List of Archived Posts

2013 Newsgroup Postings (12/06 - 12/31)

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?
Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking
"hexadecimal"?
Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking
'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
"hexadecimal"?
'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
"hexadecimal"?
"hexadecimal"?
Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal
IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
Book-Cooking Bank Gets to Keep Cooked Books
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
CTSS DITTO
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT
Google emulates 1980s-era Amiga computer in Chrome
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
ELP weighs in on the software issue:
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT
The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream
U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism
The Federal Reserve Lost $9 Trillion? What Liars! They gave that money away!
Criminal Action Is Expected for JPMorgan in Madoff Case
Why Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program Failed
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism
ELP weighs in on the software issue:
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
the nonsuckage of source, was MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Citigroup is the Real Reason We Need the Volcker Rule
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech revolution
Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?
Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?
Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)
Beyond Snowden: A New Year's Wish For A Better Debate
US a laggard in adopting more secure credit cards
Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
Target Offers Free Credit Monitoring Following Security Breach
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
"Death of the mainframe"
"Death of the mainframe"
Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
"Death of the mainframe"
"Death of the mainframe"
Who broke the law, Snowden or the NSA?
"Death of the mainframe"
"Death of the mainframe"
"Death of the mainframe"
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
"Death of the mainframe"
Should New Limits Be Put on N.S.A. Surveillance?
Passage of Budget Bill Is NOT a Victory for the American People ... Only for the Military-Industrial Complex
What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
Would Target cybersecurity breach occur with a digital ID system?
"Death of the mainframe"
Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward
One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - YouTube
NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech revolutio
Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)
Complexity and Battle Management
The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
DCF on OS/2
Viewing Where the Internet Goes
We're About to Lose Net Neutrality -- And the Internet as We Know It
Learning Rexx
Cylinder buffer

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2013 13:28:59 -0500
hancock4 writes:
• In a sense, they had some justification. After oil prices stabliize, cosnumers return to bigger cars. For years, consumers have sought big heavy SUVs. Also, a 1986 Japanese sedan had 13in tires and got 28 mpg. The 2000 model was bigger 14in tires and got only 24 mpg. The 2013 model had 15in tires, was even bigger and luxurious, and got less mileage. In a sense, today's Japanese cars have evolved to mirror the big fat American cars they replaced in the 1970s.

in the 70s, japanese makers were taking entry/low-end part of the market and moving up the market. then us industry got import quotas ... supposedly congress went along based on it would significantly reduce competition, significantly increase US profits and those profits were to be used by US industry to completely remake themselves. In the early 80s, there was call for 100% unearned profit tax on the industry ... since they were just pocketing the money and continued business as usual.

in 1990, the us auto industry had c4 task force ... looking at completely remaking themselves ... and because they were expecting to make heavy use of technology ... they invited representatives from technology companies to send representatives. In the meetings they could describe in detail the foreign competition ... and what needed to be done (however, as seen ... they still weren't able to remake themselves).

One of the issues they pointed out ... was japanese recognized that with the quotas set ... they could sell that many high-end cars (and make much larger profit) ... as entry cars. The industry standard was 7-8yrs elapsed time from car design to rolling off the line. As part of the changing their product ... they cut the product elapsed time in half from 7-8yrs to 3-4yrs. This had a side-effect of making the japanese twice as agile as US industry in being able to adapt to changing consumer preferences and/or technology. At the time of the C4 meetings, there was claim that the Japanese were in the process of cutting that elapsed time in half again (being able to go from design to rolling off the line in 18m ... making their reaction time four times faster than us, greatly increasing the competitive advantage in any sort of dynamic, changing market).

past posts mentioning c4 task force meetings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

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

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2013 15:24:20 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
One of the issues they pointed out ... was japanese recognized that with the quotas set ... they could sell that many high-end cars (and make much larger profit) ... as entry cars. The industry standard was 7-8yrs elapsed time from car design to rolling off the line. As part of the changing their product ... they cut the product elapsed time in half from 7-8yrs to 3-4yrs. This had a side-effect of making the japanese twice as agile as US industry in being able to adapt to changing consumer preferences and/or technology. At the time of the C4 meetings, there was claim that the Japanese were in the process of cutting that elapsed time in half again (being able to go from design to rolling off the line in 18m ... making their reaction time four times faster than us, greatly increasing the competitive advantage in any sort of dynamic, changing market).

past posts mentioning c4 task force meetings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#0 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

from the law of unintended consequences ... the import quotas was to reduce foreign competition ... allowing significant increase in domestic sales & profit (to be used to completely remamke themselves).

however, when foreign competition realized at the quota limits ... they could switch from selling low-end cards to selling that many high-end cars ... and make significant higher profit (the quoto was on unit sales not on gross sales). the switch of the foreign competition from low-end to high-end ... allowed domestic makers to significantly increase their prices (since the remaining low-end price pressure had been eliminated) .... significantly increasing us doemstic profit margin way past what was supposedly originally intended by congress (but still they just pocketed the money; not being used to remake the US industry).

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

Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?
Date: 06 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?
http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3ac455a63a-99ea-44ac-a45d-21c193b8adec

Note that I've periodically pontificated that Boeing was contaminated by the M/D merger ... and MIC orientation to spreading bits&pieces of manufacturing all over the place. Recent article was that they were planning on saving a billion or two and several months with that approach for 787 ... but it cost them a couple years and several extra billions instead. Disclaimer: long ago and far away I was brought in to work at Boeing as part of re-organizing their dataprocessing into a separate business unit (to better monetize their significant investment in computers ... including "consolidation" ... a little like early cloud computing).

Big part in all of this is way behind schedule ( although frequent updates of plan of record somewhat masks that problem) and tens of millions of lines-of-code needed to be designed, written and debugged ... coupled with enormous funds that could have been going to something newer ... in the mean time the rest of the world marches on not the latest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

... but
In November 2010, the Center for Defense Information estimated that the program would be restructured with an additional year of delay and $5 billion in additional costs.[67] On 5 November 2010, the Block 1 software flew for the first time on BF-4.[68] As of the end of 2010, only 15% of the software remained to be written, but this was reported to include the most difficult sections such as data fusion.[69] In 2011, it was revealed that 50% of the eight million lines of code had been written and that it would take another six years to complete the software to the new schedule.[70] By 2012, the total estimated lines of code for the entire program (onboard and offboard) had grown from 15 million lines to 24 million lines.[71]

... snip ...

2010, 85% lines of code total had been written ... 2011, 50% of 8m lines-of-code had been written and would take another 6yrs to finish, 2012 lines-of-code looks like 24m (triple) ... and climbing
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/27/8510/fun-facts-about-f-35-fighter

Jan2013: F-35 software isn't ready for prime time, Pentagon report says
http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2013/01/f-35-software-isnt-ready-prime-time-pentagon-report-says/60689/

from above:
The Defense Department has made "virtually no progress in the development, integration, and laboratory testing" of software for production versions of the F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft, the Pentagon's testing arm said in a report submitted to Congress Tuesday.

... snip ...

there are periodic observation about Japanese competition that before war2 all the best people worked for the gov. ... after ww2 the best Japanese were going to work for commercial companies. For the US that started to shift in the 90s ... especially with internet bubble ... simple example of gov. computer sysadmins being offered 4times their gov salary to leave and work in industry. That possibly corresponds with some of the gov. privatization ... but wasn't the actual justification. However 24m (or more) lines-of-code is an enormous number.

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

Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity.
Date: 06 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
not just teachers don't like creative students ... (most?):

Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html

Decades ago, head of IBM (watson) referred to the necessity for wild duck employees. After the failure of the future system effort in the early 70s resulted in shift in the culture with top executives trying to save face (make no waves and sycophancy in place of open debate). Somebody then created (wall) poster with ducks flying in formation and legend that wild ducks are tolerated as long as they fly in formation. Recently IBM had a 100yr celebration putting out various items ... one was about wild ducks ... but it had been respun as wild duck customers (not employees).

Boyd would tell a story that when he ran lightweight fighter program in the pentagon ... the one star he reported to came in to find the whole office in loud argument with Boyd (including lowly lieutenants). The one star called people together in auditorium and publicly fired Boyd for conduct unbecoming an officer. Later a four star called all the same people back into the auditorium, publicly rehired Boyd and told the one star never to do that again.

past refs to teachers disklike creative students
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#105 5 ways to keep your rockstar employees happy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#65 Teachers Don't Like Creative Students
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#71 Is orientation always because what has been observed? What are your 'direct' experiences?

other recent posts mentioning creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#66 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#26 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#10 The Knowledge Economy Two Classes of Workers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#18 What in your opinion is the one defining IBM product?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#26 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#84 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#55 OT: "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#77 IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#50 The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#28 The Reformers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#39 Words Are Thinking Tools: Praxotype
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#74 Steve B sees what investors think
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#28 SNA vs TCP/IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#70 Teaching Smart People How to Learn

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

Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity.
Date: 07 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#3 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity.

from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World" Ferguson & Morris:
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with sycophancy and make no waves under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat

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

... snip ...

FS was to completely replace the existing 360/370 mainframe technology including killing and/or suspending 370 projects (which still continues to this today). During the FS period, I continued to work on 360/370 and would periodically ridicule the FS activity (which wasn't career enhancing ... getting told I had no career in the company and/or any chance for promotion). After the FS failure, there was a mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines (and the lack of new mainframe products during the FS period is credited with giving clone processors a market foothold). Years later, during my executive exit interview he told me that they could have forgiven me for being wrong, but they were never going to forgive me for being right. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#78 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#87 IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#52 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'

Note that Boyd's lightweight fighter lively arguments and debates were about technical matters, something the one star didn't understand.

other recent posts mentioning wild ducks, sycophancy, and/or make no waves:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#12 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#75 Fortran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#18 What in your opinion is the one defining IBM product?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#26 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#39 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#81 How Criticizing in Private Undermines Your Team - Harvard Business Review
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#49 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#10 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#73 Future of COBOL based on RDz policies was Re: RDz or RDzEnterprise developers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#90 spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#22 Teletypewriter Model 33
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for those that have never seen them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#24 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#85 How do you feel about IBM passing off it's retirees to ObamaCare?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#72 In Command, but Out Of Control

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

Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 7 Dec 2013 10:11:28 -0800
PaulGBoulder@AIM.COM (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
If gaps and other unused space are virtualized, there is no reason for SDB ever to choose a BLKSIZE other than 32760 (or nearest multiple of LRECL). I suspect there are various implementations of RAID: some may virtualize unused space; others keep images of entire tracks, however sparsely used.

I tried the experiment I suggested: I created 10 mebers of 350 records. With RECFM=FB,LRECL=80,BLKSIZE=27920 (chosen by SDB) the data set used 10 tracks. When I forced to BLKSIZE=24000, it used 7 tracks.

Admittedly a deliberate worst case.


it isn't just RAID ... aka in ancient past there could even have been RAID on real CKD disk ... however, there hasn't been any *real* CKD disks made for decades ... all CKD being simulated on industry standard disks that are effectively fixed-block architecture. big transition now is the move from fba-512 to fba-4096.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

RAID just adds another layer on top of FBA ... further increasing the distance of the artificial CKD simulation from anything remotely considered real hardware.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

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

"hexadecimal"?

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: "hexadecimal"?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 8 Dec 2013 16:40:17 -0800
dlc.usa@GMAIL.COM (David L. Craig) writes:
GINYF when it doesn't equate trinary with trenary, a term I had forgotten (I'm really trying to avoid turning this thread into a career). At least it wasn't just a rumor. +1 and thanks for causing me to be reminded of Minerva-- perhaps someday Google will attain such capability.

for a little drift ... old (sql) post about 3-value logic and handling of nulls. about same time i was involved in original relational implementation ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

... i also dragged in helping with a similar but different kind of relational implementation ... that had a different way of convention for 3-value logic (& nulls/unknowns).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#40 How to cope with missing values - NULLS?

part of the issue with sql 3-value logic and nulls/unknowns was that the results could be the opposite of what people assumed.

3-value logic reference (also trivalent, ternary, trinary, trilean)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic

includes section
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic#Application_in_SQL
and references null (sql)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_%28SQL%29

as well as references ternary computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer

in the years since system/r & this other kind of relational ... i've re-implemented versions a number of times from scratch ... i use it for a number of things including ietf rfc (internet standards) index ... and merged glossaries and taxonomies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html

other posts mentioning 3-value logic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#75 NULL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005.html#15 Amusing acronym
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005i.html#35 The Worth of Verisign's Brand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#19 Implementation of boolean types
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#23 So what's null then if it's not nothing?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#33 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#34 CJ Date on Missing Information
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#22 3 value logic. Why is SQL so special?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#27 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#21 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#30 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#34 Is the Relational Database Doomed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#32 Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#65 You know you've been Lisp hacking to long when
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#8 Initial ideas (orientation) constrain creativity

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

Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 8 Dec 2013 16:45:53 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#5 Something to Think About - Optimal PDS Blocking

original RAID patent from 1978 was by somebody in the san jose disk group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

... whom I actually worked with some when they let me play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

was originally added to s/38. s/38 is periodically referred to as vastly simplified Future System implementation.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

One of the simplifications was dynamic "scatter" block allocation across all disks in the infrastructure ... treating all disks in the configuration as a single resource. as a result the whole infrastructure had to be backed up as single entity and restored as single entity. common failure mode of the period was single disk failure ... for s/38 required stopping the whole system, replacing the failed disk and doing a complete system restore ... which could be a 24hr event. RAID was used to mask single disk failure and the associated major recovery event.

majority RAID implementations these days are at the hardware controller level ... so single disk slices wouldn't be available at the software level.

RAID has been used for both availability (masking disk failure) and single thread throughput. One of the issues was single thread throughput was degradation for large DBMS infrastructures. More recent RAID options have tried to address both availability as well as multi-thread random access.

over the years, part of commoditizing of industry standard disks is driving MTBF from something like 80k hrs to 800k hrs (warranty costs across enormous number of disks).

MTBF has nearly doubled again. the major cloud operators do in-depth studies of the issues involving component failures ... as part of building their own servers (past news that chip manufacturers ship more server chips directly to large cloud operators than to brand name server vendors) and openly publish the information (something analogous to mainframe industry group that published customer EREP information during the heyday of mainframe clone processors).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_failure

from above:
The mean time between failures (MTBF) of SATA drives is usually specified to be about 1.2 million hours (some drives such as Western Digital Raptor have rated 1.4 million hours MTBF),[17] while SAS/FC drives are rated for upwards of 1.6 million hours.[18]

... and
A 2007 study published by Google suggested very little correlation between failure rates and either high temperature or activity level. Indeed, the Google study indicated that "lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates"

... snip ...

2007 google disk failure report
http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/

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

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 10:14:53 -0500
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
CMS. like the later VM/PC. IBM's problem is that, while CMS was a single-user interactive system, most of the compilers and support software were still batch-oriented MVS versions. It would have taken a lot of work to provide more interactive versions. This hasn't been done to date with mainframe VM.

VM/PC (xt/370) ran cms with a modified vm/370. over the years vm370/cms had gotten somewhat bloated ... especially compared to cp67/cms and was quite memory and disk i/o hungry ... and many of the applications that cms leveraged (compilers, yet) brought over from MVS were extremely so also.

the 68k 370 emulation operated at approx. 100kips 370 and didn't provide any of the traditional i/o instructions ... vm370 was modified to emulate i/o by communicating with cp88 running on the 8088 processor ... which was then performed using standard pc facilities. cms file i/o and vm370 paging was emulated on standard xt/pc harddisk that did single block transfer at 100ms. the was glacierly slow compared to mainframe hard disks ... significantly aggravated by the large amount of filesystem i/o required by traditional mainframe applications.

i had earlier done some work on cp67 to get fixed kernel real storage requirements down under 80kbytes ... but by the 80s ... vm370 was running at least double that. old report that I did at share bout cp67 pathlength reduction and some page thrashing tests with os/360 (on real 360/67) ... before I did any work on cp67 kernel size reduction.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18 CP/67 & OS MFT14

the original xt/370 prototype was "washington" and I was blamed for six month slip in first customer ship. Washington had 384kbytes of 370 "real" storage and after the (relatively bloated) fixed real storage requirements for vm370 kernel ... the little that was left resultetd in excessive page thrashing by the bloated memory requirements of the applications (brought over from MVS). The page thrashing was also significantly aggravated by the 100ms per page i/o operation simulated on the xt/pc harddisk.

I did instrumentation and measurements showing the enormous slowdown in response and human factors caused by the page thrashing. The result was they did a q&d hack to wire-in another 128kbytes of real storage for 512kbytes. This slightly moderated some of the page thrashing ... but a combination of bloated memory requirements and heavy filesystem i/o paradigm for every operation ... still resulted in slow response and poor human factors.

it wasn't until later with a74 gets 350kips 370 processing, 16mbyte of 370 memory ... and significantly faster hard disks that things become more tolereable. old announcement about upgraded a74 going to be released as 7437 vm/sp technical workstation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#email880622

past posts mentioning xt370, at370, and/or a74/7437
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#42 bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#23 Old IBM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#5 IBM XT/370 and AT/370 (was Re: Computer of the century)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#29 Operating systems, guest and actual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#75 Mainframe operating systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#52 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#55 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#56 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#89 database (or b-tree) page sizes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#28 IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001g.html#53 S/370 PC board
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#19 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#20 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#51 DARPA was: Short Watson Biography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#24 HP Compaq merger, here we go again.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#92 "blocking factors" (Was: Tapes)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#4 Buffer overflow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#11 The demise of compaq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#43 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#45 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#4 IBM Mainframe at home
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#44 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#49 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#50 Blade architectures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#52 Mainframes and "mini-computers"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#76 HONE was .. Hercules and System/390 - do we need it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#27 End of Moore's law and how it can influence job market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#8 Alpha performance, why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#56 ECPS:VM DISPx instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#40 IBM system 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#15 IEFBR14 Problems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#29 BLKSIZE question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#65 computer industry scenairo before the invention of the PC?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#7 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#8 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#10 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#11 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#13 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC software?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#9 Integer types for 128-bit addressing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#6 Where should the type information be: in tags and descriptors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#10 Where should the type information be: in tags and descriptors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#10 How to restore VMFPLC dumped files on z/VM V5.1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#21 IBM 3090/VM Humor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#2 using 3390 mod-9s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#36 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#56 DCSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#5 Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#14 RCA Spectra 70/25: Another Mystery Computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#29 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#30 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#14 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#23 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#7 Has anyone ever used self-modifying microcode? Would it even be useful?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#25 modern paging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#5 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#54 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#76 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#41 z/VM usability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#61 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#43 Intel Ships Power-Efficient Penryn CPUs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#15 folklore indeed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#29 Need Help filtering out sporge in comp.arch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#22 Was CMS multi-tasking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#9 3277 terminals and emulators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#73 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#33 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#38 "True" story of the birth of the IBM PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#46 pc/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#68 New machine code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#2 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#15 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#18 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#20 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#24 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#36 Processes' memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#42 Mythical computers and magazine reviews
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#46 Mythical computers and magazine reviews
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#70 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#8 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#10 What was the historical price of a P/390?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#78 Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#55 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#21 Mainframe Hall of Fame (MHOF)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#6 Other early NSFNET backbone
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#7 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#27 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted that mainframes would disappear in future and it still has not happened
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#51 Did My Brother Invent E-Mail With Tom Van Vleck?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#64 JCL CROSS-REFERENCE Utilities (OT for Paul, Rick, and Shmuel)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#91 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#27 M68k add to memory is not a mistake any more
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#42 Where are all the old tech workers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#59 Hard Disk Drive Construction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#89 Auditors Don't Know Squat!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#74 zEC12, and previous generations, "why?" type question - GPU computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#77 zEC12, and previous generations, "why?" type question - GPU computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#79 zEC12, and previous generations, "why?" type question - GPU computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#8 AMC proposes 1980s computer TV series Halt & Catch Fire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#10 AMC proposes 1980s computer TV series Halt & Catch Fire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#13 AMC proposes 1980s computer TV series Halt & Catch Fire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#18 "Highway Patrol" back on TV
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#30 model numbers; was re: World's worst programming environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#31 model numbers; was re: World's worst programming environment?

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 10:35:55 -0500
45yrs ago ... 9Dec1968

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
http://www.computerworld.com/slideshow/detail/131320/The-Mother-of-All-Demos--The-1968-presentation-that-sparked-a-tech-revolution

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

"hexadecimal"?

