2014 Newsgroup postings (07/31 - 09/10) Lynn Wheeler

2014 Newsgroup Postings (07/31 - 09/10)

The SDS 92, its place in history?
R.I.P. PDP-10?
As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday
How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
Migration path for IBM 650 users?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
Migration path for IBM 650 users?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
Super Cane's Computers run Windows
How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
R.I.P. PDP-10?
How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
The SDS 92, its place in history?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
Super Cane's Computers run Windows
IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
The SDS 92, its place in history?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
DG Nova 1200 as console
Blinkenlights
The SDS 92, its place in history?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
UEFI?
another question about TSO edit command
UEFI?
The SDS 92, its place in history?
R.I.P. PDP-10?
Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
curly brace languages source code style quides
curly brace languages source code style quides
History--computer performance comparison chart
Meet Cobol's hard core fans
curly brace languages source code style quides
China's Fifth-Generation Fighter Could Be A Game Changer In An Increasingly Tense East Asia
50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Bank of America Adds a Mortgage Settlement to Its Collection
Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
curly brace languages source code style quides
Is coding the new literacy?
curly brace languages source code style quides
Ada's fate
Is coding the new literacy?
Ada's fate
curly brace languages source code style quides
Is coding the new literacy?
Bill Black on Bank Fraud: The Wall Street Journal's Choleric Rant about Cholera and Bank Fraud Epidemics
Amdahl UTS manual
RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?
R.I.P. PDP-10?
RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?
Is coding the new literacy?
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Is coding the new literacy?
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Desktop Linux
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Is coding the new literacy?
Remembering Space Shuttle Discovery, 30 years later
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Firefox 32 supports Public Key Pinning
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
curly brace languages source code style quides
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Desktop Linux
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Demonstrating Moore's law
Demonstrating Moore's law
Demonstrating Moore's law
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Demonstrating Moore's law
Demonstrating Moore's law
Demonstrating Moore's law
curly brace languages source code style quides
Demonstrating Moore's law
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Demonstrating Moore's law
Demonstrating Moore's law
IBM System/7 Teletype operator's station
Cybersecurity
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Flat (VSAM or other) files still in use?
? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?
? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?
No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
only sometimes From looms to computers to looms

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 15:19:04 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#99 The SDS 92, its place in history?

this source has lots of detailed chip specs
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/index.html

i5
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i5/index.html
i7
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/index.html

more production oriented
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/index.html

e5-2600 v3 info started to show up
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/TYPE-Xeon%20E5-2600%20v3.html

e5-2699 v3 not yet released ... still 22nm technology
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon%20E5-2699%20v3.html

Intel has spent $5B on 14nm fab that is suppose to come online later this year with 450mm wafers
http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1358
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-fab42-14nm-cpu-factory,14545.html

which will tend to be smaller, faster, more power efficient ... intel tick-tock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

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

R.I.P. PDP-10?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: R.I.P. PDP-10?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 18:57:24 -0400

sidd@situ.com (sidd) writes:
dear god. who thought this up, or were they so far down the rabbit hole that they had to do it that way ?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#16 R.I.P. PDP10?

MVS was extreme bloatware. 370 was nominal limited to 16mbytes real and 16mbytes virtual.

recent discussion of MVS bloatware on the verge of occupying nearly all of each application specific 16mbytes virtual address space ... as mentioned os/360 pointer-based API paradigm resulted in MVS having a system image in every application 16mbyte virtual address space:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#86 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses

however, MVS bloatware real storage requirements was also pushing the limits of 16mbyte real storage (resulting in excessive paging activity). the virtual address space 16mbyte limit couldn't be fixed until 370/xa and the 3081 (which also allowed more than 16mbyte real storage). however, they came up with this hack that allowed up to 64mbyte real storage even tho instruction addresses were still limited to 16mbyte; the gimick was page translation that mapped 16mbyte virtual addresses to 64mbyte real addresses.

other recent posts mentioning MVS bloatware was on the verge of taking up all 16mbytes of each application virtual address sapce:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#54 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#62 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#83 Costs of core

ohter recent posts mentioning 3033 64mbyte hack:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#62 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#22 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#83 Costs of core

other recent refs to Mythical Man Month (which contributes to enormous os360/mvs bloatware)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#99 IBM architecture, was Fifty Years of nitpicking definitions, was BASIC,theProgrammingLanguageT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#103 TSO Test does not support 65-bit debugging?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#5 "F[R]eebie" software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#41 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#44 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#65 New Military Gear Doesn't Have to Cost a Fortune
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#87 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

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

As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 19:16:11 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#92 As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#93 As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#94 As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday

and from today .... for real:

HP gives OpenVMS new life
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9250087/HP_gives_OpenVMS_new_life
HP gives OpenVMS new life
http://www.infoworld.com/t/enterprise-architecture/hp-gives-openvms-new-life-247456
HP Gives OpenVMS New Life and Path To X86 Port
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/07/31/1937240/hp-gives-openvms-new-life-and-path-to-x86-port

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

How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:41:16 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#100 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#101 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

GAO Report on Too Big to Fail Strives to Be All Things to All Observers
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/gao-report-too-big-to-fail-strives-things-observers.html

from above:
Market participants, ay? Those wouldn't be the ones who spent a million and a half dollars a day to influence Congress to reverse financial regulations, would they? Keep in mind that a lot of the report comes from the assessments of the Big Three rating agencies, some of the most corrupt players in the industry, who rely on banks for their continued existence and simply have an incentive to tell GAO what Goldman and JPMorgan would want them to say.

... and
Similarly, GAO's first report on this subject matter found that government support during the crisis was much cheaper than alternatives, was secured by junk collateral, tended to be used more by bigger banks, and basically represented all that stood between the biggest institutions and insolvency.

... snip ...

TARP $700B was originally appropriated supposedly to buy toxic assets, however end of 2008, just the four largest too big to fail still held $5.2T "off-book" (the $700B wasn't nearly enough to keep the too big to fail from going under).
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

out of more than $27T done during the bubble:
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 then the quadrillion in CDS gambling bets going on in the background
http://goldenageofgaia.com/accountability/financial-crash/freeze-the-1-5-quadrillion-derivatives-bubble/

note that major enabler for the more than $27T done during the bubble was the triple-A ratings being sold by the "rating agencies" (from Oct 2008 congressional hearings into the role played by the rating agencies ... testimony that the both the selleres and the rating agencies knew that they weren't worth triple-A ... but they were being paid to give out triple-A ratings).

posts mentioning too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail
posts mentioning (triple-A rated) toxic CDOs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#toxic.cdo

- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Migration path for IBM 650 users?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Migration path for IBM 650 users?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:13:22 -0400

sarr.blumson writes:
AFAIK, they left the much larger base of 1620 users in a similar lurch. 1,000 users was small potatoes by IBM standards. The 14xx users mattered.

punch card users mattered ... biggest computer goof ever
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 14:52:24 -0400

hancock4 writes:
I'm surprised that the 195 had only 5-10 times the performance of a 158.

However, in re-reading the S/360 history, it appears the focus for the S/360 high end machines (various 9x models) was on fast floating point arithmetic, particularly on the 195. It had three independent floating point processors. It seems the machine was generally intended for science users with heavy floating point needs, presumably nuclear physics, theorectical astronomy, and weather forecasting.

While IBM mentions for use in commercial service, and it had fast circuitry, I didn't thinks like extra I/O or some sort of communications assist which would be important in commercial service.

Curiously, the 195 was included in the very widely published System/360 and System/370 Summary (though dropped from later 370 editions) even though I believe it was available only through special order, and may have even been withdrawn.

(I just thought it was neat machine, being listed somewhat uniquely at the back of the guidebook. As mentioned, I asked my boss to replace our S/360-40 with one. He suggested I go out have a drink.)

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?

370/158 was sort of at the knee of the price/performance curve and the memory access latency curve. lots of expensive (higher cost/mip) stuff was done above 1mip to compensate for memory access latency ... bigger (expensive) caches, overlapped operation, out-of-order execution, etc. As an aside, there are some recent observations that the current memory access latency ... counted in processor cycles, is comparable to 360-era disk access latency measured in 360 processor cycles.

the 370/158 engine was so inexpensive to build that it was selected for the channel director for 303x line in the 2nd half of the 70s. the 370/158 engine was shared between executing the 370 processor microcode and the integrated channel microcode. for 303x line, the 370/158 engine w/o the 370 instruction microcdoe ... but with the integrated channel microcode was used for the (external) channel director box.

a 3031 was actually two 370/158 engines ... the 3031 processor, a 370/158 engine with just the 370 processor microcode and a 2nd 370/158 engine as the 303x channel director. a 3032 processor was a 168-3 using 303x channel director as its external channels. a 3033 then was 168-3 logic mapped to 20% faster chips (warmed over FS technology) ... with 303x channel directs as its external channels.

past posts mentioning Future System:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

recent posts mentioning 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#16 R.I.P. PDP-10?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#52 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#54 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#70 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#86 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#87 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#93 As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#1 R.I.P. PDP-10?

however, by the late 70s, the 4341 had supplanted the 370/158 engine as cost effective price/performance ... having higher throughput, much smaller physical footprint and much more energy efficient technology. because of 4341 physical footprint and energy efficiency there were being ordered in hundreds at a time by large corporations for deployment out in departmental areas ... sort of leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami.

old 4341 related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

old posts about doing benchmarks for national lablooking at getting 70 4341s for a compute farm ... sort of the leading edge of modern supercompter paradigm:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#0 Is a VAX a mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#7 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#0 Microcode?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#7 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#19 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#4 misc. old benchmarks (4331 & 11/750)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#31 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#21 moving on
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#62 Cycles per ASM instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#54 mainframe performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#67 ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#61 I Must Have Been Dreaming (36-bit word needed for ballistics?)

more than decade later, old email about cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa
for ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

old post referencing jan1992 meeting in ellison's conference room about having 16-way cluster mid92 and 128-way cluster ye1992.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

then over the course of a few weeks, cluster scale-up is transferred, we are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors, and announced as IBM supercomputing ... some press items ... 17Feb1992, "sicentific and technical ONLY "
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters1
and then 11May1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#6000clusters2

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

Migration path for IBM 650 users?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Migration path for IBM 650 users?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:23:38 -0400

hancock4 writes:
Could you elaborate on the context of your statement "biggest computer goof ever"?

Also, the link refers to ASCII development.

As to punch card upgrades, I think IBM was keenly aware of their significance. On the low end, the 14xx series was supposed to replace many punch card shops, indeed, its RPG theorectically was designed to be easy to use for experienced plugboad users.

Further, on IBM's higher end machines, punched cards often remained an integral part of the operations.

The smallest punch card users would find cards more economically than even a low end S/360. But later IBM came out with the System/3 which was cheap enough for low volume users.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#4 Migration path for IBM 650 users?

At univ. there was still significant card related processing five years after 360 was installed (and only slowly declining). The intial 360 install had 1401 emulation and 1401 compatable equipment continued to be used long after 1401 emulation was no longer being used. The software may have needed to completely change moving to 360 ... but the amount of data was much larger than the programs ... and the software design remained significantly unchanged ... even after card images were being processed from disk ... rather than real cards.

EBCDIC and the P-Bit (The Biggest Computer Goof Ever)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM

from above:
The IBM 360 was to have been primarily an ASCII-based computer, still handling the ordering of existing BCD files. These files were the only obstacle to ASCII -- there was no way previously-compiled code for any IBM computer would run on the new machine. Confirming evidence is everywhere.

... and
Who Goofed?

The culprit was T. Vincent Learson. The only thing for his defense is that he had no idea of what he had done. It was when he was an IBM Vice President, prior to tenure as Chairman of the Board, those lofty positions where you believe that, if you order it done, it actually will be done. I've mentioned this fiasco elsewhere.

... and
The position of IBM was a most important factor for progress of a standard code, and the System 360 was crucial to IBM's position. It was designed to handle both the Extended BCD Code (for upward compatibility of much former equipment) and the eventual ASCII.

... snip ...

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:11:19 -0400

jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Dennis wrote based on what happened. There is the product statement and then there is the result which was governed by that product statement, the tradeoffs and the limitations imposed by reality such as manhour limits, hardware constraints, and other physical requirements. Because they got an -11, the code had to be tight, effficient and organized so that the code involved in delivering timesharing services did not get in the way of using the timesharing services. The -10 had more physical resources available than any -11. If you want an ultra-effiecient OS, develop it on a system with extreme limited resources.

and with skilled, limited resources, don't forget brooks' "Mythical Man Month"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

from above:
Brooks' observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further

... snip ...

and contributes to enormous bloat ... recent posts mentioning "bloat"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#5 "F[R]eebie" software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#22 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#24 Firefox is BLOATWARE!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#32 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#41 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#65 New Military Gear Doesn't Have to Cost a Fortune
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#72 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#1 R.I.P. PDP-10?

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#100 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#101 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#104 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#99 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#0 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#5 The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

Super Cane's Computers run Windows

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Super Cane's Computers run Windows
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 20:35:47 -0400

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
This is becoming a real concern with today's highly computerized flight decks. Pilots whose hand-flying skills have atrophied due to relying on the computers are in deep trouble if the computers go down.

increasingly everything is fly-by-wire ... has a computer-in-the-loop someplace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire

motivation for FBW in F16 (by Boyd and the fighter mafia) ... was non-stable aerodynamics ... but can't be human controlled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon
relaxed stability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxed_stability

from above:
Relaxed stability designs are not limited to fighter jets. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 has a relaxed stability design which was implemented to save fuel. To ensure stability for safe flight, an LSAS (Longitudinal Stability Augmentation System) was introduced to compensate for the MD-11's rather short horizontal stabilizer and ensure that the aircraft would remain stable. However, there have been incidents in which the MD-11's relaxed stability caused an "inflight upset".

... and
A less stable aircraft requires smaller control deflections to initiate maneuvering; consequently drag and control surface imposed stresses will be reduced and aircraft responsiveness will be enhanced. Since these characteristics will typically make control by the pilot difficult or impossible, an artificial stability will typically be imposed using computers, servos, and sensors as parts of a fly by wire control system

... snip ...

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

recent posts mentioning fly-by-wire
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#3 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#22 Has the last fighter pilot been born?

the question is whether there is also human-in-the-loop. recent stories does have extensive use of auto-pilot (no human-in-the-loop) does degrade flying skills. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#86 A Little More on the Computer

there are also recent reports about gov. ecnomy measures cutting flying hrs/year for military pilots is impacting their proficiency. It did point out that navy pilots avg. much more than air force ... but it was necessary for minimum proficiency involving carrier operation.

however, there is this reference to army non-officer, non-pilot drone operators having fewer accidents than air force officer pilots. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#16 USAF officers slammed for pranging Predators on manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#42 Mission Control & Air Cooperation -- Part I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#16 comp.arch has made itself a sitting duck for spam
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#8 No command, and control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#50 Itanium at ISSCC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#0 Mainframe technology in 2011 and beyond; who is going to run these Mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#52 50th anniversary of BASIC, COBOL?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#20 UAV vis-a-vis F35
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#19 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#31 The Designer Of The F-15 Explains Just How Stupid The F-35 Is

referencing this article
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/29/young_usaf_predator_pilot_officer_slam/

recently drone has demonstrated carrier-landing proficiency.

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

How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 22:00:21 -0400

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
And yet they worship Adam Smith, who decried monopolies.

from recent post on facebook about education system

I thought that claims it was capitalism (not democracy) that tries to force the majority into mold so that few are able to think outside the box. "How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Scots-Invented-Modern-World-ebook/dp/B000XUAEMG/

pg 212/loc3539-47:
Smith had finally defined the link between commerce and cultural progress, which the rest of the Scottish Enlightenment had written about and celebrated, but not really proved. But he also opened up a broader point, and gestured toward another, often overlooked advantage to living in a modern commercial society. As the fourth stage of human progress, it produces more, in greater quantities, than any of its predecessors. It is so productive, in fact, that it can supply the wants and needs not only of those who work, but of those who don't. In the early drafts of Wealth of Nations, Smith strongly emphasized this (unfortunately, most of it did not make it to the final published version). He conceded that capitalism generates a great inequality of wealth, with a very few commanding the great bulk of commodities and a great part of the rest sharing what is left.

... snip ...

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

R.I.P. PDP-10?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: R.I.P. PDP-10?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 09:53:13 -0400

Dave <g4ugm@btinternet.com> writes:
I would say more like they were in a maze of twisty little passages all different...

Getting to 32-bit addressing was a nightmare as so much code used the un-used byte in the end of a word.

From what I understand the first releases of VM/XA SF were built simply so they could debug MVS/XA but that doesn't really hang true as VM/XA requires the SIE instruction, and the only use for SIE is for VM...

during the FS effort, 370 activities were being killed off, with the demise of future system effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

there was mad rush to get stuff back into product pipeline ... kicking off 303x, 3081, 370/xa and mvs/xa ... and the head of POK managed to convince corporate to kill off the vm370/cms product and transfer all the people from vm370/cms development group (in burlington mall) to POK as part of supporting mvs/xa development ... recent posts about some number managed to escape the move, finding other employment in the Boston area (even joke about head of POK being major contributor to VAX/VMS).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#4 Another Golden Anniversary - Dartmouth BASIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#22 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#105 TSO Test does not support 65-bit debugging?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#68 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#89 make a new thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#93 As OpenVMS nears 30, users dredge up videos from DEC's heyday

Endicott managed to save the vm370 product mission, but had to reconsitute a group from scratch (vmshare archives from the period has cutomers commenting about problems with product/code quality)
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

part of that activity was creating the VMTOOL .. which was virtual machine debugging tool for mvs/xa ... and was never intended to be released to customers ... along with SIE facility. One of the issues was SIE was a large body of microcode and there wasn't enough room in the 3081 for it ... so entry/exit to/from SIE ... the SIE microcode had to be "paged" in/out ... severely impacting performance (but was required to get in/out of virtual XA mode).

they then found that customers was finding it difficult to migrate from MVS to MVS/XA ... in part, the 64mbyte real storage hack for 3033/MVS was being supporting on 3081. recent refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#62 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#22 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#83 Costs of core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#16 R.I.P. PDP-10?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#1 R.I.P. PDP-10?

as kludge to help with customer migration from MVS to MVS/XA, it was to release VMTOOLS as MA (migration aid) then SF (system facility).

old posts/email about internal datacenter extended vm370 to support XA/370 ... which had much better function & throughput than MA/SF (vmtool) ... but internal politics prevented it from being released
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email860122
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email860123
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#87 A History of VM Performance
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#email870508
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#30 vm370 running in "XA-mode"

the vm performance history post also has this related old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email860119
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email860121

3033 and 3081 development was overlapped, running in parallel. when 3033 was finished, the 3033 engineers started on 3090. old email about 3081 (sie and some 3090 ref)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#email810630
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#27 virtual memory

another old email mentioning SIE in 3090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#email831118
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#42 Flash 10208

another reference to SIE on 3090 still being expensive instruction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email860121
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#49 SVC

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

How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 10:42:22 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#9 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

Fareed Zakaria just now on CNN referenced his old article "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy" (in part capitalism & other special interests, subverting democracy)
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53577/fareed-zakaria/the-rise-of-illiberal-democracy
and recent post article "The rise of Putinism"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-rise-of-putinism/2014/07/31/2c9711d6-18e7-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html

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

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 14:00:30 -0400

pechter@tucker.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) writes:
I'd consider the BSD varients a separate code base...

They did a full split from AT&T's code base back in the 90's. They go back as far as the OSF split as a distinct codebase. It's not Unix (tm) -- as in certified by the OpenGroup, but it's got a history starting with the Editions from Bell Labs -- which makes it as much "Unix" as Linux is.

Besides Berekely unix work-alike (BSD), there was also CMU's MACH and UCLA's LOCUS

IBM had hired the company that had done the AT&T UNIX port to the IBM/PC for PC/IX to do one for 801/risc ROMP ... released as AIX ... as part of PC/RT.

IBM Palo Alto group was working on BSD for 370 ... when they were redirected to do if for the PC/RT ... released as AOS (as alternative to AIX).

IBM Palo Alto group was also working with UCLA on LOCUS and it was released as AIX/370 and AIX/386 (totally different from AIX for PC/RT and RS/6000), later enhanced as AIX/ESA.

Pieces of MACH (and CMU's andrew file system) as well as LOCUS show up in OSF.

LOCUS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOCUS_%28operating_system%29

from above:

A desire to commercialize the technologies developed for LOCUS inspired the creation of the Locus Computing Corporation which went on to include ideas from LOCUS in various products, including OSF/1 AD and, finally, the SCO-Tandem UnixWare NonStop Clusters product.

... snip ...

MACH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_%28kernel%29

from above:
The Mach virtual memory management system was also adopted by the BSD developers at CSRG, and appears in modern BSD-derived UNIX systems, such as FreeBSD

... and
Mach is the logical successor to Carnegie Mellon's Accent kernel. The lead developer on the Mach project, Richard Rashid, has been working at Microsoft since 1991 in various top-level positions revolving around the Microsoft Research division. Another of the original Mach developers, Avie Tevanian, was formerly head of software at NeXT, then Chief Software Technology Officer at Apple Computer until March 2006.[2]

... snip ...

