List of Archived Posts

2010 Newsgroup Postings (04/09 - 04/29)

What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
computers on tv
computers on tv
computers on tv
Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
someone smarter than Dave Cutler
OS/400 and z/OS
OS/400 and z/OS
Posting ECB's, SRB's, Across Region Boundaries - Pre CMS
The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
LINUX on the MAINFRAME
How many mainframes are there?
How many mainframes are there?
How many mainframes are there?
QUIKCELL Doc
In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
How many mainframes are there?
In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
Our Pecora Moment
45 years of Mainframe
45 years of Mainframe
In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
45 years of Mainframe
(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers
IBM 029 service manual
(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
IBM 029 service manual
IBM 029 service manual
Faster image rotation
Profiling of fraudsters
IBM 029 service manual
COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
Do you know of, or have you participated in, any good examples of successful collaboration?
IBM 029 service manual
Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Our Pecora Moment
IBM 029 service manual
Trust Facade
IBM 029 service manual
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
IBM 029 service manual
S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans
IBM 029 service manual
Itanium had appeal
(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Reproducing Punch (513/514)--consecutive numbering, mark sense reading
IBM 029 service manual
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
Our Pecora Moment
Idiotic programming style edicts
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
1130, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Our Pecora Moment
Idiotic programming style edicts
Idiotic programming style edicts
Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )
IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
IBM 029 service manual
25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Costs Of Data Breaches Much Higher In U.S. Than In Other Countries, Study Says
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
IBM 029 service manual
IBM 029 service manual
Itanium had appeal

What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc, alt.folklore.computers, comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.os.ms-w
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:34:36 -0400
starwars <nonscrivetemi@tatooine.homelinux.net> writes:
That's not because of threading, that's just an implementation specific issue. There is no intrinsic reason not to be able to query other address spaces, indeed there are several foundation services available just for this purpose.

SPM was original developed for various kinds of message passing ... including normal terminal-to-terminal messages being intercepted by a service virtual machine (aka "viritual appliance"). It was used in the service virtual machine that provided network ... to allow 1) interpreting messages from authorized users as networking commands and 2) extending terminal-to-terminal messaging to terminals connected to different real machines on the network.

the original relational/sql implementation (system/r) was doine on vm370 using a combination of independent virtual machines (address space) with a lot of both r/o and r/w virtual address space sharing and inter-virtual machine message. misc. past posts mentioning system/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

SPM was originally done at Pisa science center for cp67 and then ported to vm370. old email reference about shipping SPM as part of my internal CSC/VM distribution:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430
mentioned in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#8 Why these original FORTRAN quirks

the author of REXX did a multiuser spacewar game using the facility. There was spacewar server virtual machine and any number of client virtual machines (on either the same machine or different machines on the network). misc. past posts mentioning spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#10 5-player Spacewar?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#8 VM: checking some myths.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#26 Help needed on conversion from VM to OS390
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#72 OT: One for the historians - 360/91
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#14 Seven of Nine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#34 Playing games in mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#20 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#12 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#4 Fast action games on System/360+?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#22 Was CMS multi-tasking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#74 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure

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

In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, alt.computer.security
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:23:31 -0400
Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@newsguy.com> writes:
But the same is true of many other aspects of our economic infrastructure. Credit card signature panels and CVV2 numbers are mostly security theater (as are most things that require a signature), as are the chip-and-pin card systems used in Europe. The bogus two-factor authentication systems used on many websites are security theater. Ditto "Verified by Visa" and similar systems.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#79 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#84 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

early magstripe were subject to counterfeit cards by just using normal credit card account number formulae. the secure hash strategy took bin-level shared-secret, encoding the information, truncated and added it to the magstripe (as countermeasure to simple generation counterfeit magstripe credit card).

wiki discussion of magstripe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card

including mentioning that magstripe standard was managed out of los gatos lab for serveral years.

note that this wasn't done for magstripe debit cards ... since the PIN, 2-factor authentication ... acted as countermeasure to lost/stolen card as well as counterfeit magstripe using account number formulae.

in the past decade this resulted in some press notices claiming debit cards were less secure than credit cards ... but it was somewhat the associations enabling their credit card networks for debit card operation with "signature" debit (as growth in credit card use started to drop off and increase in debit cards).

the associations then could charge interchange fees for "signature" debit ... similar to what was being charged for credit card transactions (and the transactions would flow over the association networks at all). the issue was that the debit cards lost their two-factor authentication. Now these debit cards used in "signature" debit mode became vulnerable to both lost/stolen card as well as counterfeiting cards using simple account number formulae (and the opportunity to have press items claiming magstripe debit cards were less secure than credit cards).

The secure hash strategy was attactive to the associations ... since they could collect a repository of the bin-level shared-secrets and provided added-value standin (being able to validate the magstripe and perform stand-in autherization if the backend financial institution went offline). The shortcoming in the secure hash magstripe information was that it was static data ... and became subject to skimming attacks (starting several decades ago) ... where crooks would create countefeit magstripes by recording complete data from existing magstripes.

as previously mentioned, the x9a10 did detailed, end-to-end thread & vulnerability studies of most of these characteristics as part of coming up with the x9.59 financial standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

recent thread discussing several of these items:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#17 Chip and PIN is Broken!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#24 Cambridge researchers show Chip and PIN system vulnerable to fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#25 Cambridge researchers show Chip and PIN system vulnerable to fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#47 Industry groups leap to Chip and PIN's defence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#19 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#25 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#26 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#27 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#30 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#41 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#44 Can't PIN be mandated in normal POS machines ? to avoid Losses / Frauds / NPA's ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#21 Should the USA Implement EMV?

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

Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.intel, comp.arch
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:55:10 -0400
"robertwessel2@yahoo.com" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> writes:
Hmmm... "Modern" access registers didn't show up until ESA in about 1990. DAS was introduced in S/370, no later than 1980 (actually I'm not sure exactly when DAS capable hardware shipped, but MVS/SP1, which was the first release to support DAS, shipped in 1980). XA happened in 1983. Of course I don't know for sure, but it seems unlikely that access registers were planned that far before their introduction. More likely they were an upwards compatible way to extend the DAS support.

And Program Call / Program Transfer were introduced with DAS. XA didn't really do much to DAS and PC/PT, other than fairly obvious extensions to 31 bit (and a bit of cleanup - IIRC, some stuff like which address space instructions were fetched from in secondary space mode got nailed down in XA). XA was mostly about 31 bit mode and a total revamp of the I/O subsystem. ESA did substantially enhance DAS (with AR support), and added a number of extensions to PC/PT (and those have continued as the architecture has evolved).


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#83 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

access registers were in the 811 architecture documents ... named for being dated nov1978. this may be slightly analogous to IPTE, ISTE, ISTO and other features were in the original 370 architecture (before any 370 machines shipped). Some number of machines implemented the full-set of 370 architecture ... but then the 165 group said they could save six month schedule retrofitting virtual memory if they dropped a bunch of stuff (which then required the other groups to go back and remove the extra features and retrench to just the 165 subset of 370 ... at least the vm370 then had to also redo their work for using the 165 subset).

dual-address space mode was shipped as part of 3033. it was part of misc. stuff sometimes referred to as mvs microcode performance assist ... somewhat analogous to vm370 microcode performance assist done for 4341.

the problem was that 4341 machine was vertical microcode that did about 10 native instructions per 370 instruction. The 3033 was horizontal microcode where 370 instructions already ran close to machine cycle ... so never saw the 10:1 performance improvement that came with ECPS. old discussion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

it turned out that the mvs microcode performance assist could actually run slower on 3033 ... than straight 370 implementation.

the scenario was that after killing future system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

there was mad rush getting products back into the 370 product pipeline (in parallel with launching xa ... which was going to take 7-8 yrs).

they took 370/158 engine with its integrated channel microcode and created the 303x channel director (running just the channel micrcode but w/o the 370 microcode).

3031 became 370/158 engine with just 370 microcode and a 2nd 370/158 engine (channel director) with just the integrated channel microcode

3032 became 370/168 reconfigured to work with 303x channel director

3033 started out being 168 wiring diagram mapped to 20% faster chips. these chips had 10 times the circuits that were going to be mostly unused. there was some optimization to better use the extra on-chip circuts that managed to get 3033 performance up to 1.5 times 168.

the 168 had a 7-entry sto (aka virtual address space) stack TLB ... which carried over to 3033. the addition of dual-address space support was creating lots more different address spaces to being used in short period of time resulting in overrunning the 7-entry sto stack resulting in TLB invalidation ... which resulted in degraded performance (compared to not using dual-address space mode).

for some itanium trivia related to dual-address space mode ... old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#18 address space
dual address space architecture reference:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010722130800/www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/apr-jun/2worley.html

related
https://web.archive.org/web/20000816002838/http://www.hpl.hp.com/features/bill_worley_interview.html
http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/apr-jun/worley.html

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

Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.intel, comp.arch
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:43:49 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
access registers were in the 811 architecture documents ... named for being dated nov1978.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#83 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#2 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

at one point i had file cabinet of 811 documents ... they were "candy-striped" ... i.e. highest corporate security classification; individually numbered and signed out to specific person, required special double-locked security provisions, subject to periodic security audits.

apparently people that had 811 documents were subject to industrial espionage (how the information leaked? ... possibly some clerk in the plant site security office ... since they were responsible for doing the periodic audits for candy-striped documents and had list of candy-striped documents in each person's possession).

In my case, a recruiter contacted me ... with job interview for technical assistant to president of a mainframe clone computer company. I went to the interview ... but it became pretty clear that they were interested in the 811 documents. I managed to pretty much bring the interview to an end when I mentioned that I had suggested several improvements to the corporate conduct guidelines (that every employee had to review/reread every year) ... because I thought there were several loopholes for unethical behavior.

somewhat later the industrial espionage and other stuff came up in federal court and I got to spend several hrs with FBI agent going over what was said during that job interview.

a couple other recent posts mentioning 811
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#100 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#44 Need tool to zap core

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

What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc, alt.folklore.computers, comp.os.linux.advocacy
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:12:02 -0400
Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com> writes:
Actually, I think it was almost 1983 before MS-DOS PCs reached the "millions" level. IBM had grossly under-estimated the market and only built a few hundred thousand. Most didn't actually make it to the market until 1982. This was one of the reasons why the market was available to compatibles makers like Compaq, actually for a couple of years.

past posts referencing article about 30 yrs of personal computer market share
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#63 The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#76 Why Didn't Digital Catch the Wave?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#5 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#68 The Rise and Fall of Commodore

from:
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/

1980-1984
http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/4/

above has ibm/pc pass million about mid-82 and hit 2mill end of 83.

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#66 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#68 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#70 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#75 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#76 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#80 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#81 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#82 [OT] What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#85 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#0 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?

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

computers on tv

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: computers on tv
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:39:14 -0400
pbs tonight had mystery wallander episode where computer hack was going to insert trojans in the world's banking computers that would wipe/erase all data.

the screens had a bunch of xterms scrolling some number of things that included lots of tcp/ip "ifconfig" commands for some 10-net addresses.

in the mid-80s I did a visit to the madrid science center. the madrid science center was working with the local univ. digitizing lots of old documents related to columbus discovery of america in 1492. one evening went to local cinema ... i don't remember the main feature ... but they showing a short film done at the univ ... where lots of the scenes were a wall of tv monitors all repeatedly scrolling the exact same text ... possibly at 1200baud(?). I recognized what they were scrolling ... it was a vm370 "load map" ... what is worse, I recognized the release & monthly plc level ... by the fix list associated with various kernel routines.

past posts mentioning that short film:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#9 IBM S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#14 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#36 stupid user stories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#66 line length (was Re: Babble from "JD" <dyson@jdyson.com>)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#16 Movies with source code (was Re: Movies with DEC minis)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#35 Computers in Science Fiction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#39 CMS update
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#40 IBM 7094 Emulator - An historic moment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#17 Google loves "e"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#24 Need Help filtering out sporge in comp.arch

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

computers on tv

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: computers on tv
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:39:14 -0400
pbs tonight had mystery wallander episode where computer hack was going to insert trojans in the world's banking computers that would wipe/erase all data.

the screens had a bunch of xterms scrolling some number of things that included lots of tcp/ip "ifconfig" commands for some 10-net addresses.

in the mid-80s I did a visit to the madrid science center. the madrid science center was working with the local univ. digitizing lots of old documents related to columbus discovery of america in 1492. one evening went to local cinema ... i don't remember the main feature ... but they showing a short film done at the univ ... where lots of the scenes were a wall of tv monitors all repeatedly scrolling the exact same text ... possibly at 1200baud(?). I recognized what they were scrolling ... it was a vm370 "load map" ... what is worse, I recognized the release & monthly plc level ... by the fix list associated with various kernel routines.

past posts mentioning that short film:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#9 IBM S/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#14 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#36 stupid user stories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#66 line length (was Re: Babble from "JD" <dyson@jdyson.com>)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#16 Movies with source code (was Re: Movies with DEC minis)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#35 Computers in Science Fiction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#39 CMS update
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#40 IBM 7094 Emulator - An historic moment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#17 Google loves "e"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#24 Need Help filtering out sporge in comp.arch

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

computers on tv

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: computers on tv
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 10:40:50 -0400
Mensanator <mensanator@aol.com> writes:
You already told this story, see the link below (Movies withe source code), back in 2001.

BTW, *I* recognized the Apple ][ assembly dump used as a prop in "Terminator".


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#5 computers on tv

the other part of the wallander episode was that the viruses would be triggered by a unique ATM (cash machine) transaction at particular time (some implication that debit networks interconnect most of the world-wide financial operations).

there was something analogous (not fiction) from the end of the last century. one large financial institution had outsourced much of its Y2K remediation to the lowest bidder (which turned out to be a front for a organized criminal organization). the delivered revisions was eventually found to have various kinds of additional features. one was a unique ATM cash transaction which would (also) trigger a large wire transfer (with lots of the details of the wire transfer being obfuscated in the internal records).

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

Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.intel, comp.arch
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:23:08 -0400
"robertwessel2@yahoo.com" <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> writes:
Hmmm... "Modern" access registers didn't show up until ESA in about 1990. DAS was introduced in S/370, no later than 1980 (actually I'm not sure exactly when DAS capable hardware shipped, but MVS/SP1, which was the first release to support DAS, shipped in 1980). XA happened in 1983. Of course I don't know for sure, but it seems unlikely that access registers were planned that far before their introduction. More likely they were an upwards compatible way to extend the DAS support.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#2 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#3 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

another reference to demise of Future System ... and mad rush to get out 303x in parallel with doing "811"
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

In 1975, some POK engineers had con'ed me into looking at a 5-way SMP effort ... it never shipped, but I did an enhanced microcoded queue i/o design as well as a microcoded multiprocessor dispatching operation (somewhat akin to the later i432) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce

In 1976, the head of pok managed to convince corporate that in order to meet the mvs/xa (aka initial 811) ship schedule, vm370 had to be killed, the vm370 development group in burlington mall shutdown and everybody moved to POK (to support mvs/xa development). Later, there were jokes about head of POK being a major contributor to vax/vms ... since so many people didn't move and went to work on vms instead. Endicott managed to save the vm370 product mission ... but effectively had to reconsistute a development group from scratch. some recent posts mentioning burlington mall group:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#4 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#59 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#66 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#14 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)

part of recent mainframe mailing list thread about later doing another kind of queued/packetized i/o programming (more than queued operation ... packetized asynchronous operation for latency masking)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#7 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#8 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#16 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#18 What was the historical price of a P/390?

in 1990, US auto manufacturer had C4 taskforce to completely remake themselves to better respond to foreign/fareast competition ... and they had in technology vendors to participate. one of the issues was that the foreign competition had cut in half the 7-8 yrs, industry avg., to turn out new vehicle (from idea to rolling off the line) ... part of making foreign competition much more agile and being able to respond to changing consumer tastes and/or market conditions (and they appeared to be on the verge of cutting it in half again).

So one of the issues was how could technology vendors help in totally redoing and cutting their elapsed process in half. Offline, I would chide the mainframe participants about they were also on a similar development timeline ... so how could they expect to contribute.