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: "hexadecimal"?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 9 Dec 2013 10:18:12 -0800
gerhard@VALLEY.NET (Gerhard Postpischil) writes:
I think you misread his message, which started with command chaining. But I would be interested in which control units and controllers allow data chaining beyond 65KiB.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#6 hexadecimal

note a lot of original data chaining was for non-contiguous storage transfers (scatter/gather). cp67 doing emulated i/o had to use it for shadow ccws involving (non-contiguous) page crossing. channel architecture prescribes that ccws aren't prefetched (executed serially one at a time, even datachaining) ... and their could be timing difficulties with cp67 emulated i/o ... when the native (non-datachained) i/o ran find.

the issue of page non-contigious i/o was addressed in 370 with IDALs ... where IDAL channel architecture allowed the addresses to be pre-fetched. IDALs was also used later as part of hack adding more than 16mbytes to 3033 ... even tho instructions and CCWs couldn't address more than 16mbytes.

note that many of the i/o devices are now industry standard with IBM legacy controllers and devices (like CKD) purely a simulated artifact. They aren't restricted to record lengths imposed by IBM's legacy CCW architecture.

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

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 15:36:45 -0500
"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
John, I have read in several places online that the IBM 5100 emulated a 360 and ran APL\360. But I swear that I read somewhere that the IBM 5100 emulated an 1130 and ran APL\1130. If I could find a reference I would have posted it. Does anyone else remember anything about the IBM 5100 emulating the 1130???

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#82 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#8 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

5100 ran palm and some part of 360 for apl\360
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AIBM_5100

from above:
The Executable ROS contains the system initialization code, diagnostics, I/O routines, and processor simulators. There is a System/3 simulator for running BASIC, and a System/360 simulator for running APL\360.

... and
I am quoting page 426: "This time, however, although the same Palm internal engine was used, System/360 architecture was emulated rather than 1130 architecture, so that the up-to-date APSLV product system could be used as the APL facility with virtually no modification."

... snip ..

scamp (prototype) emulated 1130
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer

from above:
Desktop sized programmable calculators by Hewlett Packard had evolved into the HP 9830 BASIC language computer by 1972. In 1973 the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT and full function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer in order to run APL\1130.[12] In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because SCAMP was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer".[12][13] This seminal, single use portable computer now resides in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

... snip ..

other recent posts mentioning 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#36 Lisp machines, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#44 Lisp machines, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#30 April 1st RFCs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#14 Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 50-Pound Portable PC, 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#21 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#26 Getting at the original command name/line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#27 World's worst programming environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#30 model numbers; was re: World's worst programming environment?

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

"hexadecimal"?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: "hexadecimal"?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 9 Dec 2013 13:12:56 -0800
dasdbill2@COMCAST.NET (DASDBILL2) writes:
In the late 1970s, I worked at a service bureau where I had to write a tape file conversion program to reblock a tape file with 640KB blocks to a much smaller physical block size that could be handled by QSAM.  My program read in one block with an EXCP and 10 CCWs data chained, each of which read in 64KB bytes, all into one buffer of 640KB bytes long.  Then I copied the buffer into 20 32KB blocks to an output tape using QSAM.  Then I read the next input tape block, etc., until the input found the end-of-file marker.  It worked.  But I had to run it under MVT running under VM, and VM kept doing funny things with the massive real channel program built by MVT's I/O Supervisor that caused chaining checks at random places in the chain, so I reran the job until I had an execution with no I/O errors.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#6 "hexadecimal"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#10 "hexadecimal"?

aka MVT thinking it ran real memory, EXCP could just tic to the passed channel program ... cp67&vm370 has to make a copy of the virtual machine channel program that accounts for virtual pages that aren't contiguous in real storage (with additional data chaining and/or idals)

with move of MVT to virtual memory and OS/VS2 ... EXCP was forced to do the same as cp67&vm370 ... creating a copy of the passed application channel program that could account of virtual pages that weren't contiguous in real storage. In fact the original implementation of adding virtual memory support to MVT for OS/VS2 involved hacking CP67's routine that built the copied channel programs (CCWTRANS) into the side of EXCP processing.

The latencies for the additional channel overhead/processing (for the copied channel program and non-contiguous real addresses introduced with virtual memory) could result in overruns.

The 370/158 channel processing throughput/overhead tended to be especially a problem (158 microcode engine was shared between executing 370 emulation and channel emulation) even compared to 370/145.

similar channel latency problems then show up in all the 303x machines (even with dedicated 370/158 microcode engine for the channel processing). as part of the mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines (after the failure of future system effort) ... the 303x channel director was created which was a 370/158 microcode engine w/o the 370 microcode and just the channel emulation. The 3031 was a 370/158 microcode engine with the 370 microcode (and w/o the channel microcode) and a separate 370/158 microcode engine as a channel director. The 3032 was 370/168 reconfigured to work with channel director. The 3033 was 370/168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

i mentioned getting to play disk engineer in bldgs. 14&15 and one of the things that got done was profile typical channel processing latencies of the different processor models.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

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

"hexadecimal"?

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: "hexadecimal"?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 9 Dec 2013 18:23:05 -0800
tony@HARMINC.NET (Tony Harminc) writes:
In the real world, PCI would be used to modify the channel program on the fly. It would presumably be copying the data to another device (tape or disk), and as long as that output device could keep up, there's no reason for this to be a theoretical-only scheme.

Much the same thing, on a smaller and slower scale (though perhaps not much smaller relative to the hardware of the day) was done by APL\360 with its terminal I/O. The terminal read channel program was unending, with new buffers being chained in based on PCI interrupts.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#6 "hexadecimal"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#10 "hexadecimal"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#12 "hexadecimal"?

with the advent of virtual memory and EXCP no longer executing the passed channel program ... but a copied that had been swizzled (replacing virtual addresses with current real addresses, virtual addresses possibly contiguous ... but the corresponding pages in real storage no longer contiguous, etc) ... the PCI appendage wouldn't be modifying the channel program actually in use

EXCPVR was created for authorized code to create real CCWs with real addresses (doing the necessary work to deal with real addresses rather than virtual)
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/v1r12/topic/com.ibm.zos.r12.idas300/efcprs.htm#efcprs

from above:
Fix the data area containing your channel program, the data areas referred to by your channel program, the PCI appendage (if your program can generate program-controlled interrupts), and any area referred to by the PCI appendage including the DEB, IOB, etc. To fix these areas, build a list in your PGFX appendage containing the addresses of these virtual areas. Any area that you know already is in fixed storage for the duration of the I/O can be omitted from the page fix list.

... snip ...

cp67 & vm370 might do long, channel program with multiple page transfers ... especially fixed-head devices. For really long channel programs, I would add periodic PCI interrupts to allow more timely processing of pages already transferred ... w/o waiting for the complete channel program to end (but it didn't involve modifying channel programs in progress).

original cp67 delivered to the univ. had a FIFO queue of page i/o requests and would do single transfer per channel program. This achieved peak throughput of approx. 80 page transfer per second on 360/67 with 2301 fixed-head drum (avg. half revolution delay per page transfer). As an undergraduate in the 60s, I modified that to chain together all requests for arm position (or all queued requests for 2301 fixed-head drum) to maximize transfers per revolution. This could get very close to theoritical max. 270 page transfers second (3600rpm, 60rps, nine 4k pages formated per pair of tracks, two revolutions per 9 4k page transfers).

For 2311 & 2314 moveable arm disks, cp67 originally also did FIFO queue processing ... at the same time I did the multiple request chaining ... i also added ordered arm seek queueing. The combination significantly increased loaded I/O throughput ... and also made degradation under heavy load much more graceful.

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

Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal
Date: 10 Dec, 2013
Blog: IBMers
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#88 Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal

The Power of No; This simple change could fix the patent systemâ -- but it'll never happen.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/12/the_simple_fix_that_could_heal_the_patent_system.html

The first major bill after congress allowed the Financial Responsibility Act to expire in 2002 (required that spending couldn't exceed revenues), was Medicare Part-D. The comptroller general referred to it as $40T unfunded mandate gift to the pharma industry that long term comes to swamp all other budget items. In the middle of the last decade, the comptroller general would include in speeches that there was nobody in congress that could do middle school arithmetic ... for how they were savaging the budget (2010 CBO report had revenues decrease by $6T compared to baseline and spending increase by $6T over baseline for $12T budget gap).

CBS 60mins did expose segment on medicare part-d ... they had 18 republican congressmen and staffers moving the part-d through the process. At the last minute before the final vote, they insert one line sentence in the bill that precludes competitive bidding and block CBO distributing report showing the effect of that one line change. After the bill passes all 18 have resigned and are on pharma payroll.

The 60min segment shows drugs under VA (which allows competitive bidding) that are 1/3rd the price of the identical drugs under part-d (which preclude competitive bidding).

Eisenhower's good-by speech had warning about MIC ... folklore was he originally intended to say military-industrial-congressional complex. In similar manner, I've made references to the financial-regulatory-congressional complex (major factor in recent economic mess) and the pharmaceutical-regulator-congressional complex.

..

the most unproductive congress in the history of the institution ... part of it has been blamed on jet travel ... congress going home friday morning and not getting back until late Monday or sometime tuesday (2+ day work week)

Google-Backed Anti-Patent Troll Bill Passes The House
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/05/google-backed-anti-patent-troll-bill-passes-the-house/

House Democrats, Republicans agree to end patent trolls
http://www.zdnet.com/house-democrats-republicans-agree-to-end-patent-trolls-7000023998/

a little x-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#14 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock

from IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
http://phys.org/news/2013-10-ibm-board-repurchase-15b-stock.html

Stockman in "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" pg464/loc9995-10000:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

pg465/10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

all the money going into propping up stock price and cutting future investment. As Stockman goes into great detail, this is becoming increasingly coming among top executives totally focused on making their bonuses (before they retire and get out).

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

IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
Date: 10 Dec, 2013
Blog: IBMers
IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1876891-ibm-shrinks-analysts-hate-it

from above:
IBM (IBM) reported earnings on October 16th, and the news was not exactly what analysts and investors were expecting. The company showed a marked slowdown in sales and profits misses estimates. The shares had already been on a pronounced downward trajectory since hitting an all time high on March 15th, and the weak earnings report did nothing to change the stocks direction. The shares fell hard after the earnings report and subsequently rebounded into November. But since last week, IBM's stock has resumed its downward movement.

... snip ...

note the "Saved By The Buyback?" which has been mentioned a number of times previously ... Stockman in "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" pg464/loc9995-10000:
IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

pg465/10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

aka ... all the money going into propping up stock price and cutting future investment. As Stockman goes into great detail, this is becoming increasingly coming among top executives totally focused on making their bonuses (before they retire and get out). There is lot more detail in the discussion about IBM recently authorizing stock repurchase of another $15B.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#14 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock

also Why the "Maximizing Shareholder Value" Theory of Corporate Governance is Bogus; One mantra you see regularly in the business and popular press goes something along the lines of "the CEO and board have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value."
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/why-the-maximizing-shareholder-value-theory-of-corporate-governance-is-bogus.html

from above:
If you review any of the numerous guides prepared for directors of corporations prepared by law firms and other experts, you won't find a stipulation for them to maximize shareholder value on the list of things they are supposed to do. It's not a legal requirement. And there is a good reason for that.

Directors and officers, broadly speaking, have a duty of care and duty of loyalty to the corporation. From that flow more specific obligations under Federal and state law. But notice: those responsibilities are to the corporation, not to shareholders in particular.


... snip ...

for othet drift: The (MIS)Behavior Of Markets
https://www.amazon.com/The-Misbehavior-Markets-Turbulence-ebook/dp/B004PYDBEO
although
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot
from above:
Mandelbrot left IBM in 1987, after 35 years and 12 days, when IBM decided to end pure research in his division.

... snip ...

Mendelbrot description of period from 60s through the last decade was continuing to use same computations even when they are repeatedly shown to be wrong.

some of Mendelbrot's references are similar to this (by nobel prize winner in economics) Thinking Fast and Slow
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA
from above:
Since then, my questions about the stock market have hardened into a larger puzzle: a major industry appears to be built largely on an illusion of skill. Billions of shares are traded every day, with many people buying each stock and others selling it to them

... snip ...

another area is manipulating pension plans ... some of the ibm specific excerpts
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

from this book
https://www.amazon.com/Retirement-Heist-Companies-American-ebook/dp/B003QMLC6K/

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

IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
Date: 10 Dec, 2013
Blog: IBMers
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#15 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It

remember that corporations are people (setup as separate entities with divide between them and any stockholders/investors). fiduciary responsibility is to the corporate entity ... which had become obfuscated for various vested interests

the rise of private equity companies this century with enormous access to borrowed funds has been something of game changer. they borrow the money to do a reverse-IPO ... and then put the loan on the company books ... wait some period and then "flip" the company in an IPO. They can even flip/sell the company for less than they paid and still make huge profit, since the original loan stays with the sold company (big difference with house flipping where the original loan is paid off). this article points out that more than half of all corporate debt defaults have been companies involved in private equity flipping
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html

the resulting company (from the flipping process) comes out with enormous debt load ... while the private equity company has skimmed off everything it can. A company with a $2B debt load going into the process may come out the other end with a >$30B debt load (original loan to buy the company plus huge fees and commissions).

The upswing was actually before the start of the century ... even some IBM connection. Gerstner was in competition for heir apparent at AMEX ... Gerstner wins and the looser leaves ... along with his protege Jamie Dimon. AMEX is in competition with KKR for reverse-IPO of RJR and KKR (a major private equity company) wins, KKR runs into some problems with RJR and hires Gerstner away to turn it around. IBM has been reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company. The IBM board then hires Gerstner to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company. "Retirement Heist" details that some of the same measures that Gerstner used at RJR are then used at IBM. When Gerstner leaves IBM he goes on to be head of another one of the largest private equity companies.

One of the issues is that companies that have been put through the private equity reverse-IPO are under tremendous pressure to cut all sorts of corners in order to service the enormous debt load. This may even show up in the most recent intelligence service flap. The person in the news held responsible was employee of major beltway bandit acquired by the private equity company Gerstner went on to head up.

also Stockman in "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" ... talks about stock buybacks are a mini-form of LBO, with the executives reaping huge rewards, pg457/loc9844-46:
The leader was ExxonMobil, which repurchased $160 billion of its own shares during 2004-2011. It was followed by Microsoft at $100 billion, IBM at $75 billion, and Hewlett-Packard, Proctor & Gamble, and Cisco with $50 billion each. Even the floundering shipwreck of merger mania known as Time Warner Inc. bought back $25 billion.

... snip ...

part of the issue is that when the executives get addicted to making their bonuses via the stock buyback route ... when the cash reserves have been exhausted ... then borrowing starts ... which makes it start to look more and more like LBO (private equity reverse-IPO)

for the fun of it, more recent on private equity companies

Whistleblower Describes How Private Equity Firms Flagrantly Violate SEC Broker-Dealer Requirements
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/whistleblower-reports-rampant-violation-of-broker-dealer-laws-by-private-equity-firms.html

from above:
So what is surprising isn't that the whistleblower is making these charges, but that are about twenty years overdue. These filings are simply pointing out what should have been obvious to everyone all along: most of the PE industry stands flagrantly non-compliant with fundamental law regulating the duties of investment managers when they take "transaction-based compensation" in connection with the purchase or sale of securities on behalf of their clients.

... snip ...

Private equity has a whistleblower problem
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/02/private-equity-whistleblower/

Whistle-blower tries to shed light on private-equity transaction fees; Insider says buyout firms rake in dough for acting as brokers for takeover targets.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131201/FINANCE/312019969

past posts mentioning gerstner
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
posts referencing pensions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pensions

past posts mentioning private equity companies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

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

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

Book-Cooking Bank Gets to Keep Cooked Books

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Book-Cooking Bank Gets to Keep Cooked Books
Date: 10 Dec, 2013
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Book-Cooking Bank Gets to Keep Cooked Books
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/book-cooking-bank-gets-to-keep-cooked-books.html

The other analogy is that the fines becomes considered as standard part of doing business ... the after the fact equivalent to bribes and payoffs in other countries. It goes along with the "moral hazard" paradigm, ... not having to worry about any serious consequences, no serious punishment and the gov. bails you out if things go badly (you would think that the gov. was playing helicopter parents to wallstreet)

The rhetoric in congress leading up to the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley was that it would guarantee that executives (and their auditors) did jail time, however it required that SEC do something. Possibly because even GAO didn't believe SEC was doing anything, they started doing reports of fraudulent financial filings ... even showing increase in the rates of fraudulent financial filings after SOX. As far as I know nobody has done jail time (and I've seen nothing from the GAO indicating that the fraudulent financial filings have decreased).

There has been some number of comments that the statute of limitations for many of the crimes has now passed ... however the claims are that most of wallstreet could still be prosecuted under SOX and do jail time.

I've periodically semi-facetiously ask ...
(1) did sarbanes-oxley have no effect on fraudulent financial filings

(2) did sarbanes-oxley motivate the increase in fraudulent financial filings

(3) if it weren't for SOX, would all financial filings now be fraudulent


posts mentioning sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley

posts mentioning financial reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 20:08:50 -0500
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
I'm a little bit surprised. IBM didn't have much of a presence in the Seattle area back then, as far as I know. Yes, the Gateses were well-off, and Mary Gates was on the Board of Regents of the University of Washington and active in many charities, but I don't see how that gets them an introduction to IBM's CEO in a distant part of the country.

I was brought into Boeing summer of 1969 to help with consolidating dataprocessing into separate business unit to better monetize the investment (747#3 was flying the skies of seattle for FAA flight certification). I thot that Boeing Renton datacenter was possibly the largest in the world (somewhere between $200M-$300M in ibm mainframes). There was a disaster scenario that Mt. Rainier heats up and resulting mud slide takes out the Renton datacenter. The judgement was the cost of loosing the Renton datacenter for a week was more than the cost of the Renton datacenter ... so it was in process of being replicated in the Everett 747 plant.

Both the IBM account team and the Boeing people tell the story that the main IBM salesman on the Boeing account at the time of 360 announcement was brought into Boeing and they explained to him what 360 was and made a huge 360 order. This was when IBM was still on straight commission ... and the salesman's commission was greater than Watson's compensation. The claim was that was the motivation for the change from straight commission to the quota system. Boeing made another large order and the salesman's quota was filled by the end of January ... and IBM changes the quota system to periodically re-adjust during the year. The salesman leaves and starts his own (well-known) computer services company (later bought and later sold-off by GM).

While there weren't any IBM plants in the Seattle area ... Seattle did have one of IBM's largest customers.

however ... Bill's mother
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates

from above:
Beyond the Seattle area, Gates was appointed to the board of directors of the national United Way in 1980, becoming the first woman to lead it in 1983. Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed with John Opel, a fellow committee member who was the chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation, her son's company. Mr. Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other I.B.M. executives.

A few weeks later, I.B.M. took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.[3]


... snip ...

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 11:58:26 -0500
hancock4 writes:
Didn't Boeing offer computer services to other businesses*?

>I thot that Boeing Renton datacenter was possibly the >largest in the world (somewhere between $200M-$300M in ibm mainframes).

Would you recall what kind mainframes that had at that time?

*I recall that several large DP organizations began to offer services to others. For instance, I think Sun Oil offered a backup hosting facility. Chubb Insurance offered training. GE offered timesharing. SABRE supported other reservation systems beyond American Airlines.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#18 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

summer of '69, 360/65s were arriving in renton faster than they could be installed ... there was nearly always parts of 3-4 360/65s staged in the hallways around the main datacenter room (enormous room previously used for plane manufacturing). At the time, the datacenter also had one 360/75 ... there was black rope ringing the 360/75 area and black cloth that could be pulled down over the 360/75 front panel lights and over the 1403 areas where printed paper could be seen (when classified jobs were being run the cloths were pulled down and guard that only allowed cleared people to come within the roped off area). Boeing had a color code bar across the top of employee badge ... the color of the bar gave the employment level (higher levels could park in lots closer to the bldg) and the color of the lettering gave security clearance level (black letters for top secret).

after the consolidation into BCS ... besides providing dataprocessing to internal boeing customers, they also started marketing dataprocessing and other services to non-Boeing entities.

An offspring of one of the discoverers of DNA was at the science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

and did quite a bit using CMS\APL. He later left and joined BCS in washington DC (BCS also becoming beltway bandit). Stopping by to visit him once, he told how he had used APL on project for USPS justifying the latest increase in price of 1st class mail.

past posts mentioning apl (&/or hone)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

part of early BCS effort included installing cp67 360/67 for online computing services (IDC, NCSS, Tymshare, etc were in the virtual machine based online services). This was single processor 360/67 installed summer of '69 in corporate hdqtrs (across road from boeing field).

There was a smp two-processor 360/67 that had been installed in Boeing Huntsville originally to run tss/360. However, it was being used as two single processors running a customized version of os/360 MVT release 13 that used the 360/67 virtual memory address translation hardware. MVT applications required contiguous allocation but it had horrible problem with storage fragmentation. The virtual memory support didn't actually do any paging (page faults treated as addressing exceptions) ... but was used to re-arrange storage addresses to make them appear contiguous as work-around to MVT storage fragmentation. Summer of '69, the Huntsville 360/67 was also moved to Seattle.

There was enormous amount of internal politics going on with the formation of BCS ... people running the individual dataprocessing operations not wanting to give up control.

