial-up number ("hunt group") for all
terminals ... but IBM had taken short-cut and hardwired port
line-speed ... which kicks off univ. program to build clone
controller, building channel interface board for Interdata/3,
programmed to emulate IBM controller with inclusion of automatic line
speed. Later upgraded to Interdata/4 for channel interface and cluster
of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Four of us get written up
responsible for (some part of) IBM clone controller business
... initially sold by Interdata and then by Perkin-Elmer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
Turn of century, tour of datacenter and a descendant of the Interdata
telecommunication controller handling majority of all credit card
swipe dial-up terminals east of the mississippi.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
clone controller posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Private Equity
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Private Equity
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#106 Private Equity
When private equity buys a hospital, assets shrink, new research
finds. The study comes as U.S. regulators investigate the industry's
profit-taking and its effect on patient care.
https://archive.ph/ClHZ5
Private Equity Professionals Are 'Fighting Fires' in Their Portfolios,
Slowing Down the Recovery. At the same time, "the interest rate spike
has raised the stakes of holding an asset longer," says Bain & Co.
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2dkcwhdzmq3njso767d34/portfolio/private-equity-professionals-are-fighting-fires-in-their-portfolios-slowing-down-the-recovery
private equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote. Boeing
guilty plea highlights how corporate convictions rarely have
consequences that threaten the business
https://archive.ph/if7H0
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
some posts mentioning Boeing (& fraud):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#42 Defense contractors aren't securing sensitive information, watchdog finds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#37 Imagining a Cyber Surprise: How Might China Use Stolen OPM Records to Target Trust?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#26 DoD watchdog: Air Force failed to effectively manage F-22 modernization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#55 Pareto efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#54 Pareto efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#42 No, the F-35 Can't Fight at Long Range, Either
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#13 IBM & Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#3 Quitting Top IBM Salespeople Say They Are Leaving In Droves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#88 Court OKs Firing of Boeing Computer-Security Whistleblowers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#75 Is Security a Curse for the Cloud Computing Industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#18 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#5 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
2314 Disks
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 2314 Disks
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html0 2314 Disks
trivia: ACP/TPF got a 3830 symbolic lock RPQ for loosely-coupled
operation (sort of like the later DEC VAXCluster implementation) much
faster than reserve/release protocol ... but was limited to four
system operation, disk division discontinued since it conflicted with
string switch requiring two 3830s). HONE did an interesting HACK that
simulated processor compare&swap semantics instruction, that worked
across string switch ... so extended to 8 system operation (and with
SMP was 16 processor).
archived email with ACP/TPF 3830 disk controller lock RPQ details
... only serializes I/O for channels connected to same 3830
controller.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#email800325
in this post which has a little detail about HONE I/O that simulates
the processor compare-and-swap instruction semantics (works across
string switch and multiple disk controllers)
http://www.garliic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#39
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor (and some compare-and-swap)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
other posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
recent posts mentionine HONE, loosely-coupled, single-system-image
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#113 ... some 3090 and a little 3081
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#100 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#92 Computer Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#62 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#119 Financial/ATM Processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#112 Multithreading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#90 Gordon Bell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#72 Vintage Internet and Vintage APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#31 HONE, Performance Predictor, and Configurators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#26 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#18 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#112 IBM User Group SHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#88 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#78 Mainframe Performance Optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#72 MVS/TSO and VM370/CMS Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#30 Vintage IBM OS/VU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#6 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#92 CSC, HONE, 23Jun69 Unbundling, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#41 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#87 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#75 microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, supercomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#53 VM370/CMS Shared Segments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#106 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#90 IBM 3083
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#23 VM370, SMP, HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#77 IBM Big Blue, True Blue, Bleed Blue
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#10 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#80 IBM 158-3 (& 4341)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#91 IBM 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#49 23Jun1969 Unbundling and Online IBM Branch Offices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#112 TOPS-20 Boot Camp for VMS Users 05-Mar-2022
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#2 360/91
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#90 IBM Cambridge Science Center Performance Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#88 IBM Cambridge Science Center Performance Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#61 Datacenter Vulnerability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#59 The Man That Helped Change IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#53 z/VM 50th - part 4
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#44 z/VM 50th
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#30 IBM Power: The Servers that Apple Should Have Created
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#10 9 Mainframe Statistics That May Surprise You
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#50 Channel Program I/O Processing Efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#62 IBM 360/50 Simulation From Its Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#8 Porting APL to CP67/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#101 Online Computer Conferencing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#81 165/168/3033 & 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#29 IBM HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#23 MS/DOS for IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#108 168 Loosely-Coupled Configuration
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#25 VM370, 3081, and AT&T Long Lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#77 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#10 A brief overview of IBM's new 7 nm Telum mainframe CPU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#34 IBM Fan-fold cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#30 IBM HSDT & HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#61 Performance Monitoring, Analysis, Simulation, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#43 IBM Powerpoint sales presentations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#80 AT&T Long-lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#15 IBM Recruiting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#86 IBM Auditors and Games
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#74 Airline Reservation System
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#5 For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
The rest is
The accounting firm Arthur Andersen collapsed in 2002 after
prosecutors indicted the company for shredding evidence related to its
audits of failed energy conglomerate Enron. For years after Andersen's
demise, prosecutors held back from indicting major corporations,
fearing they would kill the firm in the process.
... snip ...
The Sarbanes-Oxley joke was that congress felt so badly about the
Anderson collapse that they really increased the audit requirements
for public companies. The rhetoric on flr of congress were claims that
SOX would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee executives &
auditors did jail time ... however it required SEC to do
something. GAO did analysis of public company fraudulent financial
filings showing that it even increased after SOX went into effect (and
nobody doing jail time).
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-138
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-678
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-1053R
The other observation was possibly the only part of SOX that was going
to make some difference might be the informants/whistleblowers
(folklore was one of congressional members involved in SOX had been
former FBI involved in taking down organized crime and supposedly what
made if possible were informants/whistleblowers).
Something similar showed up with the economic mess, financial houses
2001-2008 did over $27T in securitizing mortgages/loans; aka paying
for triple-A rating (when rating agencies knew they weren't
worth triple-A, from Oct2008 congressional hearings) and
selling into the bond market. YE2008, just the four
largest too-big-to-fail were still carrying $5.2T in
offbook toxic CDOs.
Then found some of the too-big-to-fail were money laundering
for terrorists and drug cartels (various stories it enabled drug
cartels to buy military grade equipment largely responsible for
violence on both sides of the border). There would be repeated
"deferred prosecution" (promising never to do again, each time)
... supposedly if they repeated they would be prosecuting (but
apparent previous violations were consistently ignored). Gave rise to
too-big-to-prosecute and too-big-to-jail ... in addition to
too-big-to-fail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_prosecution
trivia: 1999: I was asked to try and help block (we failed) the coming
economic mess; 2004: I was invited to annual conference of EU CEOs and
heads of financial exchanges, that year's theme was EU companies, that
dealt with US companies, were being forced into performing SOX audits
(aka I was there to discuss effectiveness of SOX).
ENRON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
Sarbanes-Oxley posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
whistleblower posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower
Fraudulent Financial Filing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud
economic mess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
too-big-to-fail (too-big-to-prosecute, too-big-to-jail) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
(offbook) toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
money laundering posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#money.laundering
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
some posts mentioning deferred prosecution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#59 Too-Big-To-Fail Money Laundering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#58 Sales of US-Made Guns and Weapons, Including US Army-Issued Ones, Are Under Spotlight in Mexico Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#19 Huge Number of Migrants Highlights Border Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#89 As US-style corporate leniency deals for bribery and corruption go global, repeat offenders are on the rise
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#73 Wall Street Has Deployed a Dirty Tricks Playbook Against Whistleblowers for Decades, Now the Secrets Are Spilling Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#111 Pigs Want To Feed at the Trough Again: Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson Use Crisis Anniversary to Ask for More Bailout Powers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#60 Dirty Money, Shiny Architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#56 Feds WIMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#39 Trump to sign cyber security order
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#13 Trump to sign cyber security order
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#45 Western Union Admits Anti-Money Laundering and Consumer Fraud Violations, Forfeits $586 Million in Settlement with Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#109 Why Aren't Any Bankers in Prison for Causing the Financial Crisis?
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/2016c.html#41 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#29 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#73 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#0 Thanks Obama
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#36 I Feel Old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#10 25 Years: How the Web began
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#65 Economic Mess
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#47 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#44 rationality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015h.html#31 Talk of Criminally Prosecuting Corporations Up, Actual Prosecutions Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#61 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#57 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#37 LIBOR: History's Largest Financial Crime that the WSJ and NYT Would Like You to Forget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#36 Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#47 Do we REALLY NEED all this regulatory oversight?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#44 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#23 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#80 Greedy Banks Nailed With $5 BILLION+ Fine For Fraud And Corruption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#10 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Ampere Arm Server CPUs To Get 512 Cores, AI Accelerator
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Ampere Arm Server CPUs To Get 512 Cores, AI Accelerator
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
AmpereOne Aurora In Development With Up To 512 Cores, AmpereOne Prices
Published
https://www.phoronix.com/review/ampereone-skus-pricing
Ampere Arm Server CPUs To Get 512 Cores, AI Accelerator
https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/07/31/ampere-arm-server-cpus-to-get-512-cores-ai-accelerator/
When it comes to server CPUs, the "cloud titans" account for more than
half the server revenues and more than half the shipments, and with
server GPUs, which are by far the dominant AI accelerators, these
companies probably account for 65 percent or maybe even 70 percent or
75 percent of revenues and shipments.
... snip ...
There was comparison of IBM max configured z196, 80processors, 50BIPS,
$30M ($600,000/BIPS) and IBM E5-2600 server blades, 16processors,
500BIPS, base list price $1815 ($3.63/BIPS). Note BIPS benchmark is
number of iterations of program compared to the reference platform
(not actual count of instructions). At the time, large cloud
operations claimed that they were assembling their own server blades
for 1/3rd brand named servers ($605, $1.21/BIPS and 500BIPS, ten times
BIPS of max. configured z196 at 1/500000 the price/BIPS). Then there
were articles that the server chip vendors were shipping at least half
their product directly to large cloud operators (that assemble their
own servers). Shortly later, IBM sells-off its server product line.
cloud megadatacenter posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#megadatacenter
some posts mentioning IBM z196/e5-2600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#40 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#112 TOPS-20 Boot Camp for VMS Users 05-Mar-2022
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#19 Telum & z16
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#63 Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#56 IBM and Cloud Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#92 How IBM lost the cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#0 Will The Cloud Take Down The Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Saudi Arabia and 9/11
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Saudi Arabia and 9/11
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Saudi Arabia and 9/11
After 9/11, victims were prohibited from suing Saudi Arabia for
responsibility, that wasn't lifted until 2013, some recent progress in
holding Saudi Arabia accountable
New Claims of Saudi Role in 9/11 Bring Victims' Families Back to Court
in Lawsuit Against Riyadh
https://www.nysun.com/article/new-claims-of-saudi-role-in-9-11-bring-victims-families-back-to-court-in-lawsuit-against-riyadh
Lawyers for Saudi Arabia seek dismissal of claims it supported the
Sept. 11 hijackers
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyers-saudi-arabia-seek-dismissal-claims-supported-sept-112458690
September 11th families suing Saudi Arabia back in federal court in
Lower Manhattan, New York City
https://abc7ny.com/post/september-11th-families-suing-saudi-arabia-back-federal-court-lower-manhattan-new-york-city/15126848/
Video: 'Wow, shocking': '9/11 Justice' president reacts to report on
possible Saudi involvement in 9/11
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/31/us/video/saudi-arabia-9-11-report-eagleson-lead-digvid
9/11 defendants reach plea deal with Defense Department in Saudi
Arabia lawsuit
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/9-11-justice-families-saudi-arabia-lawsuit-hearing-attacks
9/11 families furious over plea deal for terror mastermind on same day
Saudi lawsuit before judge
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/07/31/9-11-families-furious-over-plea-deal-for-terror-mastermind-on-same-day-saudi-lawsuit-before-judge/
Judge hears evidence against Saudi Arabia in 9/11 families lawsuit
https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/9-11-families-news-conference-saudi-lawsuit-hearing/
9/11 families furious over plea deal for terror mastermind on same day
Saudi lawsuit goes before judge | Nation World
https://www.rv-times.com/nation_world/9-11-families-furious-over-plea-deal-for-terror-mastermind-on-same-day-saudi-lawsuit/article_762df686-9b9e-58df-9140-30268848e252.html
Latest news some of the recent 9/11 Saudi Arabia material wasn't
released by US gov. but obtained from the British gov.
U.S. Signals It Will Release Some Still-Secret Files on Saudi Arabia
and 9/11
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/us/politics/sept-11-saudi-arabia-biden.html
Democratic senators increase pressure to declassify 9/11 documents
related to Saudi role in attacks
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/566547-democratic-senators-increase-pressure-to-declassify-9-11-documents/
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
WMD posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds
some past posts mentioning Saudi Arabia and 9/11
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#22 The Saudi Connection: Inside the 9/11 Case That Divided the F.B.I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#143 "Undeniable Evidence": Explosive Classified Docs Reveal Afghan War Mass Deception
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#85 Just and Unjust Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#70 Since 2001 We Have Spent $32 Million Per Hour on War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#67 Profit propaganda ads witch-hunt era
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#99 Trump claims he's the messiah. Maybe he should quit while he's ahead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#79 Bretton Woods Institutions: Enforcers, Not Saviours?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#54 Global Warming and U.S. National Security Diplomacy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#7 You paid taxes. These corporations didn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#56 U.S. Has Spent Six Trillion Dollars on Wars That Killed Half a Million People Since 9/11, Report Says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#45 Jeffrey Skilling, Former Enron Chief, Released After 12 Years in Prison
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#42 Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#65 Doubts about the HR departments that require knowledge of technology that does not exist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#93 Qbasic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#13 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#12 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#54 The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You
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/2014d.html#89 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#11 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#4 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#103 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#30 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
Date: 31 Jul, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#5 For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#7 For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote
The Madoff congressional hearings had the person that had tried
(unsuccessfully) for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff
(SEC's hands were finally forced when Madoff turned himself in, story
is that he had defrauded some unsavory characters and Madoff was
looking for gov. protection). In any case, part of the hearing
testimony was that informants turn up 13 times more fraud than audits
(while SEC had a 1-800 number to complain about audits, it didn't have
a 1-800 "tip" line)
Madoff posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff
Sarbanes-Oxley posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
whistleblower posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Private Equity Giants Invest More Than $200M in Federal Races to Protect Their Lucrative Tax Loophole
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Private Equity Giants Invest More Than $200M in Federal Races to Protect Their Lucrative Tax Loophole
Date: 02 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Private Equity Giants Invest More Than $200M in Federal Races to
Protect Their Lucrative Tax Loophole
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2024/07/31/private-equity-giants-invest-more-than-200m-in-federal-races-to-protect-their-lucrative-tax-loophole/
The 11 private equity leaders have contributed more than $223 million
to congressional and presidential candidates and the super PACs that
support them, accounting for almost 20% of all money contributed by
thousands of companies in the finance sector, according to Open
Secrets data. During the 2016 election cycle, the Center for Media and
Democracy (CMD) reported that the 147 private equity firms it analyzed
contributed $92 million to candidates and super PACs.
... snip ...
... trivia, the industry had gotten such a bad reputation during the
"S&L Crisis" that they changed the name to private equity and "junk
bonds" became "high-yield bonds". There was business TV news show
where the interviewer repeatedly said "junk bonds" and the person
being interviewed kept saying "high-yield bonds"
private-equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax loopholes, tax abuse, tax avoidance, tax
haven posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
S&L Crisis posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#s&l.crisis
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
360 1052-7 Operator's Console
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
Date: 02 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
I took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers and end of semester
was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30. Univ was getting 360/67
(for tss/360) to replace 709/1401 and temporarily got 360/30
(replacing 1401) pending 360/67. The univ. shutdown datacenter over
the weekend and I had the whole place dedicated, although 48hrs w/o
sleep made monday classes hard. They gave me a bunch of hardware and
software manuals and I got to design my own monitor, device drivers,
interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc and within
a few weeks had 2000 card assembler program. Within year of taking
intro class, the 360/67 arrived and I was hired fulltime responsible
for os/360 (tss/360 never came to production) and I continued to have
my 48hr weekend window. One weekend I had been at it for some 30+hrs
and the 1052-7 console (same as 360/30) stopped typing and machine
would just ring the bell. I spent 30-40mins trying everything I could
think off before I hit the 1052-7 with my fist and the paper drop to
the floor. It turns out that the end of the (fan-fold) paper had
passed the paper sensing finger (resulting in 1052-7 unit check with
intervention required) but there was enough friction to keep the paper
in position and not apparent (until console jostled with my fist).
archived posts mentioning 1052-7 and end of paper
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#108 CSC, HONE, 23Jun69 Unbundling, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#27 COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME, its Origin and Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#5 360 IPL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#5 IBM System/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#38 Paper tape (was Re: Hidden Figures)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#43 Paper tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#1 The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#27 PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#23 Old PCs--environmental hazard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#12 The mid-seventies SHARE survey
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#16 Ever inflicted revenge on hardware ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#3 First video terminal?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
360 1052-7 Operator's Console
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
Date: 02 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#12 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
... other trivia: student fortran jobs ran less than second on 709
(tape->tape) .... initially with os/360 on 360/67 ran over a
minute. I install HASP and cuts time in half. I then start redoing
stage2 sysgen to place datasets and PDS members to optimize arm seek
and multi-track search, cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs; never got
better than 709 until I install univ. waterloo watfor.
before I graduate was hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO
office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services
(consolidate all dataprocessing into an independent business unit). I
thot Renton datacenter largest in the world, couple hundred million in
360s, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes
constantly staged in hallways around machine room. Lots of politics
between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing
field for payroll (although they enlarge the room and install 360/67
for me to play with when I'm not doing other stuff).
recent posts mentioning Watfor and Boeing CFO/Renton
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#22 Early Computer Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#93 ASCII/TTY33 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#73 UNIX, MULTICS, CTSS, CSC, CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#43 Univ, Boeing Renton and "Spook Base"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#17 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
Date: 03 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2024/08/02/cpm_50th_anniversary/
some of the MIT CTSS/7094
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System
went to the 5th flr for Multics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
Others went to the IBM science center on the 4th flr and did virtual
machines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Scientific_Center
They originally wanted 360/50 to do hardware mods to add virtual
memory, but all the extra 360/50s were going to the FAA ATC program,
and so had to settle for a 360/40 ... doing CP40/CMS (control
program/40, cambridge monitor system)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_CP-40
CMS would run on 360/40 real machine (pending CP40 virtual machine
being operational). CMS started with single letter for filesystem
("P", "S", etc) which were mapped mapped to "symbolic name" that
started out mapped to physical (360/40) 2311 disk, then later to
minidisks
Then when 360/67 standard with virtual memory became available,
CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS (later for VM370/CMS, virtual machine
370 and conversational monitor system). CMS Program Logic Manual
(CP67/CMS Version 3.1)
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/cp67/GY20-0591-1_CMS_PLM_Oct1971.pdf
(going back to CMS implementation for real 360/40) the system API
convention: pg4:
Symbolic Name: CON1, DSK1, DSK2, DSK3, DSK4, DSK5, DSK6, PRN1, RDR1,
PCH1, TAP1, TAP2
... snip ...
trivia: I took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers class and at
the end of the semester, hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30. Univ
getting 360/67 for tss/360. to replace 709/1401 and temporary got
360/30 (that had 1401 microcode emulation) to replace 1401, pending
arrival of 360/67 (Univ shutdown datacenter on weekend, and I would
have it dedicated, although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes
hard). I was given a bunch of hardware & software manuals and got to
design my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error
recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had a
2000 card assembler program
Within a year of taking intro class, 360/67 showed up and I was hired
fulltime responsibility for OS/360 (tss/360 didn't come to production,
so ran as 360/65 with os/360) ... and I continued to have my dedicated
weekend time. Student fortran ran under second on 709 (tape to tape),
but initial over a minute on 360/65. I install HASP and it cuts time
in half. I then start revamping stage2 sysgen to place datasets and
PDS members to optimize disk seek and multi-track searches, cutting
another 2/3rds to 12.9secs; never got better than 709 until I install
univ of waterloo WATFOR. My 1st SYSGEN was R9.5MFT, then started
redoing stage2 sysgen for R11MFT. MVT shows up with R12 but I didn't
do MVT gen until R15/16 (15/16 disk format shows up being able to
specify VTOC cyl ... aka place other than cyl0 to reduce avg. arm
seek).
along the way, CSC comes out to install CP67/CMS (3rd after CSC itself
and MIT Lincoln Labs, precursor to VM370), which I mostly got to play
with during my weekend dedicated time. First few months I mostly spent
rewriting CP67 pathlengths for running os/360 in virtual machine; test
os/360 stream 322secs, initially ran 856secs virtually; CP67 CPU
534secs got down to CP67 CPU 113secs. CP67 had 1052 & 2741 support
with automatic terminal type identification (controller SAD CCW to
switch port scanner terminal type). Univ had some TTY terminals so I
added TTY support integrated with automatic terminal type.
before msdos
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 developing CP/M, Kildall worked on IBM CP67/CMS at npg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School
aka: CP/M ... control program/microcomputer
Opel's obit ...
https://www.pcworld.com/article/243311/former_ibm_ceo_john_opel_dies.html
According to the New York Times, it was Opel who met with Bill Gates,
CEO of the then-small software firm Microsoft, to discuss the
possibility of using Microsoft PC-DOS OS for IBM's
about-to-be-released PC. Opel set up the meeting at the request of
Gates' mother, Mary Maxwell Gates. The two had both served on the
National United Way's executive committee.
... snip ...
other trivia: Boca claimed that they weren't doing any software for
ACORN (code name for IBM/PC) and so a small IBM group in Silicon
Valley formed to do ACORN software (many who had been involved with
CP/67-CMS and/or its follow-on VM/370-CMS) ... and every few weeks,
there was contact with Boca that decision hadn't changed. Then at some
point, Boca changed its mind and silicon valley group was told that if
they wanted to do ACORN software, they would have to move to Boca
(only one person accepted the offer, didn't last long and returned to
silicon valley). Then there was joke that Boca didn't want any
internal company competition and it was better to deal with external
organization via contract than what went on with internal IBM
politics.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
some recent posts mentioning early work on CP67 pathlengths for
running os/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#3 TYMSHARE Dialup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#111 GNOME bans Manjaro Core Team Member for uttering "Lunduke"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#99 Interdata Clone IBM Telecommunication Controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#90 Computer Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#36 This New Internet Thing, Chapter 8
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#53 IBM 3705 & 3725
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#114 EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#95 Ferranti Atlas and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#17 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#94 MVS SRM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#73 UNIX, MULTICS, CTSS, CSC, CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#28 IBM Disks and Drums
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#17 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#12 THE RISE OF UNIX. THE SEEDS OF ITS FALL
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM Downfall and Make-over
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Downfall and Make-over
Date: 03 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re: SNA/TCPIP; 80s, the communication group was fighting off
client/server and distributed computing, trying to preserve their dumb
terminal paradigm ... late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk
scheduled at an annual, world-wide, internal, communication group
conference, supposedly on 3174 performance ... but opens the talk with
statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for
the demise of the disk division. The disk division was seeing a drop
in disk sales with data fleeing datacenters to more distributed
computing friendly platforms. They had come up with a number of
solutions but were constantly vetoed by the communication group (with
their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed
datacenters walls) ... communication group datacenter stranglehold
wasn't just disks and a couple years later IBM has one of the largest
losses in the history of US companies.
As partial work-around, senior disk division executive was investing
in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks ... and
would periodically ask us to drop by his investments to see if we
could provide any help.
Learson was CEO and tried (and failed) to block the bureaucrats,
careerists and MBAs from destroying Watson culture and legacy ... then
20yrs later IBM (w/one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies) was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation
for breaking up the company
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
some more Learson detail
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
communication group trying to preserve dumb terminal paradigm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
Date: 04 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#14 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
some personal computing history
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/2/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/3/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/7/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/8/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/9/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/10/
old archived post with decade of vax sales (including microvax),
sliced and diced by year, model, us/non-us
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0
IBM 4300s sold into the same mid-range market as VAX and in about the
same numbers (excluding microvax) in the small/single unit orders, big
difference large corporations with orders for hundreds of vm/4300s for
placing out in departmental areas ... sort of the leading edge of
coming the distributed computing tsunami.
other trivia: In jan1979, I was con'ed into doing (old CDC6600
fortran) benchmark on early engineering 4341 for national lab that was
looking at getting 70 for compute farm, sort of the leading edge of
the coming cluster supercomputing tsunami. A small vm/4341 cluster was
much less expensive than a 3033, higher throughput, smaller footprint,
less power&cooling, folklore that POK felt so threatened that they got
corporate to cut Endicoot allocation of critical 4341 manufacturing
component in half.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM Downfall and Make-over
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Downfall and Make-over
Date: 04 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#15 IBM Downfall and Make-over
other background, AMEX and KKR were in competition for (private
equity) take-over off RJR and KKR wins. KKR then runs into trouble
with RJR and hires away the AMEX president to help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
Then IBM board hires former AMEX president to help with IBM make-over
... who uses some of the same tactics used at RJR (ref gone 404, but
lives on at wayback machine).
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
The former AMEX president then leaves IBM to head up another major
private-equity company
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/
"Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a
Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87
billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted
George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James
Baker III on its employee roster."
... snip ...
... around turn of the century, private-equity were buying up beltway
bandits and gov. contractors, hiring prominent politicians to lobby
congress to outsource gov. to their companies, side-stepping laws
blocking companies from using money from gov. contracts to lobby
congress. the bought companies also were having their funding cut to
the bone, maximizing revenue for the private equity owners; one poster
child was company doing outsourced high security clearances but were
found to just doing paper work, but not actually doing background
checks.
former amex president posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
private-equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
pension plan posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
success of failure posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failure
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM Downfall and Make-over
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Downfall and Make-over
Date: 04 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#15 IBM Downfall and Make-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#17 IBM Downfall and Make-over
23jun1969 unbundling announcement, starting to charge for
(application) software (made the case that kernel software should
still be free), SE services, hardware maint.
SE training had included trainee type operation, part of large group
at customer ship ... however, they couldn't figure out how *NOT* to
charge for trainee SEs at customer location ... thus was born HONE,
branch-office online access to CP67 datacenters, practicing with guest
operating systems in virtual machines. The science center had also
ported APL\360 to CMS for CMS\APL (fixes for large demand page virtual
memory workspaces and supporting system APIs for things like file I/O,
enabling real-world applications). HONE then started offering
CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications, which came to
dominate all HONE activity (with guest operating system use dwindling
away). One of my hobbies after joining IBM was enhanced operating
systems for internal datacenters and HONE was long-time customer.
Early 70s, IBM had the Future System effort, totally different from
360/370 and was going to completely replace 370; dearth of new 370
during FS is credited with giving the clone 370 makers (including
Amdahl) their market foothold (all during FS, I continued to work on
360/370 even periodically ridiculing what FS was doing, even drawing
analogy with long running cult film down at Central Sq; wasn't exactly
career enhancing activity). When FS implodes, there is mad rush to get
stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off
quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
FS (failing) significantly accelerated the rise of the bureaucrats,
careerists, and MBAs .... From Ferguson & Morris, "Computer Wars: The
Post-IBM World", Time Books
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... 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 ...
repeat, CEO Learson had tried (and failed) to block bureaucrats,
careerists, MBAs from destroying Watson culture & legacy.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
20yrs later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies
In the wake of the FS implosion, the decision was changed to start
charging for kernel software and some of my stuff (for internal
datacenters) was selected to be initial guinea pig and I had to spend
some amount of time with lawyers and business people on kernel
software charging practices.
Application software practice was to forecast customer market at high,
medium and low price (the forecasted customer revenue had to cover
original development along with ongoing support, maintenance and new
development). It was a great culture shock for much of IBM software
development ... one solution was combining software packages,
enormously bloated projects with extremely efficient projects (for
"combined" forecast, efficient projects underwriting the extremely
bloated efforts).
Trivia: after FS implodes, the head of POK also managed to convince
corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group
and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott eventually
manages to save the VM370 product mission, but had to recreate a
development group from scratch). I was also con'ed into helping with a
16-processor tightly-coupled, multiprocessor effort and we got the
3033 processor engineers into working on it in their spare time (lot
more interesting that remapping 168 logic to 20% faster
chips). Everybody thought was great until somebody told the head of
POK it could be decades before POK favorite son operating system (MVS)
had effective 16-way support (i.e. IBM documentation at the time was
MVS 2-processor only had 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of single
processor). Head of POK then invited some of us to never visit POK
again and told the 3033 processor engineers, heads down and no
distractions (note: POK doesn't ship 16 processor system until after
the turn of the century).
Other trivia: Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible
... folklore then was IBM executives killed ACS/360 because it would
advance the state of the art too fast and IBM would loose control of
the market. Amdahl then leaves IBM. Following has some ACS/360
features that don't show up until ES/9000 in the 90s:
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
... note there were comments that if any other computer company had
dumped so much money into such an enormous failed (Future System)
project, they would have never survived (it took IBM another 20yrs
before it was about to become extinct)
one of the last nails in the Future System coffin was analysis by the
IBM Houston Science Center that if apps were moved from 370/195 to FS
machine made out of the fastest available hardware technology, they
would have throughput of 370/145 ... about 30 times slowdown.
23jun1969 IBM unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
smp, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
dynamic adaptive resource management posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
HONE, APL, IBM 5100
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: HONE, APL, IBM 5100
Date: 06 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
23jun1969 unbundling announcement starts charging for (application)
software, SE services, maint. etc. SE training used to include part of
large group at customer site, but couldn't figure out how not to
charge for trainee SE time ... so was born "HONE", online branch
office access to CP67 datacenters, practicing with guest operating
systems in virtual machines. IBM Cambridge Science Center also did
port of APL\360 to CP67/CMS for CMS\APL (lots of fixes for workspaces
in large demand page virtual memory and APIs for system services like
file I/O, enabling lots of real world apps) and HONE started offering
CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications ... which comes to
dominate all HONE use.
