List of Archived Posts

2025 Newsgroup Postings (03/01 - )

Financial Engineering

Large Datacenters

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

Clone 370 System Makers

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

RDBMS, SQL/DS, DB2, HA/CMP

2301 Fixed-Head Drum

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

The joy of FORTRAN

HSDT

IBM Token-Ring

IBM Token-Ring

IBM 3880, 3380, Data-streaming

Learson Tries To Save Watson IBM

Financial Engineering

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Financial Engineering
Date: 01 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

The last product we did was HA/6000 approved by Nick Donofrio in 1988
(before RS/6000 was announced) for the NYTimes to move their newspaper
system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LLNL, LANL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix that had vaxcluster
support in same source base with unix). The S/88 product administrator
then starts taking us around to their customers and also has me do a
section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document
... it gets pulled when both Rochester/AS400 and POK/(high-end
mainframe) complain they couldn't meet the requirements.

Early Jan1992 have a meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD Hester tells
Ellison we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system
clusters by ye92. Then late Jan92, cluster scale-up is transferred for
announce as IBM Supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we
are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors (we
leave IBM a few months later).

1992, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies
and was in the process of being re-orged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company (take off on the "baby bell"
breakup a decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup

Not long after leaving IBM, I was brought in as consultant into small
client/server startup, two of the former Oracle people (that we had
worked with on HA/CMP cluster scaleup) were there responsible for
something they called "commerce server" and they wanted to do payment
transactions, the startup had also invented this technology they
called "SSL" they wanted to use, it is now frequently called
"electronic commerce" (or ecommerce).

I had complete responsibility for everything between "web servers" and
gateways to the financial industry payment networks. Payment network
trouble desks had 5min initial problem diagnoses ... all circuit
based. I had to do a lot of procedures, documentation and software to
bring packet-based internet up to that level. I then did a talk (based
on ecommerce work) "Why Internet Wasn't Business Critical
Dataprocessing" ... which Postel (Internet standards editor) sponsored
at ISI/USC.

Stockman and IBM financial engineering company:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Deformation-Corruption-Capitalism-America-ebook/dp/B00B3M3UK6/
pg464/loc9995-10000:

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

pg465/loc10014-17:

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

... snip ...

(2013) New IBM Buyback Plan Is For Over 10 Percent Of Its Stock
http://247wallst.com/technology-3/2013/10/29/new-ibm-buyback-plan-is-for-over-10-percent-of-its-stock/
(2014) IBM Asian Revenues Crash, Adjusted Earnings Beat On Tax Rate
Fudge; Debt Rises 20% To Fund Stock Buybacks (gone behind
paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140201174151/http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-21/ibm-asian-revenues-crash-adjusted-earnings-beat-tax-rate-fudge-debt-rises-20-fund-st

The company has represented that its dividends and share repurchases
have come to a total of over $159 billion since 2000.

(2016) After Forking Out $110 Billion on Stock Buybacks, IBM
Shifts Its Spending Focus
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/25/after-forking-out-110-billion-on-stock-buybacks-ib.aspx
(2018) ... still doing buybacks ... but will (now?, finally?, a
little?) shift focus needing it for redhat purchase.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-30/ibm-to-buy-back-up-to-4-billion-of-its-own-shares
(2019) IBM Tumbles After Reporting Worst Revenue In 17 Years As Cloud
Hits Air Pocket (gone behind paywall)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190417002701/https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-16/ibm-tumbles-after-reporting-worst-revenue-17-years-cloud-hits-air-pocket

HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
ecommerce gateways
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
stock buyback posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#stock.buyback

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

Large Datacenters

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Large Datacenters
Date: 01 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

I had taken 2credit-hr intro do fortran/computers and at the end of
the semester was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO in 360 assembler for
360/30. Univ was getting 360/67 for tss/360 to replace 709/1401 and
got a 360/30 temporarily (replacing 1401) pending availability of
360/67. Univ shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place
dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Mondays hard). I was given a
bunch of hardware & software manuals and to to design and implement my
own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery,
storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had a 2000 card
assembler program. The 360/67 arrives within year of talking intro
class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never
came to production).