Note that was 20 yrs ago ... and, at least, the auto company seemed unable to change ... even with all the issues and solutions were layed out in detail. Some recent posts referencing auto maker C4 taskforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#14 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#47 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#49 z9 / z10 instruction speed(s)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#55 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#70 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

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

What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:19:57 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#70 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#82 [OT] What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header time-stamp?

a few more waffle references (something that I was using):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_%28BBS_software%29
http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/software/IBM/DOS/WAFFLE/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan%27s_Night_Out
http://bbs.wikia.com/wiki/Koos_z%27n_Doos

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

Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.sys.intel, comp.arch
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:36:13 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
for some itanium trivia related to dual-address space mode ... old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#18 address space
dual address space architecture reference:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010722130800/www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/apr-jun/2worley.html

related
https://web.archive.org/web/20000816002838/http://www.hpl.hp.com/features/bill_worley_interview.html
http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/apr-jun/worley.html


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#2 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#3 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#8 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

so shortly after availability of 811 documents ... the person referenced above, responsible for 3033 dual-address space, was in STL and had the only copies in the silicon valley area.

the disk guys were trying to suck me more & more into playing disk engineer ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

including participating in conference calls with POK channel engineers. something comes up with 811 reference and I need to check a document ... the only local copies being down in STL. I go down and turns out there are some authorization issues with access ... so I decide to get a copy of all the 811 stuff for myself. this takes a little extra time since all copies have to be justified and I'm not listed as being responsible for anything (other people with justification have to vouch for me).

playing disk engineer does inadvertently bring down the wrath of the mvs organization on my head ... some recent refrences.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#38 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#100 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#28 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#45 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#59 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#30 SHAREWARE at Its Finest
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#53 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#0 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#32 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#44 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C+

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

someone smarter than Dave Cutler

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: someone smarter than Dave Cutler
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, alt.sys.pdp10
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:58:23 -0400
Pat Farrell <pfarrell@pfarrell.com> writes:
I'll grant that IBM's SNA started in 1974, but the Arpanet was started in the late 60s. And I don't believe that SNA was in widespread usage until much later, towards the late 70s and early 80s. There were popular IBM mainframe to far away location protocols, but SNA was a later beast.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#29 someone smarter than Dave Cutler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#34 someone smarter than Dave Cutler

for some x-over ... somebody forwarded us collection of email going on in the communication group regarding NSFNET:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
partially included in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#21 SNA/VTAM for NSFNET

several of the people with their email included in the referenced collection were involved in not letting us bid on the NSFNET backbone ... recent references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#8 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#52 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

the initial email excerpted (12/26/86 in above reference) was from somebody also involved in calling up the institutions (we had setup meetings with) and canceling the meetings (same person was also heavily involved later in transfering the cluster scalup work ... and we being told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors). such shenanigans also contributed to the director of NSF sending letter to corporation requesting our participation. some recent references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#99 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#71 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#64 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#80 Entry point for a Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#50 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#75 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header header time-stamp?

and recent posts mentioning cluster scale-up:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#49 Nonlinear systems and nonlocal supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#52 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#77 Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#8 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#52 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

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

OS/400 and z/OS

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: OS/400 and z/OS
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 12 Apr 2010 06:59:04 -0700
John.McKown@HEALTHMARKETS.COM (McKown, John) writes:
Is the S/370? Well, yes and no. Just as the S/370 is now called the "z", the AS/400 is now called the "i". And yes, it is still sold and supported by IBM. It is no longer a "mini" type box either! It has some very powerful processors (physically, the are Power processors). They have an LPAR/PowerVM capability too.

AS/400 is follow-on to s/38 ... significantly simplified flavor of FS ... mentioned here:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

1980 ... company was going to converge the large variety of corporate/internal microprocessors to 801/risc with various iliad chips; 4331/4341 follow-on would be based on 801/risc; as/400 was going to be 801/risc; lots of others.

for various reasons that didn't happen. 4381 was its own chip, 801/risc for as/400 was running into trouble ... and there was crash program to do a as/400 cisc chip.

the follow-on to the displaywriter was going to be the 801/risc ROMP chip. when that project got killed, the group looked around for some other market and hit on the unix workstation market. the ROMP chip was tweaked and the company, that did the unix port for PC/IX, was hired to do AIX.

then a new effort was started to do RIOS chipset for the unix workstation market ... which came out as rs/6000.

then in parallel with the next generation of RIOS chips ... somerset was formed, joint with motorola, apple and others to to power/pc chips (separate from the "power" RIOS chips).

misc. past posts mentioning 801, risc, iliad, romp, rios, somerset, power/pc, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

rochester became involved with power/pc effort and something like a decade after as/400 was going to be a 801/risc chip ... it did finally move to 801/risc (power/pc) chip.

lots of discussion recently that apple moved off of power/pc to intel because ibm wasn't matching intel in low-power power/pc laptop chips ... (somewhat instead) doing converged power & power/pc ... for higher end "server" market.

However, recent article about IBM also having to support the new high-end Intel chips ("IBM goes elephant with Nehalem-EX iron")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#35 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe

somewhat related posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#4 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#33 SQL Server replacement

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

OS/400 and z/OS

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: OS/400 and z/OS
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 12 Apr 2010 07:27:28 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#12 OS/400 and z/OS

for slightly more topic drift ... recent long-winded thread in comp.arch about 3033 dual-address space for MVS ... was done by person heavily involved with Endicott for 801/romp being used for 4341-follow-on ... and then left to work on HP's risc processor and instrumental in Itanium.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#2 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#3 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#8 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#10 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later

as an aside ... there was white paper (that I contributed to) which was instrumental in Endicott finally not using Iliad chip for 4381 (microcode approach tended to avg 10 native instructions per 370 instruction, very similar to various simulators on intel platforms; chip technology was getting to point that could directly do much of 370 directly in circuits).

past post with misc. old email about as/400 & Fort Knox (i.e. 801/risc)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#31 To RISC or not to RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#37 To RISC or not to RISC

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

Posting ECB's, SRB's, Across Region Boundaries - Pre CMS

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Posting ECB's, SRB's, Across Region Boundaries - Pre CMS
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 12 Apr 2010 08:40:55 -0700
gahenke@GMAIL.COM (George Henke) writes:
Please tell me what is the significance of the Compare&Amp;Swap (CS) to insure serialization across tasks.

atomic operation ... does compare and only makes change if value compared hasn't changed when store is performed (possible because task was suspended between it checked the value and the time of the store or another processor concurrently executing similar code).

discussion here:
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9AR004/A.6?SHELF=EZ2HW125&DT=19970613131822&CASE=

compare&swap was invented by charlie at the science center when he was doing fine-grain lock on cp67 multiprocessor kernel (C-A-S are charlie's initials). Initial attempt to have compare&swap included in 370 architecture was rebuffed with explanation that the POK "favorite son operating system" didn't think it was necessary (test&set from 360 multiprocessing was supposedly sufficient).

challenge then to get compare&swap included in 370 architecture, was use cases had to be invented that weren't multiprocessor specific. thus was born examples (still in principles of operation) allowing use by multithreaded applications (that could be interrupted) ... regardless of whether running multiprocessor environment or not.

misc. past posts mentioning smp &/or compare&swap
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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

The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 12 Apr, 2010
Subject: The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/the-revolving-door-and-s-e-c-enforcement/

from above:
White Collar Watch examines the problems tied to the revolving door of staff members at the Securities and Exchange Commission and whether its enforcement division can overcome problems that led to significant failures in recent years

... snip ...

congressional hearings fall2008 had the unregulated loan originators were paying the rating agencies for triple-A ratings on (mortgage backed) toxic CDOs (even when they both knew that they weren't worth triple-A ratings) ... enormously increasing the funds available to these institutions for lending (possibly little attention being paid to unregulated loan originators in the past was that they previously had little access to source of funds ... all that changed when they were able to pay for triple-A ratings).

Furthermore, being able to get triple-A ratings on every mortgage they wrote, regardless of loan quality or borrowers' qualifications ... eliminated any motivation for dealing with such matters. Speculators gobbled up the no-down, no-documentation, 1% ARM, interest-only payments ... since the carrying cost was enormously less (planning on flipping before rate adjusted) than the real-estate inflation in many parts of the country (with the speculation further fueling the inflation) ... at 20%/annum inflation there was possibly 2000% ROI (as long as the bubble lasted).

Part of SOX was that the SEC was also required to do something about the rating agencies ... besides paying a lot more attention to financial filings of public traded companies. There have been estimates that something like $27T in these triple-A rated toxic CDOs were done during the period (lots of interests taking commissions on that $27T in transactions were also not motivated to putting a stop to it)
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

In case of gao looking at financial filings of public traded companies (possibly motivated by observing that SEC wasn't taking action ... including authority provided by SOX) was so many that appeared to be fraudulent. One motivation for the fraudulent filings was that executives would get bonuses tied to the numbers filed ... and even if the financials were later refiled with "correct" numbers, the executives wouldn't forfeit the bonsuses/compensation.

gao reference
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

what SEC finally did regarding rating agencies under SOX:

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

At 2004 conference of large EU financial institutional executives ... focused on the increasing costs that SOX was placing on EU institutions ... I asserted that SOX audits did little about fraud (assuming SEC was even interested), they would be limited to catching sloppy work and mistakes (but not serious fraud).

Recently there was reference that the financial services industry tripled (as percent of GDP) during the bubble. Take all the transactions related to $27T in triple-A rated toxic CDOs, the associated fees and commissions would account for the tripling.
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

New York state also published that bonuses at wall street firms spiked at 400% during the bubble. Since then there as been a lot of misdirection and obfuscation as part of keeping bonuses at their peak bubble level and not returning to pre-bubble days.

Fees and commissions on triple-A rated toxic CDOs were strong motivation. Part of the current scenario was unregulated investment banking arms (of regulated depository institutions, courtesy of repeal of Glass-Steagall by GLBA) had bought up lots of these triple-A rated toxic CDOs and having the institutions carry them off-balance. At one point, the four largest too-big-to-fail financial institutions were reportingly carrying $5.2T of the triple-A rated toxic CDOs off-balance (theoretically would have resulted in bankrupting the institutions if they were brought on to the balance sheet)

I had claimed that the only possibly fraud-related in SOX was the section on whistleblowers ... it was explained as one of the authors as having served as FBI agent (but that was separate from the audits).

However, there is separate issue with whether SEC would do anything. There was the whole congressional testimony last year (besides the whole GAO report activity) by the person that tried for a decade to get the SEC to do something about Madoff. More recently he was hitting the TV circuit with his book (and was more vocal when asked what he might do about SEC). In his congressional testimony, he made the statement that informers turn up 13 times more fraud than audits (something like 4% of fraud is turned up by audits and over 50% of fraud is turned up by informers). He observed that SEC had 1-800 hotline for corporations to complain about audits ... but there was no 1-800 hotline to report fraud to SEC.

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

The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 13 Apr, 2010
Subject: The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement

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

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

... snip ...

along with

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

and more recent update (2006)

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

and:

Financial Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061053r.pdf
and update (2006)
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

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

... snip ...

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

1) sox audits have no effect on fraudulent filings

2) sox audits motivated public companies to increase fraudulent filings

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

misc. past posts mentioning gao audits of public company filings:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#96 Bush - place in history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#25 IBM's 2Q2008 Earnings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#36 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#48 The blame game is on : A blow to the Audit/Accounting Industry or a lesson learned ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#49 US disaster, debts and bad financial management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#52 What has the Global Financial Crisis taught the Nations, it's Governments and Decision Makers, and how should they apply that knowledge to manage risks differently in the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#80 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#0 Audit II: Two more scary words: Sarbanes-Oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#20 Decision Making or Instinctive Steering?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#29 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#3 Congress Set to Approve Pay Cap of $500,000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#37 NEW SEC (Enforcement) MANUAL, A welcome addition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#42 Bernard Madoff Is Jailed After Pleading Guilty -- are there more "Madoff's" out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#61 Quiz: Evaluate your level of Spreadsheet risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#63 Do bonuses foster unethical conduct?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#37 How do you see ethics playing a role in your organizations current or past?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#2 CEO pay sinks - Wall Street Journal/Hay Group survey results just released
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#29 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#51 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#7 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#17 REGULATOR ROLE IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT FINANCIAL SCANDALS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#12 IBM identity manager goes big on role control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#30 An Amazing Document On Madoff Said To Have Been Sent To SEC In 2005

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

LINUX on the MAINFRAME

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: LINUX on the MAINFRAME
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 13 Apr 2010 12:40:07 -0700
mpace58@GMAIL.COM (Mark Pace) writes:
That is a very good point, John. Memory management on Linux for the mainframe is counter-intuitive. When running under zVM you want as little memory as you can get away with, not as much as you can get. Most any question you can think of has probably been covered ad-nausea on the Linux-390 list.

this was discovered in the early 70s when apl\360 was ported to cp67/cms for cms\apl. The apl\360 storage management and garbage collection algorithm allocation a new storage location on every assignment. It very quickly cycled thru all available workspace ... until it had exhausted storage and then did garbage collection ... and then repeated. This wasn't too bad with 16kbyte-32kbyte real storage workspaces that were swapped in total every time ... but became disastrous in large virtual memory paged environment. The apl\360 storage management and garbage collection had to be redone for cms\apl for large virtual memory paged environment.

I pointed this out again later in 70s with vs2 (svs & then mvs) ... regarding running a "LRU" page replacement algorithm (least recently used) in a virtual machine under a "LRU" page replacement algorihtm (managing virtual machine memory as virtual paged memory). The scenario was that the guest operating system in the virtual machine would be trying to use the (virtual machine) page that had least recently been used ... while the underlying vm operating system would have been removing those very same virtual pages from real storage. There could be extremely pathelogical characteristics where the virtual guest operating system was always selecting the next virtual machine page to use ... that vm370 had just selected to be removed from memory.

misc. past posts mentioning having done page replacement algorithms as undergraduate in the 60s.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

recent posts mentioning getting pulled into academic dispute over page replacement algorithms in the early 80s (involving whether or not to give somebody a stanford phd based on their work in the area):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#85 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#22 Mainframe Executive article on the death of tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#42 Interesting presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#68 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header

the above mentions taking nearly a year to get management approval to respond ... even tho it involved work that I had done as an undergraduate (probably some petty punishment as opposed to management taking sides in the academic dispute ... it was also after having brought down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head).

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

How many mainframes are there?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many mainframes are there?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:13:46 -0400
Scott.Rowe@JOANN.COM (Scott Rowe) writes:
Many of us skipped the applications sidetrack and just went straight from Ops to Sysprog.

I took a intro to fortran class and sat in on 360 assembler class (class projects ran on simulator on 709). I was then hired for summer job to port 1401 MPIO to 360/30. As part of migrating the univ. 709/1401 lashup to 360/67 ... the univ. had replaced 1401 with 360/30. While the 360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation and run MPIO directly (did unitrecord<->tape front end for 709 that ran ibsys tape-to-tape) ... I guess I was hired as part of gaining experience in 360. I got to design my own monitor, storage management, dispatcher, device drivers, error recovery, interrupt handlers, console interface, etc.

When 360/67 came in, tss/360 wasn't running all that well ... so the univ pretty much stuck to os/360 (going thru pcp, mft, mvt cycle). They pretty early made me responsible for os/360 ... and I got to do a lot of work redoing various parts of os/360. Univ. even sent me to SHARE meetings to make presentations on some of the work.

in jan68, ibm brought in three people from the science center to install cp67 ... and I got to play with that also (mostly on weekends). part of presentation I made at fall68 share in Atlantic City, on both os/360 and cp67 rewrites
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

when rewriting part of cp67 terminal interface to support tty/ascii terminals ... I tried to make the 2702 controller do something it couldn't quite do. This was somewhat the motivation for univ. to have clone controller project built on interdata/3, reverse engineer 360 channel interface, build channel interface board for interdata/3, etc. Four of us got written up ... being blamed for clone controller business. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

the clone controller business was then major motivation for the corporation starting Future System effort (failed w/o ever being announced) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

old reference to fergus & morris book
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33 IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984??

that claims that the focus on FS & neglecting 370 allowd processor clones to gain market foothold ... and then FS failure resulted in "the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers"

I possibly did one of my non "career enhancing moves" ... by continuing to work on 370 all during the FS days ... and drawing comparisons between what was going on in FS and a cult film that was playing down in central sq. I was also making reference to having running 370 code that was better than what some of the FS specs was trying to do. People were being told that if they wanted promotions and raises ... they needed to take a transfer to FS.

Another Boyd To Be Or To Do moment (I had sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#35 War, Chaos, & Business

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

How many mainframes are there?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many mainframes are there?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:03:46 -0400
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
So I'm expecting the number of "mainframes" out there to start increasng too. IBM may not have the field almost to itself for much longer. Oracle/Sun and the Xeon 5500 are going to heat things up.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?

some related recent posts in ibm-main
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#25 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#27 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#28 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#32 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#35 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe

long ago ... and far away sequent was using intel (486) processors as mainframes ... numa-q with sci smp interconnect. however, sequent was bought and numa-q shortly disappeared.

a couple recent posts mentioning numa-q
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#27 Oldest Instruction Set still in daily use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#13 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#48 Nonlinear systems and nonlocal supercomputing

wiki page for sequent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems

above speculates that sequent was bought to keep sun from buying it.

back in this time-frame doing ha/cmp and cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

Oracle made much of having done detailed simulation and performance work ... and showed that for processor caches ... having (at least) 2mbyte processor cache made significant difference in Oracle thruput (claims that they did lots of work with major hardware vendors that Oracle ran on ... had processor server options that included 2mbyte processor cache).

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

How many mainframes are there?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many mainframes are there?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:53:31 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Another Boyd To Be Or To Do moment (I had sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#35 War, Chaos, & Business


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#19 How many mainframes are there?

recent speech by Gates w/paragraph referring to Boyd as well as his To Be Or To Do line:
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1443

misc. past posts & web URLs mentioning Boyd and/or OODA-loop
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

Boyd had made past references to his year stint in charge of "spook base" ... but it wasn't until one of his biographies that made reference to "spook base" being $2.5B windfall for IBM

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

QUIKCELL Doc

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: QUIKCELL Doc
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:30:06 -0400
Jim.marshall@OPM.GOV (Jim Marshall) writes:
And even before then it was a MOD to OS/MVT which I applied in the late 1970s to an IBM 360-75J which predefined a number of cell pools to be used for stuff. Thus it avoided having to do a GETMAIN for a small chunk of storage. After I applied it, I did my standard Benchmark and it gave me 15- 18% boost in CPU power. Do not remember if it came out from IBM or some Prehsitoric HACKER. Anyway, IBM made it standard equipment in MVS along with many of the MODS and zaps people dreamed up for MVT. With this mod and other modifications I could outrun an IBM 370-158. OK, so it took a bit more space, power, and A/C.

Invention on cp67 called it subpools for kernel storage ... storage management was becoming an increasingly large percentage of total kernel processor time ... and subpools dropped it way back down.

a couple old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#47 Charging for time-share CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#22 Lock-free algorithms

above includes URL for system journal reference
http://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/e90fc5d047e64ebf85256bc80066919c/7c6d60f9060c7e7a85256bfa00685a7c?OpenDocumen
B. Margolin, et al, Analysis of Free-Storage Algorithms, IBM System Journal 10, pgs 283-304, 1971

Dynamic management of free storage in a time-sharing operating system was studied empirically by the techniques of monitoring, emulation, and on-line experimentation. A new algorithm, based on observed usage patterns of different block sizes, was implemented and evaluated. On-line experiments demonstrated that supervisor time spent in free-storage management was reduced by seven or eight to one.