HONE transitions from CP67/CMS to VM370/CMS (and VM370 APL\CMS done at
Palo Alto Science Center) and clone HONE installations start popping
up all over the world (HONE by far largest use of APL). PASC also does
the 370/145 APL microcode assist (claims runs APL as fast as on
370/168) and prototypes for what becomes 5100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5110
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PALM_processor
The US HONE datacenters are also consolidated in Palo Alto (across the
back parking lot from PASC, trivia when FACEBOOK 1st moves into
Silicon Valley, it is new bldg built next door to the former US
consolidated HONE datacenter). US HONE systems are enhanced with
single-system image, loosely-coupled, shared DASD with load balancing
and fall-over support (at least as large as any airline ACP/TPF
installation) and then add 2nd processor to each system (16 processors
aggregate) ... ACP/TPF not getting two-processor support for another
decade. PASC helps (HONE) with lots of APL\CMS tweaks.
trivia: When I 1st joined IBM, one of my hobbies was enhanced
production operating systems for internal datacenters, and HONE was
long-time customer. One of my 1st IBM overseas trips was for HONE EMEA
install in Paris (La Defense, "Tour Franklin?" brand new bldg, still
brown dirt, not yet landscaped)
23jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundling
cambridge science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
(internal) CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
HONE (& APL) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor support posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
posts mentioning APL, PASC, PALM, 5100/5110:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#15 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#53 VM370/CMS Shared Segments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#44 John Titor was right? IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#82 One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - YouTube
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#44 John Titor was right? IBM 5100
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
TYMSHARE, ADVENTURE/games
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: TYMSHARE, ADVENTURE/games
Date: 06 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
One of the visits to TYMSHARE they demo'ed a game somebody had found
on Stanford PDP10 and ported it to VM370/CMS, I got a copy and made
executable available inside IBM ... and would send the source to
anybody that got all points .... within a sort period of time, new
versions with more points appeared as well as port to PLI.
We had argument with corporate auditors that directed all games had to
be removed from the system. At the time most company 3270 logon
screens included "For Business Purposes Only" ... our 3270 logon
screens said "For Management Approved Uses" (and claimed they were
human factors demo programs).
commercial virtual machine online service posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online
some recent posts mentioning tymshare and adventure/games
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#120 Disconnect Between Coursework And Real-World Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#43 TYMSHARE, VMSHARE, ADVENTURE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#25 Tymshare & Ann Hardy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#116 Computer Games
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#60 The Many Ways To Play Colossal Cave Adventure After Nearly Half A Century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#7 Video terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#9 Tymshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#115 ADVENTURE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#14 Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#86 Online systems fostering online communication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#37 Adventure Game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#1 IBM Games
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#28 IBM Cambridge Science Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#107 15 Examples of How Different Life Was Before The Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#28 Early Online
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#123 SHARE LSRAD Report
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#57 Computer Security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#102 IBM CSO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#68 TYMSHARE, VMSHARE, and Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#8 Online Computer Conferencing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#84 1977: Zork
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#85 IBM Auditors and Games
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
360/50 and CP-40
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 360/50 and CP-40
Date: 06 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM Cambridge Science Center had a similar problem, wanted to have a
360/50 to modify for virtual memory, but all the extra 360/50s were
going to FAA ATC ... and so they had to settle for 360/40 ... they
implemented virtual memory with associative array that held process-ID
and virtual page number for each real page (compared to Atlas
associative array, which just had virtual page number for each real
page... effectively just single large virtual address space).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_CP-40
the official IBM operating system for (standard virtual memory) 360/67
was TSS/360 which peaked around 1200 people at a time when the science
center had 12 people (that included secretary) morphing CP/40 into
CP/67.
Melinda's history website
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist
trivia: FE had a bootstrap diagnostic process that started with
"scoping" components. With 3081 TCMs ... it was no longer possible to
scope ... so a system was written for UC processor (communication
group used for 37xx and other boxes) that implemented "service
processor" with probes into TCMs for diagnostic purposes (and a scope
could be used to diagnose the "service processor", bring it up and
then used to diagnose the 3081).
Moving to 3090, they decided on using 4331 running a highly modified
version of VM370 Release 6 with all the screens implemented in CMS
IOS3270. This was then upgraded to a pair of 4361s for service
processor. Your can sort of see this in the 3092 requiring a pair of
3370s FBA (one for each 4361) ... even for MVS systems that never had
FBA support
https://web.archive.org/web/20230719145910/https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3090.html
trivia: Early in rex (before renamed rexx and released to customers),
I wanted to show it wsn't just another pretty scripting language. I
decided to spend half time over three months reWriting large
assembler (large dump reader and diagnostic) application with ten
times the function and running ten times faster (some slight of hand
to make interpreted rex run faster than asm). I finished early so
wrote a library of automated routines that searched for common failure
signatures. For some reason it was never released to customers (even
though it was in use by nearly every internal datacenter and PSR)
... I did eventually get permission to give user group presentations
on how I did the implementation ... and eventually similar
implementations started to appear. Then the 3092 group asked if they
could ship it with the 3090 service processor; some old archive email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861031
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861223
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
dumprx posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx
recent posts mentioning CP40
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#14 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#111 GNOME bans Manjaro Core Team Member for uttering "Lunduke"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#102 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#25 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#0 time-sharing history, Privilege Levels Below User
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#88 Virtual Machines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#65 More CPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#18 CP40/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#5 Vintage REXX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#28 IBM Disks and Drums
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#82 Cloud and Megadatacenter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#35 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#1 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#108 CSC, HONE, 23Jun69 Unbundling, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#87 545tech sq, 3rd, 4th, & 5th flrs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#73 Some Virtual Machine History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#105 IBM 360/40 and CP/40
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#2 VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#113 360/67 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#58 IBM 360/50 Simulation From Its Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#71 165/168/3033 & 370 virtual memory
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
Date: 07 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Original 3380 had 20 track spacings between each data track. That was
then cut in half giving twice the tracks(& cylinders) for double the
capacity, then spacing cut again for triple the capacity.
About then the father of 801/risc gets me to try and help him with a
disk "wide-head" ... transferring data in parallel with 16 closely
placed data tracks ... following servo tracks on each side (18 tracks
total). One of the problems was mainframe channels were still
3mbytes/sec and this required 50mbytes/sec. Then in 1988, the branch
office asks me to help LLNL (national lab) get some serial stuff they
were working with standardized, which quickly becomes fibre-channel
standard ("FCS", including some stuff I did in 1980 ... initially
1gbit/sec full-duplex, 200mbytes/sec aggregate). Later POK announces
some serial stuff that had been working on since at least 1980, with
ES/9000 as ESCON (when it was already obsolete, around 17mbytes/sec).
Then some POK engineers become involved with FCS and define a protocol
that radically reduces the throughput, eventually announced as
FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is z196 "Peak I/O" that gets
2M IOPS over 104 FICON. About the same time a FCS was announced for
E5-2600 server blades claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS having
higher throughput than 104 FICON). Note IBM documentation also
recommended that SAPs (system assist processors that handle the actual
I/O) be kept to 70% CPU ... or around 1.5M IOPS. Somewhat complicating
matters is CKD DASD haven't been made for decades, all being simulated
using industry standard fixed-block disks.
re:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/system/files/inline-files/IBM%20z16%20FEx32S%20Performance_3.pdf
aka zHPF & TCW is closer to native FCS operation starting in 1988 (and
what I had done in 1980) ... trivia the hardware vendor tried to get
IBM to release my support in 1980 ... but the group in POK playing
with fiber were afraid it would make it harder to get their stuff
released (eventually a decade later as ESCON) ... and get it
vetoed. Old archived (bit.listserv.ibm-main) post from 2012 discussing
zHPF&TCW is closer to original 1988 FCS specification (and what I had
done in 1980). Also mentions throughput being throttled by SAP
processing https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#4
while working with FCS was also doing IBM HA/CMP product ... Nick
Dinofrio had approved HA/6000 project, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it
HA/CMP when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with
national labs and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors
(Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Ingres) that had VAXcluster support in same
source base with UNIX (I do a distributed lock manager with
VAXCluster API semantics to ease the transition).
We were also using Hursley's 9333 in some configurations and I was
hoping to make it interoperable with FCS. Early jan1992, in meeting
with Oracle CEO, AWD/Hester tells Ellison that we would have
16-processor clusters by mid92 and 128-processor clusters by
ye92. Then late jan1992, cluster scale-up was transferred for IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we were told we
couldn't work with anything having more than four processors. We leave
IBM a few months later. Then later find that 9333 evolves into SSA
instead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Storage_Architecture
channel extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
FCS & FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
posts specifically mentioning 9333, SSA, FCS, FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#60 IBM "Winchester" Disk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#71 IBM AIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#35 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#70 Vintage RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#58 Vintage IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#78 microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, supercomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#104 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#97 The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#47 Best dumb terminal for serial connections
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#15 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#127 SSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#1 IBM ESCON Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#60 S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#57 HA/CMP, HA/6000, Harrier/9333, STK Iceberg & Adstar Seastar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#95 Retrieving data from old hard drives?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#99 SHARE Blog: News Flash: The Mainframe (Still) Isn't Dead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#96 SHARE Blog: News Flash: The Mainframe (Still) Isn't Dead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#50 The Subroutine Call
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/2012m.html#2 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#77 ESCON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#69 ESCON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#13 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#40 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#39 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#31 "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#61 IBM to announce new MF's this year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#13 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#7 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#32 Mainframe running 1,500 Linux servers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#24 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#46 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#55 54 Processors?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#46 IBM's mini computers--lack thereof
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#50 something like a CTC on a PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#68 bits, bytes, half-duplex, dual-simplex, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#54 An entirely new proprietary hardware strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#0 Escon vs Ficon Cost
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#15 Unisys A11 worth keeping?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#78 Q: Is there any interest for vintage Byte Magazines from 1983
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13 SSA
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care for patients
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care for patients
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less able to care
for patients, top medical researchers say. A study by physicians in
the Journal of the American Medical Association describes a pattern of
selling land, equipment and other resources after private equity
acquires hospitals.
https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/private-equity-takes-over-hospitals-less-able-care-patients-jama-rcna164497
private equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#caitalism
KKR Founders Sued for Allegedly Getting Giant Payday for No
Work. Lawsuit adds to legal scrutiny of arcane tax deals benefiting
private-equity heavyweights
https://archive.ph/kqQvI
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax loopholes, tax abuse, tax avoidance, tax
haven posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Public Facebook Mainframe Group
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Public Facebook Mainframe Group
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
New to the group
I had taken 2credit hr intro to fortran/computers and at end of
semester was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30 (univ. was getting
360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401, temporary got 360/30 replacing
1401 pending 360/67). Within year of taking intro class 360/67 arrives
and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 not
production so ran as 360/65). Before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime
into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of
Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into an
independent business unit). I thot Renton datacenter largest in the
world, couple hundred million in 360s, 360/65s arriving faster than
they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around
machine room. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who
only had a 360/30 up at Boeing field for payroll (although they
enlarge the machine room and install 360/67 for me to play with when
I'm not doing other stuff). When I graduate, I join IBM science center
(instead of staying with Boeing CFO). One of my hobbies after joining
IBM was enhanced production operating systems for internal
datacenters, including the online branch office sales&marketing
support HONE systems were long-time customers.
A little over decade ago, an IBM customer asks me to track down the
IBM decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and I find a staff
member to executive making the decision. Basically MVT storage
management was so bad that region sizes had to be specified four times
larger than used. As a result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 only ran four
concurrent regions, insufficient to keep system busy and
justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory (aka VS2/SVS) allowed the
number of regions to be increased by factor of four times (capped 1t
15 by 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging ... sort of
like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine (Ludlow was doing
initial MVT->SVS on 360/67 ... simple build of 16mbyte tables, simple
paging code (little need for optimization with little or no
paging). Biggest effort was EXCP/SVC0 needed to make copy of channel
programs, substituting real addresses for virtual ... and he borrows
the CP67 CCWTRANS code for the implementation.
I had done dynamic adaptive resource manager ("wheeler" scheduler) for
CP67 at the univ, as undergraduate in the 60s. I started pontificating
that 360s had made trade-off between abundant I/O resources and
limited real storage and processor ... but by the mid-70s the
trade-off had started to invert. In the early 80s, I wrote that
between 360 announce and then, the relative system throughput of DASD
had declined by order of magnitude (disk got 3-5 times faster and
systems got 40-50 times faster). Some disk division executive took
exception and directed the division performance group to refute my
claims. After a few weeks they came back and essentially said that I
had slightly understated the problem. They then respun the analysis
for (user group) SHARE presentation configuring DASD for improved
throughput (16Aug1984, SHARE 63, B874). More recently there has been
observation that current memory access latency when measured in count
of processor cycles is similar to 60s DASD access latency when
measured in count of 60s processor cycles (memory is the new DASD).
In the 70s, as systems got bigger and mismatch between DASD throughput
and system throughput increased, increased concurrent process
execution was required and it was necessary to transition to separate
virtual address space for each "region" ... aka "MVS" (to get around
the 4bit storage key capping number at 15). This created a different
problem, OS360 was heavily pointer passing oriented ... so they mapped
an 8mbyte "image" of the MVS kernel into every (16mbyte) virtual
address space, leaving 8mbyte. Then because subsystems were moved into
separate address spaces, a 1mbyte common segment area ("CSA") was
mapped into every virtual address space for passing stuff back&forth
with subsystems (leaving 7mbyte). However, CSA requirements were
somewhat proportional to number of concurrently running "address
spaces" and number of subsystems and "CSA" quickly becomes "common
system area" (by 3033 it was running 5-6mbytes and threatening to
become 8mbyte, leaving zero for applications). Much of 370/XA was
specifically for addressing MVS shortcomings (head of POK had already
convinced corporate to kill the VM370 project, shutdown the
development group and transfer all the people to POK to work on
MVS/XA).
trivia: Boeing Huntsville had gotten a two-processor 360/67 system
with several 2250s for TSS/360 ... but configured them as two 360/65s
with MVT for 2250 CAD/CAM applications. They had already run into the
MVT storage management problems and had modified MVTR13 to run in
virtual memory mode (no paging but was able to leverage as partial
countermeasure to MVT storage management, precursor to decision to add
virtual memory to all 370s).
I had also been blamed for online computer conferencing (late
70s/early 80s) on the IBM internal network (larger than
ARPANET/Internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid/late
80s), which really took off the spring of 1981 when I distributed a
trip report visiting Jim Gray at Tandem (he had left IBM SJR the fall
before palming some number of things on me), only about 300 directly
participated but claims that 25,000 were reading; folklore is that
when corporate executive committee was told, 5of6 wanted to fire me
(possibly mitigating, lots of internal datacenters were running my
enhanced production operating systems). One of the outcomes was a
researcher was hired to study how I communicated, they sat in the back
of my office for nine months taking notes on face-to-face, telephone,
got copies of all incoming/outgoing email and logs of all instant
messages; result were IBM reports, conference papers, books, and
Stanford PHD (joint with language and computer AI).
Abut the same time, I was introduced to John Boyd and would sponsor
his briefings at IBM. One of his stories was about being very vocal
that the electronics across the trail wouldn't work and (possibly as
punishment) was then put in command of "spook base". One of Boyd
biographies claims that "spook base" was $2.5B "wind fall" for IBM
(ten times Boeing Renton), would have helped to cover the cost of the
disastrous/failed early 70s IBM FS project.
89/90, the Commandant of the Marine Corps leverages Boyd for a Corps
make-over ... at a time when IBM was in desperate need of a
make-over. There has continued to be Military Strategy "Boyd
Conferences" at Quantico "MCU" for us after Boyd passed in 1997
(although former Commandant and I were frequently only ones present
that personally knew Boyd).
SHARE Original/Founding Knights of VM
http://mvmua.org/knights.html
IBM Mainframe Hall of Frame
https://www.enterprisesystemsmedia.com/mainframehalloffame
IBM System Mag article (some history details slightly garbled)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200103152517/http://archive.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/stop-run/making-history/
from when IBM Jargon was young and "Tandem Memos" was new
https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf
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 ...
IBM science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Original SQL/Relational posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
Online computer conferencing ("Tandem Memo") posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
John Boyd posts and web refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
I had paper copy of 700 some ... and scanned it ... but lots of
non-electric stuff have gone in several down sizes over the
years. Image of desk ornament for the 1000 nodes.
Archived post with some of the weekly distribution files passing 1000
nodes in 1983 (also generated list of all company locations that added
one or more nodes during 1983):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
part of map 1977 scan
coworker at the science center was responsible for the cambridge
wide-area network that morphs into the corporate network (larger than
arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid/late
80s) and technology also used for the corporate sponsored univ BITNET
(also for a time larger than arpanet/internet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
three people had invented GML at the science center in 1969 and GML
tag processing added to CMS SCRIPT, One of the GML inventors was
originally hired to promote the science center wide-area network:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
nearly all cp67 vnet/rscs ... and then vm370 vnet/rscs. NJI/NJE
simulation drivers were done for vnet/rscs so could connect HASP (&
then MVS/JES systems) but had to be very careful. The code had
originated in HASP ("TUCC" in cols 68-71) that used unused slots in
the 255 entry pseudo device table (usually around 160-180) and would
trash traffic where destination or origin nodes weren't in local table
... and the network had quickly passed 250 ... JES did get fix to
handle 999 nodes .... but it was after corporate network was well past
1000 nodes.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
posts mentioning HASP/ASP, JES2/JES, and/or NJE/NJI:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
BITNET (& EARN) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
Edson (responsible for rscs/vnet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references
from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Other problems with JES: header intermixed job control and network
fields ... and exchanging traffic between MVS/JES systems at different
release levels would crash MVS. Eventually RSCS/VNET NJE/NJI drivers
were updated to recognize format required by directly connected JES
systems and if traffic originated from JES system at different release
level and reformat the fields to keep MVS from crashing. As a result
tended to keep MVS/JES systems hidden behind a VM370 RSCS/VNET
system. There is infamous case where MVS in Hursley were crashing
because San Jose had changed JES and Hursley VM370 RSCS/VNET group had
gotten the corresponding fixes.
Another problem was VTAM/JES had link time-out. STL (since renamed
SVL) was setting up a double-hop satellite link (up/down west/east
coast and up/down east coast/England) with Hursley (to use each other
systems offshift). They hooked it up and everything work fine. Then a
(MVS/JES biased) executive directed it to be between two JES systems
and nothing worked. They then switched back to RSCS/VNET and it worked
fine. The executive then claimed that RSCS/VNET was too dumb to know
it wasn't working. It turns out VTAM/JES had hard-coded round-trip
limit and double-hop satellite link round-trip time exceeded the
limit.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
3278 drift; 3277/3272 had hardware response of .086sec ... it was
followed with 3278 that moved a lot of electronics back into 3274
(reducing 3278 manufacturing cost) ... drastically increasing protocol
chatter and latency, increasing hardware response to .3-.5sec
(depending on amount of data). At the time there were studies showing
quarter sec response improved productivity. Some number of internal VM
datacenters were claiming quarter second system response ... but you
needed at least .164sec system response with 3277 terminal to get
quarter sec response for the person (I was shipping enhanced
production operating system getting .11sec system response). A
complaint written to the 3278 Product Administrator got back a response
that 3278 wasn't for interactive computing but for "data entry" (aka
electronic keypunch). The MVS/TSO crowd never even noticed, it was a
really rare TSO operation that even saw 1sec system response. Later
IBM/PC 3277 hardware emulation card would get 4-5 times
upload/download throughput of 3278 card.
some posts mentioning 3277/3272 & 3278/3274 timings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#31 HONE, Performance Predictor, and Configurators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#28 XT/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#4 3270 48th Birthday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#25 ARM Cortex A53 64 bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#19 Writing article on telework/telecommuting
I took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers and at end of semester
was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30 ... univ shutdown datacenter
for weekend and I had it dedicated although 48hrs w/o sleep made
monday classes difficult. Within year of taking intro class the 709
was replace with 360/67 (originally intended for tss/360 but ran as
360/65) and I was hired fulltime responsible for OS/360.
along the way univ. library got ONR grant to do online catalog (some
of the money went for 2321 datacell). Project was also selected as
beta test for the original CICS program product ... and CICS support
was added to my tasks
posts mentioning CICS &/or BDAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#26 VMNETMAP
parasite/story drift: small, compact cms apps ... 3270 terminal
emulation and hllapi like facility (predating ibm/pc) ... could login
local machine running script and/or dial to PVM (aka passthrough) and
login to remote machine and run commands. overview and examples
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#35
story to retrieve RETAIN info
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#36
author had also done VMSG cms email app, very early source version was
also picked up by PROFS group for their email client. when he tried to
offer them a much enhanced version, they tried to get him fired. He
then demonstrated that every PROFS email carried his initials in
non-displayed field. After that everything quieted down and he would
only share his source with me and one other person.
other posts mentioning Parasite/Story and VMSG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#49 REXX (DUMRX, 3092, VMSG, Parasite/Story)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#46 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#43 VM/370 3270 Terminal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#97 Online Computer Conferencing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#62 IBM (FE) Retain
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#2 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#33 IBM/PC 12Aug1981
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#108 IBM HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#70 2301, 2303, 2305-1, 2305-2, paging, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#54 PROFS, email, 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#20 IBM Profs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#27 little old mainframes, Re: Was it ever worth it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#67 What is the most epic computer glitch you have ever seen?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#98 360 & Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#12 HONE Shutdown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#39 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#25 another question about TSO edit command
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#71 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#49 Before the Internet: The golden age of online service
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#1 Application development paradigms [was: RE: Learning Rexx]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#66 Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet, 1974
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#17 Inventor of e-mail honored by Smithsonian
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#30 Any candidates for best acronyms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#44 CMS load module format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#11 History of APL -- Software Preservation Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#83 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#67 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#66 spool file data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#4 Arpanet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#0 Timeline: The evolution of online communities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#23 sorting was: The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 08 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#26 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#27 VMNETMAP
In early 80s, I got HSDT project (T1 and faster computer links, both
terrestrial and satellite) and one of my first satellite T1 links was
between the Los Gatos lab on the west coast and Clementi's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Clementi
E&S lab in IBM Kingston (on east coast) that had a bunch of floating point
system boxes (latest ones had 40mbyte/sec disk arrays).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems
Was supporting both RSCS/VNET and TCP/IP and also having lots of
interferance with communication group who's VTAM boxes were capped at
56kbits/sec. Was also working with NSF director and was suppose to get
$20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers; then congess cuts
the budget, some other things happened and eventually RFP was released
(in part based on what we already had running). From 28Mar1986
Preliminary Announcement:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed, folklore
is that 5of6 members of corporate executive committee wanted to fire
me). The NSF director 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 claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs
ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, it becomes
the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Communication group had been fabricating all sort of justifications
why they weren't supporting links faster than 56kbits/sec. They
eventually came out with 3737 to drive a (short-haul, terrestrial) T1
link ... with boatload of memory and Motorola 68k processors with
simulation pretending to be a CTCA VTAM to local mainframe
VTAM. Problem was VTAM "window pacing algorithm" had limit on
outstanding packets and even a short-haul T1 would absorb the full
packet limit before any replies began arriving (return ACKs would
eventually drop below the limit allowing additional packets to
transmit, but resulting only very small amount of T1 bandwidth would
be used). The local 3737 simulated CTCA VTAM would immediately ACK
packets, trying to keep host VTAM packets flowing ... and then use
different protocol to actually transmit packets to the remote 3737
(however it was only good for about 2mbits, compared to US T1
full-duplex 3mbits and EU T1 full-duplex 4mbits).
By comparison, HSDT ran dynamic adaptive rate-based pacing
(rather than window pacing) ... adjusting how fast (interval between)
packets sent to other end. If no packets were being dropped and rate
didn't have to be adjusted, then it would transmit as fast as the link
could transmit.
Corporate also required all links (leaving IBM premise) had to be
encrypted and I really hated would I had to pay for T1 link
encryptors and faster encryptors were really hard to find. I had
done some playing with software DES and found it ran about
150kbytes/sec on 3081 (aka both 3081 processors would be required to
handle software encryption for T1 full-duplex link). I then got
involved in doing link encryptor that could handle 3mbytes/sec
(not mbits) and cost less than $100 to build. Initially the corporate
DES group said it seriously weaken DES implementation. It took me
3months to figure out how to explain what was happening, but it was
hallow victory .... they said that there was only one organization
that was allowed to use such crypto ... we could make as many boxes as
we wanted but they would all have to be sent to that organization. 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, 3) the kind
you can only do for them.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#26 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#27 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#28 VMNETMAP
In the 80s, communication group was getting the native RSCS/VNET
drivers restricted and just shipping simulated NJE/NJI drivers
supporting SNA (and univ BITNET was converting to TCP/IP instead)
... for awhile the internal corporate VNET continued to use the native
RSCS/VNET drivers because they had higher throughput.
Then communication group fabricated a story for the executive
committee that the internal RSCS/VNET had to all convert to SNA (or
otherwise PROFS would stop working). I had done a lot of work to get
RCSC/VNET drivers working at T1 speed and was scheduled to give
presentation at next corporate CJN backbone meeting. Then got email
that the communication group had got CJN meetings restricted to
managers only ... didn't want a lot of technical people confusing
decision makers with facts (as part of getting it converted to
SNA). Some old email in archived posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#email870302
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#email870306
the communication group was also spreading internal misinformation
that SNA/VTAM could be used for NSFNET and somebody was collecting a
lot of that email and then forwarded it to us ... heavily clipped and
redacted (to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#22 Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
1980, STL (since renamed SVL) was bursting at the seams and they were
moving 300 from the IMS group (and their 3270s) to offsite bldg (about
halfway between STL and main plant site), with dataprocessing service
back to STL datacenter. They tried "remote" 3270 but found human
factors totally unacceptable. I then get con'ed into doing channel
extender support, locating channel-attached 3270 controllers at the
offsite bldg, resulting in no perceptible difference between off-site
and inside STL.
Then the hardware vendor tries to get IBM to release my support
... but there were some POK engineers playing with some serial stuff
and get it vetoed (afraid that if it was in the market, it would make
it harder to get their stuff release, which they eventually do a
decade later as ESCON, when it is already obsolete).
It turns out that STL had been spreading 3270 controllers across the
168&3033 channels with 3830 disk controllers. The channel-extender
support had significantly reduced channel-busy (getting 3270
controllers directly off IBM channels) for same amount of 3270
traffic, resulting in 10-15% improvement in system throughput. STL
then was considering putting all 3270 channel-attached controllers
behind channel-extender support.
channel-extender support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#26 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#27 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#28 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#29 VMNETMAP
I had first done channel-extender support in 1980 for STL moving 300
people to off-site bldg (which made use of T3 collins digital
radio). Then IBM in Boulder was moving a lot of people to bldg across
heavy traffic highway. They wanted to use infrared modem on roofs of
the two bldgs (eliminated lots of gov. permission) ... however there
were snide remarks that Boulder weather would adversely affect the
signal. I had fireberd bit-error testers on 56kbit subchannel and did
see some bit drops during white-out snow storm when nobody was able to
get into work (I had written Turbo Pascal program for PC/ATs that
supported up to four ascii inputs from bit error testers for keeping
machine readable logs).
The big problem was sunshine ... heating of the bldgs on one side
during the day (resulting in imperceptible lean), slightly changed the
focus of the infrared beam between the two (roof mounted) modems. It
took some amount of trial and error to compensate for bldg sunshine
heating.
Then my HSDT project got custom built 3-node Ku-band satellite system (4.5m
dishes in Los Gatos and Yorktown and 7m dish in Austin) with
transponder on SBS4. Yorktown community meeting complained about
radiation from the 25watt signal. It was pointed out if they were hung
directly above dish transmission, it would be significantly less
radiation than they were currently getting from local FM radio tower
transmission.
channel extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
hsdt project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Irrationality of Markets
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Irrationality of Markets
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
The Irrationality of Markets
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/08/the-irrationality-of-markets.html
Commodities market use to have rule that only entities with
significant holdings could play ... because speculators resulted in
wild, irrational, volatility (they live on vlatility, bet on direction
of market change and then manipulate to see it happens, bet/pump&dump
going up and then bet on going down). GRIFTOPIA
https://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Machines-Vampire-Breaking-America-ebook/dp/B003F3FJS2/
has chapter on commodity market secret letters allowing specific
speculators to play, resulting in the huge oil spike summer of
2008. Fall of 2008, member of congress released details of speculator
transactions responsible for the huge oil price spike/drop ... and the
press, instead of commending the congressman, pillared him for
violating privacy of those responsible.
old interview mentions the illegal activity goes on all the time in
equity markets (even before HFT)
https://nypost.com/2007/03/20/cramer-reveals-a-bit-too-much/
SEC Caught Dark Pool and High Speed Traders Doing Bad Stuff
https://web.archive.org/web/20140608215213/http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-06/sec-caught-dark-pool-and-high-speed-traders-doing-bad-stuff
Fast money: the battle against the high frequency traders; A 'flash
crash' can knock a trillion dollars off the stock market in minutes as
elite traders fleece the little guys. So why aren't the regulators
stepping in? We talk to the legendary lawyer preparing for an epic
showdown
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/07/inside-murky-world-high-frequency-trading
The SEC's Mary Jo White Punts on High Frequency Trading and Abandons
Securities Act of 1934
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/secs-mary-jo-white-punts-high-frequency-trading-abandons-securities-act-1934.html
griftopia posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#griftopia
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
posts mentioning illegal activity and high frequency trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#96 Oil and gas lobbyists are using Ukraine to push for a drilling free-for-all in the US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#96 'Most Americans Today Believe the Stock Market Is Rigged, and They're Right'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#11 For The Average Investor, The Next Bear Market Will Likely Be The Last
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#105 Is LINUX the inheritor of the Earth?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#104 Netscape: The Fire That Filled Silicon Valley's First Bubble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#22 How do BIG WEBSITES work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#47 seveneves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#46 seveneves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#17 Robots have been running the US stock market, and the government is finally taking control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#58 IBM Data Processing Center and Pi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#109 SEC Caught Dark Pool and High Speed Traders Doing Bad Stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#20 HFT, computer trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#72 Three Expensive Milliseconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#18 FBI Investigates High-Speed Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#54 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#13 Study links ultrafast machine trading with risk of crash
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#21 HOLLOW STATES and a CRISIS OF CAPITALISM
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM 138/148
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM 138/148
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
after Future System implodes, Endicott asks me to help with
Virgil/Tully (aka 138/148), they wanted to do microcode assist
(competitive advantage especially in world trade). I was told there
was 6kbytes microcode space and 6kbytes of 370 instructions would
approx. translate into 6kbytes of microcode instructions running ten
times faster. I was to identify the 6kbytes of highest executed kernel
code. old archive post with initial analysis
https://www.garliic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
basically 6kbytes accounted for 79.55% of kernel execution (and moved
to microcode would run ten times faster). Then they wanted me to run
around the world presenting business case to US & world-trade business
planners and forecasters. I was told that US region forecasters got
promoted for forecasting what ever corporate told them was strategic
and world-trade forecasters could get fired for bad forecasts. One of
the differences was bad US region forecasts had to be "eaten" by the
factory while world-trade forecasts, factories shipped to the ordering
country (factories tended to redo US region forecasts to be on the
safe side). In any case the US region 138/148 forecasts were it didn't
make any difference the features, they would sell some percent more
than 135/145. On the other hand, the world-trade forecasters said
without distinct/unique features they wouldn't sell any 138/148s
because of competition with the clone 370 makers.