Then before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into a small group in
Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer
Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business
unit). I think Renton datacenter largest in the world with 360/65s
arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged
in the hallways around the machine room. Lots of politics between
Renton director and CFO who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing field
(although they enlarge the machine room to install 360/67 for me to
play with when I'm not doing other stuff). Then when I graduate,
instead of staying with the CFO, I join IBM science center.

I was introduced to John Boyd in the early 80s and would sponsor his
briefings at IBM. He had lots of stories, including being very vocal
about electronics across the trail wouldn't work. Possibly as
punishment he was put in command of "spook base" (Boyd would say it
had the largest air conditioned bldg in that part of the world) about
the same time I'm at Boeing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html

Access to the environmentally controlled building was afforded via the
main security lobby that also doubled as an airlock entrance and
changing-room, where twelve inch-square pidgeon-hole bins stored
individually name-labeled white KEDS sneakers for all TFA
personnel. As with any comparable data processing facility of that
era, positive pressurization was necessary to prevent contamination
and corrosion of sensitive electro-mechanical data processing
equipment. Reel-to-reel tape drives, removable hard-disk drives,
storage vaults, punch-card readers, and inumerable relays in
1960's-era computers made for high-maintainence systems. Paper dust
and chaff from fan-fold printers and the teletypes in the
communications vault produced a lot of contamination. The super-fine
red clay dust and humidity of northeast Thailand made it even more
important to maintain a well-controlled and clean working environment.

Maintenance of air-conditioning filters and chiller pumps was always a
high-priority for the facility Central Plant, but because of the
24-hour nature of operations, some important systems were run to
failure rather than taken off-line to meet scheduled preventative
maintenance requirements. For security reasons, only off-duty TFA
personnel of rank E-5 and above were allowed to perform the
housekeeping in the facility, where they constantly mopped floors and
cleaned the consoles and work areas. Contract civilian IBM computer
maintenance staff were constantly accessing the computer sub-floor
area for equipment maintenance or cable routing, with the numerous
systems upgrades, and the underfloor plenum areas remained much
cleaner than the average data processing facility. Poisonous snakes
still found a way in, causing some excitement, and staff were
occasionally reprimanded for shooting rubber bands at the flies during
the moments of boredom that is every soldier's fate. Consuming
beverages, food or smoking was not allowed on the computer floors, but
only in the break area outside. Staff seldom left the compound for
lunch. Most either ate C-rations, boxed lunches assembled and
delivered from the base chow hall, or sandwiches and sodas purchased
from a small snack bar installed in later years.

... snip ...

Boyd biography says "spook base" was a $2.5B "windfall" for IBM (ten
times Renton).

In 89/90 the Commandant of Marine Corps leverages Boyd for make-over
of the corps (at a time when IBM was desperately in need of
make-over).
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
1992 IBM has one of the largest losses in history of US companies and
was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for
breaking up the company (take off on "baby bells" breakup a decade
earlier).
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup.

Boyd passes in 1997 and the USAF had pretty much disowned him and it
was the Marines at Arlington and his effects go to Quantico. The 89/90
commandant continued to sponsor regular Boyd themed conferences at
Marine Corps Univ. In one, the (former) commandant wanders in after
lunch and speaks for two hrs (totally throwing schedule off, but
nobody complains). I'm in the back corner of the room and when he is
done, he makes a beeline straight for me (and all I could think of was
I had been setup by Marines I've offended in the past, including
former head of DaNang datacenter and later Quantico).

IBM Cambridge Science Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Boyd posts and web URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall

some recent 709/1401, MPIO, 360/67, univ, Boeing CFO, Renton posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#111 Computers, Online, And Internet Long Time Ago
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#91 IBM Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#106 IBM 370 Virtual Storage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#39 Applications That Survive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#17 60s Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#124 Any interesting PDP/TECO photos out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#110 360/65 and 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#88 SHARE User Group Meeting October 1968 Film Restoration, IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#69 The joy of FORTH (not)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#20 IBM 360/30, 360/65, 360/67 Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#136 HASP, JES2, NJE, VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#67 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#24 Public Facebook Mainframe Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#79 Other Silicon Valley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#63 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#25 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#22 Early Computer Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#93 ASCII/TTY33 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#9 Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#63 Computers and Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#49 Vintage 2250
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360

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

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2025 18:29:50 -1000

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:

IBM tried to commercialize it in the ROMP in the IBM RT PC; Wikipedia
says: "The architectural work on the ROMP began in late spring of
1977, as a spin-off of IBM Research's 801 RISC processor ... The first
examples became available in 1981, and it was first used commercially
in the IBM RT PC announced in January 1986. ... The delay between the
completion of the ROMP design, and introduction of the RT PC was
caused by overly ambitious software plans for the RT PC and its
operating system (OS)."  And IBM then designed a new RISC, the
RS/6000, which was released in 1990.