... snip ...

kernel storage had been best-fit on allocation and sorted storage address order on return ... lots of list chaining.

All kernel calls had previously been via supervisor call (originally on cp67 had been over 270 microseconds) ... I had replaced high-use kernel subroutine calls (including free storage) with BALR linkage, which showed a significnat improvement in percent kernel processor (originally done when I was spending summer of 1969 at Boeing helping with the formation of Boeing Computer Services). Under high-load, free-storage list following could involve 200-300 items (or more) ... with loop involving several instructions (possibly 10 microseconds per item ... maybe a couple milliseconds per call).

subpool could be done in 14 instructions (including BALR linkage) ... if tracing was turned on, generating trace entry for each free storage call nearly doubled the time (approx. another ten instructions).

As an aside ... original implementation of VS2/SVS required a little bit of hacking to provide a single virtual address space ... but for the most part SVS was still MVT as if it was running in 16mbyte virtual machine ... except for EXCP. This required scanning & building shadow channel program (effectively the same as was being done in CP67 virtual machine support) ... and they borrowed CCWTRANS (routine that performed the function in CP67) and crafted it into the side of SVS (this was initially being done on 360/67 before 370s with virtual memory support were available). CCWTRANS performance depended heavily on efficiency of kernel storage (so it is likely some similar storage management was hacked into the side of SVS at that time).

as implied in 2004 post ... subpool could be done with compare&swap ... w/o requiring lock/unlock paradigm overhead. recent post mentioning compare&swap:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#14 Posting ECB's, SRB's, Across Region Boundaries - Pre CMS

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

In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 15 Apr, 2010
Subject: In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#16 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement

In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/business/13lehman.html
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2010/04/lehmans-castle-of-sand.html

from some fall '08 article on it being known for centuries that playing long/short mismatch takes down institutions ...

Best practice transfer pricing calculations would have made it clear that neither Bear Stearns nor Lehman Brothers had more than a marginal chance of survival when funding 30 year sub-prime mortgage loans with thirty day borrowings. Board members can and should demand clarity of disclosure on the total risk of an institution and the contribution of each business unit and transaction to total risk.

...

there were some references that the FEDs should have stepped into the shortterm borrowing market to prop-up the institutions playing long/short mismatch.

that was independent of their heavy leveraging and the deals being in triple-A rated toxic CDOs, however there appeared to be enormous individual compensation motivation to play with toxic CDOs ... even if the risk might take down the institution.

there was recent report on another activity ... where an institution was creating especially toxic CDOs, selling them off, and then placing (CDS) bets on the toxic CDOs falling.
http://www.propublica.org/feature/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going

So much toxic CDOs were off-balanace, that when the treasury figured it out, it appeared to realize that the appropriated TARP funds (originally for purchasing toxic CDOs) were barely a drop in the bucket (so they had to come up with other use for the TARP funds; a little over year ago, it was estimated that just the four largest too-big-to-fail institutions were carrying $5.2T in toxic CDOs off book). Apparently what has come to the rescue of the too-big-to-fail ... was allowing to keep the toxic CDOs off book AND being able to go to the Federal Reserve and "borrow" money at zero percent interest (significantly better than spread getting short-term 30-day money).

So it seems a little like question of which regulations a company operates under.

The U.S. economy needs strong, independent CFPA
http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/91745-the-us-economy-needs-strong-independent-cfpa

from above:
Tighter regulation of mortgage lending would have restricted the supply of the raw material that Wall Street needed for the securitization pipeline.

... snip ...

note during the height of the CDO/CDS activity, nearly every high risk tactic in the book was being employed

wharton business school had article estimating possibly 1000 are responsible for 80% of the financial mess (has since gone 404 and/or requires registration):
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1933

it is as if there was a scorched earth campaign against the economy with the individuals taking as much plunder as possible.

note that CDOs had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate the underlying value ... a big difference between the S&L crisis and the most recent period was paying credit rating agencies for triple-A ratings for the toxic CDOs.

misc. past posts mentioning playing long/short mismatch:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#52 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#62 Would anyone like to draw a diagram of effects or similar for the current "credit crisis"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#65 Can the financial meltdown be used to motivate sustainable development in order to achieve sustainable growth and desired sustainability?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#75 In light of the recent financial crisis, did Sarbanes-Oxley fail to work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#78 Who murdered the financial system?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#80 Can we blame one person for the financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#82 Greenspan testimony and securization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#47 In Modeling Risk, the Human Factor Was Left Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#60 Did sub-prime cause the financial mess we are in?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#70 Is there any technology that we are severely lacking in the Financial industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#77 Tell me why the taxpayer should be saving GM and Chrysler (and Ford) managers & shareholders at this stage of the game?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#10 realtors (and GM, too!)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#19 Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#20 How is Subprime crisis impacting other Industries?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#26 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#23 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#55 Is this the story behind the crunchy credit stuff?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#59 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#70 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#14 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#42 Lets play Blame Game...?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#52 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#63 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#80 Are reckless risks a natural fallout of "excessive" executive compensation ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#23 BarCampBank - informal finance rantathon in London
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#37 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#52 What has the Global Financial Crisis taught the Nations, it's Governments and Decision Makers, and how should they apply that knowledge to manage risks differently in the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#79 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#32 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#46 Bernanke Says Regulators Must Protect Against Systemic Risks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#31 OODA-loop obfuscation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#52 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#47 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#53 Happy DEC-10 Day

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

What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.os.linux.advocacy
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:07:47 -0400
Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@newsguy.com> writes:
Now, plenty of Unix workstations at the time offered megapixel-range displays. I had an RT PC in '89 with an IBM Megapixel head - 1024x1024 8bpp DSP-based adapter and Trinitron screen - and the RT was not known for its video prowess. By 1991 you could get an SGI IRIS Indigo with a fully-loaded Elan graphics subsystem, if money were no object, that gave you up to 1280x1024 24bpp and 3D rendering. Sweet.

I had pc/rt w/megapel display at interop '88 ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88

in network systems booth ... end of row, right angles from sun's booth that had Case demo'ing SNMP ... got Case to come over and do port to bring up his SNMP monitor on the rt.

interop '88 had bunch of vendors demo'ing osi/gosip stuff in their booths (while interop was nominally a tcp/ip conference/convention)

rs/6000 ran into bunch of problems having ps2-compatible microchannel and being forced to use/deploy ps2 microchannel adapter cards ... example the ps2 microchannel 16mbit token/ring card had lower per card thruput than the pc/rt isa 4mbit token/ring card ... the ps2 microchannel scsi card had extremely high command overhead and low-thruput and the choice of ps2 microchannel display adapters were really bad.

a ploy to get around the "help corporate brethren" was the rs/6000 730 ... which was deskside with vmebus cage and sgi display adapter.

misc. past posts mentioning 801, risc, romp, rios, pc/rt, power, somerset, power/pc, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

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

How many mainframes are there?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How many mainframes are there?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:35:23 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Oracle made much of having done detailed simulatros and performance work ... and showed that for processor caches ... having (at least) 2mbyte processor cache made significant difference in Oracle thruput (claims that they did lots of work with major hardware vendors that Oracle ran on ... had processor server options that included 2mbyte processor cache).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#19 How many mainframes are there?

Oracle tunes Solaris for Intel's big Xeons
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/oracle_solaris_nehalem_ex/

other posts in the thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#20 How many mainframes are there?

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

In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, alt.computer.security
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:26:20 -0400
Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@newsguy.com> writes:
And most of the remaining uses of SSL/TLS are in situations where it's easier to deploy properly and more effective, because there's a preexisting relationship among the parties - things like securing sensitive traffic within a corporation.

Though from my experience even there many organizations remain baffled by PKI until they bite the bullet and get someone properly trained on the subject, whether through training or hiring.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#1

in the mid-90s the certification authority PKI industry had business case of $20B annum ... that the financial industry would pay $100/annum for every one of their account holders. it never happened but as it was dwiddling away ... we visited a large financial institution with a proposal for a certificate-less digital signature authentication infrastructure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#certless

they were in the process of winding down a $50m PKI pilot and it looked like the participants were just days away from looking for other employment. The issue was that the certification authority industry wanted the financial institution to send them a account database with their 20m account holders, and the certification authority operation would munge the account information into digital certificates and only charge $100 per ... (aka $2B). When the upper executives of the financial institution was presented with the prospect of that $2B payment (for the certification authority operation re-arranging the bits from each account record and calling it a digital certificate), they canceled the whole thing.

we demonstrated how the public key already in each account record would be sufficient for authenticating digitally signed transactions ... w/o requiring (the cost and/or overhead of) an associated digital certificate.

the other place that it blew apart was proposal for payment transactions. we had been invited into the x9a10 financial standard working group in the mid 90s ... which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments (in part after having done this stuff now referred to as "electronic commerce" with SSL). Part of the effort including detailed, end-to-end analysis of the various environments. The result was the x9.59 financial transaction that can be authenticated with a digital signature w/o requiring a digital certificate to be appended to the transaction.

There were some othere work on payment protocol specifications in the period that were strictly PKI, digital certificate oriented ... but we easily demonstrated 1) the digital certificate was redundand and superfluous in the payment transactions, 2) it represented a redundant and superfluous payload bloat of a factor of 100 times (i.e. an appended digital certificate increased the typical payment transaction payload by 100 times), and 3) processing the redundant and superfluous digital certificate increased processing bloat by a factor of 100 times.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

Part of the x9 financial standard body ... recognizing the enormous payload bloat of the redundant and superfluous digital certificates, started a standards effort for "compressed" digital certificate ... with an objective of getting the redundant and superfluous payload bloat down to possibly only 5-10 times. I took their approaches and showed how the digital certificate could be compressed to zero bytes ... then, instead of advicating a certificate-less operation ... could mandate a PKI/certificate based payment operation with appended zero-byte digital certificates.

I had been familar with Kerberos operation at Project Athena (being part of the corporate people that would come in for periodic review of Projec Athena activity) ... and wrote a spec for a certificate-less based PKINIT operation (i.e. digital signature authentication w/o PKI and w/o digital certificates) in lieu of passwords:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos

then there was heavy pressure put on PKINIT to also included specification for a PKI-mode (digital certificate) of operation. Some time later, the person claiming responsibility for getting PKI-mode specification in PKINIT Kerberos RFC ... invited me to give a talk on "naked key" (aka certificate-less operation), mentioning that he finally realized that PKI-mode was redundant and superfluous in the Kerberos environment.

misc. past posts mentioning SSL digital certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

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

In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, alt.computer.security
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:22:28 -0400
Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@newsguy.com> writes:
Agreed. And since there are other well-established, more-lucrative, lower-cost online criminal enterprises (such as various extortion rackets), there's little incentive for criminals to try to develop new profitable attacks against x9.59.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#1 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#25 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

the biggest threat/vulnerability are the data breaches (data at rest, primarily transaction databases needed as part of normal payment business processes) ... then being able to use the information obtained for fraudulent transactions. A big issue in x9.59 financial standard was no longer needing to hide such information as part of countermeasure to (identity theft, account fraud) fraudulent transactions. This eliminated the threat against such databases (didn't do anything about crooks being able to get at the data ... just eliminated the financial fraud motivation for crooks to do so). A side effect was it eliminated hiding account number and transaction information anywhere ... including the major use of SSL in the world today ... hiding transaction details transmitted thru the internet as part of "electronic commerce".

One of the issues is that in the current account fraud scenarios ... the financial institutions are able to charge off the fraud against the merchants (there is some claim that interchange fees are structured in such a way that there is significant profit from these interchange fees). eliminating nearly all such account fraud could result in drastically lowering these interchange fees (and potentially a big hit to financial institution bottom line).

There is also the prospect that if the "account fraud" low hanging fruit were eliminated ... the crooks would switch to form of identity fraud involved with fraudulently opening new accounts. There are gov. mandates related to "know your customer" with regard to opening accounts ... and the cost is strictly born by the financial institution (no offloading interchange fees onto merchants to cover the costs). There was some report that significant percentage of such activity currently involves "synthetic" identities ... where there isn't even a real person involved that can be held liable to cover the fraud.

misc. recent posts mentioning interchange fees:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#70 Post Office bank account 'could help 1m poor'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#98 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#86 Oldest Instruction Set still in daily use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#21 Credit card data security: Who's responsible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#44 Can't PIN be mandated in normal POS machines ? to avoid Losses / Frauds / NPA's ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#21 Should the USA Implement EMV?

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

In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 Apr, 2010
Subject: In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

Real time breaking news on business TV shows ... charging Goldman with something similar to the designing toxic CDOs that would fail and then placing bets (with CDS)

now hitting the web:

SEC accuses Goldman Sachs of civil fraud
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sec_goldman_sachs_charged
Goldman Is Charged With Subprime Fraud
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303491304575187920845670844.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

blog moving in with additional discussion and background

SEC Charges Goldman with Fraud
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/16/sec-charges-goldman-with-fraud/

there are some entries in the above asking if it is not all "window dressing" ... related blog entry also from today

We're Big . . . and We're Connected
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/16/mbia-bill-ackman/

some more during the course of the day:

Goldman Sachs - News, photos, topics, and quotes
http://billionaires.forbes.com/topic/Goldman_Sachs/timeline?date=2010-04-16&boxes=Homepagelighttop
Billionaire Paulson to Emerge Unscathed?
http://blogs.forbes.com/billions/2010/04/16/billionaire-paulson-to-emerge-unscathed/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
SEC charges Goldman Sachs with fraud
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/sec.goldman.fortune/index.htm?hpt=T1
Stocks, Oil Drop as Dollar Gains After SEC Sues Goldman Sachs
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWIdK_tSJpX4&pos=1
GE Faces SEC Review After Paulson's Account of Talks
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auC9lOT776ho&pos=4
Goldman Sachs Sued by SEC for Fraud Tied to CDOs
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aJnzv8MC0s7k
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aJnzv8MC0s7k
SEC charges Goldman Sachs with fraud in subprime case
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/regulation/2010-04-16-goldman-sec-charges_N.htm
Goldman Sachs Slapped With Fraud Charge
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-paulson-markets-equities-sec.html?boxes=Homepagetopnew
Goldman Gets Charged, But Wall Street Will Pay
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/04/16/goldman-gets-charged-but-wall-street-will-pay/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Goldman Sachs Slapped With Fraud Charge
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-paulson-markets-equities-sec.html?boxes=Homepagelighttop

another collection of URL:

Goldman Puts Spotlight Back on Wall Street's Conflicts of Interest
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/04/16/goldman-puts-spotlight-back-on-wall-streets-conflicts-of-interest/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Goldman: We LOST Money on the Paulson Deal
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/04/16/goldman-we-lost-money-on-the-paulson-deal/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Goldman Tarnishes Buffett's Image
http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/04/16/goldman-tarnishes-buffetts-image/?boxes=Homepagechannels
SEC Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/04/sec_goldman.html
SEC Charges Goldman Sachs With Investor Fraud - ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/sec-charges-goldman-sachs-investor-fraud/story?id=10396179
Goldman Sachs CDOs a 'Concern' for Crisis Panel, Angelides Says
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-14/senate-approves-debit-card-swipe-fee-limits-in-bill-update1-.html
Can the SEC Beat Goldman Sachs?
http://www.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/2010/04/16/can-the-sec-beat-goldman-sachs.html
Will customers start walking from Goldman Sachs?
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/goldman_sachs_questions.fortune/index.htm
Why the Goldman charges could hasten financial reform
http://moremoney.blogs.money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/why-the-goldman-charges-could-hasten-financial-reform/
Goldman Sachs charged by the SEC: A volcanic cloud over Wall Street
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15928346&source=features_box_main
How Much Might Goldman Sachs Have To Pay? - The Curious Capitalist
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/04/16/how-much-might-goldman-sachs-have-to-pay/
SEC: Goldman Is Actually a Vampire Squid - The Curious Capitalist
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/04/16/sec-goldman-is-actually-a-vampire-squid/

and more

In Goldman Sachs We Do Not Trust; The firm clearly had its way with the Fed and the Treasury, but now the SEC says it stepped over the line.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-aig-sec-markets-lloyd-blankfein.html?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Paulson Got Goldman to Put Together Mortgage Securities
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304180804575188370390433034.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
U.S. charges Goldman with subprime fraud
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36597290/ns/business-us_business/
Terms, players in the Goldman Sachs fraud charges
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sec_goldman_sachs_glossary
Goldman Sachs: Has the SEC finally grown a pair under Mary Schapiro?
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-has-the-sec-finally-grown-a-pair-under-mary-schapiro.aspx

more news items offering different angles

Goldman Sachs Said to Have Been Warned of SEC Suit
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a52BBUru4.hM&pos=4
More Than Goldman Sachs In SEC Gun Sight
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-fraud-lenzner-markets-streettalk.html?boxes=Homepagelighttop
NYT: Crucial investor not targeted in Goldman suit
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36612092/ns/business-the_new_york_times/

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

Our Pecora Moment

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 17 Apr, 2010
Subject: Our Pecora Moment
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Our Pecora Moment
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/17/pecora-moment/

from above:
Brooksley Born was right, a very long time ago, to fear the 'dark markets' of over-the-counter derivatives and what those would bring.

... snip ...

Early last year, I had been asked to take the scans of the Pecora hearings transcripts (tens of thousands of pages scaned at the Boston Public Library a few months earlier) and turn them into HTML with lots of href x-links ... somebody anticipating that there might be some appetite for the relationship between what went on then and the current financial mess.

25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis; Phil Gramm
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

from above:
He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street. He also inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far.

... snip ...

Gramm and the 'Enron Loophole'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html

from above:
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

Phil Gramm's Enron Favor
https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/

from above:
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees

... snip ...