Then Endicott tried to convince corporate that VM370 be pre-installed
on every 138/148 system (somewhat like current PR/SM & LPAR). This was
in period when head of POK was convincing corporate to kill the VM370
product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to
POK for MVS/XA ... and Endicott was having to fight just to preserve
VM370. Endicott wasn't able to get permission to ship every 138/148
with VM370 pre-installed, but they managed to save the VM370 product
mission (for the mid-range), but had to recreate a development group
from scratch.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
some other posts mentioning 138/148 ecps
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#57 Vintage IBM 370/125
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#82 One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - YouTube
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#70 Mainframe System 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#36 Oracle Introduces Oracle VM As It Leaps Into Virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#44 1960s: IBM mgmt mistrust of SLT for ICs?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
VMNETMAP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: VMNETMAP
Date: 09 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#25 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#26 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#27 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#28 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#29 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/2024e.html#31 VMNETMAP
One of the supposed strings attached to the HSDT funding was I was
suppose to show some IBM content. CPD did have T1 2701 in the 60s
... but then possibly got stuck at 56kbits because of VTAM
shortcomings. I was able to find the S/1 Zirpel T1 card from FSD
(apparently for some of the gov. customers that had failing 2701s). I
go to order a few S/1 and find that there was year's backlog,
apparently the recently purchased ROLM had ordered a whole slew of S/1
creating the backlog. I knew the director of ROLM datacenter from
their IBM days and managed to cut a deal for some S/1 order positions
if I would help ROLM with some of their problems.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
some posts that mentioning zirpel, rolm, s/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#62 Vintage Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#44 IBM Vintage Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#35 30 years ago, one decision altered the course of our connected world
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#101 IBM ROLM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#111 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#62 IBM ROLM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#12 Home Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#2 IBM Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#9 Important US technology companies sold to foreigners
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#99 Boca Series/1 & CPD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#26 "I used a real computer at home...and so will you" (Popular Science May 1967)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#27 Old IBM Mainframe Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#84 Inaugural Podcast: Dave Farber, Grandfather of the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015e.html#83 Inaugural Podcast: Dave Farber, Grandfather of the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#24 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#43 8080 BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#37 8080 BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#71 DEC and the Bell System?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#4 IBM's Revenge on Sun
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#25 sorting was: The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
Date: 10 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#22 Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#30 Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
when I transfer out to SJR, got to wander around datacenters in
silicon valley, including bldg14&5 (disk engineering and product
test) across the street. Bldg14 had multiple layers of physical
security, including machine room had each development box inside heavy
mesh locked cage ("testcells"). They were running 7x24, pre-scheduled,
stand-alone testing and had mentioned that they had recently tried MVS
... but it had 15min mean-time-between-failure (in that environment)
requiring manual re-ipl. I offered to rewrite I/O supervisor making it
bullet proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand,
concurrent testing greatly improving productivity. The downside was
they got in habit of blaming my software for problems and I would have
to spending increasing amount of time playing disk engineer diagnosing
their problems.
Then bldg15 got 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering
flr. Since testing only took percent or two of the processor, we
scrounged up a 3830 disk controller and string of 3330 disk and setup
our own private online service (and ran 3270 coax under the street to
my 3277 in sjr/28). One monday morning get a call asking what had I
had done over the weekend to destroy 3033 throughput. After some
back&forth eventually discover that somebody had replaced the 3830
disk controller with engineering 3880 controller. The engineers had
been complaining about how the bean counters had dictated that 3880
have really slow (inexpensive?) microprocessor for most of operations
(other than actual data transfers) ... it really slowed down
operations. To partially mask how slow it really was, they were trying
to present end-of-operation interrupt early, hoping that they could
finish up overlapped with software interrupt handling (wasn't working,
software was attempting to redrive with queued I/O, controller then
had to respond with control unit busy (SM+BUSY), requeue the attempted
redrive, and wait for control unit end (longer elapsed time, higher
channel busy, and higher software overhead).
The early interrupt was tuned to not cause as bad a problem ... but
the higher channel busy still persisted. Later the 3090/trout had
configured number of channels for target system throughput (assuming
3880 was same as 3830 but with 3380 3mbyte data transfer). When they
found out how bad 3880 was, they realized they had to greatly increase
the number of channels (to meet throughput target), which also
required an additional TCM (semi-facetious they said they would bill
the 3880 business for the higher 3090 manufacturing costs). Marketing
eventually respins the large increase in 3090 channels as great I/O
machine (rather than countermeasure for the increased 3880
channel busy).
I had also written an (internal only) research report on the I/O
reliability work for bldgs14&15 and happen to mention the MVS
15min MTBF ... bringing the wrath of the MVS organization down on my
head. Later, just before 3880/3380 was about to ship, FE had a
regression test of 57 simulated errors that were likely to occur. In
all 57 cases, MVS was still crashing (requiring re-ipl) and in 2/3rds
of the case, no indication of what caused the failure. I didn't feel
bad about it.
bldg26 long 1story ... mostly machine room lots of mvs systems
... long gone. engineering, bldg14 two story across strt ... last time
checked it was one of the few still standing ... machine room 2nd flr
... with testcell wire cages. after earthquake bldgs under went
earthquake remediation ... when it came to bldg14, engineering was
temporarily relocated to non-ibm bldg. south of main plant site
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
some recent posts mentioning 3090 had to greatly increase
number of channels
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#95 Mainframe Integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#91 Computer Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#73 Mainframe and Blade Servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#19 IBM Millicode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#115 Disk & TCP/IP I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#48 Vintage 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#80 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#57 Future System, 115/125, 138/148, ECPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#26 Vintage 370/158
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#62 Why Do Mainframes Still Exist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#36 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#104 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#103 The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#18 IBM 3880 Disk Controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#4 Some 3090 & channel related trivia:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#45 IBM DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#41 IBM 3081 TCM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#4 Mainrame Channel Redrive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#114 TOPS-20 Boot Camp for VMS Users 05-Mar-2022
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#75 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#4 3880 DASD Controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#100 Mainframe Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#49 Channel Program I/O Processing Efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#106 TCMs & IBM Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#66 IBM Mainframe market was Re: Approximate reciprocals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#77 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#15 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#13 Mainframe I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#122 Mainframe "Peak I/O" benchmark
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#92 IBM 3278
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#30 What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#23 IBM Zcloud - is it just outsourcing ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#66 ACP/TPF 3083
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#60 San Jose bldg 50 and 3380 manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#6 3880 & 3380
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#42 If Memory Had Been Cheaper
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Implicit Versus Explicit "Run" Command
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Implicit Versus Explicit "Run" Command
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2024 13:05:43 -1000
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
When Gary Kildall created CP/M, he was heavily influenced by DEC OSes,
in terms of file/device specs etc. Yet he didn't copy the RUN command:
instead, he brought in the Unix-style interpretation of the first word
as the name of a file to be implicitly run. I don't think original
CP/M had the "search path" concept (without directories, there
wouldn't have been any point), but it did instead try different
filename extensions, namely .COM for machine-code executables and .BAT
for files containing CLI commands. And the basics of this idea flowed
through into MS-DOS.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#14 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#16 50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution
Gary was at NPG school and working on IBM CP67/CMS ... some of the MIT
7094/CTSS people had gone to 5th flr for multics and others went to
the 4th flr to IBM science center and did CP40/CMS ... CMS (cambridge
monitor system) was originally developed to run on real 360/40
... while they were doing 360/40 hardware mods to support virtual
memory ... and then ran in "CP40" (control program 360/40) virtual
machines (CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with
virtual memory became available, later morphs into vm370/cms ... where
"cms" becomes conversational monitor system).
CMS search order as "P" filesysteam originally 2311 (then minidisk
when CP40 virtual machines became available) ... more details:
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/cp67/GY20-0591-1_CMS_PLM_Oct1971.pdf
filesystem/disks "pg4" (PDF13), "P" (primary user), "S" (system), then
possibly "A, B, & C" user files, "T" (temporary/work).
filesystem/disk search order "pg34" (PDF43): P, T, A, B, S, C
Execution control "119" (PDF130) executable, type: "TEXT" (output of
compiler/assembler), "EXEC" (aka shell scripts), and "MODULE" (memory
image) ... if just filename specified (& not type specified) ... it
searches for filename for each type ... in filesystem/disk order
... until match found.
ibm science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
other posts referencing CMS PLM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#51 IBM 1403 Printer Characters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#85 Before the PC: IBM invents virtualisation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#75 cp67 & vm370
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Gene Amdahl
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Gene Amdahl
Date: 10 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS 360-compatible. Folklore is then
executives were afraid it would advance the state of the art too fast
and IBM would loose control of the market, and it is killed, Amdahl
leaves shortly later (lists some features that show up more than two
decades later with ES/9000)
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Not long after Amdahl leaves, IBM has Future System effort, completely
different from 370 and was going to completely replace 370; internal
politics during FS was killing off 370 projects, the dearth of new
370s during FS, is credited with giving the clone 370s makers
(including Amdahl) their market foothold
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
one of the last nails in the FS coffin was IBM Houston Science Center
analysis if 370/195 applications were redone for a FS machine made out
of the fastest hardware technology available, they would have
throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times slowdown)
When I join IBM one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating
systems for internal datacenters and the online branch office
sales&market support HONE systems were long time customer ... and all
during FS, I continued to work on 360/370 and would periodically
ridicule what FS was doing (which wasn't exactly career
enhancing). Then the US HONE systems were consolidated in Palo Alto
with single-system-image, loosely-coupled, shared DASD including
load-balancing and fall-over across the complex.
In the morph of CP67->VM370, lots of stuff was simplified and/or
dropped (including tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessing). I
then add SMP/shared-memory support back to VM370, initially for US
HONE so they could add 2nd processor to each system (for 16 processors
total and am getting each 2processor system throughput twice single
processor).
When FS finally implodes there is mad rush to get stuff back into 370
product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033&3081
efforts in parallel. I also get roped into helping with a 16processor,
tightly-coupled, shared memory 370 multiprocessor and we con the 3033
processor engineers into working on it in their spare time (lot more
interesting than remapping 370/168 logic to 20% faster chips).
At first everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head
of POK that it could be decades before POK favorite son operating
system (i.e. "MVS") had (effective) 16-way support (at the time, MVS
documents had 2processor SMP with only 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of
single processor, aka MVS multiprocessor overhead ... note POK doesn't
ship a 16processor system until after the turn of the century). Then
head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs
3033 processor heads down, no distractions.
3081 originally was going to be multiprocessor only ... and each 3081D
processor was suppose to be faster than 3033 ... but several
benchmarks were showing them slower. Then the processor cache size is
doubled for 3081K and the aggregate 2-processor MIP rate was about the
same as the Amdahl single processor (and MVS 3081K throughput much
less because of its SMP overhead, aka approx .6-.75 of a Amdahl single
processor).
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
HONE (& APL) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Gene Amdahl
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Gene Amdahl
Date: 11 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#37 Gene Amdahl
SHARE Original/Founding Knights of VM
http://mvmua.org/knights.html
IBM Mainframe Hall of Frame
https://www.enterprisesystemsmedia.com/mainframehalloffame
IBM System Mag article (some history details slightly garbled)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200103152517/http://archive.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/stop-run/making-history/
late 70s and early 80s, I was also blamed for online computer
conferencing on the internal network (larger than arpanet/internet
from just about the beginning until sometime mid/late 80s), folklore
was that when corporate executive committee was told, 5of6 wanted to
fire me; it had really taken off spring of 1981 when I distributed
trip report of visit to jim gray (departed IBM SJR for Tandem fall
1980), only about 300 participated but claims that 25,000 was reading,
from when IBM Jargon was young and "Tandem Memos" was new
https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf
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 ...
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
Date: 11 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should
Have Learned in 2008
https://archive.ph/71aYu
"September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in
global history, including the Great Depression." Ben Bernanke, then
the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, made this remarkable claim in
November 2009, just one year after the meltdown. Looking back today, a
decade after the crisis, there is every reason to agree with
Bernanke's assessment: 2008 should serve as a warning of the scale and
speed with which global financial crises can unfold in the
twenty-first century.
... snip ...
Financial houses 2001-2008 did over $27T in securitizing
mortgages/loans; securitizing loans/mortgages, paying for triple-A
rating (when rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A, from
Oct2008 congressional hearings) and selling into the bond
market. YE2008, just the four largest too-big-to-fail were still
carrying $5.2T in offbook toxic CDOs.
Jan1999 I was asked to help prevent the coming economic mess. I was
told some investment bankers had walked away "clean" from the "S&L
Crisis", where then running Internet IPO mills (invest a few million,
"hype", then IPO for a couple billion, needed to fail to leave field
clear for next round; were predicted to next get into securitized
mortgages/lonas). I was to help improve the integrity of securitzed
loan/mortgage supporting documents (as countermeasure). Then they
found they could start doing no-document, liar mortgage/loans,
securitize, pay for triple-A, and sell into the bond market ("no
documents", "no integrity")
Then they found they could start doing securitized mortgage/loans
designed to fail and then take out CDS gambling bets. The largest
holder of CDS gambling bets was AIG and negotiating to pay off at
50cents on the dollar. Then SECTREAS steps in and says they had to
sign document that they couldn't sue those making the bets and take
TARP funds to pay off at 100cents on the dollar. The largest recipient
of TARP funds was AIG and the largest recipient of face value payoffs
was firm formally headed by SECTREAS (note with only $700B in TARP
funds, it would have hardly made at dent in the toxic CDO problem
... the real too big to fail bailout had to be done by FEDRES).
Later found some of the too-big-to-fail were money laundering for
terrorists and drug cartels (various stories it enabled drug cartels
to buy military grade equipment largely responsible for violence on
both sides of the border). There would be repeated "deferred
prosecution" (promising never to do again, each time) ... supposedly
if they repeated they would be prosecuting (but apparent previous
violations were consistently ignored). Gave rise to
too-big-to-prosecute and too-big-to-jail ... in addition to
too-big-to-fail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_prosecution
For Big Companies, Felony Convictions Are a Mere Footnote. Boeing
guilty plea highlights how corporate convictions rarely have
consequences that threaten the business
https://archive.ph/if7H0
The accounting firm Arthur Andersen collapsed in 2002 after
prosecutors indicted the company for shredding evidence related to its
audits of failed energy conglomerate Enron. For years after Andersen's
demise, prosecutors held back from indicting major corporations,
fearing they would kill the firm in the process.
... snip ...
The Sarbanes-Oxley joke was that congress felt so badly about the
Anderson collapse that they really increased the audit requirements
for public companies (as gift to the audit industry). The rhetoric on
flr of congress was that SOX would prevent future ENRONs and guarantee
executives & auditors did jail time ... however it required SEC to do
something. GAO did analysis of public company fraudulent financial
filings showing that it even increased after SOX went into effect (and
nobody doing jail time).
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-138
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-678
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-1053R
The other observation was possibly the only part of SOX that was going
to make some difference might be the informants/whistle-blowers
(folklore was one of congressional members involved in SOX had been
former FBI involved in taking down organized crime and supposedly what
made if possible were informants/whistle-blowers) ... and SEC had a
1-800 for companies to complain about audits, but no whistle-blower
hot line.
The head of the administration after turn of century presided over
letting the financial responsibility act expire (spending couldn't
exceed revenue, on its way to eliminating all federal debt), huge cut
in taxes (1st time taxes were cut to NOT pay for two wars), huge
increase in spending, explosion in debt (2010 CBO report, 2003-2009
taxes cut by $6T and spending increased $6T for a $12T gap compared to
fiscal responsible budget), the economic mess (70 times larger than
his father's 80s S&L Crisis) and the forever wars, Cheney is VP,
Rumsfeld is SECDEF (again) and one of the Team B members is deputy
SECDEF (and major architect of Iraq policy).
economic mess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
federal reserve chairman posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fed.chairman
(triple-A rated) toxic CDO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
too big to fail (too big to prosecute, too big to jail) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
TARP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tarp
ZIRP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp
fiscal responsibility act posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax loopholes, tax abuse, tax avoidance, tax
haven posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
Sarbanes-Oxley posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes.oxley
whistle-blower posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower
ENRON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
financial reporting fraud posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud
S&L Crisis posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#s&l.crisis
Team B posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Instruction Tracing
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Instruction Tracing
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2024 16:58:03 -1000
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
I also heard that the ROMP was originally intended for some sort of
word processor from the Office Products division (the O in ROMP) and
was repurposed into a workstation.
late 70s, circa 1980 ... there were efforts to convert myriad of CISC
microprocessors to 801/RISC microprocessors ... Iliad for low/mid
range 370s (4361/4381 following on to 4331/4341), ROMP
(research/office products) for Displaywriter follow-on (with CP.r
operating system implemented in PL.8), also AS/400 follow-on to
S/38. For various reasons these efforts floundered and some of the
801/RISC engineers left IBM for other vendors.
I helped with white paper that showed that nearly whole 370 could be
implemened directly in circuits (much more efficient than microcode)
for 4361/4381. AS/400 returned to CISC microprocessor. The follow-on
to displaywriter was canceled (most of that market moving to IBM/PC
and other personal computers).
Austin group decided to pivot ROMP to Unix workstation market and got
the company that had done AT&T UNIX port to IBM/PC as PC/IX to do one
for ROMP (AIX, possibly "Austin IX" for PC/RT). They also had to do
something with the 200 or so PL.8 programmers and decided to use them
to implement an "abstract" virtual machine as "VRM" ... telling the
company doing the UNIX port that it would be much more efficient and
timely for them to implement to the VRM interface (rather than bare
hardware). Besides other issues with that claim, it introduced new
problem that new device drivers had to be done twice, one in "C" for
the unix/AIX layer and then in "PL.8" for the VRM.
Palo Alto was working on a port of UCB BSD to 370 and got redirected
to port to the PC/RT ... they demonstrated that they did the BSD port
to ROMP directly ... with much less effort than either the VRM
implementation or the AIX implementation ... released as "AOS".
trivia: early 80s 1) IBM Los Gatos lab was working on single chip
"Blue Iliad", 1st 32bit 801/RISC, really hot, single large chip that
never quite came to fruition and 2) IBM Boeblingen lab had done ROMAN,
3chip 370 implemention (with performance of 370/168). I had proposal
to see how many chips I could cram into single rack (either "Blue
Iliad" or ROMAN or combination of both).
While AS/400 1st reverted to CISC chip ... later in the 90s, out of
the Somerset (AIM, apple, ibm, motorola) single-chip power/pc ... they
got a 801/RISC chip to move to.
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, power, power/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 12 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
trivia: when NCSA complained about their use of "MOSAIC" what silicon
valley company did they get "NETSCAPE" from???
I was told CISCO transferred it to them ... supposedly as part of
promoting/expanding TCP/IP and the Internet.
I had been brought in as consultant responsible for webserver to
payment networks. Two former Oracle people (that I had worked with on
HA/CMP and RDBMS cluster scaleup) were there responsible for for
something called "commerce server" and wanted to do payment
transactions, they also wanted to use "SSL" ... result now frequently
called "electronic commerce". I did a talk on "Internet Isn't Business
Critical Dataprocessing" based on the software, processes, and
documentation I had to do (Postel sponsored talk at ISI/USC).
large mall paradigm supporting multiple stores ... originally funded
by telco that was looking for it being service offering ... had
conventional leased line for transactions into payment networks. then
netscape wanted to offer individual ecommerce webservers with
transactions through the internet to payment gateway into payment
networks.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
payment gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
Date: 12 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#39 The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis. What the World Should Have Learned in 2008
Note: CIA Director Colby wouldn't approve "Team B" report/analysis
that had inflated Soviet military, part of justifying large DOD budget
increase. White House Chief of Staff Rumsfeld then gets Colby replaced
with Bush1 (who would approve it), after which Rumsfeld resigns and
becomes SECDEF (and Rumsfeld's assistant Cheney becomes Chief of
Staff).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
Then Bush1 becomes VP and claims he knows nothing about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
because he was full-time administration point person deregulating the
financial industry causing the S&L crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
along with other members of his family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan
and another
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE0D81E3BF937A25753C1A966958260
and Bush1 and Rumsfeld are also working with Saddam, supporting Iraq
in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
including supplying WMDs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
In the early 90s, Bush1 is president and Cheney is SECDEF. Sat. photo
recon analyst told white house that Saddam was marshaling forces to
invade Kuwait. White house said that saddam would do no such thing and
proceeded to discredit the analyst. Later the analyst informed the
white house that saddam was marshaling forces to invade Saudi Arabia,
now the white house has to choose between Saddam and the Saudis.
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2/
This century, Bush2 is president, Cheney is VP, Rumsfeld is SECDEF
(again), and one of the "Team B" members is deputy SECDEF and credited
with the Iraq policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz
Cousin of White House Chief of Staff Card, was dealing with the Iraqis
at the UN and was given evidence that WMDs (tracing back to US in the
Iran/Iraq war) had been decommissioned. the cousin shared this with
Card, Powell and others ... then is locked up in military hospital,
book was published in 2010 (before decommissioned WMDs were
declassified)
https://www.amazon.com/EXTREME-PREJUDICE-Terrifying-Story-Patriot-ebook/dp/B004HYHBK2/
NY Times series from 2014, the decommission WMDs (tracing back to US
from Iran/Iraq war), had been found early in the invasion, but the
information was classified for a decade
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html
... military-industrial-complex 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 (can *ONLY* be used for purchase of
modern US arms). From the law of unintended consequences, the invaders
were told to bypass ammo dumps looking for WMDs, when they got around
to going back, over a million metric tons had evaporated (later
showing up in IEDs).
https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-War-Lockheed-Military-Industrial-ebook/dp/B0047T86BA/
Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
Team B posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b
S&L Crisis posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#s&l.crisis
perpetual war posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
WMD posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#wmds
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 12 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
trivia: for the transactions through the internet had redundant
gateways with multiple connections into various (strategic) locations
around the network. I wanted to do router updates ... but backbone was
in the process of transition to hierarchical routing ... so had to
make do with multiple (DNS) "A-records". I then was giving class to
20-30 recent graduate paper millionaire employees (mostly working on
browser) on business critical dataprocessing ... including A-record
operation and show support examples from BSD4.3 reno/tahoe clients
... and getting push back that it was too complex. Then I started
making references to if it wasn't in Steven's book, they wouldn't do
it. It took me a year to get multiple A-record support into the
browser.
One of the first e-store was large sporting good operation that was
doing TV advertising during weekend national football games ... this
was in period when ISPs were still doing weekend rolling maintenance
downtime windows. And even with their webserver having multiple
connections to different parts of the internet, there were browsers
that couldn't get to connection (because of missing multiple A-record
support).
payment gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
some posts mentioning netscape and multiple a-records
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#47 Aug. 9, 1995: When the Future Looked Bright for Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#40 The Web browser turns 15: A look back;
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005i.html#9 More Phishing scams, still no SSL being used
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay4.htm#miscdns misc. other DNS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay4.htm#comcert17 Merchant Comfort Certificates
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#43 Netscape
trivia: some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people had gone to the 5th flr for
Multics, others went to to the science center on 4th flr to do virtual
machines and bunch of online stuff. science center wanted a 360/50 to
hardware modify with virtual memory, but all the extra 50s were going
to the FAA ATC product, so they had to settle for 360/40. They did
"CMS" on the bare 369/40 hardware in parallel with the 40 hardware
mods for virtual memory and development of virtual machine CP40 (then
CMS is moved to virtual machine and it is CP40/CMS). Then when 360/67
comes available standard with virtual memory, CP40/CMS morphs into
CP67/CMS. Later CP67/CMS morphs into VM370/CMS (after decision to add
virtual memory to all 370 machines).
GML is invented at the science center in 1969 and GML tag support is
added to SCRIPT (which was rewrite of CTSS RUNOFF for CMS). A decade
later, GML morphs into ISO standard SGML and after another decade
morphs into HTML at CERN. The 1st webserver in the US is at (CERN
sister site) Stanford SLAC on its VM370/CMS system
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit/early-web-chronology-and-documents-1991-1994
After I had joined science center one of my hobbies had been enhanced
production operating systems for internal datacenters and one of my
long term customers was the online sales and marketing support HONE
systems ... 1st CP67/CMS then morphed into VM370/CMS and all US HONE
datacenters (in parallel with clone HONE datacenters were also
cropping up all over the world) were consolidated in Palo Alto,
single-system-image, shared DASD with load-balancing and fall-over
across the large complex of multiprocessors (trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st
moves into silicon valley, it is into a new bldg built next door to
the former consolidated US HONE datacenter). I had also transferred to
San Jose Research and we would have monthly user group meetings at
SLAC.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#43 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#44 Netscape
some internet trivia: primary person (before) inventing GML (in 1969),
was hired to promote Cambridge's CP67 wide-area network (RSCS/VNET,
which morphs into the internal corporate network, larger than
arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid/late
80s, technology also used for corporate sponsored Univ BITNET)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
Some of us transfer out to SJR in 2nd half of 70s (including Edson
responsible for RSCS/VNET & CP67 wide-area network). In early 80s, I
get HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links (both terrestrial and
satellite) and was working with NSF director; was suppose to get $20M
to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the
budget, some other things happen and eventually a RFP is released (in
part based on what we already had running) .From 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
... NCSA (national center supercomputer applications) got some of the
funding
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/mosaic
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed, folklore
is that 5of6 members of corporate executive committee wanted to fire
me). The NSF director 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 claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs
ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, it becomes
the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Edson,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references
from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#43 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#44 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#45 Netscape
possibly more than you ever wanted to know:
23june1969, IBM unbundling, starting to charge for software, services,
maint., tramatic for mainstream software development; requirement that
revenue covers original development, ongoing development&support; had
forecast process for number of customers at low, medium and high price
... some mainstream software couldn't meet revenue at any forecasted
price. One was batch (MVS) system JES2 offering network support; NJE.
RSCS/VNET would meet requirement (with large profit) even at lowest
possible monthly price of $30/month. RSCS/VNET had done an emulated
NJE driver to allow connection of MVS batch systems in internal
network. However NJE had some short comings, code had come from HASP
and had "TUCC" in cols 68-71 (from univ. where it originated), it used
spare entries in the 255 table of pseudo (spool) devices (usually
around 160-180) and would trash traffic where origin and/or
destination weren't in local table. As a result internal JES2/NJE
systems had to be restricted to boundary nodes (hidden behind
RSCS/VNET filter) since internal network was approaching 700 at the
time.
Also the early 70s "Future System" project had recently imploded
(different from 360/370 and was going to completely replace it, during
FS internal politics had been killing off 370 efforts) and there was
mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines. Also the
head of POK (mainstream batch operation) had managed to convince
corporate to kill VM370/CMS product, shutdown the development group
and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA ... and was veto'ing any
announcement of RSCS/VNET (for customers)
JES2 rides in as savior(?), if RSCS/VNET could be announced as a
joint/combined product with (MVS) JES2/NJE, each at $600/month ... the
enormous projected RSCS/VNET revenue (especially at $600/month) could
be used to meet MVS JES2/NJE revenue requirement. The Endicott lab
(entry/mid range 370s) had managed to save the VM370 product mission
(for mid-range 370s) but had to recreate a development group from
scratch. Then there was big explosion in (Endicott mid-range) VM/4341s
... large corporations with orders for hundreds of machines at a time
for placing out in departmental areas (sort of the leading edge of the
coming distributed computing tsunami). Also, Jan1979 I get con'ed into
doing some benchmarks on a engineeering VM/4341 for national lab
looking at getting 70 for a compute farm (sort of leading edge of the
coming cluster supercomputing tsunami).
some of bitnet (1981) could also be credited to price/performance and
explosion in vm/4341s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
.... inside IBM, all the (internal) new vm/4341s helped push the
internal network over 1000 in 1983. I was having constant HSDT (T1 and
faster computer links, both TCP/IP and non-SNA RSCS/VNET) battles with
the communication product group. IBM had 2701 supporting T1 in 60s
... but in the 70s, mainstream move to SNA/VTAM appeared to cap all
the standard products at 56kbits (because of VTAM short comings?)
23jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
bitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
HASP, ASP, JES2, JES3, NJE, NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Netscape
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Netscape
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#43 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#44 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#45 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#46 Netscape
Other 4341 folklore: IBM communication group was blocking release of
mainframe TCP/IP support, part of fiercely fighting off distributed
computing and client/server (trying to preserve their dumb terminal
paradigm). When that got overturned, they changed their tactic and
declared since they had corporate strategic responsibility for
everything that crossed datacenter walls, it had to be released
through them. What shipped got aggregate of 44kbytes using nearly
whole 3090 processor. I then do support for RFC1044 and in some tuning
tests at Cray Research between Cray and 4341, get sustained 4341
channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor
(something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction
executed).
RFC1044 support posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
PROFS
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: PROFS
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
PROFS group was collecting internal apps for wrapping 3270 menus
around.
Hot topic at Friday's after work was some killer app that would
attract mostly computer illiterate employees. One was email
... another was online telephone book. Jim Gray would spend one week
doing telephone lookup app ... lookup had to be much faster than
reaching for paper book on the desk and finding the number ... and I
was to spend a week collecting organization softcopy of printed paper
books to reformat into telephone book format.