ROMP originally for DISPLAYWRITER follow-on ... running CP.r operating
system and PL.8 programming language. ROMP was minimal 801, didn't
have supervisor/problem mode ... at the time their claim was PL.8
would only generate correct code and CP.r would only load/execute
correct programs.  They claimed 40bit addressing ... 32 bit addresses
... but top four bits selected 16 "segment registers" that contained
12bit segment-identifiers. ... aka 28bit segment displacement and
12bit segment-ids (40bits) .... and any inline code could change
segment register value ... as easily as could load any general
register.

When follow-on to DISPLAYWRITER was canceled, they pivoted to UNIX
workstation market and got the company that had done AT&T unix port to
IBM/PC for PC/IX ... to do AIX. Now ROMP needed supervisor/problem
mode and inline code could no longer change segment register values
... needed to have supervisor call.

Folklore is they also had 200 PL.8 programmers and needed something
for them to do, so they gen'ed a abstract virtual machine system
("VRM") (implemented in PL.8) and had AIX port be done to the abstract
virtual machine definition (instead of real hardware) .... claiming
that the combined effort would be less (total effort) than having the
outside company do the AIX port to the real hardware (also putting in
a lot of IBM SNA communication support).

The IBM Palo Alto group had been working on UCB BSD port to 370, but
was redirected to do it instead to bare ROMP hardware ... doing it in
enormously significantly less resources than the VRM+AIX+SNA effort.

Move to RS/6000 & RIOS (large multi-chip) doubled the 12bit segment-id
to 24bit segment-id (and some left-over description talked about it
being 52bit addressing) and eliminated the VRM ... and adding in some
amount of BSDisms.

AWD had done their own cards for PC/RT (16bit AT) bus, including a
4mbit token-ring card. Then for RS/6000 microchannel, AWD was told
they couldn't do their own card, but had to do PS2 microchannel
cards. The communication group was fiercely fighting off client/server
and distributed computing and had seriously performance knee-capped
PS2 cards, including ($800) 16mbit token-ring card (the PS2
microchannel which had lower card throughput than the PC/RT 4mbit TR
card).  There was joke that PC/RT 4mbit TR server having higher
throughput than RS/6000 16mbit TR server.  There was also joke that
the RS6000/730 with VMEbus was a work around corporate politics and
being able to install high-performance workstation cards

We got the HA/6000 project in 1988 (approved by Nick Donofrio),
originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system off VAXCluster to
RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LLNL, LANL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix that had vaxcluster
support in same source base with unix). The S/88 product administrator
then starts taking us around to their customers and also has me do a
section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document
... it gets pulled when both Rochester/AS400 and POK/(high-end
mainframe) complain they couldn't meet the requirements.

Early Jan1992 have a meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD Hester tells
Ellison we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system
clusters by ye92. Then late Jan92, cluster scale-up is transferred for
announce as IBM Supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we
are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors (we
leave IBM a few months later). Contributing was the mainframe DB2 DBMS
group were complaining if we were allowed to coninue, it would be at
least five years ahead of them.

Neither ROMP or RIOS supported bus/cache consistency for
multiprocessor operation. The executive we reported to, went over to
head up ("AIM" - Apple, IBM, Motorola) Somerset for single chip
801/risc ... but also adopts Motorola 88k bus enabling multiprocessor
configurations. He later leaves Somerset for president of (SGI owned)
MIPS.

trivia: I also had HSDT project (started in early 80s), T1 and faster
computer links, both terrestrial and satellite ... which included
custom designed TDMA satellite system done on the other side of the
pacific ... and put in 3-node system. two 4.5M dishes, one in San Jose
and one in Yorktown Research (hdqtrs, east coast) and a 7M dish in
Austin (where much of the RIOS design was going on).  San Jose also
got an EVE, a superfast hardware VLSI logic simulator (scores of times
faster than existing simultion) ... and it was claimed that Austin
being able to use the EVE in San Jose, helped bring RIOS in a year
early.