Greenspan Slept as Off-Books Debt Escaped Scrutiny
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I

from above:
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Wendy Gramm fairly quickly replaced Born and then stepped down to join Enron's board.

misc. past posts mentioning Pecora:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#58 OCR scans of old documents
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#23 Should FDIC or the Federal Reserve Bank have the authority to shut down and take over non-bank financial institutions like AIG?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#56 What's your personal confidence level concerning financial market recovery?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#65 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#5 Do the current Banking Results in the US hide a grim truth?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#22 China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#25 The Paradox of Economic Recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#29 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#40 64 Cores -- IBM is showing a prototype already
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#57 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#35 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#23 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#2 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#20 U.K. lags in information security management practices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#25 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#73 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census

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

45 years of Mainframe

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 45 years of Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 17 Apr 2010 05:31:22 -0700
jim_elliott@CA.IBM.COM (Jim Elliott, IBM) writes:
This is a link to a copy of my History of the Mainframe presentation from last year (not sure why John posted it there). The most current version of this presentation is on my web site at
http://ibm.com/vm/devpages/jelliott/pdfs/zhistory.pdf


I didn't remember block-mux being on 360 ... it was on 370 for 3330&2305 set-sector (channel disconnect/reconnect in middle of channel program). however, this reference:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/dpd50/dpd50_chronology4.html

has 2880 block mux. channel 10feb1970 for models (360) 85 & 195 along with 2305. 2880 had two-byte interface feature that went along with 2305-1 that ran at 3mbyte/sec (presumably it was announced more for its 3mbyte/sec, two-byte feature than for its block mux capability).

2305 announce 28jan1970
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2305.html

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

45 years of Mainframe

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 45 years of Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main, alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:31:21 -0400
gerhard@VALLEY.NET (Gerhard Postpischil) writes:
Perhaps IBM didn't offer a block multiplexer for 360s, but at AMS we ran a 65 with Memorex 3350s and a C.I.G mux. in the mid-seventies.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#29 45 years of Mainframe

2860 was external selector channel for (at least) 65, 67, 75, 85, 195; as was 2870 was external multiplexor channel.

as per previous ... 2880, external block-mux (selector) channel was announced 10feb1970 for 85 & 195 ... possibly because of 3mbyte/sec two-byte feature ... to support 2305-1 that transferred at 3mbyte/sec.

however, 2880 could work single-byte ... so 2880 might be able to appear as standard (2860) selector channel except for supporting set-sector ... allowing channel disconnect ... initially 2305 & 3330 ... but also later other devices (if disk driver included set-sector CCW in disk i/o channel program).

I haven't seen any ref .. but i somewhat guess that 2880 (at least single-byte mode) would work on any system that 2860 worked with.

i would have been much happier if later they had done FBA support rather than calypso and eckd ... aka started out "speed-matching buffer" being able to retrofit 3880 data-streaming 3mbyte/sec channel interface (for 3380 3mbyte/sec disks) ... operating at 1.5mbyte/sec & not data-streaming. getting all the bugs out of calypso/eckd speed-matching and actually working on older (aka 2880, single-byte, 1.5mbyte/sec) channels was possibly more difficult than just simply doing straight-forward FBA support.

misc. recent posts being able to do asynchronous, packetized channel programs ... significantly improving channel thruput:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#16 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#18 What was the historical price of a P/390?

FBA channel programs are able to be packetized .... ckd/eckd weren't (or w/o a lot of difficulty and restriction, special case).

misc. past posts mentioning calypso
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#7 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#40 FBA rant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#0 FBA rant
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#40 TOPS-10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#44 Z/VM support for FBA devices was Re: z/OS support of HMC's 3270 emulation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#11 Secret Service plans IT reboot

misc. past posts mentioning ckd, fba, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

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

In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 18 Apr, 2010
Subject: In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#27 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

The Buzz: SEC deserves praise for taking on Goldman Sachs
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/markets/thebuzz/index.htm

Note that there is the question regarding where SEC was during the last decade ... since they should have been playing a major role in not letting it even happen ... also evident in congressional testimony by the person that tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff.

Part of the testimony in the Madoff hearings was that regulations and enforcements needed to prevent such activities is much more difficult in environment that lacks transparency and visibility.

In the congressional hearings into the credit rating agencies role in all this, there was observation about enforcement is a lot easier when business interests are aligned. The testimony was that the credit rating agency business interests became misaligned when they switched from the buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings (and unregulated loan originators able to securities mortgages as CDOs and pay for triple-A ratings).

there have been numerous articles about primary point of the enormous bailout for AIG ... was so that it could pay-off all the (CDS) bets that had been made on CDOs failing (including Goldman Sachs) ... most recent from last week

AIG unwinds Goldman Sachs CDS positions: WSJ
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aig-unwinds-goldman-sachs-cds-positions-wsj-2010-04-11
AIG unit, Goldman unwind CDS positions: source
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63B0GJ20100412

from last year:

This week brings us a joint effort from the New York Times and Reuters, reminding us all that Goldman Sachs is the devil incarnate and without the generous AIG bailout, they'd be just as hosed as their more earthly competitors
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/11/the-media-is-wrong-about-goldman-sachs-aig/30565/
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) got the largest chunk of U.S. taxpayer money that found its way to companies that were on the other end of certain transactions with American International Group Inc (AIG.N).
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1729956620090317
AIG details $105 billion in payouts
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aig-details-105-billion-payouts-banks
Goldman Sachs Made BILLIONS Shorting AIG
http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-made-billions-shorting-aig-2009-3
Goldman Sachs Nearly Bankrupted AIG
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/goldman-sachs-nearly-bank_b_361342.html

past posts mentioning credit rating agencies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#4 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#12 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#10 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#68 lack of information accuracy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#71 lack of information accuracy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#23 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#23 Michigan industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#39 The human plague
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#52 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#68 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#71 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#75 In light of the recent financial crisis, did Sarbanes-Oxley fail to work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#78 Who murdered the financial system?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#80 Can we blame one person for the financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#3 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#9 Do you believe a global financial regulation is possible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#47 In Modeling Risk, the Human Factor Was Left Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#60 Did sub-prime cause the financial mess we are in?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#70 Is there any technology that we are severely lacking in the Financial industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#11 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#12 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#19 Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#20 How is Subprime crisis impacting other Industries?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#49 Have not the following principles been practically disproven, once and for all, by the current global financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#50 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#54 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#58 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#69 if you are an powerful financial regulator , how would you have stopped the credit crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#4 Basel Committee outlines plans to strengthen Basel II
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#10 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#35 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#58 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#64 Is This a Different Kind of Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#8 Top financial firms of US are eyeing on bailout. It implies to me that their "Risk Management Department's" assessment was way below expectations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#20 Five great technological revolutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#23 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#24 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#55 Is this the story behind the crunchy credit stuff?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#59 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#60 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#14 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#15 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#21 Banks to embrace virtualisation in 2009: survey
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#32 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#42 Lets play Blame Game...?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#52 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#53 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#57 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#73 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#74 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#77 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#79 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#1 Are Both The U.S. & UK on the brink of debt disaster?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#37 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#38 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#49 US disaster, debts and bad financial management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#51 Will the Draft Bill floated in Congress yesterday to restrict trading of naked Credit Default Swaps help or aggravate?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#52 What has the Global Financial Crisis taught the Nations, it's Governments and Decision Makers, and how should they apply that knowledge to manage risks differently in the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#57 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#78 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#79 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#80 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#1 Audit II: Two more scary words: Sarbanes-Oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#4 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#6 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#10 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#16 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#28 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#45 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#51 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#61 Accounting for the "greed factor"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#65 is it possible that ALL banks will be nationalized?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#22 Is it time to put banking executives on trial?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#28 I need insight on the Stock Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#37 NEW SEC (Enforcement) MANUAL, A welcome addition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#42 Bernard Madoff Is Jailed After Pleading Guilty -- are there more "Madoff's" out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#77 Who first mentioned Credit Crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#15 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#30 Timeline: 40 years of OS milestones
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#53 Are the "brightest minds in finance" finally onto something?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#70 When did "client server" become part of the language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#31 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#41 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#49 Is the current downturn cyclic or systemic?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#51 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#65 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#7 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#27 Flawed Credit Ratings Reap Profits as Regulators Fail Investors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#29 Transparency and Visibility
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#37 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#52 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#53 We Can't Subsidize the Banks Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#22 China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#23 Consumer Credit Crunch and Banking Writeoffs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#40 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#1 IBM to Build Europe, Asia 'Smart Infrastructure'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#57 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#12 IBM identity manager goes big on role control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#38 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#13 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#17 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#20 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#47 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#62 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#68 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#23 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#47 Is C close to the machine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#47 Audits VII: the future of the Audit is in your hands
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#4 alphas was: search engine history, was Happy DEC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#8 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#52 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#76 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#81 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement

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

In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 19 Apr, 2010
Subject: In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#27 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#31 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'

the talk shows and commentary were awash in goldman discussion ... standard theme was Paulson designed Abacus toxic CDO to fail, made $1B on CDS bets that they would fail, got Goldman to sell them to customers (with both knowing that Abacus toxic CDO was designed to fail), the customers that bought Abacus lost $1B, but Goldman "only" made $15m-$20m on transaction fees. However, did Goldman also have CDS bets that Abacus would fail?

Bear Sterns: The Goldman/Paulson deal was even too unethical for us
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2010/04/bear-sterns-goldmanpaulson-deal-was.html
Goldman Fraud Suit Link to AIG Payouts?
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/41645

from last week

AIG, Goldman Unwind Soured Trades
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304846504575177953123007536.html

from Feb:

The Times Story On Goldman's Role in AIG's Downfall Is More Damning When Placed In Context
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/the-times-story-on-goldma_b_454135.html

from Dec 2008

AIG's Speculative CDOs in Perspective
http://seekingalpha.com/article/110388-aig-s-speculative-cdos-in-perspective

There is also the part about Goldman getting regulated banking charter so that it could go to the FED for zero percent money.

With Goldman getting a regulated banking charter, will it also weaken the case that the banking community has had to not let WalMart have its ILC charter ... or even a normal banking charter. Part of the rhetoric on the floor of congress getting GLBA passed a decade ago was that a primary purpose of GLBA was that it would prevent WalMart and Microsoft from getting banking charters (GLBA would allow too-big-to-fail institutions to do nearly whatever they wanted ... but others wouldn't be allowed to become banks).

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

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

45 years of Mainframe

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 45 years of Mainframe
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 20 Apr 2010 07:25:19 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#29 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#30 45 years of Mainframe

a little x-over from this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18

as mentioned in the above ... as undergraduate, I had done a lot of work on os/360 and cp67 ... made presentation on some of the work at fall68 share meeting in Atlantic City. also was involved in univ. clone controller project.

also, jun68, science center had one week cp67 class held at Beverley hills hilton(?). the friday before the class, one of the people that was to teach much of the class, gave notice that they were leaving for a new (virtual machine based) commercial time-sharing service bureau. When I show up for the class ... I was asked if I would teach part of it.

spring break '69, i got talked into giving one week class for the boeing ibmers and the growing technical staff for the emerging boeing computer system. summer of '69, i was talked into spending at boeing ... setting up cp67 system (part of boeing computer system also offering computer services outside boeing). would periodically visit renton data center ... massive multiple football fields ... they had at least one 360/75 (it had black rope around the perimeter and there was black cloth that was pulled down over the front panel and 1403 windows had black cloth ... when running classified work) ... but the main workhorse was 360/65s ... the place was full of them. They pointed out that 360/65s were arriving so fast that summer, they constantly had pieces of two or three of the systems staged in the hallways ... waiting to be installed on the floor. I considered that the largest datacenter I had ever been in (several hundred millions in ibm 360s, although it was being partially duplicated at 747 plant in everett; part of everett datacenter was disaster planning; renton was in the path of potential massive mudslide if Mt. Rainier was to warm up).

Later I would sponsor John Boyd's briefings at IBM ... and he would make some mention having done a year stint in 1970 running "spook base". Later one of John's biographies mentions that "spook base" was $2.5B windfall for IBM. By the time John was buried at Arlington ... the USAF had somewhat disowned him ... but he had been adopted by the Marines (and his effects and papers went to Quantico).

Since he died, the USAF has somewhat acknowledged him; reference to dedication of Boyd Hall at USAF Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, 1999.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#35

and reference to SECDEF lecture at USAF academy earlier this month (that mentions Boyd)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#20

misc. past posts & URLs mentioning Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

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

(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 20 Apr 2010 08:07:31 -0700
bob.goolsby@GMAIL.COM (Bob goolsby) writes:
And what would have been the alternative OS for IBM to have backed? OS/2???

at the time, linux was somewhat the stage of the hobbiest personal computers before the advent ibm/pc. the ibm/pc clone market was starting to build massive consumer base ... including gaming market (which wasn't being addressed by the linux hobbiest) ... but only small part of that was bleeding into linux computer hobbiests.

os/2 & ps2 was industrial strength commercial market ... as well as somewhat helping support the mainstream computing market. this was period of "help your brethren" ... and "terminal emulation" (SAA) strategy ... attempting to stave off the client/server that was impacting the communication group (terminal emulation) install base ... misc. posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

the workstation division had come out with rs/6000 ... and was being told it had to use the ps2 adapter cards (also as part of helping corporate brethren). this strategy makes the rs/6000 only marginally better than ps2. The ps2 microchannel 16mbit T/R card had lower card thruput (as part of "terminal emulation" strategy ... 300+ ps2 sharing same 16mbit t/r) than the pc/rt (rs/6000 workstation precursor) ISA 4mbit/sec t/r card. The ps2 microchannel scsi card had really high command processing overhead and low thruput. The ps2 graphics adapter card was really, really slow (compared to products in the workstation market).

The ps2 graphics adapter countermeasure (since workstation division wasn't allowd to do their own) ... came out with the 730 deskside ... basically a 530 with extra wide cabinet with internal VMEbus with non-IBM VMEbus graphics adapter (the argument being that ps2 wasn't offering a VMEbus graphics adapter).

The boca ps2 & os2 was off in their own world with regard to where the business was going ... as well as what was happening with commodity pricing with the clones. There were internal documents showing comptition selling "best price" massive bulk purchase (hundreds of machines) was close to ps2. To try and counteract, I would post (on internal forums) clone quantity-one prices from the sunday newspaper (that were way below what Boca was showing clone large volume "best prices" in their business plans).

the mainstream unix market from the early 80s ... was up until then new computer vendors spent huge amount of money on proprietary computer and proprietary operating system. The advent of single chip processors drastically dropped the cost of developing computer system (in workstation and mini market) ... and doing new proprietary operating system became many times larger than doing the hardware. To drop the cost of operating system to comparable to hardware costs ... required adopting portable, relatively off-the-shelf software ... at the time it was unix.

one of the things that the workstation group did was spend an enormous amount of money on proprietary "added value" additions to unix ... nearly what would have been spent on doing proprietary operating system from scratch (way out of proportion to what was happening in the workstation & mini market).

in the last two decades, the commodity, high-volume, low-margins ... have allowed that business to pretty much overtake the proprietary low-volume, high-margin market. that also accounts for placing the evolving linux base in competition with the corporate proprietary unix offering.

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

First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:29:04 -0400
First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/verity_stob_sql/

minor point about mention of XML. In 1969, GML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

was invented at science center in 1969
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and implement in cp67/cms document formating application. It then morphed into SGML, HTML, XML, etc. HTML was done as outgrowth of sgml from a cms document formating clone
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

and the first webserver outside cern was on slac vm370/cms system
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

During the 70s, the relational/sql implementation was done in bldg. 28 on virtual machine follow-on to cp67 (vm370)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

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

IBM 029 service manual

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:26:21 -0400
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Although I have never been in the presence of an 026 keypunch, I did know that their keyboard layouts matched. I wasn't aware of inaccessible hole combinations, although that does not surprise me very much. (In fact, though, it wouldn't have surprised me if things were the other way around, and an 026 could make two extra combinations, 12-0 and 11-0.)

i was able to multi-punch on both 026 & 029 ... up to and including every one of the 12 holes in a column. ebcdic allowed for 256 valid punch-hole combinations in single 8-bit byte (lots of punch hole combinations that didn't have corresponding symbol or key on keyboard). column binary split the 12 rows into two 6-row combinations (two 6-bit bytes) ... and column binary could have all 12-holes in a column punched.

2540 reader ... allowed for reading ebcdic mode (only 256 punch combinations per column ... would give an error if wasn't one of the valid 256 punch combinations) ... or column binary ... which read into 160 bytes ... two 6-bit bytes per column (on 360 that would be two 6-bit bytes mapped to two 8-bit bytes).

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

(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 20 Apr 2010 11:46:11 -0700
bob.goolsby@GMAIL.COM (Bob goolsby) writes:
And what would have been the alternative OS for IBM to have backed? OS/2???

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#34 (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

at the beginning, a major market and gave ibm/pc big kick-start was large corporation mainframe terminal emulation market. however, there was growing home market ... with a large gaming component and small business market (somewhat SOHO ... or small private, closed LANs networks).

Later, for the closed business environment there was growing use of scripting add-ons to business applications that provided various kinds of added value ... with open access to the basic system. This was analogous to gaming market where the application frequently took over all aspects of low-level machine operation.

at the spring 96 msdc held at moscone center ... a major theme was supporting the internet ... but the big banners all over the place were "preserving your investment" (basically all the BASIC/scripting capability would carry over to the internet environment). this sets things up for the large number of the integrity problems that are still going on today.

Internet attachment appliance has a whole lot more security requirements from that of the small, closed (safe) business lan environment and totally different from the gaming markets. You don't want foreign applications from the internet to automatically execute on your machine ... and/or take over all aspects of your machine operation. Trying to meet the diametrically opposing security requirements on a single platform has been an enormous challenge (but frequently is at the root of the majority of the exploits in the world today).