This (Boeing) history says BCS wasn't officially formed until 1970
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/history/narrative/n071boe.page

from above:
In 1970, 13 different computing organizations in Boeing, each supporting different operations within the company, were combined as Boeing Computer Services (BCS), an independent subsidiary of the company. Within three years, BCS had six sales offices to market five commercial computer products -- including BCS/Mainstream, a time-sharing computer service used by 148 government and commercial customers.

... snip ...

Note I was con'ed into giving a 40hr, one week computer class during 1969 spring break to the core people that were forming BCS (and the assigned IBM team) ... and then working full-time there the summer of 1969 (I was taking classes and hadn't graduated yet).

misc. past posts mentioning virtual machine based online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

wiki reference with notable time-sharing services
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing
national css
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_CSS
tymshare ... but doesn't dwell on virtual machine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
however, tymshare started offering its online cms-based computer conferencing to SHARE in Aug1976 as VMSHARE ... archives
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

both ncss and idc fairly quickly moved up value stream to offering financial oriented online services to wallstreet (and others) ... idc still exists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_Data_Corporation
but has moved to the web
http://www.interactivedata.com/

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 12:33:17 -0500
hancock4 writes:
Here's a question:

How did organizations that had classified military work (either the military itself or its many contractors) handle security with that EDP vendors? Both the service technicians and customer analysts would likely come into contact with classified projects, perhaps even the details. Did the vendor personnel have to get their own security clearance?

At the height of the Cold War, I would guess that quite a few DP customers had classified work going on.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#18 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#19 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

i have vaque recollection of being told sometime in the 70s that it cost IBM $100k to get an employee a top secret clearance and it took six months.

disclaimer: I've never had a top secret clearance

I didn't find out these agencies were virtual machine customers until sometime in the 70s
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

some of the guys would be in computer & security classes that I might teach. offline during one class ... one of them bragged that they knew where I was every day of my life back to birth ... asked me for any date and they would tell me here I was. I guess this was supposedly justified based on their heavy reliance on software I produced ... it was also before the church committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

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

CTSS DITTO

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: CTSS DITTO
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:31:31 -0500
somebody that worked at IDC and then went on to be one of the people responsible for visicalc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

... is currently looking for CTSS DITTO details & history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System
... precursor to CTSS RUNOFF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF

At the science center, a port was done of CTSS RUNOFF to cp67/cms called "script". Then when GML (letters G/M/L because the letters of the last names of the three inventors) was invented at the science center in 1969
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

... GML tag processing was added to script.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231001185033/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/roots.htm

a decade later, GML morphs into ISO standard SGML
https://web.archive.org/web/20230703135757/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/sgmlhist.htm

... and after another decade, there is another morph into HTML
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

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

recent reference to IDC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#19 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:10:33 -0500
hancock4 writes:
There were various levels of security clearance. IIRC, "Top Secret" was pretty rare and required an extensive background check. In contrast, the low level ("confidential"?) was relatively common and not that hard to get. Also, I think to be employed by the Defense Dept or a major contractor required a background check--I recall their job application forms were longer and more detailed than the typical application. Indeed, some of the major defense contractors and aerospace firms were quite vigorous in their security procedures. This was an eye opener when a mere mortal visited one of their facilities.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#18 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#19 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#20 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

in more recent times ... we were doing some work that involved access to a datacenter ... where fed treasury had outsourced electronic tax collection processing (i.e. over 95% of collected taxes, employee withholding, corporate & personal, etc) ... and treasury required that everybody with access to the datacenter have a FBI background check ... with no implication that any sort of clearance resulted (possibly just criminal background rather than security risk).

there was something recently about clearance processing backlog because enormous increase in requirements for clearances ... I think something like over 1m "top secret" and over 4m confidential. there was also some item that with such an enormous numbers of clearances ... there were enormous number of places where information might leak.

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 09:28:36 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#18 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#19 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#20 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#22 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

i've mentioned that I sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

one of his biographies talks about him being in command of spook base about the same time I was at Boeing ... and while I may have thought that Renton was the largest datacenter in the world ... at the time pushing $300M ... Boyd's biography mentions that spook base was a $2.5B windfall for IBM.

this spook base reference has gone 404 ... but lives on at the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html

it seems to garble some of the ibm computer details ... however it also mentions some planes have been converted to drones (unmanned).

Boyd would say that the datacenter was the largest air conditioned bldg. in that part of the world.

Boyd would also say that he had criticized the program as not being able to work ... being sent over to command the place may have been punishment for his criticism.

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 09:28:36 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#18 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#19 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#20 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

i've mentioned that I sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

one of his biographies talks about him being in command of spook base about the same time I was at Boeing ... and while I may have thought that Renton was the largest datacenter in the world ... at the time pushing $300M ... Boyd's biography mentions that spook base was a $2.5B windfall for IBM.

this spook base reference has gone 404 ... but lives on at the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html

it seems to garble some of the ibm computer details ... however it also mentions some planes have been converted to drones (unmanned).

Boyd would say that the datacenter was the largest air conditioned bldg. in that part of the world.

Boyd would also say that he had criticized the program as not being able to work ... being sent over to command the place may have been punishment for his criticism.

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

GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 12 Dec 2013 09:43:14 -0800
thomas.berg@SWEDBANK.SE (Thomas Berg) writes:
Not I. If I compare a typical 3270-interface and a typical PC/WEB-interface I generally can observe that the response times is about 50 times better in the 3270-interface. It's also generally less "cluttered" and easier to handle. OTOH a typical gui interface can often have more and more advanced/modern functions etc. And the possibility to display much more information at one time in a relatively more readable format.

This is from my experiences from both my employers intranet and from internet and PC applications in general.


there were lots of studies in the 70s about the benefits of .25sec system response or better (increased human productivity with .25sec or better responses).

one of the big issues was while this was possible with 3272/3277 direct channel attached (with some of my carefully crafted mainframe operating systems) ... the newer 3274/3278 direct channel attach hardware latency (best possible case for all 3274s) made it impossible (to achieve .25sec or better). past post with old-time measurements
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19

when we complained to the 3274 product administrator, the eventualy responses was 3274/3278 wasn't designed for online interactive ... but for "data entry" (i.e. online keypunch).

for the last decade or so, i frequently queue up a couple hundred webpages in background browser tabs ... and then only have to deal with purely local latency ...

as an aside we had been called in to consult with a small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... they had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called electronic commerce.

part of the effort was something called payment gateway ... which handled payment transaction communication between webservers and the internet and payment networks (typically with large mainframes in backend). we gathered elapsed time round trips (from webserver out over the internet to the payment gateway ... through the payment network to the mainframe backends and back). This frequently was around .3secs elapsed round-trip for pure transaction level stuff (at the client browser it could be longer since there is both processing at the webserver as well as another round-trip over the internet).

Frequently "internet" slowdowns aren't the actual internet ... but heavy loads on webservers. The big cloud operators have done a lot with significant over provisioning of huge numbers of "on-demand" servers that can be brought on instantaneously to minimize latency due to server load.

There is still an issue with larger transmissions around the use of slow-start for contention avoidance. Google is trying to push through standard for much more efficient mechanism ... I have a lengthier discussion in (linkedin) IETF (internet standards) group
http://lnkd.in/FCwpMR

part of the issue is using rate-based pacing as alternative to slow-start as congestion avoidance ... something we were doing 30yrs ago.

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

Google emulates 1980s-era Amiga computer in Chrome

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Google emulates 1980s-era Amiga computer in Chrome
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 13:03:30 -0500
Google emulates 1980s-era Amiga computer in Chrome
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57615373-93/google-emulates-1980s-era-amiga-computer-in-chrome/

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:19:24 -0500
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
More precisely, until 'reaped' by their parent (using wait(2), waitpid(2) or waitid(2)).

kill(2) is ineffective on a zombie.


in stories about dumprx and problem profiles ... i periodically mention eliminating all possible cases in cp67 and vm370 ... and then somebody in the development group introduces new code that allows orphaned tasks left around after completion resulting in dangling uses of storage that has been released (and possibly reassigned) ... and to fix that problem .... instead of fixing the actual problem they address the symptom with delayed exit ... reintroducing zombies & hung tasks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx

one specifically is apar/ptf
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#33 What level of computer is needed for a computer to Love?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#61 VM13025 ... zombie/hung users

and old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email860217
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email860217b

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

ELP weighs in on the software issue:

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: ELP weighs in on the software issue:
Date: 13 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
F-35 software.... progress?
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/f-35-software-progress.html

Note posted comment in timeline on F35 helmet and I got sidetracked down a number of paths ... including software. some of my collected comments archived here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#2

and now: F-35C; disaster for the fleet
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/f-35c-disaster-for-fleet.html
and: The F-35 is not an F-4
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-f-35-is-not-f-4.html

from elsewhere on facebook: CAS & Marines Bullish on F-35B
http://news.usni.org/2013/12/12/marines-bullish-f-35b

i mention ELP reference to f35 stealth primarily optimized from straight-on ... not so much from other angle. ELP references this
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

stealth compromised/optimized for specific mission profiles (not CAS) ... even needs F22 to fly cover for F35, including F22 taking out radar installations that F35 are vulnerable.

there is also (and upthread ELP: "why it is not"): Is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the New F-4?
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/75aee4a354bc

I've periodically mentioned Boyd's Vietnam story ... slightly different from above.

Boyd is asked to review air force new air-to-air missile, during the review they claim it hits every time, show detailed specs and films of it hitting every time. Boyd says it will hit 10% or less. They get upset. He asks to rerun the film ... and just before the missile its flare (on drone), he asks to stop film. He asks what sort of guidance, they say heat seeking, he asks what sort of heat seeking, they eventually say pin-point. He asks what it is the hottest part of the fighter, they say the engine. He says "no" ... its the plume behind the jet; the only time the missile hits is enemy not maneuvering and shooting the directly up the tail-pipe. Roll forward to Vietnam and Boyd proves correct. The one star in Vietnam grounds all planes and converts to (Navy) sidewinder. He lasts 3months before called back to pentagon and lambasted for transgressions ... reducing budget share (loosing less planes and pilots and not using air force missiles) and worst of all increasing Navy budget share (using sidewinders).

Vietnam strategy almost incidental in the Pentagon, except to extent that it impacted major issue budget size.

posts mentioning MICC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

pervious posts mentioning Boyd's story about air force air-to-air missile
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#120 atomic History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#67 Dealing with complexity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#10 Dangerous Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#7 Pa Tpk spends $30 million for "Duet" system; but benefits are unknown
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#4 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#53 Damn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#52 Current Officers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#64 Current Officers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#62 Did anybody ever build a Simon?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#17 360 programs on a z/10
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#94 Daylight Savings Time again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#16 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#66 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#77 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#13 The Seven Habits of Pointy-Haired Bosses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#8 Why did the OODA-loop tactic grow into a strategy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#33 China Builds Fleet of Small Warships While U.S. Drifts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#59 Why did the OODA-loop tactic grow into a strategy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#41 Rafael Team with Raytheon to Offer Iron Dome in the U.S
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#88 What separates Sun Tzu & John Boyd as Martial thinkers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#91 There is much we can learn from TE Lawrence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#21 The Age of Unsatisfying Wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#63 Is this Boyd's fundamental postulate, 'to improve our capacity for independent action'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#2 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#51 Is this Boyd's fundamental postulate, 'to improve our capacity for independent action'? thoughts please
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#64 Early use of the word "computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#19 SnOODAn: Boyd, Snowden, and Resilience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#16 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#32 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#41 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#76 A Little More on the Computer

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:49:29 -0500
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
On unix systems, the only state maintained by a zombie process is the PID and the exit status. All other process resources are released when the process exits, including all memory and backing store.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#27 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

on recent linux systems I've had periodic problems with zombie process holding flock

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

GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 13 Dec 2013 11:45:46 -0800
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#25 GUI vs 3270 Re: MVS Quick Reference, was: LookAT

this is quick&dirty conversion of internal (cms) ios3270 "green card" to html ... trying to preserve a little of the original look&feel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html

very early in rex(x) days (before it had been release as product), I wanted to demo that rexx wasn't just another pretty scripting language. I chose to re-implement IPCS (very large application, at the time implemented in assembler) in rexx with objective 1) have ten times the function, 2) have ten times the performance (interesting going from assembler to interpreted rexx) and 3) take less than half-time over 3 months elapsed. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx

I finished early ... so started a library of automated scripts that would search/recognize a variety of failure signatures.

I had assumed that it would be released to customers in place of the existing IPCS. However, even though it was used by nearly every customer support PSR and internal datacenter, it wasn't shipped to customers. However, I did manage to get approval to give SHARE presentation on the implementation details ... and within a very short time, similar implementations started appearing.

One of the things I did for DUMPRX was obtain the softcopy GML for system messages & codes manual ... and massage it into an online form. DUMPRX ran either as line-mode (terminal) exec ... or within XEDIT as a session macro (with all input/output sesssion preserved as XEDIT file).

note ios3270 was what was used for the service panels on the 3090 service processor (3092) ... which was really a pair of 4361s (for redundancy and availability) running a customized version of vm370/cms release 6. The pair of 3370s FBA required for every 3090 (even purely MVS accounts that didn't have FBA support) ... were required for the 3092 vm370/cms systems.

a couple of old email references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861031
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861223

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

The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/FwvCiwEZkqY
and
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/780862910

I was going to seriously quibble about starting out glossing over who did what ... The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, Big-Money Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream
https://www.amazon.com/Mortgage-Wars-Big-Money-Politics-Collapse-ebook/dp/B00GJNTO4U/

however, pg56/loc 939-40
This was a thinly disguised prescription for an old ideological staple at Treasury -- full GSE privatization -- coupled with a new idea to which they would return in the future: reliance on rating agencies to perform duties normally left to regulators

pg56/loc941-42
Neither the GAO nor the CBO endorsed Treasury's recommendation. The CBO discussed it along with other alternatives for GSE regulation and capital in its April 1991 report but made no judgments about any of them.

... snip ...

securitzed mortgages had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate fraudulent mortgages; in the late 90s, we were asked to look at improving the integrity of supporting documents (as a countermeasure). However (mostly unregulated) loan originators found that they could pay the rating agencies for triple-A rating (when they both knew that they weren't worth triple-A, from the Oct2008 congressional hearings into the role that the rating agencies played). As a result, the business was rerouted from the GSEs to wallstreet resulting in exploding to over $27T
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

... and triple-A trumps supporting documents (and w/o supporting documents there was no longer an issue with regard to their integrity).

posts mentioning toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

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

U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#85 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier

Rumsfeld's War and Its Consequences Now
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/rumsfelds-war-and-its-consequences-now/

note two different (but not necessarily inconsistent) explanations for shuttling bush off to be director of cia 1) needed replacement director that would stop opposing team b analysis and 2) internal republican politics sidelining a rival. posts mentioning team b
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b

Murdoch's NY Post Backs Michael Moore's Bush-Saudi 9/11 Claims
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/16/murdochs-ny-post-backs-michael-moores-bush-saudi-911-claims/
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/

this has an account of sat. photo recon analyst raising alarm that Iraq was marshaling forces to invade Kuwait and white house discrediting the analyst and saying Saddam would do no such thing. However, when he raised the alarm that Iraq was marshaling forces for invasion of Saudi Arabia that started to see serious response.
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2

this is somebody that kept presenting evidence that Iraq invasion justification was fabricated ... and they treated her really badly
https://www.amazon.com/Classified-Woman-The-Sibel-Edmonds-Story-ebook/dp/B007XY8INW/

the iraq scenario then would serve at least two possible purposes ... 1) spinney's perpetual war ... an organized mechanized military that we could throw our mechanized military against and 2) obfuscation and misdirection away from saudis

posts mentioning perpetual war
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

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

60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: 60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/60-minutes/

Judge pulls no punches in ruling against NSA program; The author of the U.S. Constitution would be 'aghast,' Judge Richard Leon wrote
http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2007/042307techupdate.html
Court Says NSA Bulk Telephone Spying Is Unconstitutional
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/bulk-telephone-metada-ruling/

NSA's Malware Heroics Questioned By Security Experts; NSA says it thwarted a nation state's BIOS-bricking malware plot, but info security and privacy experts say the agency is trying to snow the American public.
http://www.informationweek.com/government/cybersecurity/nsas-malware-heroics-questioned-by-security-experts/d/d-id/1113108

Update: NSA surveillance critic Bruce Schneier to leave post at BT; While BT wasn't happy with comments, he says it's "past time for something new."
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/nsa-surveillance-critic-bruce-schneier-to-leave-post-at-bt/

from above:
Schneier said that the exploits used by the NSA had broken the most fundamental security mechanisms of the Internet by creating backdoors to systems that could potentially be exploited by others.

... snip ...

An NSA Coworker Remembers The Real Edward Snowden: 'A Genius Among Geniuses'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/16/an-nsa-coworker-remembers-the-real-edward-snowden-a-genius-among-geniuses/

for other background ... Success Of Failure reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree
posts mentioning whistleblower
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower

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

The Federal Reserve Lost $9 Trillion? What Liars! They gave that money away!

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: The Federal Reserve Lost $9 Trillion? What Liars! They gave that money away!
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/RGCN7uMEy7M

The Federal Reserve Lost $9 Trillion? What Liars! They gave that money away!
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/the-federal-reserve-lost-9-trillion-what-liars-they-gave-that-money-away/

background ref:

Breakdown of the $26 Trillion the Federal Reserve Handed Out to Save Incompetent, but Rich Investors
http://johnhively.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/breakdown-of-the-26-trillion-the-federal-reserve-handed-out-to-save-rich-incompetent-investors-but-who-purchase-political-power/

posts mentioning too-big-to-fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

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

Criminal Action Is Expected for JPMorgan in Madoff Case

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Criminal Action Is Expected for JPMorgan in Madoff Case
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
Criminal Action Is Expected for JPMorgan in Madoff Case
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/criminal-action-is-expected-for-jpmorgan-in-madoff-case/

JPMorgan May Face Criminal Action For Madoff Deals
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/12/jpmorgan-may-face-criminal-action-for-madoff-deals/

JPMorgan May Face Criminal Charges for Blowing the Whistle on Madoff -- To the Wrong Country
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/12/jpmorgan-may-face-criminal-charges-for-blowing-the-whistle-on-madoff-%E2%80%93-to-the-wrong-country/

....

as an aside, in the Madoff congressional hearings they had the person that had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff ... apparently SEC's hands were finally forced when Madoff turned himself in.

The Rumored Chase-Madoff Settlement Is Another Bad Joke
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-rumored-chase-madoff-settlement-is-another-bad-joke-20131216

from above:
That this basic truth eluded both the SEC (which somehow failed to notice the world's largest hedge fund never making a single trade) and Madoff's own banker for years on end points to horrific systemic problems.

... snip ...

posts mentioning Madoff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#madoff

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

Why Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program Failed

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Why Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program Failed
Date: 16 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/4jcrzeXUo2w

Why Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program Failed
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-16/why-obamas-home-affordable-modification-program-failed-spoiler-alert-thank-bank-amer

Secret Inside BofA Office of CEO Stymied Needy Homeowners
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-16/secret-inside-bofa-office-of-ceo-stymied-needy-homeowners.html

posts mentioning too-big-to-fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

a couple past posts mentioning HAMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#48 The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#68 Singer Cartons of Punch Cards

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 23:19:03 -0500
Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> writes:
So Republicans borrow and spend, and Democrats tax and spend. Of the two, I think the latter is better for our economy and posterity, not to mention more honest in general.

Also, the math doesn't work. Nobody dares cut Defense, VA, Social Security or Medicare spending because that's political suicide, but just those four (plus interest on the national debt) already exceed our tax revenues. Even if you managed to eliminate the entire rest of the govt without the obvious disastrous effects on the economy (and therefore tax revenues), you still couldn't balance the budget.


2010 CBO did report that tax revenues had been cut by $6T compared to baseline (which had all fed. debt retired by 2010) and spending increased by $6T compared to baseline for $12T budget gap ... nearly all of it happening after congress allowed the fiscal responsibility act (which required that spending not exceed revenues) to expire in 2002. In the middle of the last decade, the (US) comptroller general was including in speeches that nobody in congress was capable of middle school arithmetic (for how they were savaging the budget).

posts mentioning comptroller general
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

part of the $6T increase in spending over baseline was a little over $2T for DOD, $1+T for the two wars and not able to determine where the other $1+T went (up until 2010). The estimate for the two wars goes well over $5T when things like long-term veteran disability benefits factored in.

congress passed act that starting in 1996, required all gov. agencies pass a financial audit. so far the DOD has been unable to ... there are some projections that DOD may be able to pass a financial audit in 2017 ... over 20yrs late. see a few comments here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptroller_General_of_the_United_States

more comments here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

since 2010, tax revenue and spending seems to have continued on appox. same trajectory ... even with iraq and afghanistan winding down, DOD is fighting hard to not even eliminate that funding.

this is separate from issue that original justification of the war was to go in and take out al gaeda ... and then get out ... which didn't happen ... coupled with invasion of Iraq which was pure fabrication ... although Iraq may have been part of obfuscation and misdirection away from Saudis (but there are also reports that the new administration was already working on plans for iraq invasion before 9/11)

Murdoch's NY Post Backs Michael Moore's Bush-Saudi 9/11 Claims
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/16/murdochs-ny-post-backs-michael-moores-bush-saudi-911-claims/
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/

... and this is somebody that kept presenting evidence that Iraq invasion justification was fabricated ... and they treated her really badly
https://www.amazon.com/Classified-Woman-The-Sibel-Edmonds-Story-ebook/dp/B007XY8INW/

other recent post in this thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#85 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#32 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier

both iraq and afghanistan wars may also fit into the perpetual war scenario ... some past refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

part of strategy keeping funds flowing for the military industrial (congressional) complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 11:21:13 -0500
hancock4 writes:
I think before WW II, the US respected the privacy of international communications. But after being caught pants down at Pearl Harbor, the NSA's predecessors gained great importance. It did help a lot during the war. After 9/11, the intelligence community again gained great importance.