Unix wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars
OSF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation
Tru64_Unix, OSF/1 AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tru64_UNIX#OSF.2F1_AD

and

Distributed Computing Environment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Computing_Environment

from above:
The DCE system was, to a large degree, based on independent developments made by each of the partners. DCE/RPC was derived from the Network Computing System (NCS) created at Apollo Computer. The naming service was derived from work done at Digital. DCE/DFS was based on the Andrew File System (AFS) originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University. The authentication system was based on Kerberos, and the authorization system based on Access Control Lists (ACLs). By combining these features, DCE offers a fairly complete C-based system for network computing. Any machine on the network can authenticate its users, gain access to resources, and then call them remotely using a single integrated API.

... snip ...

past posts mentioning kerberos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos

as an aside, we were doing a temp. assignment in seattle for a year working with the company that m'soft had hired to adapt kerberos for windows (kerberos-based) authentication infrastructure.

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 14:33:21 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
Besides Berekely unix work-alike (BSD), there was also CMU's MACH and UCLA's LOCUS

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#12 The SDS 92, its place in history?

other BSD folklore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#38 Happy DEC-10 Day

referencing DARPA kept telling UCB CSRG that they couldn't to tcp/ip software, they would agree with DARPA ("Yes them to death") and kept doing it anyway
http://www.freenix.no/arkiv/daemonnews/199909/usenix-kirk.html
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 ...

early 90s saw a lot of vendors using TCP/IP support from BSD (tahoe & reno) ... even if they weren't using the rest of 4.3. Also note in that time period, the fed gov. was trying to eliminate the internet and force everybody to move to OSI (GOSIP).

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

Super Cane's Computers run Windows

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Super Cane's Computers run Windows
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 16:55:31 -0400

Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> writes:
Admittedly, this was the Air Force, not a commercial company, but the 3 guys in a basket for ultrasonic inspection of the C5 cargo plane definitely featured the OS as part of a safety-critical system controlling the cable spools that supported the guys. I looked around and couldn't find any online links to this, but I did see some pics that Fred Proctor had of the setup.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#8 Super Cane's Computers run Windows

one of the boyd guys was working for the maker of C5 ... he said that they had adopted the practice of putting C5 jobs in critical congressional districts to make sure the MICC wouldn't cancel the effort. The problem came when they had to bring pieces in from all over the country and try and to get them all to fit together. he made some comment it was boeing that really won the C5 competition (by not getting the contract).

I was brought into Boeing summer of 1969 to help set up boeing computer services ... I hadn't graduated yet ... but was listed as fulltime employee (and then when I graduated, had to decide whether to return to Boeing ... or go with IBM at the science center in cambridge). Got basement apt from one of the 747 engineers and 747 #3 was flying skies of seattle getting FAA certification. Claim was that the cockpit was raised above the nose as part of being able to swing the front open in a freight version ... and part of competing for C5 contract.

More recently Boeing merges with MD and also adopts the MICC practice, putting 787 jobs all over as part of winning over politicians ... except in this case it was pieces in different countries as part of winning 787 contracts with national airlines. Boeing then has delays and manufacturing problems with 787 pieces from all over ... they then bemoan the excuse/facade of putting manufacturing all of the planet was to cut lead time and costs ... but it actually took much longer and increased costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#56 The real cost of outsourcing

for other safety-critical ("human rated") ... Y2K tale from early 80s and costs "fixing" a shuttle control feature ... which would then have to be re-certified for "human rated"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#94 Those who do not learn from history...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#21 Sun researchers: Computers do bad math ;)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#16 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#53 Long parms...again

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

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

recent posts mentioning 747 &/or boeing computer services:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#31 How many EBCDIC machines are still around?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#32 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#9 Boyd for Business & Innovation Conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#19 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#23 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#69 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#36 IBM Historic computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#92 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#0 Tim Geithner Redux - Here's the what American Bankers Association has to say on the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#28 Does IBM CEO Rometty Understand Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#57 Interesting and somewhat disturbing article about IBM in BusinessWeek. What is your opinion?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#13 IBM & Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#31 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#40 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

past posts mentioning C5:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#36 What do YOU call the # sign?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#2 The computer did it
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#54 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#25 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#7 Mainframe upgrade done with wire cutters?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#37 movie "Airport" on cable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#13 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?

other past posts mentioning 787:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#43 Boeings New Dreamliner Ready For Maiden Voyage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#33 The real cost of outsourcing (and offshoring)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#65 End of an era
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#28 US military spending has increased 81% since 2001
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#2 Did you see the one about the F-35 and F/A-18?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#13 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'

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

IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 23:18:34 -0400

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Except that they weren't contemporaneous. A fair comparison is 2014 nonrotating storage to 2014 tapes.

recent thread about SONY new tape over in ibm-main
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#64 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#65 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#16 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#75 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#79 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape

part of the issue in the thread were transfer rates of the new tape generation and not announced for ibm mainframe (potentially because the transfer rates were too high).

news items
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181560-sony-develops-tech-for-185tb-tapes-3700-times-more-storage-than-a-blu-ray-disc
http://www.gizmag.com/sony-185-tb-magnetic-tape-storage/31910/
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-sony-185-tb-cassette-tape-storage-record-20140505-story.html

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 09:30:53 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
I've recently periodically referred to peak i/o z196 benchmark achieved 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (a heavy weight protocol layer implemented on top of fibre channel standard, that drastically cuts native FCS throughput) ... about the same time a native FCS was announced for e5-2600 blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS has higher throughput than 104 FCS using FICON layer).

posts mentioning FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
AMEX, Private Equity, IBM related Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#99 The SDS 92, its place in history?

Superfast solid state drive unveiled; Summary: A solid state drive capable of retrieving data orders of magnitude faster than existing SSDs goes on show.
http://www.zdnet.com/superfast-solid-state-drive-unveiled-7000032295/

from above:
The solid state drive is capable of three million random read IOs per second of 512 bytes each, when operating in a queued environment, and a random read access latency of 1.5 microseconds (millionths of a second) in non-queued settings, according to HGST.

... snip ...

single drive capable of 3M IOPS

slight overlap with this post on 185 Tbyte tape ... and reference to fast transfer tapes not announced for ibm mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#15 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

also solid state drive is HGST. HGST started out as ibm san jose disk division ... had been reorged into adstar as part of ibm split-up of IBM in the early 90s ... reversed when board brought in Gerstner. However spin-off resumed a decade later in conjunction with Hitachi ... and then Hitachi recently sold it to Western Digital.
http://www.hgst.com/about-hgst-storage
HGST Expanding Historic South San Jose Campus
http://www.thesanjoseblog.com/2014/02/hgst-expanding-historic-south-san-jose.html
Exclusive: Western Digital's HGST plans major expansion at south San Jose campus
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/02/04/exclusive-western-digitals-hgst.html?page=all

I transferred to San Jose Research in the late 70s, which was bldg. 28 on the main plant site (before Almaden bldg. was built up the hill in the mid-80s). While there, I also got to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15 ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

HGST wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST

History of IBM magentic disk drives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives

1956 pictures of san jose plant site in this collection
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/institutions/Sourisseau+Academy+for+State+and+Local+History/
some of IBM from the collection (295 total)
http://content.cdlib.org/search?docsPerPage=200&facet=type-tab&group=image&type=&keyword=ibm&keyword-add=&keyword-join=&relation=calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu&relation-join=&sortDocsBy=&style=cui&brand=calisphere&x=15&y=4

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 10:37:11 -0400

jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Another difference was the MTBF of the hardware pieces. A -10 had oddles of pieces compared to an -11 system. If ATT had bought them a -10, a lot more code would have gone in to create a safety net when things go horribly wrong.

one of the issues with UNIX on IBM mainframes was Field Engineering refusing to support the machine & peripherals unless there were IBM standard RAS (error recovery) & EREP (error reporting). Adding mainframe RAS&EREP (very specialized, mostly mainframe unique) was many times the amount of code involved in the straight-forward port of UNIX to mainframe

It was one of the reasons for ATT contracting for split UNIX higher level built on top of stripped down TSS/370 kernel (SSUP) for mainframe operation.

It was also why AIX/370 (UCLA LOCUS) nominally ran under VM370 ... relying on VM370 to provide the necessary RAS&EREP (for the virtual machine). Trivial example is unit-check sense data for disk indicating "correctable datacheck" ... or when 3880 controller refuses anymore operations until its internal error recording log had been read&reset.

Even Amdahl's UTS would be run under VM370 (because of the RAS&EREP issues)

old posts reference to special stripped down TSS/370 PRPQ for ATT UNIX (for internal use)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#4a John Hartmann's Birthday Party
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#69 Operating systems are old and busted
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#17 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#61 (slightly OT - Linux) Did IBM bet on the wrong OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#44 someone smarter than Dave Cutler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#2 TSS (Transaction Security System)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#0 Hashing for DISTINCT or GROUP BY in SQL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#73 Speed of Old Hard Disks - adcons
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#96 History of copy on write
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#85 SV: USS vs USS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#67 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#21 A z/OS Redbook Corrected - just about!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#28 which one came first
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#34 Regarding Time Sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#24 Aging Sysprogs = Aging Farmers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#92 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?

recent posts mentioning AIX/370:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#6 Application development paradigms [was: RE: Learning Rexx]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#21 The PDP-8/e and thread drifT?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#75 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#73 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#110 IBM mainframes, was PDP-11 architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#12 The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:48:19 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
the s/38 common filesystem pool scaled poorly ... just having to save/restore all data as single integral whole, was barely tolerable with a few disks ... but large mainframe system with 300 disks would require days for the operation.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#72 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

one of the issues with IBM channels was big disk farms. total channel run lengths were restricted to 200ft support 3330 800kbyte/sec transfer (which includes hand-shake for every byte transferred).

to move to 3880 disk controller , the went to "data streaming" which support multiple byte transfer per hand-shake ... this allowed extended maximum channel length to 400ft and 3mbyte/sec transfer rates (however, the slower processor in 3880, significantly increased latency for command & control processing operations compared to 3830 controller).

some of the big datacenters would have processor in middle of room with 200ft channel radius out in every direction ... about 125k sq ft. area for disk farm. some datacenters were constrained enough that they started doing devices on multiple floors arrayed around the processor (3d, rather the purely circle).

big datacenters also tended to have multiple processors in "loosely-coupled" configuration ... 3330 disks could connect to two different 3830 controllers with string switch and each 3830 controller could have four channel interfaces (allowing disk to be access by eight different channels/processors). center of disk farm would then be a circle (rather than point) ... with overlapping radius ... limiting max. disk farm physical area for connectivity to all processors.

3880 & datastreaming channel then extended the radius to 400ft (channel run) or about 502k sq ft. area (twice the radius, four times the area) containing disk farm. however, disk data density also went way up ... enormously increasing the total amount of data in some of these old mainframe datacenters.

one of issues I've periodically mentioned doing channel extender and fiber channel standard ... was moving the i/o program out to the remote end to eliminate the end-to-end latency operations ... everything could be continuously streamed, concurrently in both directions .... getting aggregate, sustained data transfer much closer to media transfer rate.

recent posts mentioning 3830/3880 disk controllers:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#88 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#90 Enterprise Cobol 5.1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#68 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#90 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#91 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#96 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#17 The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

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

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

DG Nova 1200 as console

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: DG Nova 1200 as console
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 15:01:08 -0400

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
Wonderful. There is a 470V/6 machine reference manual already on Bitsavers, but I didn't notice that in that one. I recently read through it again, noticing that its high performance multiplier was only 2/3 the size of IBM's - and that both the 470 and the 5600/5800 were microcoded. So after leaving IBM, Amdahl never really did get the chance to realize his dream of designing a no-holds-barred high performance implementation of the 360 architecture, it seems to me.

"no-holds-barred high performance" ... again??
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

above mentions acs/360 features not showing up until more than 20yrs later in es/9000.

i've mentioned that during FS, they were killing off 370 efforts ... and the lack of 370 products during FS (and delay getting stuff back into the 370 product pipelines) gave clone processor vendors a market foothold.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

during the 3033 period in the late 70s then going into the 80s with 3081 ... there was some folklore speculation that the numerous ongoing microcode changes ... required for MVS system operations ... were being done as countermeasure to clone processors (things that don't show up in most user related programming description ... since they were only required by some specific internal MVS operation). This is separate from the competitive price actions that IBM had to take with 3081 ... described here:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

these ongoing machine tweaks (and systems required the latest changes) has been described as motivation for Amdahl "macrocode" ... looks mostly like 370 instructions but above microcode (and below normal machine architecture). the claim was that it significantly reduced to the effort to track the flow of minor architecture tweaks (even much less effort than IBM took to do the features originally in low-level microcode).

the claim was that "macrocode" has significantly reduced the effort for Amdahl to implement "hypervisor" support ... basically subset of virtual machine support built directly into the machine.

IBM had to eventually respond to Amdahl's hypervisor with PR/SM and LPAR ... which was significantly greater effort ... since it had to be done in low level microcode (although heavily used the SIE microcode).

recent posts mentioning macrocode, hypervisor, pr/sm and/or SIE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#80 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#82 CPU time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#17 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#20 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#10 R.I.P. PDP-10?

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

Blinkenlights

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Blinkenlights
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 12:16:48 -0400

greymausg writes:
PUE?

power usage effectiveness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_usage_effectiveness

system costs have fallen so dramatically that power is becoming increasing percentage of total costs. also large cloud mega datacenter have enormous amounts of on-demand capacity ... the want to have near zero power consumption when not actively being used ... but come up online instantaneously. combination putting them at forefront of green computing.

they are also looking at increasing use of risc chips (arm) originally developed for power efficiency for use with batteries

related recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#5 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group

other past posts mentioning PUE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#78 Entry point for a Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#92 Continuing cloud computing
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/2013j.html#24 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 11:48:39 -0400

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
Yes, but the installation of Windows includes that bootloader.

Since apparently many Windows users aren't all that computer capable, they will reinstall the whole thing just because the bootloader is corrupt.

I gather that's standar procedure for any problem with Windows. First step, reinstall, it may fix the problem and it's something that many can actually do. Troubleshooting and fixing a small problem may be beyond them.

this is one thing that underminned having a significantly safer internet environment ... lots of blue screen of death just trying thru boot ... as part of program to deploy after-market serial port device (around start of century) ... and lack of customer expertise, the standard is re-install from scratch. conjecture is program got firesale on obsolete serial port devices ... USB was new thing ... large part of motivation for USB was enormous configuration problems with serial port (and industry institutional knowlege about enormous customer support problems for serial-port had evaporated in five yr period).

past comments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 10:42:01 -0400

Ibmekon writes:
And not just Windows.

September last year I replaced Windows XP with Linux Mint 15 XFCE, keeping Win XP in a VirtualBox. Last week I asked it to apt-get me a package - it just sat there. It seems that it felt neglected, a new makeover is available. So I backed up my data, downloaded Mint 17 to make a 1.3gb USB boot stick, and installed a fresh load. Withing hours of my reconfiguring and rebuilding it crashed, twice. On reboot I looked for any system logs. Downloaded a log viewer, nothing to be seen in the logs.

So, guess what - I reloaded again. Checking carefully as I rebuilt my system.

Long story short, Xscreensaver is ****

Perhaps with faster systems, we will end up loading a fresh OS copy & adding user data each boot time. Which is as I remember it with a MS/PC DOS diskette, and each application backed up separately on its own diskette. To rebuild/replace your HDD, reformat it, and restore the diskettes.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#21 The SDS 92, its place in history?

(another) countermeasure to PC end-point compromise is virtualization ... spin-up new (virtualized, padded-cell) system image for each browser session ... which is destroyed afterwards (along with any system infections) ... always have clean, vetted system to operate from.

as mentioned in prior posts about dialup online banking, mid-90s consumer dialup online banking were making presentations about migration to internet ... primarily to unload the significant consumer support issues related to serial-port modems and proprietary dialup applications. however, at the same time the commercial/cash-management dialup systems were saying that they would never migrate to the internet because of the massive number of exploits.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

however, since that time, most commerical operations have also moved to the internet. now consumer protection laws don't apply to commercial operations ... so periodically compromised PCs in commercial operations (& subsequent fraudulent financial transactions ... where the crooks loot the bank accounts) have resulted in litigation.

somewhat as an approximation to original dial-up online banking, federal agencies will periodically recommend that commerical operations have a separate, secure PC that is dedicated to only doing online banking operations and *NEVER* used for any other purpose (because of the extreme vulnerability that normal email & browser activity can result in system infections)

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 22:58:58 -0400

Ibmekon writes:
When I transferred from Windows XP to Linux I settled on the Grsync package to backup my //home/carl directory to a portable USB HDD. And wondered why it backed up so many files. It contains some 13,326 hidden files. Of this, in just 5 days, Firefox has built a cache of 12,844 files. This is poor design - why would anyone ever want to backup or reload temporary files ? And putting downloaded files, potentially virus infected, into a folder with my personal security stamp - is simply stupid.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#21 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#22 The SDS 92, its place in history?

every web object becomes separate file in the cache ... clear it ...
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-clear-firefox-cache
override cache size to impossibly small number
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=783185

use backup system that allows excludes for cache

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

UEFI?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: UEFI?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 12:06:57 -0400

"gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> writes:
How soon before details of these keys leak out?

Would we need access to an electron microscope to read the key?

TPM is suppose to be unique private key per chip ... would require chip destruction and cost that was much more than value of PC to extract. It could have a digitally signed certificate claiming that the related public key was valid. You get something signed by the TPM chip with the digital certificate attached. You verify the digital certificate signature with widely distributed, well known public key. Then you use the TPM-chip specific public key (included in the verified digital certificate) to validate the TPM signed information. The TPM-specific private key used for the signing never has left the chip (not w/o a great deal of effort that includes destroying the chiip).

the actual private key used for the digital certificate signing should be kept in much more expensive TPM-like chip that also has very expensive physical access controls (and only the corresponding public key for validating the signatures, distributed widely)

reference to 2001 presentation at IDF on assurance in the trusted computing track ... gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20011109072807/http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/sessiondescription.asp?id=stp%2bs13

The person heading up the TPM-chip effort was in the front row ... I made some remark that it was nice to see that TPM chip was starting to look a lot more like my AADS chip. He responded that I didn't have committee of 200 people helping me design a chip. some AADS chip refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

I've mentioned before that the los gatos vlsi lab had pioneered use of scanning electron microscope to debug new vlsi chips (technique used to extract private key from chip).

I would joke in the later-half of the 90s, that I was starting with $500 milspec chip and cost reducing by 2-3 orders of magnnitude while improving the integrity. misc past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#42 The bank fraud blame game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005u.html#32 AMD to leave x86 behind?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#56 Any benefit to programming a RISC processor by hand?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#57 Any benefit to programming a RISC processor by hand?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#61 Osama bin Laden gets a cosmetic makevover in his British Vanity Passport
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#4 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#11 PC history, was search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#26 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#72 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#32 IBM Mainframe (1980's) on You tube
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#22 Check out Moto X: Motorola reveals plans for ink and even pills to replace AL
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#77 Insane Insider Threat Program in Context of Morally and Mentally Bankrupt US Intelligence System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#88 NSA and crytanalysis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#55 "NSA foils much internet encryption"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#41 Special characters for Passwords

some past posts mentioning LSG VLSI group and scanning electron microscope
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#16 Computer of the century
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#55 Multics hardware (was Re: "Soul of a New Machine" Computer?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#3 Ping: Anne & Lynn Wheeler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#16 US fiscal policy (Was: Bob Bemer, Computer Pioneer,Father of ASCII,Invento
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#83 Notes on two presentations by Gordon Bell ca. 1998
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#50 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#7 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#94 Silicoin
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#0 By Any Other Name

past posts referencing IDF assurance presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm5.htm#asrn1 Assurance, e-commerce, and some x9.59 ... fyi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aepay6.htm#idf Intel Developer's Forum ... fyi
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#20 Something wrong with "re-inventing the wheel".?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#58 Price Tag for End-to-End Encryption: $4.8 Billion, Mercator Says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#5 Moving to the Net: Encrypted Execution for User Code on a Hosting Site
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#48 Hacker charges also an indictment on PCI, expert says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#7 "Unhackable" Infineon Chip Physically Cracked - PCWorld
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#34 "Unhackable" Infineon Chip Physically Cracked
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#38 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#63 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#74 Is Security a Curse for the Cloud Computing Industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#9 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#53 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#50 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#72 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#73 From OODA to AAADA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#11 Credit cards with a proximity wifi chip can be as safe as walking around with your credit card number on a poster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#59 RISCversus CISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#24 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#72 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#48 Hello?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#53 The secret's out for secure chip design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#58 2012 History Conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#63 history of Programming language and CPU in relation to each other
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#77 Insane Insider Threat Program in Context of Morally and Mentally Bankrupt US Intelligence System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#66 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/2013l.html#55 "NSA foils much internet encryption"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#41 Special characters for Passwords

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

another question about TSO edit command

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: another question about TSO edit command
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 11 Aug 2014 10:39:01 -0700

bgodfrey.gz@GMAIL.COM (Bill Godfrey) writes:
Back in the 80's I worked at a place that had an IBM 7171 ASCII Device Attachment Control Unit, to which we could connect terminals like VT100's and, ISTR, a line from a modem to which a PC running a VT100 emulator could dial in, logon, and use ISPF.

From a bitsavers manual:

The IBM 7171 also provides ASCII to IBM 3270 protocol conversion. The IBM 7171 appears to the host processor as one or two IBM 3274 model1D control units. The attached ASCII display terminals and printers appear to the host system as IBM 3278 or 3277 terminals and IBM 3286 printers. IBM 3270 emulation allows the IBM 7171 attached devices to communicate with IBM interactive packages while utilizing existing 3270 programs with no host modification required. IBM 3270 emulation extends the capabilities of the ASCII device by providing 3270 type functions.