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

IBM 029 service manual

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:03:21 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
You haven't lived until you've punched an object deck directly, hopefully a small one.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#36 IBM 029 service manual

recent post discussing getting summer student job doing port of 1401 MPIO to 360/30
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#18 How many mainframes are there?

got to design & implement my own monitor, interrupt handler, storage management, device drivers, error recovery, console handling, dispatching, etc. ... about 2000 cards in assembler. Generated object deck ... because it took 30-60 mins to (re-)assemble ... I got proficient at fanning the object text ... reading the punch holes ... until I found the card with the corresponding code ... and then would put the card into the 026 and dup out to the column that needed the patch ... and multi-punch the change into the new card ... and then finish dup'ing the remaining part of the card.

post posts mentioning 12-2-9 "txt" object deck cards:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#17 unit record & other controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#4 1401 overlap instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#8 finding object decks with multiple entry points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#14 IBM Model Numbers (was: First video terminal?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#60 Text (was: Review of Steve McConnell's AFTER THE GOLD RUSH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#45 Commenting style (was: Call for folklore)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#1 DISK PL/I Program
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#17 Google loves "e"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#24 Systems software versus applications software definitions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#54 12-2-9 REP & 47F0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#47 What is written on the keys of an ICL Hand Card Punch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#1 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#17 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#43 Binder REP Cards (Was: What's the linkage editor really wants?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#58 REP cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#64 Large Computer Rescue
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#1 The System/360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#11 Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#30 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#44 64 gig memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#69 IBM System/3 & 3277-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#70 IBM System/3 & 3277-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#8 Anybody remember Keypunch cards?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#32 1975 movie "Three Days of the Condor" tech stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#46 Usefulness of bidirectional read/write?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#83 Java; a POX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#42 IBM 029 keypunch -- 0-8-2 overpunch -- what hex code results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#43 IBM 029 keypunch -- 0-8-2 overpunch -- what hex code results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#56 IBM 029 keypunch -- 0-8-2 overpunch -- what hex code results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#57 IBM 029 keypunch -- 0-8-2 overpunch -- what hex code results?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#56 Punched Card Combinations

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

IBM 029 service manual

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2010 22:02:55 -0400
despen writes:
Why not use VER/REP statements?

My memory isn't perfect but I thought VER/REP were valid pretty much from the beginning.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#36 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#38 IBM 029 service manual

i never got any documentation until quite a bit later and found out about ver/rep cards ... by then i could "read" punch codes

some number of the previously referenced 12-2-9 "txt" object posts go into detail of object card formats ... as well as commments about not finding out about REP cards until much later.

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

Faster image rotation

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Faster image rotation
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:12:12 -0400
timcaffrey@aol.com (Tim McCaffrey) writes:
I thought the 432 had a lot of input from CompSci PhDs? (and see how well that turned out, and they went on to add protected mode to the 286).

i've got couple i432 manuals in box some place;

Introduction to the iAPX 432 Architecture (171821-001) copyright 1981, Intel iAPX 432 Object Primer (171858-001, Rev. B) iAPX 432 Interface Processor Architecture Reference Manual (171863-001)

old post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#48 Famous Machines and Software that didn't

quote from one of the intros (in above):
The B5000 architecture had the right approach; it attempted to raise the level of the archtecture using the best available programming methodology, (c. 1960), which largely reduced to "use Algol", and the architecture supported Algol very effectively. But in the 1970s and 1980s problems have arisen for which Algol and the programming methodology of the early 1960s offer no solution.

These problems have led other manufactuers, whose earlier computers had more conventional architectures, to recognize the wisdom of raising the level of the hardware-software interface. Consider, for example, the IBM System 38, IBM's most recent architecture. Not only have the designers of the System 38 followed the Burroughs approach to architecture support for high-level languages, they have also included most of the operating system in the hardware as well. It seems inevitable that the fundamental problems facing the computer industry will force more and more manufactuers to take this approach.


... snip ...

the i432 presentation at acm sigops was that very complex stuff was implemented in silicon ... and required new silicon/chips for fixes. while system/38 is called "hardware" ... it was soft/firm ware ... that just required shipping new version ... not replacing silicon.

one of the features was dispatching that attempted to mask the number of real processors. task list was managed by hardware/silicon and doled them out to available processors.

i had done something somewhat similar design in 1975 for 5-way smp 370 (that didn't ship) ... where i had task list in microcode and distributed execution to available processors. again it could be fixed by shipping new floppy disk with updates ... not having to ship new silicon.

folklore is that some number of people from failed (very complex hardware) future system project retreated to rochester and did a simplified version (as s/38). misc. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

corporation then had effort to replace large myriad of internal microprocessors with 801/risc ... including for low/mid-range 370s and s/38 follow-on as/400. That strategy ran into problem and as/400 did crash program to do cisc processor. more recently as/400 eventually moved from cisc to 801/risc.

i've contended that 801/risc effort was reaction to the complexity of future system and its failure ... to do nearly the exact opposite.

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

Profiling of fraudsters

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 21 Apr, 2010
Subject: Profiling of fraudsters
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
old post from early last year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25

from that post

Corporate Fraud and Misconduct Risks Driven by Pressure to do 'Whatever It Takes'; Fewer episodes reported by companies with ethics and compliance programs
http://www.informationweek.com/financialservices/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801487

from above:
Of more than 5,000 U.S. workers polled this summer, 74 percent said they had personally observed misconduct within their organizations during the prior 12 months, unchanged from the level reported by KPMG survey respondents in 2005. Roughly half (46 percent) of respondents reported that what they observed "could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered," a figure that rises to 60 percent among employees working in the banking and finance industry.

... snip ...

If the overall avg. is 46percent and the financial industry is 60 percent, then the non-financial avg may be as low as 30percent ... making the financial industry twice as bad as other industries.

so possibly the majority in banking/financial partake in seriously unethical and/or outright criminal behavior. one explanation is that crooks gravitate to where there are large piles of money.

another explanation (that has been raised several times) is that there is lack of transparency in banking/financial industry that fosters the unethical/criminal behavior (although it isn't clear what is cause and what is effect; are the crooks responsible for the lack of visibility and transparency or is the lack of visibility and transparency responsible for the crooks). this came up numerous times in the congressional madoff hearings.

a few years ago cramer took heat from an interview where he commented that traders practice illegal naked short sales; something about they do it with a feeling of impunity because they believe the SEC isn't smart enough to figure out what is going on.
http://nypost.com/2007/03/20/cramer-reveals-a-bit-too-much/

One of the things that has been periodically raised is that banking is based on a large facade of trust. However, the lack of transparency and visibility has allowed for a large gap to grow up between the facade and reality. The problem now is that gap may be so wide that any transparency could result in a chaos event and the collapse of the trust facade. This could account for Fed's resistance to divulging various information regarding the recent events (fear that with such a large gap between the facade and the reality, any sudden visibility might have catastrophic results)

other posts mentioning the corporate fraud article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#27 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#29 Let IT run the company!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#36 What is the top security threat prediction of 2009?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#47 Executive pay: time for a trim?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#11 Amid Economic Turbulence, Mainframes Counter IT Cost-Cutting Trend
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#17 Fraud -- how can you stay one step ahead?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#36 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#75 Whistleblowing and reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#37 How do you see ethics playing a role in your organizations current or past?

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

IBM 029 service manual

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:39:08 -0400
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
My most useful one-card program was a loader that would read up to 16 additional cards into consecutive memory locations. I used it to write a 4-card memory dump that was less than half the size of the standard memory dump utility, and printed characters as well as hex.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#36 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#38 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#39 IBM 029 service manual

standard 360 IPL button would simulate a 24byte read operation into location zero ... it would then do a channel program transfer to location 8 and after the i/o finished, do a lpsw on location 0.

there was a 3-card loader that had the first 24byte psw & and two read ccws ... followed by two cards with program in all 80 bytes (160 bytes total program + data). The IPL button would read in the first card, and then the two CCWs would read in the following two CCWs with the 160 bytes of instructions+data ... and then do LPSW on location zero ... which would start executing the program.

The 160 byte program was enuf to handle simple object deck cards.

There was a BPS "loader" ... a card deck, effectively the three cards plus the object deck for the loader program ... which did more complex processing ... like resolving external symbols between multiple object decks in single load.

When cp67 was 1st installed at the univ in jan68 ... the cp67 group were still doing assemblies on os/360 (not quite trusting cms file system yet), punching real object decks, and ordering the object decks in tray behind a BPS loader card deck (little over 2000 cards ... fit in card tray which held about 3000 cards).

that deck would be loaded into 2540 card reader and ipl'ed. The BPS loader would pull the cp67 kernel image into storage, and branch to entry in cpinit/savecp. This entry would then write the kernel image to disk with boot sequence setup to bring in from disk.

the assembling of individual routines, ... take the resulting object deck and mark it across the top of the cards with felt marker. This made it easy to identify individual routine object decks in the card tray for replacement.

Later as trust in cms filesystem increase, the cp67 team moved source to cms filesystem where assemblies were done and object decks were individual cms files. A CMS exec would "punch" the loader in object deck (files) in the correct order ... which was setup to transfere the resulting card deck image from the virtual punch to the virtual reader. The virtual card deck would be ipl'ed and cp67 kernel creation performed in virtual machine (to the real cp67 disk).

Then the 360/67 could re-ipl the new kernel image.

Summer of 1969 ... one of the things I did was make part of the cp67 kernel pageable. Part of the object decks were moved after cpinit/savecp ... broken into 4k-byte or smaller chunks aligned on page boundaries. I split up large "console" routine that also internally contained a lot of cp67 console commands. This required moving code into separate assembly routines with separate external symbols for transfer.

After the BPS loader finished and transferred to cpinit/savecp entry point ... it turned out that BPS passed a pointer to its internal external symbol table and count of entries. I modified cpinit to copy that tables ... sorted in address order ... to the end of the pageable kernel area. Then cpinit/savecp would write the whole contiguous kernel image region to disk (fixed, non-pageable area, pageable routines, external symbol loader table).

At the time, all of CP67 internal kernel routine linkages was done by loading address of target external symbol and executing supervisor interrupt. I modified the linkage routine to check if the desired address was above the end of cpinit/savecp ... and if it was, treated it was "pageable" routine ... calling the paging supervisor using a special dummy "system" pagetable that I had created. If the routine was in real storage, it would bring it in ... and the supervisor call routine would then transfer to the translated real address (it also incremented the "locked" count for the page). On return supervisor call, if the location of the supervisor call was above cpinit/savecp address ... it would assume it was a pageable routine and decrement the lock count for that page.

All of this is starting to work fine ... but as I'm doing more breaking up of "console" ... it all starts to break. It turns out that the BPS loader has a limit on maximum of 256 external symbols that it can process. As I continued to break out pieces of "console" into individual pageable routines with their own external symbols ... it pushed the number of external symbols in the cp67 kernel over 256. Now, I have to do all sorts of contortions to keep the total number of external symbols in the cp67 kernel within 256 limit.

for some other drift ... same time I was doing the pageable kernel changes ... and playing with the linkage infrastructure ... I also did changes for "BALR" linkages ... high-used kernel subroutines that didn't call other routines (i.e. main purpose of the supervisor call linkage was for doing dynamic savearea allocation & deallication ... a simple subroutine call could use a fixed savearea in page zero). recent reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#21 QUIKCELL DOC

The BALR changes was picked up and shipped with cp67 ... the changes for pageable kernel weren't included until vm370 (although, for whatever reason ... the hack to add the loader external symbol table to the end of the kernel image weren't included). One of the issues was the BPS loader table size limitation. However, before vm370 shipped, I had joined the science center ... and in some wandering around the place ... I happened to visit storage locker (large wire cage area on the top floor of 545 tech sq). In the storage locker area was several card tray cabinents ... and in going through the cabinents I found card deck source for the BPS loader. I was able to take the BPS loader source and modify it to support more than 256 external symbols ... which made doing pageable kernel much simpler.

I did finally get around to putting the change for appending the loader table to the end of the pageable kernel ... when I did the failure analysis dumprx routine ... a couple recent posts mentioning DUMPRX:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#10 Need tool to zap core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#11 Crazed idea: SDSF for z/Linux
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#32 Need tool to zap core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#34 Need tool to zap core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#38 Need tool to zap core

above posts included dumprx reference in this old email from the 3090 service processor group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861031
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861223

other posts mentioning dumprx
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx

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

COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 21 Apr 2010 07:41:41 -0700
Howard Brazee <howard.brazee@cusys.edu> writes:
The perception is that mainframe CoBOL shops are dying out. New companies increasingly don't believe that in-house training is worthwhile (why train for your employee to go to a competitor?). The perception is that it's easier and cheaper to buy a package and adjust one's business practices to the package so that no modifications are needed.

some of this view reflects the culture of the executives ... they are brought in to plunder the company and then they move on to plunder the next company.

in the past decade, SOX was passed to strengthen countermeasures to the plundering tactics. However, it appeared because SEC wasn't doing anything ... the GAO started database of financial filings by public companies that it believed were fraudulent ... showing a significant increase in fraudulent financial filings in period since SOX was passed. a scenario was that the fraudulent financial filings boosted executive bonuses ... and even if the filings were later corrected, the executives didn't forfeit the bonus. I made joke about how to spin with respect to SOX:

1) sox audits had no effect on fraud 2) public companies were motivated to increase fraudulent financial filings under sox 3) if it hadn't been for sox, every public company would start making fraudulent financial filings.

in the madoff congressional hearings, there was testimony by somebody that had tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff (and nothing happened). They also had a separate tidbit related to SOX ... informers turn up 13 times more fraud than audits; also SEC didn't have a tips hotline ... but had a 1-800 for companies to complain about audits.

slightly related recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#35 First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers

regarding this recent article

First among SQLs; COBOL for lawyers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/verity_stob_sql/

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

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:03:20 -0400
Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> writes:
If Intel management read this report, and I assume it did, it would have headed in the direction that Andy has lamented: lots of simple cores without energy-consuming cleverness that doesn't help much, anyway--at least for certain kinds of workloads. The only thing that really helps is cache.

in the time-frame we were doing cluster scale-up for both commercial and numerical intensive ... commercial reference to jan92
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

oracle made a big issue that they had done extensive tracing and simulation work ... and major thruput factor at the time was having at least 2mbyte processor caches ... and they worked with major server vendors to have option for sufficient cache.

recent posts on cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#47 Nonlinear systems and nonlocal supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#50 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#8 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#52 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking

the other issue was compare&swap had become widely used for large DBMS multi-threaded operation (whether running multi-threaded or not) ... and although rios/rs6000 did provide for smp operation ... it also didn't provide an atomic compare&swap primitive. as a result, dbms thruput suffered on rs/6000 platform because kernel calls were required to to have serialized operation. eventually aix provided a simulation of compare&swap semantics via a supervisor call (special fastpath in supervisor call interrupt routine that operated while disabled for interrupts ... works in a single processor environment). misc. past posts mentioning compare&swap (&/or smp):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

compare&swap was originally invented by charlie working on fine-grain multiprocessor cp67 kernel locking at the science center. an effort was then made to try and get it included in 370 architecture ... which was rebuffed by the favorite son operating system in pok (claiming test&set, from 360, was more than sufficient). 370 architecture then provided opening with challenge to come up uses for compare&swap that weren't multiprocessor specific; thus was born the descriptions of compare&swap for use by multithreaded applications.

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

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

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no  matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:40:49 -0400
Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> writes:
I had thought the idea of having lots of threads was precisely to get the memory requests out. You start a thread, get some memory requests out, and let it stall, because it's going to stall, anyway.

Cache size and bandwidth and memory bandwidth are another matter.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#44 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

in mid-70s, there was a multithreaded project for the 370/195 (that never shipped). The 370/195 had 64 instruction pipeline, but no branch prediction or speculative execution ... so common branches stalled the pipeline. Highly tuned codes with some kinds of looping branches within the pipeline could have peak thruput of 10mips ... however, branch stalls in most code tended to hold thruput to five mips.

the objective of the emulated two-processor (double registers, instruction address, etc ... but no additional pipeline or execution units) was compensate for branch stalls (i.e. instructions, operations, resources in the pipeline would have one-bit flag as to instruction stream that they were associated with). Having a pair of instruction streams with normal codes (peaking at 5mip/sec thruput) ... then had chance of effectively utilizing/saturating the available 195 resources (10mip aggregate).

however, retrofitting virtual memory to 370/195 was effectively impossible ... so possibly accounted for it never getting out (370/195 tweaked the 360/195 with the original announced 370 features ... but that was before virtual memory was announced)

even retrofitting virtual memory to 370/165 was a very difficult task ... and that difficulty accounted for dropping a lot of features in the original 370 virtual memory architecture.

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

COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Apr 2010 13:30:48 -0700
a different variation on the COBOL theme

Moving old code from mainframe to servers
http://www.fiercecio.com/story/moving-old-code-mainframe-servers/2010-04-21
One firm's story: The mainframe goes, but Cobol stays behind
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175840/One_firm_s_story_The_mainframe_goes_but_Cobol_stays_behind?source=rss_news

from above:
A lot of Cobol-based applications have a plot line similar to the first Star Trek movie.

In it, the crew of the Enterprise discovers a huge, intelligent cloud they called "V'ger." It turns out (plot spoiler alert), though, that V'ger was an unmanned spacecraft called Voyager that had been launched from Earth some 300 years earlier and then readapted by alien forces.


... snip ...