During the Nixon years, a plan by a Mr. Huston was floated on domestic intelligence. It was not approved. I can't help but suspect if that plan was proposed in the wake of 9/11 it would've been enthusiastically approved.


a little x-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#37 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

note that gathering everything whether you need it or not is big purchase items for the for-profit companies ... current statement is that 70% of the intelligence budget goes to for-profit companies and over half the people work for for-profit companies ... including the peroson involved in most recent incident expose.

the other scenario they have is that the big gov. contractors and beltway bandits have discovered that series of failures is bigger profit than immediate success (the intelligence industry is now also tightly intertwined with military industrial congressional complex)

mention of Success Of Failure scenarios
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

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

other x-over
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#33 60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism

it is bad enough that they have insider being able to walk away with enormous amounts of stuff ... but during the program they had him applying for job (before even being hired) stealing information from the interviewers computers to be able to have answers ready for the questions. that seems to reflect worse on the agency than it does on the individual

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

60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: 60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism
Date: 17 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#34 60 Minutes Puff Piece Claims NSA Saved U.S. From Cyberterrorism

The 5 Worst Problems with 60 Minutes' Love Note to the NSA
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/16/the_5_worst_problems_with_60_minutes_love_note_to_the_NSA

NSA and 60 Minutes: If You Want To Know The Culture of NSA This May Be Your Best Source
http://www.fedcyber.com/2013/12/16/nsa-and-60-minutes-if-you-want-to-know-the-culture-of-nsa-this-may-be-your-best-source/

more background

The Secret Story of How the NSA Began
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-secret-story-of-how-the-nsa-began/281862/
NSA: Listening to everyone — except oversight | The Great Debate
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/26/nsa-listening-to-everyone-except-oversight/
What I'm Reading Now: The Best Longform Journalism On The Web
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/best-longform-longreads_n_3624300.html
Building America's secret surveillance state | The Great Debate
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/10/building-americas-secret-surveillance-state/

The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

for other background ... Success Of Failure reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree
posts mentioning whistleblower
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower

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

ELP weighs in on the software issue:

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: ELP weighs in on the software issue:
Date: 17 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#28 ELP weighs in on the software issue:

one analysis has the F22 radar absorbing coating susceptible to weather and moisture ... limiting operations to clear skies. A better weather resistant radar absorbing coating was developed for f35 and reference to possibly retrofitting it to f22. one of the issues highlighted that anything involving the planes, there has to be constant hightech checking that the radar countermeasures haven't been compromised (not exactly anti-fragile)

Can the F-35 Win a Dogfight? The Air Force says it will have no choice but to send the sluggish stealth fighter into aerial battle
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/95462ccd6745
Dog, yes. Dogfighter, no
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/dog-yes-dogfighter-no.html
JSF Alternate Realities: ... and from whence they come
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-190209-1.html

analysis reference from previous post
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

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

other recent posts mentioning f-35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#62 America Is Basically Helpless Against The Chinese Hackers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#68 NBC's website hacked with malware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#45 A Matter of Mindset: Iraq, Sequestration and the U.S. Army
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#54 NBC's website hacked with malware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#64 NBC's website hacked with malware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#87 Not the Navy's Favorite Artist Rendering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#56 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#62 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#5 Lessons Learned from the Iraq War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#20 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#36 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#62 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#64 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#16 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#46 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#69 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#19 It was 30 Years Ago Today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#43 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#78 Has the US Lost Its Grand Strategic Mind?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#101 Boyd Blasphemy: Justifying the F-35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#15 Boyd Blasphemy: Justifying the F-35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#40 The Wall Street Code: HFT Whisteblower Haim Bodek on Algorithmic Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#55 Behind the Pentagon's doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#58 2 v 2 - How the Typhoon kills the F-35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#2 Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 20:30:42 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
part of the $6T increase in spending over baseline was a little over $2T for DOD, $1+T for the two wars and not able to determine where the other $1+T went (up until 2010). The estimate for the two wars goes well over $5T when long-term veteran disability benefits factored in.

congress passed act that starting in 1996, required all gov. agencies pass a financial audit. so far the DOD has been unable to ... there is some projections that DOD may be able to pass a financial audit in 2017 ... over 20yrs late. see a few comments here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptroller_General_of_the_United_States


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#37 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

and from today

Budget Deal Takes Pressure Off Pentagon to Cut Waste
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/12/budget-deal-takes-pressure-off-pentagon-to-cut-waste.html
Budget deal blows the Pentagon's diet
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/193284-budget-deal-blows-the-pentagons-diet

from above ... sequestration would only have cut budget back to the level it was at the peak of the two wars ...
Two years ago, Congress agreed to save roughly $1 trillion from the Pentagon's budget over the subsequent nine years -- a Pentagon budget that had more than doubled since 1998. The Budget Control Act's sequestration provision would only bring the military budget back down to 2006/2007 funding levels when the United States was engaged in two protracted ground wars.

... and
Currently, the Pentagon has 86 major defense systems under development. Those systems are estimated to cost a combined $1.6 trillion to develop and procure. When compared to the original cost estimates, those 86 programs have grown in cost by over $400 billion.

... snip ...

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

comptroller general
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 09:48:24 -0500
Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> writes:
... and the DoD doesn't even want many of those systems, nor many of the bases they have to keep open, but that was forced on them by politicians seeking pork for their constituents or lobbyists.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#37 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#41 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

DOD waste
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/dod-waste.html

the other scenario is there is lots of obfuscation and misdirection as to who (in the MICC) is pocketing the money

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

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

the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:11:12 -0500
Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
BSDs shipped sources. It was rather a matter of disentangling these sources from encumbered code. This took from ca 1988 until 1994, with a false start in 1993. We werent entirely sure the 1994 one was not a false start either until sometime in early 1995.

By the time Linux was becoming pretty mature, having been out to the general masses for nearly two years. I installed it first in october 1993, on a machine I still have.


lots of platforms were using tahoe4.3 for their tcp/ip stack. I still have tahoe4.3 distribution from 1989:
This is a distribution kit for the first release of the BSD networking software. This software is Copyright (c) 1989 The Regents of the University of California, but may be used and redistributed freely with due credit to the University; see the license agreement and/or the copyright notices in the individual files for details.

Each program is in a separate directory which contains both the source and the manual page(s) for the program. The kernel-related sources are under the sys directory, the include files meant for /usr/include are in the include directory, and the library routines are in the lib directory. Additional documentation is in the doc and man directories.


... snip ...

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

the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:12:33 -0500
Charlton Wilbur <cwilbur@chromatico.net> writes:
(BSD/OS was quite a nice system, but had a few quirks; the one I'd love to re-examine now that I have more experience was the decision to use static shared libraries. This caused me serious pain because I was trying to get clients on BSD/OS to talk to databases on Windows over ODBC -- because the difference between license fees for Microsoft SQL Server and a real database [as Postgres was in its infancy then, and MySQL was a joke, so it was Oracle, Sybase, or nothing] was more than I was paid in a year.)

... and microsoft sql started out life licensed from sybase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SQL_Server

other rdbms history covered in this ingres entry (from same univ. that brought you bsd)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_%28database%29

epstein was chief programmer on ingres and then left for britton lee. for a time, after epstein left britton lee, Britton & Lee were doing interviews in restaurant across cottle rd from bldg. 28 (where system/r was) ... looking to back-fill for epstein as cto. One of the people they managed to hire away tried hard to get me to go with him.

other trivia here
http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-Teradata.html

misc. past posts mentioning system/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

when we were doing ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

we were doing lots of work with the four major rdbms vendors at the time (oracle, ingres, informix, and sybase) getting them to support high-availability on ha/cmp platform.

I was also working on ha/cmp distributed lock manager ... and part of it was to provide semantics compatible with vax/cluster to make it easier for oracle & ingres to port their cluster support to ha/cmp (which was part of the same source base as their unix support).

both oracle & ingres had strong feelings about short comings in DEC's cluster implementation and feed into what i was doing on DLM (aka "ten things wrong with vax/cluster support"). recent posts mentioning DLM work:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#4 Oracle To IBM: Your 'Customers Are Being Wildly Overcharged'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#86 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#87 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#19 z/OS is antique WAS: Aging Sysprogs = Aging Farmers

years later Jim Gray shows up running Microsoft research in san francisco and some of the old crowd were working there.

I've mentioned before Jim (before he disappeared) even con'ed me into interviewing for chief security architect in redmond (went on for a course of couple of weeks, but could never come to agreement). past posts mentioning UCB event celebrating Jim
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#32 A Tribute to Jim Gray: Sometimes Nice Guys Do Finish First
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#36 A Tribute to Jim Gray: Sometimes Nice Guys Do Finish First
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27 Father Of Financial Dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#78 ATMs by the Numbers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#51 8 ways the American information worker remains a Luddite
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#4 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#13 Is the ATM still the banking industry's single greatest innovation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#21 Mainframe Hall of Fame (MHOF)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#85 Hashing for DISTINCT or GROUP BY in SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#80 Which building at Berkeley?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#32 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#28 Some interesting post about the importance of Security and what it means for the Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#64 IBM Is Changing The Terms Of Its Retirement Plan, Which Is Frustrating Some Employees
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#24 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#45 Why is the mainframe so expensive?

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

the nonsuckage of source, was MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: the nonsuckage of source, was MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 11:38:24 -0500
John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> writes:
Until about 1970, software was invariably distributed as source code. When IBM unbundled and starting charging for software, some wag noted

"If source is outlawed ... only outlaws will have source."


various litigation was largely responsible for IBM's 23jun69 unbundling announcement ... where they started charging for application software ... they did manage to make the case that kernel software should still be free. some past unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

in the early 70s IBM was doing the Future System effort to completely replace 360/370 ... during this period 370 efforts were being suspended and/or killed off ... and the lack of 370 products during this period is credited with giving clone processors a market foothold. some past future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

after future system imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back tino the 370 product pipelines. it was in this period that they also decided to start charging for kernel software (could be construed as reaction to the rise of clone processors). in the morph from cp67 to vm370 ... there was a lot of simplification ... and much of the work that I had done as undergraduate in the 60s ... and incorporated into cp67 ... was dropped

During the future system period I continued to work on 360 & 370s ... including moving a lot of my stuff from cp67 to vm370s ... as well as ridiculing FS activity (not exactly a career enhancing activity). some old email about move from cp67 to vm370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

the mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipelines contributed to decisions to pick up various of my stuff and ship in standard vm370 product (csc/vm mentioned in above was psuedo distributed product that I supported for internal datacenters). One of the pieces was my dynamic adaptive resource manager ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare

which was decided to package it as a separate kernel "add-on" as guinea pig for starting to charge for kernel software.

In the early 80s, the change-over finally was made to charge for all kernel software ... and that was about the time that the OCO-wars started (i.e. source was still being shipped, even after the change-over to charging for software ... but in the early 80s the decision was to stop shipping source and the move to "Object-Code-Only", again possibly motivated by clone processors in the market)

Tymshare had made their cms-based online computer conferencing free to SHARE as "VMSHARE" starting in Aug1976 ... archives here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

which includes some of the OCO-wars discussions from the 80s. ... exp vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse.cgi?fn=OBJECT&ft=MEMO
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse.cgi?fn=OCO&ft=PROB

Note that SHARE still sponsors customer contributed software libraries of "free" software ... that includes source
http://www.piercefuller.com/library/share.html

which still lives on with
http://www.cbttape.org/

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:16:50 -0500
Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> writes:
Huey Long once proposed a 100% tax on all income over a certain amount, with the proceeds distributed to those with less than that. THAT is a real leftist policy, though one could still go even further left. The Democrats today are nowhere near that sort of policy, even though Faux News panders to viewers like you by saying they are.

in the early 80s there was a call for 100% unearned profit tax on the US auto industry .... they had been posting quarters in the red prior to the import quotas ... the congressional claims for the quotas was that it would significantly reduce the competition, providing the US auto industry with significant/enormous profits which they were suppose to use to completely remake themselves. However, they just pocketed the money and continued business as usual. the reduced competition from foreign imports allowed them to sell more autos ... but also allowed significant increase in auto prices ... so a big part of the enormous increase in us auto profits was subsidy on the back of us public.

one of the unintended consequences of import quota and significantly increasing auto prices ... was that they went up faster than increase in us earnings ... so they had to change from typical 36m loans to 60m and 72m loans. the 60m and 72m loans were now for periods longer than car warranties (as well as typical car lifetime). Extending car warranties for lifetime of loan drove up warranty expenses because US auto quality was also not very good and if not outright failed tended to wear out fast.

as I've commented in the past, in 1990, the auto industry had C4 task force ... to look at the question of completely remaking themselves (something they were suppose to do a decade earlier and just ignored, however, foreign companies were starting to build plants in the US to get around the quotas). because they were planning on heavily leveraging technology as part of the make-over and so invited representatives of maker technology vendors. In the C4 meetings they could accurately describe the competition and changes needed to be made. however as can be seen they didn't make the changes and apparently still haven't.

posts mentioning C4 taskforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#auto.c4.taskforce

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 10:15:34 -0500
hancock4 writes:
As an aside, many years ago the first part of the driver's exam was to move forward on an upgrade. If you rolled backward, you flunked right there. Lots of people with manuals flunked that part back then. Today, plenty of people still roll back a bit on uphill grades after a stop.

When I was 8, i learned to drive a '38 1.5ton chevy truck ... manual double clutch (no synchromesh), engage the starter motor was pedal on the floor. I hated trying to start on uphill grade ... especially when the truck was loaded. However, worst was 500gal water tank chained down in the back, half full (little over ton), 30 miles dirt road with several gulleys ... the water sloshing from side-to-side making it harder to control.

riding bus, i still get slightly uneasy feeling stopping on uphill grade.

past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#44 Just wondering what precisely happened to this newsgroup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#60 Compressing the OODA-Loop - Removing the D (and maybe even an O)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#23 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#108 Apple's China Manufacturing blasted

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

Citigroup is the Real Reason We Need the Volcker Rule

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Citigroup is the Real Reason We Need the Volcker Rule
Date: 21 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/P2ZuMbMEaKY

Citigroup is the Real Reason We Need the Volcker Rule
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/tom-adams-citigroup-real-reason-need-volcker-rule.html

note that end of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail were carrying "off-book" $5.2T in toxic assets (making the $700B appropriated in TARP for purchase of toxic assets a joke) ... and Citi was carrying the largest of the four. At the time, the "mark-to-market" was 22cents on the dollar ... TARP funds were switched to "loans" ... and the FED Reserve began buying the toxic assets for 98cents on the dollar.

just four largest too big to fail carrying $5.2T off-book ye2008
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home
toxic assets for 22cents on the dollar
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB121763136297705935.html

posts mentioning toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo
posts mentioning too-big-to-fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech revolution

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech  revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 15:54:46 -0500
hancock4 writes:
In the 1970s, I remember FORTRAN programmers arguing about machine efficiency (on a big System/360) of logical IFs vs. arithmetic IFs; claiming arithmetic IFs were more efficient. Indeed, with one compsci professor we were only allowed to use arithmetic IFs for that reason. AFAIK, on S/360 and later, there isn't any difference, use the one best suited for the task at hand.

person at PASC that did the apl microcode assist for 370/145 ... also did a lot of optimizing technology for the internal fortq in the late 70s ... which eventually shipped to customers (as fortran hx)

a lot of compiler products were being moved to the santa teresa lab. ... and then in the early 80s, they decided to outsource the PL/I compiler to outside company ... as well technology transfer to the outside company of all sorts of internal compiler optimization technology (fortran, pascal, pl.8, etc) ... which created some amount of uproar inside the company. past posts referencing the outsourcing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#71 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#41 Quote on Slashdot.org

pl.8 has various optimizations for 801/risc ... including stuffing something in delayed branch slot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_slot

old email compare perq, 68k, 3033, pascal/vs & pl.8 doing pascal syntax
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email810808

past posts mentioning fortq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#1 WATFOR's Silver Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#52 Disk drives as commodities. Was Re: Yamhill
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#21 "Super-Cheap" Supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#32 Alpha performance, why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#6 a history question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#22 Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#28 floating point, was history of RPG, Fortran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#87 Gee... I wonder if I qualify for "old geek"?

... and ... note the following is interesting because I don't see the memo in the current archives
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/
Date: 12/28/81 09:51:16
From: wheeler
To: distribution

from latest VMSHARE


MEMO USERGPRS - 36 lines

. . . .

Name:   SEAS VM Regional Committee (UK & Ireland)
Area:   United Kingdom and Irish Republic
Chair:  Steve Tunstall (_RL)
Secr:   Stuart McRae  (_IC)
Motto:  VM users do it virtually all the time

. . . .

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

also on the Japanese front: Have heard reports that Japanese have come out with a new FORTRAN compiler that is somewhere between a little bit better to a whole lot better than Palo Alto's FORTQ. This compares to the report of IBM's new FORTRAN compiler where either OPT doesn't work (or at least parameter is recognized and nothing is done). . . . From Sunday's San Jose Mercury News:

Going from personal computers to the larger maineframe computers, IF is advising clients that we could see the Japanese mount a full-scale assault -- greater than generally recoqnized -- on such big computer makers as IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell and the Univac division of Sperry Rand.

Its basis for this view: (1) Two Japanese corporate giants -- Fujitsu and Hitachi -- recently appointed computer engineers as presidents, in the process passing over others thought to be in line; (2) though the Japanese already have IBM-compatible equipment, meaning they use IBM software, they are nevertheless putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of their own software.

This implies they plan to sell upgraded computer systems embracing just about everything, greatly enhancing their competitive position at the quality level.

Accordingly, IBM and others could be in for much tougher sledding.

-- Dan Dorfman is financial writer based in New York

... snip ...

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

Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
Date: 21 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Exclusive: Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220

from above:
As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.
... snip ...

in the mid-80s, was doing some high-speed networking and company required all links be encrypted ... could get units for T1 but they were really expensive ... and above T1, they were really, really hard to find ... that was when I got involved in doing our own ... objective was to handle several mbytes/sec and cost less then $100. At first the crypto group said it significantly compromised crypto strength ... it took 3months to learn the right words to explain to them what it did (rather than compromised, it significantly increased crypto strength). That was when I realized that there was 3 kinds of crypt 1) those they don't care about, 2) those you can't do, and 3) those you can only do for them ... when they said I could make as many as I wanted but there was only one place that could use them (and it wasn't me)

later we had been brought in as consultant to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce" (all the implementations did make use of the RSA BSAFE crypto library).

somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. Resulting X9.59 standard demonstrated only needing very strong authentication for integrity (eliminating need for encryption & SSL, however also eliminated need for digital certificates and PKI as well as using very strong EC/DSA rather than RSA).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

In presentations to the agency, they seemed to like the elimination of encryption, but didn't like the part about no longer needing PKI and digital certificates ... and expressed a concern what if somebody used the EC/DSA crypto software for encryption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_DSA

recent posts mentioning 3 kinds of crypto
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#31 The Vindication of Barb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#69 The failure of cyber defence - the mindset is against it
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#77 German infosec agency warns against Trusted Computing in Windows 8
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#88 NSA and crytanalysis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#10 "NSA foils much internet encryption"

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

U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
Date: 21 Dec, 2013
Blog: Boyd and Beyond
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#85 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#32 U.S. Sidelined as Iraq Becomes Bloodier

9/11 Families 'Ecstatic' They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia
http://news.yahoo.com/9-11-families-39-ecstatic-39-finally-sue-222121660--abc-news-topstories.html

from above:
An attempt to Saudi Arabia in 2002 was blocked by a federal court ruling that said the kingdom had sovereign immunity. That ruling was reversed Thursday by a three-judge federal panel.

... snip ...

