2007 Newsgroup postings (01/28 - 02/23) Lynn Wheeler

2007 Newsgroup Postings (01/28 - 02/23)

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
uNIX circa 1982?
Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Jim Gray Is Missing
Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Jim Gray Is Missing
Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Jim Gray Is Missing
Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
The logic of privacy
Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
One Time Identification, a request for comments/testing
Why so little parallelism?
Unix magic poster
Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service
"The Elements of Programming Style"
Jim Gray Is Missing
IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels
Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service
Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4
How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
modern paging
Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
modern paging
SVCs
old tapes
distribution methods
old tapes
Running OS/390 on z9 BC
Jim Gray Is Missing
Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8
MAC and SSL
MAC and SSL
MAC and SSL
Question on Network Security
old tapes
old tapes
Is computer history taugh now?
Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Is computer history taugh now?
IBM S/360 series operating systems history
certificate distribution
Is computer history taugh now?
IBM S/360 series operating systems history
CMS (PC Operating Systems)
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
Which is the Fastest (Secure) Way to Exchange 256-bit Keys?
Is computer history taugh now?
Is computer history taugh now?
SLL Certificate
ISA Support for Multithreading
Cycles per ASM instruction
Cycles per ASM instruction
Is computer history taugh now?
IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Is computer history taugh now?
SLL Certificate
Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Cycles per ASM instruction
IBM S/360 series operating systems history

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:48:37 -0700

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#52 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

and old reference to what was lengthy and on-going discussion about managing encryption for large scale HSDT infrastructure ... misc. past posts mentioning HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

Date: 12/18/84 08:39:12
To: wheeler

...
I know there is a lot of dissenting opinion, but I happen to believe that some kind of public key mechanism will end up being used for key management in the business world. I understand some of the problems with the basic security of the current schemes, but the other side of the coin is trying to coordinate session keys between sources and sinks in the networks that are already in place, let alone what is coming down the pike. Specifically, some of the multiple network or satellite point-to-multipoint session keys could be nicely handled with some kind of public key mechanism. The current MVS Cryptographic Subsystem key management scheme is a perfect example of the morass that faces us in 'automatically' managing keys.

... snip ... top of post, old email index, HSDT email

old email with some reference to public key
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email810515
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#email850701
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email860120

Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:42:15 -0700

Chris Barts <puonegf+hfrarg@tznvy.pbz> writes:
A somewhat cursory Google doesn't bring up anything useful on the subject of self-modifying microcode. (In fact, the exact phrase search "self-modifying microcode" (with quotes) brings up zero results.) There's been a lot of self-modifying machine code in the world -- in fact, the PDP-8 subroutine calling convention depended on a relatively minor form of this dark art -- but I can't dredge up any reference to it being used one level lower.

Further, would it be useful? It seems like a way to squeeze the most out of code that must always be as fast as possible and must usually fit in very cramped store. Maybe the store it usually resides in has large speed penalties for writing, like Flash NVRAM does now. Maybe it's so difficult to get right the first time the idea of debugging self-modifying microcode is a quick way to get a laugh or a slow way to end up in the nuthouse.

how 'bout pageable microcode?

floppy disk was originally developed for loading microcode into the 3830 disk controller ... and was also used for loading microcode into many of the 370 mainframe machines. this typically happened automatically at power-up ... however there has been recent subthread here on the "IPL" button on 360/370 front consoles ... "initial program load" ... which was software (boot) function. However 370s also had "IMPL" button ... initial microcode program load ... if there was some service update which included replacing the microprogram floppy disk ... then the microcode could be reloaded (w/o a power cycle).

3081 had service processor and a 3310/piccolo, FBA (fixed block architecture) "hard disk" containing microcode for the 3081 processor ... and some processor functions could involve "paging" microcode from the 3310.

this is different than an instruction, dynamically modifying some (frequently immediately) following instruction, in the instruction stream. a lot of 360 (software) code made use of this feature to achieve real-storage compactness (compared to paging which also is oriented towards real-storage compactness). However, it was something of a performance penalty as processors started attempting to squeeze instruction latency ... doing instruction decode and setup overlapped with execution ... there had to be constant checking if some previous instruction had modified a following instruction that had already been fetched and decoded.

a couple past posts mentioning pageable microcode:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#82 "all-out" vs less aggressive designs (was: Re: 36 to 32 bit transition)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#45 A quote from Crypto-Gram

uNIX circa 1982?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: uNIX circa 1982?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:58:21 -0700

Lawrence Statton XE2/N1GAK <yankeeinexile@gmail.com> writes:
Didn't have the "HUMOR" section either, I see.

not 1982 ... but ...

Date: 80/03/06 03:49:58
To: wheeler

From a UNIX User's Group Newsletter:

"TUCC (Triangle Universities Computing Center, in North Carolina) has been running TSO for 6 years and would now like to move to a time-sharing system."

TSO may be slow, but it sure is hard to use.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

and a little more recent, Creators Admit Unix, C Hoax
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#52 Is this true?

Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:41:06 -0700

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
Sounds a lot like what IBM calls "millicode" on z/Series.

and before that, Amdahl's "macrocode" from early 80s ... it was used for implementing hypervisor ... i.e. subset of virtual machines ... built into the machine w/o needing vm370 software kernel.

sort of 370 subset ... and one of the differences ... "macrocode" mode eliminated provisions for supporting self-modifying code ... and the associated performance penalty ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#1 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

Jim Gray Is Missing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject:  Jim Gray Is Missing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:07:42 -0700

Jim Gray Is Missing
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/07/01/30/0353228.shtml

... and ...

Coast Guard searches for missing SF boater, 63-year-old man failed to return from trip to Farallon Islands
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/29/BAGB5NR0GL6.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

from above:
The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a San Francisco computer scientist who may be lost at sea after he failed to return from an outing to the Farallon Islands Sunday afternoon.

... snip ...

a couple recent posts with old references mentioning Jim
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#46 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:46:37 -0700

jmfbahciv writes:
The latest news is that those customers weren't affected. Now that everybody is concentrated on maximizing face-saving, nobody is talking about the practical stuff.

ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#53 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

related post here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#24 News.com: IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins

latest series of news items:

TJX Stored Customer Data, Violated Visa Payment Rules
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197001447
Under Fire, TJX Defends Its Handling of Card Data Breach
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=1233
In video message, TJX says it delayed reporting for security reasons
http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2007/01/in_video_messag.html
TJX cyberfraud spreads: Bank of America reissuing cards
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=179220&srvc Fraud linked to TJX data heist spreads
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/126786/169/
Fraud linked to TJX data heist spreads
http://www.theregister.com/2007/01/29/tjx_data_fraud/
TJX Sued for Loss of Consumer Data
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/01/tjx_folo.html
Consumers of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright Bring Class Action Suit for Loss of Credit Card Data; Filed by Berger & Montague, PC and Stern Shapiro Weissberg & Garin, LLP
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,51744.shtml
Consumers of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright Bring Class Action Suit for Loss of Credit Card Data; Filed by Berger & Montague, PC and Stern Shapiro Weissberg & Garin, LLP
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-29-2007/0004515512&EDATE=
TJX explains reaction to data breach
http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/30200714213.htm
TK Maxx owner criticized after security breach
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39285692,00.htm
TJX faces lawsuit over data breach
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci1241259,00.html
Stolen TK Maxx credit card details used to commit fraud
http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/news/103333/stolen-tk-maxx-credit-card-details-used-to-commit-fraud.html

Jim Gray Is Missing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Jim Gray Is Missing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:11:12 -0700

"Jim Mehl" <mehl@ihot.com> writes:
I heard that on the news. I wondered if it was the Jim Gray I worked with on System R. Sorry to hear that it is. That's tragic and he will be missed. I last saw him at the System R reunion about 10 years ago, although I did get an email from him a couple of years ago when my wife died.

The news reports mention 10 years sailing experience. It's a hell of a lot longer than that, because I went sailing with him in the 70's.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray is Missing

for a time, he had lived on sail boat moored in san fran ... and commute down to sjr (south san jose) ... and its "at least" 10 years experience. fortunately commute was opposite of main traffic flow ... however one of the excuses about leaving for tandem ... was that it cut the commute.

Recently, I've seen him maybe once or twice a year for one reason or another.

Old reference to both being keynote speakers
https://web.archive.org/web/20011004023230/http://www.hdcc.cs.cmu.edu/may01/index.html

at NASA High Dependability Computing Consortium conference.

lots of past posts mentioning System/R
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:39:47 -0700

Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
There were also several sets of alternate microcode for the 68k series. IBM had one, that had taken on a bluer life and imagined it was a 360 (or was that 370).

started out as xt/370 ... i.e. basically add-on to pc/xt ... code name washington. later it had add-on to pc/at ... as at/370. had severe memory constraints (by vm370 and cms standards) ... and was quite disk intensive ... which with everything being done thru co-processor to 8088 in the xt and then mapped to the xt harddisk ... could be quite painful (single block transfer at a time with 100ms access per).

recent post about rewriting cms applications for pc environment (as more attractive alternative considering the memory and disk constraints of the period). recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#29 The Elements of Programming Style
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 The Elements of Programming Style

note above reference has a little x-over with more recent thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6 Jim Gray Is Missing

i did some simple benchmarks on early prototype and also noticed that a lot of stuff page-trashed ... in the 384k bytes available for 370 operation. the result was that I then took the blame for several month slip in customer ship while they put together an upgrade to 512k bytes.

washington was the only product where I was able to ship my CMS paged mapped filesystem support. At the high-end ... I could benchmark three times thruput increase with 3380s for filesystem intensive workloads. The degradation with the 100ms XT harddisks were quite striking ... and CMS paged mapped filesystem support offered a little improvement. misc. past posts about CMS page mapped filesystem support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap

Jim Gray Is Missing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Jim Gray Is Missing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:58:41 -0700

Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:23:54 -0700

cstacy@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
Some of the tangentially related design features on the Lisp Machine were: trap (to-macrocode) handlers; hardware for supporting garbage collection; and all-tagged (type/object aware) memory/CPU hardware.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#1 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#7 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

a few past posts with old email from '79 mentioning attempts to get an early 801 processor for lisp machines:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#65 801 (was Re: Reviving Multics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#3 Architectural support for programming languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#45 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#9 32 or even 64 registers for x86-64?

in 1980 time-frame there were attempts to replace the large number of different corporate microprocessors with 801s.

however, 801 as a "microcode" processor engine made "self-modifying" microcode nearly impossible (in the sense of 360/370 instructions modifying subsequent instructions in the instruction stream).

with separate I&D caches and no provisions for cache consistency ... the instruction and data "data spaces" were somewhat disjoint. Program loaders needed special operation which would flush/force any modifications from the data cache back to memory ... and then invalidate any corresponding locations that might happen to be in the i-cache ... so that instruction fetch would result in an i-cache miss, forcing a (i-cache) fetch (of the possibly modified data) from memory (and that doesn't even take into account possible superscaler instruction pre-fetch, decode, and execution).

posted old email mentioning 801, fort knox, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power/pc, etc.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801

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

The logic of privacy

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The logic of privacy
Newsgroups: alt.privacy
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 07:59:40 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
The logic of privacy, A new way to think about computing and personal information
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8486072

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#42 The logic of privacy

somewhat related

IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
http://news.com.com/IBM+donates+new+privacy+tool+to+open-source/2100-1029_3-6153625.html

from above:
For example, when making a purchase online, buyers would provide an encrypted credential issued by their credit card company instead of actual credit card details. The online store can't access the credential, but passes it on to the credit card issuer, which can verify it and make sure the retailer gets paid

... snip ...

note in the late 90s, FSTC
http://www.fstc.org/

had proposed something similar with "FAST" (financial authenticated secure transaction) ... but w/o the user needing an encrypted credential ahead of time. The institution just needed a question that was digitally signed by the user that could be answered yes/no.

related post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#24 IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins

In the mid-90s, the x9a10 financial standards group had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail transactions ... which resulted in the x9.59 standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

which basically has a financial transaction that can be answered yes/no ... and can be authenticated with digital signature that can be verified with a public key on-file with the financial institution.

x9.59 financial standard also included business rule that account numbers used in x9.59 transactions couldn't be used in non-authenticated transactions. This didn't do anything to eliminate (recent spate of) skimming/harvesting attacks capturing account numbers (frequently from logs of previous transactions)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#harvest

however, it made the information collected unusable by the attackers for (replay attack) fraudulent transactions.

In effect, FAST transactions were x9.59 transactions ... but allowed transactions that asked questions concerning matters other than approving a financial transaction (does person meet some age criteria, address criteria, or other subject).

Part of this was from experience of the x.509 identity certificates from the early 90s that were being overloaded with personal information. At the time, these were being proposed as electronic versions for things like passports and driver's licenses. Relatively recent post on the passport subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm25.htm#46 Flaw exploited in RFID-enabled passports
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#0 Flaw in RFID-enabled passports (part 2?)

By the mid-90s, it was starting to dawn that such an infrastructure represented significant privacy issues. The response in the mid-90s was something called relying-party-only certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#rpo

which contained simple a record locater (or account number) to where the information could be found at an institution. An institution could used the on-file information to determine the response ... w/o constantly spraying a whole load of privacy information around the whole world with digital certificates.

However, it was relatively trivial to show that such digital certificates were redundant and superfluous ... all you really needed was a strongly authenticated transaction containing the record locator (and infrastructure design that eliminated static data paradigm and associated replay attacks).

This most recent news article is taking effectively the same digital certificate/credential mechanism and encrypting the certificate/credential ... so it is effectively (again) a relying-party-only credential (the information only accessible by the responsible institution). The X9.59/FAST scenario just eliminates having to repeatedly ship (potentially egregious) payload of the encrypted information back to the institution that issued the credential in the first place ... past posts about egregious, bloated payloads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 08:10:56 -0700

jmfbahciv writes:
Sigh! And only the bit gods will know for sure. My mother wouldn't have any idea what an encruptions are, let alone what to about it.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#51 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#52 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

from slightly different standpoint

IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
http://news.com.com/IBM+donates+new+privacy+tool+to+open-source/2100-1029_3-6153625.html

and recent comments (from x9.59 perspective)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#24 IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#10 The logic of privacy

and x9.59 references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

One Time Identification, a request for comments/testing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: One Time Identification, a request for comments/testing.
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kerberos
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:11:57 -0700

g.w writes:
Its becoming increasingly obvious that the utility of passwords are becoming problematic. If users are forced into passwords with sufficient entropy they write them down. Products such as PRTK are making it increasingly difficult to select passwords which can be easily remembered and yet are secure.

Common solutions to this problem include One Time Password systems and pre-authentication strategies such as PKINIT. While effective these systems each have their own issues ranging from diminished entropy to complexity.

For the last several months we have been working on an alternative strategy for a system which combines two-factor authentication with strong single use passwords. The primary focus of this work was to develop a system which integrated naturally with desktop based Kerberos authentication and was freely implementable.

The purpose of this note is to introduce the work and get comments/feedback from the community.

The proposal is referred to as OTI or One Time Identification. The system is based on an identity token which can be carried on a standard USB flash disk. The identity token is included in an identification payload which is symmetrically encrypted and included in the AS_REQ authorization field. The KDC decrypts and verifies the identity upon receipt of the AS_REQ. If the OTI identity matches that of the principal requesting the service the AS_REP proceeds.

so at least

IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
http://news.com.com/IBM+donates+new+privacy+tool+to+open-source/2100-1029_3-6153625.html

which talks about
The encrypted credentials would be for one-time use only. The next purchase or other transaction will require a new credential. The process is similar to the one-time-use credit card numbers that Citigroup card holders can already generate on the bank's Web site.

... snip ...

being one-time use (as countermeasure to replay attacks) ... which implies that you have been loaded up with a supply before hand ... or there is a dynamic interaction to get the credential followed by a subsequent interaction to validate the credential ... effectively having two independent transactions bracketing the actual operation (so what is to prevent attacking the initial transaction having to do with the dynamic issuing of the encrypted credential).

a couple recent comments about strategy vis-a-vis x9.59 & FAST
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#24 IBM donates a new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#10 The logic of privacy

The original PKINIT draft just had registering public key in-lieu of password, performing a digital signature (with some countermeasure against replay attack) and validating the digital signature with the on-file public key. this is similar to this proposal from 1981 ... recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12 more secure communication over the network
with copy of some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email810515

... i.e. certificate-less operation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#certless

it wasn't until sometime later that there was a lot of pressure applied to include digital certificate mode of operation in pkinit ... misc. past posts mentioning pkinit and/or early kerberos work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos

the token proposal for such operation was aads chip strawman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

which basically was a chip that was form-factor & interface (including USB) agnostic and simply performed a digital signature w/o ever divulging the private key. this was sufficient for establishing something you have authentication.