Inside IBM there was extensive use of modified (vm370 passthru virtual machine) PVM to support 3270 simulation .... first on IBM's 3101 glass teletype ... and then later with PCTERM running on ibm/pc (all over the world with corporate home terminal program).

vm370 "logical devices" (vm370 device that was actually provided by software running in service virtual machine) and initially used by PVM to provide remote 3270 sessions on the internal network.

PVM was then extended to support 3270 sessions simulated on 3101. And then things got really sophisticated supporting PCTERM on ibm/pc ... with all sorts of compression, caching, etc ... to optimize line transmission.

3101 ref
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3101
3101 refs at bitsavers
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/31xx/

posts with several old emails from 1979/1980 about early topaz/3101
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#0 Why so little parallelism?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#4 Why so little parallelism?

includes email to fujisawa to get mod.2 upgrades to mod1 boarads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email800311

reference to using series/1 to provide 3270 simulation for 3101 terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email800312

This got incredibly more sophisticated with ibm/pc "pcterm" running on pc; pvm and pcterm kept track of cached strings and could transmit index to cached string ... rather than string itself ... if not cached, then would do transmission huffman compressed strings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding

vm370 "logical devices" was also used by the VMSG author for a HLLAPI like facility ... well before the ibm/pc ... old post with parasite/story examples:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#35
parasite/story to automatigically logon to RETAIN and retrieve all PUT/fixes from RETAIN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#36

with the CCDN gateway .... a pvm facility simulating (logical device) 3270 to VTAM allowing connections to various corporate non-vm370, sna systems ... all done through standard vm370 logical device support.

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

UEFI?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: UEFI?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 21:33:41 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

a recent uefi article

Millions of PCs Affected by Mysterious Computrace Backdoor
http://threatpost.com/millions-of-pcs-affected-by-mysterious-computrace-backdoor-2/107700

from above:
LAS VEGAS -- Nearly every PC has an anti-theft product called Computrace embedded in its BIOS PCI Optional ROM or its unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). Computrace is a legitimate, trusted application developed by Absolute Software. However, it often runs without user-consent, persistently activates itself at system boot, and can be exploited to perform various attacks and to take complete control of an affected machine

... snip ...

other recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#24 UEFI?

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

The SDS 92, its place in history?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The SDS 92, its place in history?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:21:03 -0400

jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Yes, I know. I was asking about others' idea of the term "boot". Some have said that the preliminary OS work before a user can login is also part of the boot process. I wanted to know how you thought of it. (Sheesh! Am I talking in Kilingon? ;-))

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#21 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#22 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#26 UEFI?

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

R.I.P. PDP-10?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: R.I.P. PDP-10?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:38:47 -0400

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
I also happened to think that using the high-order byte saved a boatload of memory - not just a byte but a whole word, since many of the places where this was done were word-aligned lists abd control blocks.

In hindsight it does appear a stupid decision, but I can see many reasons why they made it.

similar to reason for date encodings ... especially left over from days of punch cards ... and then carrying forward to y2k ... past posts mentioning y2k discussions from first half of the 80s:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#24 BA Solves Y2K (Was: Re: Chinese Solve Y2K)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#94 Those who do not learn from history...
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#74 The demise of compaq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003p.html#21 Sun researchers: Computers do bad math ;)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#16 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#35 Friday fun - Discovery on the pad and the software's not done
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#53 Long parms...again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#65 Of interest to the Independent Contractors on the list
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#47 OT: Found an old IBM Year 2000 manual
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#41 60 Minutes News Report:Unemployed for over 99 weeks!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#90 Query for Destination z article -- mainframes back to the future

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

Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 11:55:34 -0400

I periodically pontificated that CKD was analogous to all the other storage saving activities from the era ... using high-byte of word with 24bit address, date encoding leading to y2k, etc.

CKD was trade-off with 1) exact record size for the data and 2) being able to use channel & device resources to find record location conserving scarce real storage that would have been needed to hold directory (multi-track search that would scan directory area for desired record pointer ... and then read just that information into storage)

by at least the mid-70s that trade-off had flipped, read storage resources sufficient to contain directory records saving increasingly bottleneck i/o resources.

past posts mentionind CKD, FBA, multi-track search, real-storage/io-resource tradeoff, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

recent post referencing real-storage conservation/optimization that has come back to bite
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#28 R.I.P. PDP-10

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

Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:27:47 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
by at least the mid-70s that trade-off had flipped, read storage resources sufficient to contain directory records saving increasingly bottleneck i/o resources.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#29 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

by at least mid-70s the trade-off using multi-track search had flipped ... and by at least early 80s the CKD/FBA was flipping ... 3380 CKD was made with fixed-size 32byte "cells" POK favorite son operation system, from its OS360 heritage, has multi-track search so ingrained ... that it is the only requirement to continue to simulate CKD (on industry standard FBA disks, even when there haven't been any CKD disks manufactured for decades, including the 3380 kind).

reference to record per track calculation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/gcard.html#26.3

The space taken up by record on 3380 track is the record size plus 12bytes rounded up to 32byte (cell size) plus 480bytes. the old time 80 byte card image ... becomes 96+480=576 bytes or 83 card images per track. The optimization to exactly physical format for record size from 2311 days had flipped. Even allocating one 80byte image per 512byte FBA physical record was more efficient than CKD. Adding five byte key (cchhr, standard default key for search argument) makes 32+96+704=832 bytes or 45 records/track

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

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

Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 13:23:47 -0400

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
The 1440 I worked with lacked an optional feature called "direct seek". Every seek had the arm return to cylinder zero before accessing the right cylinder.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#29 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

2314 transfer 312kbyte/sec (double data rate from 2311), avg access 60msec (access time & latency same as 2311??)
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2314.html

1311 & 2311
http://www.computerhistory.org/groups/storagesig/media/docs/IBM_1311_2311.pdf

rational delay reduced from 40millisec to 25millsec, increase capacity on 1316 disk pack to 7.25 by increasing track & linear density

2311 disk & 2400 tape
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/2311.html

transfer rate 156kbytes/sec, avg seek 85milliseconds, track-to-track 30milliseconds

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

Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:30:42 -0400

hancock4 writes:
I can't help but suspect that IBM's top management screwed up in some cases, and put too much pressure too long on its staff. The result was that eventually a heck of a lot of them got disgusted and left to join the plug compatible outfits.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#29 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#30 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#31 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

big attraction for many with plug compatible outfits was salary + equity ... which could be significantly larger than what might get from ibm.

when i was at boeing they told of the ibm salesman on the account when 360 was announced ... it was when salesman still got straight commission ... boeing walked in and provided the salesman with order all filled out (boeing knew significantly more about 360 than the salesman did). that year the person was highest paid individual in the company. for the next year, ibm changes to quota system (sales target and get salary prorated by how well did against quota). the salesman "made" quota by the end of the year ... and ibm was to "adjust" quota ... since the quota was obviously set way too low. the person then left to form his own mainframe services company.

this claims that Future System was justified as countermeasure to clone controllers ... that the processor and channel/controllers/devices would be so tightly integrated that it would be very difficult for competition to develop clone controller
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm

other posts mentioning Future system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

this has quote about the shutdown of ACS/360 ... that ibm management was afraid that it would advance state of the art too fast and ibm would loose control of the market
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

person then leaves and starts their own clone processor company. the claims are that because Future System internal politics was shutting down 370 efforts ... that the lack of 370 products during the FS period allowed clone processors to gain market foothold.

I've told story before about doing cp67 ascii/tty terminal support at the univ ... and trying to make the 360 2702 do something it couldn't quite do. This then was motivation for univ. to start clone controller effort, starting with interdata/3 and building channel interface board. this was extended to an interdata/4 handling the channel interface and multiple interdata/3s dedicated to line/port scanning functions. four of us get written up as being responsible for (some part of) clone controller business. Interdata markets as clone controller, later Perkin-Elmer buys Interdata and it is marketed under the PE logo. I've mentioned running into one of the boxes at large financial datacenter handling major part of the retail dailup point-of-sale transactions on the east cost. some past posts mentioning clone controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

other recent posts referring to end of acs-360:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#62 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#64 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#94 Optimization, CPU time, and related issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#21 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#28 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#15 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#26 23Jun1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#29 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#51 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#21 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#54 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#67 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#11 DEC Technical Journal on Bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#14 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#4 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#6 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#69 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#87 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#97 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#19 DG Nova 1200 as console

recent posts mentioning Boeing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#31 How many EBCDIC machines are still around?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#32 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#37 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#9 Boyd for Business & Innovation Conference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#19 The IBM Strategy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#23 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#69 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#36 IBM Historic computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#92 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#28 Does IBM CEO Rometty Understand Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#57 Interesting and somewhat disturbing article about IBM in BusinessWeek. What is your opinion?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#62 Interesting and somewhat disturbing article about IBM in BusinessWeek. What is your opinion?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#63 Costs of core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#77 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#12 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#13 IBM & Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#20 US No Longer Tech Leader in Military War Gear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#31 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#40 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#67 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#14 Super Cane's Computers run Windows

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

Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 12:22:14 -0400

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
There was no such transition; the 370/135 was unre3lated to the 360/65. There was a 360/56 -> 360/67 transition and a 360/85 -> 370/165 -> 370/168 transition.

the original was 30, 40, 50, 60, 70

the oriignal 60&70 had 1micsec memory, before ship this was upgraded to 750nsec memory and the machines rebranded 65 & 75.

melinda history of vm/370 has details of science center working with mit for follow-on to 7094/ctss for project mac. ibm responded with virtual memory on 65 but project mac went with ge for multics. science center thought they would still have virtual memory mission ... but it went with new group for something called tss/360.

the science center had been trying to get 360/50 to make hardware modifications to support virtual memory ... but all the spare 50s were going to FAA ATC project ... so they had to settle for a 360/40. They did virtual memory mods to 360/40 and did virtual machine cp40 along with cms ... where cms had some similarities to earlier ctss.

when science center finally got 360/67 (to replace modified 360/40) ... cp40 morphs into cp67.
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist
the pages at princeton have gone 404, but live on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20010124044900/http://pucc.princeton.edu/~melinda/

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

370 started out as non-virtual memory machine ... this old account has decision to make all 370s virtual memory ... i.e. MVT storage management was so inefficient that typically only 1/4 of application region was used ... they determined that virtual memory would allow for getting 16 concurrent regions in one mbyte real storage machine.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73 Multiple Virtual Memory

this sort of gets into theme about i/o increasingly becoming primary system bottleneck and needing increasing multiprogramming level attempting to keep cpu busy (overlapping cpu and i/o activity) ... and increasing concurrent executing programs needing more and more real storage (and/or more efficient use of available real storage).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#29 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#30 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

something similar had boeing huntsville retrofit virtual memory to mvt release 13. lots of customers had been convinced purchase 360/67 to run tss/360 ... but nearly all customers found that tss/360 never met their requirements. as a result many customers reverted to just running the machines as 360/65. boeing huntsville had gotten duplex 360/67 to support long running 2250 graphics design application ... instead they ran the configuration as two 360/65 with os/360. MVT has significant storage management problems with long running applications and storage fragmentation. boeing retrofitted mvt release 13 with virtual memory support to address contiguous storage and fragmentation issue ... didn't actually do any paging ... just reordered storage addresses. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#67 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses

above post also references both Univ of Michigan (MTS) and Stanford (Orvyl) did their own virtual memory operating systems for 360/67.

a lot of 1x5->1x8 was larger, faster, less expensive real storage with other misc. hardware tweaks. for instance 165 370 microcode was tweaked and reduced avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction from 2.1 to 1.6 machine cycles ... some recent posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#17 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#21 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#70 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

for 138/148 there was also more real memory for microcode and i got con'ed into helping with endicott's vm370 microcode assist ... selecting highest used vm370 kernel pathlengths and moving the 370 instructions direclty into microcode for 10:1 speed up ... old reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

other recent posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#31 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#32 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

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

50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 08:39:48 -0400

hancock4 writes:
From Ft. Worth to Austin, 200 miles, it's 4 hours, 20 minutes, still somewhat slow.

locals would say it was three six-packs ... past a.f.c. post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#30 Computerworld Article: Dress for Success?

recent posts mentioning airline res system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#20 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#10 Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#54 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#101 Costs of core
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#53 transactions, was There Is Still Hope
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#84 History--error checking in Baudot (5 bit) transmissions

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:32:03 -0400

hancock4 writes:
Did they use an IBM 360 for their work?

Would you know if today IBM Z series mainaframes are used for chemistry research, or do they use PCs or minis?

In high school chemistry, we did not have to do any serious number crunching, but it was enough that we needed a slide rule.

there was lots of chemistry stuff being done on 370/195 at san jose research in bldg.28 ... however turn-around on couple hr run on the 195 could be 1-3 months (optimized loops could get 10mips, lots of normal codes would only get 5mips because of pipeline stall on conditional branches). it was renamed almaden when it moved into new bldg up the hill ... current reference to computational chemistry & biology
http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group_subpage.php?id=4387

i redid i/o supervisor for engineering and product test lab so that they could do development device testing under operating system ... instead of dedicated stand-alone time (they had once tried MVS ... but it had 15min MTBF in that environment). A side effect was that a lot of 370 processor time was made available (device testing was heavy i/o but only percent or two of CPU). For one of our friends in chemistry department, setup so he could run on 3033 ... about 4.5mips (only about half that of 370/195) ... but could get several hrs a day ... instead of batch run turn-around every couple months.

past posts mentioning getting play disk engineer in bldgs14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

in the mid-80s, IBM added vector processor feature to 3090 for computational requirements. there was IBM engineering&scientific center created in IBM Kingston that included computational chemistry operations. It had 3090 with vector processing ... but it also had a whole bunch of floating point system (FPS) boxes. reference
http://www.webalice.it/enrico.clementi/
some past posts mentioning floating point system boxes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#5 TF-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#61 TF-1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#56 Why SMP at all anymore?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#25 ESCON Data Transfer Rate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#31 Hardest Mistake in Comp Arch to Fix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#30 Weird
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#29 360/370 disk drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#68 IBM zSeries in HPC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#20 360 Microde Floating Point Fix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#4 The Power of the NORC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#1 harris
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#71 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#72 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#47 Nonlinear systems and nonlocal supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#61 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#74 Vector processors on the 3090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#36 Last Word on Dennis Ritchie
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#28 390 vector instruction set reuse, was 8-bit bytes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#41 A History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#44 What Makes code storage management so cool?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#4 IBM Plans Big Spending for the Cloud ($1.2B)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#5 IBM Plans Big Spending for the Cloud ($1.2B)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#63 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour

I've mentioned before that originally we were suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers, then congress cuts the budget and some other things happen, finally NSF releases RFP ... but internal politics prevent us from bidding; director of NSF tries to help ... writing letter to the company (with backing from other gov. agencies) ... but that just aggravates the internal politics. some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet
NSF supercomputer interconnect morphs into the NSFNET backbone and the precursor to modern internet
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/
early in this time-frame we already had a coast-to-coast T1 link between the Los Gatos lab (on the west coast) and Clementi's e&s kingston lab (on the east coast).

current ec12 z ... is rated at 75BIPS with 101 processors (743MIPS/proc) and (just processor complex) goes for $33m ... or $440K/BIPS ... i haven't found mflop numbers ... but in the past, they have been somewhat less than MIPS numbers.

this has intel core i7 at 70GFLOPS
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262886-28-core-gflops-benchmark

even at $10k/system that is $142/GFLOPS ... but possibly can get volume builds down around $1k or close to $14/GFLOPS.

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:50:09 -0400

Texas <a@b.com> writes:
At UT Austin, the Chemistry Department used their influence to buy a CDC6600 "supercomputer" of the day. The purchase and installation was done a few years before I arrived on campus as a freshman in 1969.

Of course there were IBM mainframes installed at UT Austin too, but I never used any IBM mainframes while at UT.

The software I wrote for the Chemistry Department involved matrix calculations of eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Here is one published article that my calculations supported.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378436376900620

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides
... oh and FPS wiki reference for above
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems

inside IBM, I called various internal efforts, HSDT (high-speed data transport) ... various past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

and was using some number of NSC HYPERchannel boxes ... and for various reasons accumulated additional HYPERchannel boxes in the warehouse.

we were doing some stuff with balcones that had cray (and no ibm)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Pickle_Research_Campus

but I still managed to get approval to donate a whole bunch of NSC boxes to balcones datacenter. current reference
https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/

NSC reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Systems_Corporation

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

History--computer performance comparison chart

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: History--computer performance comparison chart
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 16:07:44 -0400

timcaffrey writes:
The M4 is still a Cortex-M.

The CDC 6600 clocked at 10 Mhz, with max 128K words of 1usec memory (although it was arranged in 32 banks) (or about 1MB).

See:
http://www.nxp.com/documents/data_sheet/LPC435X_3X_2X_1X.pdf

For a high end M4. 204 Mhz, 1 MB flash, 136KB SRAM. Even if it emulated the FP it would still challenge the 6600.

I had gotten sucked into benchmarking rain/rain4 on early 4341 for national lab looking at getting 70s systems for compute farm; ran in 35.77 seconds on 6600, 36.21secs on 4341 (145secs on 145, 9.1secs on 168-3, 6.77secs on 91). old 4341 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341

recent post mentioning rain/rain benchmark
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#61 I Must Have Been Dreaming (36-bit word needed for ballistics?)

also mentionins MWIPS benchmark; vax/780: .253 (w/o FPA, .76 w/FPA) vax/750: .510 4341: .770

companies bought 4341s as traditional mainframe, but large organizations also bought large numbers for datacenter compute farms (early cluster superecomputers) as well as hundreds for deployments out into departmental areas (leading edge of distributed computing tsunami).

recent posts mentioning was supposed to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#3 We need to talk about TED
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#25 The History of the Grid: Comments invited
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#28 The History of the Grid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#68 Imprecise Interrupts and the 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#4 IBM Plans Big Spending for the Cloud ($1.2B)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#35 OODA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#46 Resistance to Java
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#21 The PDP-8/e and thread drifT?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#22 US Federal Reserve pushes ahead with Faster Payments planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#52 First 2014 Golden Goose Award to physicist Larry Smarr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#35 World Wide Web turns 25 years old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#52 [CM] Ten recollections about the early WWW and Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#25 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#27 TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#36 IBM Historic computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#75 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#98 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#85 The End of the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides

recent posts mentioning working on cluster scale-up, then over a period of a couple weeks, effort was transferred, we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, and announced as supercomputer:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#71 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#73 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#35 OODA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#72 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#96 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#52 [CM] Ten recollections about the early WWW and Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#11 Can the mainframe remain relevant in the cloud and mobile era?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#52 Rather nice article on COBOL on Vulture Central
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#70 How the Internet wasn't Commercial Dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#39 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#69 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#81 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#40 Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#16 Emulating z CPs was: Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#17 Emulating z CPs was: Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#21 Is end of mainframe near?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#33 Can Ginni really lead the company to the next great product line?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#59 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#79 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#61 A computer at home?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#99 The SDS 92, its place in history?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#5 The SDS 92, its place in history?

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

Meet Cobol's hard core fans

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Meet Cobol's hard core fans
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 21 Aug 2014 14:24:30 -0700

WGShirey@BENEKEITH.COM (Greg Shirey) writes:
For these mainframe-centric businesses, the Cobol application suite that runs the heart of the business isn't going anywhere. "But they still need to deal with the declining Cobol workforce . . . to keep these systems viable for the next decade or two," says Dale Vecchio, research vice president at Gartner Inc.

As for the other 90% of businesses running mainframes today, Vecchio thinks the Cobol brain drain will be the catalyst for more extensive migrations off the platform, through rewrites, moves to packaged applications or recompiling and re-hosting Cobol on distributed computing platforms. After years of foot dragging, the looming Cobol brain drain will force many organizations into making a decision -- one way or the other -- within the next three to five years. "Increasingly, I see this transition happening," Vecchio says. "Waiting isn't going to make this any cheaper, and it isn't going to reduce the risk."

there was enormous migration off mainframes in late 80s and early 90s that resulted in predicting mainframe use would disappear altogether.

there was some very high value overnight batch cobol that had enormous amount of institutional knowledge that had grown up over a period of decades and wasn't easy to understand and/or translate to other environments. during the 90s there were billions spent on failed efforts to translate some of these applications to other environments. Since then there has been somewhat hiatus ... for many of these, the cost of not having functional operational environment was enormously larger than the significant cost differential between mainframes and other technologies.

however, there has been slow erosion, with some becoming obsolete and/or the cost of adapting to changing environment exceeds starting over from scratch. In some cases, the decades of institutional knowledge becoming less and less applicable is walled off with minimum change and new innovation and adaptation occurring elsewhere.

as I've mentioned before in the late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at annual, worldwide, internal communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The communcation group had strangelhold on mainframe datacenters with its strategic ownership of everything that crossed the datacenter walls ... was attempting to preserve its dumb terminal paradigm and fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing.