There was a rapidly spreading rumor that members of the executive
committee were communicating via email. This was back when 3270
terminals were part of annual budget and required VP level sign-off
... and then find mid-level executives rerouting 3270 deliveries to
their desks (and their administrative assistant) ... to make it appear
like they might be computer literate. There were enormous numbers of
3270 that spent their life with the VM370 logon logo (or possibly PROF
menu) being burned into screen (with admin actually handling things
like email). This continued at least through some of the 90s with
executives rerouting PS2/486 and 8514 screens to their desks (partly
used for 3270 emulation & burning VM370 logo or PROFS menu and partly
status symbols)
PROFS got source for very early VMSG for the email client ... then
when VMSG author tried to offer them a much more mature and enhanced
version ... an attempt was made to fire him. The whole thing quieted
down when he showed all PROFS messages had his initials in every PROFS
email (non-displayed field). After that he only shared his source with
me and one other person.
Later I remember somebody claiming that when congress demanded all
executive branch PROFS notes involving CONTRA .... had to find
somebody with every possible clearance to scan the backup tapes.
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
some posts mentioning profs, vmsg, contra
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#64 Trump received subpoena before FBI search of Mar-a-lago home
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#23 Programming Languages in IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#96 PROFS and Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#54 PROFS, email, 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#20 IBM Profs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#18 IBM Profs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#74 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#76 PROFS
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#1 Application development paradigms [was: RE: Learning Rexx]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#69 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#55 Just for a laugh... How to spot an old IBMer
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/2011i.html#6 Robert Morris, man who helped develop Unix, dies at 78
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#11 History of APL -- Software Preservation Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#57 SNA/VTAM Misinformation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#83 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#64 spool file tag data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#64 history of CMS
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
OSI and XTP
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: OSI and XTP
Date: 13 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
At Interop '88, I was surprised at all the OSI booths.
I was on Greg Chesson's XTP TAB ... and some gov. groups were involved
... so took it to ISO charted ANSI X3S3.3 for layer 4&3, as
"HSP". Eventually X3S3.3 said that ISO required that standards work
can only be done for protocols that conform to OSI model ... XTP
didn't qualify because 1) supported internetworking (aka TCP/IP) which
doesn't exist in OSI, 2) skipped layer 4/3 interface, and 3) went
directly to LAN MAC interface, doesn't exist in OSI model.
Then joke was that IETF required at least two interoperable
implementations before proceeding in standards while ISO didn't even
require a standard to be implementable.
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
interop 88 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88
XTP/HSP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
Date: 14 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Learson was CEO and tried (and failed) to block the bureaucrats,
careerists and MBAs from destroying Watson culture and legacy ... then
20yrs later IBM (w/one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies) was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation
for breaking up the company
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
some more Learson detail ... also John Boyd, I had been introduced to
him in the early 80s and would sponsor his talks at IBM. In 89/90, the
commandant of the marine corps leverages Boyd for a corps make-over,
at a time when IBM was desperately in need of a make-over
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
AMEX was in competition with KKR for private equity LBO of RJR and KKR
wins. Then KKR runs into trouble with RJR and hires away AMEX
president to help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
Then IBM board hires former AMEX president to help with IBM make-over
... who uses some of the same tactics used at RJR (ref gone 404, but
lives on at wayback machine).
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
The former AMEX president then leaves IBM to head up another major
private-equity company
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/
"Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a
Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87
billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted
George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James
Baker III on its employee roster."
... snip ...
aka around the turn of the century, PEs were buying up beltway bandits
and government contractors and channeling as much funds possible into
their own pockets, also hiring prominent politicians to lobby congress
to outsource gov. to their companies (laws exist that companies can't
directly use money from gov. contracts for lobbying) ... poster child
were companies doing outsourced high security clearances but were
found to just doing paper work, but not actually doing background
checks.
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions
private equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
Date: 14 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#50 Former AMEX President and New IBM CEO
... turning into a financial engineering company, Stockman; The Great
Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Deformation-Corruption-Capitalism-America-ebook/dp/B00B3M3UK6/
pg464/loc9995-10000:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall
Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on
steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company
spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure
that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.
pg465/loc10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82
billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year
period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital
investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also
shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by
nearly 2 percent annually.
... snip ...
(2013) New IBM Buyback Plan Is For Over 10 Percent Of Its Stock
http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2013/10/29/new-ibm-buyback-plan-is-for-over-10-percent-of-its-stock/
(2014) IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate
Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks (gone behind paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140201174151/http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-21/ibm-asian-revenues-crash-adjusted-earnings-beat-tax-rate-fudge-debt-rises-20-fund-st
The company has represented that its dividends and share repurchases
have come to a total of over $159 billion since 2000.
... snip ...
(2016) After Forking Out $110 Billion on Stock Buybacks, IBM Shifts
Its Spending Focus
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/25/after-forking-out-110-billion-on-stock-buybacks-ib.aspx
(2018) ... still doing buybacks ... but will (now?, finally?, a
little?) shift focus needing it for redhat purchase.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-30/ibm-to-buy-back-up-to-4-billion-of-its-own-shares
(2019) IBM Tumbles After Reporting Worst Revenue In 17 Years As Cloud
Hits Air Pocket (gone behind paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190417002701/https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-16/ibm-tumbles-after-reporting-worst-revenue-17-years-cloud-hits-air-pocket
more financial engineering company
IBM deliberately misclassified mainframe sales to enrich execs,
lawsuit claims. Lawsuit accuses Big Blue of cheating investors by
shifting systems revenue to trendy cloud, mobile tech
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/07/ibm_securities_lawsuit/
IBM has been sued by investors who claim the company under former CEO
Ginni Rometty propped up its stock price and deceived shareholders by
misclassifying revenues from its non-strategic mainframe business -
and moving said sales to its strategic business segments - in
violation of securities regulations.
... snip ...
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
former AMEX president posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
stock buyback posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM Token-Ring, Ethernet, FCS
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Token-Ring, Ethernet, FCS
Date: 15 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM AWD did their own PC/RT (16bit PC/AT bus) 4mbit token-ring card
... however for RS/6000 microchannel, AWD was directed that they
couldn't do their own cards, but had to use PS2 microchannel
cards. The communication group was fiercely fighting off client/server
and distributed computing (trying to preserve their dumb terminal
paradigm) and had severely performance kneecapped PS2 cards (including
16mbit T/R) ... and the microchannel 16mbit T/R had lower card
throughput than the PC/RT 4mbit T/R card. The joke was that a RS/6000
16mbit T/R server would have lower throughput than a PC/RT 4mbit T/R
server.
The new IBM Almaden Research bldg was heavily provisioned with CAT
wiring apparently assuming 16mbit T/R, but found 10mbit Ethernet had
higher aggregate LAN throughput and lower latency (than 16mbit T/R)
... and $69 10bit Ethernet cards (over IBM CAT wiring) also had higher
card throughput than $800 16mbit T/R card (as well as higher card
throughput than PC/RT 4mbit T/R card). They also found with the
difference in giving every station $69 10bmit Ethernet cards (compared
to $800 16mbit T/R card), they could buy 4 or 5 high performance
routers with mainframe channel interfaces and 16 high-performance
10mbit Ethernet interfaces ... so there were was only a score of
stations sharing each Ethernet LAN (1988 ACM SIGCOMM article analyzing
10mbit Ethernet had cards sustained 8.5mbits/sec and 30 stations in
low-level device driver loop constantly transferring minimum sized
packets, sustained effective LAN throughput dropped off to
8mbits/sec).
The communication group had also been fiercely fighting off release of
mainframe TCP/IP support, but when that got reversed, they changed
their tactic and said that since they had corporate strategic
responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls, it had to
be release through them ... what shipped got 44kbytes/sec aggregate
throughput using nearly whole 3090 processor. I then did RFC1044
support and in some tuning tests at Cray Research between Cray and IBM
4341, got sustained 4341 channel throughput using only modest amount
of 4341 CPU (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per
instruction executed).
AWD had also done an enhanced version of IBM mainframe ESCON protocol
for RS/6000 as "SLA" (incompatible with everybody else, except other
RS/6000s) that was full-duplex and 10% higher sustained transfer,
concurrently in both directions. We con'ed one of the high-speed
router vendors to add SLA support (in addition to IBM&non-IBM
mainframe channels, FDDI, Ethernet, T1, T3, etc).
In 1988, IBM branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national
lab) get standardized some serial stuff they had been working with,
which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", initially
full-duplex, 1gbit concurrent in both directions). AWD had been
playing with doing a 800mbit version of RS/6000 SLA, but convince them
to work with "FCS" instead.
FCS & FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
recent posts mentioning Almaden Research and Ethernet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#7 TCP/IP Protocol
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#69 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#56 Token-Ring Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#47 IBM Mainframe LAN Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#50 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#41 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#22 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#117 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#97 IBM, Unix, editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#41 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#33 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#5 How IBM Stumbled onto RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#76 Another IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#91 TCP/IP, Internet, Ethernett, 3Tier
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#49 Conflicts with IBM Communication Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#6 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#83 IBM's Near Demise
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#50 Ethernet (& CAT5)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#34 Online Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#77 IBM/PC and Microchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#57 Christmas 1989
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#18 Strange chip: Teardown of a vintage IBM token ring controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#4 What is IBM SNA?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#24 IBM "nine-net"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#85 David Boggs, Co-Inventor of Ethernet, Dies at 71
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#84 David Boggs, Co-Inventor of Ethernet, Dies at 71
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#65 David Boggs, Co-Inventor of Ethernet, Dies at 71
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#50 IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#69 IBM MYTE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#42 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#15 The Rise of the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#87 IBM SNA/VTAM (& HSDT)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#45 Holy wars of the past - how did they turn out?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#77 IBM Tokenring
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
Date: 15 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices
Works. Under the Biden program, Medicare will pay less than half of
the current list prices on nine of the first 10 drugs subject to
negotiation
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/medicare-biden-democrats-drug-prices-1235080700/
Medicare drug price negotiations: 10 list prices drop between 38% to
79%. If the prices were set in 2023, Medicare would have saved $6
billion.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/08/big-name-drugs-see-price-drops-in-first-round-of-medicare-negotiations/
Big Pharma push back on first Medicare drug price cuts
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-08-big-pharma-medicare-drug-price.html
White House settles Medicare drug price negotiations. The Medicare
drug price negotiations are slated to save the federal program around
$6 billion across 10 selected medications.
https://www.techtarget.com/revcyclemanagement/news/366604658/White-House-settles-Medicare-drug-price-negotiations
The first major legislation after letting (90s) fiscal responsibility
act was allowed to lapse (2002) was MEDICARE PART-D (2003). US
Comptroller General said that PART-D was an enormous gift to the
pharmaceutical industry, and would come to be a $40T unfunded mandate,
dwarfing all other budget items.
CBS 60mins had segment on the 18 Republicans responsible for getting
PART-D passed ... just before the final vote, they insert a one
sentence change prohibiting competitive bidding (and blocking CBO
distributing report on the effect of the last minute change). 60mins
showed drugs under MEDICARE PART-D that were three times the cost of
identical drugs with competitive bidding. They also found that within
12months of the vote, all 18 Republicans had resigned and were on drug
industry payrolls.
mmedicare part-d posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#medicare.part-d
fiscal responsibility act posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act
comptroller general posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
Date: 15 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
http://2024e.html#53 Dems Prove What Other Countries Know: Negotiating Drug Prices Works
Fiscal Responsibility Act required spending couldn't exceed tax
revenue ... on the way to eliminating all federal debt. 2010 CBO
report 2003-2009 (corporate and wealth) taxes cut by $6T and spending
increased by $6T for a $12T gap compared to fiscal responsible budget
(1st time taxes were cut to not pay for two wars). Sort of confluence
of special interests wanting huge tax cuts, military-industrial
complex wanted huge spending increase and Federal Reserve and
Too-Big-To-Fail wanting huge debt increase (Feds provided trillions in
ZIRP funds to TBTF, who turned around and used it to buy treasuries).
fiscal responsibility act posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act
Fed Reserve chair posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fed.chairman
too-big-to-fail (too-big-to-prosecute, too-big-to-jail) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
ZIRP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#zirp
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax loopholes, tax abuse, tax avoidance, tax
haven posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
military-industrial(-congressional) complex posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Article on new mainframe use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Article on new mainframe use
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2024 15:37:31 -1000
mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) writes:
If one defines a mainframe computer as having the ability to remove and
replace every component without taking the computer off line--then
mainframes are still relevant. Reliability, Availability,
Serviceability.
After Jim Gray left IBM for Tandem, he did study of service availability
& outages, finding hardware reliability was getting to point where
outages were becoming more people mistakes and environmental (aka
earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc). Old overview
"APPROACHES TO FAULT TOLERANCE":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf
also Tandem Technical
reports http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tandem/technical_reports/
Why Do Computers Stop and What Can Be Done About It?
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tandem/technical_reports/TR85-07_Why_Do_Computers_Stop_and_What_Can_Be_Done_About_IT_Jun85.pdf
we got HA/6000 project in late 80s, originally for NYTimes to move their
newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000; I rename it HA/CMP
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs and commecial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors (oracle, sybase,
informix, ingres). Out marketing, I coin disaster survivability and
"geographic survivabilty"; then the IBM S/88 Product Administrator
starts taking us around to their customers and got me to write a section
for the corporate continuous available strategy document (it got pulled
with both Rochester/AS400 and POK/mainframe complained they couldn't
meet the objectives).
In early jan92 meeting with Oracle CEO, AWD/Hester told them that we
would have 16processor clusters mid92 and 128processor clusters ye92,
but a couple weeks later cluster scale-up is transferred for announce
as IBM Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we are told we
can't work with anything that had more than four processors; we leave
IBM a few months later (commercial AS400 & mainframe complaining they
couldn't compete likely contributed).
The structure of System/88, a fault-tolerant computer
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5387672
IBM High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
continuous availability, disaster survivability, geographic
survivability posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM SAA and Somers
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM SAA and Somers
Date: 15 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
My wife had been asked to be co-author of response to large gov. RFP
where she included 3-tier network architecture. We were then out then
making customer executive presentations on TCP/IP, Ethernet, 3tier
network, client/server, distributed computing and taking lots of
misinformation arrows from the SAA, SNA and token-ring
forces. Somebody I had worked with years before was then executive,
top floor, corner office in Somers, responsible for SAA and we would
drop by periodically to complain how badly some of his people were
behaving (90-92 until we left IBM).
I had been introduced to John Boyd in early 80s and use to sponsor his
briefings at IBM. In 89/90, the Commandant of the Marine Corps
leverages Boyd for a Corps make-over ... at a time when IBM was
desperately in need of make-over.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
IBM then has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies
and was being re-organized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for
breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
John Boyd posts and web URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
3tier network architecture posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
DEBE
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: DEBE
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
I had taken two credit hour intro to fortran/computers and at end of
semester was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO (was unit record front-end,
card->tape and tape->printer/punch for 709) for 360/30. Univ was
getting 360/67 to replace 709/1401 and temporarily got 360/30
replacing 1401 pending available of 360/67. I was given a bunch of
software and hardware manuals and got to design my own monitor, device
drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery/retry, storage management,
etc. The univ shutdown datacenter on weekends and I had the whole
place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made monday classes
hard). Within a few weeks, I had 2000 card assembler program (that had
some of the DEBE-like features). When 360/67 came in, it ran as 360/65
with OS/360 (TSS/360 never was ready) and I was hired fulltime
responsible for OS/360.
Jan1968, IBM Science Center came out to install cp67/cms (3rd after
Cambridge itself and MIT Lincoln Labs; aka precursor to VM370/CMS) and
I mostly got to play with it during my dedicated weekend
window.
Lincoln Labs had also done LLMPS, a generalized multiprogramming
supervisor that had been preloaded with most of the DEBE kind of
functions for the contribution to SHARE program library. Univ. of
Michigan also used LLMPS for the initial scaffolding its virtual
memory MTS operating system implementation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Terminal_System
LLMPS
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0650190.pdf
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
some past posts mentioning DEBE, Lincoln Labs, & LLMPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#46 MTS & IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#1 LLMPS, MPIO, DEBE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#27 DEBE?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#26 DEBE?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#100 The (broken) economics of OSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#30 Programmers Who Use Spaces Paid More
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#35 Remember 3277?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#50 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#76 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#16 Xah Lee's Unixism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#64 PLX
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM SAA and Somers
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM SAA and Somers
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#56 IBM SAA and Somers
Original F-15 was supposedly F-111 follow-on with swing-wing. Boyd
redid the design, cutting weight nearly in half, eliminating the
swing-wing ... the weight of the pivot had more than offset most of
the advantages of having swing-wing.
He then was responsible for the YF16&YF17 (which becomes F16 and F18)
and also helped Pierre Sprey with the A10. After Boyd passes, former
commandant of the Marine Corps (recently passed in April) continued to
sponsor Boyd conferences at Marine Corps Univ in Quantico.
I was in San Jose Research but also blamed for online computer
conferencing on the internal network ... folklore is when corporate
executive committee was told, 5of6 wanted to fire me. I was then
transferred to Yorktown, left to live in Saj Jose (with offices in SJR
& then ALM ... along with part of a wing in Los Gatos lab) but had to
commute to YKT a couple times a month.
Another Boyd story was that he was very vocal that the electronics
across the trail wouldn't work, then (possibly as punishment) he was
put in command of "spook base" (about the same time I was at Boeing),
a Boyd biography claims "spook base" was a $2.5B "wind fall" for
IBM.
As undergraduate at Univ. I had been hired fulltime responsible for
OS/360. Then before I graduate, I was hired fulltime into small group
in Boeing CFO office to help with formation Boeing Computer Services
(consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I
think Renton datacenter possibly largest in world (couple hundred
million in 360s, turns out only 1/10th "spook base"). Lots of politics
between Renton director and CFO who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing
field for payroll (although they enlarge machine room for 360/67 for
me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff).
John Boyd posts and web URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
other recent posts mentioining working for Boeing CFO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#24 Public Facebook Mainframe Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#13 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#79 Other Silicon Valley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#74 Some Email History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#63 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#40 ancient OS history, ARM is sort of channeling the IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#25 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#22 Early Computer Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#100 IBM 4300
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#93 ASCII/TTY33 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#9 Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#111 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#49 Vintage 2250
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#77 Boeing's Shift from Engineering Excellence to Profit-Driven Culture: Tracing the Impact of the McDonnell Douglas Merger on the 737 Max Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#73 UNIX, MULTICS, CTSS, CSC, CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#43 Univ, Boeing Renton and "Spook Base"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#25 1960's COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME Origin and Technology (IRS, NASA)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#23 The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#17 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Article on new mainframe use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Article on new mainframe use
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2024 08:28:01 -1000
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
One major crack in this wall came with the introduction of relational
DBMSes, particularly ones using SQL as their interface language: suddenly,
the use of such databases became very much a core "business" need.
The best way to interface to such a DBMS was to be able to generate SQL
strings on the fly; but this required some facility with manipulation of
dynamic, variable-length strings, which COBOL completely lacked. And so
special extensions were tacked on, just to cope with the generation of SQL
queries and templates.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#55 Article on new mainframe use
I was brought in as consultant to small client/server startup, two
former Oracle people (that we had worked on doing cluster scale-up for
HA/CMP) were there responsible for "commerce server" and wanted to do
payment transactions on the server, the startup had also invented SSL
they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called ecommerce.
First webservers were flat files ... but later there were increasing
RDBMS-based webservers that were experiencing increase number of
exploits. One problem was that as part of periodic maintenance, the
internet interfaces were shutdown, multiple layers of firewalls and
security facilities shutdown; maintenance performed and process reversed
to bring webserver back up. WEBSERVER RDBMS mainteance tended to be much
more complex and time consuming (than flat file based webservers)
... and they were frequently in big rush to get back online, failed to
reactivate all the firewall and security facilities.
trivia: I worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original
SQL/relational implementation, "System/R". Also we were able to do
technical transfer to Endicott (under the "radar" while corporation was
preoccupied with "EAGLE", next great DBMS) for SQL/DS. Then when "EAGLE"
imploded, there was a request for how fast could "System/R" be ported to
MVS (eventually released as DB2).
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
working on ecommerce posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Early Networking
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Early Networking
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Edson responsible for the science center wide-area network in the 60s
that morphs into the internal corporate network ... larger than
arpanet/internet from just about beginning until sometime mid/late 80s
... technology also used for the corporate sponsored univ
BITNET. Account by one of the inventors of GML at the science center
in 1969 (decade later morphs into ISO standard SGML and after another
decade mophs into HTML at CERN) ... had been originally brought in to
promote the wide-area network:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
... aka CP67/CMS was precursor to VM370/CMS ... TYMSHARE made their
VM370/CMS-based online computer conferencing system available "free"
to (mainframe user group) SHARE in Aug1976 ... archives:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I had cut a deal with TYMSHARE for monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE
(and later PCSHARE) files for making available on internal systems and
network.
I got HSDT project in early 80s, T1 and faster computer links (both
terrestrial and satellite) ... lots of battles with communication
product group ... for some reason they had "2701" in the 60s
supporting T1 speeds, but apparently problems with the cutover to
SNA/VTAM in the mid-70s, capped their products at 56kbit/sec.
At the time of the great cutover to internetworking 1/1/1983, the
internal corporate network was rapidly approaching 1000 hosts, which
it soon passes. Archived post with list of corporate locations
world-wide adding one or more nodes:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
other Edson/science center trivia:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml
Edson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references from
Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Article on new mainframe use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Article on new mainframe use
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2024 13:24:30 -1000
Stephen Fuld <sfuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
This is the first I have heard of "EAGLE". Can you talk about what it
was like? Was it an "enhanced IMS", or did it follow the CODASYL
model, or something completely different?
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#55 Article on new mainframe use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#59 Article on new mainframe use
... pg11
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102658267-05-01-acc.pdf
a little more here
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-DB2.html
note there were a few System/R "joint studies" ... one was BofA getting
60 vm4341s for distributed operation (Jim wanted me to take it over when
he leaves for Tandem).
system/r posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
801/RISC ROMP (Research & OPD) chip was originally going to be
used (by Austin) for DISPLAYWRITER followon. Rochester was going to
use a different 801/RISC chip for the S34/S36/S38 follow-on,
AS/400. And Endicott was going to use 801/RISC ILIAD chip for
4331/4341 follow-ons, 4361/4381. For various reasons Rochester and
Endicott dropped back to CISC chips. When DISPLAYWRITER followon (lots
of market moves to IBM/PC) was canceled, Austin decided to pivot to
the unix workstation market and got the company that done unix port to
IBM/PC to do one for ROMP, becomes PC/RT and AIX (austin unix?).
Austin then starts on RIOS chipset that becomes RS/6000 &
POWER. Then executive we reported to doing IBM's HA/CMP goes over to
head up Somerset (AIM, Apple, IBM, Motorola) single chip for PowerPC
... which goes through a number of variations and is used by Rochester
to move AS/400 to 801/RISC.
AIM/Somerset
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600
https://wiki.preterhuman.net/The_Somerset_Design_Center
AS/400
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_AS/400
Fort Knox to converge myriad of CISC microprocessors to 801/RISC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_AS/400#Fort_Knox
AS/400 move to PowerPC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_AS/400#The_move_to_PowerPC
We originally got HA/6000 for the NYTimes to move their newspaper
system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP when I
start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national labs
and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS (Oracle, Sybase, Informix,
Ingres) vendors that had VAXCluster support in same source base with
UNIX. Early Jan1992, in meeting with Oracle CEO, AWD/Hester tells them
that we will have 16processor clusters mid92 and 128processor clusters
ye92. However, a couple weeks later, cluster scale-up is transferred
for announce as IBM Supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*)
and we are told we can't work on anything with more than four
processor (we leave IBM a few months later).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#62 RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
ROMP for displaywriter follow-on pivots to unix workstation market for
pc/rt ... needing floating point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RT_PC
The Standard Processor Card or 032 card had a 5.88 MHz clock rate (170
ns cycle time), 1 MB of standard memory (expandable via 1, 2, or 4 MB
memory boards). It could be accompanied by an optional Floating-Point
Accelerator (FPA) board, which contained a 10 MHz National
Semiconductor NS32081 floating point coprocessor. This processor card
was used in the original RT PC models (010, 020, 025, and A25)
announced on January 21, 1986.[3][4]
... snip ...
RIOS chipset (RS/6000) designed for unix workstation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_POWER_architecture
trivia: I also had HSDT project since early 80s, T1 and faster
computer links (both satellite and terrestrial). One of the first T1
satellite links was between IBM Los Gatos Lab and Clementi's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Clementi
E&S lab in IBM Kingston ... had boatload of Floating Point Systems
boxes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems
trivia: in the 60s, IBM sold 2701 controllers that supported T1
... then apparently problems with SNA/VTAM introduced in the 70s,
capped controllers at 56kbits (I had various battles with the
communication group over this).
Then got a custom made Ku-band TDMA satellite system (with transponder
on SBS4), 4.5M dishes in Los Gatos and Yorktown and 7M dish in
Austin. San Jose got an EVE (VLSI logic hardware verification) and ran
a tail circuit between Los Gatos and the machine room EVE ... claim is
Austin being able to use the San Jose EVE, help bring the RIOS chipset
in year early
trivia: RS6000/POWER didn't have cache consistency for shared-memory,
tightly-coupled multiprocessor, so to have scale-up had to do cluster
operation ... POWER/PC got it by adopting the Motorola (RISC) 88k.
1993: eight processor ES/9000-982 : 408MIPS, 51MIPS/processor
1993: RS6000/990 : 126MIPS; 16-way: 2016MIPs, 128-way: 16,128MIPS
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
(my) desk ornament (original) 6chip RIOS/POWER, 150MIOPS, 60FLOPS, 7
million transistors
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
Date: 16 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#62 RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#63 RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
trivia: Austin AWD PC/RT did some of their own cards for the PC/RT
(had 16bit PC/AT bus) including 4mbit token-ring. However for RS/6000
with microchannel, AWD was told they couldn't do their own
(microchannel) cards but had to use the (heavily performance
kneecapped) PS2 cards (the PS2 microchannel 16mbit token-ring card
had lower card throughput than PC/RT 4mbit token-ring card, joke was
that RS/6000 16mbit T/R server would have lower throughput than a
PC/RT 4mbit token-ring server). As a partial work around to corporate
politics, AWD came out with the 730 graphics workstation (with a
vmebus so it could get a high-performance vmebus graphics card,
side-stepping corporate restrictions).
when I joined IBM, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating
systems for internal datacenters, including IBM world-wide, online
sales&market support HONE, which was long time customer. In the first
part of the 70s, IBM had the "Future System" effort that was
completely different from 370s and was going to completely replace it
(internal politics was killing off 370s efforts, the lack of new 370
products during the period is credited with giving the clone 370
makers, including Amdahl, their market foothold). I continued to work
on 360&370 all during the FS period including periodically ridiculing
what they were doing (which wasn't exactly career enhancing
activity). After FS finally implodes there was mad rush to get stuff
back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off quick&dirty
3033&3081 efforts in parallel.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
Note the communication group was fiercely fighting off client/server
and distributed computing trying to preserve their dumb terminal
paradigm (motivation to performance kneecap all the PS2 microchannel
cards). New Almaden bldg had been heavily provisioned with CAT wiring,
presumably for 16mbit token-ring .... but found $69 10mbit ethernet
(CAT wiring) cards had higher card throughput than $800 16mbit
token-ring cards ... and 10mbit ethernet had higher aggregate LAN
throughput and lower latency than 16mbit token-ring.
1988, IBM branch office asked if I could lend help LLNL (national lab)
with standardizing some serial stuff they were playing, which quickly
becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done
for STL in 1980; initially 1gbit, full-duplex, 200mbyes/sec
aggregate). Then POK finally release some stuff (that they been
playing with for at least a decade) with ES/9000 as ESCON (when it was
already obsolete, 17mbyes/sec).
trivia: senior disk engineer in the late 80s, got a talk scheduled at
the annual, internal, world-wide communication group conference
supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement
that the communication group was going to be responsible for the
demise of the disk division. They were seeing a drop in sales with
data fleeing datacenters for more distributed computing friendly
platforms and had come up with a number of solutions. However they
were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate
strategic "ownership" for everything that crossed datacenter
walls. Disk division software executive partial workaround was to
invest in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks, he
would periodically ask us to drop in on his investments to see if we
could provide any help.
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
communication group protecting their dumb terminal paradigm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
cambridge science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Amdahl
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Amdahl
Date: 17 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360-compatible. Folklore is
then executives were afraid it would advance the state of the art too
fast and IBM would loose control of the market, and it is killed,
Amdahl leaves shortly later (lists some features that show up more
than two decades later with ES/9000)
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Not long after Amdahl leaves, IBM has Future System effort, completely
different from 370 and was going to completely replace 370; internal
politics during FS was killing off 370 projects, the dearth of new
370s during FS, is credited with giving the clone 370s makers
(including Amdahl) their market foothold.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
one of the last nails in the FS coffin was IBM Houston Science Center
analysis if 370/195 applications were redone for a FS machine made out
of the fastest hardware technology available, they would have
throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times slowdown). When "FS" implodes
there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines,
including quick&dirty 3033&3081 in parallel
as memo125, 3081 has huge increase in number of circuits which could
be considered motivation for TCMs ... cramming all those circuits in
smaller volume, requiring liquid cooling. 3081 was going to be
multiprocessor only and aggregate of two processor 3081D supposedly
was benchmarking slower than 3033MP ... and IBM fairly quickly doubles
the processor cache sizes for 3081K ... increasing two processor
aggregate MIPS rate to approx. same as Amdahl single processor. Also
IBM documents listed MVS multiprocessor throughput was (only) 1.2-1.5
times single processor (because of its multiprocessor overhead) ... so
MVS 3081K would have much lower throughput than Amdahl single
processor (even though approx same MIPS).