The big issue with existing password scheme is that they are shared-secrets ... so that there is requirement for unique shared-secret for every unique security domain, as a countermeasure against cross-domain attacks (local garage ISP attacking online banking) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#secrets

in the token scenario ... the pin/password is passed to your private token (for correct operation) ... thus changing it from a shared-secret to just a secret (eliminating needing large number of different pin/passwords as countermeasure to shared-secret vulnerabilities).

a little tangential ... there is a separate issue with institutional-centric token issuance ... resulting in having to carry around as many unique tokens to manage ... as a person previously had unique passwords to manage. a few recent posts on the institutional-centric vis-a-vis person-centric hardware token paradigm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#3 Device Authentication - The answer to attacks lauched using stolen passwords?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#12 Special characters in passwords was Re: RACF - Password rules
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#13 special characters in passwords

so another exploit issues for multi-factor authentication ... like a something you know pin/password ... is evesdropping attacks on the entry of the pin/password. the digital signature information is assumed to be sufficient computational integrity that additional information isn't needed (like pin/password) as countermeasure to brute force attack. so the purpose of the pin/password is purely as a countermeasure to lost/stolen token. the assumption here is that stealing the token is a (relatively) independent operation from stealing the pin/password (modulo direct physical coercion) ... which is somewhat the basis for multi-factor authentication assumed to provide stronger security (i.e. different factors having independent vulnerabilities).

the issue here is having a person-owned pin/password entry device for the token ... possibly built into the token itself ... or incorporated into a cellphone or PDA based operation ... and communicating wirelessly (rather than via USB).

In the person-centric scenario ... then the same mechanism can be used for both straight authentication (say in the kerberos scenario) as well as for integrity (electronic transaction requiring both authentication and integrity).

Why so little parallelism?

Refed: **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why so little parallelism?
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:45:06 -0700

previous in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#44 Why so little parallelism?

and now ...

IBM's Chief Architect Says Software is at Dead End
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/30/1547235.shtml

and

Where's The Software To Catch Up To Multicore Computing?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197800774

from above:
To make this complex architecture useful to even the most advanced scientific simulation application developers, much of the work on the system development is in the programming methodology enablement and corresponding application framework and tooling.

... snip ...

Unix magic poster

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Unix magic poster
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:25:27 -0700

Al Balmer <albalmer@att.net> writes:
What timeframe are we talking about. There was an oregano frontend to spice in the late 90's.

and now for something different ... a different SPICE

misc. previous references to this series of trip reports
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#61 MVS History (all parts)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#56 AT&T Labs vs. Google Labs - R&D History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?

SPICE reference from part of trip report to CMU 22jul81-24jul81


Shifting Towards Personal Computing
Most of what I said above about the advantages of small machines over
large machines is, I believe, also applicable when comparing personal
machines to small machines.  That is, personal machines will probably
have as many advantages over small machines as small machines do over
large machines.

But before I go into that, let me define what I mean by *large*,
*small*, and *personal* machines.  My primary criterion in
categorizing a machine as *large* or *small* is the number of
simultaneous users it typically supports.  The following table is my
general feeling:

           1 user   -  personal machine
    2 to  10 users  -  very small machine
   10 to  25 users  -  small machine
   25 to  50 users  -  medium machine
   50 to 150 users  -  large machine
  150 to 300 users  -  very large machine
    over 300 users  -  enormous machine

Of course, the larger machines are generally faster and have more
memory and storage as well as more users.  But for a machine to be
effective, regardless of the number of users it supports, it must
deliver a certain amount of computing power to each user and there
must be available a certain amount of memory and storage per user.  As
suggested above, there seems to be quite a bit of evidence to indicate
that doubling the MIPS, memory, storage, and number of users, results
in less of everything for everyone.

Several people at CMU seem to feel that the natural extension of this
is the personal computer where a fixed amount of compute power and
memory are dedicated to a single user and not subject to load
fluctuations or other user's hardware or software failures.  The SPICE
people at CMU seem to feel that such a machine would need about 1 MIPS
of compute power and about 1 Mbyte of memory plus around 10 Mbyte of
DASD part of which should be on a removable medium.

Current technology seems to fall just short of providing this
combination at an affordable price, but it's close and getting closer.

I tend to agree with the SPICE people that we should be heading toward
personal machines and should begin getting them for our Computer
Science researchers even if they cost 10 times what we'd like to pay
for them

The cost will come down dramatically and we need to get leading edge
experience with machines that will be cost effective 4-5 years from
now which means we'll have to pay much higher prices today.  The
alternative is to work with today's cost effective technology and gain
very little experience on how to use tomorrow's.

... snip ...


The Computer Science Department

The goal of the computer science department computer facilities
is to optimize the productivity of researchers,
and to provide sufficient cycles for the various research projects.
They want to provide a minimally constrained solution space
for the researchers.

"Solve the problem, then specifiy the requirements"

The department is committed to doing research with equipment that
will be available in 3 to 5 years; thus it costs much more to simulate
that equipment with currently available gear.  They view such capital
expenditures as leverage for their researchers.  Try to choose
productivity of the users over throughput of the systems - minimize
administrative overhead and constraints.

The computer science department personnel are as follows:

• 40 faculty and researchers
• 80 graduate students
• 55 staff, including administrators, secretaries, programmers,
engineers, operators, technicians

Systems and Their Use

The computer science department has several different
kinds of machines:

• General purpose time sharing
• Project machines
• Personal machines
• research systems
• connectivity and networking
• special resources

... snip ...


The SPICE Project

For a complete description of the Spice project, see
"Research in Personal Computing at Carnegie-Mellon University,
Peter G. Hibbard, 25 November 1980, Spice Document S008"

Spice, *Scientific Personal Integrated Computing Environment* is a
major research project currently underway at CMU.

Spice is aimed at increasing user productivity. The environment will:

• Comprise at least 100 personal computers connected in a high
bandwidth network, providing facilities for scientific computing.
• Provide access to shared facilities such as printers and filing
systems.
• Provide a consistent style of user interaction for all the software
components.
• Provide tools to encourage modular extension and enhancement of the
software during its lifetime.

Work started on Spice during the summer of 1979. It is expected that a
version of the system will be available to users by 1983; and
essentially complete by 1985.  The computer science department is
heavily committed to using Spice for its principal computing resources
until the 1990's.

The Spice machine is a 2 to 4 mips processor, 1 megabyte of memory, a
100 megabyte disk, a full page APA display, tablet, and a 10 megabit
ethernet connection. While CMU is using the Perq as a Spice
development machine, they feel that it is under powered, and does not
represent what will be needed in the second half of this decade.

The machines will be connected via the 10 megabit ethernet, and will
share a common file system, with the local disk being managed as a
cache to the primary file server(s). Thus the system will give the
appearance of a large timesharing system, yet have all the advantages
of personal, separate machines.

... snip ...

Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:01:47 -0700

Dave Pitts <dpitts@cozx.com> writes:
Also, IBM and MIT did have success with multi user support on an IBM 7094 running CTSS. So, the same PTFs (hardware additions to add new features like memory protection) could have been used in the SABRE project.

and some number of the CTSS people went on to do multics on the 5th flr ... and others went on to do cp67 (virtual machines, which morphed into vm370 and current generation) on the 4th flr. lots of past posts about 4th flr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

"The Elements of Programming Style"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "The Elements of Programming Style"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:08:46 -0700

Greg Menke <gdmnews@toadmail.com> writes:
OS X is much like a *nix when it comes to filesystem stuff, and it does lack the process and user weirdness that cygwin can't quite mask. What I was trying to say that the X Windows related features of OS X are slightly more annoying to make work than under Cygwin. In Cygwin you can get the X server/client (never can remember which is which) running easily enough, then open a bash and things work reasonably. Its somewhat more tedious to get the X thing running in OS X and then figure out the resources, why the stupid TERM is wrong, and WTF are the keymaps doing..etc..

OS X's shell is lots faster than cygwin though and I'd tend to trust shell scripts on OS X a lot more than under cygwin.

i.e. originated as MACH from CMU. in that area ... there was project Athena at MIT (jointly sponsored by IBM and DEC equally for total of $50m) ... and the stuff at CMU; mach, Camelot, Andrew, etc (sponsored by IBM for $50m). some

Jim Gray Is Missing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Jim Gray Is Missing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:11:08 -0700

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#8 Jim Gray Is Missing

recent reference

Sea too vast for man, machine, SEARCHERS GRASPING AT THEORIES AS DAYS PASS WITHOUT CLUES
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/11808773.htm

From Jim's past ... this is shorter version dated 20Sep80, there is also one about twice as long from four days later later dated 24Sep80, copy located here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081115000000*/http://research.microsoft.com/~gray//papers/CritiqueOfIBM%27sCSResearch.doc

MIP Envy: a Programming Complex
Jim Gray, IBM Research, San Jose
September 20, 1980
When I left UC Berkeley to join IBM I was surprised to find that the university provided better computing services than IBM. IBM offered fewer languages, poorer machine response and availability, and half-duplex terminals which took a lot of getting used to.

That was nine years ago. Things have improved. We now have full screen terminals, big address spaces, bigger disks and a network. But response times to trivial operations are still long. We still do not have a language which is "nice", has an incremental compiler and a symbolic debugger with type checking. The programming languages (PLI and PLS) and text editing system (SCRIPT) I use are typical of 1970 software.

In this nine year period computers have gotten about ten times cheaper. So we should have ten times as much. I don't have ten times as much. In fact we go through a cyclic feast-then-famine so that about 25% of the time computing services are so bad that everyone is screaming and finally the next increment of computing is "justified".

As I look at my colleagues at Bell Labs (the UNIX group), Xerox or Stanford I see that they have a much better programming environment than we do. I feel bad about this and have developed a complex called MIP envy. Its not just envy of other people's MIPS, but also envy of languages, editors, debuggers, mail systems and networks. But MIP envy is a term every IBM programmer will relate to. I believe it is a common complex among software people in IBM research.

The tragedy is that IBM Research has it much better than the rest of IBM. Right now at IBM's Santa Teresa development lab, people can only log on at certain times and cannot compile during prime shift (compiles take over 30 minutes and so consume too much of the person's shot at the machine). This situation colors people's designs and tends to make the designs more batch oriented and less interactive and hence less easy to use. It is ironic that the typical IBM development programmer has poorer computing facilities than the typical airlines ticket agent.

The tool situation is exemplified by the state of IBM's system programming language PLS. PLS was created in the late sixties but the PLS group was disbanded in the early days of FS. The PLS group was reconstituted in 1976 by the Poughkeepsie lab. It supports PLS only on MVS (not VM or DOS)). So PLS3 is not supported on Release 6 of VM and hence most development shops have not moved to that release (which came out about a year ago)! People at Endicott are taking the Structured Programming verbs (SELECT, boolean expressions, etc.) out of System R because PLS is not supported on DOS. To give a grim example of the fate of tool builders, the author of VMSG (the electronic mail system we all use) was ordered not to work on it anymore! It is now supported by a informal group (not including the author of VMSG). There is no shortage of such stories. IBM development programmers have very primitive tools.

Computer research must aim its ideas for machines ten years in the future (System R started in 1974 and will enter the market in 1982). It is tough to deal with a sixteen year gap: working on eight year old machines for a product eight years in the future.

Computer research must attract bright young people with new ideas. Such people show little interest in IBM after seeing the facilities at Xerox, Bell or Stanford. In addition, there is a slow flow of good people out of IBM. System R lost its best programmer to Xerox (in 1976). He gave MIP envy as his reason for leaving.

I think it is bad business to provide inadequate computing services because:
• Good computing services increase programmer productivity.
• One cannot design systems for the eighties when confronted with the hardware and software of the sixties.
• Good computing services are a tax-free fringe benefit that the company can offer its programmers.
• Programmers leave IBM because the programming environment is better elsewhere.

Some of the main reasons for this bad situation are:
• We get "old" hardware (the 168 was designed in 1970 and is priced at 1975 prices),
• No one in IBM funds tool building. As a result, the tools are bootlegged and are flaky.
• Timesharing encourages "optimization" in which machines are configured to saturate at peak periods (i.e. when people come to work). So unless you are a night owl, you work on a saturated machine.

I can point to several projects I have not undertaken because computing resources were insufficient (e.g. fuzzy dump in System R), and others in which I had to do a poor job because the machines were so slow or the tools were so bad.

The conversion of System R to MVS took two years largely because the MVS system was second level on VM. Simple things like a TSO logon took 15 minutes! Complex things took hours. The project would have taken six months if reasonable machine services had been available.

The Rendezvous project ended one day when we were moved from a 168 to a 158. The program just ran too slowly to be interactive.

Many of the bugs found in System R could have been caught by a type checker which compares the types of formal and actual parameters (called Lint on UNIX). Such a tool would have paid for itself on just the System R project. As it was, we had to write more basic tools such as an IO library, cross-reference, trace facility, driver and interactive debugger. These tools are too flaky to be of much use to anyone but us (they are documented by example and oral tradition). Each of these tools should have existed before we started.

Les Belady showed fairly clearly that tools are not the problem with programming. Managing programming and designing programs are the real problems. But there are no obvious solutions to these problems. There are lots of good ideas in the tools area. Tools are one area where a relatively small investment will make substantial improvements to one part of the programming problem.

IBM should provide better computing hardware and software to its programmers. This means spending some money and recognizing and encouraging people who make good tools. I do not recommend a tool department or a tool taskforce or a tool memo from the Corporate Technical Committee. Good and experienced programmers are difficult to hire and keep. One thing that attracts good programmers is good computing services.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"
with couple emails from the period making reference to MIP envy (and Jim leaving for Tandem):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016

references for a few terms used in the above:

"System R" is the original relational/SQL project ... some number of posts here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

*FS* in the above refers to "Future System" project, some number of posts here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

*DOS* in the above doesn't refer to the PC "DOS" ... but to the 360 "disk operating system" ... an entry level 360 operating system ... simpler than OS/360 (and less resource requirements) ... but more complex than "TOS" (tape operating system).

*SCRIPT* was document formatting application, originally developed at the science center for CMS in the mid-60s. GML (precursor to SGML, HTML, XML, etc) was invented at the science center in '69. SCRIPT was then enhanced to also have support for GML tags. misc. collected posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

recent reference to STL's log-on restriction policies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#12
with old email about "group fairshare" contributing to STL (now called Silicon Valley Lab) relaxing the (above referenced) controlled "log-on" policies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email830709

After Jim left for Tandem, we would periodically go by and visit, especially on Friday afternoons when beer was served. There was also a computer mailing list, online discussion that started up which came to be called Tandem Memos ... concerning some of the topics mentioned in MIPENVY as well as some of the stuff that came out of Friday afternoon discussions. I got a lot of blame for Tandem Memos, recent post (also mentioning Jim and Tandem) with reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#46
and recent post with lots of old posts mentioning Tandem Memos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#35

The visits and trip reports in the summer of '81 were somewhat an outcome of both MIPENVY and the Tandem Memos. Some posts containing portions of the series of trip reports
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#61 MVS History (all parts)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#56 AT&T Labs vs. Google Labs - R&D History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#14 Unix magic poster

Starting in the late 70s, I somewhat sponsored a Friday after work, typically at one of the local establishments within several blocks of bldg. 28. Jim was frequently a regular at such events ... and they periodically would go on until late in the evening (sometimes until they threw us out). It was at one such gathering that Jim and I concocted the idea of online telephone books ... as a ploy to get executives to use online computing. Misc. past posts mentioning the subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#45 hyperblock drift, was filesystem structure (long warning)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#0 A POX on you, Dennis Ritchie!!!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#38 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#43 History of performance counters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#44 FULIST
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#9 Is there a workaround for Thunderbird in a corporate environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#32 Effi[ci]ency of branch table vs individual compare & branch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12 more secure communication over the network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#31 IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels

and some definitions from old (IBM) jargon file ...
[MIP envy] n. The term, coined by Jim Gray in 1980, that began the Tandem Memos (q.v.). MIP envy is the coveting of other's facilities - not just the CPU power available to them, but also the languages, editors, debuggers, mail systems and networks. MIP envy is a term every programmer will understand, being another expression of the proverb The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

[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.

IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.vmesa-l,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:50:16 -0700

ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#55 IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels

other ancient HONE references:

Date: 02/16/79 16:24:41
From: wheeler
To: east coast

would you pass on to YYYYYY. HONE people have been led to understand that they should start working on converting to MVS since there will not be any more VM for the high end. specific details started at CCDN task force meeting (which some HONE people belong) got a presentation from XXXXXX (they were not sure of the spelling), DP Product Group POK. VM remains strategic for low end, but there will definitely not be any for the high end. HONE were told by same that they could solve their MVS performance problems by rewriting all their VSAPL application code in assembler.

... snip ... top of post, old email index, HONE email

Date: 02/20/79 15:41:25
From: wheeler
To: distribution

VM project office has been active on file I sent out. XXXXXX may have been using the wrong set of flip charts when he made his presentation and steps are being taken to

1) assure HONE that nothing of the sort is intended

and

2) make sure that it is not repeated

... snip ... top of post, old email index, HONE email

I have some vague recollection that XXXXXX had been in charge of the resource manager component of FS ... and in old discussions with that group, telling them that I thot what i had already implemented for dynamic adaptive resource management was better than what they were spec'ing for FS. misc. past posts mentioning future system project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

This scenario about HONE having to convert to MVS was just one in a long series ... relatively recent related post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#53 The Fate of VM - was: Re: Baby MVS????

HONE provided vm370-based, online, interactive service for world-wide sales, marketing and field people. HONE had started out with clone of the science center's cp67 and then later converted to vm370 ... and eventually HONE clones started popping up all over the world.

One of HONE (apl) major applications were the configurators which basically filled out the sales order. Mainframe orders typically required complex combination of options and features (with lots of interdependencies) dependent on specific customer configurations.

Over 15yr period, I provided HONE custom built cp67 and then vm370 systems, I even got to personally install some of the clones. misc. past posts mentioning HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Railroad ticket fax service
Newsgroups: misc.transport.rail.americas,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:44:15 -0700

David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> writes:
As I recall, they used a pre-ASCII protocol called something like "ALPS" for Air Line Passenger System, as they were the first folks to swap data between companies. I saw the protocol on a HP serial data analyzer decades ago...I think it was 6 bit.

from long ago and far away

Date: 80/04/17 23:12:11
To: wheeler

do you have interest in this scheme? are there problems you can see, before going ahead? your suggestions will be appreciated.

I have proposed, and American Airlines has informally accepted (pending two sets of lawyers working out their problems) that American provide IBM with a data line to their SABRE system, which is used for reservations, seat assignment, ticketing, and message transmission. WHAT WE NEED TO CONTINUE IS THE LEGAL MACHINERY FOR A JOINT STUDY, STARTING WITH A LETTER OF INTENT (or whatever).

... snip ... <lots of corporate, legal and infrastructure issues ...>
Technicalities:

The line will be a 4800 baud ALC-code (6 bits) line to Hartford. It will terminate in our 3705, which needs (I believe) an RPQ to a 1H (SDLC) line set and an RPQ to a type 3 scanner to support ALC. The VM SE for the American account, XXXXXX (8-nnn-nnnn) is advising me on this, and sending ALC documentation.

The line will be supervised by a virtual machine, probably PVM, which will handle the physical details of the line (code and protocol), and by another virtual machine which will be the server, formatting the requests as appropriate, and returning the responses to the issuer. It is possible that we will use YYYYYY's software which currently handles the ITPS network supervision.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

old thread with mention of even older thread/discussion of ALC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#8 EBCDIC to 6-bit and back

ACP (airline control program) "operating system" was getting near the point where they would make the name change to TPF (transaction processing facility) ... since you were started to find some number of large financial operations using it for financial transactions.

SABRE was the American system, united had their own ACP system as well as eastern airlines. ACP/TPF wasn't going to get multiprocessor support for some time ... so it tended to be run on loosely-coupled clusters of single-processor machines ... and the airlines tended to try and get the largest they could, eastern had ACP running on 370/195.

later, AMADEUS (European reservation system) effort would start out using eastern's system as starting point (later part of the 80s). My wife did a short stint as AMADEUS chief architect. misc. past posts mentioning AMADEUS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#50 Did AT&T offer Unix to Digital Equipment in the 70s?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#76 Other oddball IBM System 360's ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#67 unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#6 Mainframe not a good architecture for interactive workloads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#27 Shipwrecks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#23 Demo: Things in Hierarchies (w/o RM/SQL)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#29 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#22 System/360; Hardwired vs. Microcoded
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#8 EBCDIC to 6-bit and back
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#4 How Many 360/195s and 370/195s were shipped?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#9 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#14 Why so little parallelism?

Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Intel prepares to kill off the Pentium 4
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:39:49 -0700

pechter@pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) writes:
I was on the IT staff of Concurrent Computer Corporation back then and we were putting in the SynOptics LattisNet like crazy. The differences were enough to keep the Ethernet IEEE standard cards and hubs from functioning on the same hub.

We swapped over quickly to the standard cards as we upgraded machines and hubs. The one thing to remember is the SynOptics guys didn't make the cards we used -- so the LattisNet stuff disappeared from vendors pretty quickly.

in the late 80s ... we put in synoptics lattisnet into bldg. 86 (almaden research center, brand new bldg., moved into in 1986) ... which had been plumbed for token-ring ... and so went in on (shielded) cat-5 ... and bldg. 29 (los gatos lab, which had been built in the 60s) ... and happen to have significant number of unshielded twisted-pair already running to each office.

we were started to make customer executive presentations on 3-tier architecture and middle-layer/middleware type configurations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

and taking heat from the SAA and token-ring forces ... as i've mentioned before ... SAA could be construed as attempting to maintain the terminal emulation infrastructure (and attempting to return the 2-tier, client/server genie back to the bottle)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

one of the things that almaden was finding was that star-wired ethernet configuration had both lower latency and higher aggregate thruput ... than running as 16mbit token-ring.

misc. old thread/post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#17 middle layer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#18 Ethernet, Aloha and CSMA/CD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#50 Channel distances

How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:43:21 -0700

Dave Daniels <dave_daniels@127.0.0.1> writes:
Some years ago, the place where I worked had a 3032 processor. This one was water cooled. An IMPL used to take ages. We used to reckon it was waiting for the water to come to the boil. There was also a question of who you called when the machine went wrong: an engineer or a plumber?

3032 was repackaged 168-3.

as mentioned before, the future system project absorbed lots of the corporations tactical and strategic efforts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

and when it was killed, there was all sorts of scurrying around.

so 158-3 had microcode engine with both a set of microcode that supported six "integrated" channels ... as well as microcode that supported 370 processor execution.

for the 303x ... they repackaged a 158-3 microcode engine w/o the 370 microcode; just the integrated channel microcode and called it a "channel director".

a 3031 was then a repackaged 158-3 microcode engine w/o the integrated channel microcode; just the 370 microcode with a separate external "channel director" box (i.e. might call it a multiprocessor ... but the two microcode engines were doing different things).

a 3032 was then a repackaged 168-3 ... configured with one or more (up to three for 16 channels) channel director boxes.

a 3033 was the 168-3 "wiring diagram" remapped to faster technology.

now when you powered on a processor box ... things were typically set-up so that the processor completed its power up and its impl ... and then it started a sequential power-up sequence on the external boxes ... channels (channel director), control units, disks, and other devices. A configuration might easily have 30-60 boxes ... where the processor would power up (and microcode load) followed by sequentially doing power-up sequence on each of the other boxes in the configuration.

The power-up of an external boxes might also have their own microcode load as part of the power-on sequence i.e. floppy disks were originally developed for 3830 disk controller microcode load ... and then also got used for processor microcode loads; recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#1 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

So 3032 power up ... would include microcode load for the 3032, and then it would have to power sequence the channel directors, i.e. 158-3 microcode engines, which would individual power-up and do their own microcode load, and then the various i/o control units powered up along with their own microcode loading.

for additional drift ... as part of the i/o reliability enhancements for the engineering labs (rewrote the i/o supervisor)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

one of the tricks was how to force a bollixed up channel director (on the 3033 in bldg. 15) to re-impl under software control from the processor (i.e. a misbehaving engineering control unit or device could get the channel director into a state requiring the channel director to be reset). so it turned out that if you did a very fast Clear-channel command sequence to each of the channel director's channels ... the channel director would graciously re-impl ... and there was a similar convention for various control units.

the 158-3/3031 was air cooled ... but the other processors had water cooled heat exchange (fluid circulating inside the processor was closed loop with heat exchange interface to external liquid cooling). old posts mentioning glitch in the thermal and flow sensing that would automatically shut-off power
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#36 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#38 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#4 hot chips and nuclear reactors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#13 IBM Mainframe at home
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#35 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#36 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#41 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's

How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:59:42 -0700

jmfbahciv writes:
I was always taught that water and electricity can't mix. I always had an illogical superstition about water-cooled gear :-).

If you read Lynn's blurb about what IBM did during that IPL, the boot did a lot more than type a dot on each user's TTY. That's all that our OS had to do when reloading. Eh! Not quite all--the other task was zeroing all of memory before allowing any access.

so this is the blurb about power-on sequence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#21 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

and this is recent posts about fast reboot after some sort of system glitch ... that would include writing image of storage to disk, checkpointing various other pieces of stuff and then rebooting.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#41 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
and description here about redoing parts of the startup function:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#21 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

note, later machines had service processors that had to power-on and impl before the processor (followed by powerup/impl sequence for the rest of the boxes in the configuration). in the case of the 3090, the "service processors" were a pair of 4361 processors which would power-on, impl their microcode, and then boot a customized version of vm370 release 6 ... which then executed the service processor functions that would get the 3090 processor up and impl'ed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#16 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:33:17 -0700

"Sarr J. Blumson" <sarr@rygar.gpcc.itd.umich.edu> writes:
Definitions are always an issue. At a place where I worked VM was "up" almost instantly, but by the time all the service machines were running and you could actually do something that 20 minutes had passed.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#22 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

but the nearly instant up was one of the reasons that it could be configured for use as the "service processor" (on pair of 4361s) in 3090 ... aka the majority of the "service machines" were not required for the service processor configuration.

other recent posts mentioning the use in service processor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#18 IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#24 How to write a full-screen Rexx debugger?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#39 Just another example of mainframe costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#1 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#15 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#30 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#16 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#1 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

the whole service (virtual) machine concept is showing about again as virtual appliances deployed by new generations of virtual machine hypervisors; some discussion in recent thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#46 To RISC or not to RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#25 To RISC or not to RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#6 Multics on Vmware ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#8 vmshare

possibly the first couple things on the path to "service machines" ... was back on cp67 with the combination of 1) auto dump and fast automatic restart along with 2) prepare command which turned off the cpu meter (from the days of leased machines and monthly charged based on what had been logged on the cpu meter). the combination of the two things allowed time-sharing service to be provided 7x24 at nominal cost (even off shift and weekends) w/o always requiring an operator to be present. some of this is discussed in various postings related to commercial time-sharing offering of cp67 and vm370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

however, the "service machines" still required manual activation. At the science center, doing a lot of performance testing, I had developed some automated benchmarking procedures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#benchmark

... that i were setup to run unattended, non-stop for multiple shifts at a time. part of the benchmarking involved generating custom modified kernels with specific features and then doing a "fast" reboot to start a new set of tests. this required that all the benchmarking processes had to come up automagically (in service machine controlling the benchmarks) w/o manual intervention. For this I created the "autolog" command. This one of the features that were picked up in and shipped as part of the vm370 release 3 product ... along with very small subset of the extended virtual memory support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#adcon

most stuff was relatively quick except the scenario where system had gone down with power outage and various things weren't saved to disk for use as part of restart. power outage in cp67 had met that all "spool" file information was lost. in vm370, spool file "checkpointing" was added. This was a small subset of spool file status ... that in recovery after power failure (w/o necessary status information) ... the checkpointed information was sufficient to support a "fsck" type operation ... use the small amount of information as starting point to scan the spool file disks and recreate the necessary status information. For a large configuration with lots of spool files this could take an hour elapsed time (and was done in early boot sequence ... long before system was opened up to any sort of other execution and use). this was subject of my "spool file system" changes ... to both significantly increase the raw thruput of spool file operation (by possibly two orders of magnitude) as well as improve the power-failure/chkpt scenario to worst case of few minutes. a few recent posts on that subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#27 dcss and page mapped filesystem
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#7 Very slow booting and running and brain-dead OS's?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#45 To RISC or not to RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#21 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

of course, in the 3090 "service processor" scenario ... it was configured so that it didn't have to worry about spool files ... even in the scenario of restart/reboot after power-failure.

How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:42:18 -0700

"David Wade" <g8mqw@yahoo.com> writes:
I understand from one of my friend who used to work on MVS that one problem was on multi box VTAM would run single threaded and even on a multi box and this slowed startup considerably...

other recent posts in this subthread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#21 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#22 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#23 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

doing some work in the mid-80s related to IMS hot-standby ... there was issue with VTAM having to do with recovery after failure and the "owning" scp/pu5 rebuilding the session information. for large configuration with possibly 20,000 sessions to rebuild ... the VTAM "working set" could quickly exceed available real storage and things would degenerate effectively into page thrashing off disk. IMS hot-standby could effectively be up (with replicated cluster operation ... even at geographically remote site) ... but if the MVS with the owning scp/pu5 (VTAM) for the sessions got cycled ... its recovery time could be a multiple hrs.

for other topic drift ... long ago and far away, my wife had been con'ed into serving a stint in pok responsible for loosely-couple architecture during that stint she created Peer-Coupled Shared Data architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

however, until sysplex came along ... about the only uptake of her architecture was by the IMS hot-standby group.

modern paging

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: modern paging
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:53:53 -0700

the 360s & 370s that i worked with in the 60s&70s tended to have real storage sizes in the 512kbyte to 2mbyte range. cp67 and vm370 used virtual memory and paging to manage that real storage ... and you needed to control paging activity to keep up good performance. lots of past posts on the subject of paging, page replacement algorithms, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

and some posts with old email discussing various aspects of the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#globallru

recent post with somewhat related discussion ... mentioning getting blamed for slipping product schedule on washington (old time xt/370) by six months when I did several benchmarks and found a lot of applications "page thrashing" in the 384kbyte storage configuration ... and it took them awhile to get the product upgraded to 512kbyte storage configuration.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#7 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

now i have a large data intensive analysis program and i run it on a 1.7ghz pentium M and a 3.4ghz pentium 4 ... and it runs nearly twice as fast on the 1.7ghz pentium M than it does on the 3.4ghz pentium 4. It turns out that the 3.4ghz pentium 4 has a 512k processor cache and the 1.7ghz pentium M has a 2mbyte processor cache ... the bigger processor cache size significantly more than offsets the pentium M processor running at only have the clock rate (i.e. the processor caches are on the order of old-time 360/370 real storage sizes)

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:16:45 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins
http://news.com.com/IBM+donates+new+privacy+tool+to+open-source/2100-1029_3-6153625.html

from above:

For example, when making a purchase online, buyers would provide an encrypted credential issued by their credit card company instead of actual credit card details. The online store can't access the credential, but passes it on to the credit card issuer, which can verify it and make sure the retailer gets paid

... snip ...

followup reference posting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#29 News.com: IBM donates new privacy tool to open-source Higgins

and for a little more drift
Study Finds Bank of America SiteKey is Flawed
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/05/1323243.shtml
The Emperor's New Security Indicators
http://www.usablesecurity.org/emperor/

and part III of some comments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#28 man in the middle, SSL

and for latest, new "old" thing
Chip and pin flaws exposed
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2006890,00.html
Fraud team exposes chip and pin flaws
http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,2006888,00.html
Fraudsters 'can hijack chip and pin details in-store'
http://www.24dash.com/billpayments/16145.htm
Chip and pin cards hacked
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2005300000-2007060040,00.html
Chip and pin fraud warning issued
http://itn.co.uk/news/45ffad463a16cebbcbd0dfe768eb628e.html
Chip-and-pin loophole
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/infocus/features/in-focus/chip-and-pin-loophole-$1049428.htm
Chip-and-pin 'not infallible'
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/news/technology/chip-and-pin-not-infallible-$1049429.htm

as discussed in numerous yes card postings ... some of these exploits have been around since the 90s with the early chip deployments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

post from last year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#33 Google Architecture

with reference to deployment by ibm at safeways in the 90s
http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/financialservices/doc/content/solution/1026217103.html

from above:
Safeway and its technology partner IBM were involved in the first "Chip and Pin" trials held in the UK in 1997. Recently, Safeway engaged IBM again to provide the Electronic Payment System (EPS) infrastructure in support of the company's push forward with the introduction of "Chip and Pin"

... snip ...

modern paging

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Re: modern paging
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:35:29 -0800
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
Wasn't IBM the inventor of the idea of high speed cache storage when developed for its upper end System/360s?