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

Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
Date: 22 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#50 Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

Trust the math? An Update
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6522

disclaimer: In the 80s, I reported to YKT research ... even tho they let me live in silicon valley (and commute to east coast a couple times a month). Person responsible for DES was there as was one of the people responsible for ECC.

for a little topic drift ... part of x9.59 financial transaction standard was to tweak the current paradigm so that data from previous transactions isn't useful to crooks (it doesn't do anything about data breaches, it just eliminates the risk & threat from majority of financial related data breaches). A couple characterization of the current paradigm (crooks can use information from previous transactions to perform fraudulent financial transactions ... a form of replay attack):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

dual-use ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world

security proportional to risk ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times.

aka since x9.59 integrity was achieved with strong authentication it was no longer necessary to hide the information ... which also eliminated the necessity to hide the information during transmission (with SSL).

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2013 12:11:37 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
That would be tough. What was the water for?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#47 The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

cattle ... open range ... it was unusually dry ... i think wheat yield dropped below 3bushels/acre that year.

My job at roundup that year ... I had large tin can of disinfectant with spout ... my job was to squirt it where needed ... branded, neutered and dehorned ... you had to watch cutting off the horns there could be squirt of blood several feet.

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

Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Dec 2013 10:06:52 -0800
PaulGBoulder@AIM.COM (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
ATTACH/DETACH appeared contemporaneously with TSO!? I'm astonished! I'd have guessed they were much older, perhaps even aboriginal OS/360. Was there no multiprocessing mechanism older than TSO? RYO, I suppose. That's what I understand JES and CICS (others?) do.

attach/detach predated tso ... but TCB overhead (and other os/360 services) was/is really heavyweight and so most subsystems attempted to avoid using as much of os/360 as possible (not just TCB)

hasp ran as its own subsystem. at univ, i hacked hasp for mvt 15/16 (joint release because 15 was slipping) to put in 2741/tty terminal support and wrote editor supporting the cp67/cms syntax (complete rewrite since environments were so different) ... as enhanced CRJE (thot it was much better than later tso) ... also removed unneeded code (including 2780) in hasp to reduce the real storage footprint. misc. past posts mentioning HASP (and hasp&jes2 networking)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp

CICS ran as its own single task ... doing everything it could to avoid os/360 services ... because they were too heavyweight and too much overhead. univ. library got ONR grant for online catalog ... used part of the money to buy 2321 datacell. Project was also selected as betatest site for original cics product ... and i got tasked with cics support/debug. running as single os/360 task (and doing its own scheduling internally) was one of the reasons why CICS was so long in coming up/out with multiprocessor support (it ran its own internal multithreaded scheduler ... but single TCB would only dispatch on single cpu). in early part of century, i know some installations that ran over hundred CICS instances as a work around to lack of multiprocessor support. cics would also do all its opens at startup and simulate its own open/close. misc. past posts mentioning cics (&/or bdam)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics

cics history gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20080123061613/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm
cics multiprocessor exploitation 2004
https://web.archive.org/web/20090107054344/http://www.yelavich.com/history/ev200402.htm

univ had 709/1401 where 1401 was unit record front-end for 709 ... with tapes being manually moved between 1401 & 709 drives. 709 ran tape-to-tape and student fortran job typically took under a second elapsed time. univ. was convinced to buy 360/67 as replacement tss/360. tss/360 never quite made it to production so machine ran as 360/65 as most of the time.

initial transition to 360/65 with os/360 ... the student fortran jobs were taking over a minute (3step fortran g compile linkedit and . introduction of hasp got it down close to 30 seconds. I started doing careful reordered stage2 sysgens with release 11 (optimized arm seek and pds directory placement) which got nearly 3fold increase. part of presentation at 1968 FALL SHARE (also includes some numbers of major rewrite I had done for cp67)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18

aka ... nearly all the elapsed time was job scheduler overhead. Leading up to release 11 ... IBM senior SE on the account was writing a single step monitor that used attach (trying to do compile, link-edit and execute w/o having to go through job step scheduling). However, in that timeframe we installed WATFOR ... which would do fortran compile and execute multiple student jobs in single step. On 360/65 w/hasp it ran about 20,000 "cards" per minute.

vanilla os/360 w/hasp ran 3-step student fortran jobs about 35seconds elapsed

one stop monitor (using attach) could have got it down around 12seconds elapsed

watfor one-step could do 100 jobs in about 20seconds elapsed

on my customed hand-built system could be further reduce to about 12seconds for 100 jobs with WATFOR.

aka job scheduler was enormously disk arm intensive ... along with heavy use of multi-load transient SVCs ... being brought in 2k at a time.

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

Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Dec 2013 11:17:49 -0800
dskwire@MINDSPRING.COM (Daniel Skwire) writes:
Multiprocessing support earlier than TSO?

It was before my time, but I read and heard plenty about "MVT/MP65", which predates TSO's rollout by a couple years, I think.

MP65 had challenges: "sympathy sickness" where a CPU problem took down both CPUs in the complex, kinda sorta anti-redundancy, if you will. Cured by MVS Alternate CPU recovery.

Serialization? Not so good with TEST and SET, I think it was called. Much better with Compare and Swap, etc.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#54 Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?

lots of problems with 360/65 mp which did have shared memory ... but no shared i/o ... dedicated processor channels simulated multiprocessor i/o by connecting processor-specific channels to different "tails" on multi-tail control unit. also 360/65 os/360 mp support used test&set for very gross level spin-lock (significantly exacerbating any recovery scenarios). at the time, ibm definition of mp was that the system could be (manually) partitioned into two independently running systems (when 3081 came out the new term was dyadic, since it was not possible to run the two processors independently)

360/67 mp not only had shared memory but all processors could access all channels. also mp hardware configuration settings were visible to software in control registers and even some 360/67 were built where RAS software could change the hardware configuration by updating the control register values ... a little more like some of the FAA 360 RAS. 360/67
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/GA27-2719-2_360-67_funcChar.pdf

charlie invented compare and swap (mnemonic chosen because CAS are his initials) when he was doing fine-grain multiprocessor locking for cp67 ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

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

initial attempts to get compare&swap included in 370 were rebuffed, the 370 architecture owners saying that the POK favorite son operating system people claimed that test&set was more than sufficient. the 370 architecture owners said to get it included, needed justification based on uses other than multiprocessor locking. thus was born the examples for multiprogramming/multithreading serialization by large applications that might be enabled for interrupts (useful whether or not application was running in multiprocessor environment) ... examples still found in principles of operation
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/A.6?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320

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

Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 22 Dec 2013 17:15:56 -0800
dskwire@MINDSPRING.COM (Daniel Skwire) writes:
I thought the FAA had special hybrid 6 computer systems, 3 x 2 way MPs?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#54 Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#55 Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?

IBM 9020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_9020

from above:
The IBM 9020A, for example, was based on the System 360/50 and the 9020D used 2 out of 3 or 4 360/65 processors for flight and radar data processing with 2 out of 3 360/50 processors providing input/output capability.

... and
The 9020As and 9020Ds were in service in North America until 1989 when they were finally replaced by IBM 3083 BX1 mainframes as part of the FAA's HOST upgrade.

... snip ...

the wiki entry also references IBM system journal article from 1967: "An application-oriented multiprocessing system, Part II: Design characteristics of the 9020 system" ... they have been moved behind paywall at IEEE.

couple trivia.

originally there wasn't any plans for 3083 ... just 3081 as dyadic and pair of 3081s for 4-way 3084. big problem was that ACP/TPF (airline control program renamed transaction processing facility) didn't have multiprocessor support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_Processing_Facility

there initially was some very unnatural things done to vm370 for running on 3081 multiprocessor done to improve throughput of TPF running in virtual machine ... that turned out to degrade the multiprocessor throughput of almost every other customer.

eventually there was decision to remove one of the processors in the 3081 cabinet to come up with 3083. a problem was that everything was wired for processor0 (the non-removed processor) was at the top of the cabinet, just removing processor1 in the middle of the cabinet left the box dangerously top heavy.

there was lots of concern that all the TPF customers would all move to clone processor vendors ... which had faster, more modern single processor machines. the other issue was the significant competitive issues with the 308x technology compared to clone competition ... discussed in some detail here:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

both 3033 & 3081 were mad rush efforts in the wake of the failure of FS project ... using some over technology warmed over from FS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

TPF eventually did come up with multiprocessor support ... didn't take quite as long as it took for CICS to come up with smp support (2004).

..

the scientific center ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

started its virtual machine / virtual memory effort before standard 360/67 was available ... so they first tried to get a 360/50 to do their own hardware modifications to support virtual memory ... however all the spare 360/50s were going to FAA ... so they had to settle for 360/40. comments was that they were glad they got 360/40 since the hardware changes for virtual memory support was much simpler than what they would have had to do for 360/50. thus was born original cp40/cms ... some description
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/cp40seas1982.txt

cp40/cms later morphs into cp67/cms ... which then morphs into vm370.

..

there were a number of FAA modernization efforts ... several of them not making to fruition. when we were doing ha/cmp product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

we got pulled into doing some project reviews. one such involved triple-redundant hardware and the people writing the application software were told that they didn't have to program for errors or failures ... since the system would mask all faults to the application level. the problem was that there are a number of (flight control) business process level failures that still had to programmed for.

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

Beyond Snowden: A New Year's Wish For A Better Debate

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Beyond Snowden: A New Year's Wish For A Better Debate
Date: 22 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Beyond Snowden: A New Year's Wish For A Better Debate
http://rethinkingsecurity.tumblr.com/post/70327880853/beyond-snowden-a-new-years-wish-for-a-better-debate

Success of Failure
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

congressional investigation resulted in putting the agency on probation and not allowed to manage its own projects ... which supposedly would have continued up until recently. the supposed "whistleblower" was treated really badly and charged with all sorts of serious crimes ... all of which were recently dropped (it might be interpreted as retribution for threat to careers ... unrelated to threat to agency).

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

I've periodically referred to not understanding how so much material could have walked away. Part of this could be considered increasing privatization of intelligence and push for profit. "Spies Like Us"
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us/

from above:
Private contractors like Booz Allen now reportedly garner 70 percent of the annual $80 billion intelligence budget and supply more than half of the available manpower.

... snip ...

How Booz Allen Hamilton Swallowed Washington
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-23/visualizing-how-booz-allen-hamilton-swallowed-washington

Note that private equity companies have been putting the loans (to do the reverse-IPO) on the purchased companies' books ... which puts the companies under intense pressure to service the debt load ... frequently cutting all sorts of corners to meet financial objectives ... "More than half of the companies that defaulted on their debt that year were either previous or currently owned by private equity firms"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html

Note the statements about instituting multi-party operations ... multi-party operations have been widely-used standard countermeasure to insider threats from at least the dawn of computers. why they weren't in use during this incident is more than little bewildering. In the early 80s, collusion was increasingly common counter to multi-party operations ... so there were increasing efforts for anti-collusion measures. Financial industry anti-collusion measures include things like enforced, staggered vacations.

there is lot making the rounds about cbs 60mins piece was seriously flawed ... as well as possibly *everything* walked out the door.

Former whistleblowers: open letter to intelligence employees after Snowden | Thomas Drake, Daniel Ellsberg, Katharine Gun, Peter Kofod, Ray McGovern, Jesselyn Radack, Coleen Rowley
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/whistleblowers-open-letter-after-snowden-revelations

from above:
Numerous ex-NSA officials have come forward in the past decade, disclosing massive fraud, vast illegalities and abuse of power in said agency, including Thomas Drake, William Binney and Kirk Wiebe. The response was 100% persecution and 0% accountability by both the NSA and the rest of government.

... snip ...

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

also 2007 Success of Failure .... Who broke the law, Snowden or the NSA?
http://chicagodefender.com/2013/12/18/who-broke-the-law-snowden-or-the-nsa/

from above:
When NSA employees Bill Binney, Tom Drake, Diane Roark and I submitted a formal complaint about mismanagement at the agency, the government's response on July 26, 2007, was to send the FBI to raid our homes, searching them for seven hours and seizing our computers, phones and other digital media. We are just now getting our property back after having successfully sued the government in December 2012.

... snip ...

possibly somewhat related ... Office of Special Counsel Releases Report Confirming Misconduct by Then-Agency Head Scott Bloch
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/12/office-of-special-counsel-releases-report.html

there was public IARPA BAA (iarpa.gov, we didn't know it at the time for various reasons, it was early in the period leading up to Success of failure) from somebody at the agency, saying that none of the stuff they had did the job. We didn't even know about the BAA ... but on the last day we got a call asking us to respond before it closed (in part because nobody else had). There was a couple meetings about how we would be able to do what was required ... and then nothing. Later we were told that the higher ups had told the BAA author that he actually hadn't proved (to their satisfaction) that what they have wouldn't do the job. As in Success Of Failure stories, there are lot of large for-profit companies and other vested interests interested in maintaining the status quo (conjecture that he was allowed to release the BAA in anticipation of no response, which would help shutdown his complaining).

note: was actually precursor to iarpa
https://web.archive.org/web/20050828171703/http://www.ic-arda.org/about_arda.htm
now
http://www.iarpa.gov/whatis.html

This says that the whole sysadmin may have misdirection, everybody with ts/sci has access to everything with no record of who does what (there was some report that there are around million with ts) "The National Security Agency's oversharing problem"
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/the-national-security-agencys-oversharing-problem/

Report Suggests NSA Engaged In Financial Manipulation, Changing Money In Bank Accounts
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131218/14533925607/intelligence-task-force-hints-nsa-manipulating-financial-systems-changing-amounts-bank-accounts.shtml
The NSA review panel didn't answer the real question: was any of this legal?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/nsa-review-panel-report-legal-questions
Officials' defenses of NSA phone program may be unraveling
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-defenses-of-nsa-phone-program-may-be-unraveling/2013/12/19/6927d8a2-68d3-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html
NSA Program Stopped No Terrorist Attacks
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/20/nsa-program-stopped-no-terrorist-attacks/
NSA program stopped no terror attacks, says White House panel member
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/19/21975158-nsa-program-stopped-no-terror-attacks-says-white-house-panel-member

recent extended interview with Drake ... whistleblower in the Success of Failure case:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-02-231213.html

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

US a laggard in adopting more secure credit cards

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: US a laggard in adopting more secure credit cards
Date: 23 Dec, 2013
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
also facebook ...
https://www.facebook.com/lynn.wheeler/posts/10202192468348794

US a laggard in adopting more secure credit cards
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/21/212411/us-a-laggard-in-adopting-more.html

There was a large pilot program of the chip cards in the US at the start of the century ... but it was in the Yes Card period .... old reference to presentation at Cartes 2002 (gone 404 but lives on at the wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20030417083810/http://www.smartcard.co.uk/resources/articles/cartes2002.html

that reference it was nearly as easy to clone a Yes Card as a magstripe card ... and the fraud from Yes Card was much worse than magstripe card (i.e. Yes Card could force transactions to be done offline so online rules turning off the account or limiting transaction size had no effect).

In the wake of the Yes Card revelations ... the pilot seem to evaporate without a trace (it seemed like US was going to wait while newer versions were well vetted in other places before trying again).

note: we pointed out the problem before the deployment ... but were ignored. Part of the issue was that the chipcard people were myopically focused on direct chip attacks. The attack was skimming at POS terminals and using the information for creating clone card (effectively same skimming technology used against magstripe cards).

and of course our AADS chip strawman had none of those vulnerabilities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

No (not a case of NIH) the US had a very large pilot ... but it turned out the chip was seriously flawed and had to be totally shutdown. The UK deployment involved much smaller population so the cost for mistaken technology is much less. It would be enormous cost to have potential series of large deployments of mistaken technology.

The other issue was that specific mistaken technology was POS only ... and didn't address the internet. There was completely different large pilots in the US involving different chip technology for the internet ... which floundered for a variety of other reasons.

I'm biased since in the mid-90s in the x9a10 financial standard working group we were required to address *ALL* retail payments ... and had to address all the fraud scenarios that other implementations seemed to ignore.

Note europe were doing a lot with chips in the early 90s for payments as alternative to the lack &/or highcost of telco/online (not security). Lots of the European/UK solutions were "stored value" and the US responded with "online" gift/merchant stored-value magstripe cards (telco in the US was abundant and inexpensive).

In the mid-90s I was asked to design/size/cost the backend dataprocessing supporting one such EURO chipcard deployment for the US. As part of the cost analysis, I showed that specific (as well as other EURO) implementation was based on the "float" in the stored-value system. Not long later, the EURO central banks said that the operators would have to start paying interest on the value in the system ... and the float incentive disappeared ... and so did most of those systems.

About the same time in the x9a10 financial standard group we were designing standard and chip that would have none of the short comings and vulnerabilities of these other designs.

the other part was in the UK, the associations changed the dispute burden of proof for chip transactions ... as incentive to institutions to put in supporting infrastructure (which would violate reg-e in the us). I've been contacted by legal representative of UK individual (about chip vulnerabilities) involved in dispute about chip ATM withdrawal ... with the burden of proof on the individual ... it is their responsibility to produce the surveillance video proving that they didn't do it (the institution isn't required to produce the video proving they did do it).

past posts mentioning Yes Card
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

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

Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
Date: 23 Dec, 2013
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2082268/target-breach-likely-involved-inside-knowledge-experts-say.html

Past stats have claimed that insiders are in involved in 70% of incidents.

Target credit card data theft gets worse
http://www.tgdaily.com/security/83541-target-credit-card-data-theft-gets-worse

Target says sorry again, offers 10% off and free credit monitoring; CEO takes to the Web to report shoppers' PINs, birth dates, and SSNs are safe.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/target-says-sorry-again-offers-10-off-and-free-credit-monitoring/

US banks move to limit Target debit card breach damage
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25493536

we were tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature act. A lot of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys. The #1 issue was identity theft, primarily of the form of fraudulent financial transactions as the result of breaches and there was little or nothing being done about the breaches. An issue is normally an entity/institution takes security measures to protect themselves, In the case of the breaches, the institution wasn't at risk ... it was their customers. It was hoped that the publicity from the breach notifications would prompt breach countermeasures.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

Note in the years since the cal. state breach notification act there have been numerous federal (state preemption) acts introduced ... about evenly divided between those similar to the cal. act and those that would effectively eliminate any requirement for notification

long ago and far away, we had been brought in as consultant to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce"

somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. Resulting X9.59 standard demonstrated only needing very strong authentication for integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

part of x9.59 financial transaction standard was to tweak the current paradigm so that data from previous transactions isn't useful to crooks (it doesn't do anything about data breaches, it just eliminates the risk & threat from majority of financial related data breaches, also eliminates major motivation for crooks doing data breaches). A couple characterization of the current paradigm (crooks can use information from previous transactions to perform fraudulent financial transactions ... a form of replay attack):

dual-use ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world

security proportional to risk ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times.

aka since x9.59 integrity was achieved with strong authentication it was no longer necessary to hide the information ... which also eliminated the necessity to hide the information during transmission (with SSL).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

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

Target Offers Free Credit Monitoring Following Security Breach

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Target Offers Free Credit Monitoring Following Security Breach
Date: 23 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Target Offers Free Credit Monitoring Following Security Breach
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/target-says-sorry-again-offers-10-off-and-free-credit-monitoring/

1) start of century, there was large pilot in the US of the chipcards (point-of-sale specific) ... unfortunately it was in the Yes Card period (characterized as spending billions to prove chips are less secure than magstripe) resulting in the whole thing appearing to evaporate w/o trace ... some evidence that there is wait to make sure there won't be whole series of deployments having chips with mistakes. posts mentioning Yes Card
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

2) in UK the associations reversed burden of proof in dispute (in US would violate reg-e) involving these chips as incentive to institutions & merchants to deploy the infrastructure. In the past I was contacted by UK legal representative of individual that was involved in dispute over ATM cash withdrawal ... and since it involved chip, it was up to the individual to produce the surveillance video proving he didn't do it (as opposed to the institution producing the video proving he did do it).

3) internet specific ... at the start of the century there was a number of internet "safe" payment products produced that found acceptance among merchants accounting for 70% of transactions. for decades merchants of been indoctrinated that their interchange fee had significant surcharge proportional to associated fraud rate and the merchants were expected an order of magnitude drop in their interchange fee, however the financial institutions explained that they were inverting the relationship and would add another surcharge for the "safe" products on top of the highest interchange fee merchants were already paying ... resulting in a massive amount of cognitive dissonance and the whole thing imploded (many large institutions have around half their bottom line from these interchange payment fees, reducing that by order-of-magnitude would be a big hit).

4)if fraud in the current payment structure was fixed (where financial institutions make significant profit from merchants and the associated interchange fees), crooks are likely to move in mass to the next lowest hanging fruit ... which is opening new accounts using synthentic IDs (not tied to any real individual) ... where the financial institutions would solely libel (no other institution to charge it off to).

note in the UK, people were also told to report fraudulent financial transactions to the institution ... not the police, and the institution would decide whether to report it to the police.

Note europe were doing a lot with chips in the early 90s for payments as alternative to the lack &/or highcost of telco/online (not security). Lots of the European/UK solutions were "stored value" and the US responded with "online" gift/merchant stored-value magstripe cards (telco in the US was abundant and inexpensive).