The disk division was starting to see data fleeing datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms with drop in disk sales. It had come up with several solutions to correct the problems, but they were constantly vetoed by the communication group.

some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 07:30:02 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
NSC reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Systems_Corporation

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#36 curly brace languages source code style quides

the NSC wiki mentions having hard time adapting, my view was slightly different ... interconnect was being taking over via tcp/ip ... and NSC was coming down from the enterprise market selling based on feature/function/throughput, most of tcp/ip market was coming up from the bottom buying almost totally based on price (even in enterprise, the people involved tended to be coming up from the bottom).

at early 90s IETF meeting in san jose, one of the NSC people (that I had worked with on&off for well over a decade) introduced VPN in gateway committee meeting. however, NSC was the only vendor that had a boarder router capable of doing the crypto to tunnel VPN through the internet. This allowed them to sell some into branch office market ... but the rest of the vendors stalled VPN standard in committee because none of them had a product that could do the crypto.

misc. past posts mentioning HSDT ... which used some amount of HYPERchannel gear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

I've mentioned in the past doing channel-extender support in 1980 (using hyperchannel gear) for the (IBM) santa teresa lab (remoting 300 people from the ims group to offsite bldg) ... this included downloading channel programs to channel emulator at the remote end (minimizing latency with the enormous amount of channel protocol chatter).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender

past posts with 3270 logon/logo screen for those remoted ("channel attached") 3270s:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#20 IBM-MAIN longevity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#33 Startio Question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#60 ISPF Counter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#15 Mainframe Hall of Fame: Three New Members Added
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#85 3270 Emulator Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#55 Mac Emulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#11 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee

also referenced here in oldpicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

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

China's Fifth-Generation Fighter Could Be A Game Changer In An Increasingly Tense East Asia

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: China's Fifth-Generation Fighter Could Be A Game Changer In An Increasingly Tense East Asia
Date: 22 Aug 2014
Blog: Facebook

China's Fifth-Generation Fighter Could Be A Game Changer In An Increasingly Tense East Asia
http://www.businessinsider.com/chengdu-j-20-could-be-a-game-changer-in-asia-2014-8

China lifted classified documents in middle last decade on stealth, f22, f35, etc

This Map Shows Why The F-35 Has Turned Into A Trillion-Dollar Fiasco
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-explains-the-f-35-fiasco-2014-8

MICC learned sometime ago trick of congressional influence to keep programs alive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

recent: Chinese and Russian Radars On Track To See Through U.S. Stealth
http://news.usni.org/2014/07/29/chinese-russian-radars-track-see-u-s-stealth

5+yr old references on new generation of radars and f35 isn't real 4th generaion or even real stealth

Assessing Joint Strike Fighter Defence Penetration Capabilities
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html
Joint Strike Fighter
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

The beltway bandit Success of Failure culture (get more at the gov. trough from series of failures) would choose F35 over F22 (even when F35 was specifically designed to have F22 fly cover), not clear that would apply to other cultures. There are refs that F35 was a "bomb truck" (with F22 a fighter) .... but the analogy might be more like F35 is 60s vw beetle.

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

recent posts mentioning JSF:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#0 Navy's F-35C Completes Landing Tests Ahead of October Sea Trials
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#1 If We Don't Keep The F-22 Raptor Viable, The F-35 Fleet Will Be Irrelevant'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#4 Defense Department Needs to Act Like IBM to Save Itself
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#40 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#51 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#66 F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#86 11 Years to Catch Up with Seymour
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#92 Why do bank IT systems keep failing ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#47 Stolen F-35 Secrets Now Showing Up in China's Stealth Fighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#96 Lockheed Martin F-35 Jet's Software Delayed, GAO Says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#97 The Planet's Best Stealth Fighter Isn't Made in America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#1 Obama to Kill Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#73 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#90 A Drone Could Be the Ultimate Dogfighter
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#22 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#48 The Pentagon Is Playing Games With Its $570-Billion Budget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#18 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#31 The Designer Of The F-15 Explains Just How Stupid The F-35 Is
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#36 The Designer Of The F-15 Explains Just How Stupid The F-35 Is
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#49 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#52 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#61 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#90 Friden Flexowriter equipment series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#20 US No Longer Tech Leader in Military War Gear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#102 A-10 Warthog No Longer Suitable for Middle East Combat, Air Force Leader Says

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

50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: 50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 08:45:45 -0400

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
The politicians love it because their constituents do. Jobs for the area and the money goes through the area several times. And of course those that feel it's just a waste of money aren't really motivated.

one reason it is so hard to kill the F-35 ... MICC learned quite some time ago trick of congressional influence to keep programs alive (even long after everybody thought they should have been dead and buried)

This Map Shows Why The F-35 Has Turned Into A Trillion-Dollar Fiasco
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-explains-the-f-35-fiasco-2014-8

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

recent: Chinese and Russian Radars On Track To See Through U.S. Stealth
http://news.usni.org/2014/07/29/chinese-russian-radars-track-see-u-s-stealth

but all this has been known for some time, 5+yr old references on new generation of radars and f35 isn't real stealth

Assessing Joint Strike Fighter Defence Penetration Capabilities
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html
Joint Strike Fighter
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

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

Bank of America Adds a Mortgage Settlement to Its Collection

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Bank of America Adds a Mortgage Settlement to Its Collection
Date: 22 Aug 2014
Blog: Facebook

Bank of America Adds a Mortgage Settlement to Its Collection
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-21/bank-of-america-adds-a-mortgage-settlement-to-its-collection

additional related recent items

The "Holder Doctrine": Bank "Settlements" With No Prosecutions
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25718-nyts-william-cohan-blasts-holder-doctrine-of-headfake-bank-settlements-with-no-prosecutions
The Justice Department's Wall Street Settlement Deals Are Shameful
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119002/justice-departments-wall-street-settlement-deals-are-shameful
Record Bank of America Settlement Latest in Government Crusade
http://online.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-america-reaches-16-65-billion-settlement-1408626544
WASHINGTON: Bank of America settles mortgage fraud case for $16.65 billion
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/21/237249/bank-of-america-settles-mortgage.html
Bank of America to Pay $17 Billion in Justice Department Settlement
http://online.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-america-reaches-17-billion-settlement-1408560100
Bank of America agrees to nearly $17B settlement
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/20/bank-of-america-doj-settlement/14355935/
Will Bank Of America Really Pay $17 Billion For Mortgage Fraud That Led To 08' Crash?
http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/08/21/will-bank-of-america-really-pay-17-billion-for-mortgage-fraud-that-led-to-08-crash/
Eager to subsidize Bank of America's massive $17 billion settlement? Here's your chance
http://qz.com/253592/eager-to-subsidize-bank-of-americas-massive-17-billion-settlement-heres-your-chance/

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

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

Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
Date: 22 Aug 2014
Blog: Facebook

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#3 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#49 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#12 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb

cyber dumb: FBI: Chinese hacker accessed gold mine of data on F-22, F-35 and 32 U.S. military projects
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/16/fbi-chinese-hacker-accessed-gold-mine-data-f-22-f-/

Software to Power F-35 Running as Much as 14 Months Late
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-29/software-to-power-f-35-running-as-much-as-14-months-late.html
NY Times: Time to Reassess Costly F-35 Program
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/07/ny-times-time-to-reassess-costly-f-35-program.html
How Much Does an F-35 Actually Cost?
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/07/how-much-does-an-f-35-cost.html
Chinese and Russian Radars On Track To See Through U.S. Stealth
http://news.usni.org/2014/07/29/chinese-russian-radars-track-see-u-s-stealth
Performance of F-35 program remains the same
http://elpdefensenews.blogspot.com/2014/07/performance-of-f-35-program-remains-same.html
Joint Strike Fighter
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html
Assessing Joint Strike Fighter Defence Penetration Capabilities
http://ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

and

White House Cybersecurity Leader: Technical Know-How's a Distraction
http://gizmodo.com/white-house-cybersecurity-leader-technical-know-hows-a-1625439356/+jcondliffe
White House cybersecurity czar brags about his lack of technical expertise
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053819/white-house-cybersecurity-czar-brags-about-his-lack-of-technical

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

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 21:19:36 -0400

rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
IME it was quite common for card decks to be marked by users with a big fat diagonal stripe across the top as soon as they came out of the puch. Made it much easier to re-order the deck by hand if you dropped it. ;-}

[And, yes, people would often also write other annotations -- "filename", date/time, perhaps version -- above and/or below the diagonal stripe. But that diagonal stripe came first!]

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#35 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#36 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#39 curly brace languages source code style quides

original release 1 cp67 kernel had individual modules assembled and real txt deck punched ... stripe and name written across the top. the individual txt decks were combined in card tray (little over 2000 cards total) with BPS loader on the front.

source changes would be made to specific module, assembled and resulted txt deck marked and replaced previous version in card deck (each individual txt deck in the card tray easily identified by its stripe and name).

the tray of real cards were "ipl'ed" from card reader ... and the real storage image would then be written to ipl disk.

later this all got moved to cms with virtual card reader & virtual card punch running in cp67 virtual machine ... and write the virtual core image to the real disk.

gh20-0856.pdf "operating considerations for the virtual cp-67" pg48, has cms "cpsys" exec (pg49/50) that creates the virtual ipl card deck

from here:
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/360/cp67/

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

Is coding the new literacy?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 10:07:13 -0400

Is coding the new literacy? Why America's schools need to train a generation of hackers
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education

includes some computing history

and the other side:

similar to Cyber Dumb theme:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#3 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#49 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#12 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#43 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 10:56:58 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#44 curly brace languages source code style quides

search engine for "computer card deck image" ... turns up a couple pictures. this has picture of cards in card box (box originally holds 2000 cards)
http://www.w3.org/2010/Talks/01-08-steven-ten-euro-computer/540px-PunchCardDecks.agr.jpg

card trays tended to hold about a box & half of cards. above image also used here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era
also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Punched_card_program_deck.agr.jpg

the above has "subdecks" where individual portion with its own stipe ... is replaced in the deck ... and then the broad stripe across the whole deck redrawn.

the release 1 cp67 kernel deck in card tray (over 2000 cards) was somewhat similar ... but didn't have the broad stripe across the whole deck, just the individual module txt decks.

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

Ada's fate

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Ada's fate
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 23 Aug 2014 08:28:12 -0700

rtomek@CETI.COM.PL (Tomasz Rola) writes:
So, now the 5-6 years old anecdote about one contractor stating that "Ada is obsolete" makes much more sense, even though at the time I read it, it sounded rude and immoral. It doesn't really matter anymore what language will be choosen for a project - well, it may still be a problem if one prefers to write Lisp (MHO: concise, elegant) over writing Java (MHO: overly talkative and relying too much on external tools and cargo cult procedures like refactoring - I guess almost nobody writes Java in Emacs nowadays). But the source code is going to be verified in theorem proover, automatically. And even the compiler does not need to be trusted anymore, because one can compare exec file with source and prove that one matches another.

ADA tends to still be used for "human rated" applications ... aka human lives at risk ... like commercial airplane control systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29

from above:
Ada also supports run-time checks to protect against access to unallocated memory, buffer overflow errors, range violations, off-by-one errors, array access errors, and other detectable bugs. These checks can be disabled in the interest of runtime efficiency, but can often be compiled efficiently. It also includes facilities to help program verification. For these reasons, Ada is widely used in critical systems, where any anomaly might lead to very serious consequences, e.g., accidental death, injury or severe financial loss. Examples of systems where Ada is used include avionics, railways, banking, military and space technology.[6][7]

... snip ...

List of ADA uses
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-project-summary.html

in the 90s, bugs related to c-language pointer use accounted for the majority of internet exploits. this started to shift some in the late 90s with increasing number of virus&trojan based exploits

I've frequently pontificated that the original mainframe tcp/ip product was done in vs/pascal and had *NONE* of the pointer-related exploits common/epidemic in c-language implementations. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#buffer

part of the problem is c-language pointer values can be ambiquous which is not easily identifiable by source code analysis (there is currently thread in comp.arch about difficulties with language features that are abiquous or not stictly defined)

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

Is coding the new literacy?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 14:35:15 -0400

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
But if they are teaching coding, they aren't creating a "generation of hackers".

Look at Logo. Seymour Papert watched little children, and the hackers at MIT, and created a play/learning environment, "Logo". It was supposed to be a place to hack, to try things and learn from the experience. But once out of the lab, it was treated as a "programming language for beginners" so the teacher sat at the front of the class and told them how to use the language. No more experimenting, no more kids exchanging ideas that they'd found from exploring.

I even saw an announcement at a local webpage for homelearners that someone was going to teach a course in Logo, as if the end result was more important than the path travelled.

Learning to be hackers/explorers/mapmakers is really more important than learning to code.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#45 Is coding the new literacy?

literacy can be independent of innovation.

we periodically have lengthy discussions in boyd groups about educational system objective to eliminate independence&creativity and beat in conformity/uniformity ... some random past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#67 Offshore IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#65 Teachers Don't Like Creative Students
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#3 Time to Think ... and to Listen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#19 SnOODAn: Boyd, Snowden, and Resilience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#71 Is orientation always because what has been observed? What are your 'direct' experiences?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#63 What Makes collecting sales taxes Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#50 The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#74 Steve B sees what investors think
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#70 Teaching Smart People How to Learn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#3 Inside the Box People don't actually like creativity

however literacy and innovation/creativity can be orthogonal, there have been periodic past discussions about programming language fluency/literacy analogous to natural language (i.e. where somebody thinks/dreams in the programming language) ... a few past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#39 Wrapping up the FBEMBA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#31 An upbeat story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#48 Difference between fingerspitzengefuhl and Coup d'oeil?

yesterday one of the people posted an item that he has been struggling with his Phd program for the past two years and just recently had an epiphony from a rap song. Boyd would talk about constantly viewing from every possible facet (as countermeasure to biases & conformity).

this also comes up in change in IBM culture and elimination of all the wild ducks ... some recent mention of "wild ducks"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#52 IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#93 Maximizing shareholder value: The Goal that changed corporate America
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#97 Where does the term Wild Duck come from?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#98 How to groom a leader?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#105 Happy 50th Birthday to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#52 First 2014 Golden Goose Award to physicist Larry Smarr
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#53 Not Wild Ducks but Wild Geese - The history behind the story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#54 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#8 Microsoft culture must change, chairman says
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#60 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#91 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#29 The mainframe turns 50, or, why the IBM System/360 launch was the dawn of enterprise IT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#33 Can Ginni really lead the company to the next great product line?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#59 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#65 Are you tired of the negative comments about IBM in this community?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#79 EBFAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#80 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#7 You can make your workplace 'happy'

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

Ada's fate

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Ada's fate
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 23 Aug 2014 11:53:52 -0700

rtomek@CETI.COM.PL (Tomasz Rola) writes:
I am sceptical to this trend, like I have written already, but apparently it is happenning right in the front of us, if one looks carefully. Also, the idea that some guy who is unable to learn other language will be behind software flying heavy stuff over my head (more than a tonne? even a kilo can be serious if going off course or dropping from high above) and perhaps the "correctness" of this software would be achieved by trial-and-error, running consecutive proofs and changing lines until it all checks ok, yes, this sounds very unsettling.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#47 Ada's fate

hopefully for not too much thread drift ... we just are having a discussion in a.f.c. about

Is coding the new literacy? Why America's schools need to train a generation of hackers
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education

a couple posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#45 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?

programming language can be learned with proficiency comparable to natural language ... however that is somewhat independent of hacking/innovation.

we've fought the battle with the press about using "hackers" to label the badguys and pretty well lost. cbs 60mins wanted to do segment on the original hackers conference (from the 80s, the good guys), spent 3months having 60mins promise that they wouldn't do a hack job if they were allowed to come and film ... then they opened the segment that sunday night with the statement about a group in the santa cruz mountains plotting to take over the world (been almost 30yrs now)

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 09:15:25 -0400

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
Both DEBE and DITTO did 80-80, but my preferred off-the-shelf[1] tool was IEBPTPCH; there was a DOS equivalent, but I don't recall its name.

[1] I eventually wrote a program more suited to my needs

also llmps ... was share contribution ... by lincoln labs.

lincoln labs was one of the places sold 360/67 for tss/360 ... but was the first installation of cp67 from the science center (the univ I was at was the 2nd).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

there is folklore that univ. of michigan started with llmps as the scaffold for building (virtual memory) MTS (michigan terminal system) for its 360/67. posts with MTS refs that mention LLMPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#85 IBM Floating-point myths

There were two cp67 online commercial service bureau spin-offs in the 60s, one was NCSS and the other was IDC by the former head of Lincoln Labs ... that included some of the other lincoln lab as well as various MIT people. both NCSS and IDC quickly moved up the value stream into online financial aps. Later one of the MIT people at IDC was also creator of visicalc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

post from last year about contacting me looking for references to CTSS DITTO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#21 CTSS DITTO

and other recent posts mentioning visicalc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#70 Lotus 1-2-3 rebooted: My trip back to the old (named) range
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#67 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#62 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#63 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#47 Goodbye, Lotus 1-2-3
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#57 The Internet: Missing the Light
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#2 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#46 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services

past posts mentioning virtual machine online service bureaus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

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

Is coding the new literacy?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 12:14:17 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
White House Cybersecurity Leader: Technical Know-How's a Distraction
http://gizmodo.com/white-house-cybersecurity-leader-technical-know-hows-a-1625439356/+jcondliffe
White House cybersecurity czar brags about his lack of technical expertise
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053819/white-house-cybersecurity-czar-brags-about-his-lack-of-technical

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html##46 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html##48 Is coding the new literacy?

the MBA scenario teach the process for controlling & monopolizing the market ... w/o actually having to know anything about the actual business. Knowing something about the business might lead to innovation and new processes. This strays into the patent office ... originally setup by the founders to protect individual inventors (and encourage innovation) from large institutions trying to protect the status quo ... now being used by those same large institutions trying to protect the status quo and inhibit innovation and change.

the trivial computer scenario is the shutdown of acs-360 ... because management was afraid it would advance the state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of the market.
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

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

Bill Black on Bank Fraud: The Wall Street Journal's Choleric Rant about Cholera and Bank Fraud Epidemics

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Bill Black on Bank Fraud: The Wall Street Journal's Choleric Rant about Cholera and Bank Fraud Epidemics
Date: 26 Aug 2014
Blog: Google+

re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/Y7Nt4FyB3V6
also: (linkedint) Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security

Bill Black on Bank Fraud: The Wall Street Journal's Choleric Rant about Cholera and Bank Fraud Epidemics
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/bill-black-on-bank-fraud-the-wall-street-journals-choleric-rant-about-cholera-and-bank-fraud-epidemics.html

I periodically fall back to the Madoff congressional hearings where they had testimony from the person that had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get the SEC to do something about Madoff (SEC hands were forced when Madoff turned himself in). They asked him if new regulations were needed. His reply was that while new regulations might be needed, much more important would be transparency and visibility (antithesis of wallstreet culture).

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

Amdahl UTS manual

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Amdahl UTS manual
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 26 Aug 2014 05:33:48 -0700

john.archie.mckown@GMAIL.COM (John McKown) writes:
That sounds good to me. But, me being me, I would caution your friend in one regard. That manual is most likely copyrighted. If it is, then scanning it and uploading it _might_ result in prosecution. Especially if the copyright holder objects. Given today's litigious society, and the actions of some "copyright trolls", I would be _very_ cautious.

I ran into a little of this trying to get SHARE LSRAD report up on bitsaver, it took really long time to get somebody at SHARE to grant approval.
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/share/

previously had been 28yrs ... which would have expired ... but the change made it author's lifetime plus 50yrs (if corporations are people, then they might live forever).

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

RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 09:13:19 -0400

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
A Ford Trimotor, having a wooden fuselage, and reduced fuel requirements due to its use of propellers rather than jet engines, may be the appropriate kind of airplane for the future. If we limited designated airports to smaller aircraft, and airplanes like this for the tasks requiring larger ones, such as trans- Atlantic travel, perhaps their security requirements could be reduced.

ford trimotor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Trimotor

crew of three, a stewardess and eight or nine passengers & cruise speed 90mph, 9*90=810passengers mph

Boeing 747-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-8

crew of two, 605 passengers, cruise speed 570mph, 605*570=344,850 passengers mph ...

would need 425 ford trimotors to get the same passenger-mph (and 1575 crew)

Boeing 757
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757

crew of two, 289 passengers, cruise speed 530mph, 289*530=153,170 passengers mph

would need 189 ford trimoters to get the same passenger-mph (567 crew)

Boeing 737
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737

crew of 2, models 124-215 passengers, cruise speed 485mph, 60,140 to 103,790 passengers mph

between 74 to 128 trimotors (and 222 to 384 crew)

this is 20yr old article discussing prop/jet on short-haul routes where higher cruise speed makes less of difference
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/23/us/a-wrinkle-in-the-jet-age-propeller-planes.html

ranking of fuel-efficiency seat-mile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft

includes comparison to volvo buses and toyota prius.

one of the issues is increasing power requirements for electronic, communication and computer equipment.

for instance some of the f18 underwing pods have propellers connect to internal power generators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_EA-18G_Growler

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

US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?
Date: 27 Aug 2014
Blog: Google+

re:
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/ihJHzYsQKxS

US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?
http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/08/22/us-entering-new-era-of-dirty-wars/
also Is The U.S. Entering An Age Of Small And 'Dirty' Wars?
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2014/08/is-us-entering-age-of-small-and-dirty.html

well, War Is a Racket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
above also references
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
also one of Spinney's themes The Domestic Roots of Perpetual War
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html

other refs from this recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#40

"Mahan, Bean-Counting and Ideas"
http://thediplomat.com/the-naval-diplomat/2013/01/14/mahan-bean-counting-and-ideas/
Chasing ghosts; The notion that geography is power is making an unwelcome comeback in Asia
http://www.economist.com/node/13825154

this is contemporary of Mahan and member of congress ... has some things to say about both Teddy as well as US imperialism in the period "Triumphant plutocracy; the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920"
http://archive.org/details/triumphantpluto00pettrich
has description from viewpoint of congress in much of period covered by "War Is A Racket"

posts mentioning "perpetual war"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war
posts mentioning "military-industrial-congressional" complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

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

R.I.P. PDP-10?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: R.I.P. PDP-10?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 12:00:09 -0400

hancock4 writes:
Well, the S/360 history suggests that they first defined the various models and their horsepower in relation to each other, and then designed the actual machines. In order to fit into the performance slot, I suspect they arbitrarily made some limitations in each machine's design. One would have to study the book carefully--different chapters explain different aspects of the overall development experience. A lot of work was proceeding concurrently and independently at distant labs, and a fair amount of reconcilliation was required to bring everything together. Anyone familiar with the book?