What language is your data analysis program?

As to your PC application, I wonder how much operating system bloat is a factor. When I run Excel spreadsheets and the like on my Pentium there is a bit of a wait. When I run old compiled QuickBasic 4.5 or PDS Basic 7.1 programs on it the speed is utterly incredibly fast, as is disk I/O.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#25 modern paging

when i was doing some stuff on the original relational/sql implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

i was also involved in another kind of DBMS implementation ... that sort of started jointly between some people at STL (now called silicon valley lab) and bldg. 29 (los gatos vlsi lab) ... that had some early uptake by the vlsi tools group in bldg.29.

since going on to other things ... i've re-implemented various versions of this technology from scratch a number of times ... and it is what i use to maintain and generate the html files for the ietf rfc index:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

and the various merged taxonomies and glossaries that i maintain
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html#glosnote

a little overview/introduction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html

it is implemented in C ... and i've done very extensive optimizing of the core functions. in this particular case, i was dealing with a hundred or so mbytes of information.

a few ancient refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#26 Misc. more on bidirectional links
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#7 The Network Data Model, foundation for Relational Model
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#31 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#47 Why so little parallelism?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#48 Why so little parallelism?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#11 long ago and far away, vm370 from early/mid 70s

SVCs

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SVCs
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:49:02 -0700

Shmuel Metz , Seymour J. wrote:
That's still wrong. The SVC instruction caused an interrupt, period. It was up to the SVC SLIH to index into the SVC table, etc. There was no SVC Assist feature on the S/360.

To add to the fun, CP/67 and VM used the Diagnose instruction as a means for a problem[1] program to cause an interrupt to invoke a supervisor state routine. The handling was a direct parallel to the SVC FLIH and SLIH in OS/360; CP had to determine that the interrupt code was 2, the virtual machine was in virtual supervisor mode and the opcode was DIAG, then use the DIAG code as an index to the proper routine.

[1] But virtual supervisor mode.

CP67 on svc interrupt ... had to determine if the svc old psw was in supervisor state or problem state. if problem state ... a virtual machine was running ... and then had to go off and reflect an emulated svc interrupt to the virtual machine. If the svc old psw was in supervisor state, it was the cp kernel running ... and it had to go off and perform the function for 0, 4, 8, and 12; mostly "8" which was internal kernel call and "12" which was internal kernel return.

CP67 on program interrupt ... had to determine if the program old psw was in supervisor state or problem state ... if supervisor state ... it was a CP67 kernel problem. If the program old psw was problem state then the virtual machine was running. If it was program interrupt for privilege instruction and the virtual machine was in virtual supervisor state ... then the kernel had to emulate the privilege instruction ... otherwise it emulated a program interrupt to the virtual machine. For emulation of a privilege instruction, the kernel had to determine the opcode of the interrupting instruction ... and effectively use decode table for which instruction decode routing to go off to.

Three people from the science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

had come out and installed cp67 the last week in jan68 at the univ. where i was undergraduate.

That spring and summer I had done a lot of rewrite of the cp67 kernel. The CP67 kernel used svc 8/12 interrupts for all calls between internal routines. I rewrote it to cut the processing from about 300mics (per call/return) down to about 80mics. I also implemented a virtual machine SVC "fastpath" reflect (to the virtual machine) completely within the kernel SVC FLIH which substantially reduced that pathlength. As previously mentioned I gave a talk at the fall68 share meeting in Boston on some of the results ... recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#45 Is anyone still running
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#45 SVCs

as mentioned in above ... i then changed the internal linkage for various high-use kernel routines from SVC (interrupt) to straight BALR.

Somewhere along the way ... I started looking at overhead in CMS virtual machine ... and noticed that all the disk i/o operations were effectively done synchronously ... i.e. CMS would do SIO for the disk I/O and then LPSW into wait state waiting for the disk I/O to complete. CMS never attempted to any overlapped processing while waiting for disk i/o. Also, one of cp67 big overhead, long path items was channel program (CCW) i/o decode and emulation.

So I added some code to CMS that would double check if it was running in a virtual machine (the CP67 CMS could also run on bare real hardware), and if so ... instead of doing a regular disk I/O CCW sequence ... it would do a special disk CCW with x'FF' opcode ... which had parameter list for seek, search, and read/write ... and if chained for multiple record transfer. The x'FF' CCW opcode was special case to quickly decode and emulate and was also defined to be "immediate" ... i.e. the virtual SIO wouldn't complete until the disk I/O had finished ... and then it would complete with condition code one on the SIO (i.e. immediate, csw stored). That also eliminated the additional internal CMS processing, the virtual LPSW instruction emulation as well as the virtual I/O interrupt emulation. This cut typical cp67 supervisor emulation overhead for CMS virtual machine by well over half (in addition to the other stuff that I had already done ... and also showed up in the FS/360 mft14 benchmarks).

The people at the science center (primarily Bob Adair) explained to me in gory detail that I wasn't allowed to do that ... since it violated the purity of the virtual machine architecture (i.e. the channel program architecture was not defined to do what I had defined for the x'FF' opcode). However, everybody liked the resulting performance improvement benefit. So it was explained that there was this "diagnose" instruction which was described in the 360 principle of operations to be "model" dependent ... and so it would be possible to define the abstraction of a virtual machine model ... and when running a 360 virtual machine MODEL ... cp67 could define how the diagnose instruction worked (anyway it wanted to). So the code I had done for (CMS) SIO disk x'FF' CCW got remapped into the diagnose instruction (with the implementation for the diagnose instruction to sort of be like SVC kernel call with function codes selecting which operation was to be performed).

old tapes

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: old tapes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 06:56:02 -0700

Shmuel Metz , Seymour J. wrote:
It is. I have the complete free SCRIPTW; I don't know whether Waterloo has put the chargeable version in the public domain or whether it is still proprietary.

the original script was done at the science center in the mid-60s by stu madnick for cms using runoff-like "dot" commands for document formating.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

in '69, "G", "M", and "L" invented GML at the science center ... and markup tag processing was added to script. later a ISO international standard was produced as "SGML"; misc. posts mentioning GML, sgml, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

CERN did a cms/tso "bakeoff" comparison and presented a report to SHARE circa '74. Internally, the report was labeled "confidential, restricted" (available on need to know basis only) ... attempting to limit the number of employees who would be exposed to how badly tso compared to cms.

waterloo did their own version of the cms script command.

in this URL, it describes the morphing of waterloo script SGML to HTML at CERN
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

and this URL, describes the first WEB server in the US on the vm/cms system at SLAC ("first server outside of Europe")
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

past posts mentioning morph from SGML to HTML and/or the first web server in the US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#53 COMPUTER RELATED WORLD'S RECORDS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#0 Xah Lee's Unixism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#72 Specifying all biz rules in relational data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#27 Network databases
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#34 Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#35 Fw: Tax chooses dead language - Austalia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#55 The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That

distribution methods

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: distribution methods.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 07:27:35 -0700

jmfbahciv writes:
And acronyms like SDS could bring botheration on one's head.

and in my resource manager ... one of the modules was named DMKSTP ... the "DMK" was part of corporate 3-letter prefix for naming ... and the rest was from a tv commercial with a line about "the racer's edge".

a past thread mentioning corporate naming convention
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#38 IEH/IEB/... names?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#40 IEH/IEB/... names?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#26 IEH/IEB/... names?

old tapes

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: old tapes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
CC: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:03:04 -0700

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#29 old tapes

and for total (internet) topic drift .... collection of old email mentioning nsfnet related activity from the 80s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

1jan83 was the technology/protocol conversion from the old arpanet host-to-host (and IMP-based) protocol to internetworking protocol. however, nsfnet could be considered the operational precursor to the modern internet ... with high-speed backbone for interconnecting different networks (and relying on the underlying internetworking protocol). misc. collected posts mentioning internet, nsfnet, csnet, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

misc. collected posts somewhat discussing the trials and tribulations with transition from networking to internetworking. part of this is related to the ISO networking standardization around the OSI model ... much more of a traditional "networking" model ... w/o any support for "internetworking". This was compounded by ISO requiring that all networking standardization work had to conform to the OSI model (and anything that included a internetworking support would be in violation of the OSI model). In the late 80s and early 90s ... this was further compounded with various institutions and govs. mandating the elimination of the internet and switch-over to ISO/OSI (like in the federal gov. mandates with respect to "GOSIP")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

Running OS/390 on z9 BC

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Running OS/390 on z9 BC
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 12:36:04 -0700

Jim Mulder wrote:
z890, z990, and z9 machines have a 2-level TLB. Nothing lower than OS/390 2.10 will run reliably on a machine with a 2-level TLB because lower releases than 2.10 do not do some of the necessary TLB purges. I have heard some speculation that you might be able to get around this by running an older MVS under VM, with the following VM trace:

#CP TRACE IPTE RUN NOTERM

Of course, this would cause some performance degradation, since VM would intercepting and simulating every IPTE for this virtual machine. I don't know of anyone who has tried this. It was just some hall talk with a VM developer.

There may be other issues that would prevent an older MVS from running on a modern machine, such as missing support for a larger storage increment size. The storage increment size might also be avoided under VM if the virtual machine does not have too much real storage defined - I think VM simulates the increment size but I wouldn't swear to that.

And there may be other issues that I am not remembering. The bottom line is that you won't find anyone who knows for sure. The only way you could find out is to try it.

And as others have pointed out, if by "old, old" you mean pre-MVS/XA, you can most definitely forget that. Support for pre-XA architecture was dropped by the 9672 G4 machines (9672-Rx5).

IPTE (as well as ISTE and ISTO) selective invalidate instruction(s) were part of original 370 virtual memory architecture. However, the 370/165 engineers had scheduling problem with retrofitting virtual memory hardware to 165. They proposed that they could shave six months on the hardware schedule if they could drop the selective invalidate instructions, r/o segment protect and some other features from the 370 architecture. at the architecture review board meetings ... the svs/mvs people said they saw no problem since they weren't ever planning on doing selective invalidate anyway ... that periodic use of PTLB (purge "all" table lookaside buffer) would be more than sufficient for any of their planned use of virtual memory).

As a result, all of that got dropped from the original release of virtual memory hardware for 370 ... and the 370 models that had already implemented the full 370 architecture had to be retrofitted to only have the 370/165 subset implementation.

In the morph of cp67 cms to vm370 cms (besides the name change from cambridge monitor system to conversational monitor system) ... there was big change to use 370 r/o segment protection. when the r/o segment protect feature got dropped from the architecture (as part of helping the 370/165 engineers make up six month schedule) ... it had significant long term effects on the whole way that vm370 had to go about supporting shared segment protection.

In those days ... the architecture group had converted the architecture "red book" to cms script .... and were using conditional script controls when printing either the full architecture book or the subset that appeared as the principles of operation. slight overlap with this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#29 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#31 old tapes

Very early on, there was joint project between Endicott and the science center to modify cp67 to support 370 "virtual memory" virtual machines ... including all the features in the full, original 370 virtual memory architecture. This was in regular production use a year before the first 370 engineering machine with virtual memory support appeared (370/145) ... and long before any 370/165 machine with virtual memory support was available. misc. past posts mentioning the subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#63 Are the L1 and L2 caches flushed on a page fault ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#7 LINUS for S/390
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#8 Minimalist design (was Re: Parity - why even or odd)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#2 Handling variable page sizes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#10 Coherent TLBs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#23 Tweaking old computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#19 Multiple layers of virtual address translation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#6 If the x86 ISA could be redone
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#8 vm/370 smp support and shared segment protection hack
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#53 System/360; Hardwired vs. Microcoded
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#45 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#10 Exceptions at basic block boundaries
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#39 A second look at memory access alignment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#45 HASP/ASP JES/JES2/JES3
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#13 VM maclib reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#38 Is VIO mandatory?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#9 Hadware Support for Protection Bits: what does it really mean?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#23 Virtual memory implementation in S/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#5 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#41 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#22 Virtual Virtualizers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#26 Mainframe Limericks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#61 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#1 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#60 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#26 moving on

Jim Gray Is Missing

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Jim Gray Is Missing
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 13:57:48 -0700

besides recent pointer by Jim Mehl
http://www.searchforjim.com/

Tenacious Search
http://www.openphi.net/tenacious/

and recent articles

Technologists Apply Tools Of The Trade In Search For Jim Gray
http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205918003

No trace of missing yachtsman on vast sea; Even with army of volunteers and high-tech gadgets, search for sailor proves difficult
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/10/BAGEVO2FS61.DTL

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#8 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17 Jim Gray Is Missing

Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:06:15 -0700

Howard Brazee wrote:
As with all security needs, the technology will need to improve to match the moving target of criminals. We don't know far behind the 8-ball our credit cards technologies or our currency technologies are - but we trust them enough so they work for our current needs. I suspect we are more vulnerable than we would like to admit here.

We know passwords are failing though. And the primary reason is we need too many passwords all over the place - security needs to work the way people work.

collection of posts over the past year about deployment of hardware tokens in that market segment ... and some of the related vulnerabilities and exploits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

recent thread in crypto list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#32 Failure of PKI in messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#33 Failure of PKI in messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#34 Failure of PKI in messaging

and somewhat related thread that preceded it
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#26 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#27 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#28 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#30 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#31 man in the middle, SSL

as repeatedly mentioned in the above ... (SSL) encryption involved "hiding" the account number while it moved thru the internet ... for what came to be called electronic commerce.

in the mid-90s, the x9a10 financial standard working group had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. this resulted in the x9.59 financial standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

if you look at the security PAIN acronym:
P - privacy (or somethings CAIN for confidentiality, i.e. security by hiding information)
A - authentication
I - integrity
N - non-repudiation

in effect, x9.59 financial standard substituted authentication and integrity for privacy. part of this was the diametrically opposing requirements placed on account numbers. at one end, the requirement to keep account numbers confidential and never allowed to be divulged. at the other end, dozens of business processes that require ready and general access to the account number. this led to my periodic comment that even if the planet was buried under miles of (information hiding) encryption, it still wouldn't be able to prevent account number leakage.

now, part of the password paradigm analysis is from the standpoint of 3-factor authentication:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#3factor

something you know (i.e. pins and passwords)
something you have (i.e. hardware tokens)
something you are (i.e. biometrics)

pins and passwords ... have commonly been deployed as shared-secrets. This has resulted in a security requirement for a unique shared-secret for every unique security domain (as countermeasure to cross domain attacks). Other security requirements have required passwords to be impossible to guess (as countermeasure to guessing attacks) ... which also tends to have the side-effect that they are impossible to remember.

40-50 years ago, when a person was possibly involved in only a single security domain ... and only had a single password to remember ... the password (shared-secret something you know) paradigm was somewhat tolerable. However, as typical number of unique security domain participation by individuals has grown to scores ... the scores of related passwords have become unmanageable.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#secrets

now, one of the assumptions in the domain of multi-factor authentication ... is the security is better based on (frequently implicit) assumption that the different factors are subject to independent vulnerabilities. however, there are a number of technology attacks that can invalidate such a assumption ... being able to compromise multi-factor authentication in a single exploit.