Note during FS, I continued to work on 360/370 and would periodically
ridicule the FS activity (not exactly career enhancing). Also after
joining IBM, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating
systems for internal systems, including world-wide, online
sales&marketing support HONE was long time customer. Amdahl had
been selling into scientific/technical/univ. market but had yet to
break into the true-blue commercial market. I was also participating
in user group meetings and dropping by customers. The director of one
of the largest (financial industry) IBM datacenters on the east coast
liked me to stop by and talk technology. At some point the IBM branch
manager horribly offended the customer and in retribution, the
customer ordered an Amdahl system (lone Amdahl in large sea of IBM,
but would be 1st in true-blue commercial). I was asked to go onsite
for 6-12 months (to help obfuscate why the customer was ordering
Amdahl). I talk it over with the customer and then decline IBM's
offer. I was then told that the branch manager was good sailing buddy
of IBM CEO and if I didn't do this, I could forget career, promotions,
raises. Some more detail
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
Note in the morph in CP67/CMS -> VM370/CMS, they simplify and/or
drop features (including multiprocessor). I initially convert a lot of
CP67 stuff to VM370R2 for my first VM-based internal CSC/VM. Then I
add multiprocessor support to a VM370R3-based CSC/VM, originally for
consolidated US HONE operation (large single-system-image, shared
DASD, with load-balance and fall-over) complex up in Palo Alto
(trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moves into silicon valley, it was into new
bldg built next door to the former consolidated US HONE datacenter)
... so they could add 2nd processor to each system. Then with the
implosion of FS, I was sucked into helping with a 16-processor
multiprocessor system and we con the 3033 processor engineers into
working on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than remapping
168-logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until
somebody tells the head of POK it could be decades before POK favorite
son operating system (MVS) had (effective) 16-processor support (POK
doesn't ship 16-processor system until after the turn of the century)
... aka MVS two-processor support only getting 1.2-1.5 throughput of
single processor (and overhead increased with number of
processors). The head of POK directs some of us to never visit POK
again, and 3033 processor engineers told heads down and no
distractions.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
IBM Science Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Date: 17 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.amazon.com/IBM-Way-Successful-Marketing-Organization-ebook/dp/B004HW783E/
Learson trying (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and
MBAs from destroying Watson culture and legacy.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
and 20yrs later IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
periodic repost: senior disk engineer in the late 80s, got a talk
scheduled at the annual, internal, world-wide communication group
conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with
statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for
the demise of the disk division. They were seeing a drop in sales with
data fleeing datacenters for more distributed computing friendly
platforms and had come up with a number of solutions. However they
were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate
strategic "ownership" for everything that crossed datacenter walls
(and fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing
trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm). Disk division
software executive partial workaround was to invest in distributed
computing startups that would use IBM disks, he would periodically ask
us to drop in on his investments to see if we could provide any help.
communication group stranglehold on datacenters wasn't just disks and
a couple years later, IBM has one of the largest losses in history of
US companies. IBM was then being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company. We had left IBM but get a
call from the bowels of Armonk asking if could help with the
breakup. Before we get started, the board hires former AMEX president
as CEO, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup (but it is not long before
the disk division is gone).
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
AMEX, Private Equity, IBM related Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
communication group trying to preserve dumb terminal paradigm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Date: 18 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#66 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
I took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers and at the end of the
semester was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30. Univ had 709/1401
(1401 unix record front-end for 709) and was getting 360/67 for
tss/360 replacing 709/1401 ... 360/30 temporarily replacing 1401
(gettin 360/30) until 360/67 was available. Within a year of taking
intro class, 360/67 arrived and I was hired fulltime responsible for
os/360 (tss/360 never came to production). Then Science Center came
out to install CP67 (3rd after Cambridge itself and MIT Lincoln Labs)
and I mostly got to play with it during my dedicated weekend window.
Before I graduate, I was hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO
office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate
all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton
datacenter largest in world with couple hundred million in IBM gear,
360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly
staged in hallways around machine room (somebody commented that Boeing
order 360/65s like others ordered keypunches). Lots of politics
between Renton director and Boeing CFO, who only had 360/30 up at
Boeing field for payroll (although they enlarge the machine and
install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other
stuff). When I graduate, I join IBM science center (instead of staying
with Boeing CFO).
One of my hobbies after joining IBM was enhanced production operating
systems for internal systems and HONE was long time
customer. 23June1969 bundling announcement, starting to charge for
(application) software (made case that kernel software was still
free), SE services, maint, etc. SE trainee used to include as part of
large group at customer site, but they couldn't figure out how not to
charge for SE trainee time. HONE was then born, lots of CP67/CMS
datacenters for branch office online access, SEs practicing with guest
operating systems in CP67 virtual machines. The science center also
ported APL\360 to CMS for CMS\APL and HONE started to offer
CMS\APL-based sales&marketing apps which came to dominate all HONE
activity (practicing with guest operating systems withered away).
Decision was made to add virtual memory to all 370s ... I was asked to
track down that decision ... turns out MVT storage management was so
bad that regions had to be specified four times larger than used. As a
result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 only could run four regions
concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. MVT
going to 16mbyte virtual memory (VS2/SVS) could increase number of
concurrent regions by factor of four (capped at 15, because of 4bit
storage protect keys) with little or not paging (sort of like running
MVT in CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). The morph of CP67 to VM370,
simplified and/or dropped lots of features (including multiprocessor
support).
Also early 70s, Future System effort, totally different from 370 and
was to completely replacing 370 (internal politics was killing off 370
efforts, the lack of new 370s is credited with giving the clone 370
makers their market foothold, including Amdahl). I continued to work
on 360&370 all during FS, including ridiculing FS (which wasn't
exactly career enhancing). I start migrating lots of CP67 features to
VM370R2 base for my internal CSC/VM ... and US HONE datacenters are
consolidated in Palo Alto (and clone HONE systems start cropping up
all over the world, some of my 1st overseas business trips) ... with
single-system-image, loosely-coupled, shared DASD, load-balancing and
fall-over across the complex. I then migrate CP67 SMP,
tightly-coupled, multiprocessor support to a VM370R3-based CSC/VM,
initially for US HONE so they can add a 2nd processor to each system.
Future System finally implodes and there is mad rush to get stuff back
into 370 product pipelines, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033 and
3081 efforts in parallel. FS (failing) significantly accelerated the
rise of the bureaucrats, careerists, and MBAs .... From Ferguson &
Morris, "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Time Books
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... 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 ...
more detail
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
With the rise of the clone 370 makers, there is also the decision to
start charging for kernel software, and some of my CSC/VM is chosen
for initial guinea pig and I get to spend a lot of time with business
planners and lawyers on kernel software charging. The head of POK was
also in the processing of convincing corporate to kill the VM370
product, shutdown the development group and move all the people to POK
for MVS/XA. Endicott eventually manages to save the VM370 product
mission (for the mid-range) but has to recreate a development group
from scratch. When transition to charging for kenel software is
complete in the 80s, IBM starts the "OCO-wars" with customers, no
longer shipping source. Note TYMSHARE had started offering their
CMS-based online computer conferencing system free to (mainframe user
group) SHARE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)
in Aug1976 as VMSHARE, archives.
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I had cut a deal with TYMSHARE to get monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE
(and later PCSHARE) files, for putting up on internal network and
systems (including HONE). One of the problems was with lawyers that
were concerned that internal employees would be contaminated by
unfiltered consumer information (especially if it differed from IBM
corporate party line).
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
23june1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Date: 18 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#66 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
S/38 was simplified FS & the single-level-store (which somewhat had
been inherited from TSS/360), started out with single disk, when more
than one disk, it was still single filesystem that could result in a
file scatter allocate across multiple disks (as a result all disks had
to be backed up as single entity and single disk failure required
replacing disk and restoring the whole filesystem). Also there was
plenty of performance head room between throughput required for S/38
and available hardware (not like FS, where 370/195 apps redone for FS
machine made out of fastest available technology ... would have
throughput of 370/145 ... about 30times slowdown).
trivia: my brother was regional apple marketing rep and i could get
invited to business dinners when he came into town and got to argue
MAC design with MAC develops (even before MAC was announced). He also
figured out how to remote dial into the S/38 that ran Apple to track
manufacturing and delivery schedules.
Because how traumatic a single disk failure was for S/38 multi-disk
filesystem, S/38 was early adopter of RAID.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#History
In 1977, Norman Ken Ouchi at IBM filed a patent disclosing what was
subsequently named RAID 4.[5]
... snip ...
trivia: when I transfer out to SJR in 2nd half of 70s, I got to wander
around silicon valley datacenters ... including 14&15 (disk
engineering and product test) across the street. They were running
7x24, pre-scheduled stand-alone testing and mentioned that they had
recently tried MVS, but it had 15min mean-time-between-failure (in
that environment) requiring manual MVS re-ipl. I offer to rewrite I/O
supervisor to make it bullet-proof and never fail so they could do any
amount of concurrent on-demand testing, greatly improving
productivity. I then write an internal-only research report on the I/O
integrity work and happened to mention the MVS 15min MTBF ... bringing
the wrath of the MVS organization down on my head.
other trivia: Part of periodically ridiculing FS was how they were
doing single-level store. I had implemented a CP67/CMS page-mapped
filesystem (and converted to VM370/CMS) and claimed I had learned what
not to do from TSS/360. The implosion of FS gave page-mapped oriented
filesystems such a bad name that I could never get mine released to
customers (although it shipped internally in my internal system
... including production systems in Rochester). It wasn't just me,
Simpson (of HASP spooling fame) had done MFT virtual memory support
and paged mapped filesystem that he called RASP ... and made no
headway ... leaving IBM for Amdahl ... and rewrote it from scratch in
"clean room" conditions. IBM tried to sue that it contained IBM code,
however the auditors were only able to find a couple very short code
sequences that resembled any IBM code.
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
page mapped filesystem posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
getting to play disk engineer in bldg14&15 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
internal enhanced system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
Recent FS posts specifically mentioning 30 times slowdown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#65 Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#37 Gene Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#18 IBM Downfall and Make-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#29 Future System and S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#1 time-sharing history, Privilege Levels Below User
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#20 DB2, Spooling, Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#103 Multicians
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#94 MVS SRM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#86 RS/6000 Mainframe
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Public Facebook Mainframe Group
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Public Facebook Mainframe Group
Date: 18 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#24 Public Facebook Mainframe Group
the 1401 has both 2540 card reader/punch and 1403n1 that were moved
over to 360/30 control unit ... univ shutdown datacenter on weekends
and I got the whole place ... they gave me bunch of hardware and
software manual and I got to design my own system ... within few weeks
had 2000 card assembler program.
one of the 1st things I learned when coming in sat. morning was to
clean tape drives, 2540 (disassemble, clean, put back together), 1403,
etc. Sometimes production had finished early and everything was
powered off and 360/30 wouldn't complete power-on. I learned to put
all the controllers into CE-mode, power on 360/30, power on
controllers individually and take out of CE-mode.
other comments/replies in recent "Buck Roger" post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#66 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#68 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
trivia: I was introduced to John Boyd in early 80s and would sponsor
his briefings at IBM. He had redone original F15 design, cutting
weight nearly in half, then responsible for YF16&YF17 (becomes
F16&F18).
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
One of my siblings was 30yr Navy civilian employee, mostly at Widbey,
when retired was running Growler supply&maint
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_EA-18G_Growler
I would periodically visit ... also would repeat a lot of Boyd stories
and got a lot of EA-18 tshirts and misc other carrier souvenirs. The
F35 forces where publicly saying they obsolete F15, F16, F18 (and
growlers, because F35 stealth was so good no longer needed radar
jamming) and A10. Boyd had also helped Pierre Sprey with A10 and when
the F35 forces started attacking Sprey ... I research non-classified
information for a couple weeks and did a public piece on how to defeat
F35 stealth. Shortly later they publicly announce new jammer pods for
EA-18.
Boyd posts and web URLs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Rise And Fall Of Unix
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Rise And Fall Of Unix
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2024 07:21:17 -1000
Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> writes:
I read in some German texts that in the 90s Linux wasn't found that
many times in computing centers ("under the radar of the management"
was the term used).
I assume the rise of Linux came after that, but that is all stuff that
I can't tell about, I started using computers about 2009/2010.
UNIX was proprietary, no source, under control of vendors with
traditional computer model ... at a time that wide-spread "cluster"
model was starting ... large scale "cluster" supercompting and large
scale "cluster" cloud computing ... and needed full unrestricted source
for adapting to the quickly evolving large scale "cluster" computing
model with enormous numbers of commodity pieces.
besides adapting software to large scale cluster model ... around the
turn of the century, the cloud operators were saying they were
assembling their own commodity computers at 1/3rd the price of vendor
systems (adopting custom software and system designs ... but then
heavily influencing component design and starting to participate in chip
design).
around end of 1st decade of the century, chip vendor press was saying
that they were shipping at least half their product direct to the
(cluster) megadatacenters. Large cloud operators having scores of
megadatacenters around the world, each megadatacenter with hundreds of
thousands of blade systems and tens of millions of processors, enormous
automation, a megadatacenter staffed with only 70-80 people.
megadatacenter posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#megadatacenter
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Date: 20 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#66 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#68 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
During the 80s, the communication group was fiercely fighting off
client/server and distributed computing (trying to preserve their dumb
terminal paradigm). They were opposing release of mainframe TCP/IP and
when that got reversed, they change their strategy, saying that since
the communication group had corporate strategic responsibility for
everything that crossed datacenter walls, it had to be released
through them; what shipped got 44kbytes/sec aggregate using nearly
whole 3090 processor. I then add support for RFC1044 and in some
tuning tests at Cray Research between Cray and IBM 4341, I get
sustained 4341 channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341
processor (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per
instruction executed).
In the early 80s, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links,
both terrestrial and satellite ... and having lots of battles with
communication group. Note IBM sold 2701 controllers in 60s supporting
T1, however communication group in 70s with SNA/VTAM issues, capped
links at 56kbits/sec.
Late 80s, senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the annual,
internal, world-wide communication group conference supposedly on 3174
performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication
group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk
division. They were seeing a drop in sales with data fleeing
datacenters for more distributed computing friendly platforms and had
come up with a number of solutions. However they were all being vetoed
by the communication group with their corporate strategic "ownership"
for everything that crossed datacenter walls. Disk division software
executive partial workaround was to invest in distributed computing
startups that would use IBM disks, he would periodically ask us to
drop in on his investments to see if we could provide any help.
Communication group stranglehold on datacenters wasn't just disks, and
couple years later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history
of US companies and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company (20yrs after Learson fails to
preserve Watson culture/legacy)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
The communication group had also severely performance kneecapped
microchannel PS2 cards. The AWD group had done their own cards for
PC/RT (had a PC/AT 16bit bus). Then for RS/6000 w/microchannel, AWD
was told they couldn't do their own cards but had to use standard PS2
cards. Example was the $800 16mbit token-ring card had lower card
throughput than the PC/RT 4mbit token-ring card (competing with $69
Ethernet cards supporting 8.5mbits/sec sustained). As partial
countermeasure to company politics, AWD came out with RS/6000M730 with
a vmebus ... so they could use workstation industry VMEbus performance
display cards.
In the 90s, communication group hired a silicon valley contractor to
implement TCP/IP directly in VTAM, what he initially demo'ed had TCP
running much faster than LU6.2. He was then told that everybody
"knows" LU6.2 is much faster than a "proper" TCP/IP implementation and
they would only pay for a "proper" implementation.
trivia: late 80s univ studying mainframe VTAM implementation LU6.2 had
160k instruction pathlength (and 15 buffer copies) compared to
unix/bsd (4.3 tahoe/reno) TCP had a 5k instruction pathlength (and 5
buffer copies).
Communication group tried block me on XTP technical advisory board
where we did card supporting scatter/gather (aka mainframe chained
data) I/O with direct data/packet transfer with user space (no buffer
copy). Slight modification to CRC in TCP header protocol, moving the
CRC to trailer protocol so the card could perform CRC calculation as
the data streamed through the card.
RFC1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
communication group trying to preserve dumb terminal paradigm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
801/RISC, Iliad, ROMP, RIOS, PC/RT, RS/6000, Power, Power/PC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
XTP/HSP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Rise And Fall Of Unix
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Rise And Fall Of Unix
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2024 12:04:36 -1000
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
I would argue with the "no source". It was provided gratis
or nominal fee from Western Electric to universities (smart, as the
subsequent graduates moved into industry). The source was licensed
by dozens of corporations and computer manufacturers. License fees
were not exonerous.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#70 The Rise And Fall Of Unix
.... free, unencumbered, availability of source ... problems could
be considered behind the UNIX Wars, SUN/ATT against the rest of
rest of the unixes and OSF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation
The Open Software Foundation (OSF) was a not-for-profit industry
consortium for creating an open standard for an implementation of the
operating system Unix. It was formed in 1988[1] and merged with X/Open
in 1996, to become The Open Group.[2]
...snip ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation#History
The organization was first proposed by Armando Stettner of Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC) at an invitation-only meeting hosted by DEC
for several Unix system vendors in January 1988 (called the "Hamilton
Group", since the meeting was held at DEC's offices on Palo Alto's
Hamilton Avenue).[3] It was intended as an organization for joint
development, mostly in response to a perceived threat of "merged UNIX
system" efforts by AT&T Corporation and Sun Microsystems.
... snip ...
in the mean time, much of the cluster computing forces had latched on to
Linux. One the differences was the vendors were viewing
software&computers as profit ... while the cluster computing forces
viewed software&computers as cost.
megadatacenter posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#megadatacenter
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
Date: 20 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#66 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#68 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#71 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
When IBM's new CEO was still President of AMEX .... he had enormous
mainframe datacenters reporting to him ... doing AMEX electronic card
transactions, but also a credit-card outsourcing business that handled
large percentage of both acquiring merchants and issuing card holders
in the US. In 1992 (same time IBM was having one of the largest losses
in the history of US companies), AMEX spins off those datacenters and
outsourcing business in the largest IPO up until that time as "First
Data Corporation" (in part because banks felt that they could be at
competitive disadvantage with AMEX doing both their own cards and
large percentage of all bank cards).
trivia: AMEX was in competition with KKR for LBO take-over of RJR and
KKR wins, when KKR runs into trouble with RJR, it hires away AMEX
president to help (who is subsequently hired as IBM's CEO). 15yrs
after AMEX FDC spin-off (in largest IPO up until that time), KKR does
a LBO of FDC (in largest LBO up until that time), since offloading it
to FISERV.
Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
Private Equity posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM San Jose
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM San Jose
Date: 20 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
70s and 80s some of us would gather on Friday at local San Jose
watering holes (for 1st few years after Eric's opened up across cottle
from plant site, they had my name posted on the door to the back room)
discussing things like how to get majority of IBM employees that were
computer illiterate using computers. Also there was difficulty of
getting 3270 terminal justifications, requiring VP sign-off, into fall
business plan (even after having done business case showing 3270
terminals 3yr capital depreciation was approx same as monthly desk
business phone)
Then there was rapidly spreading rumor that corporate executives had
gotten keyboards for email. then all of a sudden saw some of the
annual 3270 terminal allocation getting diverted to desks of
executives and management (even tho almost none of them were ever
actually going to do their own email or use the terminals).
saw a number of rounds of this in San Jose ... when new PCs with
terminal emulation came out ... the managers and executives needed the
latest status symbol ... whether they used them or not. There were
several examples where project justified PS2/486 with (larger) 8514
screens for "real" work & development ... were rerouted to some
managers' desk to spend life idle with PROFS menu being burned into
the screen.
Harken back to CEO Learson falling to block the bureaucrats,
careerists, and MBAs from destroying the Watson culture&legacy
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&15 (disk engineering
and product test)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
posts mentioning Eric's on fridays
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#89 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#76 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#62 some '83 references to boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#51 Baudot code direct to computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#50 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#7 An informed populace
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM San Jose
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM San Jose
Date: 21 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#74 IBM San Jose
I did CMSBACK in late 1970s for internal datacenters ... which went
through a number of internal releases, then decade some later, clients
were done for PCs/workstations and eventually released as WDSF
... then morphing into ADSM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Tivoli_Storage_Manager
I had started with a modified version of VMFPLC, increasing maximum
blocking size, and merging the separate FST record with 1st data block
(cutting overhead for smaller files because of tape inter-record
gap). I earlier done page-mapped filesystem for CP67/CMS and then
ported to VM370/CMS ... so I also made sure that buffers were page
aligned.
Late 80s, senor disk engineer got talk scheduled at world-wide,
internal, annual communication group conference supposedly on 3174
performance, but open his talk with statement that the communication
group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk
divison. The disk division was seeing drop in disk sales with data
fleeing datacenters to more distributed computing friendly
platforms. The disk division had done a number of things to address
the situation, but they were constantly being vetoed by the
communication group (had corporation strategic responsibility for
everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely
fighting off client/server and distributed computing). As partial
countermeausre the GPD/AdStar software executive was investing in
distributing computing startups that would use IBM disks (and he would
periodically ask us to stop by his investments to see if we could
help).
At the time, we were doing HA/CMP, started out HA/6000 originally for
the NYTimes to move their newspaper system (ATEX) from VAXCluster to
RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP when start doing cluster scale-up with
national labs and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors (that
had vaxcluster support in same source base with Unix, Oracle, Sybase,
Informix, Inges). Also working with LLNL on their Cray filesystem
LINCS to HA/CMP. One of the GPD/Adstar software executive investments
was NCAR's Mesa Archival (their archive&filesystem) and we were also
helping them port to HA/CMP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
backup/archive posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#backup
cms page-mapped filesystem posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
communication group fighting off client/sever and distributed
computing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
some posts mentioning cmsback, wdsf, adsm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#7 IBM Tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#32 Storage Management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#98 Mainframe Tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#81 Storage Management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#55 IBM VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#85 VMworkshop.og 2022
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#36 Programming Languages in IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#22 IBM 3420 Tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#63 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#26 CMSBACK, ADSM, TSM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#39 IBM downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#9 Hell is ... ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#35 AW: Re: Number of Cylinders per Volume
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#34 Bad History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#37 CMSBACK
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#88 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#2 History question - In what year did IBM first release its DF/DSS backup & restore product?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#79 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#58 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#92 write rings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#11 relative mainframe speeds, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#61 What is holding back cloud adoption?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#46 Slackware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#73 Tape vs DASD - Speed/time/CPU utilization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#6 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#2 WHAT WAS THE PROJECT YOU WERE INVOLVED/PARTICIPATED AT IBM THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#43 PROP instead of POPS, PoO, et al
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#18 Old EMAIL Index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#67 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#59 Backup and Restore Manager for z/VM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#20 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?; Now : Programming practices
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Death of the Engineer CEO
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Death of the Engineer CEO
Date: 22 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
The Death of the Engineer CEO: Evidence that Short-Termism and
Financialization Had Become Ascendant
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/08/the-death-of-the-engineer-ceo-evidence-that-short-termism-and-financialization-had-become-ascendant.html
Marko Jukic, in a Twitter threat flagged by reader dk, advances a
theory that is neat, plausible, and wrong. He correctly points out how
the installation of CEOs coming out of finance at storied companies
like Boeing, Intel, and Sony, directly led to them adopting policies
that were destructive to these companies.
... snip ...
Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing. Somewhere along the
line, the plane maker lost interest in making its own planes. Can it
rediscover its engineering soul?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/boeing-corporate-america-manufacturing/678137/
Did Stock Buybacks Knock the Bolts Out of Boeing?
https://lesleopold.substack.com/p/did-stock-buybacks-knock-the-bolts
Since 2013, the Boeing Corporation initiated seven annual stock
buybacks. Much of Boeing's stock is owned by large investment firms
which demand the company buy back its shares. When Boeing makes
repurchases, the price of its stock is jacked up, which is a quick and
easy way to move money into the investment firms' purse. Boeing's
management also enjoys the boost in price, since nearly all of their
executive compensation comes from stock incentives. When the stock
goes up via repurchases, they get richer, even though Boeing isn't
making any more money.
... snip ...
2016, one of the "The Boeing Century" articles was about how the
merger with MD has nearly taken down Boeing and may yet still
(infusion of military industrial complex culture into commercial
operation)
https://issuu.com/pnwmarketplace/docs/i20160708144953115
The Coming Boeing Bailout?
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-coming-boeing-bailout
Unlike Boeing, McDonnell Douglas was run by financiers rather than
engineers. And though Boeing was the buyer, McDonnell Douglas
executives somehow took power in what analysts started calling a
"reverse takeover." The joke in Seattle was, "McDonnell Douglas bought
Boeing with Boeing's money."
... snip ...
Crash Course
https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-investigation-indonesia-lion-air-ethiopian-airlines-managerial-revolution
Sorscher had spent the early aughts campaigning to preserve the
company's estimable engineering legacy. He had mountains of evidence
to support his position, mostly acquired via Boeing's 1997 acquisition
of McDonnell Douglas, a dysfunctional firm with a dilapidated aircraft
plant in Long Beach and a CEO who liked to use what he called the
"Hollywood model" for dealing with engineers: Hire them for a few
months when project deadlines are nigh, fire them when you need to
make numbers. In 2000, Boeing's engineers staged a 40-day strike over
the McDonnell deal's fallout; while they won major material
concessions from management, they lost the culture war. They also
inherited a notoriously dysfunctional product line from the
corner-cutting market gurus at McDonnell.
... snip ...
Boeing's travails show what's wrong with modern
capitalism. Deregulation means a company once run by engineers is now
in the thrall of financiers and its stock remains high even as its
planes fall from the sky
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/11/boeing-capitalism-deregulation
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
stock buyback posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback
some past posts mentioning "McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#79 Other Silicon Valley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#9 Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#56 Did Stock Buybacks Knock the Bolts Out of Boeing?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#104 More IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#18 Sun Tzu, Aristotle, and John Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#64 Massachusetts, Boeing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#91 Short-term profits and long-term consequences -- did Jack Welch break capitalism?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#117 Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#109 Not counting dividends IBM delivered an annualized yearly loss of 2.27%
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#69 'Flying Blind' Review: Downward Trajectory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#40 Boeing Built an Unsafe Plane, and Blamed the Pilots When It Crashed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#78 The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#57 "Hollywood model" for dealing with engineers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#87 Congress demands records from Boeing to investigate lapses in production quality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#70 Boeing CEO Said Board Moved Quickly on MAX Safety; New Details Suggest Otherwise
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#40 IBM & Boeing run by Financiers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#10 "This Plane Was Designed By Clowns, Who Are Supervised By Monkeys"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#153 At Boeing, C.E.O.'s Stumbles Deepen a Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#151 OT: Boeing to temporarily halt manufacturing of 737 MAX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#39 Crash Course
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Death of the Engineer CEO
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Death of the Engineer CEO
Date: 22 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#76 The Death of the Engineer CEO
... IBM a financial engineering company, Stockman; The Great
Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Deformation-Corruption-Capitalism-America-ebook/dp/B00B3M3UK6/
pg464/loc9995-10000:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall
Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on
steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company
spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure
that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.
pg465/loc10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82
billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year
period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital
investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also
shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by
nearly 2 percent annually.
... snip ...
(2013) New IBM Buyback Plan Is For Over 10 Percent Of Its Stock
http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2013/10/29/new-ibm-buyback-plan-is-for-over-10-percent-of-its-stock/
(2014) IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate
Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks (gone behind paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140201174151/http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-21/ibm-asian-revenues-crash-adjusted-earnings-beat-tax-rate-fudge-debt-rises-20-fund-st
The company has represented that its dividends and share repurchases
have come to a total of over $159 billion since 2000.
... snip ...
(2016) After Forking Out $110 Billion on Stock Buybacks, IBM Shifts
Its Spending Focus
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/25/after-forking-out-110-billion-on-stock-buybacks-ib.aspx
(2018) ... still doing buybacks ... but will (now?, finally?, a
little?) shift focus needing it for redhat purchase.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-30/ibm-to-buy-back-up-to-4-billion-of-its-own-shares
(2019) IBM Tumbles After Reporting Worst Revenue In 17 Years As Cloud
Hits Air Pocket (gone behind paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190417002701/https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-16/ibm-tumbles-after-reporting-worst-revenue-17-years-cloud-hits-air-pocket
more financial engineering company
IBM deliberately misclassified mainframe sales to enrich execs,
lawsuit claims. Lawsuit accuses Big Blue of cheating investors by
shifting systems revenue to trendy cloud, mobile tech
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/07/ibm_securities_lawsuit/
IBM has been sued by investors who claim the company under former CEO
Ginni Rometty propped up its stock price and deceived shareholders by
misclassifying revenues from its non-strategic mainframe business -
and moving said sales to its strategic business segments - in
violation of securities regulations.
... snip ...
Learson trying to block (and failed) the bureaucrats, careerists and
MBAs from destroying Watson cutlture/legacy
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
stock buyback posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM DB2
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM DB2
Date: 22 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
Original sql/relational was System/R during the 70s at IBM San Jose
Research. I worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on some of it. It was
then possible to do tech transfer to Endicott (for SQL/DS) "under the
radar" while the company was preoccupied with the next great DBMS:
"EAGLE". When "EAGLE" eventually implodes there was a request for how
fast could System/R be ported to MVS, which is eventually released as
DB2 (originally for decision support only).
... pg11
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102658267-05-01-acc.pdf
a little more here
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-DB2.html
note there were a few System/R "joint studies" ... one was BofA
getting 60 vm4341s for distributed operation (Jim wanted me to take it
over when he leaves for Tandem).
We had got HA/6000 project, originally to move NYTimes newspaper
system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP when I
start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national labs
and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors that had VAXCluster
in same source base with UNIX (Oracle, Sybase, Informix,
Ingres). There was a simplified portable SQL/RDBMS (aka "Shelby")
being developed for OS/2 (but was years away from running
with/supporting high performance cluster UNIX)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
Then cluster scale-up (planning 128-processor clusters by ye1992) is
transferred for announce as IBM Supercomputer (for
technical/scientific *only*) and we are told we couldn't work with
anything that has more than four processors (we leave IBM a few months
later). Note: Mainframe DB2 were complaining that if we were allowed
to continue, it would be years ahead of them. 1993 RS/6000 compared to
largest mainframe
ES/9000-982 : 408MIPS, 51MIPS/processor
RS6000/990 : 126MIPS/processor; 16-way: 2016MIPs, 128-way: 16,128MIPS
Original SQL/Relational posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, power, power/px
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
NSFNET
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: NSFNET
Date: 23 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Early 80s, got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links, both
satellite and terrestrial. One of the HSDT 1st satellite links was T1
circuit (over IBM's SBS C-band satellite system, 10m dishes) between
IBM Los Gatos lab and Clementi's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Clementi
E&S lab in IBM Kingston that had boat load of Floating Point Systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems
boxes (that included 40mbyte/sec disk RAID boxes to help keep boxes
fed)
Also working with NSF Director and was suppose to get $20M to
interconnect the NSF Supercomputer Centers. We gave presentations at a
few centers, including Berkeley (UC got a large NSF grant for
supercomputer center, supposedly for Berkeley, but the story was the
Regent's bldg plan had San Diego getting the next new bldg and it
becomes the UCSD supercomputer center instead). In part because of the
Berkeley presentations, in 1983 was asked if I could help with the
Berkeley 10M telescope project (gets large grant from Keck foundation
and it becomes Keck Observatory). They were also working on converting
from film to CCDs and wanted to do remote viewing from the mainland.