In the mid-90s I was asked to design/size/cost the backend dataprocessing supporting one such EURO chipcard deployment for the US. As part of the cost analysis, I showed that specific (as well as other EURO) implementation was based on the "float" in the stored-value system. Not long later, the EURO central banks said that the operators would have to start paying interest on the value in the system ... and the float incentive disappeared ... and so did most of those systems.

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 20:41:13 -0500
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Unless there was some reason for you to remember, he could have made up a plausible location and you wouldn't know the difference. I guaranty that I don't know where I was on every random day of my life, not even to the nearest state.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#20 Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

we hardly went anywhere so it would be pretty easy ... however it is one of those things i didn't want to find anything about (definitly not enuf to tell whether they could or couldn't).

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

Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why IBM chose MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!' made30yearsagotoday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2013 00:37:34 -0500
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Are you sure that you're not thinking of the 486? My recollection wa that the 80386 had no floating point; you needed an 80387 for that, and that the 486 had integrated floating point rather than a coprocessor, with an alternate chip missing the floating point.

386 ... no floating point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386

fall of 88, far east clone vendors had built up enormous inventory of 286 systems expecting to sell them all that fall for xmas season ... then low cost 386sx was introduces (with 16bit bus) ... which took over the market ... and there was an enormous fire sale on those 286 systems at huge discount.

486 ... had integrated floating point (aka 487) ... however there was a "low-cost" 486sx w/o floating point ... it was actually a 486 with the floating point zapped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486

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

What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2013 11:39:03 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
congress passed act that starting in 1996, required all gov. agencies pass a financial audit. so far the DOD has been unable to ... there is some projections that DOD may be able to pass a financial audit in 2017 ... over 20yrs late. see a few comments here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptroller_General_of_the_United_States


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#37 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#41 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#42 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?

last in 3part series on DOD accounting

UNACCOUNTABLE The high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping.

Broken Fixes: Why the Pentagon's many campaigns to clean up its accounts are failing
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part3

previous

Number Crunch: How the Pentagon's payroll quagmire traps America's soldiers
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part1
Faking it: Behind the Pentagon's doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part2

note recent references about the $1T drawdown for DOD budget over the next decade ... is from its peak (with $2+T plus added) ... and the comments about hollowing out US military would seem to be that all the cuts planned are active duty and not the fraud & waste (which would have big impact on the profit of the industrial component of MICC).

posts mentioning military industrial complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

other references:

Behind the Pentagon's doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101206230
How Badly Things Are Broken With Our Defense
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2013/11/is-us-defense-department-broken.html
Pentagon Guilty Of Billion-Dollar Accounting Fraud, Reveals Reuters Investigation
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/18/5117816/pentagon-guilty-of-billion-dollar-accounting-fraud-reveals-reuters
five Myths Of The Modern Military
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2013/11/5-current-myths-for-us-military-planners.html
five myths of the modern military
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/11/16/2893233/5-myths-of-the-modern-military.html
It's Not Just Navy Admirals Being Naughty -- The Pentagon's Got a Major Behavior Problem The "Fat Leonard" scandal is symptomatic
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/cb99cf3556da
The U.S. Is Still A Superpower (For Now)
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-us-is-still-superpower-for-now.html
Pentagon's Bosses Thwart Accurate Audit Of DOD's Main Accounting Office
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2013/11/spending-pentagons-money.html
Five Insanely Wasteful Projects the Pentagon is Spending Your Money On
http://www.policymic.com/articles/74159/5-insanely-wasteful-projects-the-pentagon-is-spending-your-money-on

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

"Death of the mainframe"

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 10:34:15 -0500
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
InfoWorld is on Google Books with full view. A search on the words unplug the last mainframe turned up Stewart Alsop referring to the prediction in 1993, but not the prediction itself, so I'm browsing individual issues, starting with the month of March.

part of the issue was in the mid-80s, top IBM executives were predicting that IBM revenue was going to double ... primarily based on mainframe sales ... and there was huge internal building program to double mainframe product manufacturing capacity ... even tho that business was already starting to head in the opposite direction ... pointing that out wasn't exactly career enhancing.

about that time, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at a communication group annual, world-wide, internal conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance ... but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. the issue was that the communication group had corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed the datacenter walls and were fiercely protecting their dumb terminal paradigm and install base ... fighting off client/server and distributed computing. The disk division was seeing the effects with downturn in disk sales as data was fleeing the datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms. The disk division had come up with several solutions to reverse the problem, but they were constantly vetoed by the disk division.

a few years later, the company had gone into the red ... and the same executives had reorganized the company into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company. time magazine stories from 12/28/92 ... including "fall of ibm" article "How IBM Was Left Behind"
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html

The board then brings in Gerstner to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... by redirecting the company into services ... including acquiring lots of consulting & services companies ... all hardware products now only accounts for something like 17% of corporate revenue ... and of that mainfame processor sales has been running only 4-5% of the total.

after the initial flight from mainframe datacenters, what was left was small core of mainframe customers with large, very high value legacy applications ... mostly in the financial industry ... the risk of convert/migrating them was higher than continuing to pay a large premium for mainframe hardware

past posts mentioning gerstner
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

one might conjecture that the wallstreet financial industry was instrumental in getting the board to bring in Gerstner (who came from the financial industry) ... to keep those mainframe processors coming. However, the resulting IBM was heavily oriented towards large compensation for top executives ... heavily loaded with culture similar to the too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
and private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity

recent threads with Gerstner history, too big to fail, private equity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#20 Louis V. Gerstner Jr. lays out his post-IBM life
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#26 Louis V. Gerstner Jr. lays out his post-IBM life
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist

for other drift there has been discussion in some IBM groups about IBM using stock buybacks and other measures as propping up share price (and boosting top executive compensation).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#60 Retirement Heist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#37 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#84 3Q earnings are becoming the norm at IBM. What is IBM management overlooking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#85 How do you feel about IBM passing off it's retirees to ObamaCare?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#1 IBM board OK repurchase of another $15B of stock
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#60 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#14 Microsoft, IBM lobbying seen killing key anti-patent troll proposal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#15 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#16 IBM Shrinks - Analysts Hate It

Stockman in "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" pg464/loc9995-10000:

IBM was not the born-again growth machine trumpeted by the mob of Wall Street momo traders. It was actually a stock buyback contraption on steroids. During the five years ending in fiscal 2011, the company spent a staggering $67 billion repurchasing its own shares, a figure that was equal to 100 percent of its net income.

pg465/10014-17:
Total shareholder distributions, including dividends, amounted to $82 billion, or 122 percent, of net income over this five-year period. Likewise, during the last five years IBM spent less on capital investment than its depreciation and amortization charges, and also shrank its constant dollar spending for research and development by nearly 2 percent annually.

... snip ...

other recent posts mentioning the "baby blues" reorg in preparation for breaking up IBM:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#76 mainframe "selling" points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#53 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#11 relative mainframe speeds, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#20 Y2K hacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#33 IBM Spent A Million Dollars Renovating And Staffing Its Former CEO's Office
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#35 Ex-Bailout Watchdog: JPMorgan's Actions "Entirely Consistent With Fraud"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#76 IBM Spent A Million Dollars Renovating And Staffing Its Former CEO's Office
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#17 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#79 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#46 As an IBM'er just like the Marines only a few good men and women make the cut,
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#63 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#43 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#40 The Mainframe is "Alive and Kicking"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#77 IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#7 IBM commitment to academia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#14 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#17 Should we, as an industry, STOP using the word Mainframe and find (and start using) something more up-to-date
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#28 Flag bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#29 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#31 China mulls probe into IBM, Oracle, EMC after NSA hack claims - report
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for those that have never seen them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#6 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#35 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#46 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#66 NSA Revelations Kill IBM Hardware Sales In China
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#17 z/OS is antique WAS: Aging Sysprogs = Aging Farmers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#78 wtf ? - was Catalog system for Unix et al

recent posts mentioning prediction that communication group was going to be responsible for demise of disk division (and major factor in the whole IBM and mainframe downturn):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#75 mainframe "selling" points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#32 Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#57 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#75 Still not convinced about the superiority of mainframe security vs distributed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#76 IBM Spent A Million Dollars Renovating And Staffing Its Former CEO's Office
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#17 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#58 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#17 Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 50-Pound Portable PC, 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#34 What Makes code storage management so cool?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#10 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#44 Teletypewriter Model 33
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#49 The Original IBM Basic Beliefs for those that have never seen them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#5 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#78 wtf ? - was Catalog system for Unix et al

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 11:08:55 -0500
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=vjsEAAAAMBAJ


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"

issue is 22Feb1993 ... which is only two months after 28Dec1992 article about IBM reorg into 13 "Baby Blues" in preparation for breaking up the company.

Gerster isn't brought into IBM until April1993 to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner,_Jr.

posts mentioning Gerstner
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

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

Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
Date: 26 Dec, 2013
Blog: Information Security Network
Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2082268/target-breach-likely-involved-inside-knowledge-experts-say.html

Past stats have claimed that insiders are in involved in 70% of incidents.

Target credit card data theft gets worse
http://www.tgdaily.com/security/83541-target-credit-card-data-theft-gets-worse

Target says sorry again, offers 10% off and free credit monitoring; CEO takes to the Web to report shoppers' PINs, birth dates, and SSNs are safe.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/target-says-sorry-again-offers-10-off-and-free-credit-monitoring/

we were tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature act. A lot of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys. The #1 issue was identity theft, primarily of the form of fraudulent financial transactions as the result of breaches and there was little or nothing being done about the breaches. An issue is normally an entity/institution takes security measures to protect themselves, In the case of the breaches, the institution wasn't at risk ... it was their customers. It was hoped that the publicity from the breach notifications would prompt breach countermeasures. Note in the years since the cal. state breach notification act there have been numerous federal (state preemption) acts introduced ... about evenly divided between those similar to the cal. act and those that would effectively eliminate any requirement for notification
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

long ago and far away, we had been brought in as consultant to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce"

somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. Resulting X9.59 standard demonstrated only needing very strong authentication for integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

part of x9.59 financial transaction standard was to tweak the current paradigm so that data from previous transactions isn't useful to crooks (it doesn't do anything about data breaches, it just eliminates the risk & threat from majority of financial related data breaches, also eliminates major motivation for crooks doing data breaches). A couple characterization of the current paradigm (crooks can use information from previous transactions to perform fraudulent financial transactions ... a form of replay attack):

dual-use ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world

security proportional to risk ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times.

aka since x9.59 integrity was achieved with strong authentication it was no longer necessary to hide the information ... which also eliminated the necessity to hide the information during transmission (with SSL).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

As an aside, much of the issue taking so long to get X9.59 passed as the standard ... was heavy effort by the identification digital certificate forces for their digital certificates be mandated for all financial transactions (they were also active in the electronic signature legislation trying to mandate identification digital certificates for electronic signature).

One of the side issues that they didn't understand (or care about) was that the appending of identification digital certificate to every payment transaction represented a factor of 100 times payload bloat (for something that didn't provide any added value ... superfluous and redundant).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

In the x9a10 financial standard working group went to a great deal of trouble to explicitly differentiate between authentication and identification

Note that the current payment infrastructure is the "low hanging" fruit for crooks. Financial institutions pro-rate the "interchange fees" charged merchants based on related fraud ... and make a hefty profit ... accounting for half bottom line for some institutions. If that is eliminated, the next low-hanging fruit is crooks opening new accounts using "synthetic" identification (no real associated person). The issue with opening new accounts is there is no other organizations to charge it off to.

other recent posts mentioning target:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#59 Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#60 Target Offers Free Credit Monitoring Following Security Breach

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

What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
Date: 26 Dec, 2013
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/10/17/what-chase-and-other-banks-wont-tell-you-about-selling-your-data/

I've recently mentioned being brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature legislation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#39 ICSF Symmetric Key being sent to a non-zOS system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#68 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#47 Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking IBM mainframes, stealing money
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#52 U.S. agents 'got lucky' pursuing accused Russia master hackers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#12 How the IETF plans to protect the web from NSA snooping
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#59 Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#66 Target breach likely involved inside knowledge, experts say
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

and being tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation. Several of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys and the #1 issue was "identity theft" ... primarily the form of fraudulent financial transactions as result of various kinds of breaches. Since there was little or nothing being done, there was some hope that the resulting publicity from the breach notifications might prompt corrective action.

The group was also in the process of doing a opt-in privacy sharing legislation (institutions can only share individual personal information if they have explicit authorization). About this time an (federal preemption) "opt-out" privacy sharing provision was added to GLBA (note that now GLBA is better known for repeal of Glass-Steagall, enabling too big to fail, at the time the rhetoric in congress was the main purpose of GLBA was "if you already had banking charter, you could keep it; however if you didn't already having banking charger, you couldn't get one" ... aka eliminate new entries coming in and competing with banks).

Opt-in required that they have explicit authorization to share your information ... where "opt-out" requires that they have a record of you objecting to your information being shared.

At an annual privacy conference in Wash DC in the middle of last decade, there was panel discussion with all the FTC commissioners. During the discussion somebody from the audience got up and asked them if they were ever going to do anything about (GLBA) privacy sharing. He said he was involved in call-center technology used by all financial institutions ... and he knew that the "opt-out" 1-800 operations never recorded any information from calls (no official record that somebody objected/opt'ing-out of personal information sharing). The FTC commissioners just ignored the question.

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 14:14:11 -0500
hancock4 writes:
So much for Tom Watson, Jr's statement, "IBM encourages its wild ducks".

IMHO, companies that get too insular, too smart for themselves, too arrogant, are in bad shape. IBM came close to dying back then. The US auto and steel industries suffered severely as a result of those attitudes. To some extent, US railroads suffered.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"

after the failure of FS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

somebody did a post of large number of ducks in formation with caption "wild ducks are tolerated as long as they fly in formation" ... and another about "how to stuff a wild duck" (multitude of the antithesis of "wild duck")
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/GO/wildDuck.html

more recently part of the videos for the IBM 100th anniv ... there was one about "wild ducks" ... but there was absolutely no reference to employees ... all about "wild duck" customers (obfuscation and mis-direction).

past posts mentioning wild ducks:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#38 'Innovation' and other crimes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#25 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#18 IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#30 IBM Centennial Film: Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#33 Happy 100th Birthday, IBM!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011i.html#79 Innovation and iconoclasm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#1 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#45 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#93 John R. Opel, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#105 5 ways to keep your rockstar employees happy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#121 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#59 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#72 Original Thinking Is Hard, Where Good Ideas Come From
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#3 Time to Think ... and to Listen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#7 Leadership Trends and Realities: What Does Leadership Look Like Today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#17 Hierarchy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#26 Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#19 SnOODAn: Boyd, Snowden, and Resilience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#23 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#24 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#26 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#28 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#31 History--punched card transmission over telegraph lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#42 The IBM "Open Door" policy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#49 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#56 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#65 How do you feel about the fact that India has more employees than US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#70 Long Strange Journey: An Intelligence Memoir
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#15 System/360--50 years--the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#16 System/360--50 years--the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#12 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#49 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#52 Bridgestone Sues IBM For $600 Million Over Allegedly 'Defective' System That Plunged The Company Into 'Chaos'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#72 In Command, but Out Of Control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#3 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#4 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 14:33:18 -0500
hancock4 writes:
I don't think the "technology under the hood" is the issue. Today's Pentiums are far, far faster than those of 1993. So are today's mainframes.

Rather, I think the difference between a "mainframe" vs. other computing devices is in terms of functionality. IMHO, the mainframe to this day still offers certain operating features and functions that are significantly superior to that of other computers, which is a big reason they remain in wide use, as described.

On the other hand, the other machines certainly offer advantages, too, which is why they're very widely used as well.

Note that railroads, especially passenger trains, were predicted to be obsolete, but remain a key part of our transportation network.

We should note that when non-mainframes came out, their supporters were most enthusiastic and predicted the death of the mainframe (first was the mini computer, then the PC). But as we've seen over the years, while those machines have their niche, they aren't one-size-fits-all.

We don't use a tractor-trailer to deliver goods when a VW will do, and of course vice-versa. The mainframe has its place among the "tractor trailer" applications.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"

I've pontificated that (v1) e5-2600 blades have processor rating of 400-500+ BIPS (and ibm base list price of $1815 or $3.50/BIPs) .... compared to 50 BIPS for max configured z196 mainframe (and price of $28M or $560,000/BIPS) and 75 BIPS for the newer max configured EC12 mainframe.

Major mainframe operating system MVS (zOS) still requires CKD DASD, which hasn't been manufactured for decades ... instead being simulated on commodity, industry standard disks.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

Mainframe I/O channel is FICON, a heavy weight protocol layer that drastically reduces the throughput of the native industry standard fibre channel standard. Peak I/O benchmark for z196 is 2M IOPS with 104 FICON (FICON protocol layer on top of 104 FCS). Recently there was announcement of a (single) FCS for e5-2600 claiming over million IOPS (two such would have greater throughput than 104 FICON0.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

large cloud operators are now starting to deploy newer V2 e5-2600 in their blades ... and for a decade they've been claiming that the build their own servers for 1/3rd the price of brand name vendors (now possibly under $1/BIPS). there have been references that chip manufactures are now shipping more server chips directly to cloud operators than to brand name vendors.

and for the fun of it ... news about major DBMS throughput increases on these platforms (using GPUs)

Fast Database Emerges from MIT Class, GPUs and Student's Invention
http://data-informed.com/fast-database-emerges-from-mit-class-gpus-and-students-invention
Red Fox: An Execution Environment for Relational Query Processing on GPUs
http://gpuocelot.gatech.edu/publications/redfox/

recent posts mentioning e5-2600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#35 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#37 Where Does the Cloud Cover the Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#38 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#51 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#64 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#72 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#73 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#74 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#2 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#4 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#5 SAS Deserting the MF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#7 SAS Deserting the MF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#14 Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 50-Pound Portable PC, 1977
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#23 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#43 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#49 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#50 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#93 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#3 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#5 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#6 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#40 The Mainframe is "Alive and Kicking"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#79 Why does IBM keep saying things like this:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#80 Minicomputer Pricing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#47 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#59 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#60 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#86 IBM unveils new "mainframe for the rest of us"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#53 spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#31 model numbers; was re: World's worst programming environment?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#50 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#51 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#54 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#70 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#33 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#35 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#78 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 years agotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#94 SHARE Blog: News Flash: The Mainframe (Still) Isn't Dead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#38 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#54 rebuild 1403 printer chain
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#61 Bet Cloud Computing to Win

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

Who broke the law, Snowden or the NSA?

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Who broke the law, Snowden or the NSA?
Date: 26 Dec, 2013
Blog: Information Security Network
Who broke the law, Snowden or the NSA?
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/17/opinion/wiebe-snowden-amnesty/

This says that the whole sysadmin may have misdirection, everybody with ts/sci has access to everything with no record of who does what (there was some report that there are around million with ts) "The National Security Agency's oversharing problem"
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/the-national-security-agencys-oversharing-problem/

there have been past news items that the agency had non-trivial problem with employee surveillance of love interests (and/or rivals) ... implication very little oversight of what surveillance goes on

also

Report Suggests NSA Engaged In Financial Manipulation, Changing Money In Bank Accounts
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131218/14533925607/intelligence-task-force-hints-nsa-manipulating-financial-systems-changing-amounts-bank-accounts.shtml

earlier there was whistleblower issue ... the spreading Success Of failure culture in washington
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

and the whistleblower was treated really badly, charged with the same violations as Snowden (for reporting problems to congress)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/whistleblowers-open-letter-after-snowden-revelations ..
http://chicagodefender.com/2013/12/18/who-broke-the-law-snowden-or-the-nsa/ ..
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-02-231213.html

The Success Of Failure came to head in 2007 with legal action against whistleblowers ... basically reporting to congress that there was illegal activity ... but no public release of classified information ... but they were charged with that anyway.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

Recently there has been several news item about investigation into the head of the gov. whistleblower office during the previous administration. Reporting whistleblower activity back to the respective agencies ... destroying large amount of whistleblower reports, as well as other stuff:

Office of Special Counsel Releases Report Confirming Misconduct by Then-Agency Head Scott Bloch
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/12/office-of-special-counsel-releases-report.html

from above:
Along the way, he publicly made disparaging remarks about "leakers," even though it is his job to protect the federal government's whistleblowers. As a result, Bloch has been a lightning rod for the news media, Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, whistleblower attorneys, and good government groups

... snip ...

Final Report Confirms Misconduct at Bush-Era Office of Special Counsel
http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2013/12/final-report-confirms-misconduct-bush-era-office-special-counsel/75756/

other past history ... in 2010 pleated guilty to criminal contempt of congress ... including destruction of documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bloch

In any case, the Success Of Failure case (and others) made it very evident that there was no way of raising issues through the normal gov. channels.