For instance, in the previously mentioned yes card exploits, there is an assumption about multi-factor authentication ... with a chip-token as a something you have authentication in conjunction with a PIN as something you know. However, part of the yes card exploit is being able to counterfeit the YES in response to query whether the correct PIN was entered (i.e. YES is the response regardless of what PIN is entered, negating any requirement for actually needing to know the correct PIN).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

and a recent somewhat long running general thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#0 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#5 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#6 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#27 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#28 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#60 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#61 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#62 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#64 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#6 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#8 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#10 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#15 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#17 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#18 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#22 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#26 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#27 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#28 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#30 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#31 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#32 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#33 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#35 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#36 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#37 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#38 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#39 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#40 Point-of-Sale security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#43 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#44 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#46 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#51 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#52 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#53 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#0 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#5 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#11 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#26 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

MAC and SSL

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: MAC and SSL
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:49:05 -0700

"Ron Ayoub" <ronaldayoub@yahoo.com> writes:
And this is an off question that may sound dumb. My teacher has a slide that indicates that SSL is only used for the transmission of a credit card number. This can't be true. My understanding is when you set up SSL you have encryption period(.). Is there a historic reason why that would appear on his slide?

ssl originally was to handle two things 1) man-in-the-middle attacks, aka the webserver you think you are talking to, is actually the webserver you are talking to and 2) encrypt/hide information while in transit on the internet.

much of the drivers for SSL domain name certificates business has been selling SSL domain name certificates to webservers for the purpose of electronic commerce (i.e. a major use of SSL in the world today is hiding account numbers and much of the motivation behind its initial uptake).

an issue arose early on with how SSL was actually deployed. As countermeasure for man-in-the-middle attack ... the browser was support to verify the domain name in the typed-in URL (the webserver you think you are talking to) matched the domain name in a validated SSL domain name certificate supplied by the webserver (the webserver you are talking to).

however, many web merchants quickly found that using SSL cut their thruput by 80-90 percent ... as a result, SSL deployment was changed to be purely used for the checkout/payment process ... and wasn't being used for the general shopping experience. the change was to have a checkout/payment button that was clicked ... which supplied the SSL URL. The effect was that the paradigm changed from

• "is the webserver that you think you are talking to, the webserver you are talking to" (i.e. the domain name in the URL that you supplied matches the domain name in the digital certificate supplied by the webserver

• "the webserver you are talking to is the webserver that it claims to be" (i.e. the domain name in the URL supplied by the webserver ... via its checkout/payment button, matches the domain name in the digital certificate supplied by the webserver)

...

basically, a disconnect in the SSL implicit assumptions occurred when public is getting their URLs supplied by various "click" operations ... and public no longer has a direct connection between URLs and the webservers they are contacting. this also is somewhat the basis for wide variety of phishing attacks.

recent posts in a similar thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#26 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#27 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#28 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#30 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#31 man in the middle, SSL

and also this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#32 Failure of PKI in messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#33 Failure of PKI in messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#34 Failure of PKI in messaging

for archeology reference ... we did some consulting with a small client/server startup that was looking to use some technology they had (something they called SSL) for doing payment transactions on their servers ... something that is currently frequently referred to as electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#asrn2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#asrn3

in any case, it is possible that the referenced slide/statement refers to a) for large number of deployments, the man-in-the-middle countermeasure has effectively been negated leaving only encryption/hiding information and b) large number of the SSL PKI business involves selling digital certificates for use in electronic commerce applications (i.e. credit card transactions).

numerous past posts mentioning SSL domain name certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

MAC and SSL

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: MAC and SSL
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:21:56 -0700

William Ahern <william@25thandClement.com> writes:
To get back to your professor's slide, the competition was largely driven by a desire to jump-start on-line commerce. The common wisdom was everybody on the net was too scared to even take a credit card out of their wallet with their modem turned on. Turns out most people were and are oblivious to security issues. All that was really needed was Amazon and Ebay, not a technical protocol.

... a lot of SSL was that it was what was being used on a large number of the webservers doing electronic commerce .... independent of whatever wars was going on with the browsers.

and as referred to in various archaeological references ... previous post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#35 MAC and SSL

we had sign-off authority on how SSL was deployed for the backend interface between the webserver and the payment processing gateway ... but we didn't quite have the same level of authority regarding the webserver/browser SSL operation. For instance, we could mandate that the webserver TCP/SSL setup (to the payment interface) include multiple A-record support ... but it took something like another year of lobbying to get multiple A-record support into the browser. We could also mandate the webserver to payment SSL interface use mutual authentication (this was before SSL had definition for mutual authentication).

MAC and SSL

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: MAC and SSL
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:45:28 -0700

William Ahern <william@25thandClement.com> writes:
See this article for more info:

http://www.webdeveloper.com/security/security_race_cyberspace.html

To get back to your professor's slide, the competition was largely driven by a desire to jump-start on-line commerce. The common wisdom was everybody on the net was too scared to even take a credit card out of their wallet with their modem turned on. Turns out most people were and are oblivious to security issues. All that was really needed was Amazon and Ebay, not a technical protocol.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#35 MAC and SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#36 MAC and SSL

part of the issue in the netscape/ssl ... was that there was a lot of work on "commerce server" webserver offering that utilized the protocol ... as well as the backend implementation that actually interfaced to the payment infrastructure (somewhat focusing on emerging electronic commerce as a silver bullet ... rather than simply secure communication).

note that the SET reference is slightly off ... it was a specification not a standard (i.e. specification is done by an non-standards organization). In the mid-90s, the X9A10 financial standard working group had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. the result was the x9.59 standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

recent posting with some comment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#34

when the SET specification was first published, i did a crypto-opt profile of the end-to-end operation and got some detailed timings for BSAFE library ... resulting in estimate of actual thruput. When these numbers were presented to various people involved in the SET effort, I was told that they were too large by a factor of 100 times. However, six months later when they had some initial prototypes running, my projected numbers were within a couple percent of measured. This didn't take into account that the benchmarked BSAFE numbers were four times faster than the standard BSAFE library (changes which were subsequently made available). Instead of claiming that the numbers were 100 times too slow, anybody dealing with an actual implementation should have realized that the numbers were four times too fast (based on standard BSAFE library). Not only was the claim that the projected numbers 100 times too slow ... the projected numbers were also on the order of 100 times larger than the existing (total) processing for doing payment transactions.

lots of past posts related to enormous crypto and PKI "bloat" in doing payment transactions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

the other enormous bloating factor (besides processor operation) was payload size ... the typical PKI digital certificate payload overhead was also on the order of one hundreds times larger than base, existing payment transaction payload.

For other electronic commerce archaeological drift:

Scientist is missing after day trip on his yacht, S.F. MAN'S WORK PAVED WAY FOR E-COMMERCE
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/16607490.htm

this has to do with database transactions ... as opposed to crypto operations for electronic commerce. for complete subject drift
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#8 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#33 Jim Gray Is Missing

original relational/sql implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

as well as general area of transactions and things like ACID properties.

for even older public key archaeological drift ... old email from 1981
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email810515
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12 more secure communication over the network

my view of the mid-90s with respect to mentioned IPsec ... was that the IPsec effort was defining end-to-end security in the lower-level protocol stack ... which then required new protocol stack implementation ... which was typically in the kernel ... which implied new kernel distribution (to an extremely large number of existing deployed machines) ... which represented a significant market inhibitor.

Two things that happened in the mid-90s that had much more rapid uptake vis-a-vis ipsec ... were VPN and SSL. There has been lots of stuff about SSL uptake in this period. My claim is that it happened because it didn't require replacing/upgrading existing low-level infrastructure; just load the new (browser) application ... and the support was built in. I saw something similar happen with VPN updated. A friend had introduced it at the gateway working group in the '94 IETF meeting in san jose. My impression was that it caused quite a bit of stir with the ipsec contingent. It was somewhat resolved, when they could refer to VPN as "lightweight" ipsec (and of course, then lots of others could refer to regular ipsec as "heavyweight"). Original VPN went into boundary routers ... and provided for secure communication tunneled thru the internet ... w/o having to upgrade a large number of a institutions operations.

VPN introduction also caused quite a bit of stir among router vendors that didn't have existing processors that were powerful enuf to perform the VPN crypto operations (efforts that appeared to try and sidetrack VPN standardization effort until various vendors had routers that were capable of actually performing the crypto operations).

Question on Network Security

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Question on Network Security
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.security
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:46:53 -0700

axsmth writes:
Hi, This is an end-of-chapter question in Comers book "Explain how sending IP packets to nonexistent addresses on a remote Ethernet can generate broadcast traffic on that n/w"

and interop '88
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88

and what was causing the four floor nets to repeatedly crash most of sunday and well into monday morning.

this also gave rise to one of the specifications in RFC1122 ("Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Communication Layers", also STD3) as part of default configuration ... from my ietf rfc index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

and summary for RFC1122
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcidx3.htm#1122

clicking on the ".txt=nnn" field in the summary retrieves the actual RFC.

for other archaeological topic drift on network security (old email from '81)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email810515 more secure communication over the network

in this post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12

somewhat related thread here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#35 MAC and SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#36 MAC and SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#37 MAC and SSL

old tapes

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: old tapes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:48:39 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
and this URL, describes the first WEB server in the US on the vm/cms system at SLAC ("first server outside of Europe")
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#29 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#31 old tapes

some other archaeological topic drift with respect to browsers and electronic commerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#35 MAC and SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#36 MAC and SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#37 MAC and SSL

but some of this then traces back to NCSA ... for other archaeological topic drift ... that includes NCSA/UIUC reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#13 Cerf and Kahn receive Turing award
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#56 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?

and old email, NCSA/UIUC was one of the institutions we were dealing with as part of the NSFNET/HSDT activity ... and were to be included in the meeting mentioned previously (before it was canceled by some set of executives)

old email from Champaign ...

Date: 07/14/82 10:09:33
To: wheeler

Greetings from Champaign, Illinois

XXXXXX tells me that you are the person responsible for making the VMSHARE data available to us on HONE. This has been of considerable value to me (I'm a field SE and a VM Specialist). So valuable, indeed that when it goes two months without being updated I miss it greatly.

Hope you can get a later version. I've been following some of the items as one would a serial in the comics. I've also let one of my customers, the University of Illinois, come out and access the VMSHARE data at 9600 bps. That way he can just dial into TYMSHARE and update those he's interested in.

Thanks again.

... snip ... top of post, old email index, HONE email

various collected old NSFNET related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

and numerous posts mentioning hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

as well as old email mentioning hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#hsdt

and with respect to VMSHARE mentioned in above
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare

and lots of posts mentioning HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

as well as old HONE related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#hone

and more recent(?) email with some reference to NCSA

Date: Thu, 04 Jun 87 07:27:00 CDT
To: supercomputer@nyu.arpa
Subject: ARGONNE SUMMER INSTITUTE IN PARALLEL COMPUTING

SUMMER INSTITUTE IN PARALLEL COMPUTING

A Two-Week Institute at the Advanced Computing Research Facility
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory
September 8-18, 1987

Summer Institute Faculty                   Computer Facilities

C. Gordon Bell, NSF                  ALLIANT FX/8 (8 processors)
Bill Buzbee, NCAR                    ENCORE MULTIMAX (20 processors)
Josh Fisher, Multiflow Computer      INTEL iPSC HYPERCUBE (32 processors)
Dave Kuck, CSRD, UIUC                INTEL iPSC HYPERCUBE (16 processors,
Neil Lincoln, ETA Systems                  with vector capability)
Chuck Seitz, Cal Tech                SEQUENT BALANCE (24 processors)
Larry Smarr, NCSA, UIUC
Burton Smith, Inst. for Defense Analyses
Guy Steele, Thinking Machines

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

Institute limited to 25 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
Participants expected to carry out a computing project.
Preference given to those likely to advance parallel computing research.
Only one person from the same institution and department accepted.
Applications due July 15, 1987, supported by a letter of recommendation.

Note: Participants will receive free lodging during the period
September 7-17 and a stipend for meals and incidental expenses.
Travel costs will be reimbursed up to $750.

For further information, write or call

Teri Huml
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Building 221
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois  60439-4844
312-972-7163

The Institute is supported by the National Science Foundation
and the U.S. Department of Energy.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

there was some involvement among various people in the above when we were doing ha/medusa ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

as part of ha/cmp scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

old tapes

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: old tapes
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:18:10 -0700

"Gerard Schildberger" <Gerard46@rrt.net> writes:
Where can anyone get a copy (for viewing) of that CMS/TSO bakeoff ? Does it exist anywhere in cyberland ? _______________________Gerard S.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#29 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#31 old tapes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#39 old tapes

possibly somewhere in share archives ... at some point in the recent past there was effort to try and find old flavors of the (waterloo) share "tape" ... which contained all sorts of stuff (although mostly source changes to cp and cms).

for some digression here is "VMSEAS" (European share) discussion thread started in '79; from VMSHARE archive
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse.cgi?fn=VMSEAS&ft=MEMO

with this append giving some of the installation codes of VMSEAS members


Appended on 02/22/79 23:30:47 by _CU

seas project representative            installation
code  code
---- ------- --------------            ------------

S125  _BU    H.Seidlitz                Berlin University
S139  _CU    J.Gribbin                 Commercial Union
S23   _EF    M.Lefebure                Euorcontrol France
S100  _EG    A.Snow                    Eurocontrol Germany
S132  _HB    J.Lynge                   Copenhagen Handlesbank
S28   _IC    I.Stinson                 Imperial College
S54   _ID    H.Hanssen                 I/S Datacentrallen
S52   _MP    R.Pocock                  Max Planck, Munchen
S60   _MU    H.Stenzel                 Munster University
S78   _NU    J.Dobson                  Newcastle University
S74   _PH    A.Dorreman                Phillips, Eindhoven
S121  _PO    B.Chombart                Poclain
S42   _RL    G.Adamson                 Rutherford Laboratories
S44   _RR    S.Webb                    Rolls-Royce (Aero Engines)
S93   _SR    M.Benichou                Sofresid
S116  _SK    H.Deckers                 SCK/CEN, Belgium
S171  _UD    K.Appel                   Uppsala Data Centre

... snip ...

quick use of search engine did turn up this 35th anniv. CERN computer newsletter
http://cern.ch/cnlart/2001/001/main.ps.gz

but no direct reference to the CERN tso/cms comparison report.

I do have a hardcopy of a May 13, 1975 VM370 presentation SHARE made to IBM. It included somewhat case studies involving Bell Northern Research, AMOCO Production Company (two sites), Perkin-Elmer, Pratt Whitney, State of Nebraska, Kodak, and Kansas Hospital Association.

this post mentions a hardcopy of the 1979 "LSRAD" report SHARE presented to IBM ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#50 IBM 705 computer manual

also in this response to an earlier similar request of yours, I was hoping that i might have a copy stored with the LSRAD report ... however no luck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006d.html#38 Tax chooses dead language - Australia

for the fun of it, one other post mentioning LSRAD report
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#1 [Lit.] Buffer overruns

Is computer history taugh now?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:55:07 -0700

"dk" <sales@kanecki.com> writes:
I am wondering if computer is still taught. It seems to me that it is limited to only 5 years back. The reason I say this, is that in some academic groups, some people think windows is the first pc operating system, forgetting about cp/m and others.

cms was definitely personal computing from mid-60s ... some past posts mentioning that at least some cp/m influenced by cp67/cms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#5 small bit of cp/m & cp/67 trivia from alt.folklore.computers n.g. (thread)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#38 [REALLY OT!] Overuse of symbolic constants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#40 Which Monitor Would You Pick??????

Kildall using cp67/cms at navy post-graduate in 72
https://web.archive.org/web/20071011100440/http://www.khet.net/gmc/docs/museum/en_cpmName.html

cms personal computing ran in (the really old, new thing) virtual machine ... originally cp67/cms and later vm370/cms (in the morph from cp67 to vm370, cms was renamed from the cambridge monitor system to the conversational monitor system).

internal cms implementation had/has "handles" like CON1, RDR1, PUN1, PTR1, TAP1, TAP2, DSK1, DSK2, DSK3, ....

table from gh20-0859, pg. 5, cp-67/cms user's guide
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#45 40th anniversary of IBM System/360 on 7 Apr 2004

other references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#11 DOS history question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#0 Is DOS unix?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#56 Oldest running code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#3 Oldest running code

also
https://web.archive.org/web/20071011100440/http://www.khet.net/gmc/docs/museum/en_cpmName.html

from above:
And CP/CMS stands for Control Program/Cambridge Monitor System, the first virtual machine OS to go "prime time", and was written not by the product OS people, but by the research laboratory!

... snip ...

there's actually some amount of sensitivity regarding the above statement.

There was an article that appeared in a corporate monthly publication that made some assertions that virtual machines were first done by corporate Researchers. There was a number of protests written by internal employees from the cambridge science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

demanding a retraction (which never happened).

Later a similar article appeared that claimed that virtual machines were first done by corporate researchers. The letters of protest were again repeated, this time the publication editor responded that "researcher" (with little case r) could be construed as including people at the corporate science centers (as opposed to the previous scenario where upper case R could only be construed to mean people from the corporate Research division).

Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:13:01 -0700

Steve_Thompson@STERCOMM.COM (Thompson, Steve) writes:
You mean, should your computer (laptop) be stolen, one could then boot using a LIVE Linux CD, and crack the wallet contents... Come to think of it, with a LIVE Linux CD, one can crack NTFS files used by Windows....

This is why in our pursuit of security, we make ourselves unsecure because of all the accounts we have that we have to have a userid and password for. And if kept in that wallet, once it is hacked, what damage could be done?

Think about this for a moment. How many web sites require you to register before you can look at their content. This adds to the issue.