Then congress cuts the budget, some other things happened and
eventually a RFP was released (in part based on what we already had
running), From 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
... IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed). The NSF
director 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 claims that what we
already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid),
as regional networks connect in, it becomes the NSFNET backbone,
precursor to modern internet.
The RFP called for T1 network, but the (IBM AWD) PC/RT (based router)
links were 440kbits/sec (not T1) and they put in T1 trunks with telco
multiplexers (carrying multiple 440kbit links) to call it a T1
network. I periodically ridiculed that why don't they call it T5
network, since it was possible that some of the T1 trunks were in
turn, carried over T5 trunks.
For the T3 upgrade, I was asked to be the red team and numerous people
from several labs were the blue team. At final review, I presented 1st
and then the blue team. A few minutes into the blue team presentation,
the executive running the review, pounded on the table and said he
would lay down in front of a garbage truck before he let any but the
blue team proposal go forward (several people leave).
HSDT also got our own 3-node custom designed Ku-band TDMA satellite
system (transponder on SBS4) with 4.5M dishes in IBM Los Gatos and IBM
(Research) Yorktown and 7M dish in IBM (AWD) Austin. IBM San Jose got
EVE (VLSI logic verification/simulation) and HSDT ran a circuit from
Los Gatos to the computer room with the EVE. IBM Austin AWD claimed
that being able to use the EVE in San Jose help bring the RIOS chip
set (RS/6000) in a year early.
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, power, power/pc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM DB2
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM DB2
Date: 23 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#78 IBM DB2
70s, IMS forces were criticizing System/R that it required twice the
disk space (of IMS) for "index" and 4-5 times the I/O (traveling
through the index). System/R counter was index significantly reduced
the skill level and manual effort (compared to IMS). In the 80s, for
RDBMS, disk sizes were significantly increasing and price/bit
significantly dropping ... and system memory significantly increasing
(caching cutting physical I/Os) ... while IMS human resources capped
and cost increasing ... so started seeing big explosion in workstation
and then PC RDBMS servers.
when Jim left for Tandem he also wanted me to pickup consulting for
the IMS group.
trivia: when I 1st transferred to SJR, I got to wander around lots of
datacenters in silicon valley, including bldg14&15 (disk engineering
and product test) across the street. They were doing 7x/24,
pre-scheduled, stand-alone testing and had mentioned that they had
recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment,
requiring manual re-ipl). I offer to redo I/O supervisor, making it
bullet proof and never fail allowing any amount of concurrent,
ondemand testing, greatly improving productivity. I then write an
internal only, research report on the I/O integrity work happening to
mention MVS 15min MTBF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS group on my
head.
unrelated, I get coned into doing channel-extender support for IMS
group. 1980, STL (now "SVL") was bursting at the seams and they were
moving 300 from the IMS group to offsite bldg with dataprocessing back
to STL datacenter. IMS group had tried "remote 3270" support but found
the human factors were totally unacceptable. I do channel-extender
support so they can place channel-attached 3270 controllers at the
offsite bldg with no perceptible difference in human factors between
in STL and offsite.
The hardware vendor then wants IBM to release my channel-extender
support, but there is group in POK playing with some serial stuff and
get it veto'ed (afraid that if it is in the market it would be harder
to justify releasing their stuff). Then in 1988, IBM branch office
asks if I can help LLNL (national lab) gets some serial stuff they are
playing with standardized, which quickly becomes fiber-channel
standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980), initially
1gbit/sec, full-duplex, 200mbyte/sec aggregate. Then the POK engineers
get their stuff released in the 90s, with ES/9000 as ESCON (when it is
already obsolete, 17mbyte/sec).
Then some POK engineers become involved with FCS and define a
heavy-weight protocol that drastically reduces the native throughput
which eventually ships as FICON. The latest public benchmark I've
found is z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the
same time a FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blade, claiming over
million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON). IBM docs
also recommend that SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O)
be kept to 70% CPU ... which would be more like 1.5M IOPS. Also no
real CKD DASD has been made for decades, all being simulated on
industry standard fixed-block disks.
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
FICON and FCS posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM/PC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM/PC
Date: 23 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Nov1987, Boca sent email to Endicott saying that they were told that
VM scheduling much better than OS/2, Endicott forwards it to Kingston,
Kingston forwards it to me. I send Boca stuff on how to do scheduling
(that I had originally done as undergraduate in the 60s for CP67/CMS
... percursor to VM370/CMS).
Note: Communication group was fiercely fighting off client/server and
distributed computing trying to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm
(and leveraging their corporate straegic responsibility for everything
that crossed datacenter walls). trivial example, AWD PC/RT (16bit
AT/bus) did their own 4mbit token-ring card. Later for RS/6000
w/microchannel, AWD was told they couldn't do their own cards, but had
to use PS2 cards (which had been heavily performance kneecapped by the
communication group), example was the microchannel 16mbit token-ring
card had lower throughput than PC/RT 16bit AT/bus 4mbit token-ring
card (further aggravated by $800 16mbit token-ring card had
significantly lower throughput than $69 Ethernet cards).
Late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at annual,
world-wide, internal communication group conference, supposedly on
3174 performance, but open the talk with statement that communication
group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division
... they were seeing data fleeing datacenters (to more distributed
computing friendly platforms) with drop in disk sales. They had come
up with multiple solutions that were constantly vetoed by the
communication group.
Communication group datacenter stranglehold wasn't just disks and a
couple years later, IBM had one of the largest losses in the history
of US companies and was being re-orged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
Learson trying (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and
MBAs from destroying Watson culture and legacy; the loss/reorg
preparing for breakup then is 20yrs later
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
scheduling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
communication group trying to preserve dumb terminal paradigm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
former AMEX president posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The Internet's 100 Oldest Dot-Com Domains
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Internet's 100 Oldest Dot-Com Domains
Date: 25 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
The Internet's 100 Oldest Dot-Com Domains
https://www.pcworld.com/article/532545/oldest_domains.html
Person responsible for the science centers wide-area network in the
60s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
... evolves into internal corporate network and technology also used
for the corporate sponsored univ. BITNET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
Account by one of the inventors of GML in 1969 at the science center
about original job was promoting the wide-area network
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
my email was cambridg/wheeler. Much later, I had unix workstation at
Interop88 in booth immediate right angles to SUN booth, Case was in
the SUN booth with SNMP and con'ed him into installing it on my
workstation. trivia: Sunday before the show opens, the floor nets were
crashing with packet floods .... eventually got diagnosed
... provision about it shows up in RFC1122.
previous reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#33 Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#34 Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#35 Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#36 Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#37 Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#38 Internet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
bitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
gml, sgml, html, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
interop88 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Scheduler
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Scheduler
Date: 26 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
... well, not batch but there is the one I did for CP67 as
undergraduate in the 60s. Then when I joined IBM one of my hobbies was
enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters. In the
morph from CP67->VM370 lots of stuff was dropped/simplified; my
dynamic adaptive resource manager, multiprocessing support, etc. I
then was migrating internal systems from CP67 to VM370 starting with
VM370R2. At the time SHARE was submitting requests that the "wheeler
scheduler" be added to VM370.
With the 23July1969 unbundling announcement, they started charging for
(application) software (but made the case that kernel software should
still be free), SE services, maint., etc. In the early 70s, IBM
started the "Future System" project, completely different from 370 and
was going to completely replace it (I continued to work on 360/370 all
during FS, periodically ridiculing what they were doing); also
internal politics was killing off 370 efforts (the lack of new 370
during the period is credited with giving the clone 370 makers their
market foothold). Then when FS finally implodes, there is mad rush to
get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off
the quick&dirty 3033 & 3081 in parallel.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
also with Future System politics having given rise to the 370 clone
makers, the decision was made to transition to charging for all kernel
software, starting with "charged for" addons and bunch of my stuff was
selected for "guinea pig". VM370 had been given the 3letter prefix
"DMK" for source modules ... and so I chose "DMKSTP" (from TV
commercials at the time). Then somebody from corporate said he
wouldn't sign off on release because I didn't have any manual tuning
knobs, claiming manual tuning knobs at the time was "state of the art"
(aka MVS with what look like hundreds of little manual twiddling
things). Trying to explain "dynamic adaptive" fell on deaf ears, so I
implemented a few manual turning knobs accessed with the "SRM" command
(parody on MVS) ... detailed description and source for the formulas
were published. The joke (from operation research) was the dynamic
adaptive adjustments had more degrees of freedom than the manual
tuning knobs (able to offset any manual adjustment).
15yrs later (after the 1st customer VM370 release), we were on
world-wide marketing trip for our IBM HA/CMP product (some customers
used it for deploying some number of workflow management products)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
and in Hong Kong calling on large bank and a recently graduated new
IBM Marketing Rep asked me if I was wheeler of the
wheeler scheduler ... saying they had studied it at at
Univ. of Waterloo
trivia: same time as packaging for VM370 Resource Manager, had also
got asked to work on 16-processor 370 and we con the 3033 processor
engineers to work on it in their spare time. Everybody thought it was
great until somebody tells head of POK that it could be decades before
POK's favorite son operatin system ("MVS") had (effective)
16-processor support and some of us were invited to never visit POK
again and 3033 processor engineers directed heads down and no
distractions. Note: at the time MVS documentation said that MVS
2-processor throughput had 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of a single
processor (and POK doesn't ship a 16-processor machine until after the
turn of the century).
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
(internal) csc/vm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
23jun1969 unbundling announce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
dynamic adaptive resource manager posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
SMP, shared-memory multiprocessor, tightly-coupled posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM GPD/AdStaR Disk Division
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM GPD/AdStaR Disk Division
Date: 27 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
senior disk engineer in the late 80s, got a talk scheduled at the
annual, internal, world-wide communication group conference supposedly
on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the
communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the
disk division. They were seeing a drop in sales with data fleeing
datacenters for more distributed computing friendly platforms and had
come up with a number of solutions. However they were all being vetoed
by the communication group with their corporate strategic "ownership"
for everything that crossed datacenter walls (and fiercely fighting
off client/server and distributed computing trying to preserve their
dumb terminal paradigm). Disk division (GPD/AdStaR) software executive
partial workaround was to invest in distributed computing startups
that would use IBM disks, he would periodically ask us to drop in on
his investments to see if we could provide any help.
DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia (3380, HIPPA, 9333, SSA, FCS,
FICON, etc)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dasd-channel-io-long-winded-trivia-lynn-wheeler/
CEO Learson tried (and failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists
and MBAs from destroying Watson culture and legacy
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
... 20yrs later (a couple yrs after after senior disk engineer talk,
communication group stranglehold on datacenters wasn't just disks) IBM
has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies and was
being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up
the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup (although it wasn't long before the
disk division is gone).
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&15 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
FCS, FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
communication group trying to preserve dumb terminal paradigm posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
former AMEX president posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
Date: 27 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
misc IEN:
IEN#1 - Issues in the Interconnection of Datagram Networks 1977/07/29
IEN#3 - Internet Meeting Notes 1977/08/15
IEN#5 - TCP Version 2 Specification 1977/03/
IEN#10 - Internet Broadcast Protocols 1977/03/07
IEN#11 - Internetting or Beyond NCP 1977/03/21
IEN#14 - Thoughts on Multi-net Control and Data Collection Factilities 1977/02/28
lots of email refs starting late 70s, include "internet" and
"internetwork"
reference: Postel, Sunshine, and Cohen: The ARPA Internet Protocol,
fourth issue (June?) of 1981 Computer Networks, pp 261-271.
lots of email signature lines starting around 1987 included:
"internet: xxxxxxxx@IBM.COM" ... to differentiate from internal
corporate network and bitnet/csnet.
... possibly part of the issue was enabler for modern internet started
with NSFNET which had (non-commercial) "Acceptable Use Policy"
INDEX FOR NSFNET Policies and Procedures
3 Jun 93
This directory contains information about the policies and procedures
established by the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) and
its associated networks. These documents were collected by the NSF
Network Service Center (NNSC). With thanks to the NNSC and Bolt
Berenek and Newman, Inc., they are now available by anonymous FTP from
InterNIC Directory and Database Services on ds.internic.net.
... example:
<NIS.NSF.NET> [NSFNET] NETUSE.TXT
Interim 3 July 1990
NSFNET
Acceptable Use Policy
The purpose of NSFNET is to support research and education in and
among academic institutions in the U.S. by providing access to unique
resources and the opportunity for collaborative work.
This statement represents a guide to the acceptable use of the NSFNET
backbone. It is only intended to address the issue of use of the
backbone. It is expected that the various middle level networks will
formulate their own use policies for traffic that will not traverse
the backbone.
... snip ...
trivia: I got HSDT project in early 80s, T1 and faster computer links
(both terrestrial and satellite) and was working with NSF Director
... was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF Supercomputer
centers; then congress cuts the budget, some other things happen and
eventually an RFP is released (in part based on what we already had
running), From 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed, folklore
is that 5of6 members of corporate executive committee wanted to fire
me). The NSF director 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 claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs
ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, it becomes
the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
Date: 27 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#85 When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
story about how JES2 group leveraged VM370 RSCS/VNET to get both VNET
and NJE announced for customers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#46 Netscape
in comment/reply thread including about the person responsible for the
science center wide-areat network, which evolves in the internal
corporate network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#41 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#43 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#44 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#45 Netscape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#47 Netscape
and technology also used for the corporate sponsored univ BITNET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
wasn't SNA/VTAM, then marketing stopped shipping the native VNET
drivers (just the NJE simulation) ... although the internal corporate
network keeped using native VNET drivers because they were more
efficient and higher throughput ... at least until the communication
group forced the conversion of the internal corporate network to
SNA/VTAM. Meanwhile the person responsible for it all was battling for
conversion to TCP/IP ... SJMerc article about Edson (he passed
aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind
paywall but lives free at wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references
from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
The communication group had also been battling to not release
mainframe TCP/IP, when that was overruled, they changed their tactic
and said that they had corporate strategic responsibility for
everything that crossed datacenter walls and it had to be released
through them. What shipped got aggregate 44kbytes/sec using nearly
whole 3090 processor. I then do support for RFC1044 and in some tuning
tests at Cray Research between Cray and IBM 4341, got sustained 4341
channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor
(something like 500 times increase in bytes moved per instruction
executed).
cambridge science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
bitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
RFC1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM San Jose
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM San Jose
Date: 27 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#74 IBM San Jose
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#75 IBM San Jose
old almaden TSM article (gone 404)
https://web.archive.org/web/20060312093224/http://www.almaden.ibm.com/StorageSystems/Past_Projects/TSM.shtml
TSM wiki (ibm specturm, ibm storage protect)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Tivoli_Storage_Manager
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Tivoli_Storage_Manager#History
TSM descended from a project done at IBM's Almaden Research Center
around 1988 to back up VM/CMS systems. The first product that emerged
was Workstation Data Save Facility (WDSF). WDSF's original purpose was
to back up PC/DOS, OS/2, and AIX workstation data onto a VM/CMS (and
later MVS) server. WDSF morphed into ADSTAR Distributed Storage
Manager (ADSM) and was re-branded Tivoli Storage Manager in 1999.
... snip ...
... skips part about I had 1st done CMSBACK in the late 70s at SJR for
internal datacenters and over it having gone through several releases
After the first version, I worked with one of the datacenter support
people for the next few releases of CMSBACK. He did a CMSBACK
presentation at the VM ITE 11AM, 27Feb1980. Later, he left IBM and was
doing consulting in silicon valley.
backup/archive posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#backup
GPD VM/370 Internal Technical Exchange
The following is the agenda for the meeting.
Tuesday, February 26, 1980:
9:00 - W.W. Eggleston - VM/370 ITE Kickoff, Mr. Eggleston is the
President of GPD.
9:30 - Ray Holland - ITE Overview.
9:45 - Forrest Garnett - Dynamic Writable Shared Segment Overview.
10:00 - Jim Gray - System R, An Overview.
10:30 - Break
11:00 - Gene Svenson - Extended Networking.
11:30 - Roy Engehausen - Network management and load balancing tools.
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Peter Rocker - Network Response monitoning, Remote Dial
Support, and VM/370 Hyper Channel attachment
1:20 - Jeff Barber - CADCOM - Series/1 to VM/370 inter-program
communications.
1:35 - Noah Mendelson - PVM - Pass Through Virtual Machine Facility.
2:00 - Noah Mendelson - EDX on Series/1 as a VNET work station.
2:15 - Tom Heald - Clock - Timer Driven CMS Virtual Machine.
2:30 - Break
3:00 - Vern Skinner - 3540 Diskett Read/Write Support in CMS.
3:30 - Bobby Lie - VM/SP - System Product offering overview
and discussion.
4:30 - Closing - From this point on there can be small
informal sessions of points of interest.
Wednesday, February 27, 1980:
9:00 - Billie Smith - Common System Plans.
modifications and results.
9:30 - Claude Hans - XEDIT Update.
Nagib Badre
10:00 - Graham Pursey - SNATAM - Controlling SNA devices from CMS.
10:30 - Break
11:00 - Mike Cowlishaw - REX Executor.
11:45 - Mark Brown - San Jose File Back-up System.
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Albert Hafner - VMBARS - VM/370 Backup and Retrieval System.
1:45 - Chris Bishoff - 6670 Office System Printer and VM/370
Tom Hutton
2:15 - Break
2:45 - Rodger Bailey - VM/370 Based Publication System.
3:15 - Dieter Paris - Photo-composition Support in DCF
3:30 - John Howard - VM Emulator Extensions.
Dave Fritz
3:40 - Tom Nilson - DPPG Interavtive Strategy and VM/CMS
.
4:30 - Closing - From this point on there can be small
informal sessions of points of interest.
*4:30 - Editor Authors - This will be an informal exchange of
information on the changes comming and
any input from users on edit concepts.
All those wishing to express their opinions
should attend.
Thursday, February 28, 1980:
9:00 - Ed Hahn - VM/370 Mulit-Drop Support
9:30 - Ann Jones - Individual Password System for VM/370.
10:00 - Walt Daniels - Individual Computing based on EM/YMS
10:30 - Breaka
11:00 - Chris Stephenson - EM/370 - Extended Machine 370 and EM/YMS
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Simon Nash - Extended CMS Performance Monitoring Facility
1:30 - George McQuilken - Distributed Processing Maching Controls.
2:00 - Mike Cassily - Planned Security Extensions to VM/370 at
the Cambridge Scientific Center
2:30 - Break
3:00 - Steve Pittman - Intra Virtual Machine Synchronization
Enqueue/Dequeue Mechanisms.
3:30 - Jeff Hill - Boulder F.E. Source Library Control System.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM DB2
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM DB2
Date: 28 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#78 IBM DB2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#80 IBM DB2
... eagle in URLs from upthread
... pg.9 (computerhistory) refs NOMAD from National CSS .... NCSS was
a CP67 (precursor to VM/370) spin-off from IBM Cambridge Science
Center (and System/R was done on VM/370). In 60s, I was undergraduate
and at CP67 install (3rd after IBM CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs)
and had rewritten lots of CP67 and CMS. CSC announced a one week class
at Beverley Hills Hilton, I arrive Sunday and am asked to teach CP67
class (the people that were to teach it had resigned the friday before
to join/form NCSS). RAMIS & NOMAD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramis_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad_software
trivia: When we were doing HA/CMP (w/major RDBMS vendors), I didn't
remember him (from IBM STL) but Oracle senior VP claimed he did the
tech transfer from Endicott SQL/DS and SJR System/R to for (MVS) DB2.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
system/r posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
posts mentioning csc, cp67, ramis, nomad, system/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#17 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#64 Mainframe Cobol, 3rd&4th Generation Languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#13 NCSS and Dun & Bradstreet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#116 360/67 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#28 IBM Cambridge Science Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#49 4th generation language
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#92 Cobol and Jean Sammet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#16 The amount of software running on traditional servers is set to almost halve in the next 3 years amid the shift to the cloud, and it's great news for the data center business
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#4 IBM Midrange today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#85 z/VM Live Guest Relocation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#39 The complete history of the IBM PC, part two: The DOS empire strikes; The real victor was Microsoft, which built an empire on the back of a shadily acquired MS-DOS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017j.html#29 Db2! was: NODE.js for z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#34 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#62 Google F1 was: Re: MongoDB
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#56 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#69 "Best" versus "worst" programming language you've used?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#37 Quote from comp.object
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#35 PDP-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#15 Dreaming About Redesigning SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#17 CA-RAMIS
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Under industry pressure, IRS division blocked agents from using new law to stop wealthy tax dodgers
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Under industry pressure, IRS division blocked agents from using new law to stop wealthy tax dodgers
Date: 29 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Under industry pressure, IRS division blocked agents from using new
law to stop wealthy tax dodgers. High-powered tax attorneys bemoaned
the 2010 legislation meant to crack down on big-dollar tax
shelters. They ended
https://www.icij.org/news/2024/08/under-industry-pressure-irs-division-blocked-agents-from-using-new-law-to-stop-wealthy-tax-dodgers/
In early 2010, U.S. lawmakers gave what was supposed to be a gift to
IRS agents with the grueling job of ensuring the wealthiest people and
largest corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Tucked inside
President Barack Obama's landmark Affordable Care Act was a new law
that prohibited shifting money around for the sole purpose of avoiding
taxes. This struck at the heart of the complex offshore tax maneuvers
-- the shell companies, sham trusts and dubious intercompany loans --
that the affluent use to help keep billions of dollars from government
coffers. Suddenly the notion that many of these schemes were
technically legal was cast in doubt. Now it was up to the IRS to
enforce the new law.
... snip ...
tax fraud, tax evasion, tax loopholes, tax abuse, tax avoidance, tax
haven posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Mainframe Processor and I/O
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Mainframe Processor and I/O
Date: 29 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
1988, IBM branch office asks if I can help LLNL (national lab) get
some serial stuff they are playing with standardized, which quickly
becomes fiber-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done
in 1980), initially 1gbit/sec, full-duplex, 200mbyte/sec
aggregate. Then the POK engineers finally get their stuff released in
the 90s, with ES/9000 as ESCON (when it is already obsolete,
17mbyte/sec).
Later some POK engineers become involved with FCS and define a
heavy-weight protocol that drastically reduces the native throughput
which eventually ships as FICON. The latest public benchmark I've
found is z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (running over
104 FCS). About the same time a FCS is announced for E5-2600 server
blades, claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput
than 104 FICON). IBM docs also recommended that SAPs (system assist
processors that do actual I/O) be kept to 70% CPU ... which would be
more like 1.5M IOPS. Also no real CKD DASD has been made for decades,
all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block disks.
Note max configured z196 went for $30M (and benchmarked at 50BIPS,
industry standard program loop counts compared to reference platform
370/158-3) while IBM base list price for E5-2600 server blade was
$1815 (same benchmark but 500BIPS, ten times max configured z196). For
a few decades, large cloud operators claim they assemble their own
server blades at 1/3rd cost of brand name blades. Shortly after
industry press about server chip makers were shipping at least half
their product directly to cloud operators, IBM sells off its server
blade business.
A large cloud operation will have score or more megadatacenters around
the world, each with hundreds of thousand of server blade systems
(each blade may now be tens of TIPS rather .5TIPS) and enormous
automation, a megadatacenter staffed with 70-80 people.
IBM CEO Learson tried (and failed) to block the bureaucrats,
careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson culture&legacy. 20yrs
later, (communication group stranglehold on datacenters wasn't just
disks) IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup.
longer reference from a couple years agao
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
fibre channel standard ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
...from 1990 FCS design review meeting at LLNL, Ancor installing
32-port prototype (expandable to 4096 port) non-blocking
switch. Design would allow 132mbit and 1gbit to co-exist.
I had wanted IBM (Hursley) 9333 (80mbit, full-duplex, serial copper)
to evolve into interoperable FCS-compatible, instead it evolves into
160mbit SSA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Storage_Architecture
late 80s, I was also asked to participate in SLAC Gustavson SCI
https://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/5000/slac-pub-5184.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface
was used for scalable multiprocessor ... including Sequent's numa-q
256-processor (Sequent later bought by IBM, trivia: I did some
consulting for CTO Steve Chen before IBM purchase)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems#NUMA
As used for I/O protocol, contributed to evolution of InfiniBand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfiniBand
other history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurebus
fibre-channel and FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
cloud megadatacenter posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#megadatacenter
some posts mentioning 9333, SSA, "Peak I/O", and e5-2600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#22 Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#60 IBM "Winchester" Disk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#71 IBM AIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#35 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#70 Vintage RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#104 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#15 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#60 S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#73 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#19 Fibre Chanel Vs FICON
some posts mentioning SLAC, Gustavson, SCI, and Sequent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#54 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#106 Shared Memory Feature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#78 microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, supercomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#91 Stanford SLAC (and BAYBUNCH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#16 A brief overview of IBM's new 7 nm Telum mainframe CPU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#45 OoO S/360 descendants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#53 IBM NUMBERS BIPOLAR'S DAYS WITH G5 CMOS MAINFRAMES
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#32 Cluster Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#57 tablets and desktops was Has Microsoft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#176 IBM Continues To Crumble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#49 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#44 Larrabee delayed: anyone know what's happening?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#24 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#11 Climate, US, Japan & supers query
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#85 what makes a cpu fast
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
Date: 29 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#85 When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#86 When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
IBM Science Center had (non-SNA) wide-area network in the 60s
... which evolves into the internal corporate network (also non-SNA).
In 60s, IBM also marketed (360 telecommunication) controller 2701 that
supported T1 speeds. With the introduction of SNA/VTAM in the mid-70s
there appeared to be issues with SNA/VTAM that resulted in capping
controllers at 56kbits/sec links.
Late 80s (more than two decades after 2701) came out with the SNA/VTAM
3737 controller that supported a (short-haul, terrestrial) T1 link
(aggregate was 2mbit, aggregate US full-duplex 3mbit, aggregate EU
full-duplex 4mbit). They had a boat load of memory and Motorola 68k
processors and simulated (local) CTCA VTAM ... the local 3737 VTAM
simulation would immediately ACK RUs to the local HOST VTAM ... and
then transmit the RUs in the background to the remote 3737 (for
forwarding to the remote HOST VTAM) ... in order to keep the traffic
flowing ... otherwise the round-trip delay for ACKs resulted in very
little traffic flowing (even for short-haul terrestrial T1).
Leading up to the NSFnet T1 RFP award ... there was significant amount
of internal corporate misinformation email about being able to use SNA
.... somebody collected it and forwarded the collection.
scenter posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
old SNA/3737 related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email880130
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email880606
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email881005
other TCP/IP related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email870328
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email881020
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email890217
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email890512
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM TPF
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM TPF
Date: 29 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
When 3081 shipped in early 80s, it was supposedly multiprocessor only
... however ACP/TPF didn't have multiprocessor support and there was
concern that the whole ACP/TPF market would move to Amdahl (the latest
Amdahl single processor had about the same MIPS/processing rate as the
aggregate of 3081K two processor). Eventually IBM ships 3083 (a 3081
with one of the processors removed).
Later in the 80s, my wife did a short stint as chief architect for
Amadeus (EU system built off the old Eastern Airlines "System
One"). She didn't remain very long because she sided with EU on use of
x.25 (instead of SNA) and the IBM communication group got her
replaced. It didn't do them much good, EU went with x.25 anyway and
communication group replacement was replaced.
pending 3083, there were unnatural things done to VM370 attempting to
increase TPF throughput running in virtual machine on two processor
3081 ... however it decreased VM370 throughput for all other vm370
multiprocessor customers (not limited to just 3081s, but also 3033,
168, 158, etc). I got called into some of these VM370 customers,
including very large gov. customer (back to 60s CP67 days) ... to look
at masking the degradation (i.e. not allowed to revert their vm370 to
pre-TPF custom changes).
3083J, 3083jx, 3083kx, then 9083 hand-picked 3083s that were able to
run clock a little faster ... and then microcode tailored to TPF i/o
patterns. Then also played with running 9083 with DAT disabled to see
if that ran any faster (only capable of running TPF).
trivia: after leaving IBM in the 90s, was called into largest TPF
airline res system to look at ten things they couldn't do. I was asked
to start looking at "ROUTES" (about 25% of processing load) ... they
gave me a complete softcopy of OAG (all commercial airline scheduled
flts) and I went away for several weeks and came back with ROUTES
running on RS/6000s that did all the (ROUTES) impossible things. I
claimed that lots of TPF still reflected some 60s tech trade-offs,
starting from scratch I could make completely different
trade-offs. First pass was just existing implementation but able to
handle all routes requests for all airlines for all passengers in the
world (ran about 100 times faster than mainframe version). Then adding
in support for the impossible things that they wanted done, made it
only ten times faster than mainframe implementation (in part because
3-4 existing transactions were collapsed into all handled by single
transaction). Showed it was possible to handle every ROUTE request in
the world with a pool of ten RS6000/990s.
a couple past ACP/TPF, 3083, ROUTES posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#77 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
smp, multiprocessor, tightly-coupled posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
The rise and fall of IBM
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The rise and fall of IBM
Date: 30 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
"The rise and fall of IBM" (english) 20jan1995
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm
After 40 years of unrivalled success, IBM is now in serious
trouble. What has happened? Jean-Jacques Duby explains how the
company's values and the cogs and wheels of its internal management
system doomed IBM to failure, in the light of long developments in the
technical, economic and commercial environment. But why there should
have been such a sudden shock remains a mystery. Perhaps IBM's mighty
power had delayed its downfall, making this all the more brutal as a
result, like the earthquake which follows the sudden encounter of two
continental plates.
... snip ...
Ferguson & Morris, "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Time Books,
1993
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394
"and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of
free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE NO
WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived
in the shadow of defeat ... 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 ...
more F/S
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
just about time FS starting, 1972, CEO Learson tried (and failed) to
block bureaucrats, careerists and MBAs from destroying Watson
culture&legacy
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
Two decades later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of
US companies and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" (somewhat
recalling "baby bells" breakup of AT&T decade before) in preparation
for breaking up the company
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup.