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

COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Apr 2010 14:38:46 -0700
imugzach@GMAIL.COM (Itschak Mugzach) writes:
Interesting. If Cobol would be a problem, I would expect most of IBM mainframe shops to develop new applications in (so called) modern languages. I don't see it here in Israel. Most of the new code is still developed in Cobol, Natural and some PL/I. farther more, if you are a mainframe centric shop, it would be so cleaver to distribute your applications when everybody is doing the opposite (server consolidation, green computing, etc.). What I do see is a movement from direct coding to rule engines and code generators. At end, programming will be like tailoring. Experts will develop the rules, and the programmer will just drive the records in and our invoking the rules.

As other wrote, Cobol is just another language in the forest, an easier one to understand.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#46 COBOL - no longer being taught - is a problem

there was big push in the 90s to re-engineer a lot of legacy financial applications (large percentage cobol) that were running settlement batch applications running overnight; using new languages, new processes, large numbers of "killer micros" and parallel operation ... in order to have straight-through processing (eliminating overnight batch settlement for transactions). the toy demos looked good but things collapsed when it came to production rollout. they had ignored speeds&feeds and the technology used had something like 100 times more overhead than the batch cobol (totally swamping any anticipated increased thruput from large numbers of killer micros).

In the past decade, I've done some consulting with company that has developed an infrastructure that translates high-level financial business rules into fine-grain SQL transactions. they've been able to demo rapid development/deployment of straight-through processing ... with highly parallelized and very high transaction rates. A primary difference compared to the 90s efforts ... is that they rely on the significant parallel technology that has been developed by RDBMS vendors (rather than trying to invent everything from scratch).

The parallel RDBMS implementation may have 4-5 times the overhead compared to non-parallelized/sequential batch cobol with vsam ... but the real-time thruput is significantly increased with parallel operation (able to accomplish straight-through processing and eliminate the overnight batch settlement).

recent posts mentioning overnight batch settlement and straight through processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#77 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#16 How long for IBM System/360 architecture and its descendants?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#19 STEM crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#8 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#78 SLIGHTLY OT - Home Computer of the Future (not IBM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#77 Madoff Whistleblower Book
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#56 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#37 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++

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

Do you know of, or have you participated in, any good examples of successful collaboration?

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 22 Apr, 2010
Subject: Do you know of, or have you participated in, any good examples of successful collaboration?
Blog: IBM Research
One of the earliest use of the internal network was collaboration effort between Endicott and the science center adding virtual 370 support to cp67 (running on real 360/67, there were several new instructions and differences with hardware tables and control registers). This was in regular use a year before the first engineering 370 processor with virtual memory hardware.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

One of the challenges in the virtual 370 case was security because there were lots of non-employees using the cambridge system (from educational institutions in the cambridge area, BU, MIT, Harvard, etc) ... and virtual memory hadn't been announced.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

Major part of success is straight out of Boyd ... experienced domain experts that could trust each ... See Moreother to work on common objective. I had sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM ... and one of his examples of such working relationship was Guderian's tank corps independent action during the blitzkrieg and contrast that with the US Army rigid, top-down command&control structure (required because large numbers with little experience)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

I got blamed for the early online computer conferencing starting in 70s. Folklore is that when it came to the attention of the executive committee in the early 80s, 5 out of 6 wanted to fire me, the only holdout was the CFO.

Of course this was still in the wake of the Future System failure ... and the corporation was in its own rigid top/down command&control structure period.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

Somewhat as result, researcher was paid to sit in the back office for 9 months and take notes on how I communicated. They also got copies of all my incoming and outgoing email and instant message logs. Besides a research report, it is also a Stanford phd thesis (joint between AI & language) and some number of papers and books
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc

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

IBM 029 service manual

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:03:07 -0400
"Joe Morris" <j.c.morris@verizon.net> writes:
The 360/40 (and probably the /30) didn't "simulate" it: the microcode actually put a READ (aka READ IPL; X'02' opcode) CCW into the dword at absolute zero and fired up the channel code with a zeroed CCW pointer.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#36 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#38 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#39 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#42 IBM 029 service manual

aka sort of "self-modifying" channel program (bane of virtual simulation), 8byte ccw:


0200000060000018

02        ... read operation
0000000   ... into address location zero
60        ... command chain plus suppress incorrect length flags
00        ... //
0018      ... read 24 bytes

when the read ccw completes, the 24 bytes should have "new" psw overlaying the channel command word at zero along with new ccws at location 8 & 16. since command chaining was set, channel then continues with the next ccw at location 8 (when the i/o eventually completes, the microcode loads the psw at location zero).

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

channel command word format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html#12

don't actually know where it loaded ... someplace in lowcore ... say x'100' then card one would look like:


|               |
000000000000001000200010060000050020001502000050

00000000000000100
aka new psw set to location x'100'

02000100600000050
read x'50' bytes into location x'100' (i.e. card 2) ... chaining to next ccw

02000100200000050
read x'50' bytes into locaion x'150' (i.e. card 3) ... last ccw, no more chaining.

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

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no  matter what you do
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:32:13 -0400
Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> writes:
This logic always made sense to me, but Nick claims it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, it has to be because of pressure on the cache or because the thread that stalls is holding a lock that the other thread needs.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#44 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#45 Processors stall on OLTP workloads about half the time--almost no matter what you do

muliple processor operation introduces serialization operations that don't exist in purely single processor operation. this can be as bad as 20-30 percent overhead increase. in a single processor case, this can wipe out any expected benefits from running it as emulated two-processor using processor threads. it isn't as much of a factor if already running multi-processor operation (two or more real processors) and adding emulated additional processors with hardware threads.

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 23 Apr 2010 07:00:18 -0700
PaulGBoulder@AIM.COM (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
I don't understand what you see as "sad". Do you consider it likewise sad that in some respects the F-22 Raptor outperforms the Ford Model T? (Well, not TCO, but for the F-22 TCO is not the primary objective.)

i periodically referenced that i sponsored boyd's briefings at ibm.

after boyd redid f15 (cutting weight in half) & f18 ... and then started doing f16 (he had stories that they tried to have him charged with theft of gov. resources ... the "unauthorized" supercomputer time being used for f16 design ... and thrown in leavenworth for the rest of his life, aka the military/industrial complex at work) ... it appeared that he had hand in f20/tigershark.

a theme in boyd's briefings was machine cost as well ratio of flying hrs to hrs of maintenance (as well as skill level required to do maintenance). while f20 couldn't quite match f16 ... you could get possibly half-dozen f20s for the cost of f16 ... and could get greater flying hrs per f20 compared to f16.

another scenario was Abrams main battle tank forced on the marines (aka there was discount if more than certain number were purchased ... army didn't quite meet that number ... so marines were forced into buying enough Abrams to exceed the minimum for the discount). The problem is that Abrams runs 65-70 tons ... and something like 90-95% of Marine mission profiles involve parts of the world with 35ton load limit.

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

and misc. URLs referencing boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd2

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

Our Pecora Moment

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 23 Apr, 2010
Subject: Our Pecora Moment
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment

Recent TV business news comments were the only bright (banking) spots are the trading desks of the too-big-to-fail institutions ... the banking operations for all are still in the doldrums. a big part of this is the regulated bank can get zero percent money from the fed and their unregulated investment banking arm gets to gamble with lots of money.

There has been banking industry publication that took several thousand measures and listed the avg for the large national banking institutions along side the avg for regional banking institutions. The regionals actually came out slightly better than the nationals. However, that is pretty much obfuscated now by the trading desks of the too-big-to-fail national institutions.

The rhetoric on the floor of congress about major motivation for GLBA was that if you were already a bank, you got to stay a bank, but if you weren't a bank, you couldn't become one ... and that includes "you", walmart and microsoft. along with (GLBA) repeal of Glass-Steagall; that sort of resulted in banks could get into everybody elses' business, but nobody else could get into the banking business.

That stated GLBA objective would have theoretically precluded the regulated banking charters for investment banks (and their being able to also go to the fed for zero percent money). news item:

Goldman's Blankfein Faces 'Pecora' Moment in Senate
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ax2FwCMpFIf8&pos=2

other related news items

Blankfein E-Mail Shows Firm Profited Betting Against Mortgages
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYjtc0CFqmmI&pos=1
Goldman knew it profited in crisis
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/24/news/companies/Goldman_Senate_documents/index.htm?hpt=T1
E-Mails Show Goldman Boasting as Meltdown Unfolds
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10466547

from above:
Separately Saturday, Goldman released a series of e-mails from Fabrice Tourre, the trader at the heart of the SEC charges. In them, Tourre jokes about selling investments to "widows and orphans" when he already expects the market to go bust.

... snip ...

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

IBM 029 service manual

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:36:45 -0400
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
How many characters were in the TN chain? I remember at university there was the option to have the operator hang the TN chain if you wanted to print documents containing lower case, and I learned macro programming from an IBM assembly language reference manual that was printed with the TN chain. (Or should I have said "train"? We all called it "chain", probably from the original 1403 that was attached to the 7044 and was kept and moved to the 360/67 after the upgrade - but the 1403N1s that were also attached to the 360/67 used trains, didn't they?)

ibm manuals had been printed photo-offset ... but some number started moving over to cp67/cms "script" (document formating) and reproduced from copy printed on 1403. script started off looking like a port of the ctss runoff command (with dot/"." formating commands).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

1403 wiki page (1403 models 2, 3, 7, and N1 attached to 360 by 2821 control unit):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1403

from above:
In later models, the print chain was replaced by a print train; print slugs instead of being mounted on a chain were placed in a track.

... snip ...

1403 "train" (although description mentions both chain & train)
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/attic3/attic3_024.html

1403 "chain" (although the webpage title is train)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/chain.html

30jun70 (370) upgrade to 1403 was 3211
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/endicott/endicott_chronology1970.html

a major document was the architecture "redbook" (distributed internally in red 3ring binder). script command line option controlled printing either the full "redbook" or just the principles of operation subsections (the full "redbook" tended to be about twice as thick as the principles of operation).

gml was invented at science center in 1969 and markup language "tag" formating commands added to cms script.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml

"g", "m", & "l" are the last name initials of the inventors. later in the '70s, gml evolved into sgml international standard.

later sgml morphed into html at cern (from cms script clone from waterloo):
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/
and
http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/tp_history/Pr/

slac was sister institution to cern (there was a lot of technology and software sharing between the two institutions) and the slac vm/cms system had the first webserver outside cern
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

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

Trust Facade

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 24 Apr, 2010
Subject: Trust Facade
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters

Another industry where facade of trust (besides banking) frequently comes into play is security. There is periodic comments about security (&/or cryptography) regarding the amount of "snake-oil" out there (along with lack of transparency). Sometimes the banking trust facade is tied to security trust facade.

In the early 90s, we were brought into a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... they had also invented something called "SSL" that they wanted to use. The result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

There were various assumptions about deployment and use of SSL for it to be secure. Almost immediately some number of those assumptions were violated. As a result, I coined the term merchant comfort certificates (i.e. SSL providing a sense of comfort rather than real security).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

In the mid-90s, somewhat as a result of the work on "electronic commerce", we were invited to partake in the x9a10 financial standard working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments ... which resulted in the x9.59 financial retail payment standard.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

NSCC participated in X9A10, but were (also) interested in secure ACH payments. We weren't members of NACHA, so NSCC responded to a NACHA secure payments RFI (on our behalf)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/nacharfi.htm
which was followed by a NACHA secure payments pilot.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070706004855/http://internetcouncil.nacha.org/News/news.html

In the late 90s, we were also invited into NSCC (since merged with DTC to become DTCC) to look at redoing trading transactions (to add more security/integrity). That activity was suspended fairly early because a side-effect of the security would be increased visibility and transparency ... which apparently is antithetical to the trader culture.

Note that in the early part of this century, various secure payment products ran into something similar (but different). The SSL "electronic commerce" got high uptake from financial institutions, in part because they were classified MOTO transactions (highest interchange fee). Prospect of secure payments products, initially had high acceptance among internet merchants because they were expecting two-factor authentication debit/POS interchange fees (or better). There was then major cognitive dissonance among internet merchants when the financial industry told merchants that "secure payments" products would basically be a surcharge on top of MOTO interchange fees (i.e. higher than MOTO fees, rather than much less).

other recent trust related threads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#79 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#84 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#1 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#25 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#26 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

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

IBM 029 service manual

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:02:25 -0400
Nick Spalding <spalding@iol.ie> writes:
There was also the 1443 printer which used a reciprocating bar instead of a chain/train. From:

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP1440.html

<quote> IBM 1443 Printer provided alphanumeric printed output at a basic rate of 150 lines a minute and could print up to 430 lines a minute, depending upon the typebar used. Easy to handle, interchangeable typebars allowed character sets of 13, 39, 52, and 63 characters. </quote>

The 13 character one had the numerics and probably . + and -. The 39 character one added upper-case alpha. The 52 character one was like the 1403 48 one plus a few more specials. The 63 character one had all possible BCD characters.


the univ. got a 1443 to act as console printer for os/360 (360/67 running in 360/65 mode) ... the 360 operators console (1052-7) was getting overloaded with os/360 messages ... and so when feature became available ... things were setup so that a lot of the console messages were directed to the 1443.

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:22:34 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

for the fun of it:

Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter Drops Another Load
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/winslow-t-wheeler/pentagons-joint-strike-fi_b_531705.html

the above talks some of the project costs are based on theory that cost per unit decline as experience gained in manufacturing ... but it points that the reverse happened with F-22 ...

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

IBM 029 service manual

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:19:29 -0400
hancock4 writes:
Of course, IBM went to computer generated manuals, too. While the lines weren't wavy, they looked like Courier on a lousy typewriter with a plain ribbon, not a true Selectric with a film ribbon. The older (and newer) typeset editions were easier to read.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#53 IBM 029 service manual

cms script output went equally well to 2741 (which was effectively selectric with computer driver ... but could be purely manual also) and 1403.

high-speed output improved in mid-70s when output could go to 3800 laser printer (rather than high-speed 1403/3211) ... although 3800 was fairly highend (20,000 lines/min)
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV3103.html

later there was 6670 ... which was effectively copier-iii with computer driver (put them out in departments rather than massive 3800 ... I'd heard of operations that put out things massive printing, like monthly bills ... having large six foot rolls of paper feeding 3800 rather than boxes of paper).

blog talking about proportional spacing being a "executive" feature (not selectric)
http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2004/09/ibm-executive-typewriters.html

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

S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Apr, 2010
Subject: S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/08sec.html

from above:
The commission voted unanimously to require the issuers to vouch for the soundness of the securities, as well as retain some of the risk.

... snip ...

Fall2008, testimony in congressional hearings looking into credit rating agencies was that unregulated loan originators were paying the rating agencies for triple-A ratings when both knew that they didn't deserve triple-A.

The comments that the seeds were sown for the "misaligned business process" and "conflict of interest" in the early 70s when they changed from buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings.

then there is the Man Who Beat The Shorts (reference that the street was punishing him for the following observation)
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/1117/114.html

from above:
Watsa's only sin was in being a little too early with his prediction that the era of credit expansion would end badly. This is what he said in Fairfax's 2003 annual report: "It seems to us that securitization eliminates the incentive for the originator of [a] loan to be credit sensitive. Prior to securitization, the dealer would be very concerned about who was given credit to buy an automobile. With securitization, the dealer (almost) does not care."

... snip ...

There was a new online computer services startup that I interviewed with in the late 60s ... but didn't join. They were starting to specialize in providing historical stock price and other financial information. In the early 70s, they bought the pricing service division from one of the rating agencies (about the same time that the rating agencies switched from buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings).

past references to the Man Who Beat The Shorts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#68 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#69 if you are an powerful financial regulator , how would you have stopped the credit crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#36 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#64 Is This a Different Kind of Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#67 What is securitization and why are people wary of it ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#18 What next? from where would the Banks be hit?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#20 Five great technological revolutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#23 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#55 Is this the story behind the crunchy credit stuff?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#14 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#42 Lets play Blame Game...?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#52 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#73 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#1 Are Both The U.S. & UK on the brink of debt disaster?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#37 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#52 What has the Global Financial Crisis taught the Nations, it's Governments and Decision Makers, and how should they apply that knowledge to manage risks differently in the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#78 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#61 Accounting for the "greed factor"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#65 is it possible that ALL banks will be nationalized?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#37 NEW SEC (Enforcement) MANUAL, A welcome addition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#77 Who first mentioned Credit Crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#23 Should FDIC or the Federal Reserve Bank have the authority to shut down and take over non-bank financial institutions like AIG?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#31 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#38 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#49 Is the current downturn cyclic or systemic?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#53 What every taxpayer should know about what caused the current Financial Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#27 Flawed Credit Ratings Reap Profits as Regulators Fail Investors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#25 The Paradox of Economic Recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#29 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#49 IBM to Build Europe, Asia 'Smart Infrastructure'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#35 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#34 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day

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

IBM 029 service manual

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:17:41 -0400
hancock4 writes:
The 6670s had one quirk--the software to drive them was in PL/I. We happened to have a compiler but no experience with the language. Also, there was a separate way output was routed; the printers did not appear as a JES printer to the operator.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#57 IBM 029 service manual

that has got to be the MVS driver ... not the VM/RSCS driver that research had. research then also did enhancements to 6670 for sherpa/APA6670 (i.e. all points addressable).

old email about sherpa/APA6670:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#email820304

misc. past posts mentioning sherpa
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#48 1403 printers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#44 Materiel and graft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#49 Materiel and graft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#1 Materiel and graft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#27 The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#72 Parse/Template Function
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#51 It has been a long time since Ihave seen a printer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#68 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#69 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#74 Apple iPad -- this merges with folklore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#43 Boyd's Briefings

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

Itanium had appeal

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Itanium had appeal
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:19:35 -0400
HP: last Itanium man standing
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/26/itanium_hp_last_standing/

from above:
Make no mistake: If Hewlett-Packard had not coerced chip maker Intel into making Itanium into something it never should have been, the point we have come to in the history of the server business would have got here a hell of a lot sooner than it has. But the flip side is that a whole slew of chip innovation outside of Intel might never have happened.