However, your comment has some merit, too. Indeed, I can't help but question what a model 30 efficiently could do with 512k except in very specialized circumstances.

other issue was memory was much more expensive and scarce resource.

at the start they would have been predicting what "balanced" configuration might look like ... little software existed.

later on, there might be better idea of various application MIPS/storage ratios ... also new memory technologies might might in more economical to retrofit larger memory sizes to old computers (although ibm would be much more interested in selling new generation of computers).

something of the sort regarded "balanced" configuration shows up later with 3090. system software was becoming increasingly bloated, they needed more memory than could be configured within the processor latency access limits ... rather than take the LCS approach used in 360 days, the created something called expanded store. it was same memory used for standard processor memory but at the end of a very wide, longer memory bus ... and somewhat used the paged memory model ... but instead of asynchronous i/o model, it used a synchronous move instruction.

something analogous shows up in the original justification to make all 370s virtual memory. processor speeds were increasing much faster than single thread i/o could keep up with. in order to keep processor busy needed increasing number of concurrently executing applications ... that could execute while other applications were waiting on i/o. MVT storage management was effectively only using 25% of memory allocated to application/region. virtual memory (os/vs2) would allow getting 16 concurrent regions in a one mbyte real storage machine. old posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#42 Really dumb IPL question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#47 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#100 5 Byte Device Addresses?

also for 3090, they had calculated number of mainframe I/O channels to maintain "balanced" system throughput. However, mainframe i/o channels are half-duplex with significant amount of end-to-end channel protocol chatter. while the new 3880/3380 controller/disk offered 3mbyte data transfers (compared to 3830/3330 800kbyte transfer), the 3880 latency handling channel protocol increased significantly (during which time channel was busy but not doing anything, waiting on 3880). As a result, they eventually had to significantly increase the number of 3090 i/o channels ... to offset the drastic reduction in each channel throughput (because of the overhead of 3880 protocol processing). Increasing the 3090 channels was a significant increase in 3090 manufacturing costs ... there were semi-facetious references that the 3090 group would bill the 3880 group for the increased 3090 manufacturing costs.

i've discussed some of this in various posts on ficon (ibm channel protocol mapped on top of fibre-channel standad ... which has significantly lower throughput than native fibre-channel throughput)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon

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

RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 12:03:52 -0400

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
Some of the "express" airlines still fly prop planes, or did within recent memory. The last one I flew in was maybe 20 passengers. Noisy and uncomfortable in addition to slow. I try to avoid them when I can.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#54 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

I was recently at seatac and saw a number of canadian regional prop planes on the tarmac ... i think 40-50 passengers

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

RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 16:38:43 -0400

greymausg writes:
Arriving at obscure airport, see an ancient plane on the tarmac, "Hope that is going to a museum"... Oooerr!

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#54 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#57 RR songs, was Re: e50th/60th anniversary of SABRE--real-time airline reservations computer system

i stopped in a couple of times so they have me on their mailing list
http://historicflight.org/hf/

from above:
August 27-28, DC-3 Ground School and SIC Training, at HFF

You've asked for it. Now enroll. Come learn what it's like to fly one of the greatest aircraft ever built, the DC-3. Enrollment will be limited to fifteen.

September 5-7, China National Aviation Corporation ("CNAC") Reunion, at San Francisco International Airport

Historic Flight Foundation has restored the only surviving aircraft of China National Aviation Corporation, a Douglas C-47 that was later returned to the United States and converted into an executive transport. This aircraft will fly from Paine Field to San Francisco International Airport on September 5th to attend a reunion of CNAC veterans and the opening of a CNAC exhibit at the SFO Museum. Joining the Historic Flight crew, volunteers and guests will be Pete Goutiere, a WWII CNAC pilot and veteran of the "Hump" route over the Himalayan Mountains. Not only does Pete (age 100) recall vividly the treacherous flying of those war years, he enjoys looking back to the summer of 1944 when he was asked to return to India with a new C-47B lend-leased to CNAC by the U.S. Army Air Corps, serial number 20806. Pete departed Miami in early August and in two weeks flew down the coast of South America, across the Atlantic via Ascension Island, then through northern Africa and the Middle East to India. He recalls later flying this same aircraft over the "Hump" several times. It became known in the CNAC fleet as "100" as it was the 100th aircraft CNAC acquired since it was founded in 1929. "Old number 100" as Pete calls it was "his" C-47, and it will be our pleasure to reunite him with this very aircraft almost 70 years after his last recorded flight in it.

... snip ...

I saw it in June ... it had been converted and was flown by PanAm as executive airplane for Johnson&Johnson. click on image here ... the last window in front of the door sort of can be seen as different ... where they converted the cargo door.
http://www.flightjournal.com/blog/2013/07/25/historic-c-47-flies-again-in-pacific-northwest/

c47
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_C-47_Skytrain

I've commented before that my wife's father was posted to Nanking as military adviser and took family with him. Later they were evacuated out of Nanking on 3hrs notice in army cargo plane when the city was ringed ... so possibility that it might have been that particular plane(?). past post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#38 The first personal computer (PC)
other past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#19 Message To America's Students: The War, The Draft, Your Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#3 The 8008
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#27 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#27 Mount DASD as read-only
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#44 Universal constants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#86 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#88 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#90 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#58 China overtakes U.S. as top Web market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#43 was: Thanks for the SEL32 Reminder, Al!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#30 Should the USA Implement EMV?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#52 Age
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#66 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#36 The first personal computer (PC)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#51 On Protectionism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#51 How would you succinctly desribe maneuver warfare?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#11 a clock in it, was Re: Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#83 Protected: R.I.P. Containment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#60 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#69 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#44 What Makes a substance Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#1 What Makes sorting so cool?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#41 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#70 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#19 UK government plans switch from Microsoft Office to open source
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#29 Royal Pardon For Turing

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 09:20:22 -0400

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-what-tech-was-like-in-1984-2014-8

from above:
In fact, 1984 was 10 years before the World Wide Web (commonly called the internet) was born. It was the year Ronald Reagan was re-elected as president; the telephone monopoly Bell System was officially dismantled and AT&T launched; and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was born.

... snip ...

30yrs ago ... old email from 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#1984

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 09:40:53 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

random email from 1984 to somebody at mit .... it answers question how ibm san jose research datacenter was charging users ... also discusses home/remote login ... guardian was a call-back screening system ... callup, authenticate, hangup and it calls back the phone number on file, logs in line-mode ascii, activates "PCTERM" service, logs off, connects to "PCTERM" service that simulates 3270, and logs back on as simulated 3270 (all automated).

Date: 4 Jan 1984 08:21:11-PST (Wednesday)
From: Lynn Wheeler
To: xxxxx@mit
Subject: sjr charging;

The formula for charging is based on cpu, sio, and possibly page i/o consumption. system consumption units and the charge per system consumption unit. There are additional charges for monthly minidisk cylinder rental. I don't know what the current rate per unit is, but PCTERM has negligible consumption while idle so the charge while idle will be in the noise. Some "service bureaus" have a flat connect charge, usually to cover things like line costs, modems, etc. By the way, I've got a PCTERM exec that calls guardian (I've got a hayes smartmodem), answers all its questions, hangs up, waits for the call back, logs on in line mode, autologs my pcterm machine, gets off, and dials my pcterm machine, and then logs back on. When invoked from autoexec, i can power my machine on, and get all the way thru vm logon w/o touching the keyboard, and I don't need a machine logged on all the time.

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

other old email from 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#1984

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 13:09:29 -0400

Texas <a@b.com> writes:
It bothers me when something like that implies the World Wide Web and the Internet are the same thing.
http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/Web_vs_Internet.asp

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

the big change over in technology was the 1jan1983 change-over to tcp/ip. before that things were relatively tightly controlled with availability of IMPs and administrative processes. some collected old posts on the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm

as i've mentioned before, we had been working with NSF & some of the NSF supercomputer centers about interconnecting them ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

we were suppose to get $20M for the implementation ... but then congress cut the budget, some other things happened, and finally NSF releases an RFP. Internal politics prevent us from bidding and the director of NSF writes company a letter 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) ... but that just makes the internal politics worse. some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

Regional networks connect to the NSF supercomputer nodes and the supercomputer network morphs into the NSFNET backbone ... precursor to the modern internet. some discussion in this article
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401444/grid-computing/

as i've mentioned before the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86 ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

and the same technology was used in the corporate sponsored university BITNET (EARN in europe) ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

old 1984 email from person in paris responsible for getting EARN going
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#65 UUCP email

co-worker at the science center responsible for internal network technology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

posts mentioning science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

old post that includes list of world-wide internal corporate locations that had one or more nodes added in 1983
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

reference to first webserver in US (1991 on slac's vm370 system)
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:25:01 -0400

hancock4 writes:
$4k for something like that seems expensive. I remember, at that time, a colleague buying an "full" IBM XT, with hard drive, 640k, etc., and I recall she paid $3,000 for it. (I thought that price was obscene for the capability offered).

I bought an 286 clone a few years later, paying $2,000 for it. Everyone told me I should've bought a 386 which were just coming out, but the 286 was plenty for my needs for years. I replaced that with an HP Pentium.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

the fareast was building up huge clone 286 inventory for the xmas season when the 386sx (16bit bus) came out and totally decimated the 286 market and then there were huge 286 fire sales. I was tracking quantity one prices in sunday SJMN and posting them internally ... which showed a enormous difference from projections in the boca/ps2 business plans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386#The_80386SX_variant

I vaguely remember getting one of the kids a 386sx clone fall88 for something like $1800 ... but as can be seen the prices over the next couple years were dropping fast.

some past posts with sunday SJMN prices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#79 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#80 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#1 The BASIC Variations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#44 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#60 more on (the new 40+ yr old) virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#10 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#26 upcoming TV show, "Halt & Catch Fire"

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 17:10:14 -0400

"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> writes:
The first exposure to internet for the unwashed that I saw was a product called, as I recall, "Internet in a Bag". Perhaps it was Brown Bag. I am quite sure I saw this no later than 1986.

I find zilch useful on google, someone seems to have revived the phrase with a new meaning/association and that dominates the hits

I became aware of ARPANET and IMPs (at work) in the 1982 time frame and bought some BB&N stock as a result - I could see a future for this stuff. No, I did not make a killing.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

ucb bsd people tell of having meetings with darpa ... where ucb was supposed to do unix clone ... but *NOT* to do tcp/ip networking, that was supposed to be done by BBN ... UCB just "Yes: them to death" to darpa and kept on with tcp/ip implementation. recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#13 The SDS 92, its place in history?

by late 80s, tcp/ip was rapidly becoming commoditized infrastructure with lowest price being the dominating factor ... this recently came up in the discussion of network systems that had high-end enterprise interconnect that quickly moved into the tcp/ip market ... but lost out to the lowest priced vendors.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#75 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#36 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#39 curly brace languages source code style quides

the internet (& web) also started to obsolete the VAN (value-added network) vendors ... and other online offerings ... i've mentioned this before in the move from the proprietary online banking operations moving to the internet in the mid-90s ... some past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

random trivia, in early 70s, my wife had interviewed with BBN in Rosslyn ... but they wanted her to move to Massachusetts for the networking group ... she joined ibm in gburg instead.

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

US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?
Date: 28 Aug 2014
Blog: Google+

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#55 US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars?

Limited War Is Back
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/limited-war-back-11128

note small wars manual

Limited War Is Back
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/limited-war-back-11128

was written in the same period and about the same events as smedley's "war is a racket"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

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

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

Is coding the new literacy?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 20:21:47 -0400

hancock4 writes:
What is the difference between "programming" and "coding"?

The textbook definition seems to say that coders are given extremely detailed specs, maybe a flowchart--the design of the program is already done and provided to them. Programmers get general specs and have more lattitude in designing the program.

I'm not sure how many coders are out in the world, my own impression is that they're fairly rare. Some years ago, some very large system development projects would make use of them--often kids right out of college--to speed work along.

In industry, there were a great many "programmer/analysts", in that a single person met with the end-users, developed specs and design, and wrote the programs. This always seemed a productive way to go since it eliminated a middleman, and also gave the programmer some personal interest in the success of the system since he worked with the end user. The only limitation was that some people did not want to have user contact and preferred to be alone in their cube doing only programming, but those people were rare. Even those folks tended to benefit, and contribute, from just being present at end-user meetings, even if they weren't active participants.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#45 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?

there have been past threads about proficiency analogy with natural language ... being able to think and dream in the programming language.

but that isn't directly poetry, literary composition, etc.

one can imagine getting a proficient coder that translates from english specs to programming language (equivalent to say translating Shakespeare into Japanese). the frequent problem is that the original english specs are much less than artistic quality and the coder may not really be both english & programming language proficient ... with the results never being considered a work of art. the software works of art are typically done by somebody that is both proficient in the programming language with strong design skill (equivalent to what is required for poetic or literary works of art).

misc. past posts mentioning language proficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#9 Where did the hacker ethic go?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#11 Where did the hacker ethic go?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#24 Why Coder Pay Isn't Proportional To Productivity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#39 Compressing the OODA-Loop - Removing the D (and maybe even an O)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#39 Zen and Connaturality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#74 Time to competency for new software language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#8 Initial ideas (orientation) constrain creativity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#49 Ada's fate

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 10:31:03 -0400

"Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net> writes:
Don't forget that long-haul telecommunications prices dropped significantly during that period. Also, statistical multiplexing evolved to accommodate bursty traffic. The wideband long-haul leased lines were no longer subdivided into sub-channels, instead the full bandwidth might be assigned briefly to a single web page. That web page might draw information from geographically diverse servers, something that telephone engineers had not anticipated.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

I got into several dustups with the communication group while doing HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
and working with NSF on tieing together supercomputer centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

all had at least T1 (1.5mbits/sec) or better. The communication group did an analysis for the board that T1 wasn't be needed by customers before sometime in the early to mid 90s (largely motivated by not having a mainframe controller product that supported above 56kbits).

the fabrication for the report to the corporate board ... was looking at customer use of 37x5 "fat pipes" ... which could support multiple parallel 56kbit lines as single logical link. they showed number customers having 2, 3, ... 5, 6, etc. link groups ... with the number of customers dropping to zero by six. the issue that they obfuscated was that tariffs from the period typically had 5-6 56kbit links about the same as single T1. Customers that wanted more than 4-5 56kbit link capacity would install a full T1 supported by a non-IBM mainframe controller. At the time of the communication groups report to the board, a trivial survey turned up 200 customers with full T1 supported by non-IBM mainframe boxes.

The communication group opposition also contributes to the internal politics that prevents us from bidding on the NSF RFP to connect the NSF supercomputer centers (which morphs into the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet). some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

Note that the NSF RFP called for T1 interconnect (in part based on our working with them and already having quite a few T1s operational internally). The eventual winning response actually deployed 440kbit links and then somewhat to demonstrate compliance with the letter of the RFP, they installed T1 trunks with telco multiplexor handling multiple 440kbit links.

I've also mentioned that the communication group was fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing, attempting to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal

In the late 80s, a senior disk engineer gets a talk scheduled at an annual, internal, world-wide communication group conference that was supposedly on 3174 controller performance ... but opens with the statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division. The disk division was seeing data fleeing the datacenter to more distributed computing friendly platforms with a fall in disk sales. The disk division had come up with a number of solutions to correct the problem ... which were constantly being vetoed by the communication group (which had strategic ownership for everything that crossed the datacenter walls).

I also got sucked into project that would take some work that was done at one of the baby bells that simulated 37x5 NCP in a series/1 and supported a whole lot more function as well as full T1 and faster links. I was going to turn it out as a series/1 product ... but quickly upgrade to a RIOS (801/risc chip used in rs/6000) based implementation. This is old post with part of presentation that I gave at a (communication group) Oct86 SNA architecture review board meeting in raleigh (somewhat to tweak them), assuming that every thing had been covered so that the communication group could stop it (what they then did to block the project can only be described as truth is much, much stranger than fiction):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#67 System/1 ?

part of the analysis showing significant benefit of aggregating large amount of 19.2kbit remote 3270 traffic over T1 links. reference to one of the baby bell people gave presentation at COMMON user group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70 Series/1 as NCP

previous post mentioning the communication group wasn't very happy about the s/1-based ommunication clone (37x5 emulation) ... they also weren't very happy with the controller clone that I worked on when I was undergraduate in the 60s ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm

and controller clones staring in the 60s was major motivation for the Future System effort (significantly raise the barrier with very high level of integration between processor and controllers) ... some past FS posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

also in the mid-80 period, hsdt was having some equipment built on the other side of the pacific. I've mentioned before that the friday before a business trip their ... the communication group distributed an announcement for a new online discussion group on "high-speed" communication ... with the following defintion:
low-speed <9.6kbits medium-speed 19.2kbits high-speed 56kbits very high-speed 1.5mbits

monday morning on the wall of a conference room on the other side of the pacific was:
low-speed <20mbits medium-speed 100mbits high-speed 200-300mbits very high-speed >600mbits

besides the misinformation that the communication group was generating to the board about customers not needing T1 links ... including blocking our bidding on the NSF RFP, they were also distributing fabrication how NSF RFP could be done over SNA/VTAM ... old email reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109

in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#21 SNA/VTAM for NSFNET

the communication group was also generating quite a bit of misinformation as part of justifying converting the internal network to SNA/VTAM ... old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#email870302
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#email870306

the communication was eventually forced to come out with a rube goldberg support for T1 ... called the 3737. It simulated local channel-to-channel adapter to the local mainframe VTAM software ... and had huge amount of buffering and processing so that it could spoof ACKs that RUs had arrived at the remote end when it had only arrived at the local controller (as countermeasure to VTAM processing not capable of handling latency over long haul T1 links). 3737 was able to sort of support 2mbits/sec aggregate ... even tho full-duplex T1 is 3mbits/sec aggregate (and full-duplex european T1 is 4mbits/sec aggregate). some old email:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email880130
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email880606
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#email881005

in these posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#75 We list every company in the world that has a mainframe computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#77 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?

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

Is coding the new literacy?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:35:30 -0400

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
I believe IBM used to specify a memory limit for functions, presumably derived by breaking down the design point for the product, although how they determined that a given function should get so much memory is beyond me. Then the functions would be apparently been broken down into individual modules, each with an assigned size. It appears this is how they wound up with some of the baroque overlay structures. Perhaps someone who worked for IBM In the early days of e.g. OS/360 could comment?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#45 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#65 Is coding the new literacy?

folklore was the person coding assembler opcode lookup was given spec that said he had to do it in 256bytes ... as a result the opcode table was kept on disk and it had to be reread in pieces for each statement. later there was enormous throughput improvement when it was recoded to use incore opcode lookup table.

note that brooks "mythical manmonth" has small group of high-skilled individuals being much more productive than large hoards of coders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

i've claimed that this was somewhat seen in the reverse with tss/360. at its peak, tss/360 had something like 100 times the people of the cp67/cms group ... and tss/360 had enormously worse performance and throughput than cp67/cms. when tss/360 was decommuted and the group was reduced by a factor of 100 times ... the software bloat was reduced and the performance improved dramatically.

recent posts mentioning doing benchmark at the univ on cp67/cms and tss/360 ... with fortran edit, compile, and execute ... and cp67/cms had better throughput and response with 35 simulated users than tss/360 with four simulated users (on the same 360/67).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#23 Scary Sysprogs and educating those 'kids'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#68 Salesmen--IBM and Coca Cola
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#97 IBM architecture, was Fifty Years of nitpicking definitions, was BASIC,theProgrammingLanguageT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#71 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses

later after the morph of cp67/cms to vm370/cms and significant increase in the vm370/cms group size ... with corresponding increase in vm370/cms bloat ... this shows up in performance of vm370/cms used for xt370 ... some recent refs
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?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#8 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday

cp67/cms could run on 256kbyte real 360/67, original washington was 384kbyte and I was blamed for 6month slip in xt/370 schedule because of showing page thrashing on common aps ... and they increased real (370) memory to 512k bytes (which still had problems).

in the same time frame I did organizational, structural analysis of the then vm370/cms compared to the tss/370 of the same period ... showing tss/370 with significantly less lines-of-code, bloat and spaghetti code, old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#53 TSS/360

part of proposal doing new portable kernel using newer programming technology ... recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#21 The PDP-8/e and thread drifT?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#81 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#72 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#39 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#17 The SDS 92, its place in history?

other recent posts mentioning tss/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#90 Fifty Years of nitpicking definitions, was BASIC,theProgrammingLanguageT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#66 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 10:56:31 -0400

Texas <a@b.com> writes:
My favorite article about this is one by Neal Stephenson titled "Netheads vs Bellheads"
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.10/atm.html
An excerpt: "It is a war between the Bellheads and the Netheads. In broad strokes, Bellheads are the original telephone people. They are the engineers and managers who grew up under the watchful eye of Ma Bell and who continue to abide by Bell System practices out of respect for Her legacy. They believe in solving problems with dependable hardware techniques and in rigorous quality control - ideals that form the basis of our robust phone system and that are incorporated in the ATM protocol. Opposed to the Bellheads are the Netheads, the young Turks who connected the world's computers to form the Internet. These engineers see the telecom industry as one more relic that will be overturned by the march of digital computing. The Netheads believe in intelligent software rather than brute-force hardware, in flexible and adaptive routing instead of fixed traffic control. It is these ideals, after all, that have allowed the Internet to grow so quickly and that are incorporated into IP - the Internet Protocol."