How many use the same throw-away userid across as many junk sites/accounts as possible, but keep the same password as they use for their banking ids? While I may have said this backwards, I think you can see the point.

Again, I do not have a solution because the things that I would have pointed out or pointed to have already been shown to not be so secure after all by others on IBM-Main.

previous post in thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#34 Mixed Case Password on z/OS 1.7 and ACF 2 Version 8

so the issue discussed in these recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#35 Failure of PKI in messaging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#36 New Credit Cards May Leak Personal Information

is to transition away from shared-secret authentication paradigm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#secrets

an issue with (static data) shared-secret paradigm is that the same value is used to both originate/authenticate as well as to verify. this also leads to requirement that each unique security domain requires unique shared-secret as countermeasure to cross-domain attacks.

in public key paradigm, the value to originate an authentication is different than the value to verify an authentication. also the value being verified can be made unique for every use ... as countermeasure to evesdropping and replay attacks.

the private key can be made sufficiently complex that it effectively negates brute-force guessing attacks.

so threat/attack vector then starts focusing on (unauthorized) accessing (possibly single) private key.

for some drift, old email archaeological ('81) reference to public key proposal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email810515 more secure communication over the network

in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12 more secure communication over the network

and old ('84) April 1st "corporate directive" password guideline
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#52 OT Re: A beautiful morning in AFM.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#53 April Fools Day

Is computer history taugh now?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:28:27 -0700

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
Many people think PPC could have been a contender. But Intel had so much money from personal computer chips that no one wanted to compete in chips for personal computers. I would have thought IBM would have done it for corporate pride and morale reasons and to keep their chip designers on their toes, but not.

there was large amount of corporate politics ... remember there was huge organization that was selling Intel-based PC products.

ppc was another 801 follow-on to romp (pc/rt) and rios (rs/6000). lots of people thot ppc would be a natural way of RISC competing with '86 processors. however there were large segments that effectively viewed it as competition.

various posts with old email mentioning 801, iliad, romp, rios, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801

and general posts mentioning 801, iliad, fort knox, romp, rios, somerset, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

the other issue in that time-frame ... as i've mentioned before, the SAA effort was effectively attempting to maintain the terminal emulation paradigm for PCs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

limiting the per adapter thruput (like with the discussion of LAN adapter cards) for desktop machines ... to what was needed for terminal emulation ... helped box-in emerging client/server and 3-tier architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

part of the issue limiting rs/6000 to PC adapter cards ... was that it not only limited the desktop thruput ... but also thruput of server & 3-tier configurations (again restricting the transition away from terminal emulation).

various specific posts mentioning rs/6000 being pressured into using various PC adapter cards (LAN, disk, display, etc) ... joke was that you too could have rs/6000 with thruput of a PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#20 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#9 IBM MIcrochannel??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#59 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#12 practical applications for synchronous and asynchronous communication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#20 Ethernet, Aloha and CSMA/CD -
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#21 Ethernet, Aloha and CSMA/CD -
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#38 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#50 Channel Distances
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#42 Arpa address
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#35 Token-ring vs Ethernet - 10 years later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#36 Token-ring vs Ethernet - 10 years later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#46 'Innovation' and other crimes

that strategy somewhat restricted rs/6000 to numerical intensive applications ... which wasn't a particularly large market ... and didn't already have a large corporate install base.

there was some conjecture that similar objectives were in-part behind taking ha/medusa scale-up away from us and moving it to another organization.

referenced here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#83

we were looking at doing as much scale-up in the commercial market segment as in the numerical intensive market segment. the resulting transfer eventually announced a product addressed only at the numerical intensive market segment. misc. past posts with old email discussing ha/medusa scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

similar observations could also be made about canceling our activities for high-speed NSFNET backbone ... even tho there were extensive lobbying efforts by NSF ... including all the way up to the director of NSF communicating with corporate CEO/chairman ... including letter mentioned in this old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#email860417

... that what we already had running was at least five years ahead of all bid submissions to build something new (i've made various comments in the past that while tcp/ip was the technology basis for internetworking ... the NSFNET backbone was the operational basis for internetworking and eventually the modern internet). misc. past posts with old email mentioning various high-speed networking related activity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

Is computer history taugh now?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 16:30:31 -0700

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
IBM never seems to do anything logical. How the heck have they been so successful? I always thought that they should make more effort to push their own products, and have one support the other.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#43 Is computer history taugh now?

pressuring RS/6000 to use PS/2 adapter cards ... was "helping your brethren" ... frequently the issue was who was to help who. one might claim that too much helping ... could result in having hodge-podge of pieces that weren't designed for the targeted market (stuff that had been designed for a totally different market).

Another possible way of viewing the situation is that lots of times efforts were being pressured into supporting major installed legacy operations ... at the expense of being able to agilely move into new markets.

There has been quite a bit written about original acorn effort starting out as independent business operation ... not having to worry about compromising as part of supporting existing legacy operations. However, once a major market segment had been established ... especially in the scenario of terminal emulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

... lots of pressure mounted for other products to not be inconsistent and/or impact that installed product base.

another possible scenario that i've mentioned before was the original acorn effort was not looking at doing its own software ... somewhat as a result a west coast group formed to provide software for the product. at some point, the acorn effort changed their mind and decided that they also wanted to "own" their own software (even if that met going with outside companies under contractual relationships ... eliminating possibility that they cede control to other internal organizations). misc. past posts mentioning ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#79 Coulda, Woulda, Shoudda moments?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#24 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#8 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#41 Device Authentication - The answer to attacks launched using stolen passwords?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#29 "The Elements of Programming Style"

Is computer history taugh now?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:27:38 -0700

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#43 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#44 Is computer history taugh now?

somewhat related topic drift in this old email (talking about MIP Envy and possible ways that "small" processor evolution would follow)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006

in this post from several weeks ago
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"

along with this related old email (in the same post)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016

this might be considered evolution of large clusters of mid-range 4341s ... mentioned in these collected old emails
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

with workstations and larger PCs later taking over that market segment.

and the MIP Envy topic wouldn't be complete w/o these more recent postings mentioning Jim
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#8 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17 Jim Gray Is Missing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#33 Jim Gray Is Missing

Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 08:19:03 -0700

krw <krw@att.bizzzz> writes:
Still not self-modifying. These locations would be patched at load time, not run time. Self-modifying code with modern processors is *very* ugly. The I-caches aren't multi-ported, thus cannot be written. Any modifications have to be written to memory (and D- caches) then refetched into the I-Cache; ugly.

past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#1 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#3 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#7 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#9 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?

and for store-into d-caches (as opposed to store-thru) ... you need explicit operations to flush any data modifications from d-cache back to main memory, then explicitly invalidate any corresponding locations in the i-cache (or maybe just global cache operations, flush all of d-cache to memory and then invalidate all of the i-cache) ... so that i-fetch will result in pulling the modified locations from memory

there was a similar but different problem with the introduction of 168-3 for some installations. the 168-3 doubled the size of system cache (vis-a-vis) 168-1 ... and used the "2k" address bit for indexing the additional cache lines.

however, this met that when running in 370 2k virtual page mode (as opposed to 4k virtual page mode) ... the machine only ran with half the cache (i.e. like a 168-1).

there were some number of installations that were running dos/vs and/or vs1 (under vm370) on 370/168 ... and not only didn't see any performance improvement with upgrade to 168-3 ... but actually saw a performance decrease. the issue was that normally vm370 ran with configuration set to 4k virtual page mode ... except when dispatching a virtual machine with 2k "shadow tables". This could result in constantly switching hardware configuration bit back and forth between 2k page mode and 4k page mode. Because the cache indexing used different mapping in the two modes ... the hardware had to also completely flush the cache every time the 2k/4k page mode configuration bit was changed (resulting in customer upgrade to 168-3 with double the cache size, seeing worse thruput).

Is computer history taugh now?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 09:07:45 -0700

ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#43 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#44 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#45 Is computer history taugh now?

for a little additional (old email) drift:

Date: 03/15/85 09:22:19
From: wheeler

looks like XXXXXX will have to handle presentation to Bloch/NSF on Tuesday. YYYYYY wants to hold a meeting all next week on vlsi processor clusters in ykt. Packaging, systems, architecture, straight 370, 370/801 mixed, and dedicated 801 systems, etc.

... snip ... top of post, old email index, NSFNET email

as mentioned before Erich Bloch was director of NSF for much of the 80s.

somewhat related to this old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email841016
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#50 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?

part of this was I had written a series of papers starting nearly a year earlier on the concept ... previously referenced here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#17 mainframe and microprocessor
and referenced in this recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#7 Miniature clusters

similar, but different to ha/medusa
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

and of course, various old emails mentioning director of NSF, NSFNET, etc.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

other old email mentioning 801
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801

and other posts about 801
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

IBM S/360 series operating systems history

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 13:51:18 -0700

Patrick Mulvany wrote:
Over the past few years I have been putting together a history timeline of operating systems. This is a very large task especially as a lot of the information about the early operating systems is quickly disappearing.

A major part of this is the IBMs S/360 family of hardware and the operating systems that have running on it over the years.
http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?id=2195

I have quite a lot of information on the releases of :-

MVS - Mainly missing clarification of the 1960-1972 period
http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?id=2238;isa=Category;op=show

VM - Missing information prior to 1987
http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?id=2236;isa=Category;op=show

VSE - Missing very early history DOS/VSE and before. Not sure if this is the same DOS and TOS as in the MVS history.
http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?id=2237;isa=Category;op=show

TPF - Almost completely missig ACP
http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?id=2229;isa=Category;op=show

All information welcome, especially corrections, omissions and clarifications of the early history of S/360 series.

lots of vm history in melinda's share paper: VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future ...
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist

old email that has been posted/archived ... some of which relates to vm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html

for instance Melinda's paper talks about TSM (renamed ADSM) originating as CMSBACK starting in 1983. However, by 1983, CMSBACK was already into its 3rd or 4th version ... old email about CMSBACK ... predating 1983
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#cmsback

In fact, the two people mentioned for CMSBACK in Melissa's paper weren't even hired at the time CMSBACK was originally done.

another source of VM historical information is the VMSHARE archive
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

on online VM related online computer conferencing originated in the mid-70s
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

offered as a SHARE service by Tymshare corporation. Tymshare was a commercial vm370-based online timesharing service bureau ... misc. past posts mentioning online vm370-based commercial timesharing service operations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

also some old email specifically mentioning vmshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare

if you want a little topic drift ... lots of past posts mentioning science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

which is where the original virtual machine operating system originated (cp67, precursor to vm370). it is also where GML was invented ... precursor to SGML and antecedent to HTML, XML, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

and also where the internal network originated ... lots of past posts observing that the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime mid-85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

and a derivative of the internal networking software was also used for BITNET/EARN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

misc. old email with some mention of VNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vnet

certificate distribution

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: certificate distribution
Newsgroups: comp.security.misc
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:28:51 -0700

Ertugrul Soeylemez <usenet@streitmacht.eu> writes:
You're taking a much too complicated approach. Why don't you just use GnuPG and Enigmail for Thunderbird? This makes things simple.

To the actual problem: Keyservers and trustcenters are good methods to distribute keys, if there aren't any other possibilities. Otherwise, it's always best to give you keys away personally.

old email from early 80s mentioning public key



Date: 05/06/81  13:45:20
To: wheeler
....
5. Security - VNET does not change this. ie Security can be breached
with or without VNET.  The favorate IBM watering hole is far less
secure than VM/370 or VNET. eg There are NO read, write, or multi-write
    passwords on any mini-disk that I might have confidential info on.
Yes, I know about global passwords, but I also know who has them and
    why. ( total of 4 individuals here including myself ).

6. Definite need for Crypt using public and private keys. Sender uses
public key of individual which requires private key of individual to
    unlock. This solves the problem of unauthorized persons gaining
access to unread mail files.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

little drift, internal network (VNET) was larger than arpanet/internet until sometime mid-85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

misc. other old email mentioning public key
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#publickey

including using CJNTEL on the internal network for public key server ... recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#12 more secure communication over the network

other old email mentioning CJNTEL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#cjntel

past collected posts mentioning certificate-less public key distribution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#certless

Is computer history taugh now?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:48:19 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
It is not accidental that I specified an 8-bit bus. DEC would have been in competition with the end of the Z80 machines and the 8088 as used by IBM. Throw in a word processor, BASIC interpretor and a few games and the PC-LSI-11 has a major head start.

except that was still the relatively small, insular home hobby market.

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#41 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#43 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#44 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#45 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#47 Is computer history taugh now?

this particular aspect was also somewhat touched on in the posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#13 "The Elements of Programming Style"

including comment in this old email about collections of "small" processors eventually starting to impact glasshouse operation:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006

i've frequently claimed that where the major pc market segment developed was in huge commercial orders for dumb terminal 3270 replacement i.e. for about the same price as a 3270 terminal could get a machine with a single desktop footprint that did both mainframe terminal emulations and some amount of local computing. with that enormously growing install base ... it became much more attractive to write software applications for that install base ... as well significant incentive for competitive clone builders. the price competition from clone builders also helped accelerate its attractiveness for the home market. at some point it became positive feedback (snowball) effect, with the size of the install base fueling both application development and price competition ... and the growth in application development and price competition helping fuel the increase in the install base

one of the other initial market uptake silver bullets, besides terminal emulation, was spreadsheet application. an issue was reaching enuf market mass to creating effectively nearly self-sustaining market. at some point the market was large enuf that instead of having to borrow from other activities ... things were developed wholly based on that specific market.

the analogous scenario was the ignition of the consumer electronic market ... cdroms for PCs became highly attractive because of their enormous market position. i've commented before about in mid-80s, finding $300 consumer cdrom having better technology than a $20k device developed specifically for the computer market.

this was also somewhat the basis for the HDTV standards wars ... circa 1990 involving dept. of commerce and others ... there was fear that who ever won the HDTV market segment would have such an electronics development base ... that they would also be able to take over the whole computer market.

misc. past posts mentioning consumer electronic $300 cdrom from mid-80s:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#35 Security Concerns in the Financial Services Industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#23 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#77 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#54 An entirely new proprietary hardware strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#43 360 longevity, was RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#44 360 longevity, was RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005n.html#27 Data communications over telegraph circuits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#45 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#62 Cray-1 Anniversary Event - September 21st

misc. past posts mentioning hdtv and various perceive market implications (including some overlap with the cdrom posts)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#11 Is Al Gore The Father of the Internet?^
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#73 how old are you guys
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#2 FCC rulemakings on HDTV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#23 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#45 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#62 Cray-1 Anniversary Event - September 21st

IBM S/360 series operating systems history

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:06:14 -0700

Charles Mills wrote:
TOS/360, as noted above, is essentially the same as DOS/360.

Only if a tape is essentially the same as a disk!

TOS's code base was largely common with DOS, and the programming APIs were a subset -- but the SYSRES was on tape! Believe it or not. The equivalent of an S806 took about ten minutes: spinning the SYSRES tape looking for the program.

Not IBM's most successful product, neither technically nor commercially.

It shows how far we have come: once, disk was so expensive that people contemplated mainframes with no disk at all. Now, personal music players come with 4GB or more of storage.

Charles

i had summer student programming job ... developing 360 port of 1401 MPIO front-end for 709 (univ. used 1401 for cardreader -> tape and tape -> printer/pubnch front-end for 709 ibsys). as part of move to 360 ... the 1401 was replaced with 64kbyte 360/30. it started out running mostly in 1401 (hardware) emulation mode. I was given the job of rewriting MPIO in 360 assembler. I got to design and implement my own monitor, interrupt handlers, device drivers, error recovery, storage management, dispatching, etc. The assembler program grew to about 2000 cards. I eventually had assembler switch that generated two different versions 1) completely stand alone program that was loaded with the BPS stand alone loader an 2) version that ran under os/360 (at the time release 6, pcp).

The stand-alone flavor two about 25 minutes to assemble and generate text deck. The option to run under os/360 took an additional 25 minutes to assemble because it had five DCB macros that needed to be expanded ... and it took approx. five minutes elapsed time for the assembler to expand each DCB macro (you could watch the 30's front panel lights and tell when the assembler was expanding DCB macro because the front panel light pattern was distinct).

Before i learned about "REP" cards, i got quite proficient at reading punch holes for the hex in "TXT" (binary) decks ... and being able to do code patches by doing card duplication on 026 keypunch ... and multi-punch the hole patterns for the hex patch (significantly faster than updating the assembler card source and getting a new clean assembly).