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM TPF
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM TPF
Date: 30 Aug, 2024
Blog: Linkedin
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#92 IBM TPC
trivia: IBM communication group was fiercely fighting off
client/server and distributed computing and blocking release of
mainframe TCP/IP support. When that was overturned, they change their
strategy and claim that since they had corporate strategic
responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls, it had to
be released through them; what shipped got aggregate of 44kbytes/sec
using nearly whole 3090 processor. I then do changes for RFC1044
support and in some tuning tests at Cray Research between Cray and IBM
4341, get sustained 4341 channel throughput using only modest amount
of 4341 processor (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved
per instruction executed). I had gotten HSDT project in the early 80s,
T1 and faster computer links (both terrestrial and satellite). Note in
60s, IBM offered (telecommunication controller) 2701 supporting T1
speeds. However in mid-70s with transition to SNA/VTAM, there appeared
to be issues that capped SNA controllers at 56kbit/sec links (and with
HSDT T1 and faster links, had all sort of battles with the
communication group).
Early on was also working with NSF director and suppose to get $20M to
interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers; then congress cuts the
budget, some other things happen and eventually an RFP is released (in
part based on what we already had running), From 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed, folklore
is that 5of6 members of corporate executive committee wanted to fire
me). The NSF director 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 claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs
ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, it becomes
the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
rfc1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
hsdt posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
Date: 31 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Network Working Group Request for Comments: 33
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc33.txt
New HOST-HOST Protocol, 12 February 1970
S. Crocker UCLA
S. Carr University of Utah
V. Cerf UCLA
pg2
For example, the computers at the first four sites are an XDS 940
(Stanford Research Institute), an IBM 360/75 (University of
California, Santa Barbara), an XDS SIGMA-7 (University of California,
Los Angeles), and a DEC PDP-10 (University of Utah). The only
commonality among the network membership is the use of highly
interactive time-sharing systems; but, of course, these are all
different in external appearance and implementation. Furthermore, no
one node is in control of the network. This has insured reliability
but complicates the software.
Of the networks which have reached the operational phase and been
reported in the literature, none have involved the variety of
computers and operating systems found in the ARPA network. For
example, the Carnegie-Mellon, Princeton, IBM network consists of
360/67's with identical software. [2] Load sharing among identical
batch machines was commonplace at North American Rockwell Corporation
in the early 1960's. Therefore, the implementers of the present
network have been only slightly influenced by earlier network
attempts.
... snip ...
... aka, the IBM Science Center, CP/67 (360/67, virtual machine,
VNET/RSCS) 60s wide-area network (from one of the members that
invented GML in 1969):
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
... however there was a totally different kind of implementation from
60s, done for (batch) OS/360 HASP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Automatic_Spooling_Priority
that had "TUCC" in col68-71 of the source cards (for univ. where it
originated). Early 70s internal batch OS360/HASP (and follow-on batch
JES2) installations wanted to connect into the CP/67 wide-area
network. An issue was that HASP version was completely tied to batch
OS/360 ... while VNET/RSCS had a clean layered implementation. As a
result a "clean" VNET/RSCS device driver was done that simulated the
HASP network implementation allowing the batch operating systems to be
connected into the growing internal network.
However the HASP (and later JES2) implementations had other issues
including 1) defined network nodes in spare entries in the 256 entry
psuedo device table (maybe 160-180, while the internal network was
already past 256 nodes) and would trash traffic where origin or
destination node weren't in the local table and 2) since network fields
were intermixed with job control fields ... traffic originating from
HASP/JES2 system at a slightly different release/version from
destination HASP/JES2, could result in crashing the destination host
operating system. In the 1st case, HASP/JES2 systems were restricted
to isolated boundary/edge nodes. In the 2nd case, a body of VNET/RSCS
simulated HASP/JES2 drivers evolved that could recognize origin and
destination HASP/JES2 systems were different release/version and
re-organize header fields to correspond to specific version/release
level of a directly connected destination HASP/JES2 system (there was
an infamous case of local JES2 mods in San Jose, Ca were crashing JES2
systems in Hursley, England and the intermediate VNET/RSCS system was
blamed because their drivers hadn't been updated to handle the local
changes in San Jose). Another case was the west coast STL (now SVL)
lab and Hursley installed double-hop satellite link (wanting to use
each other systems off-shift) ... it worked fine with VNET/RSCS but
wouldn't work at all with JES2 (because their telecommunication layer
had a fixed round-trip max delay ... and double hop round trip
exceeded the limit).
Person responsible for the VNET/RSCS implementation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
The VNET/RSCS technology was also used for the corporate sponsored
univ BITNET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references
from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
At the time of the great cutover to internetworking 1/1/1983, ARPANET
had approx. 100 network IMPs and 255 hosts, at a time when the
internal network was rapidly approaching 1000 nodes. Archived post
that includes list of world-wide corporate locations that added one or
more nodes during 1983:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
I've commented that the requirement and availability of IMPs
possibility contributed to not growing faster. The IBM internal
network had a different kind of limitation (besides having to be
corporate installation), corporate required that all links had to be
encrypted ... and periodically faced gov. resistance (especially where
links crossed gov. borders, then later communication group veto'ing
anything that wasn't true mainframe host).
trivia: as undergraduate I had been hired fulltime responsible for
OS/360 running on 360/67 (univ originally got it for tss/360 which
never came to fruition). then the science center came out to install
CP67 (3rd installation after Cambridge itself and MIT Lincoln Labs). I
mostly got to play with it during my weekend dedicated time; aka the
univ. shutdown the datacenter on weekends and I had it all to myself
(although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). In the early 80s
at IBM, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links (both
terrestrial and satellite). Note IBM marketed telecommunication
controller 2701 in the 60s that supported T1 links. Then in the
mid-70s, the company moved to SNA/VTAM ... and possibly because of
SNA/VTAM issues, controllers became capped at 56kbit links. As a
result, I would have various run-ins with the communication products
group.
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HASP/JES2, ASP/JES3, NJE/NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
some past posts that reference 60s 2701 and late 80s 3737
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#91 When Did "Internet" Come Into Common Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#62 Vintage Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#75 We list every company in the world that has a mainframe computer
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM CICS
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM CICS
Date: 31 Aug, 2024
Blog: Facebook
recent post here, originally posted in the internet group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#95 RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
mention that as undergraduate in the 60s, I was hired fulltime
responsible for os/360. at one point the univ. library got an ONR
grant to do an online catalog and some of the money went for IBM 2321
(datacell). It was also selected to be betatest for original CICS
product ... and CICS support added to tasks. One of the 1st problems
was CICS wouldn't came up, turns out that CICS had some hard-coded
BDAM options (that hadn't been specified) and library had built BDAM
datasets with different set of options. Some Yelavich webpages, gone
404 but live on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/http://www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20071124013919/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm
One of CICS features was to acquire as much OS/360 resources as
feasible/practical at startup and provide services within CICS
(because OS/360 resource management was extremely heavy-weight and
bloated); file opens, storage, tasking, etc (contributed to not having
multiprocessor support, as alternative running increasing numbers of
concurrent CICS instances; turn of century visited machine room with
banner above mainframe saying it was running 129 concurrent CICS
"instances").
CICS/BDAM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
COBOL history, Article on new mainframe use
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: COBOL history, Article on new mainframe use
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2024 23:38:38 -1000
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
Um, if you spent ten seconds looking at the 1960 COBOL report, you
would have found IBM listed as one of the contributors, and it
specifically lists the IBM Commercial Translator as one of thte
sources for COBOL.
Bob Bemer
https://history.computer.org/pioneers/bemer.htm
Bemer is the inventor of the words "Cobol," and "CODASYL," six ASCII
characters, and the concepts of registry and escape sequences in
character codes. He also invented the term and defined the nature of the
"software factory." At IBM he developed the first load-and-go system
(PRINT I) and also was responsible for the implementation of the
programming system FORTRANSIT, which provided a quick first compiler for
the IBM 650 computer, and was the first programming language to run both
decimal (IBM 650) and binary (IBM 704) computers. For the support of
commercial programming Bemer developed PRINT I; in the late 1950s he
developed XTRAN, a step towards Algol, and "Commercial Translator,"
which became a significant input to Cobol. His major Cobol innovations
were the IDENTIFICATION and ENVIRONMENT divisions, and the PICTURE
clause.
... snip ...
web bages gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20180402200149/http://www.bobbemer.com/HISTORY.HTM
Bemer wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bemer
He served on the committee which amalgamated the design for his COMTRAN
language with Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC and thus produced the
specifications for COBOL. He also served, with Hugh McGregor Ross and
others, on the separate committee which defined the ASCII character
codeset in 1960, contributing several characters which were not formerly
used by computers including the escape (ESC), backslash (\), and curly
brackets ({}).[3] As a result, he is sometimes known as The Father of
ASCII.[1]
... snip ..
COMTRAN wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMTRAN
COMTRAN (COMmercial TRANslator) is an early programming language
developed at IBM. It was intended as the business programming equivalent
of the scientific programming language FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator). It
served as one of the forerunners to the COBOL language. Developed by Bob
Bemer, in 1957, the language was the first to feature the programming
language element known as a picture clause.
... snip ...
COMTRAN manual
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/7090/F28-8043_CommercialTranslatorGenInfMan_Ju60.pdf
Bob Bemer papers
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8j96cf7/
He later played a key role in the development of the COBOL programming
language, which drew on aspects of Bemer's COMTRAN programming language
developed at IBM. Bemer is credited with the first public identification
of the Y2K problem, publishing in 1971 his concern that the standard
representation of the year in calendar dates within computer programs by
the last two digits rather than the full four digits would cause serious
errors in confusing the year 2000 with the year 1900.
... snip ...
posts memtioning Bob Bemer and Cobol:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#32 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#24 COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME, its Origin and Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#116 What's different, was Why did Dennis Ritchie write that UNIX was a modern implementation of CTSS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#52 Rather nice article on COBOL on Vulture Central
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#49 Internet Mainframe Forums Considered Harmful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#6 50th anniversary of BASIC, COBOL?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#67 Wondering if I am really eligible for this group
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
Date: 01 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#95 RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol
... "job entry" ... original HASP NJE from "TUCC", some HASP RJE, CRJE
and other trivia
360/67 terminal controller came installed with 1052 & 2741 port
scanners, univ had some tty terminals and so ascii/tty port scanner
arrived in heathkit box to be installed. cp/67 arrived with 1052&2741
terminal support with automagic switching port/line to appropriate
terminal-type scanner type. I then add ascii/tty terminal support to
CP67 integrated with automagic port scanner switching. I then wanted
single dial-in number ("hunt" group) for all terminal types ... didn't
quite work since IBM had taken short cut and had hardwired port
line-speed. This kicked off a clone controller project at univ, build
channel interface card for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM
controller (with the addition of auto line-speed) ... later upgraded
to Interdata/4 for channel interface and cluster of Interdata/3s for
port interfaces. This is sold as clone controller by Interdata and
later Perkin-Elmer (later four of us are written up for some part of
IBM clone controller business)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
Later, I modify MVT18 HASP, removing 2780/RJE support code (to reduce
memory requirements) and replace it with 2741&tty terminal support and
editor (implementing CMS edit syntax) for CRJE (conversational remote
job entry). The univ had also gotten a 2250 graphics display with
360/67. I then modify CMS ediitor to interface to Lincoln Labs 2250
library (for fullscreen display).
part of 68 SHARE presentation, 360/67 768kbytes, MFT14 kernel
82kbytes, HASP 118kbytes (with 1/3rd 2314 track buffering)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18 CP/67 & OS MFT14
My 1st os/360 SYSGEN had been MFT9.5 ... ran student fortran job in
well over minute (360/67 had replaced 709 tape->tape where it had been
under a second). I install HASP which cuts the time in half. I then
start redoing STAGE2 SYSGEN for careful datasets and PDS member
placement to optimize arm seek and multi-track search, reducing time
another 2/3rds to 12.9secs (never got better than 709 until I install
Univ. of Waterloo WATFOR). When CP67 initially installed my OS360
benchmark jobstream that ran 322secs on bare hardware, ran 856secs in
virtual machine. The next few months I rewrite lots of CP67 to reduce
virtual machine overhead running OS360, getting it down to 435secs
(reducing CP67 CPU from 534secs to 113secs).
HASP/JES2, ASP/JES3, NJE/NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
clone controller posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
PROFS, SCRIPT, GML, Internal Network
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: PROFS, SCRIPT, GML, Internal Network
Date: 04 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
PROFS group collected a lot of internal (CMS) command line apps for
wrapping menus around (for the less computer literate) ... including a
very early source version of VMSG for the email client; when the VMSG
author tried to offer them a much enhanced version of VMSG ... an
attempt was made to get him fired. The whole thing quieted down when
the VMSG author showed that every PROFS email contained his initials
in a non-displayed field. After that the VMSG author only shared his
source with me and then one other person.
CMS SCRIPT was a port/rewrite of MIT CTSS/7094 RUNOFF to CMS. Then
when GML was invented at the science center in 1969, GML tag
processing was added to SCRIPT. From one of the GML inventors about
the science center wide-area network (that morphs into into the IBM
internal network)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
more in recent long-winded (public) Internet&Mainframe posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.htmpl#95 RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol</a>
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.htmpl#98 RFC33 New HOST-HOST Protocol</a>
trivia: one of the first mainstream IBM documents done in SCRIPT was
the 370 architecture "redbook" (for being distributed in red 3-ring
binders). A CMS SCRIPT command line option would generate either the
370 Principle of Operations or the the full redbook with architecture
notes, implementation details, and various alternatives considered.
ibm science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
SCRIPT, GML, SGML, HTML, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
In the early days of 3270 terminals, still part of the annual budget
process and requiring VP-level sign-off (even tho we showed that it
was about the same cost as 3yr wrie-off for desk phone), we would have
friday after work in the San Jose plant area. One of the hot topics
was getting employees and managers to use computers. One of the things
we came up with (besides email) was online telephone books. We decided
that Jim Gray would spend one week to implement a phone book lookup
application (that would be much faster a person could do lookup in
paper copy) and I would spend one week implementing procedures that
acquired softcopy versions of IBM internal paper printed phonebooks
and converting them to online lookup format.
In this period there was also a rapidly spreading rumor that members
of the corporate executive committee had started using email for
communication ... and started seeing managers redirecting 3270s
deliveries to their desks (even tho it was purely facade, sitting all
day powered on with login screen or PROFs menu being burned into the
screen (and administrative staff actually handling any email).
Email actually dating back to MIT CTSS/7094 days (aka, some of the
CTSS had gone to the 5th flr to do Multics and others went to the IBM
science center on the 4th flr to do virtual machines, online apps,
wide-area network morphing into IBM internal network, invent GML,
etc).
CTSS EMAIL history
https://multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
IBM CP/CMS had electronic mail as early as 1966, and was widely used
within IBM in the 1970s. Eventually this facility evolved into the
PROFS product in the 1980s.
... snip ..
https://multicians.org/thvv/anhc-34-1-anec.html
some posts mentioning script, gml, network, vmsg, profs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#78 IBM TLA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#54 PROFS, email, 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#18 IBM Profs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#98 PROFS & GML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#48 Before the Internet: The golden age of online service
posts mentioning 3270 deliveries getting redirected to managers' desks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#71 Vintage Mainframe PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#118 Google Tells Some Employees to Share Desks After Pushing Return-to-Office Plan
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#77 "12 O'clock High" In IBM Management School
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#79 IBM Fridays
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#60 PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#70 IBM online systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#80 The ICL 2900 Buying a computer in the 1960s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#58 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
360, 370, post-370, multiprocessor
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 360, 370, post-370, multiprocessor
Date: 05 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
original 370 were 115, 125, 135, 145, 155, 165. Precursor to 165 was
360/85. Then the Future System effort that was totally different from
370 and was going to replace it (claim that during FS, internal
politics was shutting down 370 efforts, and lack of new 370 was what
gave clone 370 makers there market foothold). Overlapping was some 370
tweaks, 115-II, 125-II, 138, 148, 158, 168. When FS finally implodes
there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines,
including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033&3081 in parallel ... some
more detail
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
3033 was 168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips (303x channel director
was 158 engine with just the integrated channel microcode; a 3031 was
two 158 engines, one with just 370 microcode and 2nd with just channel
microcode; 3032 was 168 tweaked to use the 303x channel director for
external channels). As mentioned, 3081 was some tweaked FS technology
... but enormous increase in circuits compared to any product in that
time (possibly spawning TCMs), two processor 3081D aggregate was less
than Amdahl single processor, then doubled 3081 processor cache and
3081K aggregate was about same as Amdahl single processor, although
two processor MVS multiprocessor support claimed it only got 1.2-1.5
times throughput of single processor, making Amdahl single processor
much greater MVS throughput throughput than 3081K). Also 308x
originally was only going to be multiprocessor, but ACP/TPF didn't
have multiprocessor support and afraid that market would all move to
Amdahl ... which prompts coming out with 3083 (3081 with one of the
processors removed).
Once 3033 was out the door, the 3033 processor engineers start on
trout/3090.
Account of end of ACS/360 .... folklore it was killed because concern
that it would advance state-of-the-art too fast and IBM would loose
control off the market. Amdahl then leaves shortly later ... also
gives an account of features that showup in the 90s with ES/9000
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
trivia: with FS imploding there was a project to do 16-processor 370
machine that I got roped into helping and we con'ed the 3033 processor
engineers to work on in their spare time (lot more interesting than
remapping 168 logic to faster chips). Everybody thought it was great
until somebody tells head of POK that it could be decades before POK's
favorite son operating system (MVS) had (effective) 16-processor
support (bloated multiprocessor support, two processor only getting
1.2-1.5 times single processor and overhead increasing as number of
processors go up, POK doesn't ship 16 processor machine until after
the turn of the century). Then some of us are invited to never visit
POK again and the 3033 processor engineers instructed to heads down on
3033 and no distractions.
FAA account, The Brawl in IBM 1964
https://www.amazon.com/Brawl-IBM-1964-Joseph-Fox/dp/1456525514
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
some recent posts mentioning end of ACS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#65 Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#37 Gene Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#18 IBM Downfall and Make-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#113 ... some 3090 and a little 3081
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#101 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#100 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#66 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#65 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#52 backward architecture, The Design of Design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#20 IBM Millicode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#0 Amdahl and IBM ACS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#105 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#103 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#98 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#91 7Apr1964 - 360 Announce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#116 IBM's Unbundling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#98 Whether something is RISC or not (Re: PDP-8 theology, not Concertina II Progress)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#90 IBM, Unix, editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#64 IBM 4300s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#25 1960's COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME Origin and Technology (IRS, NASA)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#24 Tomasulo at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#11 How IBM Stumbled onto RISC
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s - here's what I discovered
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s - here's what I discovered
Date: 05 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s - here's what
I discovered
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/31/learning-computer-programming-language-coding-devil-stack-andrew-smith
I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the corporate
internal network (larger than arpanet/internet from just about the
beginning until sometime mid/late 80s) in the late 70s and early 80s,
it really took off spring 1981 when I distributed trip report of visit
to Jim Gray at Tandem ... only about 300 actively participated but
claims 25,000 were reading, folklore is when the corporate executive
committee was told, 5of6 wanted to fire me.
Among the outcomes was taskforce to study the phenomena (Hiltz and
Turoff, "Network Nation", were hired to participate) and officially
sanctioned computer conferencing software and moderated forums.
One of the other outcomes was a researcher was hired to study how I
communicated, sat in the back of my office for nine months taking
notes on face-to-face, phone calls; got copies of all my incoming and
outgoing email and logs of all my instant messages ... resulted in
corporate research reports, conference talks, papers, books and
Stanford Phd (joint between language and computer AI, Winograd was
advisor on computer side). The researcher had been an ESL (English as
2nd language) instructor in prior life and claimed that I have all the
characteristics of a non-English speaker, although I have no other
natural language ... hypothesis was I do some sort of abstract
thinking that I then have to (try to) translate.
The science center came out and installed CP/67 (3rd installation
after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) ... I spent 1st few months
reducing CP67 CPU running OS/360 in virtual machine. I then start
doing some "zero coding" ... accomplishing things (implicitly) in CP67
as side-effect of slightly reorganizing other code (in this case not
translating to explicit coding but implicit side-effect of code
organization). It took me a few years to learn that when other people
modified the code, all sorts of "implicit" things might stop working
HTML trivia: Some of the MIT CTSS/7090 people had gone to 5th flr for
multics, others went to the IBM science center on 4th flr for virtual
machines (CP40 morphs into CP67 when 360/67 becomes available,
precursor to VM370), CSC CP67 wide-area network (morphing into
internal corporate network), various online and performance apps. CTSS
RUNOFF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF
as rewritten for CP67 as "SCRIPT". Then GML was invented at science
center in 1969 and GML tag processing added to SCRIPT. After a decade,
GML morphs into ISO standard SGML. Then after another decade, morphs
into HTML at CERN
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/
https://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Connolly/MarkUp.html
and the first webserver outside Europe is at the CERN "sister"
location on the SLAC VM370 system:
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit/early-web-chronology-and-documents-1991-1994
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
some posts mentioning univ undergraduate, responsible for os/360, cp/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#90 Computer Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#0 time-sharing history, Privilege Levels Below User
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#95 Ferranti Atlas and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#17 IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#94 MVS SRM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#17 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#12 THE RISE OF UNIX. THE SEEDS OF ITS FALL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#82 Cloud and Megadatacenter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#54 REX, REXX, and DUMPRX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#1 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#109 CSC, HONE, 23Jun69 Unbundling, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#17 Video terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#29 Copyright Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#68 Facebook Knows More About You Than the CIA
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Rise and Fall IBM/PC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Rise and Fall IBM/PC
Date: 05 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM/PC got a big bump with large corporations ordering tens of
thousands for 3270 terminal emulation (with a little bit of desktop
computing on the side) ... however then as PCs (& workstations) got
more powerful, the communication group was fiercely fighting off
client/server and distributed computing ... trying to preserve their
dumb terminal paradigm ... including severely performance kneecapping
PS2 cards. Example was AWD did their own (PC/AT bus) cards for PC/RT
... however for RS/6000 w/microchannel, AWD was told that they
couldn't do their own cards but had to use the PS2 microchannel
cards. It turned out the PC/RT 4mbit token-ring card had higher card
throughput than the PS2 microchannel 16mbit token-ring card ($69
10mbit "cat wiring" Ethernet cards also had much higher throughput
than the $800 microchannel 16mbit token-ring card)
Late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at internal,
world-wide, 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 disk division was seeing data fleeing datacenters
to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk
sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions but
they were constantly veto'ed by the communication group (with their
corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed the
datacenter walls). The communication group stranglehold on datacenters
wasn't just disks and a couple years later, IBM had one of the worst
losses in the history of US companies and was being re-orged into the
13 "baby blues" (take-off on the early 80s breakup of AT&T "baby
bells") in preparation for breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup.
communication group stranglehold on datacenters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
.... some history of PC market
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/2/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/3/
80-83 w/IBMPC
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/
84-86 (w/IBMPC clones)
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
87-89 (w/IBMPC clones)
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/
90-93 (w/IBMPC clones)
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/7/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/8/
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/9/
75-2005
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/10/
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Rise and Fall IBM/PC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Rise and Fall IBM/PC
Date: 06 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#102 Rise and Fall IBM/PC
other PC trivia: head of POK (mainframe) went to Boca to head up PS2
and hired Dataquest (since acquired by Gartner) to do detailed study
of PC business and its future, including a video taped round table of
discussion by silicon valley experts. I had known the person running
the Dataquest study for years and was asked to be one of the silicon
valley experts (they promised to obfuscate by vitals so Boca wouldn't
recognize me as IBM employee ... and I cleared it with my immediate
management). I had also been posting SJMN sunday adverts of quantity
one PC prices to IBM forums for a number of years (trying to show how
out of touch with reality, Boca forecasts were).
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
some past posts mentioning Dataquest study:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#59 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#13 IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#109 terminals and servers, was How convergent was the general use of binary floating point?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#104 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#38 Christmas 1989
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#107 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#72 IBM OS/2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#27 PC Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#113 IBM PS2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#110 IBM downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#26 ARM Cortex A53 64 bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#23 IBM "Breakup"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#46 Could this be the wrongest prediction of all time?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#60 more on (the new 40+ yr old) virtualization
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Rise and Fall IBM/PC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Rise and Fall IBM/PC
Date: 06 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#102 Rise and Fall IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#103 Rise and Fall IBM/PC
... no results (from that I could tell). later person left boca/ibm as
CEO for hire ... 1st for Perot Systems to take it public. Then a few
yrs after leaving IBM, I was doing some work for financial outsourcing
institution and was asked to spend year in Seattle helping some area
companies with electronic commerce ... and he is CEO of Seattle area
security company (including having contract with m'soft to implement
Kerberos in NT ... which becomes active directory) and have monthly
meetings with him.
M'soft was also doing joint work on new outsourcing service and wanted
to platform it on NT. Everybody elected me to explain to M'soft CEO
that it had to be on SUN (not NT). Shortly before I was scheduled with
M'soft CEO, some M'soft executives made the strategic decision that
the outsourcing service would be slowly ramped up (keeping it to level
that could be handled by NT performance).
Kerberos (public key) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos
Hadn't spent much time in Seattle for 30yrs when I was undergraduate
and had been hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to
help with the formation of Boeing Computing Services (consolidate all
dataprocessing into independent business unit) ... when I graduate, I
join IBM science center (instead of staying with Boeing CFO)
a few recent posts mentioning Boeing CFO:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#58 IBM SAA and Somers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#24 Public Facebook Mainframe Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#13 360 1052-7 Operator's Console
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#79 Other Silicon Valley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#74 Some Email History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#63 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#40 ancient OS history, ARM is sort of channeling the IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#22 Early Computer Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#100 IBM 4300
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#9 Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#111 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#49 Vintage 2250
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#77 Boeing's Shift from Engineering Excellence to Profit-Driven Culture: Tracing the Impact of the McDonnell Douglas Merger on the 737 Max Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#73 UNIX, MULTICS, CTSS, CSC, CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#43 Univ, Boeing Renton and "Spook Base"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#25 1960's COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME Origin and Technology (IRS, NASA)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#23 The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM 801/RISC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM 801/RISC
Date: 06 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM 801/RISC
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-risc-x86-linux-e-bruce-turgeon-ucupc/
I would claim that a motivation for 801/risc was to go the opposite of
the complex Future System effort from the 1st half of the 70s,
completely different than 370 and was going to completely replace 370s
(during FS, internal politics was killing off 370 efforts, claims that
the lack of new 370 products during FS is credited with giving the
clone 370 makers, their market foothold). When FS implodes, there is a
mad rush to get stuff into the 370 product pipelines, including
kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
Then late 70s, there was several 801/RISC activities to replace a wide
variety of internal CISC microprocessors, controllers, mid-range 370s
follow-on to 4331/4341 (4361/4383), follow-on to S38 (as/400). For a
variety of reasons these efforts floundered and things returned to
CISC (and some number of RISC engineers left IBM for other vendors). I
contributed to white paper that instead of 370 microcode on CISC or
RISC microprocessor, it was possible to implement nearly the whole 370
directly in circuits. IBM Boeblingen lab did a 3-chip "ROMAN" 370,
directly in circuits with the performance of 370/168.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_AS/400#Fort_Knox
The ROMP 801/RISC (running PL.8/CP.r) was for OPD to do the follow-on
to the Displaywriter. When that was canceled (in part because market
moving to PCs), it was decided to pivot to the UNIX workstation market
and the company that had done the AT&T Unix port to IBM/PC for PC/IX,
is hired to do one for ROMP ... which becomes PC/RT and AIX.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RT_PC
IBM Palo Alto that was working on BSD unix port to 370, then
redirected to the PC/RT, which becomes "AOS" (for the PC/RT).
Then work begins on the 6-chip RIOS for POWER and RS/6000. My wife and
I get the HA/6000 project, initially for the NYTimes to port their
newspaper system (ATEX) from DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it
HA/CMP when we start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with
the national labs and commercial cluster scale-up with the RDBMS
vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Ingres).
Then the executive we report to moves over to head up the AIM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance
Somerset effort to do a single-chip power/pc (including adopting the
morotola RISC M81K cache and cache consistency for supporting shared
memory, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600
https://wiki.preterhuman.net/The_Somerset_Design_Center
Early Jan92, there is HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO where AWD/Hester
tells Ellison that we would have 16processor clusters by mid92 and
128processor clusters by ye92. Then by late Jan92, cluster scale-up is
transferred for announce as IBM supercomputer (for
technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we are told we can't work with
anything that has more than four processors (we leave IBM a few months
later).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
Comparison of high-end mainframe and RIOS/POWER cluster, which
possibly contributed to performance kneecapping (commercial) HA/CMP
systems (industry MIPS benchmark, not actual instruction count, but
number of benchmark program iterations compared to reference
platform):
1993: eight processor ES/9000-982 : 408MIPS, 51MIPS/processor
1993: RS6000/990 : 126MIPS; 16-way: 2016MIPs, 128-way: 16,128MIPS
By late 90s, the i86 chip vendors were developing technology with
hardware layer that translates i86 instructions into RISC micro-ops
for execution, largely negating the performance difference between
801/RISC and i86.
1999 single IBM PowerPC 440 hits 1,000MIPS
1999 single Pentium3 (translation to RISC micro-ops for execution)
hits 2,054MIPS (twice PowerPC 440)
2003 single Pentium4 processor 9.7BIPS (9700MIPS)
2010 E5-2600 XEON server blade, two chip, 16 processor aggregate
500BIPS (31BIPS/processor)
trivia: some Stanford people had approached IBM Palo Alto Scientific
Center about IBM producing a workstation they had developed. PASC
invites a few IBM labs/centers to a review, all the reviewers claim
what they were doing was much better than the Stanford workstation
(and IBM declines). The Stanford people then form their own company to
produce SUN workstations.
trivia2: folklore is the large scale naval carrier war games after
turn of century had (silent) diesel/electric submarines taking out the
carrier.