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

we had a flavor of this in the early/mid 80s ... and the derogatory term was "telephone toads". Part of this was "telephone toad" orientation dominated error handling philosophy in osi & sna/vtam ... assuming relatively high error rate over copper wires with lots of connection.

in hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

we were working with high-speed fiber and satellite with forward error correcting ... starting with viterbi and then reed-solomon and sometimes combination of viterbi and reed-solomon. with reed-solomon we were starting to see bit-error-rates over fiber that was comparable to datacenter mainframe channel error rates. Somewhat as a result, I was starting to do "dual simplex" ... constant transmit and receive in both directions.

hsdt got an engineer that had been one of reed's graduate students at JPL ... and also got to work with cyclotomics (Berlekamp at UCB one of the founders). trivia ... cyclotomics played major role in reed-solomon being used for cdrom standard and in part because of working with some vendors on the other side of the pacific in early/mid 80s, I was claiming I could get much better technology out of $300 cdrom player than I could get from $20k computer communication modems

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 11:28:49 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
we had a flavor of this in the early/mid 80s ... and the derogatory term was "telephone toads". Part of this was "telephone toad" orientation dominated error handling philosophy in osi & sna/vtam ... assuming relatively high error rate over copper wires with lots of connection.

in hsdt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#68 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

the other thing that came up along this line was doing rate-based pacing in hsdt for effective operating outgoing and incoming traffic as asynchronous as possible. i've claimed that windowing started out as trivial buffer management overrun on point-to-point links and only indirectly was able to control operations for multi-hop packet environment.

i was also on the xtp tab ... some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
and wrote up rate-based flow control for xtp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/xtprate.html

I've contended that slow-start (windowing) shows up in tcp/ip because of the almost non-existent timer facilities on many of the platforms. Approx. same month as slow-start presentation at IETF ... there was ACM SIGCOMM meeting with paper that showed slow-start was non-stable in large multi-hop, bursty network (in part because returning ACKs tended to bunch at intermediate hops arriving all at once at the sending end ... which then transmits multiple back-to-back packets overloading intermediate nodes).

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

Desktop Linux

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Desktop Linux
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:53:27 -0400

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
Probably, about a month old. Here is the conclusion:

Linux has a stranglehold on the workstation market, for developers, and on tablets and phones. It's time the enterprise decided Linux on a business laptop is finally, totally dead

Workstation? Is that a desktop where you actually need to do work?

latest workstation tech

Haswell-E processor
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2600325/intel-turns-its-attention-to-desktop-performance-unveils-8-core-haswell-e-processor.html
Intel Core i7-5960X, -5930K And -5820K CPU Review: Haswell-E Rises
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918.html

and

Mac, Chromebook gains soften PC industry decline
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2599990/windows-pcs/mac-chromebook-gains-soften-pc-industry-decline.html

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:35:55 -0400

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
Indeed there were, in 1982 at Torch we had a machine (Micromation IIRC) with several Z80 cards each with 64K - one ran MP/M and managed the system farming tasks out to the others which ran CP/M. A little later there were several CP/M and MP/M machines around that could give an XT a run for it's money on one CPU and a number of multi-machine systems such as Televideo's MMMOST based networks which did things for multiple users that an XT or even an AT couldn't hope to match, it took the 386 and XENIX to knock them off their perches.

mp/m
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=MP/M

I've heard folklore claims in the valley that some people in the valley that worked on vm370 also worked on mp/m

... and as I've periodically referenced that kildall worked on cp67/cms at navy post graduate school ... a couple recent refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#103 Microsoft publishes MS-DOS, Word for Windows source code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#95 Is end of mainframe near ?

from recent thread in "closed" linkedin "IBM Historic Computing" group thread titled "33 years ago yesterday the IBM PC was introduced" ... i recently posted:
A software group was formed in (ibm) silicon valley to do software for Acorn and every couple months it would validate with Boca that Boca wasn't interested in doing software. This continued for some time ... until Boca changed its mind and said that it wanted to control software fro Acorn ... either directly by internal groups reporting to Boca and/or through external contracts. Most of the people in silicon valley weren't interested in being part of Boca.

... snip ...

"Acorn" was the unannounced IBM/PC code name. other posts mentioning "Acorn"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#79 Coulda, Woulda, Shoudda moments?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#31 difference between itanium and alpha
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#9 IBM says AMD dead in 5yrs ... -- Microsoft Monopoly vs. IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#19 PC history, was PDP10 and RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#16 unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#24 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#27 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#8 Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#48 Hey! Keep Your Hands Out Of My Abstraction Layer!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#45 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#41 Device Authentication - The answer to attacks lauched using stolen passwords?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#29 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#31 "The Elements of Programming Style"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#44 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#5 Is computer history taugh now?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#35 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#24 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#25 What if the computers went back to the '70s too?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013j.html#58 What Makes a Tax System Bizarre?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#73 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out

recent posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#68 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#69 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

Is coding the new literacy?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Is coding the new literacy?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 10:30:54 -0400

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#45 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#48 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#51 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#65 Is coding the new literacy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#67 Is coding the new literacy?

somebody recently recommended
https://www.amazon.com/Code-Reading-Open-Source-Perspective/dp/0201799405

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

Remembering Space Shuttle Discovery, 30 years later

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Remembering Space Shuttle Discovery, 30 years later
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 15:25:37 -0400

also google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/HtqVYEE9c4N

Remembering Space Shuttle Discovery, 30 years later
http://news.yahoo.com/remembering-space-shuttle-discovery-30-020003793.html

was invited to launch party at the cape because HSDT had transponder on SBS4 that went up on the flt
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-41D.html

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

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 10:26:53 -0400

"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It's spending the sweat of it's laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

i.e. in his "good by" speech he warned about the "military industrial" complex (diverting enormous resources into their pockets) ... folklore is that he originally was going to say "military industrial congressional" complex ... but shortened it at the last minute.

past posts mentioning "military industrial congressional" complex
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex
associated theme is MICC objective for "perpetual war" to keep revenue flowing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#perpetual.war

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:52:44 -0400

hancock4 writes:
Real time data transmission from one computer to another was expensive; each computer needed adequate horsepower to handle activity in real-time (as opposed to batch processing). But the cost of computers and auxillary gear dropped dramatically in the 1980s and their horsepower went up, so it became practical to support much more real-time services. More and more computers were interconnected, and more end-users had on-line terminals on their desks with access to more information. Industry was developing real-time applications in the 1980s that simply would've been too expensive to do earlier. All of this led to increased data traffic. At the same time, data lines and modems became faster and more reliable, contributing to the growth. Analog lines were replaced with digital lines.

sprint layed fiber along railroad right-of-ways ... and others started putting in fiber. enormous capacity came available. in the early 80s there started to appear references to "dark fiber" ... fiber that was just sitting there unused ("dark", "unlit", fiber bundle capacity enormously larger than same dimension copper bundle).

old email from later part of 80s ... and the appearance of T3
Date: 01/25/89 16:50 To: wheeler SUBJECT: Your Note to "Tony" On T-1 Analysis

OK, nice. I might "quibble" with your comments on "low-balling". The decline in inter-LATA communications costs are quite consistent across the market -- long distance calls as well as data. The "long distance subsidy" of local service is being phased out. intra-LATA rates for high speed circuits are also dropping (the local carriers are monopolies and are NOT driven by "market share competition"). Furthermore, IBM has/is been negotiating long term "bulk rate" contracts with the carriers. In addition, the carriers are beginning to offer tarrifs for DS-3 (45mbps) and even "dark fiber" -- it has always been advantageous to the carriers to "sell in bulk" and there is no reason to doubt that this won't continue. The carriers' fiber networks are quite extensive now -- almost complete and they suddenly have VAST bandwidth available.

I think the price drops are real and will continue (although not at the same precipitous rates of the past 2-3 years).

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

it was around 85 time-frame when noticed that tariff for leased T1 was about the same as 5-6 56kbit (sort of the "bulk rate" contracts theme).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

I've mentioned before internal politics prevented us from bidding on the original NSF contract to connect the NSF supercomputer centers ... which morphs into NSFNET backbone as regional networks start connecting to the nodes (and precursor to the modern internet). The winner of that contract didn't actually install T1 links ... they installed 440kbit links and then sort of to appear to meet the letter of the RFP installed T1 trunks and used telco multiplexors to run multiple 440kbit links). Even the director of NSF (with backing from other agencies) wasn't able to overcome the internal political problems. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

Then NSF releases RFP for upgrade to T3 (nsfnet-II/nsfnet-2). I'd been making lots of snide remarks about the existing implementation ... so possibly contributed to being asked to be the "red team" for NSFNET2 response (possibly planning on showing me up). The "blue team" was couple dozen people from half dozen labs around the world. At the final executive review, I presented first followed by the blue team. 5-10 minutes into the "blue team" presentation, the executive pounded on the table and said he would lay down in front of a garbage truck before he allowed anything but the "blue team" response to go forward (provided me and a few others the justification to leave the room).

other posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#59 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#60 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#62 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#68 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#69 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#71 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 10:22:36 -0400

hancock4 writes:
Actually, decades.

Many of the services provided to consumers today via the Internet were conceived and publicized in the early 1960s. Back then, the services were expected to be provided by giant "public utility" computers in a time-sharing mode, reached by either Teletype or a Touch Tone telephone keypad.

IMHO, it basically took a long time because real-time computing was extremely expensive and it took years until the price dropped to be affordable.

In the 1960s, order entry was often done by batch processing and the mail.

Later, in the 1970s, more on-line entry was done. For instance, a business would have an 800 number and operators to enter customer orders from a hard copy catalog into a company computer for fulfillment. But, those screens back then were "green on glass", heavily abbreviated with codes, and not at all practical for an untrained customer at home to use. Further, the company computer only had to support the maximum number of clerks it employed, not a widespread public ordering all at once. In addition, the hardware for a terminal in the customer's home was very expensive in those days.

I dare say if the Internet--a system to connect everyone together--didn't exist, then we would have lots of dial up options for various vendors. It would be a little more cumbersome than merely typing in a URL, but otherwise it would work the same way.

Perhaps there would be "public utility" services, as Compuserve and Prodigy aspired to be, acting as a central site.

simple chip processors enabled drastic drop in price/performance computing power ... and enabled all sorts of vendors to start producing PCs, workstations, and mini-computers (and little later appearance of supercomputers with massive numbers of single chip computers).

drastical drop in prices result in growing explosion in PCs and workstation ... along with corresponding drop in telco prices helps grow the spreading internet capacity.

I've periodically referred to "NSFNET" had "acceptable use" policies that tried to prevent commercial use. Part of that actual resources put into original ("T1") NSFNET was 4-5 times the RFP ... basically telcos contributing/donating enormous additional resources. Part of the issue was telcos had significant fixed capital costs and monthly operational costs ... which were recovered based on tarrifed "use charges". The enormous available capacity (in large part provided to change-over to fiber) wasn't being used because of the lack of high-bandwidth applications. The telcos were in sort of chicken&egg situation, to enormously increase use, they would have to drastically reduce the "use charges" ... but the transition could take a decade while they would operate in the red. The NSFNET then became a technology incubator ... allow lots of people to use it effectively for free which would provide an environment for the evolution/birth of the newer generation of bandwidth hungry applications. posts mentioning NSFNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

in the early 90s, we were doing cluster scale-up ... reference here regarding meeting in Ellison's conference room Jan1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
in our ha/cmp project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

then over a period of a couple weeks, the cluster scale-up is transferred, announced as supercomputer (for scientific and technical only ... preempting the commerical use) and we are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors ... some old email ... also showing we were involved with national labs for scientific and technical.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

which contribute significantly to our decision to leave. A little later two of the other people (from Ellison's meeting) also leave and are at a small client/server startup responsible for something called the "commerce server". We are brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on the server, the startup had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use ... the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce".

It is doing this period that there is steady increase in web use ... and for several months there is "finwait" problem. Most of the internet webservers are various kinds of workstations and are running BSD TCP/IP support (either directly running BSD or workstation vendor has borrowed the BSD TCP/IP code for their product). HTTP is using session/connect TCP for operation ... even tho it is much more of connectionaless. Existing TCP FINWAIT list processing assumed very few session drops per minute ... HTTP was resulting in thousands ... resulting in possible of tens of thousands of entries on the FINWAIT list. The BSD processing of the FINWAIT list was sequential/linear ... and with thousands of entries was beginning to consume 95+% of available processor power. a few recent posts mentioning FINWAIT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#13 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#26 There Is Still Hope

recent posts mentioning "electronic commerce" and/or "SSL"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#65 Washington Post on Target store data thefts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#66 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#23 Quixotically on-topic post, still on topic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#26 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#35 OODA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#60 Bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#0 Tech Time Warp of the Week: Check Out Mid-'90s Netscape, the Coolest Startup in Silicon Valley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#3 Let's Face It--It's the Cyber Era and We're Cyber Dumb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#13 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#19 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#40 Missed Alarms and 40 Million Stolen Credit Card Numbers: How Target Blew It
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#101 Reflexivity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#102 How the IETF plans to protect the web from NSA snooping
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#6 Credit Card Breach at California DMV Provides Yet Another Warning of Cyber Insecurities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#25 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#27 TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#30 Zeus malware found with valid digital certificate
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#45 TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#47 TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#56 "NSA foils much internet encryption"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#57 NSA and Heartbleed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#64 How the IETF plans to protect the web from NSA snooping
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#78 How the Internet wasn't Commercial Dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#8 Is cybersecurity the next banking crisis in the making?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#11 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#13 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#19 Is cybersecurity the next banking crisis in the making?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#25 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#74 Is end of mainframe near ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#83 Slashdot this day in history: Microsoft Asks Slashdot To Remove Readers' Posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#7 [Cryptography] Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#13 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#15 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#17 Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#25 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#40 Named Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#90 Friden Flexowriter equipment series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#61 A computer at home?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:43:44 -0400

Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> writes:
It is easy for the government to order the phone company to tap the link.

early 80s, one of the claimed justification that all corporate links required encryption ... was major longhaul microwave communication hub in San Francisco was line-of-sight from certain nearby foreign consulate ... the could tap the communication.

as i've mentioned, the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until possibly sometime late 85 or early 86 ... at arpanet/internet change-over to tcp/ip on 01jan1983, there were approx. 100 IMPs and 255 connected hosts, while the internal network was quickly approaching 1000 nodes.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

also was told mid-80s that over half of all link encryptors in the world were on internal network links (which resulted in periodic problems with new links in various parts of the world especially when they crossed national boundaries).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

in the early to mid 80s, i could just barely get link encryptors for T1 links for HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

and would need to pay an arm and leg for them. somewhat as a result got involved in link encryptor board that would go for $100 dollars and handle several mbytes/sec. then the corporate crypto group got involved and claimed that it significantly weakened standard encryption strength. It took me three months to figure out how to explain to them what was actually happening ... that it actually significantly increased standard encryption strength ... however it was hollow victory ... about the first time I realized that there were three kinds of crypto 1) they kind they don't care about, 2) the kind you can't do and 3) the kind you can do only for them. I was told that I could build as many boards as I wanted to ... but couldn't use any ... all of them would have to be sent to certain address on the east coast. misc. old email mentioning crypto
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#crypto

misc. past posts mentioning three kinds of crypto
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#57 RealNames hacked. Firewall issues.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#35 A quote from Crypto-Gram
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#4 private key encryption - doubts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#22 What if phone company had developed Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#87 New test attempt
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#86 Own a piece of the crypto wars
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#43 What is "timesharing" (Re: OS X Finder windows vs terminal window weirdness)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#32 Getting Out Hard Drive in Real Old Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#27 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#43 Internet Evolution - Part I: Encryption basics
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#20 TELSTAR satellite experiment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#60 Is the magic and romance killed by Windows (and Linux)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#0 We list every company in the world that has a mainframe computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#63 ARPANET's coming out party: when the Internet first took center stage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#85 Key Escrow from a Safe Distance: Looking back at the Clipper Chip
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#63 Reject gmail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012i.html#70 Operating System, what is it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#47 T-carrier
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"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013o.html#50 Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#9 NSA seeks to build quantum computer that could crack most types of encryption
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#25 Is there any MF shop using AWS service?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#27 TCP/IP Might Have Been Secure From the Start If Not For the NSA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#54 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test

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

Firefox 32 supports Public Key Pinning

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Firefox 32 supports Public Key Pinning
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 15:16:37 -0400

also posted to google+
https://plus.google.com/102794881687002297268/posts/VYqfg4GwUPa

Firefox 32 supports Public Key Pinning
http://monica-at-mozilla.blogspot.com/2014/08/firefox-32-supports-public-key-pinning.html

and I've spent a couple decades fighting Certification Authority Digital Signature (CADS) based systems ... some number patents (all assigned)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadssummary.htm

A big step was when we were invited into small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use (the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce"), we had to map "SSL" to the payment transaction process ... also audit/visit the main operations calling themselves "certification authorities" that were selling things called "digital certificates". There was two parts the browser-to-webserver and the webserver-to-payment-network-gateway. By the time the webserver-to-payment-network-gateway was finished, any use of digital certificates was purely a side-effect of software library being used ... since the corresponding public keys had been registered and "pin'ed" at the respective locations.

I had final authority for everything for the webserver to payment gateway ... but could only make recommendations regarding the browswer to webserver operation

past posts mentioning payment gateway
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
past posts mentioning SSL digital certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert
references to AADS as alternative to CADS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads
and an AADS financial industry payment transaction standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 17:14:54 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
I've periodically referred to "NSFNET" had "acceptable use" policies that tried to prevent commercial use. Part of that actual resources put into original ("T1") NSFNET was 4-5 times the RFP ... basically telcos contributing/donating enormous additional resources. Part of the issue was telcos had significant fixed capital costs and monthly operational costs ... which were recovered based on tarrifed "use charges". The enormous available capacity (in large part provided to change-over to fiber) wasn't being used because of the lack of high-bandwidth applications. The telcos were in sort of chicken&egg situation, to enormously increase use, they would have to drastically reduce the "use charges" ... but the transition could take a decade while they would operate in the red. The NSFNET then became a technology incubator ... allow lots of people to use it effectively for free which would provide an environment for the evolution/birth of the newer generation of bandwidth hungry applications. posts mentioning NSFNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#76 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

so there were increasing use of browsers that were much more bandwidth hungry ... and then in parallel was CIX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Internet_eXchange

moving use into business environment and out of the acceptable use policies stopping commercial use of NSFNET ... past internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

other related recent posts about first webserver in the US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#34 World Wide Web turns 25 years old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#44 [CM] Ten recollections about the early WWW and Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#88 Silicon Valley: an army of geeks and 'coders' shaping our future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#98 After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#61 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

recent posts mentioning CIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#3 We need to talk about TED
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#35 World Wide Web turns 25 years old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 20:50:32 -0400

"Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> writes:
Back 30 plus years ago at a PPoE which was a large defense contractor, a guy who worked in HSS (the financial department) was responsible for several OS versions. He had quite a few shoeboxes of microfich which contained the listings of different OS versions.

The company had a computer printer that would print *directly* to microfiche!!!

various old pictures in past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

some past home office pictures ... including 77-79 timeframe with 300baud ascii cdi miniterm and compact microfice viewer, i might have 50-100 microfiche at home at anyone time ... anything that could normally be sent to datacenter printer could be routed to the microfiche printer (no pictures of 70-77 with 2741 at home):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#51

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:05:56 -0400

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
And even that leaves out the agricultural complex. Of course, most of our food these days is industrially processed, like chocolate coated sugar bombs with the American Heart Association seal of approval.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#74 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

i.e. congress considered the most corrupt institution on earth ... there was recent article made reference that congressmen sell out so cheaply because it isn't their money; military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC), financial-regulatory-congressional complex (FRCC), pharmaceutical-regulator-congressional complex (PRCC) to name a few.

past references to congress as "kabuki theater" (what seen publicly has little to do with what really goes on)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#kabuki.theater

and

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

also related to various congressional activity, repeal Glass-Steagall ... enabling too big to fail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall too big to fail, too big to prosecute, too big to jail
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fail

medicare part-d, first major legislation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#medicare.part-d
after congress allowed fiscal responsibility act (required spending not exceed revenue) to expire in 2002
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#fiscal.responsibility.act

which was start of comptroller general starting to include statements in public speeches that there was nobody in congress that knew how to do middle school arithmetic (for how they were savaging the balanced budget)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#comptroller.general

congress was claiming that sarbanes-oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#sarbanes-oxley
that it would prevent another enron/worldcom
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#enron
and guarantee that executives & auditors would do jail time for public company financial filings with incorrect numbers. possibly because even GAO thought it was all facade, it started doing reports of fraudulent financial filings ... even showing uptic after sarbanes-oxley (and nobody doing jail time)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#financial.reporting.fraud.fraud

I've also referenced that CBO did report in 2010 that the baseline budget had all federal debt retired by 2010 ... but mostly after congress allowed the fiscal responsibility act to expire in 2010, tax revenue was reduced by $6T and spending was increased by $6T (compared to baseline) ... for a $12T budget gap ... much of the legislative done during the period then continued after 2010.

big part of tax reduction was loopholes for offshoring revenue as well as (paradoxically) reducing funding for IRS tax prosecution of wealthy american fraudulently offshoring revenue (in excess of the loopholes)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#tax.evasion

the special interest groups draft the loophole legislation, pay congress to pass the legislation, and then claim they can't be blameed for taking advantage of the loopholes.