CMS (PC Operating Systems)

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: CMS (PC Operating Systems)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:26:25 -0700

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
The discussion of PC operating systems sparks a question. Apparently the consensus is that CMS should not be considered a PC operating system, although it apparently (as I see it) did influence PC OS's in various ways. This has been discussed here before. I'm thinking of, for example, assigning drive letters to disks (A,B, etc.)

My question at this point is, what influenced the design of CMS? I guess there was CP-40, a single-user OS for the 360/40. Given bare hardware or a virtual machine, there are lots of ways to design a conversational OS. My knowledge doesn't go back farther than CP-67, what earlier systems influenced the design?

cp40 was a virtual machine implementation on 360/40 that had custom virtual memory hardware modifications. they were trying to get a 360/50 to work with (pending availability of 360/67) ... but all the spare 360/50s were going to FAA ATC ... so they had to settle for 360/40. there is some discussion of this in Melinda's history paper found at
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist

when 360/67 machine became available, cp40 was ported and morphed into cp/67.

cms started out as "personal computing", single user operating system that ran in virtual machine (originally also could run stand alone on real machine). one might claim that cms could continue to evolve since the transition of cp40 to cp67 didn't (at least initially) significantly impact the cms operating environment/characteristics. In effect, there was a fairly clean separation between cp and cms ... with CP focused providing virtual machine support and management of resources in timesharing environment ... and cms focused on being a interactive (single) user computing environment (which originally could run on dedicated real hardware or in a virtual machine).

cp40, cp67, cms, etc have roots traced back to CTSS ... also discussed in Melinda's paper. Some number of people from CTSS went to the science center on 4th flr of 545 tech sq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

while others from CTSS went to Multics on 5th flr of 545 tech sq.

Melinda's paper also discusses some amount of the other influences that were happening in the early and mid-60s timeframe leading up to cp40 and cp67.

Is computer history taugh now?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:59:00 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
There were LSI-11 microcomputers in 1979. So DEC had a 4 year head start on IBM. (PCs were 1980s.) The big challenge was getting the price down and learning to sell via main street shops.

previous posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#41 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#43 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#44 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#45 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#47 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#50 Is computer history taugh now?

IBM 5100 Portable Computer
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/5100/

from above:
Introduced in 1975, the 5100 was IBM's first production personal computer (six years before the PC!). The 5100 has an integral CRT display, keyboard, and tape drive. It was available with APL, BASIC, or both, and with 16, 32, 48, or 64 Kbytes of RAM.

... snip ...

http://www.svec.org/hof/1994.html#friedl

http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/ibm_5110/technik/en/

from above:
The IBM 5100 series computers were aimed for small to medium business and for those without or only small knowledge of computers but who wanted to use their benefits. In 1975 the IBM 5100 was announced as "Portable Personal Computer". Then follows the IBM 5110 in 1978 and the IBM 5120 in 1980.

... snip ...

Is computer history taugh now?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:02:45 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:

http://www.svec.org/hof/1994.html#friedl

from above:

Paul J. Friedl is known by many people as the 'Father of the Personal Computer' He was the chief architect and inventor of the world's first personal computer and also developed the predecessor of the modern spreadsheet program in 1973, long before personal computers, as we know them today, were introduced. He christened his computer 'BSCAMP'(Special Computer APL Machine Portable), and it became the father of the IBM 5100 and the grandfather of the ubiquitous IBM PC, which was introduced in August 1981, nearly eight years later The original SCAMP is now in the Smithsonian Institute.

... snip ...

... and for some totally unrelated topic drift

early CATV broadband networking ...

Date: 02/01/82 16:22:20
From: xxxxxx
Subject: Datamation Article referred to by your netmail

What they're talking about is SBS's leasing of surplus frequency space on many of the franchised cable TV systems around the country. This is SBS's fond hope of reaching the end users in the large metro areas over cable TV. There has been a field test going on for some time using cables in San Francisco and Manhattan to distribute data coming in over an SBS link between the two cities. Thus, there's no connection with my world at this time.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

Is computer history taugh now?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:39:45 -0700

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#54 Is computer history taugh now?

and for even more network topic drift ...

Date: 02/02/82 16:16:55
To: wheeler

Per AT&T Long Lines... dedicated digital 56kbs link between SJ and White Plains would be $11,764 per month.....

... snip ... top of post, old email index

and T1s were tariffed quite a bit higher than 56kbs ... trying to move to T1 and higher rates infrastructures in this time-frame represented something of a financial justification challenge.

Date: 02/08/82 07:28:42
To: wheeler

Hi from SRI in the Big Apple...

Lynn: I forgot to ask for a seat at the ad tech meeting... are there any left?

Met with XXXXXX this morning re S/1-X.25 proposal. He estimates 25KLOC of S/1 code (12 people, 1.5 years) to build an all-IBM X.25 network to which SNA or non-SNA (like PVM and RSCS line drivers) users could attach. He is talking to YKT about using NIL (Network Language, similar in concept to FAPL) and dynamic routing work done in YKT and blessed architecturally by Raleigh as an integral part of the new network.

XXXXXX is already getting flack from Raleigh, and will probably get much more if he pushes hard on this. Possible sources of manpower are Research, SPP Tampa, and DP (via creating a demand from SEs on top 100 accounts). I agree with XXXXXX that if the work was done, VNET would be an ideal place to demonstrate it.

I originally thought his proposal was to use existing X.25 networks (like Telenet). This is much bigger than that... it's really an attempt to do the SNA job, only better (and stay compatible with SNA).

... snip ... top of post, old email index

I had put together a corporate advanced technology conference ... first in several years ... old post with reference here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a

Some years earlier, earlier, my wife had coauthored AWP39, "peer-to-peer network architecture" with "XXXXXX".

random piece of information, "APPN" was originally AWP164.

Is computer history taugh now?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:21:21 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
Making desk top computing respectable is a job that DEC could also have done.

as i've frequently claimed, a big uptake for desktop computing was being able to get a pc replacing existing dumb terminal 3270 ... for about the same price and same desktop footprint ... that handled both the function of the glasshouse 3270 dumb terminal and also providing some local computing capability ... i.e. earlier post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#50 Is computer history tough now?

the big desktop market penetration silver bullet was terminal emulation ... mainframe terminals were already an understood and mature market. The local desktop computing was than almost a freebie side-effect .... and didn't really require independent financial justification (solely for local desktop computing function) i.e. several million could be bought within existing corporate budgets and financial operations.

later this large install base (related to terminal emulation) represented an inhibitor to further advances with local desktop computing ... i.e. client/server and 3-tier was starting to obsolete the terminal emulation function ... and there appeared lots of corporate resistance attempting to maintain the status quo.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

an example of the resulting turf warfare was my periodic reference to the talk given by senior person from the disk division at the annual (internal) world-wide communication group's conference ... where he started the talk by claiming the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the (mainframe) disk division. The difficulty (that customers with evolving desktop applications) were having attempting to deal with data in the glasshouse via the terminal emulation paradigm was resulting in ongoing migration of corporate data to platforms outside the glasshouse. Efforts by the disk division to bring out new products that addressed the problems were constantly being blocked by the communication group (as part of efforts attempting to preserve their terminal emulation install base). previous posts mentioning the talk:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#16 OT - Internet Explorer V6.0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#39 Mainframe Emulation Solutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#39 Who said "The Mainframe is dead"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#59 Q ALLOC PAGE vs. CP Q ALLOC vs ESAMAP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#8 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#30 AMD to leave x86 behind?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#25 Can anythink kill x86-64?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#38 Token-ring vs Ethernet - 10 years later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#20 50th Anniversary of invention of disk drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#9 Mainframe vs. "Server" (Was Just another example of mainframe

we also fell afoul of these protectionist efforts ("attempting to stuff the client/server genie back into the bottle") when were out pitching 3-tier architecture to customer executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#3tier

it possibly could also be claimed that our efforts with NSFNET also had run afoul of these forces ... and contributed to situation where they started calling up and canceling our meetings with outside organizations. misc. old email on NSFNET subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

Which is the Fastest (Secure) Way to Exchange 256-bit Keys?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Which is the Fastest (Secure) Way to Exchange 256-bit Keys?
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:06:15 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
Using payment fraud to damage a rival is a slightly different problem but PGP will ensure that only the intended client can decrypt the data by using the clients public key. Verification of the credit card may be sufficient to verify the client to the server.

which might be claimed why there are all the skimming and data breach attacks ... that just knowledge of the account number is "sufficient"; lots of past posts mentioning account number harvesting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#harvest

and of course, old, frequently referenced security proportional to risk posting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#61

this was one of the threat/attack models looked at in the mid-90s when the x9a10 financial standards working group was given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Is computer history taugh now?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:08:43 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
Total sales by money. It took several years.

there was this old joke about loosing $5 on every sale ... but planning on making it up in volume.

Is computer history taugh now?

Refed: **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:47:18 -0700

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> writes:
From the outside, a lot of people in IBM considered the PC a toy until the PC division had bigger sales than the main frame department.

it may have been disparaged as a serious computing device ... but that might have also been part of the efforts to "retain" the terminal emulation paradigm ... and slow the leaking of corporate applications (and associated corporate data) out of the glasshouse.

previous post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#56 Is computer history taugh now?

one of the (PCs) sales dynamics was that the 3270 dumb terminals tended to be quite a bit more expensive than ascii glass teletypes.

however that characteristic made it a lot easier to justify a PC as a 3270 terminal replacement ... since the prices were in the same range.

by comparison, ascii glass teletypes were tending to the same price range as a PC monitor. "upgrading" a glass teletype to a PC could require actually coming up with a justification for the cost differential ... compared to the 3270->PC ... which could be nearly a no-brainer.

this might be classed as one of those cases where being more expensive aided transition to new technology.

there would have been some dynamics of the internal 3270 "real terminal" product group being in competition with the emerging PC product group. However, for corporate sales reps ... they were already under pressure loosing 3270 dumb terminal sales to cheaper clones. Early on, the PC could be positioned as 3270 dumb terminal with additional features.

Rather than viewing PC early-on attempting to reach large volume sales by expanding into a brand-new (retail) market ... it could be sold as a same-cost replacement into the (corporate) 3270 dumb terminal market that was already tens of millions.

It wasn't that it didn't sell into any of the retail markets ... but early critical mass was much easier in the corporate terminal replacement market. This would have also created some dynamics that employees might be influenced to buy something for the home that was the same as they were already using at work. One might even claim that was behind the infamous mac superbowl advertisement ... trying to counter any tendency for people to buy something (for personal use) that they were already familiar from work.

SLL Certificate

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SLL Certificate
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.security
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:43:23 -0700

Patrick D. <PatrickD@discussions.microsoft.com> writes:
Hi,

Thanks for your answers. I know, that there are a lot of possibilities, but I asked for an URL, where I can buy a secure certificate for a LOW PRICE. There are quite a few ones, where I need to pay a lot. Are there "cheap" certificates, which won't make browsers to warn us anymore?

secure & cheap? is this an oxymoron?

reason for ssl cryptography is to hide information during transmission

reason for ssl certificates is to prove that you are really who you claim to be. "security" in terms of ssl certificates is primarily an "authentication" issue (in contrast to encryption being privacy/confidentiality issue).

for an ssl certificate to be "secure" ... means that it correctly authenticates you (or at least something) ... i.e. are you really who you claim to be. in order to establish authentication security, the certification authority issuing such a certificate has to do some amount of due diligence ... in order to establish that you are who you claim to be ... before they certify it as part of issuing a digital certificate asserting to that fact (aka a digital certificate is nominally a representation that the certifying authority has certified some piece of information).

there have been some suggested changes that would improve the integrity/security of the certification process ... which at the same time significantly reduces the certification complexity and costs ... potentially leading into reduced digital certificate prices.

the catch-22 for the industry is that the general public might start using the same processes ... eliminating the need for 3rd party certification authorities ... and their digital certificates. collected past posts mentioning the catch-22 for the ssl certification industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#catch22

ISA Support for Multithreading

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: ISA Support for Multithreading
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.arch.embedded
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:16:52 -0700

Bill Todd <billtodd@metrocast.net> writes:
Possibly just one instruction that says, "Give me your current internal state for thread N and replace it with this one." As long as the OS was told the number of thread slots that the hardware supported and processor-generated interrupts included the applicable thread ID (as an output) I suspect (having thought about it for less than a minute) that the OS could potentially handle everything else.

Of course, this might not support anything remotely approaching *optimal* SMT, but that wasn't what you asked.

in the mid-70s i designed some dispatching microcode for multiprocessor project (that was eventually canceled and never shipped a product).

it basically moved part of the virtual machine dispatcher and interrupt handler into the microcode. the status for the virtual machine was already being kept ... so it required two queues ... one of available stuff to execute ...and one of stuff that had finished execution (and needed something from the kernel for one reason or another). how many different real processors and therefor concurrently executing virtual machines was somewhat transparent to the kernel code. this is similar in concept to what was later done by 432i.

misc. past posts mentioning the project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce

later there was the "SIE" instruction ... which wasn't particularly queue or multiprocessor oriented ... just packaged all the stuff needed to start/stop process operation into a single instruction.

SIE was somewhat part of migration of more and more support for virtual machine operation into hardware of the machine. Major part of that was virtual machine subset that appeared as "LPARS" (logical partitions) ... where a subset of virtual machine operation was provided directly by the hardware ... w/o requiring virtual machine operating system. for a little drift ... post with old email discussing some philosophy differences between SIE implementation on the 3081 and 3090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#27 virtual memory

Cycles per ASM instruction

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Cycles per ASM instruction
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:47:44 -0700

"Gerard Schildberger" <Gerard46@rrt.net> writes:


+---------------------------------------------+----------+
|            CPU                     family   |  approx. |
|  vendor    model                 model name |   MIPS   |
+---------------------------------------------+----------+
|   IBM      2065                   360/65    |      .70 |
|   IBMrpq   2067                   360/67    |      .98 |
|   IBMrpq   2067 mp                360/67    |     1.96 |
|   IBM      2075                   360/75    |      .89 |
|   IBM      2085-1                 360/85    |     1.92 |
|   IBM      2085-2                 360/85    |     2.40 |
|   IBM      2090                   360/90    |     5.00 |
|   IBM      2091                   360/91    |     5.00 |
|   IBM      2092                   360/92    |     5.00 |
|   IBM      2095                   360/95    |     5.00 |
+---------------------------------------------+----------+

weird?

360/67-1 was supposedly identical to 360/65 (when running in non-DAT mode) ... i.e. 750ns memory cycle, 8 byte i-fetch. part of instruction timing formulae ... includes amortized part of 8byte i-fetch ... i.e. 2byte instructions includes 1/4th of 750ns double-word instruction fetch, 4byte instructions includes 1/2 of 750ns double-word instruction fetch.

A four byte instruction with one storage operand access would effectively have 1.5*750ns related to storage access (prorated i-fetch plus one instruction operand) ... plus whatever the actual instruction timing is.

in fact, looking at the functional characteristics document for both machines (off bitsaver) appears to give identical timing values for every instruction.

turning on dynamic address translation in 360/67 ... added 150ns to ever memory access ... effectively making it a 900ns memory access machine instead of 750ns (and all the instruction timings change appropriately). that makes 67-1 identical to 65 in performance ... except when dynamic translation is turned on ... when 67-1 effectively is about 20percent slower.

360/67-2 is little more complicated ... as part of multiprocessor support ... they put in multi-ported memory ... which slows down every memory access ... by about 20percent ... approx. 900ns instead of 750ns (for base hardware, running with dynamic address translation on then slows it down another 150ns).

The functional characteristics gives instruction timings for 67-1 and 67-2 with DAT off. The actual times for 67-1 with DAT turned on ... would be approx the same as the timings for 67-2 (with DAT turned off).

However, 67-2 under heavy I/O load could have actual higher thruput than 67-1 ... the multi-porting memory cutting down on processor stalls contending for memory bus with i/o activity; i.e. heavy i/o load for 65/67-1 probably means more like effective .5mips (and 67-1 running in virtual memory mode, i.e. DAT turned on, would be slower still).

documents at:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/

65 and 67 functional characteristics
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/A22-6884-3_360-65_funcChar.pdf
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf

more weird:


|   IBM      2091                   360/91    |     5.00 |
|   IBM      3168-3                 370/168   |     2.74 |
|   IBM      3158-3                 370/158   |     1.00 |
|   IBM      4341-1                 370/4341  |      .88 |

here is benchmarks that i did on 158, 3031, and an early engineering model 4341-1 (machine cycle time was running about 10-15percent slower than what shipped to customers):


                  158               3031              4341
Rain          45.64/47.42    |   37.03/37.77   |   36.21/37.57
Rain4         43.90/44.80    |   36.61/36.89   |   36.13/36.51

also times approx;
370/145            370/168            360/91
                 145 secs.           9.1 secs          6.77 secs

... snip ...