801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
hsdt posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt

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

Clone 370 System Makers

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Clone 370 System Makers
Date: 02 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#121 Clone 370 System Makers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#122 Clone 370 System Makers

Note: several years after the Amdahl incident (and being told goodby
to career, promotions, raises), I wrote an IBM "speakup" about being
underpaid with some supporting documents. Got a written reply from
head of HR that after a detail review of my whole career, I was being
paid exactly what I was suppose to be paid. I then made copy of
original "speakup" and head of HR's reply and wrote a cover stating
that I recently was asked to help interview some number of students
that would be shortly graduating, for positions in new group that I
would be technically directing ... and found out that they were being
offered starting salaries that were 1/3rd more than I was currently
making. I never got a written reply, but a few weeks later I got a 33%
raise (putting me on level playing field with new graduate
hires). Several people then reminded me that "Business Ethics" was an
oxymoron.

some past posts mentioning the speakup
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#89 More Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#101 IBM Oxymoron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#24 Inventing the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#42 IBM Bureaucrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#59 IBM CEO: Only 60% of office workers will ever return full-time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#35 IBM Business Conduct Guidelines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#95 IBM Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#27 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#125 IBM Clone Controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#39 IBM Registered Confidential
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#12 Home Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#82 IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#61 IBM Starting Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#15 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#86 Bizarre Career Events
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#40 Teaching IBM class
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#12 IBM "811", 370/xa architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#49 IBM Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#78 IBM Disk Engineering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#47 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#81 The Tragedy of Rapid Evolution?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#65 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#42 The IBM "Open Door" policy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#28 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#12 Clone Processors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011g.html#2 WHAT WAS THE PROJECT YOU WERE INVOLVED/PARTICIPATED AT IBM THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#82 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#74 My Vintage Dream PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#94 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#83 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#75 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#48 time spent/day on a computer

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

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:03:53 -1000

Robert Swindells <rjs@fdy2.co.uk> writes:

You could look at the MIT Lisp Machine, it used basically the same chips
as a VAX 11/780 but was a pipelined load/store architecture internally.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#2 Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

from long ago and far away:


Date: 79/07/11 11:00:03
To: wheeler

i heard a funny story: seems the MIT LISP machine people proposed that
IBM furnish them with an 801 to be the engine for their prototype.
B.O. Evans considered their request, and turned them down.. offered them
an 8100 instead!  (I hope they told him properly what they thought of
that)

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

... trivia: Evans had asked my wife to review/audit 8100 (had really
slow, anemic processor) and shortly later it was canceled
("decomitted").

801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

misc past posts with same email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#84 memory speeds, Solving the Floating-Point Conundrum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#9 32 or even 64 registers for x86-64?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#45 "25th Anniversary of the Personal Computer"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#3 Architectural support for programming languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#65 801 (was Re: Reviving Multics

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

RDBMS, SQL/DS, DB2, HA/CMP

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: RDBMS, SQL/DS, DB2, HA/CMP
Date: 02 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

Vern Watts responsible for IMS
https://www.vcwatts.org/ibm_story.html

SQL/Relational started 1974 at San Jose Research (main plant site) as
System/R, implementing on VM370

Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr to do Multics,
others went to to the IBM Cambridge Science Center ("CSC") on the 4th
flr, did virtual machines (initially CP40/CMS on 360/40 with virtual
memory hardware mods, morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with
virtual memory becomes available), internal network, invented GML in
1969, lots of online apps, When decision was made to add virtual
memory to all 370s, some of the CSC people split off and take-over the
IBM Boston Programming Center on the 3rd flr for the VM370 development
group (and CP67/CMS morphs into VM370/CMS).

Multics releases the 1st relational RDBMS (non-SQL) in June 1976
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/mrds.html

STL (since renamed SVL) didn't appear until 1977, it was originally
going to be called Coyote after the convention naming for the closest
Post Office. However that spring the San Francisco Coyote Organization
demonstrated on the steps of the capital and it was quickly decided to
choose a different name (prior to the opening), eventually the closest
cross street. Vern and IMS move up from LA area to STL. It was same
year that I transferred from CSC to San Jose Research and would
work on some of System/R with Jim Gray and Vera Watson. Some amount of
criticism from IMS group about System/R, including index requiring
lots more I/O and double the disk space.