That $6T increase in spending included a little over $2T increase in spending for DOD, a little over $1T for the two wars and a little over $1T that couldn't be accounted for. However, long term costs for the two wars has been estimated at $5T (including long term veterens benefits and medical costs).

However, the resulting chaos that resulted in the region has other long term costs. For instance before the US went into Afghanistan ... illegal drug production had dropped to nearly zero ...

Heroin production hits record levels in Afghanistan - study
http://rt.com/news/156128-afghanistan-drugs-usa-heroin/
Drug War? American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium. U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production
http://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-war-american-troops-are-protecting-afghan-opium-u-s-occupation-leads-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053

which sort of goes along with the investigative reporting about the too big to fail money laundering for drug cartels (and terrorists) and only getting their hand slapped and asked to please stop it ... articles with like too big to fail are responsible for turning mexico into another colombia (money laundering funding the sophisticated militarization of the drug cartels)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#money.laundering

then there is things like the rising prison-industrial complex (outsourcing prisons to commercial operations that bribe judges for juvenile non-violent offenders)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison-industrial_complex

one of the issues is the increasing outsourcing of federal activities. A major issue is that federal agencies can't lobby and "contribute" to congress ... but commercial companies can ... some folklore that congress expects 5% kickback from commercial companies receiving appropriations for outsourced gov. functions. for instance claims that 70% of the intelligence budget and over half the employees have been outsourced to for-profit companies.

related is the spreading Success of Failure culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failuree

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

Desktop Linux

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Desktop Linux
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:43:45 -0400

Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> writes:
I've been using Linux as the OS on all my desktop systems since before 2000. There was a short time between VMS and Linux where I used Windows 95 and NT for main desktop functions, just a couple years. I have one program that I still use that requires Windows, I now run it under XP via VMware on Linux host systems.

i've had linux machine (and cdroms) going back to sometime slackware cdrom around 1993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

but had nt3.5 & nt4 development releases on main machines ... and then switched off before nt5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

i do have xp virtual machine that I've used once a year for taxes (although it keeps trying to tell me to upgrade).

part of the issue going on now for desktop is open-source, native linux drivers for high-performance graphics cards ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_graphics_device_driver

and followup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#70 Desktop Linux

Intel unleashed octo-core speed demon for the power-crazed crowd Haswell-E processors designed for gamers and workstation crowds
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/29/intel_unleashed_octocore_speed_demon_for_the_powercrazed_crowd/
Intel's Haswell-E Desktop CPU Debuts With Eight Cores, DDR4 Memory
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/08/29/1833254/intels-haswell-e-desktop-cpu-debuts-with-eight-cores-ddr4-memory?sbsrc=md
Intel's Core i7-5960X processor reviewed Haswell Extreme cranks up the core count
http://techreport.com/review/26977/intel-core-i7-5960x-processor-reviewed

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 13:15:00 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
sprint layed fiber along railroad right-of-ways ... and others started putting in fiber. enormous capacity came available. in the early 80s there started to appear references to "dark fiber" ... fiber that was just sitting there unused ("dark", "unlit", fiber bundle capacity enormously larger than same dimension copper bundle).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#75 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

lastest round:

Race to gigabit Internet service takes off
http://www.cnet.com/news/race-to-gigabit-internet-service-takes-off/

from above:
With the "irrational exuberance" of the early Internet economy, speculators spent billions laying thousands of miles of fiber optic cable for backhaul, expecting Internet use would continue growing at the unprecedented rates of the late 1990s. As part of the great dot com bust of 2000, however, most of the speculators went bust, leaving so-called "dark fiber" to wait for demand to catch up.

... snip ...

not quite the same as the 80s dark fiber (and relative enormous "VAST bandwidth available") ... but similar. other past posts mentioning dark fiber
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#59 Ok Computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#50 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#40 Why did OSI fail compared with TCP-IP?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#79 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003l.html#58 Thoughts on Utility Computing?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#1 Xah Lee's Unixism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#67 nouns and adjectives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#43 more on (the new 40+ yr old) virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#64 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#80 Entry point for a Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#75 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header header time-stamp?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#78 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#78 The culture of the pre-commercial Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#88 Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#89 Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013d.html#52 Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet, 1974
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#3 We need to talk about TED

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 08:02:27 -0400

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
An account could find a spreadsheet program very useful. The XT would be most useful to an account with major accounts.

trivia ... as I mentioned before person doing visicalc implementation had been at mit and then at one of the early cp67/vm370 spin-off online service bureaus ... that had quickly moved up the value stream into provided online services for the financial industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
Implementing VisiCalc
http://www.frankston.com/public/?name=ImplementingVisiCalc

virtual machine based online service bureaus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 05:57:08 -0700

lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) writes:
this somewhat comes up in the discussion about ibm selling its chip fab business ... and possibly nobody wanting to acquire the east fishkill and burlington fabs. in an (linkedin) ibm employee discussion, somebody

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#20 Demonstrating Moore's law

latest story is that IBM was willing to pay $1B for somebody to take chip fab business ... but prospects wanted $2B.

from thread:
z10 64 processors, 30BIPS (469MIPS/proc), Feb2008
z196 80 processors, 50BIPS (625MIPS/proc), Jul2010 $28m or $560k/BIPS
ec12, 101 processors, 75BIPS (743MIPS/proc), Aug2012 $33m or $440K/BIPS

latest ec12 6core/chip is in 32nm technology

latest haswell-E @ $1k (and less)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918.html
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/188911-intel-haswell-e-review-the-best-consumer-performance-chip-you-can-buy-with-some-caveats
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2600325/intel-turns-its-attention-to-desktop-performance-unveils-8-core-haswell-e-processor.html

intel technology map
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 07:01:28 -0700

0000000433f07816-dmarc-request@LISTSERV.UA.EDU (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
But suppose IBM chooses a prospect and pays the $2B. The contract would surely include a committment to supply IBM with N chips each at a price of

$2B/N + incremental manufacturing cost.

But who pays for the R&D and tooling for the next generation technology? Could that be specified, firmly, in the contract?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law

story was that prospects were interested in the people and expertise ... didn't really want the FABs ... but would take them for $2B.

IBM would have to do their own proprietary chip designs ... but use whatever technology is in the market (already there are comments that there is some design commonality between mainframe chips and other chips).

presumably, IBM would want latest 14nm technology (not the older 32nm technology) and newer; see intel's roadmap (intel is spending $5b to build a 14nm fab; which pretty much obsoletes older fabs)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock
current list of fabs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 15:11:49 -0700

mike.a.schwab@GMAIL.COM (Mike Schwab) writes:
US$3,000,000,000 / 20,000 z/CPU = $150,000

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#86 Demonstrating Moore's law

1qtr2014 mainframe revenue was equivalent of 18 max. configured ec12, 56 on annualized basis ... say 20 6-core chips/system ... or equivalent 1120 chips/annum.

from:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#7 Demonstrating Moore's lab
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#8 Demonstrating Moore's lab

ec12 32nm technology 597.24 mm2 ... get about 118chips/300mm wafer or about 10wafers for year of z12 processors sales (at 56 systems/yr)

same chip redone in 22nm technology cuts the chip to approx. 284 mm2 or about 248 chips/300mm wafer or less than five 300mm wafers.

same chip redone in 14nm technology (with 450mm wafers) cuts the chip to approx. 115mm2 and 1120chips/annum is less than one wafer/annum (1383 chips/450mm wafer)

and these fabs are doing 30,000-80,000 wafers a month (note in the following list, the ibm stories about trying to sell its chip/fab business, mentioned globalfoundries)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

intel's new 14nm fab @$5B assuming 4yr recovery of upfront costs (use declining as new technology fabs come online and obsolete it) and hypothetical 100,000 wafers/month ... would be 4.8m wafers or $1k/wafer ... at 1383 chips/wafer that is $7.53/chip (besides what ever the operating costs and profit are).

then

Haswell-E chip is 355mm2 in 22nm technology (has 8 cores, compared to 284mm2 for z12 6core chip remapped from 32nm to 22nm) ... or about 199chips/300mm wafer. this would reduce to approx. 144 in 14nm tech ... and approx. 1104chips/450mm wafer.

high-end haswell-e chip price is $1k/chip ... less expensive haswell-e chips are in the $300-$500 range (in part because they are fewer cores, smaller onchip cache, smaller size and presumably more chips/wafer). large megadatacenters doing their own high-end blade assembly are only a little bit more than bulk component costs. retail is little more expensive
http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/30/review-roundup-intels-8-core-haswell-e/

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 18:45:16 -0400

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> writes:
One of the big online services, I can almost remember the name, from the start paired up with some other service that had local phone numbers all over the place, so it was a local call, but of course an extra fee. Pacnet isn't right, but that sort of combination of words.

tymnet put in lots of point-of-presence for local phone calls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet
... used for tymshare online service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare

.... but also other services contracted with tymnet

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 16:10:27 -0700

lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) writes:
intel's new 14nm fab @$5B assuming 4yr recovery of upfront costs (use declining as new technology fabs come online and obsolete it) and hypothetical 100,000 wafers/month ... would be 4.8m wafers or $1m/wafer ... at 1383 chips/wafer that is $753.19/chip (besides what ever the operating costs and profit are).

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#87 Demonstrating Moore's law

finger slip

$5B upfront for fab, 4.8m wafers over 4yrs or $1k/wafer and $.72/chip (at 1383 chips/wafer) ... they could do only 1.2m wafers total (before obsolete by next chip technology) and still come out at $4167/wafer (upfront overhead costs) and $3/chip (at 1383chips/wafer)

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 17:17:16 -0700

Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> writes:
That number is certainly too low. EC12s have 1-4 books, each with six processor chips (yes that comes to 144, only 120 can be used), and anyone not buying a configuration topped out for the number of books installed will have more chips. BC12s have either one or two chips. On both models the revenues for the sub-capacity models is significantly less on a per-processor chip basis than your calculation would imply (nominally a EC12-401 is about $840K, while a 89-times faster single book -720 with the identical number of processor chips is $10.8M - the BCs have even worse ratios).

Also, you're assuming list prices for full function CPUs (if you're buying IFLs, zAAPs, zIIPs, ICFs, etc., they're cheaper).

So the real number is likely several times higher, probably around an order of magnitude.

Another way to do the calculation is to assume that the 10,000 machines in existence are replaced every three years. Even if those were all maxed out EC12-7A1s, that's only 120,000 chips per year. And while neither that replacement rate or the machine size is remotely realistic, it puts a hard upper cap on the number of dies to be produced for sale in machines. Perhaps a more reasonable assumption would be a four year replacement cycle and an average of ten processor chips per box, which gets you 25,000 chips/year.

In any event, that doesn't help IBM's costs any. The total manufacturing costs for those chips is minuscule, and the NREs still have to be spread over the same revenue base.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#86 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#87 Demonstrating Moore's law

IBM mainframe processor financials had been doing about $4B-$5B annum for a decade or so (but that number has dropped recently). A much bigger revenue number for IBM mainframe group has been the software, services, and storage it sells (total mainframe group revenue has avg. a little over 6times its processor system revenue, and is extremely profitable being as much as 40% of total company profit).

assuming that max configured systems work out to have the best price per processor ... and max configured systems running around $30M ... ibm has been selling the equivalent of 133-166 max. configured systems per annum for a decade or so (but recently dropped to less than half that) aka if there are a larger number of smaller systems, assumption is that the price/processor would be higher, and fewer total processors and therefor chips ... using max configured systems equivalents would tend to put an upper bound on total number of processors/annum).

At the upper limit, the previous decade would have been the equivalent of 1660 new max. configured systems (@166/annum) ... and 1st qtr 2014 mainframe processor numbers on annualized basis is 56 max. configured ec12 systems. so instead of 120processors in (@6processors/chip, 20chips) ... say ec12 actually has 240processors (although only max 101 are directly configured) that would make it 40chips & @56systems/annum that is 2240chips/annum ... remapped to 14nm technology and 450mm wafers that is less than 2 wafers (@1383chips/wafer), rather than less than one.

If the aggregate mainframe chips that are less than couple dozen wafers (or as few as one) in production fab mostly used for other things ... then the fab costs are amortized across the other chips ... and the mainframe chips are nearly incidental. However, if the fab had to recover the total technology costs just from mainframe sales ... it would be quite a bit more expensive.

that is major reason that mainframe has migrated to being built using mostly industry standard technology, industry standard disks, industry standard fibre channel, industry standard chip process, etc.

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Sep 2014 17:42:52 -0700

lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) writes:
latest haswell-E @ $1k (and less)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918.html
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/188911-intel-haswell-e-review-the-best-consumer-performance-chip-you-can-buy-with-some-caveats
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2600325/intel-turns-its-attention-to-desktop-performance-unveils-8-core-haswell-e-processor.html

intel technology map
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#85 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#86 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#87 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#89 Demonstrating Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#90 Demonstrating Moore's law

and demonstrating what a little competition can do ... AMD responds with 8core chip for less than $150 ... and 8core chip running at 5ghz bundled with liquid cooling for $282.
http://www.zdnet.com/amd-releases-trio-of-affordable-eight-core-fx-desktop-processors-7000033221/

note while haswell-e has moved to 22nm, the above amd chips are still at 32nm (same as ec12).

Intel 14nm coming along:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2014/08/11/intels-14nm-process-is-alive-and-well-thank-you/

earlier this spring when IBM was trying to unload its chip business to globalfoundries (globalfoundries chip business spun off from amd in 2009)

Samsung and GlobalFoundries buddy up for 14nm, while IBM heads for the exit
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181136-samsung-and-globalfoundries-buddy-up-for-14nm-while-ibm-heads-for-the-exit

Samsung and GlobalFoundries to Produce Apple's 14-nm A9 Chips in 2015
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/01/samsung-globalfoundries-apple-a9-2015/

so it is possible that amd might skip 22nm and move next to 14nm????

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

curly brace languages source code style quides

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: curly brace languages source code style quides
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 20:20:24 -0400

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:
While S/360 unit record gear supported column binary, I've never seen it used. OTOH, row binary was bog standard on the 704x and 709x machines.

i used it porting 1401 MPIO (unit record front end for 709 with tapes manually moved between 709 and 1401) to 360/30 (they could have continued to run MPIO in 360/30 1401 hardware emaulation ... but they wanted to get some 360 experience).

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 4 Sep 2014 18:02:03 -0700

Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> writes:
My entire point was that the *smallest* systems have the best price per processor chip (although that's entirely meaningless for the customer, since customer don't buy CPU chips, they buy performance, which does get better on a per-dollar basis on larger systems).

Consider my example, a single-CP, kneecapped* EC12 (a 2827-401) ships with a single book containing six CPU chips, and nominally should cost about $840K. *Exactly* the same physical system (with the same processor book containing the same six CPU chips), with the magic license codes installed to turn it into a 20-CP full-speed EC12 (a 2827-720), sells for $10.8M. In the case of the -401, IBM is effectively selling CPU chips for $140K each (assuming that's the only thing in the box), but in the case of the -720, IBM is selling them for $1.8M each. IOW, if IBM sold only the smaller systems (as opposed to only the karger systems), the same revenue would result in 13 times more CPU chips physically shipped to customers.

If you wanted a -721 (one more CP than the -720), you have to get a *two* book system, and you'd pay $11.2M and get a dozen CPU chips in the box (sending the price-per-CPU-chip back down to $933K).

And if any customers buy IFLs, those are about $55K each on an EC12, and zIIPs and zAAPs are about $100K each.

A maxed out EC12 physically has 144 CPU cores on 26 six-core chips. Only 120 of them are active, and only 101 of them can be used for customer workload.

*a 2827-4xx runs at about the sixth of the speed of a -7xx box, so a single CP 401 gets about 240 MIPS, while a (single CP) -701 does 1514.

a decade-plus ago, i did some work for financial processor ... that did max'ed out mainframe systems and rolled them over every generation. at the time, their largest datacenter had 43 such systems ... but there were a number of others in the financial industry that had larger operations. in aggregate those institutions accounted for majority of ibm mainframe processor revenue. since ibm hasn't given details of their market, i've used annual processor revenue divided by max. system price to provide number of max. mainframe equivalents per year (since that is also the majority of the revenue).

part of ibm's dilemma has been that mainframe system throughput has tended to increase faster than those institutions mainframe workload increases. the particular 43 system complex was based on a single application that ran every night and needed to finish in the overnight batch window ... even tho it had a large performance group provided for its care & feeding ... i was able to find another 14%.

I've periodically wondered if ibm mainframe pricing is somewhat along the lines of airline seat sales ... if you already flying the plane ... then getting any money at all for otherwise empty seats is better than nothing. when i did chips, the smallest wafer run i typically could get was six wafers. in 14nm technology & 450mm wafers yielding 1383 chips, a minimum run would be 8298 chips. the major customer base currently is maybe 1100-1200/annum ... then there would be a significant number of left-over chips that need to be unloaded before the introduction of the next generation (chips). And just like airline seats ... they wouldn't want to see those paying the premium prices switching to significantly discounted product.

trivia: the financial processor had been spun off from larger financial institution (in 1992, in the largest IPO up until that time) that guerstner had been president of. some speculation that ibm board bringing in Gerstner was at the behest of this financial market segment to resurrect ibm (mainframe) and reverse the breakup (into the 13 baby blues). posts mentioning Gerstner
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:44:22 -0400

Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
This is why I used the dhrystone benchmark. It has a reasonably balanced cpu load, but is a "never to exceed" performance measure, since it now fits in L1 and good compilers can eliminate all of it.

and the baseline is number of iterations on 370/158 taken as one mip processor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_second

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 5 Sep 2014 08:54:04 -0700

Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> writes:
If you actually tested, cut and packaged the chips on the other wafers, you'd get a higher number, but you would not, of course. And unlike airline seats, mainframe chips are not salable by themselves - you have to put them in an expensive box full of other electronics before you can do that. Unlike the airline seat which is there and ready anyway, whether or not you get a butt into it for a given flight.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#93 Demonstrating Moore's law

airline seat is in an infrastructure that has fairly high/expensive run rate ... but gets reused over and over (isn't like corner busstop bench)

however, presumably the financial industry representing the majority of mainframe sales ... getting rolled over every new generation ... their one generation old machines will show up somehow in the market.

however there is the issue of maintaining premium pricing for the majority of the revenue flow ... while still being able to have incremental revenue for remaining (both ibm chips and airline seats) ... a simpler analogy is terms&conditions for IBM's mainframe emulator running on PCs not allowed to be used for production work.

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

Demonstrating Moore's law

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

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Demonstrating Moore's law
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 5 Sep 2014 09:42:40 -0700

tony@HARMINC.NET (Tony Harminc) writes:
Which is why I've wondered here why IBM doesn't try to find some market for those chips that's different enough from the traditional mainframe one that it won't bite into it, but still lets them sell the chips for at least something.

Well, maybe they have tried, and maybe there just isn't any such market, given the characteristics of the chips: ho-hum price/performance, not massively parallel, but extreme on-chip reliability. Presumably market segments that need reliability have already worked around flaky chips by using other (higher layer) approaches.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#93 Demonstrating Moore's law

by 30yrs ago, hardware reliability got to the point that majority of service outages were no longer hardware and shifting to human mistake and environemtal (power, storms, flooding, fires, etc) ... as a result next incremental improvement service availability required geographic replication.

once you have geographic replication for high service availability ... then the replicated systems would also mask any incidental hardware failure.

in the late 80s and early 90s we did ibm's ha/cmp (high availability) and we demonstrating superior operational characteristics against pure hardware fault tolerant. At the time out marketing, I coin'ed the terms disaster survivability and "geographic survivabilty"

Anyway, as a result I got asked to write a section for the ibm corporate continuous availability strategy document ... but then it got pulled when both rochester (as/400) and pok (mainframe) complained they couldn't meet the objectives.

Then the cluster scale-up part of ha/cmp was transferred, we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors, and announced as ibm supercomputer for technical and scientific *ONLY*. old reference to meeting Ellison's conference room first part of january1992
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
within a month of that meeting it had been announced as ibm supercomputer ... some old email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa

past ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
past continuous availability posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

Jim Gray was major person at ibm san jose research creating the original relational/sql database. When he left for tandem, he palmed a lot of stuff on me. While at tandem he did a lot of studies&surveys for availability&outages ... and also the prime mover behind TPC benchmarks.
https://www.tpc.org/information/who/gray5.asp
old gray presentation on service outages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf

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

IBM System/7 Teletype operator's station

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: IBM System/7 Teletype operator's station
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 15:38:37 -0400

hancock4 writes:
As mentioned, the S/360 mentions the System/7 and admits it wasn't a successful product. I don't know how many units were sold of the 1800 (its predecessor), and S/7, or the S-1.