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

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 18:09:22 -0500
"Sam" <sam_james@gmail.nospam.com> writes:
But it remains to be seen just how many of those "tractor trailer" applications there are left now that all of the stuff like amazon and ebay and google etc are no longer done with mainframes.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#69 "Death of the mainframe"

note that nearly any one of the large cloud "megadatacenters" will have more processing power than the aggregate all of the mainframes in the world today.

note that while mainframe processor sales has been running only 4-5% of total IBM revenue ... its mainframe group has been earning total of $6.25 for every dollar in processor sales ... aka the calculation that mainframe is running around $560,000/BIPS ... total mainframe revenue (with services and software) comes closer to $3.5M/BIPS.

This is compared to (v1) e5-2600 blades around $3.50/BIPS from brand name vendors (a million times less) and costing large cloud operations (building their own) possibly closer to dollar/BIPS (three million times less). The newer v2 e5-2600 may further reduce that by another factor two.

One of the factors for the big cloud megacenters with the radical drop in system/computer costs ... is all the other megadatacenter costs are become a much larger percentage of total costs ... power, cooling, human administration and maintenance, etc. As a result the big cloud megadatacenters have been on the bleeding edge of reducing these other costs.

The radical reduction in system/computer costs have also allowed them to aggresively move into large amount of "on-demand" services ... as long as the system power&cooling drop to zero when idle ... but possible to come up to full operation "on-demand".

recent posts mentioning large cloud megadatacenters:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#16 From build to buy: American Airlines changes modernization course midflight
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#17 Still think the mainframe is going away soon: Think again. IBM mainframe computer sales are 4% of IBM's revenue; with software, services, and storage it's 25%
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#7 mainframe "selling" points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#8 mainframe "selling" points
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#10 FW: mainframe "selling" points -- Start up Costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#15 A Private life?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#25 Still think the mainframe is going away soon: Think again. IBM mainframe computer sales are 4% of IBM's revenue; with software, services, and storage it's 25%
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#84 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#91 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#19 Where Does the Cloud Cover the Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#28 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#35 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#37 Where Does the Cloud Cover the Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#51 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#61 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#73 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#74 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#7 SAS Deserting the MF?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#12 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#21 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#43 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#45 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#40 The Mainframe is "Alive and Kicking"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#60 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#66 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#23 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#24 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#32 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#62 Mainframe vs Server - The Debate Continues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#63 Mainframe vs Server - The Debate Continues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#70 Internet Mainframe Forums Considered Harmful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#53 spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#56 spacewar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#50 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#70 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#33 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#35 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#38 Making mainframe technology hip again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#61 Bet Cloud Computing to Win

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 18:20:33 -0500
hancock4 writes:
I have no idea of the relative transactions-per-second handled by big mainframes vs. that of modern day servers of large organizations like the above. More importantly, I don't know the accuracy of the functions, that is, how many users are foced to redo their entry due to some sort of glitch.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#69 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#71 "Death of the mainframe"

tpc tpc-c benchmark ... top number is 8.5M tpmC (trans/min) and $.55 per trans/min
http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp

tpc-c has been recently reworked since there are no cluster tpc-c benchmarks ... which until recently had a top number aroaund 32M tpmC

the GPU references possibly improving that by a factor of seven times.

it has been long, long time since there has been any TPC numbers for mainframe. there was webpage from a couple years ago that referenced some estimate for possible peak throughput of 2005 mainframe ... but it has disappeared. I had tried to run that forward ... but it had mainframe less than current tpc numbers (and possibly 10-100 times more expensive for trans/min).

for instance, announcement of EC12 (peak 75BIPS with 101processors) compared to z196 (peak 50BIPS with 80processors) says that can expect EC12 about 30% more DBMS throughput than z196 (even tho it has 50% more processor power).

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 23:16:12 -0500
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Architecturally, therefore, it was a lot like a System 360/195.

At that point, it was no longer possible to achieve gains in performance by building a CPU out of multiple chips.

So the mainframe *did* die on schedule. IBM built reliable servers out of 370 ISA microprocessors and called them mainframes. Maybe that's too much of a generalization, and the term "mainframe" still has a real meaning - but I'm not so sure IBM really proved Stewart Alsop wrong simply because they're still selling things they call mainframes.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#69 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#71 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#72 "Death of the mainframe"

At the time Alsop statements ... Gerstner had not yet been hired; IBM had gone into the red, reorged itno the 13 "baby blues" and was on the verge of breaking up the company ... which also was highly likely to result in completing the demise of the mainframe. The board then hired Gerstner to reverse the breakup and resurrect the company ... misc. posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

the company was still in the red in 93 but got slightly out in 94. we had left in 92 ... but were told folklore that corporate hdqtrs spent much of 93 shifting expenses from 94 into 93 ... putting 93 further into the red ... put allowed 94 numbers showing profit ... slightly different explanation here:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-10-21/business/9410200765_1_mainframe-ibm-net-income

In 1980, I was con'ed into doing channel extender for STL ... that was moving 300 people from the IMS group to off-site bldg. Part of that support was downloading mainframe channel program to remote channel emulator and running the (simulated) channel program remotely ... significantly cutting the latency and i/o overhead for the i/o. then vendor tried to get my support released ... but there was a group in pok that got that squashed. This group was playing with some serial fiber-optic stuff ... and they were afraid that if the channel extender support was in the market, it would make it harder to get their stuff released.

They finally get their support out a decade later in 1990 with es/9000 as escon ... it is already obsolete. note this article about end of ACS/360 ... and discusses features of acs/360 showing up in es/9000 more than 20yrs later
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

in 1988, i was asked if i could help llnl standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... this eventually morphs into the fibre channel standard. Later, some pok channel engineers get involved with FCS and define a heavyweight protocol for FCS that drastically reduce the native i/o thruput ... this eventually ships as FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
es/9000 1990 w/6processors,
z900 Dec2000 16 processors, 2.5BIPS, 156MIPS/proc
z990 2003 32 processors, 9BIPS, 281MIPS/proc
z9 July2005 54 processors, 18BIPS, 333MIPS/proc
z10 Feb2008 64 processors, 30BIPS, 469MIPS/proc
z196 July2010 80 processors, 50BIPS, 625MIPS/proc
ec12 Aug2012 101 processors, 75BIPS, 743MIPS/proc


during the 90s, ibm mainframe shifts from bipolar to cmos
http://www.cbronline.com/news/ibm_numbers_bipolars_days_with_g5_cmos_mainframes

above mentions $6k/MIP for G5 ... or $6M/BIPS ... z196 at 50BIPS and $28M or $560,000/BIPS ... or around factor of twenty improvement ... compared to possibly a dollar or less per BIPS for e5-2600 blade.

For decades, RISC processors have had superscaler, out-of-order, branch prediction. speculative execution, etc ... and significant performance advantage over i86. however, the past several generations of i86 processors have gone to RISC cores with hardware layer that translates i86 instructions into RISC micro-ops ... mitigating the performance advantage of RISC processors.

note that much of the processor throughput increase from z10 to z196 is attributable to the introduction of risc-like out-of-order execution. Some amount of the processor improvement from z196 to ec12 is further additions of risc-like processor capability. However, the mainframes are still are at significant throughput disadvantage compared to RISC (and i86 with RISC cores).

trivia ... 370/195 had out-of-order execution ... but not speculative execution ... so conditional branches drained the pipeline ... peak throughput was 10MIPS ... but most codes ran at half that because of conditional branches. I got asked to help with effort to add "hyper-threading" 2nd i-stream (but never shipped) .... added 2nd psw, 2nd set of registers, etc ... to simulate two processor operation ... but kept same pipeline and execution units. It assumed a pair of i-streams ... each operating at 5mips ... would keep machine running at peak throughput (instructions in pipeline had one bit flag added indicating which i-stream they belonged to).

recent posts mentioning 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#58 Was MVS/SE designed to confound Amdahl?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#73 One reason for monocase was Re: Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article for the boss
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#67 relative speeds, was What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#22 Query for Destination z article -- mainframes back to the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#29 Delay between idea and implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#23 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#93 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#17 Supercomputers face growing resilience problems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#35 Some Things Never Die
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#31 DRAM is the new Bulk Core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#33 DRAM is the new Bulk Core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#8 OT? IBM licenses POWER architecture to other vendors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#51 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 13:15:16 -0500
greymausg <maus@mail.com> writes:
RUNOFF would be a precursor of nroff?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#21 CTSS DITTO?

tracing html5, html, sgml, gml, script, ctss runoff, ctss ditto, etc history ... is now getting back to pre-ditto ... for an ieee html5 article including tracing history back 40-50yrs

ctss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System

ctss typeset and runoff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF

other stuff
http://manpages.bsd.lv/history/CC-205.pdf
http://www.mt-archive.info/MT-1958-Yngve.pdf
http://www.dpbsmith.com/tj2.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ARUNOFF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Typewriter

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 16:31:34 -0500
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Even so, I still am not sure that "mainframes" today have much in common with mainframes circa, say, 1981. In 1981, there was a gulf between the mainframe and the micro; the capabilities of an IBM PC were making PDP-11s obsolete, not IBM 370s. So that one could argue that the mainframe as it was known then *did* die, but no one noticed because the name got put on a different kind of machine, a high-reliabilty microprocessor-based server.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#69 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#71 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#72 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#73 "Death of the mainframe"

4300s sold into the same mid-range market as vax machine ... and in similar numbers for orders with small numbers ... big difference for 4300 was the large corporate orders for multiple hundreds at a time ... sort of the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami. Later in the 80s, large PCs and workstations moving up into the mid-range took over that market ... decade of vax numbers sliced & diced by year, model, US/non-US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

something similar happened to 4300s ... they were expecting continued explosion in sales for 4331/4341 follow-on ... the 4361s & 4381s ... but by that time the mid-range market was already starting to shift to large PCs and workstations. for a little drift, old email mentioning 4300
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx

as in other posts in this thread ... the communication group stranglehold more & more isolating the mainframe datacenter had similar effect on the high-end 370s ... with data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms ... contributing significantly in drop-off in high-end 370 sales going into the early 90s and the company going into the red.

as previously mentioned ... this describes the high-end mainframes moving from bi-polar to cmos in the 90s (but with much smaller market and sales)
http://www.cbronline.com/news/ibm_numbers_bipolars_days_with_g5_cmos_mainframes

then in the last decade ... i86 chips move to risc cores ... largely eliminating difference in throughput between i86 chips and risc chips. Even the last two generations of mainframe cmos have introduced increasingly amount of features that have been part of risc for decades.

note that jim's early 80s studies details that by then ... availability was largely shifting from hardware to software and environmental characteristics. jim's '84 presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf

in ha/cmp in the late 80s and early 90s ...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

we were showing that N+1 ha/cmp cluster (with standard hardware) could provide better "nines" availability than purely hardware fault-tolerate system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

in the early 90s ... I was asked to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document ... however both rochester (as/400) and POK (high-end mainframe) complained that they couldn't meet the description ... and the section was pulled.

also, i've referenced this post with comment about ha/cmp cluster scale-up (complimentary to ha/cmp availability) in ellison's conference room early Jan1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

the mainframe DB2 people were complaining that if I was allowed to go ahead, I would be a minimum of five yrs ahead of them. The problem was IBM didn't have a non-mainframe cluster product ... so was working with various RDBMS vendors that had somewhat common implementation for their unix and vax/vms platforms (that included vax/cluster support) ... and was doing an HA/CMP implementation with semantics similar to vax/cluster to simplify the porting. some recent mentiong
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#86 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#87 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#44 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!

and various old email on cluster scalup from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

and was heavily involved in also working with national labs supporting scientific and numerical intensive. as previously mentioned ... possibly only hrs after the last email in above ... the effort was transferred and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. then almost immediately the cluster scale-up was announced as supercomputer for scientific and numerical intensive *ONLY* ... press item from 17Feb1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1
and item later in the spring claiming that the interest in cluster stuff caught them by *SURPRISE*
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2

The old 4300 email include references having done benchmarks for national lab in 1979 and they were looking for large cluster compute farm of 4300s ... and then later in 1988 being asked to help LLNL standardize some high-speed serial stuff they had (so had long relation with them, going back quite awhile, prior to ha/cmp).

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

Should New Limits Be Put on N.S.A. Surveillance?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Should New Limits Be Put on N.S.A. Surveillance?
Date: 28 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
... also google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/PrPGuQ58pZ5

Should New Limits Be Put on N.S.A. Surveillance?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/opinion/should-new-limits-be-put-on-nsa-surveillance.html?_r=0

Remember reports from Sept where agency employees where monitoring love interests ... more recent was somebody was "shunned" trying to report everybody with ts/sci could access/share everything. The part about sysadmin may be misdirection, investigation into what walked out the door raised the possibility that it was everything ... They apparently have no way of telling

...

The oversharing problem article .. including "anonymity" ... so even if there were logs about access ... they wouldn't show who.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/the-national-security-agencys-oversharing-problem/

then there is financial manipulation: Report Suggests NSA Engaged In Financial Manipulation, Changing Money In Bank Accounts
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131218/14533925607/intelligence-task-force-hints-nsa-manipulating-financial-systems-changing-amounts-bank-accounts.shtml

and

How NSA Spies Abused Their Powers to Snoop on Girlfriends, Lovers, and First Dates
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/27/loveint_how_nsa_spies_snooped_on_girlfriends_lovers_and_first_dates.html
NSA: Some used spying power to snoop on lovers
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/politics/nsa-snooping/

in the spreading Success of Failure culture case
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
posts mentioning Success Of Failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

gov filed similar charges against the whistleblowers ... even tho there was no release of classified information ... just reporting major transgressions and failings to congress. some discussion about agency taking retribution against those whistleblowers
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/whistleblowers-open-letter-after-snowden-revelations
posts mentioning whistleblowers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#whistleblower

problems were confounded by the head of the gov whistleblower "protection" office
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/12/office-of-special-counsel-releases-report.html

note during the Success Of Failure period ... there was iarpa.gov BAA (ic-arda.org at the time) from somebody that said none of the stuff the agency had, did the job. On the last day we were asked to write a response ... since nobody else had. There were some meetings about how we could do what was needed (note we have no clearances) ... then nothing. Later we were told that higher ups had told the person that he had failed to sufficiently prove to them that the stuff they had, wouldn't do the job.. Some conjecture that they let him release the BAA on the assumption nobody would reply and that would shut him up (as the Success Of Failure reporting showed, there were lots of vested interest in protecting the status quo).

In the Success Of Failure in 2007, congress supposedly puts the agency on probation and not allowed to manage its own projects. But it may have been all for show ... just excuse to turn even more of intelligence over to for-profit companies. One scenario is congress gets 5percent kickbacks from companies (in the form of contributions and other things) ... something agencies aren't allowed to do.

congress has been documented making "insider trades" based on non-public information from briefings ... and congress specifically exempted themselves from "insider trading" fraud laws (its not illegal when done by member of congress). also intelligence for-profit companies (now account for 70% of intelligence budget) have been caught using classified information for corporate profit (would they be above using surveillance resources for profit)

ic-arda.org gone 404
https://web.archive.org/web/20050828171703/http://www.ic-arda.org/about_arda.htm
and now iarpa
http://www.iarpa.gov/whatis.html

we apparently were just collateral damage ... having no idea what was really going on.

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

Passage of Budget Bill Is NOT a Victory for the American People ... Only for the Military-Industrial Complex

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Passage of Budget Bill Is NOT a Victory for the American People ... Only for the Military-Industrial Complex
Date: 28 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/a1LzLJni3Lu

Passage of Budget Bill Is NOT a Victory for the American People ... Only for the Military-Industrial Complex
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-12-27/passage-budget-bill-not-victory-american-people-%E2%80%A6-only-military-industrial-co

posts mentioning MICC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

Given that the Authorities Oppose Everything the Founding Fathers Fought For, Is This Still America?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/still-america-authorities-believe-founding-fathers-terrorists.html
Glenn Greenwald and Sibel Edmonds: Two Whistleblowing Heroes
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/glenn-greenwald-versus-sibel-edmonds.html

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

Spinney's The Domestic Roots of Perpetual War
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html

posts mentioning perpetual war
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

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

What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
Date: 28 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/XEgxFm2yvSQ

What Chase And Other Banks Won't Tell You About Selling Your Data
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/10/17/what-chase-and-other-banks-wont-tell-you-about-selling-your-data/

We being tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature act.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

Several of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys and the #1 issue was "identity theft" ... primarily the form of fraudulent financial transactions as result of various kinds of breaches (and #2 was sharing of information that resulted in denial of service &/or employment by gov. &/or businesses). Since there was little or nothing being done about breaches, there was some hope that the resulting publicity from the breach notifications might prompt corrective action ... aka normally security measures are taken in self-protection, however the institutions with the breaches weren't at risk, it was their customers.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

The group was also in the process of doing a opt-in privacy sharing legislation (institutions can only share individual personal information if they have explicit authorization). About this time an (federal preemption) "opt-out" privacy sharing provision was added to GLBA (note that now GLBA is better known for repeal of Glass-Steagall, enabling too big to fail, at the time the rhetoric in congress was the main purpose of GLBA was "if you already had banking charter, you could keep it; however if you didn't already having banking charger, you couldn't get one" ... aka eliminate new entries coming in and competing with banks).

posts mentioning Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
posts mentioning too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

Opt-in required that they have explicit authorization to share your information ... where "opt-out" requires that they have a record of you objecting to your information being shared.

At an annual privacy conference in Wash DC in the middle of last decade, there was panel discussion with all the FTC commissioners. During the discussion somebody from the audience got up and asked them if they were ever going to do anything about (GLBA) privacy sharing. He said he was involved in call-center technology used by all financial institutions ... and he knew that the "opt-out" 1-800 operations never recorded any information from calls (no official record that somebody objected/opt'ing-out of personal information sharing). The FTC commissioners just ignored the question.

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

Would Target cybersecurity breach occur with a digital ID system?

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Would Target cybersecurity breach occur with a digital ID system?
Date: 28 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/8Bha7cWYNju

Would Target cybersecurity breach occur with a digital ID system?

NSTIC Seeks to Enhance Trust, Transparency, Revenue Opportunities for E-Business
http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2013/08/21/nstic-seeks-to-enhance-trust-transparency-revenue-opportunities-for-e-business/

In x9.59 financial standard we went a long way to differentiate between identification and authentication
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

long ago and far away, we had been brought in as consultant to small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use, the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce"

somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s we were invited to participate in the X9A10 financial working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments. Resulting X9.59 standard demonstrated only needing very strong authentication for integrity

part of x9.59 financial transaction standard was to tweak the current paradigm so that data from previous transactions isn't useful to crooks (it doesn't do anything about data breaches, it just eliminates the risk & threat from majority of financial related data breaches, also eliminates major motivation for crooks doing data breaches). A couple characterization of the current paradigm (crooks can use information from previous transactions to perform fraudulent financial transactions ... a form of replay attack):

dual-use ... since information from previous transactions can be used for fraudulent transactions, that information has to be kept totally confidential and never divulged. at the same time the same information is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world

security proportional to risk ... the value of the transaction information to the merchants is the profit on the transactions, which can be a couple dollars (and a couple cents for the transaction processor) ... the value of the information to the crooks is the account balance and/or credit limit ... as a result the crooks can afford to outspend the defenders by a factor of 100 times.

aka since x9.59 integrity was achieved with strong authentication it was no longer necessary to hide the information ... which also eliminated the necessity to hide the information during transmission (with SSL).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#x959

we were tangentially involved in the cal. state data breach legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. state electronic signature act.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#signature

A lot of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth public surveys. The #1 issue was identity theft, primarily of the form of fraudulent financial transactions as the result of breaches and there was little or nothing being done about the breaches. An issue is normally an entity/institution takes security measures to protect themselves, In the case of the breaches, the institution wasn't at risk ... it was their customers. It was hoped that the publicity from the breach notifications would prompt breach countermeasures. Note in the years since the cal. state breach notification act there have been numerous federal (state preemption) acts introduced ... about evenly divided between those similar to the cal. act and those that would effectively eliminate any requirement for notification
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#data.breach.notification.notification

As an aside, much of the issue taking so long to get X9.59 passed as the standard ... was heavy effort by the identification digital certificate forces for their digital certificates be mandated for all financial transactions (they were also active in the electronic signature legislation trying to mandate identification digital certificates for electronic signature).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert

One of the side issues that they didn't understand (or care about) was that the appending of identification digital certificate to every payment transaction represented a factor of 100 times payload bloat (for something that didn't provide any added value ... "superfluous" and "redundant")
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#bloat

Note that the current payment infrastructure is the "low hanging" fruit for crooks. Financial institutions pro-rate the "interchange fees" charged merchants based on related fraud ... and make a hefty profit ... accounting for half bottom line for some institutions. If that is eliminated, the next low-hanging fruit is crooks opening new accounts using "synthetic" identification (no real associated person). The issue with opening new accounts is there is no other organizations to charge it off to.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#fraud

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

"Death of the mainframe"

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: "Death of the mainframe"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2013 18:07:21 -0500
hancock4 writes:
The hospital I worked at bought a 4300 to replace its S/360. Obviously the investment in programs was preserved.