... snip ...

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

(slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 26 Apr 2010 07:34:54 -0700
jim_elliott@CA.IBM.COM (Jim Elliott, IBM) writes:
From the IBM viewpoint, *BSD would be superior to Linux due to the BSD license allowing for OCO distribution. IBN, or at least the historic z systems area, loves OCO and seems to dislike releasing source. However, from my limited knowledge, the z/Linux effort was a "skunk works" project by a group in IBM Germany. I don't know why they chose Linux. There already was a Linux for 370 development going on by another group of non-IBM people. This project still has a web page at http://linas.org/linux/i370.html.

as an aside ... germany was the group that tried for a time to release the AT&T TSS/unix as general product (including some number of the tss/370 group in dallas taking assignments in germany). A stripped down tss/370 kernel (SSUP) had been done for AT&T ... which AT&T then placed higher levels of UNIX on top. Part of this was getting mainframe RAS, error recovery/reporting, etc ... aka adding mainframe RAS and error recovery/reporting to unix was significantly larger effort than any straight-forward port.

This was also behind a lot of other mainframe unix products (aka aix/370 was UCLA's unix-like LOCUS) in the 80s being under VM370 (field engineering mandating EREP to provide machine service).

misc. past posts mentioning SSUP:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#37 A Glimpse into PC Development Philosophy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#13 Relocating application architecture and compiler support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#61 Virtual Machine Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#34 Power5 and Cell, new issue of IBM Journal of R&D
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#26 Old PCs--environmental hazard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#30 Old Hashing Routine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#22 Admired designs / designs to study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#17 old Gold/UTS reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#38 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#3 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#43 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#69 Operating systems are old and busted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#23 Abend S0C0
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#1 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#82 Yet another squirrel question - Results (very very long post)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#21 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#43 PC history, was search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#17 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#72 Entry point for a Mainframe?

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 26 Apr 2010 09:32:41 -0700
eamacneil@YAHOO.CA (Ted MacNEIL) writes:
Yes. I've never disputed that. But, when it comes to I/O ...

there can be very large difference between PCs configured for desktop and PCs configured for servers. recent thread discussing that featuring large number of channels ... may actually involve highlighting a "bug"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#18 What was the historical price of a P/390?

asynchronous, full-duplex, packetized I/O programs can do an enormous amount of I/O thru a single interface.

the reverse has shown up numerous times in the mainframe half-duplex channel interface. one such instance was that the 3090 increased the number of channels offered by something like 1/3rd (over initial plan/design) ... when they found out about the 3880 disk controller channel busy overhead (how long it was taking the slow 3880 jib-prime microprocessor to process channel commands). there was even some talk about charging the disk division for the extra 3090 manufacturing cost.

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 26 Apr 2010 11:30:47 -0700
John.McKown@HEALTHMARKETS.COM (McKown, John) writes:
I don't know the I/O capacity of the newest PC "fibre" I/O, but did find a Web site which says 4 GiB/Sec. But I'm relatively sure that there are fewer fibre HBAs in most servers than there are FICON channels, the nearest z equivalent (I think), on a z. And I also wonder if such devices or PC servers have "multipath" capability, similar to the z's. I am totally certain (watch somebody prove me wrong) that it is impossible to have "shared DASD" on a PC like we are used to.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

way back when ... one of the austin engineers took some fiber technology knocking around POK for a long time, made it full-duplex, increased media thruput by about 10% and had significantly cheaper drivers. The original eventually shipped from POK as (half-duplex) ESCON ... that had enormously lower aggregate thruput than the RS6000 SLA (more than just difference between 200mbits/sec versus 220mbits/sec media transfer)

We had done some work with NCAR on HYPERchannel NAS/SAN supercomputer access to ibm dasd farm ... we then participated on various standards committees with regard to HIPPI, HIPPI switches and IPI3 disk arrays ... including what was called "3rd party transfer" in the HIPPI switch to simulate the NCAR NAS/SAN operation.

Then the austin engineer wanted to enhance SLA to 800mbits and we convinced him to instead work on fiber-channel standard (1gbit/sec full-duplex).

We also worked with the Hursley engineers on 9333 ... basically asynchronous, full-duplex, packetized SCSI commands over 80bit serial copper ... this evolved into SSA (running at 160mbit serial copper, full-duplex ... able to simultaneously write and read 160mbit/sec for 320mbit/sec aggregate).

The (even late 80s, early 90s) FCS standards stuff included basic 64-way non-blocking, full-duplex cascading switch ... i.e. being able to cascade multiple 64-way for larger than 64-way connectivity. A "port" on the switch could be a processor, a disk controller, or some other sort of device. Old post mentioning (jan92) FCS, SSA, large cluster scale-up (aka 128 processors interconnected to large disk farm):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

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

other past posts mentioning ha/cmp product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

In that time period ... there is a bunch of stuff from the FCS standards mailing list about lots of churn and furry from the POK channel engineers trying to layer the complexity of half-duplex channel operation on top of the underlying FCS full-duplex, asynchronous standards activity.

As mentioned in the 95 post and the cluster scale-up email ... at the end of Jan92 ... the cluster scale-up work was transferred (announced for numerical intensive market) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors.

Trivial SCSI at the time (late 80s & early 90s) ... not much scale-up and not very high thruput was being able to have four scsi adapter cards and four scsi controllers all on the same scsi bus (i.e. 8 positions).

One of the issues for rs6000 in this time-frame was that the workstation group had been told that they had to use PS2 microchannel adapter cards (i.e. rs6000 moved to microchannel bus) rather than doing their own. The problem was that the PS2 microchannel adapter cards had been designed for the desktop, terminal emulation market ... with very high command processing overhead and low adapter thruput.

Joke was that if rs6000 had to use all the PS2 microchannel adapter cards (helping their corporate brethren) ... that the rs6000 thruput would run as slow as a PS2. It wasn't just the scsi adapter cards and the display adapter cards ... but also things like the 16mbit T/R card.

The PS2 microchannel 16mbit T/R card had been designed for terminal emulation market with possibly 300+ PS2 sharing same 16mbits. It had lower per card thruput than the PC/RT ISA 4mbit T/R card (that austin had designed for the precursor to the rs6000). past posts mentioning terminal emulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

a couple recent IBM references:

DB2 announces technology that trumps Oracle RAC and Exadata
http://freedb2.com/2009/10/10/for-databases-size-does-matter IBM pureScale Technology Redefines Transaction Processing Economics. New DB2 Feature Sets the Bar for System Performance on More than 100 IBM Power Systems
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28593.wss
IBM responds to Oracle's Exadata with new systems
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174967/IBM_responds_to_Oracle_s_Exadata_with_new_systems

it isn't limited to power ... but also to high-end PC servers:

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

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

... snip ...

Past posts referencing From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#49 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#54 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#55 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#57 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#85 Anyone going to Supercomputers '09 in Portland?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#19 Mainframe running 1,500 Linux servers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#21 Is Cloud Computing Old Hat?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#42 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#4 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#9 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#33 While watching Biography about Bill Gates on CNBC last Night
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#0 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#4 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#25 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#27 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#28 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#32 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#33 SQL Server replacement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#35 Intel Nehalem-EX Aims for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#37 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#44 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#48 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#77 IBM responds to Oracle's Exadata with new systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#10 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#12 OS/400 and z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#19 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#24 How many mainframes are there?

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

Reproducing Punch (513/514)--consecutive numbering, mark sense reading

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Reproducing Punch (513/514)--consecutive numbering, mark sense  reading
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:26:44 -0400
hancock4 writes:
Another feature that was common was mark-sensing. Today we think of it as optical scanning, but on the IBM machines the sensing was done electrically. A special pencil with a high graphite content was used on a special card stock with a high tooth to maximize the amount of graphite on the card. The machine tested the electrical conductivity of the mark and if present punched a hole representing the mark.

univ. did class scheduling using computer cards with information pencil marked on cards.

it was then run thru mark-sensing and holes were then punched.

then the whole thing was read into 360 with 2540 (something similar must of been done on 1401 before replaced with 360/30). I wrote interface for class scheduling on 360/30 that would read cards into the middle/stacker3.

2540 had five stackers ... two dedicated to the reader, two dedicated to the punch and a middle stacker that could be reader and/or punch.

the application would read all the univ. class scheduling cards, one at a time into the middle stacker, performing some validation checking on each card. if there was any sort of error or anomaly ... it would "punch" a (blank) card into the middle stacker (behind schedule card with problem)... before reading the next class schedule card. The punch had been loaded with card stock with colored stripe across the top.

When all done ... all the cards back in card trays (3000 or so cards per tray)... it was easy to identify schedule cards in error ... because of the colored stripe card immediately following.

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

IBM 029 service manual

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:46:14 -0400
Charles Richmond <frizzle@tx.rr.com> writes:
ISTM that computers have *increased* paper usage, even *before* the wide use of laser printers.

Those large bins full of printouts were *not* a total waste. At the college I attended, longer printouts were used in the DecWriters. The terminals just printed on the back...


in early 70s, gov. legal action with respect to document retention had ALL printed output being saved. Saving ALL printed output was running out of room to store it. POK plant site started using offices for storage. A new hall of offices would be cleared every week or so ... and started being used for paper storage ... filling offices from floor to ceiling with paper. The next problem was floor loading weight limits in the bldgs.

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 26 Apr 2010 15:01:20 -0700
R.Skorupka@BREMULTIBANK.COM.PL (R.S.) writes:
6. They are hot on our heels. We had LPARs, VM - they also have something similar. Many years later, significantly worse, but they have. We have Coupling Facility - they are also trying to share memory. We had SAN (ESCON) - they also have SAN, in some aspects better than our. I think I feel what ancient Romans thought about the barbarians.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

long ago and far away, my wife was con'ed into going to POK to be in charge of loosely-coupled architecture (well, maybe not so long ago ... or at least my wife was in kindergarten at the time) ... and she created Peer-Coupled Shared Data. However, until sysplex there wasn't much uptake except for IMS hot-standby ... which contributed to her not staying long in the position. There were also ongoing battles with the SNA forces about whether SNA had to be used for loosely-coupled operation.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata

In late 80s, we started the ha/cmp product using power hardware (but the design was independent of the processor architecture, worked equally well with intel processors or other risc processors).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

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

The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Apr, 2010
Subject: The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
Blog: Financial Cryptography
The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001239.html

some recent related posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#58 S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans

Fall2008, testimony in congressional hearings looking into credit rating agencies was that unregulated loan originators were paying the rating agencies for triple-A ratings when both knew that they didn't deserve triple-A.

The comments that the seeds were sown for the "misaligned business process" and "conflict of interest" in the early 70s when they changed from buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings.

then there is the Man Who Beat The Shorts (reference that the street was punishing him for the following observation)
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/1117/114.html

from above:
Watsa's only sin was in being a little too early with his prediction that the era of credit expansion would end badly. This is what he said in Fairfax's 2003 annual report: "It seems to us that securitization eliminates the incentive for the originator of [a] loan to be credit sensitive. Prior to securitization, the dealer would be very concerned about who was given credit to buy an automobile. With securitization, the dealer (almost) does not care."

... snip ...

There was a new online computer services startup that I interviewed with in the late 60s ... but didn't join. They were starting to specialize in providing historical stock price and other financial information. In the early 70s, they bought the pricing service division from one of the rating agencies (about the same time that the rating agencies switched from buyers paying for the ratings to the sellers paying for the ratings).

related blog:

The Baseline Scenario; What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it; When Will Senator Dodd Start Taking Yes For An Answer?
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/04/25/when-will-senator-dodd-start-taking-yes-for-an-answer/

comments in the above mentions breaking news item:

Berkshire-Backed Exemption Said to Be Cut From Bill
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSYvNjrXciGc&pos=6

some of the blog entries also weigh in with references to Gramm & derivatives:

25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis; Phil Gramm
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html

from above:
He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street. He also inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far.

... snip ...

Gramm and the 'Enron Loophole'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html

from above:
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

... snip ...

Phil Gramm's Enron Favor
https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/

from above:
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this, the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in attendance fees

... snip ...

Greenspan Slept as Off-Books Debt Escaped Scrutiny
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I

from above:
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping them unregulated.

... snip ...

Wendy Gramm fairly quickly replaced Born before stepping down to join Enron's board.

SOX supposedly gave SEC additional powers for throwing executives in jail for fraudulent reporting. However, possibly because SEC didn't appear to be doing anything, GAO started database of financial filings that appeared to be fraudulent.

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

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

... snip ...

along with

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

and more recent update (2006)

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

and:

Financial Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061053r.pdf
and update (2006)
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

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

... snip ...

some possible spinning of gao reports:

1) sox audits have no effect on fraudulent filings 2) sox audits motivated public companies to increase fraudulent filings 3) if it hadn't been for sox audits, every public company would have been making fraudulent filings

SOX also supposedly had SEC to look at rating agencies ... but they don't appear to have done anything but:

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

This somewhat corresponds with comments by person testifying in congressional hearings into Madoff who had tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff.

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

Our Pecora Moment

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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Apr, 2010
Subject: Our Pecora Moment
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment

and little x-over with this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#54 Trust Facade

Different factions in GS? misdirection with the comment that the full email seems to imply exchange with romantic interest? However, there have also been references that the individual closely coordinated with superiors as well there is significant amount of email from all the other players.

There were a number of articles in 2007 and 2008 about failure of risk management provisions ... things like badly formulated algorithms, etc. The rebuttal was that most of the risk management provisions were working ... it was that the business managers were allowed to override risk consideration ... including forcing risk managers to fiddle the input numbers fed to sophisticated computers ... until the numbers came out that satisfied the business managers.

It will be interesting to see how much email discovery in the current situation plays (compared to the Pecora hearings from the 30s).

tv business news has been speculating about why GS released what they did. Other recent email news items:

Goldman Sachs CDO Labeled 'Shi**y Deal' by Montag in E-Mail
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agq7CoygGLsc&pos=1
Goldman Sachs Abacus E-mails Show Hunt for 'Easiest' Asset Firm
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTQF7WdYeieQ&pos=4
E-mail faux pas, like ones in Goldman case, common
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63P6B720100426

possible one of the earliest such scenarios was in the mid-80s with iran contra affair. Virtual machine based operating systems for all sorts of things had been in use by various gov. operations and agencies going back to the 60s.

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

Idiotic programming style edicts

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.programming, comp.lang.c
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:47:19 -0400
raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) writes:
Yup. A very corrupt, untrustworthy professional investment adviser, but someone who made his profession out of giving investment advise.

one might claim that it just represented the culture

the person testifying in the congressional hearings into madoff last year (who had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get the SEC to do something about Madoff) commented that new regulations may be needed but by far the most important was improved transparency and visability.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#54 Trust Facade

In the early 90s, we were brought into a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... they had also invented something called "SSL" that they wanted to use. The result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

There were various assumptions about deployment and use of SSL for it to be secure. Almost immediately some number of those assumptions were violated. As a result, I coined the term "merchant comfort certificates" (i.e. SSL providing a sense of comfort rather than real security).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

In the mid-90s, somewhat as a result of the work on "electronic commerce", we were invited to partake in the x9a10 financial standard working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments ... which resulted in the x9.59 financial retail payment standard.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

NSCC participated in X9A10, but were (also) interested in secure ACH payments. We weren't members of NACHA, so NSCC responded to a NACHA secure payments RFI (on our behalf)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/nacharfi.htm
which was followed by a NACHA secure payments pilot.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070706004855/http://internetcouncil.nacha.org/News/news.html

In the late 90s, we were also invited into NSCC (since merged with DTC to become DTCC) to look at redoing trading transactions (to add more security/integrity). That activity was suspended fairly early because a side-effect of the security would be increased visibility and transparency ... which apparently is antithetical to the trader culture.

Note that in the early part of this century, various secure payment products ran into something similar (but different). The SSL "electronic commerce" got high uptake from financial institutions, in part because they were classified MOTO transactions (highest interchange fee). Prospect of secure payments products, initially had high acceptance among internet merchants because they were expecting two-factor authentication debit/POS interchange fees (or better). There was then major cognitive dissonance among internet merchants when the financial industry told merchants that "secure payments" products would basically be a surcharge ontop of MOTO interchange fees (i.e. higher than MOTO fees, rather than much less).

related recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#54 Trust Facade
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 27 Apr 2010 09:37:19 -0700
R.Skorupka@BREMULTIBANK.COM.PL (R.S.) writes:
You could find the following:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/basics/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.zos.zmainframe/zconc_mfhwcombine.htm

"There are fewer mainframes in use today than there were 15 or 20 years ago. In some cases, all the applications were moved to other types of systems; however, in most cases the reduced number is due to consolidation. That is, several smaller mainframes have been replaced with a smaller number of larger systems."


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#66 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

The half-duplex channel and CKD DASD design represented trade-offs based on technology of the early to mid-60s. By the mid-70s, the technology (that those trade-offs were based on) had significantly change.

In the early to mid 70s, the corporation had effort to completely replace 360 with Future System (which was significantly different from 360). Unfortunately, the Future System effort seemed to attract large number of computer science blue sky (crack-pot?) ideas that had no substantive backing. misc. past posts mentioning Future System effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

The monumental failure of FS in the mid-70s (modulo the later s/38 subset), led to a long period at the company protecting the status quo ... fergus&morris in their book had somewhat more caustic description ... old reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33

The protecting the status quo seemed to extend to being oblivious to what was going on in the market. In the mid-80s, I started making observations about the increasing commoditization of hardware ... which was going to have significant affect on hardware margins. In the same time frame, hdqtrs was predicting that the mainframe business was going to double by the early 90s ... and launched a massive build-out of manufacturing facilities (to support the doubling in mainframe business). In the year that the company was supposed to have doubled its mainframe business ... it actually went into the red.