There seems to be two broad classes of use for these machines: one was process control, in which inputs from industrial processes (ie an oil refinery) went sent to the computer, which in turn sent output signals to control the machinery as deemed optimum by the product. The other use was in data collection, such as parts moving along an assembly line.

Back in May I posted a writeup about a TRW process control computer from bitsavers.

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/trw/rw-300/Texaco_Port_Arthur_Apr59.pdf

Process control is an area I know nothing about. But unlike an accounting application*, the mission criticality of a process control system obviously is very high. The computer can't crash. The programs must be absolutely perfect. Response time must always be instant. We don't want to discard an entire day's production from an oil refinery (or worse). Writing programs for this must be very challenging, not only for the critical degree of accuracy, but also tracking all sorts of analog inputs and outputs and responding accordingly.

some of the large financial networks (aka private value added networks ...VAN) used S/1 as intermediate nodes & concentrators (somewhat akin to tymnet).

Also i'm mentioned one of the baby bells did vtam/sscp & 37x5/ncp emulation on s/1 ... and for a time I had gotten sucked into trying to turn it out as official ibm product. some recent posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#7 Last Gasp for Hard Disk Drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#25 Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#66 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

Cybersecurity

From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Cybersecurity
Date: 06 Sept 2014
Blog: Facebook

Recommended Presentations from Cyber Defense Summit 2014
https://www.novainfosec.com/2014/09/04/recommended-presentations-from-cyber-defense-summit-2014/

I'm rather biased ... i periodically draw current cybersecurity with auto safety engineering from 1920s ... vehicle design, road design, etc. I've mentioned being brought in by small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; they had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called "electronic commerce". There were two parts, browser to webserver and webserver to payment network gateway. I had absolute authority over the webserver to payment network gateway (which has had no exploits), but could only recommend on the browser to webserver. Almost immediately browser to webserver recommendations were violated ... which account for many of the exploits that continue to this day.

in the 90s, i use to rail quite a bit about it being "comfort" features ... rather than providing real security ... it provided the publssl/ecommerce stuff was mostly 1994/1995. at financial industry meetings in 1996, dailup online banking operations were making presentations that they were moving to the internet/browsers/ssl ... primarily because of the large customer support costs related to supporting proprietary dialup infrastructures (effectively offloading to ISPs). At the same time commercial/business dialup online banking/cash management operations were saying that they would *NEVER* move to the internet because of a long list of vulnerabilities (that continue to this day). payment gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

over the years, lots of the commerical/business dialup online banking/cash management have moved to the internet anyway (mostly for the same reason that the consumer operations moved) ... and are experiencing exploits. Periodically, every year or so, the federal reserve comes out with notice that business/commercial should have a dedicated PC for (internet) online banking that is *ONLY* used for online banking (and *NEVER* used for any other purpose). This at least is a partial countermeasure to some number of exploits that arise from visiting random websites.ic the feeling of security ... i've mellowed somewhat since it seemed to make little difference. ssl posts, including "comfort" references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcerts

ssl/ecommerce stuff was mostly 1994/1995. at financial industry meetings in 1996, dailup online banking operations were making presentations that they were moving to the internet/browsers/ssl ... primarily because of the large customer support costs related to supporting proprietary dialup infrastructures (effectively offloading to ISPs). At the same time commercial/business dialup online banking/cash management operations were saying that they would *NEVER* move to the internet because of a long list of vulnerabilities (that continue to this day).

dialup online banking posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#dialup-banking

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 10:49:25 -0400

Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
The "4 mips barrier" took decades to pass for moderatly priced iron. The 360/195 was probably well beyond it, but otherwise only the very top models went past this. It lasted from ca 1970 until RISC took off, with the MIPS R2000 and the Sparc.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#94 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

370/195 had 64instructions pipeline with out-of-order execution ... and carefull programming got 10mips ... however 195 lacked branch prediction and speculative execution ... so conditional branches drained the pipeline ... and most codes got 5mips. that was somewhat project i got dragged into for supporting hyperthreading (that never shipped) ... two emulated processors, two instruction streams feeding pipeline, in theory one instruction stream hit conditional branch ... pipeline could overlap work from the other instruction stream. 370/195 never got support for virtual memory (would have been extremely difficult to add virtual memory hardware to 195)

165->168 got faster memory (cache miss didn't take as long) and optimization of 370 instruction implementation in microcode reducing the avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction from 2.1 to 1.6 machine cycles. Also the difficulty of retrofitting virtual memory hardware to 165 resulted in dropping some of the more difficult virtual memory features to keep announcement from slipping. old post discussing some of justification to move to all virtual memory.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#47 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"

168-1 -> 168-3 double the cache size ... to (hopefully) reduce cache misses .... nominally rated at 3mips or about three times 158-3 (assumed to be one mips and baseline for dhrystone benchmarks).

168-3 to 3033 was quick&dirty remap of 168-3 logic to 20% faster processor chips (warmed over technology from Future System), the chips also ten times circuits per chip ... iniitally unused ... but some last minute logic rework in critical sections ... made better use of on-chip logic and got 3033 to 1.5 times 168-3 ... or approx. 4.5mips.

3033 and 370/xa (3081) were kicked off in parallel in mad rush after failure of FS (during FS, internal politics were killing off 370 efforts, the lack of 370 products in the period is also credited with giving clone processors a market foothold).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

3081 started out being two-processor only machine ... using some other left-over FS technology
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

original was 3081D claimed to be two 5mips processor for 10mips aggregate ... however some benchmarks showed per processor was less than 3033 (4.5mips). 3081K came out with double cache size, (fewer cache misses) claiming two 7mips processor for 14mips aggregate ... although same benchmarks had per processor about same as 3033 throughput.

370/308x two-processor cache machines slowed cycle done by ten percent to allow for cross-cache invalidation signals (cache consistency in two-processor compared to single processor) or 1.8times hardware throughput (invalidation signals that actually found cache lines to invalidate, would further slow down throughput ) ... operating system multiprocessor overhead further slowed down throughput ... so typically two-processor was claimed to have 1.3-1.5 times a single processor. I did some slight-of-hand in some vm370 multiprocessor support for cache affinity that could sometimes get greater than two times throughput ... because of fewer cache misses. past posts mentioning multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

clone vendors continued to bring out single processor with increased throughput and IBM's ACP/TPF operating system didn't have multiprocessor support ... and IBM was afraid that all the ACP/TPF customers would move to clone processors. In the interim they did some really horrible things to vm/370 specifically optimized for improving ACP/TPF running in (single processor) virtual machine on 3081 (that degraded almost every other vm370 customer's throughput on 3081) ... before finally came out with single processor 3083. recent posts menting 3083
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#20 Write Inhibit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#21 Complete 360 and 370 systems found
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#49 Beyond the EC12
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#50 Beyond the EC12

note that four processor 3084 (two two-processor 3081 tied together) had much worse effects ... because now each processor was geting cache invalidation signals from three other processors (instead of one). both mvs & vm370 kernel got some multiprocessor makeover for 3084 where dynamic kernel storage was re-organized to be aligned on cache-lines and size rounded up to multiple of cache line size (reducing cache invalidation interfereance where multiple different processors were operating on different storage in same cache line). This was claimed to increase throughput by 5& to 6%.

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 11:43:38 -0400

then there was acs-360, but it was canceled because ibm management felt it would advance the state-of-the-art too fast and they would loose control of the market.
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

note that low-end/mid-range 370 were vertical microcoded machines that executed an avg. of ten native instructions per 370 instruction. 350KIPS 370-145 had 3.5mips native engine and 4341 with 1MIPS 370 had approx ten mip native engine. first did ECPS for 370 138/148 where vm370 kernel instructions were rempaped from 370 instructions into native engine instructions (on approx. 1:1 basis) getting 10 times increase in performance ... old reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

a similar thing was done for mvs on 3033 (although much reduced in size) ... but because it was optimized horizontal microcoded machine ... there was little room for improvement and sometimes could result in degradation. The proliferation of such incremental operating system microcode changes during the period has been claimed to be in response to the rise of clone processors ... as well as major motivation for Amdahl's macrocode ... programming layer below 370 interface but above horizontal microcode and significantly easier to program (a variation on 370 instruction set). this allowed them to go well beyond the proliferation of incremental changes for mvs ... and do "hypervisor" ... which allowed partitioning of the machine ... sort of efficient subset of virtual machine operation.

note that late 70s/early 80s ... ibm was doing iliad (801/risc) chips that were to replace the large variety of internal microprocessors used for controllers and the native processors in lowend and mid-range 370s ... (the as/400 and follow-on to 4331 & 4341 were all suppose to be 801/risc iliad chips. for various reason all of these iliad/risc efforts floundered when these efforts floundered some number of the engineers left to work on risc efforts at other vendors, people showing up at amd, hp, mips, etc, there was folklore at the time about possible litigation over things like amd29k) ... and efforts did cisc chips instead

while this was going on los gatos lab was working on first 32bit 801/risc ... "blue iliad" (all the other 801/risc in the period were 16bit) which would have been 20MIPS native instructions (aka not dhrystone) ... iliad architecture had 801/risc extensions improving emulation efficiency.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#email810422

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

posts mentioning 801/risc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

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

Flat (VSAM or other) files still in use?

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From: lynn@garlic.com
Subject: Flat (VSAM or other) files still in use?
Date: 07 Sept 2014
Blog: Mainframe Experts

re:
http://lnkd.in/d6cCE_V

original sql/rdbms was system/r on vm/370 370/145 at san jose research (trivia: codd was at san jose research). was able to sneak it out as sql/ds while corporation was preoccupied with IMS follow-on EAGLE. When EAGLE imploded, there was request about how fast it would take to get SQL/DS ported to MVS (as DB2). DB2 was originally announced and released as decision support (only). some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr

ramis, nomad, etc were all (also) originally done on vm370 (actually some on vm370 precursor cp67); later ported to mvs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramis_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS

recnet ramis, nomad, focus posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#77 Bloat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#34 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#32 Speed of computers--wave equation for the copper atom? (curiosity)

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

? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: ? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 09:36:45 -0400

cb@bobby.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
Both X and Linux did indeed happen well after Unix was already well out and established; but X and Linux didn't happen simultaneously. X also happened mostly, but not entirely, on Unix systems (and then eventually Linux et al) - there was DECwindows on VAXen running VMS, for instance.

project athena 1983, joint project mit, dec, and ibm (dec & ibm both contributing $25m, mit had director, dec&ibm had assistant directors)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Athena

x-windows was one of the athena projects, 1984
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

in the late 80s, early 90s, we were some of the ibm people that periodically did athena reviews ... former co-worker from science center was ibm assistant director) ... posts mentioning science center (4th flr 545 tech sq, cambridge)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

we were also doing ibm's ha/cmp project and we hired small company in cambridge formed by former sciencer center staff and ibm'er working at athena ... to write a lot of the software. posts mentioning ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

kerberos was another effort out of athena ... now used on large number of different platforms ... i remember being there for one one-week review ... during which time cross-domain kerberos protocol was being worked out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_%28protocol%29

some random posts mentioning public key for kerberos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#kerberos

at 1988 interop in santa clara, i had pc/rt with megapel display running x-windows in "network systems" booth ... it was end of row, right angle to sun booth ... where snmp was being demonstrated ... and got a port over to the pc/rt to also demo snmp.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop
recent network systems references:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#75 non-IBM: SONY new tape storage - 185 Terabytes on a tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#36 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#39 curly brace languages source code style quides
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#63 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

linux history starts 1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

might considered more overlap with osf (1988)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation
and unix wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars
and osf/1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSF/1

note above says that osf/1 was used for aix/esa on 370&390. osf/1 used some of the pieces of ucla's unix-work-alike Locus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOCUS_%28operating_system%29

and ibm had used locus for both aix/370 (which evolves into aix/esa) and aix/386.

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

? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?

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

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: ? How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:47:20 -0400

cb@bobby.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
If you're referring to the IBM 2250, that seems to have been a separate terminal which would be attached to a separate computer (System/360) - i.e., not a "workstation" in the sense of what I was talking about (a machine that combines both the processing and the user interaction together), but more akin to a Tektronix 401x or similar.

2250 ... 1024x1024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2250

2250-1 was 360 channel attach large graphics screen. I modified the cp67/cms editor to use a 2250-1 (leveraging the cms 2250-1 programming library from lincoln labs).

2250-4 was 1130/2250 combination (combination was about the same price as 2250-1 ... presumably since the 2250-1 controller/channel interface was so expensive). one of the people at the science center ported (pdp-1) spacewars to 2250-4 ... two-person game split the keyboard keys in half for control functions.

posts mentioning science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

recent posts mentioning 2250
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#32 [OT ] Mainframe memories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#77 Spacewar Oral History Research Project
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#107 CMS Editors was TSO Test does not support 65-bit debugging?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#67 z/OS physical memory usage with multiple copies of same load module at different virtual addresses
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#33 Univac 90 series info posted on bitsavers

ibm later relogo'ed another vendors display for 2250 follow-on as the 3250.

recent mention of pc/rt "megapel" (1024x1024) at interop '88
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#102 How programs in c language drew graphics directly to screen in old days without X or Framebuffer?

one of the problems that the workstation division had was it was suppose to be an independent business unit (IBU) that was suppose to make all their own decisions ... but they were constantly being pressured to use components from the other divisions ... they were forced to use all ps2 microchannel cards (display, scsi, disk, lan, etc) for the rs/6000 ... even tho they were designed for low-end pc market ... not the high-end workstation market. They were also being force to use low-end graphics display. Trying to side-step corporate buraeucracy ... they came out with the 730 ... which was vmebus (not micrchannel) ... and nobody else in the company had vmebus products ... so for the 730 they got to do pretty much what they wanted. some past periodic posts mentioning corporate trying to make sure that rs/6000 throughput was constrained to ps2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#92 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#61 "25 Years of IBM's OS/2"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#37 Hard drives: A bit of progress
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#70 Under what circumstances would it be a mistake to migrate applications/workload off the mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#40 PC/mainframe browser(s) was Re: 360/20, was 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#9 3270s & other stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#32 Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#84 Metcalfe's Law: How Ethernet Beat IBM and Changed the World
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia
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/2013m.html#19 Voyager 1 just left the solar system using less computing powerthan your iP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#79 wtf ? - was Catalog system for Unix et al
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#88 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?

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

No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:30:48 -0400

"987jack" <987jack@gmail.com> writes:
Just like it did with WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc etc etc.

US Entering New Era of Dirty Wars? Limited War Is Back
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/limited-war-back-11128

note marine's small wars manual was written in the same period and about the same events as smedley's "war is a racket"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

which references "Perpetual War"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war

also Spinney's "Perpetual War" (Spinney is Boyd acolyte)
http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/p/domestic-roots-of-perpetual-war.html

also related to Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

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

and spreading Success Of Failure scenario ... would appear MICC, beltway bandits and gov. contractors using advanced gaming techniques to help with constantly increasing quarterly profits and "leave no money on the table"
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

then there are numerous stories around "team b" promoting inflated analysis of advisaries as way of increasing DOD budget
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#team.b

and go back to Eisenhower's warnings about the military industrial complex ... past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#military.industrial.complex

and by member of congress somewhat contemporary of smedley:

Triumphant plutocracy; the story of American public life from 1870 to 1920
http://archive.org/details/triumphantpluto00pettrich

loc6265-74:
XXX. THE LEAGUE TO PERPETUATE WAR The war has just begun. I said that when the Armistice terms were published and when I read the Treaty and the League Covenant I felt more than ever convinced of the justice of my conclusion. The Treaty of Versailles is merely an armistice -- a suspension of hostilities, while the combatants get their wind. There is a war in every chapter of the Treaty and in every section of the League Covenant; war all over the world; war without end so long as the conditions endure which produce these documents.

... snip ...

and more recent

"Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism"
https://www.amazon.com/National-Insecurity-American-Militarism-Media-ebook/dp/B00ATLNI04/r
"Prophets of War"
https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-War-Lockheed-Military-Industrial-Complex-ebook/dp/B0047T86BA/

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

only sometimes From looms to computers to looms

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:02:08 -0400

Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:
There are a lot more issues in competition that many foreign countries are better at. Industrial management is a big factor over a whole spectrum of ways. In the short term day to day management, just in time scheduling creates an environment of minimized warehousing and material handling. Medium term production engineering that takes technology and makes it producable at minimum cost. Long term planning that is designed to show maximum profit for the long term and not with 30 day , 3 month or 1 year profit goals. They re-invest a far larger part of the profit back into the business that created it.

there is US diverting so much money from basic infrastructure that there were few civil engineering jobs, with few jobs, there were few students going into civil engineering, with few students, univ. were drastically cutting back on civil engineering programs. one claim was that infrastructure projects from federal stimulus funds had to hire chinese civil engineering firms ... because there were not enough US civil engineers

Volcker in discussion with civil engineering professor about significantly decline in infrastructure projects (as institutions skimmed funds for other purposes & disappearing civil engineering jobs) resulting in universities cutting back civil engineering programs; "Confidence Men", pg290:
Well, I said, 'The trouble with the United States recently is we spent several decades not producing many civil engineers and producing a huge number of financial engineers. And the result is s**tty bridges and a s**tty financial system!

... snip ...

although recently there has been some renewed articles that special interests were fraudulently skimming a lot of the funds. older article
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/04/06/Justice-Department-Probing-Widespread-Stimulus-Fraud

i remember when i first moved to boston area in 1970 being told why mass. roads were so bad ... that road companies used bad asphalt and construction practices ... so there would expensive ongoing road repair projects every year. I guess that is why i wasn't very surprised that the "big dig" had 1000% overrun and other problems ... and a senator from mass claiming that the federal gov. owed them the money (for the state's special interests).

past posts mentioning volcker & civil engineering:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#91 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#44 Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#43 Where are all the old tech workers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#63 The Economist's Take on Financial Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#67 Cartons of Punch Cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#30 24/7/365 appropriateness was Re: IBMLink outages in 2012
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#48 Owl: China Swamps US Across the Board -- Made in China Computer Chips Have Back Doors, 45 Other "Ways & Means" Sucking Blood from US
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012h.html#77 Interesting News Article
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#3 OT: Tax breaks to Oracle debated

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

only sometimes From looms to computers to looms

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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: only sometimes From looms to computers to looms
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:41:21 -0400

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
"Confidence Men", pg290:

Well, I said, 'The trouble with the United States recently is we spent several decades not producing many civil engineers and producing a huge number of financial engineers. And the result is s**tty bridges and a s**tty financial system!

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#105 only sometimes From looms to computers to looms

some more from the "financial engineering" lore

one of the HFT (high frequency trading) claims is that it only provides scam for skimming money from other players in the market ... and it has been driving away ordinary investors ... so it may just leave the HFT players to slug away against each other.

it used to be (regulated) depository institutions used deposits to loan out for mortages and made profit from the mortgage payments. the rise of securitized mortages&loans (by unregulated loan originators) ... allowed the transactions to be routed through wallstreet ... so they could skim off enormous amount (again providing little or no benefit to the rest of the country). The result is claimed that wallstreet tripled in size (as percent of GDP) during the bubble. With over $27T in transactions done during the bubble
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

(largely enabled by paying for triple-A ratings ... when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A) enabled possibly $4T-$5T to be skimmed off by wallstreet. If that wasn't enough, they specially designed toxic CDOs to fail, sold them to their customers and took out CDS gambling bets that they would fail (and when some of the institutions didn't want to pay up on the bets, the secretary of treasury steps in, tells them it is illegal to not pay off at hundred cents on the dollar, forced them to take federal money to pay off the CDS bets, and forced them to sign giving up all rights to sue those making the questionable CDS bets, of course the secretary of treasury had previously been the head of one of the worst offenders

the recent financial mess was 70times larger than the S&L crisis where there were 30,000 criminal referrals and 1,000 criminal convictions, so far this time, there has been no criminal referrals, recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#66 GAO and Wall Street Journal Whitewash Huge Criminal Bank Frauds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#21 Thomas Piketty Is Right About the Past and Wrong About the Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#30 Qualitative Easing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#84 Support Senator Warren's Postal Banking Proposal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#10 Instead of focusing on big fines, law enforcement should seek long prison terms for the responsible executives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#27 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#77 Settlements and Fines from TBTF Institutions Since the Crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#95 How Comp-Sci went from passing fad to must have major

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

recent posts mentioning HFT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#54 Pensions, was Re: Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#82 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#89 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#28 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#29 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#43 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#56 Royal Pardon for credit unions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#65 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#7 N.Y. Barclays Libor Traders Said to Face U.K. Charges
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#93 New York seeks curbs on high-frequency trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#18 FBI Investigates High-Speed Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#60 FBI Investigates High-Speed Trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#72 Three Expensive Milliseconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#3 Three Expensive Milliseconds
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#20 HFT, computer trading
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#25 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#41 System Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#70 Obama Administration Launches Plan To Make An "Internet ID" A Reality
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#1 HFT is harmful, say US market participants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#54 Has the last fighter pilot been born?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#64 HFT is harmful, say US market participants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#107 The SEC's Mary Jo White Punts on High Frequency Trading and Abandons Securities Act of 1934
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#109 SEC Caught Dark Pool and High Speed Traders Doing Bad Stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#64 Dark Pool Greed Drove Barclays to Lie to Clients, N.Y. Says

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