4341 rather than about ten percent slower than 158-3 ... was closer to 25percent faster (and customer production machines would have been faster still)

misc. past posts with old email from days working with 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

158 and 3031 had effectively the same microcode engine. the biggest change from 158 to 3031 was that the 158 had integrated channel microcode shared on same engine executing 370 microcode ... and for the 303x machines they took the 158 integrated channel microcode and packaged it as a separate box called a channel director (i.e. a single processor 3031 was actually two 158 microcode engines ... one dedicated to channel function and one dedicated to 370 instructions).

Cycles per ASM instruction

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Cycles per ASM instruction
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:30:29 -0700

Steve Myers <noone@nowhere.com> writes:
Something wrong here. No way a /67 could do .98 MIPs. Nor could a /67MP do almost 2 MIPs - the shared memory really slowed that class of machine down. /67s with the DAT turned off were roughly the same as a /65; the DAT took about 20% off that. /67MPs were about 1.75 times the UP.

as per previous post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#62 Cycles per ASM instruction

it wasn't that shared memory slowed the 67MP down ... it was that the 67-2 had multi-ported memory delay ... even when you are only talking about a single processor (half-duplex) 67-2. The delay of the multi-ported memory (compared to 65 or 67-1) mitigated memory contention ... both when there was heavy i/o and/or multiprocessor operation. two-processor 67-2 might actually have twice the aggregate effective MIP rate of single 67-1 in heavy i/o workloads.

multiprocessor 370 cache machines were slightly different. For two processor operations the cache machine cycle was slowed down by ten percent (to allow for cross-cache chatter) ... making each processor effectively .9 processing rate of a single processor machine (two processors were 1.8 of a single processor machine).

The processing of actual cross-cache chatter, for things like cache-line invalidates, would slow the running hardware down even further ... then there is the overhead of kernel multiprocessor software ... resulted in two-processor 370s thruput being rated at 1.4-1.5 times that of single processor 370.

However, I did some fiddling in some early vm370 multiprocessor support that effectively provided for some cache affinity. For some workloads on a two processor 158-3 ... the aggregate mip rate of the two processors were sometimes slightly better than same workload on a single processor operation; aka some games being able to take advantage of two caches and improvement cache hit ratio running the workload ... could more than make up for the degraded processor cycle (and other MP overhead).

for some real topic drift ... posting of the old MIP Envy article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17 Jim Gray Is Missing

in the early 80s (during the 3081 product cycle), both MVS and VM kernels had work to optimize kernel storage allocation to minimize cross-cache trashing ... kernel storage was reworked to be aligned on cache-line boundaries ... and be in units of cache-lines. The resulting reduction in cross-cache thrashing supposedly increased overall system thruput between 5-10 percent.

a couple recent posts mentioning cache hit ratios and/or cross-cache chatter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#44 vm/sp1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#47 SVCs

Is computer history taugh now?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:07:34 -0700

Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
But there wasn't, and couldn't, be VisiCalc without a video terminal. The live spreadsheet doing its own calculations by magic was what made VisiCalc different and new.

in the 70s, a lot of stuff that was later done with spreadsheets ... was being done in APL. A lot of modeling was done in APL.

Also a common application was like implementation of T-E-A (travel expense account) forms. I have some vague recollection that there was a subsequent implementation done in REXX.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#54 Is computer history taugh now?

the IBM 5100 shipped as product in '75 went out with both APL and BASIC support

and IBM 5100 reference
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/5100/

from above:
Predecessor: The 5100 was based on the design of an earlier proof-of-concept system called SCAMP, for "Special Computer, APL Machine Portable". SCAMP was also based on the PALM processor, but used a Norelco (Philips) compact cassette drive instead of the 3M cartridge. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer in order to run APL\1130. SCAMP is in the Smithsonian Institution.

... snip ...

and
http://www.svec.org/hof/1994.html#friedl

from above:
Paul J. Friedl is known by many people as the 'Father of the Personal Computer' He was the chief architect and inventor of the world's first personal computer and also developed the predecessor of the modern spreadsheet program in 1973, long before personal computers, as we know them today, were introduced. He christened his computer 'SCAMP' (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), and it became the father of the IBM 5100 and the grandfather of the ubiquitous IBM PC, which was introduced in August 1981, nearly eight years later The original SCAMP is now in the Smithsonian Institute.

Dr. Friedl's 32-year career with the IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center as a senior engineer and manager included pioneering work in industrial process control, laboratory automation, knowledge-based expert systems, distributed computing, and computer conferencing systems. He also authored many technical papers and patent disclosures. He invented the IBM People Sharing Information Network (PSInet) Computer Conferencing System, which is being used by kindergarten through 12th-grade educators throughout the country.

... snip ...

I've made numerous posts before about cambridge science center initially doing a port of apl\360 to cms ... which was released as cms\apl. Later palo alto science center did a lot of work and it was released as apl\cms. palo alto science center also did the apl microcode assist for the 370/145 (apl\cms running on 370/145 with the assist got about the same performance as apl\cms running on 370/168 w/o the assist).

lots of past posts mentioning APL and/or HONE ... HONE was the internal vm370-based timesharing service that provided online applications to sales, marketing, and field people world-wide ... and majority of the applications were implemented in APL (originally cms\apl ... but migrated thru the evolution of apl\cms, apl\sv, vs\apl, etc)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

IBM S/360 series operating systems history

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:17:10 -0700

Ken Brick wrote:
From an unreliable memory.

DOS r26 was the last real memory DOS DOS/VS R27 1972-73 timeframe - check when the small 370'e (135 & 145) become available Last DOS/VS R35 probably 1982 to be followed by the VSE series (probably when the 4331/4341 become available)

old "E-architecture" reference

Date: 09/16/82 08:31:14
From: wheeler

re: e-architecture; E-architecture is the internal name for the 370 architecture extension that came out with the (original) 4300 series machines. It is supported by VS1E & DOS/VSE. It's primary feature is it moves the equivalent of the page & swap tables to below the microcode interface. There are new instructions to validate, connect, invalidate, & disconnect page frames. This architecture as developed primarily by Germany during the middle 70s & basically is an attempt to move "troublesome" pieces (for DOS) of the system down into the hardware.

XA architecture is a completely different architecture extension. It was developed in POK and primarily represents their (similar) goal to migrate "troublesome" pieces of MVS down into the hardware ... giving the hardware engineers opportunities to solve MVS system problems that the MVS software programmers have found difficult to deal with.

Both the E & XA architecture share the feature that they are architecture extensions tailored for a specific operating system (DOS & MVS respectively). Both the E & XA architecture share the feature that neither support virtual machines. POK has managed to bypass the problem by defining a new instruction in XA called SIE which is defined to do "whatever is necessary" to run a virtual machine. On the other hand, 4300s are primarily run in 370 mode.

... snip ... top of post, old email index

"E" ... i.e. "e" for vs1 and dos/vs

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#48 IBM S/360 series operating systems history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#51 IBM S/360 series operating systems history

for other (SIE) topic drift ... recent cross-over post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#61 ISA Support for Multithreading

lots of other old email discussing 43xx boxes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

Is computer history taugh now?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is computer history taugh now?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:04:39 -0700

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
But we are moving back, the latest rage is web based services; put your application on the server and you can be platform agnostic for the desktop.

... not only kinds of platforms ... but also specific platforms ... i.e. being billed as countermeasure to stolen laptops that contain significant amounts of sensitive data ... locally just have a web appliance ... with everything else safely located on the servers.

this was also one of the themes of the mainframe disk division in the late 80s and early 90s ... the proliferation of sensitive corporate information on platforms that were inadequately secured and protected ... making them vulnerable to numerous kinds of exploits.

part of that theme was sensitive corporate information that was inadequately backed up. some study claimed that half of the companies that had failed disk (containing significant unbacked-up corporate data) declared bankruptcy within 30 days (aka loosing stuff like accounts billable file)

SLL Certificate

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: SLL Certificate
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.security
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:03:37 -0700

"S. Pidgorny <MVP>" <slavickp@yahoo.com> writes:
That doesn't reliably work and numerous attempts to impove the situation either failed or bound to fail - EV certs the latest:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/sp/archive/2007/02/15/more-secure-ssl.aspx

previous post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#60 SSL Certificate

lots of past posts mentioning ssl certificates ... including referring to them as "comfort" certificates ... i.e. with a lot of PR and hype to convince people that they should feel good when they see a ssl certificate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

going back to when we were asked to consult with this small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... and they had this technology they wanted to used called SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#asrn2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#asrn3

and had to figure out how to apply the SSL technology to specific business processes

various recent threads/posts about SSL, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#51 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#25 EV - what s the reason, again?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#26 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#27 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#28 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#30 man in the middle, SSL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm26.htm#31 man in the middle, SSL

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:35:55 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
and for latest, new "old" thing

Chip and pin flaws exposed
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2006890,00.html
Fraud team exposes chip and pin flaws
http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,2006888,00.html
Fraudsters 'can hijack chip and pin details in-store'
http://www.24dash.com/billpayments/16145.htm
Chip and pin cards hacked
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2005300000-2007060040,00.html
Chip and pin fraud warning issued
http://itn.co.uk/news/45ffad463a16cebbcbd0dfe768eb628e.html
Chip-and-pin loophole
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/infocus/features/in-focus/chip-and-pin-loophole-$1049428.htm
Chip-and-pin 'not infallible'
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/news/technology/chip-and-pin-not-infallible-$1049429.htm

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#26 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

latest update:

Chip and pin fails to halt card fraud rise
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=291732007

from above:
SHOPS have seen a massive rise in credit and debit card crime since the introduction of chip and pin technology, according to a report published today.

The new system was hailed as virtually fraud-proof but a survey by the Scottish Grocers' Federation (SGF) suggests card crime has soared by more than 50 per cent since 2005.

... snip ...

other recent posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#51 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#52 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#53 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#0 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#5 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#11 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

collected posts on related subjects:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

IBM S/360 series operating systems history

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:03:10 -0700

kbrick@ibm-main.lst (Ken Brick) writes:
My recollection is that S/360/30 didn't support EDMK and TRT

functional characteristics documents from bitsavers:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/

and 360/30 functional characteristics
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA24-3231-7_360-30_funcChar.pdf

lists timing instructions for all the 360 instruction ... so I assume they were supported ... including ..


instruction             FORMAT   MNEMONIC     TIME
Edit                      SS        ED       38+7N1+9N2
Edit and Mark             SS        EDMK     45+7N1+9N2

Translate                 SS        TR       31+6N
Translate and Test        SS        TRT      39+6N

N:      total number of bytes in field
N1:     total number of bytes in 1st operand
N2:     total number of bytes in 2nd operand

... snip ..

other posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#48 IBM S/360 series operating systems history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#51 IBM S/360 series operating systems history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#65 IBM S/360 series operating systems history

Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:44:00 -0700

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Chip and pin fails to halt card fraud rise
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=291732007

from above:

SHOPS have seen a massive rise in credit and debit card crime since the introduction of chip and pin technology, according to a report published today.

The new system was hailed as virtually fraud-proof but a survey by the Scottish Grocers' Federation (SGF) suggests card crime has soared by more than 50 per cent since 2005.

... snip ...

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#68 Securing financial transactions a high priority for 2007

and then there is
Plans to cut card fraud 'too complex'
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=46197&src=site-marq
Plans to cut card fraud 'too complex'
http://www.itweek.co.uk/vnunet/news/2183738/plans-cut-card-fraud-slammed
Plans to cut card fraud 'too complex'
http://www.whatpc.co.uk/vnunet/news/2183738/plans-cut-card-fraud-slammed Warnings over 'complicated' anti-fraud card systems
http://www.tuvps.co.uk/news/articles/warnings-over-complicated-anti-fraud-card-systems-18065845.asp

in the mid-90s (in the same time-frame as numerous of these other efforts were being initially worked on), the X9A10 financial standard working group was given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for ALL retail payments (internet, point-of-sale, credit, debit, stored-value, check, face-to-face, non-face-to-care, i.e. ALL). the result was the X9.59 financial standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

it looked at being KISS and also addressing a wide range of threats and vulnerabilities, including stuff like data breaches, security breaches, skimming, and other forms of harvesting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#harvest

as well as various things turned up related to the yes card exploits,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

including replay attacks and man-in-the-middle attacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#mitm

Cycles per ASM instruction

Refed: **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Cycles per ASM instruction
Newsgroups: comp.lang.asm370
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:21:44 -0700

"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> writes:
The 22s were the last 360 announced, and were simply recycled 30s, introduced after the S/370 135 came out and 30s were being returned in great numbers, but before the 115 and 125 were ready. The 115 and 125 were microcoded up the wazoo, so it's easily imaginable that they were slower than the 30/22.

the 115/125 were nearly identical machines ... they had a nine position bus for microprocessors. depending on what the customer specified in the order, would govern how many of the nine slots had microprocessors installed and what microcode got loaded into each processor (all the microprocessors were the same, just had different microcode loaded).

115 was rated at 80kips 370 ... that met that the microprocessor executing the 370 microcode load ... emulated 370 instructions at approx. 80,000 instructions per second. the 370 microcode load had an avg. of ten microcode instructions per 370 instructions (of course more complex 370 instructions would require significantly more microcode instructions to execute). all the other microprocessors in the machine were identical but got microcode loads to perform other types of functions, communication controller, disk controller, etc. the microcode engine ... to make 80kips 370 ... executing an avg. of ten microcode instructions per 370 ... had an engine that ran just under a mip "native".

the 125 was identical to 115 except the microprocessor engine that executed 370 microcode load was about 50percent faster than the other microprocessor engines (rather than about 800kips native ... it was more like 1.2mips native).

in many respects ... 115/125 were SMP multiprocessors ... with up to nine processors in a configuration ... executing different application (micro)code.

IBM S/360 series operating systems history

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM S/360 series operating systems history
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers,IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:32:32 -0700

Patrick O'Keefe wrote:
I'm not sure why you mentioned the s370/125. As far as I know the s360/25 ad the s370/125 were true members of the s/360 and s/370 families ... for some value of "true". (I never met a 125 so I'm on shaky ground there.) As with all of the microprogrammed s/360 models the mod 25 was whatever its microcode said it was, and when you loaded it with an s/360 emulator it was a true s/360. For all I know it also had a mod 20 emulator, and if you loaded that, it was a true mod 20. But those were different architecture.

modulo a m'code bug .... recent cross-over post discussing some 115 & 125 characteristics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#71 Cycles per ASM instruction

I had originally done "pageable kernel" support in cp67 ... to help cut down on fixed real-storage requirements ... this was never shipped in cp67 product ... but was picked up as part of vm370 kernel. however, over a period ... the standard fixed vm370 kernel storage requirements grew ... even having implemented pageable kernel support.

I was asked to look at vm370 on a customer's 256kbyte s370/125 (even tho vm370 hadn't been announced for 125). One of the things i did was do about 40kbyte trimming on the fixed vm370 kernel requirements ... getting it down into the 80kbyte range. I could do this (in virtual machine) before actually touching a real 125.

When I went to real 125 ... and had problem getting vm370 to actually boot. The problem was how the "long" instructions (clcl/mvcl) instructions were originally/implemented on 125. all the 360 instructions would check starting and ending address of operands before starting instruction execution (i.e. if both starting and ending didn't check out, it wouldn't even start the instruction execution). That was changed for "long" instructions ... where only the operand addresses were checked as they were processed .... ignoring the precheck on ending operand address.

The 125 mvcl implementation had a "bug" ... it would precheck ALL operand ending addresses before starting the instruction (even the long instructions) ... and if there was a problem not continue. vm370 boot had some code that would setup mvcl instruction with maximum length (16mbytes) for the "to" operand and zero length for "from" ... effectively clear all of storage and terminate with the address of end of real storage. The 125 mcode "bug" resulted in not even starting the instruction ... so vm370 boot thot there was effectively no real storage and aborted.

misc. past posts mentioning the 125 long instruction mcode problem
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#8 360/370 instruction cycle time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#69 Test and Set (TS) vs Compare and Swap (CS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#9 More about SUN and CICS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#27 A Dark Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#12 Zeroing core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#46 Why is z series so CPU poor?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#49 Was FORTRAN buggy?

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