801/RISC, Iliad, ROMP, RIOS, PC/RT, RS/6000, Power, PowerPC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
IBM 801/RISC
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM 801/RISC
Date: 07 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#105 IBM 801/RISC
... well, after FS implodeed was pulled into help on 16processor
tightly-coupled, shared memory, multiprocessor. then 1976, there was
adtech conference in POK (last one for a few years since so many
adtech groups were being pulled into the 370 development breach trying
to get 370 efforts going again after FS imploded) and the 801 group
was also presenting. One of the 801 group gave me a bad time saying he
had looked at vm370 source and found no multiprocessor support.
one of my hobbies after joining IBM science center was enhanced
production operation systems for internal datacenters (and world-wide,
online sales&marketing HONE was long time customer). In parallel,
Charlie was inventing compare&swap instruction (CAS chosen
because they are charlie's initials) when he was working on CP67
multiprocessing fine-grain locking. Had meetings with 370 architecture
"owners" trying to justify CAS, push back from POK favorite son
operating system was 360 test&set was sufficient for SMP
operation. Challenge was come up with other uses (to justify adding to
370), resulting in use for multithreaded applications (like large
DBMS) ... examples later appearing in 370 PoP.
with decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, some split off from
CSC to do VM370 ... in the morph of CP67->VM370, lots of CP67
features were simplified/dropped, including dropping SMP
support. Starting with VM370R2, I started CSC/VM adding lots of CP67
stuff back into VM370, not initially SMP support, but did do kernel
reorg needed for SMP. US HONE datacenters were consolidated in Palo
Alto (trivia: when facebook 1st moves into silicon valley, it is new
bldg built next door to former HONE datacenter) with loosely-coupled,
shared dasd operation ... load-balancing and fall-over support
... growing to eight systems. Then for VM370R3 I add SMP,
tightly-coupled multiprocessing into CSC/VM, initially for HONE so
they could add a 2nd processor to each (loosely-coupled) system (for
16 processors total) ... each system getting twice throughput of
single-processor system (at a time when POK favorite son operating
system documents was its 2-processor only got 1.2-1.5 times throughput
of single processor). I then get dragged into help with a 16processor,
tightly-coupled, SMP.
Lots of people thought the 16-processor SMP was really great
(including being able to con the 3033 processor engineers into working
on it in their spare time, lots more interesting than remapping 168
logic to 20% faster chips) until somebody told the head of POK that it
could be decades before POK's operating system had (effective) 16-way
support (only getting 1.2-1.5 for 2-way and overhead increasing as
no. processors increase, POK doesn't ship 16-way until after turn of
the century). Then head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK
again (and 3033 processor engineers directed heads down and no
distractions).
other trivia: not long later, I transfer from CSC to SJR on west
coast. Then in the early 80s for being blamed for online computer
conferencing and other transgressions, I was transferred from SJR to
Yorktown, left to live in San Jose, but had to commute to YKT a couple
times a month (work in San Jose mondays, red-eye SFO->kennedy,
usually in research by 6am, John liked to go out after work ... there
were sometimes that I didn't check into the hotel until 3am weds
morning).
801/RISC, Iliad, ROMP, RIOS, PC/RT, RS/6000, Power, PowerPC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
CSC/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
How the Media Sanitizes Trump's Insanity
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: How the Media Sanitizes Trump's Insanity
Date: 07 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
How the Media Sanitizes Trump's Insanity. The political press's
efforts to rationalize Trump's incoherent statements are eroding our
shared reality and threatening informed democracy.
https://newrepublic.com/article/185530/media-criticism-trump-sanewashing-problem
Four years ago, in an article for Media Matters for America, I warned
that journalists were sanitizing Donald Trump's incoherent ramblings
to make them more palatable for the average voter.
Flash-forward to today, and it's clear this problem has only
worsened. As Trump's statements grow increasingly unhinged in his old
age, major news outlets continue to reframe his words, presenting a
dangerously misleading picture to the public.
... snip ...
more from 4yrs ago:
as his sister says .... he lies, cheats, is cruel, has no principles,
can't be trusted, doesn't read, his major past accomplishments were
five bankruptcies (being bailed out by the Russians) and paying
somebody to take his SATs, implying totally self-centered and doesn't
understand doing anything that doesn't directly benefit him. ... and
his niece ... Trump's base loved that he was a liar and a cheat -- but
now it's coming back to bite them. Rooting for a massive jerk to stick
it to the liberals is super fun -- until he's lying about Americans
dying
https://www.salon.com/2020/08/04/trumps-base-loved-that-he-was-a-liar-and-a-cheat--but-now-its-coming-back-to-bite-them/
Fox Reporter Jennifer Griffin Snaps Back at Trump's Call for Fox to
Fire Her Because She Confirmed His Grotesque and Crude Disdain for
Dead Soldiers: "My Sources Are Unimpeachable"
https://buzzflash.com/articles/fox-reporter-jennifer-griffin-to-trumps-call-for-fox-to-fire-her-because-she-confirmed-his-grotesque-disdain-for-dead-soldiers-my-sources-are-unimpeachable
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Auto C4 Taskforce
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Auto C4 Taskforce
Date: 08 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
1990 was asked to be one of the IBM reps to the auto industry C4 task
force (planning on heavily using technology so invited tech company
reps).
In the 70s, cheap foreign cars were taking the market, congress sets
import quotas giving US car companies huge profits that they were
supposed to use to completely remake themselves, but they just
pocketed the money and continued business as usual. Foreign car makers
found that at the quotas, they could switch to high-end, higher profit
cars (further reducing pressure on US made car prices) ... and cut the
time to turn out completely new car from 7-8yrs to 3-4yrs.
In 1990 US makers were finally looking at make-over, US car makers
were still taking 7-8yrs to turn out new models while foreign makers
were cutting elapsed time in half again (to 18-24months) ... allowing
them to adapt much faster to new technologies and changing customer
preferences. I would ask the IBM mainframe rep to the task force what
they were suppose to contribute since they had some of the same
problems.
Aggravating situation was the US car makers had spun off much of their
part businesses and were finding that parts for 7-8yr old designs were
no longer available and they had additional delays for redesign to use
currently available parts.
One of the things US auto industry did was run two car design groups
in parallel ... offset by 4yrs ... so it looked as if they could come
out with something more timely (as opposed to just more frequently)
C4 taskforce posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce
capitalism posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#capitalism
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Seastar and Iceberg
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Seastar and Iceberg
Date: 10 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
IBM had tried to do Seastar (but was going to be late 1995 slipping to
1997) which was meant to compete with STK ICEBERG (which IBM
eventually logo'ed); from internal jun1992 forum (just before leaving
IBM):
The Seastar project presents a classic case of an early start
receiving very little support from the corresponding development
division followed by massive switch to an excess of attention. Among
the items that have been transferred are religion, bubble gum and
bailing wire, and a few algorithms. Transfer successes came from
persistence, modeling, small prototypes, and lots of help from
competitors.
... snip ...
... and archived email from 30Dec1991 about last (emulated) CKD DASD
(aka 3380 was emulated, can be seen in records/track calculation
required record lengths to rounded up to "fixed" cell-size) canceled
and all future will be fixed-block DASD with simulated CKD.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#email911230
also mentions that we were working on making (national lab) LLNL's
filesystem (branded "Unitree") available on HA/CMP (HA/CMP had started
out HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system
"ATEX" off VAXCluster to RS/6000, I rename it HA/CMP when I start
doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national labs and
commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors; Oracle, Sybase,
Ingres, Informix). Then cluster scale-up is transferred for announce
as IBM "supercomputer" (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we were
told we couldn't work with anything that had more than four processors
(we leave IBM a few months later).
trivia, IBM had been selling IBM S/88 (85-93, logo'ed fault tolerant
box) ... then S/88 product administer started taking us around to
their S/88 customers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratus_Technologies
other STK from long ago and far way ...
Date: 04/23/81 09:57:42
To: wheeler
your ramblings concerning the corp(se?) showed up in my reader
yesterday. like all good net people, i passed them along to 3 other
people. like rabbits interesting things seem to multiply on the
net. many of us here in pok experience the sort of feelings your mail
seems so burdened by: the company, from our point of view, is out of
control. i think the word will reach higher only when the almighty $$$
impact starts to hit. but maybe it never will. its hard to imagine one
stuffed company president saying to another (our) stuffed company
president i think i'll buy from those inovative freaks down the
street. '(i am not defending the mess that surrounds us, just trying
to understand why only some of us seem to see it).
bob tomasulo and dave anderson, the two poeple responsible for the
model 91 and the (incredible but killed) hawk project, just left pok
for the new stc computer company. management reaction: when dave told
them he was thinking of leaving they said 'ok. 'one word. 'ok. ' they
tried to keep bob by telling him he shouldn't go (the reward system in
pok could be a subject of long correspondence). when he left, the
management position was 'he wasn't doing anything anyway. '
in some sense true. but we haven't built an interesting high-speed
machine in 10 years. look at the 85/165/168/3033/trout. all the same
machine with treaks here and there. and the hordes continue to sweep
in with faster and faster machines. true, endicott plans to bring the
low/middle into the current high-end arena, but then where is the
high-end product development?
... snip ... top of post, old email index
FS in 1st half of 70s was completely different and was to completely
replace 370s (internal politics during FS was killing off 370 efforts,
the lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving the clone 370
system makers, including Amdahl, their market foothold). When FS
implodes, there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product
pipelines, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 in
parallel (3033 started out 168 logic remapped to 20% faster
chips). Once the 3033 was out the door, the processor engineers start
on trout/3090.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
back to the 60s, Amdahl wins case that ACS should be 360 compatible,
end of ACS/360 (folklore is that was canceled because it was felt the
start-of-art would be advanced too fast and IBM would loose control of
the market) ... Amdahl leaves IBM shortly later. Following includes
ACS/360 features that show-up more than 20yrs later with ES/9000.
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
posts mentioning gettting to play disk engineer in bldg14&15 (disk
engineering and product test)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
CKD, FBA, multi-track seach, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
online compuer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Edson and Bullying
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Edson and Bullying
Date: 11 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
co-worker at IBM cambridge science through the 70s and then we
transferred to san jose research in 1977 (he passed aug2020) was
responsible for the internal network which was larger than
arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid/late
80s ... book about being bullied as a child: brutal US culture of
bullying, stamping out creativity and enforcing conformity, "It's Cool
to Be Clever: The Story of Edson C. Hendricks, the Genius Who Invented
the Design for the Internet"
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Cool-Be-Clever-Hendricks/dp/1897435630/
IT'S COOL TO BE CLEVER tells the true story of an inquisitive boy in
the 1950s who doesn't fit in at school. Edson Hendricks is bullied
because he is so smart (people accuse him of getting answers from his
father who is the principal) and has red hair. He finds comfort in an
imaginary world where he has machine parts, and no internal organs or
emotions.
... snip ...
Edson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip .....
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
posts mentioning Edson and bullying
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#27 What Does School Teach Children?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#72 Schooling Was for the Industrial Era, Unschooling Is for the Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#13 The Nazification of American Education
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#67 John Boyd and IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#16 My Story: How I Was "Groomed" by My Elementary School Teachers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#82 We Have a Creativity Problem
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#100 What Industrial Societies Get Wrong About Childhood
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#99 IQ tests can't measure it, but 'cognitive flexibility' is key to learning and creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#78 Air Force opens first Montessori Officer Training School
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#47 MAINFRAME (4341) History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#103 IBM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#87 IBM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#86 Dail-up banking and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#54 In the 1970s, Email Was Special
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#11 IBM PCjr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#0 The modern education system was designed to teach future factory workers to be "punctual, docile, and sober"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#3 The One Type of Game That Kills Creativity and Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#67 Range
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#111 The story of the internet is all about layers; How the internet lost its decentralized innocence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#106 Everyone is born creative, but it is educated out of us at school
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#73 Army researchers find the best cyber teams are antisocial cyber teams
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#46 Think you know web browsers? Take this quiz and prove it
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#45 More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#38 Bullying trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#84 Bureaucracy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#20 cultural stereotypes, was Ironic old "fortune"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#43 Formed by Megafloods, This Place Fooled Scientists for Decades
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#13 Bullying
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#53 E.R. Burroughs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#8 What Does School Really Teach Children
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#99 PROFS & GML
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/2015c.html#98 VNET 1983 IBM
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
Date: 11 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
from IBM Jargon:
foil - n. Viewgraph, transparency, viewfoil - a thin sheet or leaf of
transparent plastic material used for overhead projection of
illustrations (visual aids). Only the term Foil is widely used in
IBM. It is the most popular of the three presentation media (slides,
foils, and flipcharts) except at Corporate HQ, where even in the 1980s
flipcharts are favoured. In Poughkeepsie, social status is gained by
owning one of the new, very compact, and very expensive foil
projectors that make it easier to hold meetings almost anywhere and at
any time. The origins of this word have been obscured by the use of
lower case. The original usage was FOIL which, of course, was an
acronym. Further research has discovered that the acronym originally
stood for Foil Over Incandescent Light. This therefore seems to be
IBM's first attempt at a recursive language.
... snip ...
Transparency (projection)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(projection)
Overhead projector
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_projector
The use of transparent sheets for overhead projection, called
viewfoils or viewgraphs, was largely developed in the United
States. Overhead projectors were introduced into U.S. military
training during World War II as early as 1940 and were quickly being
taken up by tertiary educators,[14] and within the decade they were
being used in corporations.[15] After the war they were used at
schools like the U.S. Military Academy.[13] The journal Higher
Education of April 1952 noted;
Nick Donofrio stopped by and my wife showed him five hand drawn charts
for project, and he approves it; originally HA/6000 for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXcluster to RS/6000. I rename
it HA/CMP when started doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up
with national labs and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors
(Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Ingres) ... 16-way/systems by mid92 and
128-way/systems by ye92 ... mainframe was complaining it would be far
ahead of them (end-Jan92, it gets transferred for announce as IBM
supercomputer, for technical/scientific *ONLY*, and we were told we
couldn't work on anything with more than four processors).
My wife had I did long EU marketing trip, each of us 3-4 HA/CMP
marketing presentations a day and then move on to next European city
... finally ending in Cannes ... practicing our Oracle World marketing
presentations
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
Date: 11 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#111 Viewgraph, Transparency, Viewfoil
... trivia history: some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th
flr to do MULTICS and others went to science center on 4th flr for
virtual machines, internal network, lots of performance and online
apps. CTSS RUNOFF was rewritten for CP67/CMS as SCRIPT, then in 1969,
GML (for three inventor names) was invented at science center and GML
tag processing added to SCRIPT
last half 70s, some of us transfer from science center out to San
Jose.
early ("GML") foils were printed on 6670 or 3800 laser printers in
"large" font on paper ... and then run through a transparency
copier. From long ago and far away:
:frontm.
:titlep.
:title.GML for Foils
:date.August 24, 1984
:author.xxx1
:author.xxx2
:author.xxx3
:author.xxx4
:address.
:aline.T.J. Watson Research Center
:aline.P.O. Box 218
:aline.Yorktown Heights, New York
:aline.&rbl.
:aline.San Jose Research Lab
:aline.5600 Cottle Road
:aline.San Jose, California
:eaddress.
:etitlep.
:logo.
:preface.
:p.This manual describes a method of producing foils automatically
using DCF Release 3 or SCRIPT3I. The foil package will run with the
following GML implementations:
:ul.
:li.ISIL 3.0
:li.GML Starter Set, Release 3
:eul.
:note.This package is an :q.export:eq. version of the foil support
available at Yorktown and San Jose Research as part of our floor
GML. Yorktown users should contact xxx4 for local documentation.
Documentation for San Jose users is available in the document
stockroom.
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
370/125, Future System, 370-138/148
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 370/125, Future System, 370-138/148
Date: 11 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
Early 70s, I was asked to help get VM370 up and running on 256kbyte
370/125 for European shipping company with offices in downtown NYC. I
had done a lot rewriting CP67 as undergraduate in the 60s, including
doing things to reduce fixed real storage requirements for 256kbyte
360/67. First 125 problem was it wouldn't boot, problem was 115/125
implemented CLCL/MVCL wrong. All 360 instructions pre-checked starting
and ending parameter addresses for valid; 370 CLCL/MVCL were suppose
to incrementally execute w/o prechecking ending address ... but
addresses as they were incrementally executed. VM370 cleared storage
and determined size of memory with MVCL with length of 16mbytes (when
it got to end of storage and had program check, and determined failing
addresses). 115/125 used 360 semantics and pre-checked for 16mbytes
and immediately program checked, implying that there wasn't any
memory). I then did a lot of bloat cutting to minimize fixed kernel
size ... maximizing amount of 256kbytes available for paging.
Then there was Future System effort, completely different and was to
totally replace 370 (claim that the lack of new 370 during FS
contributed to giving clone 370 system makers their market foothold).
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
When FS implodes ... both 125-ii and 138/148 groups ask me to
help. For Endicott, they wanted the highest executed 6kbytes VM370
instruction kernel paths identified for redoing in microcode ... aka
"ECPS" (running at 10times faster) ... old archived post with initial
analysis (6kbytes accounted for 79.55% of kernel execution,
re-implemented in m'code running 10times faster)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
For 125-ii they wanted me to do 5-processor vm/370 support. Both 115
& 125 had nine position memory bus for microprocessors, all the
115 microprocessors were the same that ran at 800kips (for the
dedicated integrated control units as well as 370 which 370
instructions ran at 80kips). The 125 was the same except
microprocessor that ran 370 microcode, it was 1.2mips (and ran 370 at
120kips). They wanted me to do VM370 to run 125 where five of the
microprocessors ran 370 microcode (600kips aggregate, plus most of the
ECPS being done for 138/148). Endicott objected because 125 600kips
would overlap the 138&148 ... and got my 125 effort shutdown (in
escalation meeting I had to sit on both sides of the table and argue
both cases).
Then Endicott wanted to ship every 138/148 with ECPS & VM370
pre-installed ... but POK objected, POK was also in the process of
convincing corporate to kill VM370 product, shutdown the development
group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott
eventually manages to save the VM370 product mission, but had to
recreate a development group from scratch, but couldn't reverse the
corporate decision about allowing every 138/148 with ECPS & VM370
pre-installed, sort-of like LPAR-PR/SM). Endicott then talks me into
running around the world presenting ECPS case to planners/forecasters
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
360 &/or 370 microcode posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360mcode
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
125 5-processor SMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Seastar and Iceberg
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Seastar and Iceberg
Date: 12 Sep, 2024
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#109 Seastar and Iceberg
Note: 1972, CEO Learson tried (and failed) to block bureaucrats,
careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, it was
greatly accelerated by the Future System effort, Ferguson & Morris,
"Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World", Time Books
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and
*MAKE NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that
thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat ... 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 ...
... 20yrs later, IBM has one of the worst losses in the history of US
companies and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" (take off
on AT&T "baby bells" breakup a decade earlier), in preparation for the
IBM breakup
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of AMEX that
(somewhat) reverses the breakup.
more:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2024 08:45:46 -1000
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
They also care deeply about reliability. Modern mainframes have multiple kinds of error
checking and standby CPUs that can take over from a failed CPU, restart a failed
instruction, and the program doesn't notice. I think you'll find a pattern since the
CDC shock of making CPUs fast enough to keep the RAM and I/O devices busy while having
the error checking and recovery features so the systems keep running for years at a time.
shortly after joining IBM, I got pulled into effort to multithread
370/195 ... 195 didn't have branch prediction or speculative execution
so conditional branches drained pipeline and most codes ran at half
rated throughput. Two (simulated, "red/black") instruction streams
running at half speed would achieve rated throughput.
They also claimed that the main difference between 360/195 and 370/195
was introduction of ("370") hardware retry (masking all sorts of
transient hardware errors). Some vague recall mention that 360/195
mean time between some hardware check was three hrs (combination of
number of circuits and how fast they were running).
Then decision was made to add virtual memory to all 370s and it was
decided that the difficulty in adding virtual memory to 370/195 wasn't
justified ... and all new work on machine was dropped.
Account of end of ACS/360 ... Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS,
360 compatible ... but folklore is then executives were afraid that it
would advance state-of-the-art too fast and IBM would loose control of
the market ... includes some references to multithreading
patents&disclosures.
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
also mentions some of ACS/360 features show up more than 20yrs later
with ES/9000.
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
some past posts mentioning end of ACS/360, 370/195, multithread, add
virtual memory to all 370s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#101 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#66 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#20 IBM Millicode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#24 Tomasulo at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#100 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#32 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#20 IBM 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#34 Retrotechtacular: The IBM System/360 Remembered
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#51 IBM History
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:05:33 -1000
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
I suppose. A review from the USDOE said:
The IBM 3090 with Vector Facility is an extremely interesting machine
because it combines very good scaler performance with enhanced vector
and multitasking performance. For many IBM installations with a large
scientific workload, the 3090/vector/MTF combination may be an ideal
means of increasing throughput at minimum cost. However, neither the
vector nor multitasking capabilities are sufficiently developed to
make the 3090 competitive with our current worker machines for our
large-scale scientific codes.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#115 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
1st part of 70s, IBM had FS effort, was totally different than 370
and was to completely replace 370 (internal politics was killing
off 370 efforts).
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
when FS finally implodes, there is a mad rush to get stuff back into
the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off 3033&3081 efforts in
parallel.
I got sucked into work on 16-processor 370 SMP and we con the 3033
processor engineers into working on it in their spare time (lot more
interesting that remapping 168 logic for 20% faster chips). Everybody
thot it was great until somebody tells the head of POK lab that it
could be decades before the POK favorite son operating system (batch
MVS) has (effective) 16-processor support (at the time MVS
documentation claimed that its 2-processor throughput had 1.2-1.5
times the throughput of single process). The head of POK then invites
some of us to never visit POK again and the 3033 processor engineers,
heads down and no distractions (although I was invited to sneak back
into POK to work with them). POK doesn't ship a 16-processor machine
until after the turn of the century, more than two decades later.
Once the 3033 was out the door, the processor engineers start on
trout/3090. When vector was announced they complained about it being
purely marketing stunt ... that they had so speeded up 3090 scalar
that it ran at memory bus saturation (and vector would unlikely make
throughput much better).
I had also started pontificating the relative disk system throughput
had gotten an order of magnitude slower (disks got 3-5 times faster
while systems got 40-50 times faster) since 360 announce. Disk
division executive took exception and directed division performance
group to refute the claims, after a couple weeks they came back and
said I had slightly understated the problem. They respun the analysis
on how to configure disks to improve system throughput for a user
group presentation (16Aug1984, SHARE 63, B874).
I was doing some work with disk engineers and that they had been
directed to use a very slow processor for the 3880 disk controller
follow-on to the 3830 ... while it handled 3mbyte/sec 3380 disks, it
otherwise seriously drove up channel busy. 3090 originally assumed
that 3880 would be like previous 3830 but with 3mbyte/sec transfer
... when they found out how bad things actually was, they realized
they would have to seriously increase the number of (3mbyte/sec)
channels (to achieve target throughput). Marketing then respins the
significant increase in channels as being wonderful I/O machine.
Trivia: the increase in channels required an extra TCM and the 3090
group semi-facetiously claimed they would bill the 3880 group for
increase in 3090 manufacturing cost.
I was also doing some work with Clementi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Clementi
E&S lab in IBM Kingston ... had boatload of Floating Point Systems boxes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems
that had 40mbyte/sec disk arrays for keeping the FPS boxes fed.
In 1980, I had been con'ed into doing channel-extender implementation
for IBM STL (since renamed SVL), they were moving 300 people and 3270
terminal to offsite bldg with dataprocessing back to STL datacenter.
They had tried "remote 3270" but found human factors unacceptable.
Channel-extender allowed "channel-attached" 3270 controllers to be
place at offsite bldg with no human factors difference between offsite
and in STL. Side-effect was that it increased system throughput by
10-15%. They had previously spread 3270 controllers across all the
same channels with disks, the channel-extender work significantly
reduced 3270 terminal I/O channel busy, increasing disk I/O and system
throughput (they were considering moving all 3270 controllers to
channel-extender, even those physically inside STL. Then there was
attempt to my support released to customers, but there was group in
POK playing with some serial stuff that get it vetoed, they were
afraid if it was in the market, it would make it harder to release
their stuff.
In 1988, the IBM branch office asks if I could help LLNL get some
serial stuff they were playing with, standardized ... which quickly
becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", initially 1gibt/sec,
full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). The POK serial stuff finally
gets released in the 90s with ES/9000 as ESCON (when it is already
obsolete, 17mbytes/sec). Then some POK engineers become involved with
FCS and define a heavy-weight protocol that significantly reduces
throughput, eventually released as FICON. The latest, public benchmark
I've found is z196 "Peak I/O", getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About
the same time, a FCS is announced for E5-2600 blade claiming over
million IOPS (two such FCS has higher throughput than 104 FICON). Also
IBM docs had SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) kept
to 70% cpu (more like 1.5M IOPS), also no IBM CKD DASD have been made
for decades all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block
disks.
Future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
FCS &/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
some recent posts mentioning 16-processor 370 effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#106 IBM 801/RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#100 360, 370, post-370, multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#83 Scheduler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#65 Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#18 IBM Downfall and Make-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#113 ... some 3090 and a little 3081
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#100 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#62 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#10 Benchmarking and Testing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#120 Disconnect Between Coursework And Real-World Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#119 Financial/ATM Processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#100 IBM 4300
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#51 third system syndrome, interactive use, The Design of Design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#11 370 Multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#61 Vintage MVS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#36 RS/6000 Mainframe
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:54:45 -1000
Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:
Novell's System Fault Tolerant NetWare 386 (around 1990) supported two
complete servers acting like one, so that any hardware component could
fail and the system would keep running, with nothing noticed by the
clients, even those that were in the middle of an update/write
request.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#115 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#116 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
late 80s, get HA/6000 project, originally for NYTimes to move their
newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000. I then rename it
HA/CMP when I start doing technical/scientific scale-up with national
labs and commercial scale-up with RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase,
Informix, Ingres) that had VAXCluster support in same source base with
Unix (I do distributed lock manager that supported VAXCluster semantics
to ease ports).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
IBM had been marketing S/88, rebranded fault tolerant. Then the S/88
product administer starts taking us around to their customers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratus_Technologies
Also has me write a section for the corporate continuous availability
strategy document ... however, it gets pulled when both Rochester
(AS/400, I-systems) and POK (mainframe) complain that they couldn't meet
the requirements.
Early Jan92 in meeting with Oracle CEO, AWD/Hester tells Ellison that we
would have 16processor clusters by mid92 and 128processor clusters by
ye92. Within a couple weeks (end jan92), cluster scale-up is transferred
for announce as IBM Supercomputer (scientific/technical *ONLY*) and we
are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors (we
leave IBM a few months later).
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
continuous availability, disaster survivability, geographic
survivability posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
big, fast, etc, was is Vax addressing sane today
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: big, fast, etc, was is Vax addressing sane today
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2024 10:38:40 -1000
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
That's fine for workloads that work that way.
Airline reservation systems historically ran on mainframes because when they were invented
that's all there was (original SABRE ran on two 7090s) and they are business critical so
they need to be very reliable.
About 30 years ago some guys at MIT realized that route and fare search, which are some of
the most demanding things that CRS do, are easy to parallelize and don't have to be
particularly reliable -- if your search system crashes and restarts and reruns the search
and the result is a couple of seconds late, that's OK. So they started ITA software which
used racks of PC servers running parallel applications written in Lisp (they were from
MIT) and blew away the competition.
However, that's just the search part. Actually booking the seats and selling tickets stays
on a mainframe or an Oracle system because double booking or giving away free tickets would
be really bad.
There's also a rule of thumb about databases that says one system of performance 100 is
much better than 100 systems of performance 1 because those 100 systems will spend all
their time contending for database locks.
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#115 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#116 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#117 what's a mainframe, was is Vax addressing sane today
after leaving IBM was brought into largest airline res system to look
ten impossible things they can't do. Got started with "ROUTES" (about
25% of the mainframe workload), they gave me a full softcopy of OAG
(all scheduled commercial flt segments in the world) ... couple weeks
later came back with ROUTES that implemented their impossible things.
Mainframe had tech trade-offs from the 60s and started from scratch
could make totally different tech trade-offs, initially ran 100 times
faster, then implementing the impossible stuff and still ran ten times
faster (than their mainframe systems). Showed that ten rs6000/990
could handle workload for every flt and every airline in the world.
Part of the issue was that they extensively massaged the data on a
mainframe MVS/IMS system and then in sunday night, rebuilt the
mainframe "TPF" (limited datamanagement services) system from the
MVS/IMS system. That was all eliminated.
Fare search was harder because it started being "tuned" by some real
time factors.
Could move all to RS/6000 - HA/CMP. Then some very non-technical
issues kicked-in (like large staff involved in the data massaging).
trivia: I had done a bunch of slight of hand for HA/CMP RDBMS
distributed lock manager scaleup for 128-processor clusters.
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
some posts mentioning airline res system, routes, oag
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#92 IBM TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#98 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#93 PC370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#122 Assembler language and code optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#90 Has anybody worked on SABRE for American Airlines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#74 MVS/TSO and VM370/CMS Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#41 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#13 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#80 Airline Reservation System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#96 Mainframe Assembler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#58 Model Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#76 lock me up, was IBM Mainframe market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#18 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#37 Why Sabre is betting against multi-cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#77 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#76 IBM ITPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#8 Air Traffic System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#6 Airline Reservation System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#71 Airline Reservation System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017k.html#63 SABRE after the 7090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#109 Airlines Reservation Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
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/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#87 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#42 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#81 Hashing for DISTINCT or GROUP BY in SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#42 Outsourcing your Computer Center to IBM ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#61 Up, Up, ... and Gone?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#22 Bidirectional Binary Self-Joins
some posts mentioning distributed lock manager
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#82 Benchmarks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#71 IBM AIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#86 Relational RDBMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#79 microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, supercomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#82 The ICL 2900
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#73 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#44 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#19 z/OS is antique WAS: Aging Sysprogs = Aging Farmers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#87 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#86 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#8 New job for mainframes: Cloud platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#54 Unix systems and Serialization mechanism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#57 U.S. begins inquiry of IBM in mainframe market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#36 Ingres claims massive database performance boost
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#26 Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#40 "Larrabee" GPU design question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#18 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#91 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#42 Keep VM 24X7 365 days
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#32 When Does Folklore Begin???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#8 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#26 Crash detection by OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#40 clusters vs shared-memory (was: Re: CAS and LL/SC (was Re: High Level Assembler for MVS & VM & VSE))
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#70 CAS and LL/SC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#0 Specifying all biz rules in relational data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004i.html#1 Hard disk architecture: are outer cylinders still faster than inner cylinders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#1 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#67 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#17 Changing the Mantra -- RFC 4732 on rethinking DOS
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