As an aside, eventually that hospital replaced its internal I.T. office with a service bureau specializing in hospital applications. (I just checked to see if that service bureau was still in existence, and Google said it was purchased by Siemens back in 2000 for $2.1 billion.)

As to the mainframe marketplace, it seemed that the larger organizations were developing major complex (multi-million dollar) applications in the 1980s and 1990s. This greatly expanded the functionality of existing on-line processes or converted batch to on-line. Naturally, these applications required bigger mainframes, which were purchased.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#64 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#65 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#68 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#69 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#71 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#72 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#73 "Death of the mainframe"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#75 "Death of the mainframe"

totally unrelated we did lots of work with the Siemens Infineon chip spinoff on the AADS chip strawman ... even doing walk-through of their (then brand new) security chip fab in dresden
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

and then tried to do some stuff with the Siemens medical services group on DBMS and medical record technology.

... however, in the 90s, there was major effort by the remaining core of mainframe use ... the financial industry ... to move to large numbers of "killer micros". The issue was that online transactions had been added over the years ... but were really just queueing up transactions to be settled in the traditional batch system ... that ran overnight.

the problem was globalization was both increasing the amount of work to be done overnight as well as shortening the length of the overnight batch window. The rewrites were to move to straight through processing using large numbers of parallel processing. However, the parallelization libraries they were using introduced a factor of 100 times overhead (compared to the mainframe cobol batch) ... totally swamping the throughput increases from combination of straight through processing and large numbers of parallel processing.

They did toy demos and then failed to do the speeds&feeds numbers about scale-up ... and even with warnings about what was going to happen, several went to pilot deployments before the magnitude of the problem was realized/appreciated. There was significant backlash from the failed efforts regarding attempts to make further moves off the mainframe.

in the later part of the last decade we took some technology to financial industry standards groups ... that approached the parallelization and scale-up (for straight through processing) from a totally different direction. Rather than lots of ROI application code calling parallelization libraries ... this leveraged the significant work that had been done on parallizing by the major RDBMS. The implementation took high-level design specification and decomposed it into fine-grain SQL statements that could be efficiently parallelized. Initially the technology saw high acceptance ... but then hit a brick wall ... the comments that eventually came back was that there was still large number of executives that carried significant scars from the failures in the 90s ... and it would have to wait for a whole new generation before it could be tried again.

Earlier in this thread, I made references to early Jan1992 meeting in Ellison's conference room about having 128-system by ye1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

and then it getting it co-opted for scientific and numerical intensive *ONLY* and being told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors (at which point we decide to leave).

Past reference to announcements about parallel processing advances ("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/2011m.html#46 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#47 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#59 From The Annals of Release No Software Before Its Time

recent posts mentioning straight through processing work to replace the overnight batch window
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#42 COBOL will outlive us all
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#84 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#64 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#6 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#50 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#42 The Mainframe is "Alive and Kicking"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#49 Internet Mainframe Forums Considered Harmful
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#35 Why is the mainframe so expensive?

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

Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward
Date: 28 Dec, 2013
Blog: Google+
re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/Vd23DwV4TGN

Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/business/academics-who-defend-wall-st-reap-reward.html

other recent:

Noam Chomsky: We're no longer a functioning democracy, we're really a plutocracy
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/27/noam-chomsky-were-no-longer-a-functioning-democracy-were-really-a-plutocracy/
World Bank a security risk to the world order? | Lars Schall
http://www.larsschall.com/2013/05/08/governance-issues-at-the-world-bank-a-security-risk-to-the-world-order/

some older references:

The Scholars Who Shill for Wall Street; Academics get paid by financial firms to testify against Dodd-Frank regulations. What's wrong with this picture?
http://www.thenation.com/article/176809/scholars-who-shill-wall-street

"Inside Job" references how leading economists were captured similar to the capture of the regulatory agencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film)

"Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards" goes into the capture of economists in more detail
https://www.amazon.com/Economists-Powerful-Convenient-Distorted-Economics-ebook/dp/B01B4X4KOS/

loc72-74:
"Only through having been caught so blatantly with their noses in the troughs (e.g. the 2011 Academy Award -- winning documentary Inside Job) has the American Economic Association finally been forced to adopt an ethical code, and that code is weak and incomplete compared with other disciplines."

... another quote loc957-62:
The AEA was pushed into action by a damning research report into the systematic concealment of conflicts of interest by top financial economists and by a letter from three hundred economists who urged the association to come up with a code of ethics. Epstein and Carrick-Hagenbarth (2010) have shown that many highly influential financial economists in the US hold roles in the private financial sector, from serving on boards to owning the respective companies. Many of these have written on financial regulation in the media or in scholarly papers. Very rarely have they disclosed their affiliations to the financial industry in their writing or in their testimony in front of Congress, thus concealing a potential conflict of interest.

... snip ...

other reference:

Glenn Hubbard, Leading Academic and Mitt Romney Advisor, Took 1200 an Hour to Be Countrywide's Expert Witness (gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140504010711/http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/glenn-hubbard-leading-academic-and-mitt-romney-advisor-took-1200-an-hour-to-be-countrywides-expert-witness-20121220?print=true

recent posts about academics/economists being "captured" by wallstreet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#20 The Big Fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#57 How to Cut Megabanks Down to Size
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#73 More Whistleblower Leaks on Foreclosure Settlement Show Both Suppression of Evidence and Gross Incompetence
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#44 Adair Turner: A New Debt-Free Money Advocate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#89 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#29 The agency problem and how to create a criminogenic environment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#1 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#48 Ex-Wall Street chieftains living large in post-meltdown world
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#52 Lehman Brothers collapse: was capitalism to blame?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#76 The Scholars Who Shill for Wall Street

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

One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - YouTube

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - YouTube
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 29 Dec 2013 06:50:13 -0800
edgould1948@COMCAST.NET (Ed Gould) writes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTdWQAKzESA


IBM 5100 1973 at Palo Alto Science Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

enuf of 1130 emulation to run apl\1130 (SCAMP)

product out in 1978 was enuf of 360 emulation (on PALM) to run apl\360

note that (at least low-end and mid-range) 360s & 370s were emulation on some native microprocessor ... so 5100 wasn't all that different.

PASC also did the apl microcode assist for 370/145 ... apl with microcode assist on 145 ran almost as fast as on 370/168.

some person also helped with the vm370 microcode assist for 138 & 148.

Spring 1975, I got sucked into helping endicott do ecps for 138/148 (virgil/tully) ... it was sort of part of the mad rush to get out 370 products after the dearth during the FS period (which is also credited with giving clone processors a market foothold)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

Endicott had 6kbyte space for microcode and was to select the 6kbyte of highest used vm370 kernel pathlength. Typical 360/370 microcode emulation ran an avg. of 10 native instructions per 360/370 instruction. runs that measured elapsed time & frequency of kernel instruction sequences ... sorted by percent of total kernel time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21

kernel 370->native instructioins translated almost byte-for-byte ... so 6kbytes of highest used kernel instructions accounted for 79+ percent of total kernel time ... moved to microcode gained approx. 72% of kernel time.

then they sucked me into spending a year off&on running around the world laying out 138/148 to the product administrators and business forecasters in the different countries ... going over details about how they stacked up against the competition.

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

NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say
Date: 29 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
NSA surveillance played little role in foiling terror plots, experts say
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/12/nsa-surveillance-data-terror-attack

In the Success Of Failure in 2007, congress supposedly put the agency on probation and not allowed to manage its own projects. But it may have been all for show ... just excuse to turn even more of intelligence to for-profit companies. One scenario is congress gets 5percent kickbacks from companies (in the form of contributions and other things) ... something agencies aren't allowed to do.

congress has been documented making "insider trades" based on non-public information from briefings ... and congress specifically exempted themselves from "insider trading" fraud laws (its not illegal when done by member of congress). also intelligence for-profit companies (now account for 70% of intelligence budget) have been caught using classified information for corporate profit (would they be above using surveillance resources for profit)

One theme is that 9/11 was largely funded by both saudi arabia royal family and gov. officials ... spotlight on that aspect may be reason for major retrenchment

Murdoch's NY Post Backs Michael Moore's Bush-Saudi 9/11 Claims
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/16/murdochs-ny-post-backs-michael-moores-bush-saudi-911-claims/
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/

this has an account of sat. photo recon analyst raising alarm that Iraq was marshaling forces to invade Kuwait and white house discrediting the analyst and saying Saddam would do no such thing. However, when he raised the alarm that Iraq was marshaling forces for invasion of Saudi Arabia that started to see serious response.
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Journey-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B004NNV5H2

this is somebody that kept presenting evidence that Iraq invasion justification was fabricated ... and they treated her really badly
https://www.amazon.com/Classified-Woman-The-Sibel-Edmonds-Story-ebook/dp/B007XY8INW/

the iraq scenario then would serve at least two possible purposes ... 1) spinney's "perpetual war" ... an organized mechanized military that we could throw our mechanized military against and 2) obfuscation and misdirection away from saudis

Chuck's "perpetual war"
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html
posts mentioning perpetual war
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

9/11 Families 'Ecstatic' They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia
http://news.yahoo.com/9-11-families-39-ecstatic-39-finally-sue-222121660--abc-news-topstories.html

from above:
An attempt to Saudi Arabia in 2002 was blocked by a federal court ruling that said the kingdom had sovereign immunity. That ruling was reversed Thursday by a three-judge federal panel.

... snip ...

Saudi involvement in 9/11 could be a factor in making agency look worse than it was. Cutting back such involvement resulting in fewer organized attacks could be a factor in the agency appearing to look better than it is (and 70% of intelligence budget and over half the people are now for-profit companies)

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech revolutio

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked atech revolutio
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2013 12:43:03 -0500
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
Probably. My 1968-vintage IBM 360 assembly language reference manual was shot from a printout on a TN chain.

principles of operation was one of the first (mainstream) manuals (besides cp67 & cms) moved over to cms script (and printed on 1403). the issue was that it was a subset of the architecture "red book" ... after its distribution in red 3-ring binder ... which was about twice the size of the principles of operation ... and included a lot of engineering notes, justification, alternatives, etc. cms script command line option would format either the full "red book" or just the "principles of operation" subset.

recent thread mentioning cms script (ctss runoff, gml, sgml, html, etc)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#37 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#16 z/OS is antique WAS: Aging Sysprogs = Aging Farmers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#21 CTSS DITTO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#74 The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

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

Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Early !BM multiprocessors (renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 29 Dec 2013 18:15:22 -0800
tony@HARMINC.NET (Tony Harminc) writes:
I know nothing about FAA custom hardware, but the 65MP had no RPQ instructions related to multiprocessing. It used the standard (though optional) Read Direct and Write Direct instructions, with the direct interface on each CPU plugged into the matching one on the other.

The 370/165 and 168 also had RDD/WRD as standard. I spent some idle time poking around late one night trying to find the connectors, and eventually got the CE to find them in the book. They turned out to be in back of the console unit (3066). The same hermaphroditic connector used for B&T channels, though with different pinouts, of course, is used for the Direct I/O feature.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#56 Early !BM multiprocessors
(renamed from Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?)

370 princ-of-ops, SIGP instruction for processor signaling ... pg97-101
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/370/princOps/GA22-7000-4_370_Principles_Of_Operation_Sep75.pdf
CPU Signaling and Response

The CPU-signaling-and-response facility provides for communication among CPUs by means of the SIGNAL PROCESSOR instruction. It provides for transmitting and receiving the signal, decoding a set of assigned order codes, performing the specified operation, and responding to the signaling CPU.

If a CPU has the CPU-signaling-and-recsponse facility installed, it can address the SIGNAL PROCESSOR instruction to itself. All orders are executed as defined.

code order ---- ------------ 00 Invalid and Unassigned 01 Sense 02 External Call 03 Emergency Signal 04 Start 05 Stop 06 Restart 07 Initial Program Reset 08 Program Reset 09 Stop and Store Status 0A Initial Microprogram Load 0B Initial CPU Reset 0C CPU Reset 00-FF Invalid and Unassigned


... snip ...

360/65 functional characteristics multiprocessor pg32-34
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/360/functional_characteristics/A22-6884-3_360-65_funcChar.pdf

multiprocessor write direct modified for: System Reset, External Start, Log I/O Interruprs, System call ....

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

Complexity and Battle Management

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Complexity and Battle Management
Date: 29 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Complexity and Battle Management
http://ontonix.blogspot.it/2013/12/complexity-and-battle-management.html

There is information overload ... Boyd would have few choice words about reviewing several major war games; he characterized Admirals & Generals playing golf all year while their staff practiced ... during the actual games, the decision makers had no "finger feel" for what was happening.

I was blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s (larger than arpanet/internet until possible late '85 or early '86). One of the extensive discussions was about it enabling direct connectivity between people, threatening/bypassing traditional hierarchical management (command&control) structure. This was complimentary to Boyd's refrain about pushing decisions as low as possible (and part of organic design for command & control).

.. other threat to those at the top of hierarchies: Putting customers first: Hierarchies, scarcity, and the illusion of control; Summary: The Chief Scientist of salesforce.com, JP Rangaswami, discusses new styles of management on the latest episode of CxOTalk.
http://www.zdnet.com/putting-customers-first-hierarchies-scarcity-and-the-illusion-of-control-7000024658/

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

The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The Mother of All Demos: The 1968 presentation that sparked a tech revolution
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2013 10:54:17 -0500
hancock4 writes:
Our S/360-40 originally had only the background partition and batch jobs. Later we added the POWER spooler which used one of the foreground partitions. Then we added a 'light' CICS (MTCS?) to support a few on-line terminals, that went in the other foreground partition. We added extra core memory to support all this.

Batch jobs continued to run in background. The spooler tremendously improved throughput.


recent (ibm-main) post mentions that HASP spooling doubled throughput of student fortran jobs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#54 Curiosity: TCB mapping macro name - why IKJTCB?

problem was on 709 tape-to-tape ibsys, student fortran jobs were running a second or less. initial move to 360/67 ... running as 360/65 with os/360 increased that to a minute or more. Even cutting that in half with HASP still was much longer than on 709 (over 30secs). It wasn't really until installing WATFOR that student fortran job throughput beat 709

In release 15/16 time-frame, I added 2741&tty terminal support to HASP along with editor that supported cp67/cms syntax (complete rewrite since programming/runtime environment totally different) for form of CRJE.

misc past posts mentioning HASP, JES2, &/or JES2 networking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp

the ibm-main post also has some discussion of CICS ... past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics

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

DCF on OS/2

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: DCF on OS/2
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 31 Dec 2013 06:01:32 -0800
dboyes@SINENOMINE.NET (David Boyes) writes:
FWIW, I think Waterloo still distributes the PC version of Waterloo SCRIPT. Their GML implementation was reasonably compatible with the DCF one, although Bookie tags never worked properly.

I REALLY wish IBM would release Bookie into the public domain. DocBook frankly SUCKS, and a well-documented publically available set of markup tags created by people who write books for a living would be an enormous improvement...


somebody is writing IEEE article on HTML5 ... I was recently asked about helping trace heritage back thru CTSS RUNOFF, DITTO and earlier ... aka original CMS script was re-implementation of CTSS RUNOFF at the science center for cp40/cms ... moved to cp67/cms when science center got 360/67 (originally they had done hardware modifications to 360/40 supporting virtual memory for cp40). After GML was invented at the science center in 1969 (GML selected because it is initials of the inventors last names), GML tag support was added to CMS script ... a decade later GML morphs into ISO standard SGML ... and after another decade SGML morphs into HTML at CERN.

recent ref
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#21
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#74

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

Viewing Where the Internet Goes

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Viewing Where the Internet Goes
Date: 31 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
Viewing Where the Internet Goes
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/viewing-where-the-internet-goes.html

co-worker from the science center responsible for the internal network ... which was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

operational precursor to modern internet:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/

we had been working with NSF and various players and were suppose to get $20M to tie together the NSF supercomputer centers ... then congress cut the funding and some other things happened ... eventually they released an RFP .... however internal politics prevented us from bidding ... director of NSF tried to help and wrote a letter to the company (copying the CEO) ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did comment about what we already had running was at least 5yrs ahead of all RFP responses)

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

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

We're About to Lose Net Neutrality -- And the Internet as We Know It

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: We're About to Lose Net Neutrality -- And the Internet as We Know It
Date: 31 Dec, 2013
Blog: Facebook
We're About to Lose Net Neutrality -- And the Internet as We Know It
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/so-the-internets-about-to-lose-its-net-neutrality

for the fun of it (gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine):
https://web.archive.org/web/20050418032606/http://www.be.daemonnews.org/199909/usenix-kirk.html

from above:
He said (paraphrased) that every DARPA meeting ended up the same, with the Military coming in and giving CSRG (at UCB, the group that worked on BSD) a stern warning that they were to work on the Operating System, and that BBN will work on the networking. Every time, Bob Fabry, then the adviser of CSRG, would "Yes: them to death" and they'd go off and just continue the way they were going. Much to the frustration of the DARPA advisery board.

... snip ...

lots of vendors picked up and used BSD TCP/IP stack from tahoe or reno 4.3 ... because it was freely available. This was back in the days when lots of implementations were proprietary.

note in the late 80s, FEDs mandated elimination of TCP/IP and internet and move to OSI (GOSIP) ... at '88 interop ... there were lots of OSI in various booths. However, one of the issues was that OSI was traditional telco copper wire paradigm ... predating internetworking. posts mentioning interop '88
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88

One of the reasons that the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86 ... is that the internal network effectively had form of gateway in every node ... something that arpanet/internet didn't get until the great cut-over to internetworking on 1jan183.

I was involved in taking HSP (high-speed protocol) to x3s3.3 (ISO chartered US standards body for osi level 3/4 standardization) in the late 80s. At the time ISO had requirement that only protocols that conformed to the OSI model could be standardized. HSP was rejected because it violated OSI model:
1) supported internetworking protocol, non-existent layer between OSI 3 & 4 2) went directly from transport to LAN/MAC ... bypassing level 3/4 interface 3) it went directly to LAN/MAC ... doesn't exist in OSI, sits approx. in middle of layer 3

past posts mentioning xtp/hsp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

There was comparison of ISO & IETF (internet standards) ... IETF requires at least two interoperapable implementations to progress in standards process; ISO doesn't even require a standard to be implementable.

... tcp/ip was the technology basis for the modern internet, nsfnet backbone was the operational basis for the modern internet and CIX was the business basis for the modern internet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Internet_eXchange

part of the spread of bsd tcp/ip protocol stack was it was part of the proprietary software versus open source software ... and the days of the UNIX wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars

with x-over to comment on prior post/article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#89

... one of the reasons for director NSF reference to what we had was at least 5yrs ahead of all RFP responses was we had done rate-based pacing ... writeup I did for HSP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/xtprate.html

trivia ... part of the xtp/hsp work was for naval surface warfare ... for safenet2 ... infrastructure for radar, sensors, fire-control, etc

in any case, rate-based pacing is slowly percolating into various ietf standards

past posts mentioning nsfnet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

past posts mentioning internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

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

Learning Rexx

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Learning Rexx
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 31 Dec 2013 12:30:00 -0800
scott_j_ford@YAHOO.COM (Scott Ford) writes:
Not a difficult to we who worked VM or Linux...that's kind of a vague generation

trivia ... I did internal adtech conf. spring '82 (week before share) ... it was first for a number of yrs since the corporate retrenching after the failure of future system effort (lots of adtech got thrown into the breach in mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipeline).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

one of the presentations was about precursor to pipelines "the toy program" ... old post referencing John Hartmann's b'day party
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a

fouund here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~piper/party/jph-01.html

wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmann_pipeline

page at marist
http://vm.marist.edu/~pipeline/

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

Cylinder buffer

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Cylinder buffer
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2013 17:20:30 -0500
Bakul Shah <usenet@bitblocks.com> writes:
Has anyone tried building a radial head that can read/write an entire radial "track" at once? Yes, one bit from every circular track. Sort of like a scanner but the "paper" is circular and rotates so you don't have to move the sensor! The entire head would have to be built using micromachining or some such. Potentially the whole disk can be read/written in 1 rotation time!

old email ... person responsible for risc ... sucked me into head that would transfer 16+2 ... there would be servo track between every 16 data tracks ... head would read/write 16 data tracks plus servo tracks on either side.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#email871230
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#30
... with another old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#email871122

I had looked at concurrent transfer from all heads at cylinder position, late 70s (a decade earlier) ... but those data paths wouldn't handle the traffic.

in the 60s ... there were fixed head drums (head/track) ... including the 2303 and 2301 ... the 2301 was nearly same as 2303 ... but would transfer four heads in parallel, had four times the transfer rate, 1/4 the number of logical tracks and each track was four times larger.

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






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