I had also started making statements in the mid-70s about changes in technology state-of-the-art ... part of this was having done dynamic adaptive scheduling in the 60s as undergraduate ... along with something I called "scheduling to the bottleneck" and focuses on quantitative measures of bottlenecks ... results in increased sensitivity to changes in technologies.

By the early 80s, I was making statements that relative system thruput of DASD had declined by a factor of ten times between the 60s with cp67 on 360/67 and vm370 on 3081 ... old post with part of the comparison from early 80s (aka disks had gotten faster, but the amount faster lagged other system components by factor of ten)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door

executives in the disk division took exception with the statements and assigned the division performance group to refute my statements. after a few weeks they came back and esssentially said that I had slightly understated the issue (when block-mux RPS-miss was included). They then changed the spin on the analysis and used it for a SHARE presentation with recommended DASD configurations ... past reference to (and partial extract from) Presentation B874 at SHARE 63:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#68 DASD Response Time (on antique 3390?)

Part of the issue was that the 370 product pipelines had been allowed to go dry during the FS period. After the FS failure, there was mad rush to get something back into 370 hardware and softare product pipelines. I had been critical of the FS activity and continued to work on 370 stuff (even tho being told that the only way to get promotions and raises would be by transferring to FS). As part of the mad rush, some of the 370 stuff that I had been doing during the FS period, was picked up for release.

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 27 Apr 2010 11:18:12 -0700
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#66 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#70 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224700158

from above:
Frustrated by what they see as a lack of cloud-driven innovation from major IT suppliers, three huge global banks are banding together to form an IT buying consortium that will not only drive down their costs but also give them the option of creating their own highly secure global cloud infrastructure and network rather than relying on IBM, HP, Oracle, and Microsoft to deliver those solutions in a timely manner.

... snip ...

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

1130, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 1130, was System/3--IBM compilers (languages) available?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:57:48 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
Raw column-binary in a 16-bit word. The 1130 could both read and punch column-binary, unlike its big brother 360.

360 read column-binary into two 8bit bytes.

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

reader/punch ccw (3404, 3505, 3525)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html#23
read, feed, select stacker: SSD0 F010

SS - stacker 00 1 01/10 2

F: - Formated-mode 0 unformatted 1 formatted

D: - Data-mode 0 EBCDIC 1 card image


2540 8bit ccw op-code(s) from my trusty green-card gx20-1703-7
punch, feed, select stacker SS: SSD00001 read, feed, select stacker SS: SSD00010

where SS: 00 stacker R1 01 stacker R2 10 stacker RP3

D: 0 EBCDIC 1 column binary


old posts reference above:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#13 Old Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#72 ummmmm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#19 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#0 IBM System/3 & 3277-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#47 IBM 029 keypunch -- 0-8-2 overpunch -- what hex code results?

recent posts mentioning 2540 with five-stackers:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#36 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#42 IBM 029 service manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#64 Reproducing Punch (513/514)--consecutive numbering, mark sense reading

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

Our Pecora Moment

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 27 Apr, 2010
Subject: Our Pecora Moment
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment

Facebook seeks to meet with Schumer on privacy issues
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/050310-james-gosling-praises-oracles-java.html
Senators Seek Better Facebook Privacy
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1856238/senators_seek_better_facebook_privacy/index.html

TV business news just had interview with Schumer pushing that Facebook have "opt-in" for sharing privacy information (instead of "opt-out").

At the time we were brought in to help wordsmith the cal. electronic signature law, some of the participants were also working on the cal. data breach notification legislation as well as an "opt-in" privacy sharing legislation. The data breach notification legislation was passed, but before the "opt-in" privacy sharing legislation was passed, GLBA was passed with an "opt-out" provision for sharing privacy information (the parties in Cal. making statements about GLBA "opt-out" was "Federal Preemption" of the Cal. state "opt-in" activity). The Facebook "opt-out" is essentially the same as what the Senate passed in GLBA.

A few years ago at IAPP conference held at the Renaissance hotel in Wash DC, there was panel discussion with the FTC commissioners (after the panel discussion there was special evening reception for retiring FTC commissioner down the street at the spy museum). During the panel, somebody from the back of the room got up to ask if the FTC commissioners had any plans on enforcement for "opt-out" provisions in GLBA. He claimed to work for the company that provided software for large portion of financial institution call-centers and he claimed that the people answering the "opt-out" callin lines had no provision for recording any information about people making "opt-out" requests (no record made that an "opt-out" request had been made).

Schumer's position on GLBA:
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/schumers-straddle/86393/
http://www.nysun.com/national/pro-deregulation-schumer-scores-bush-for-lack/86321/
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=C%3AUS&sid=a3mSGb_qEfSY

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

Idiotic programming style edicts

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:25:13 -0400
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
I always thought of a "profession" as having a set of moral and/or ethical values that went beyond the mere making of money. But this viewpoint seems to be somewhat, uh, deprecated as of late.

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

for the fun of it ... a little bit more from thread in linkedin
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#73 Our Pecora Moment

Facebook seeks to meet with Schumer on privacy issues
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/050310-james-gosling-praises-oracles-java.html
Senators Seek Better Facebook Privacy
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1856238/senators_seek_better_facebook_privacy/index.html

TV business news just had interview with Schumer pushing that Facebook have "opt-in" for sharing privacy information (instead of "opt-out").

At the time we were brought in to help wordsmith the cal. electronic signature law, some of the participants were also working on the cal. data breach notification legislation as well as an "opt-in" privacy sharing legislation. The data breach notification legislation was passed, but before the "opt-in" privacy sharing legislation was passed, GLBA was passed with an "opt-out" provision for sharing privacy information (the parties in Cal. making statements about GLBA "opt-out" was "Federal Preemption" of the Cal. state activity). The Facebook "opt-out" is essentially the same as what the Senate passed in GLBA.

A few years ago at IAPP conference held at the Renaissance hotel in Wash DC, there was panel discussion with the FTC commissioners (after the panel discussion there was special evening reception for retiring FTC commissioner down the street at the spy museum). During the panel, somebody from the back of the room got up to ask if the FTC commissioners had any plans on enforcement for "opt-out" provisions in GLBA. He claimed to work for the company that provided software for large portion of financial institution call-centers and he claimed that the people answering the "opt-out" callin lines had no provision for recording any information about people making "opt-out" requests (no record made that an "opt-out" request had been made).

Schumer's position on GLBA:
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/schumers-straddle/86393/
http://www.nysun.com/national/pro-deregulation-schumer-scores-bush-for-lack/86321/
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&tkr=C%3AUS&sid=a3mSGb_qEfSY

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

Idiotic programming style edicts

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Idiotic programming style edicts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:44:09 -0400
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
A few years ago at IAPP conference held at the Renaissance hotel in Wash DC, there was panel discussion with the FTC commissioners (after the panel discussion there was special evening reception for retiring FTC commissioner down the street at the spy museum). During the panel, somebody from the back of the room got up to ask if the FTC commissioners had any plans on enforcement for "opt-out" provisions in GLBA. He claimed to work for the company that provided software for large portion of financial institution call-centers and he claimed that the people answering the "opt-out" callin lines had no provision for recording any information about people making "opt-out" requests (no record made that an "opt-out" request had been made).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#74 Idiotic programming style edicts

Senators urge Facebook to change privacy settings
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/27/senators.facebook/index.html?eref=rss_tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_tech+%28RSS:+Technology%29
FTC says it is creating Internet privacy framework amid growing concerns
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/04/ftc_says_it_is_creating_intern.html?hpid=sec-tech

from above:

"Folks who've put information out that they may not want shared with the entire world are put in the position where they have to opt-out. Now I would read what you have to do to opt-out, but we really only have so much time," Franken said at the news conference. Facebook said it isn't sharing information with third-party sites.

... snip ...

A decade ago, Congress did federal preemption of cal. "opt-in" privacy sharing legislation by specifying "opt-out" in GLBA.

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

Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service  manual )
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:56:20 -0400
hancock4 writes:
My guess is that spilled cups of coffee or soup did more damage to computer hardware than programmer errors.

los gatos lab did various machines like ATM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3624

but also did terminal used at airline counters. folklore at los gatos lab was that under the heat slits on the top of the terminal was a tray designed to hold a quart of spilled soda.

an early compromise of ATM machine was one that was installed across the street from a fast food establishment and kids feeding ketchup packets into the card slot ... the mechanism was then redesigned not to squish packets.

misc. other recent posts mentioning ATM machine &/or magstripe standard work at Los Gatos lab:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#7 "Unhackable" Infineon Chip Physically Cracked - PCWorld
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#21 Credit card data security: Who's responsible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#1 In SSL We Trust? Not Lately

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

IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:32:34 -0400
IBM 5100 First Portable Computer commercial 1977
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gaNyXWBcsU

from some facebook "friends" pointer

my 1st 2741 terminal at home was portable "2741" two 50+ lbs suitcases

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

Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:12:39 -0400
"Joe Morris" <j.c.morris@verizon.net> writes:
My POE had an Intel solid-state disk (looked like a 2305 to the 4381) but for some the Intel box was designed with an internal motor-generator with a humongous inrush at power-up. We had to remember to put the center's UPS boxes on bypass (feeding directly from the commercial mains) before starting the Intel box; forgetting to do that would blow the UPS inverters.

internally it was referred to as ibm 1655 ... some recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#11 Mainframe Executive article on the death of tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#22 Mainframe Executive article on the death of tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#55 Mainframe Executive article on the death of tape

some related email in above:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#email800710
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#email800804
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#email820303

my first programming job was porting 1401 MPIO to 360 (univ 1401 was used for unit record frontend for 709 ... MPIO did reader->tape and tape->printer/punch). It must have been learning exercise ... the univ. had gotten 360/30 to replace 1401 ... as part of transition to replacing 709/1401 with 360/67 ... and the 360/30 could run in 1401 emulation mode.

in any case, the univ datacenter shutdown over the weekend ... so they would let me have the whole place to myself ... I would come in 8am sat. and be there until 8am monday (48hrs straight, no sleep). If the 3rd shift finished early, they would have powered the machines off ... so when I came in at 8am sat, the whole place would be powered off and dark.

power-on of 360/30 would sometimes fail the sequencing. I would then go around to each of the controllers, placing them in "CE" mode and go back and do the 360/30 power-on ... and then individually power-on each controller ... and place it back in normal mode. usually with no evidence why it failed the automatic sequencing.

decade ago, visited financial outsourcing datacenter ... had something like $1.5B worth of ibm mainframes that they claimed would have rolling replacement of all hardware with nothing older than 18-24 months. they explained that they weren't satisfied with the top-of-the-line PDU ... and so hired an engineering company to redesign it for the vendor. The new PDU had much tighter tolerances and lower switch-over elapsed time (and the claim was at the time of the visit, the vendor had over 1000 of the redesigned PDUs just in the DC beltway area).

the mainframes all ran overnight batch settlement 450+K statement COBOL application. Past posts mentioning doing 14% thruput improvement on the application (they were running into problems with batch settlement bumping up against of the start of the next day):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#50 Where can you get a Minor in Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#20 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#21 Distributed Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#24 Job ad for z/OS systems programmer trainee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#73 Price of CPU seconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#81 Intel: an expensive many-core future is ahead of us
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#5 Why do IBMers think disks are 'Direct Access'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#76 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#55 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#20 IBM forecasts 'new world order' for financial services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#9 Union Pacific Railroad ditches its mainframe for SOA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#77 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 28 Apr 2010 11:55:51 -0700
John.McKown@HEALTHMARKETS.COM (McKown, John) writes:
Most are 3270 oriented. In today's world, that is difficult for end users to comprehend. So, "webifying" an application so that it can run on a browser makes it much easier for the typical end user to use. And that reduces cost by decreasing training costs and increasing productivity.

Unfortunately, we did this by "screen scraping" and "automating" our existing 3270 applications. So the end user browses to a Windows IIS server, which somehow drives the 3270 application using a combination of 3270 "screen scraping" and CICS Web Services. We didn't "bite the bullet" to convert the 3270 portion to Web services. Of course, our old systems did not separate presentation from the business logic.


some of the webification of 3270 apps have been call-center ... but that required adding some amount of authentication and other security features ... before letting individuals access there own information (and eliminating call-center costs; this isn't webification for moving call-centers to browser-centric ... but web delivery directly to customer/clients).

some of the online banking has at times fallen into that category

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

IBM 029 service manual

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:47:19 -0400
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
This is nothing short of obscene. PDF started out as a system- and device-independent document format. I haven't looked at it lately, but the couple of notes I've seen indicate that it can now execute arbitrary external programs, run Javascript, and who-knows what else. At least if they're going to include that cr@p, they should disable it by default. Adobe seems to have gone the way of M$ and tossed in everything but the kitchen sink.

I've repeatedly claimed that characteristic is left over from the desktop office private, closed networking of the 80s ... with no countermeasures to attackers. Just moving that over to the wild-west anarchy of the internet (mostly in the 90s), w/o adding appropriate countermeasures and protection, is basis for large precentage of the current problems (tempted to come up with analogies ... like difference between taking a walk on suburban street and trying the same in open space ... wearing the same clothing).

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

25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 28 Apr 2010 19:13:00 -0700
take on competition effect on the market and the mainframe pricing

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

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

... snip ...

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#66 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#70 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#71 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#79 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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

Costs Of Data Breaches Much Higher In U.S. Than In Other Countries, Study Says

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 29 Apr, 2010
Subject: Costs Of Data Breaches Much Higher In U.S. Than In Other Countries, Study Says
Blog: Information Security Network
Costs Of Data Breaches Much Higher In U.S. Than In Other Countries, Study Says
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability_management/security/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224700013&subSection=Security+administration/management

from above:
Legal requirements for disclosure, notification add high expense to data compromise, Ponemon research says

... snip ...

Half the fed data-breach notification bills introduced in the past decade would have undone the data-breach notification requirement of the cal. legislation (federal pre-emption; eliminating notification requirements as opposed to requiring notification). Also, at the same time that cal. did the data-breach notification legislation there was also work on privacy sharing "opt-in" legislation; but that was pre-empted by "opt-out" privacy sharing included in GLBA

related

Businesses struggling with data breaches
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security-threats/2010/04/28/businesses-struggling-with-data-breaches-40088793/

We were tangentially involved in the Cal. data breach notification effort. We had been brought in to help wordsmith the Cal. electronic signature legislation and many of the parties involved were also heavily involved in privacy issues. They had done detailed consumer surveys and found the no 1 issue was identify theft, a major type of identity fraud was account fraud; aka fraudulent financial transactions as a result of data breach. There appeared to be little or no effort to prevent data breaches so it seemed that they felt publicity from notification would result in corrective action.

The no.2 two issue in the survey was denial of services or employment as a result of sharing privacy information ... and there was progress being made in "opt-in" legislation (until federal preemption with the "opt-out" in GLBA).

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

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

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 29 Apr, 2010
Subject: Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
Blog: Greater IBM
Global CIO: Global Banks Form Consortium To Counter HP, IBM, & Oracle
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224700158

from above:
Move by three global banks to reduce their dependence on HP, IBM, and Oracle by working together to build their own highly secure cloud-based global infrastructure and network.

... snip ...

followup article:

Global CIO: Can HP, IBM, & Oracle Make Peace With Breakaway Banks? Three huge global banks plan to revolutionize the CIO-vendor relationship -- will their audacious plan trigger major changes from major IT vendors?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224701606
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224700158

semi-related item from ibm mainframe mailing list:

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

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

... snip ...

mentioned that in 2006, mainframe that would have expected to sell for $3M was selling for $18M

mainframe mailing list posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#51 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#56 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#62 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#63 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#66 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#70 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#71 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#79 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#81 25 reasons why hardware is still hot at IBM

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

IBM 029 service manual

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:41:36 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#80 IBM 029 service manual

Exploits of Adobe's PDF explode, will continue to climb in 2010; Microsoft says 46% of browser exploits were aimed at Adobe's Reader PDF, and researcher says sandboxing the free viewer may be the answer
http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/exploits-adobes-pdf-explode-will-continue-climb-in-2010-228

from above:
A recent discovery illustrated Dirro's point. Earlier this month, Belgium researcher Didier Stevens demonstrated how malicious PDFs could use a by-designed feature of the PDF specification to run attack code hidden in the file, and how to modify a warning message that Adobe Reader displays to further trick users into opening the document

... snip ...

Adobe, Foxit examine new no-bug-needed PDF hack; Executable end-around doesn't require a vulnerability to hijack PCs
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174612/Adobe_Foxit_examine_new_no_bug_needed_PDF_hack

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

IBM 029 service manual

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM 029 service manual
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:03:14 -0400
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#80 IBM 029 service manual

alternative to walk in open space w/o space suit ... in fallujah for a year in 2004 during the height of hostilities ... every day out on the street. in 2005, visited in-law only two weeks back after a year in fallujah. load noises would invoke automatic reaction to hit the ground.

another analogy is autos ... before bumpers, crash zones, safety glass, padded dashboards, seatbelts, airbags, guard rails, traffic lights, brake lights, turn signals, traffic police, etc

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

Itanium had appeal

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Itanium had appeal
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:56:52 -0400
MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> writes:
(*) I don't remember the nemonic IBM used that is the equivalent of DCAS

charlie had invented compare&swap when working on fine grain locking on cp67 (CAS was chosen because they are charlie's initials). The initial attempt to get CAS included in 370 was rebuffed ... the favorite son operating system in POK, claiming that test&set was more than sufficient. the challenge given was to come up with non-multiprocessor specific use for compare&swap ... thus was born the descriptions for various application use of atomic instruction ... that continues to show up in principles of operation ... nearly 40yrs later.
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/A.6?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320

the actual mnemonics became CS & CDS

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


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