First SQL/RDBMS ships, Oracle
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-Oracle.html

STL was in the process of doing the next great DBMS, "EAGLE" and we
were able to do technology transfer to Endicott (under the "radar",
while company pre-occupied with "EAGLE") for SQL/DS
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-SQL_DS.html

Later "EAGLE" implodes and there is a request for how fast could
System/R be ported to MVS ... eventually released as DB2, originally
for decision-support.
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-DB2.html

Trivia: Jim Gray departs for Tandem fall 1980, palming of some things
on me. The last product at IBM was HA/6000 starting 1988, originally
for NYTimes to move their newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to
RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LLNL, LANL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix that had vaxcluster
support in same source base with unix). The S/88 product administrator
then starts taking us around to their customers and also has me do a
section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document
... it gets pulled when both Rochester/AS400 and POK/(high-end
mainframe) complain they couldn't meet the requirements.

Early Jan1992 have a meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD Hester tells
Ellison we would have 16-system clusters by mid92 and 128-system
clusters by ye92. Then late Jan92, cluster scale-up is transferred for
announce as IBM Supercomputer (for technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we
are told we can't work on anything with more than four processors (we
leave IBM a few months later).

CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

continuous availability, disaster
survivability, geographic survivability posts

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available

posts mentioning HA/CMP, S/88, Continuous Availability Strategy
document:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#2 Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#0 Financial Engineering
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#119 Consumer and Commercial Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#106 Giant Steps for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#104 Mainframe dumps and debugging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#89 Wang Terminals (Re: old pharts, Multics vs Unix)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#57 Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#24 IBM Mainframe Comparison
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#82 IBM S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#5 IBM Transformational Change
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#67 IBM "THINK"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#36 IBM 801/RISC, PC/RT, AS/400
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#25 Future System, Single-Level-Store, S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#3 Emulating vintage computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#138 IBM - Making The World Work Better
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#55 Article on new mainframe use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#12 ADA, FAA ATC, FSD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#4 Disconnect Between Coursework And Real-World Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#105 Financial/ATM Processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#79 Mainframe and Blade Servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#60 IBM "Winchester" Disk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#54 IBM 3705 & 3725
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#7 Testing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#3 ReBoot Hill Revisited
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#111 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#84 IBM DBMS/RDBMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#44 Mainframe Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#29 DB2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#22 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#93 IBM, Unix, editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#35 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#115 IBM RAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#72 Vintage RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#70 Vintage RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#38 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#55 IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#53 IMS Stories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#3 How an obscure British PC maker invented ARM and changed the world

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

2301 Fixed-Head Drum

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: 2301 Fixed-Head Drum
Date: 05 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#112 2301 Fixed-Head Drum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#113 2301 Fixed-Head Drum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#115 2301 Fixed-Head Drum

late 70s, I tried to get 2305-like "multiple exposure" (aka multiple
subchannel addresses, where controller could do real-time scheduling
of requests queued at the different subchannel addresses) for 3350
fixed-head feature, so I could do (paging) data transfer overlapped
with 3350 arm seek. There was group in POK doing "VULCAN", an
electronic disk ... and they got 3350 "multiple exposure" work
vetoed. Then VULCAN was told that IBM was selling every memory chip it
made as (higher markup) processor memory ... and canceled VULCAN,
however by then it was too late to resurrect 3350 multiple exposure
(and went ahead with non-IBM 1655).

trivia: after decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, some of
science center (4th flr) splits off and takes over the IBM Boston
Programming Center (3rd flr) for the VM370 Development group (morph
CP67->VM370). At the same time there was joint effort between Endicott
and Science Center to add 370 virtual machines to CP67 ("CP67H", the
new 370 instructions and the different format for 370 virtual
memory). When that was done there was then further CP67 mods for CP67I
which ran on 370 architecture (in CP67H 370 virtual machines for a
year before the first engineering 370 with virtual memory was ready to
test ... by trying to IPL CP67I). As more and more 370s w/virtual
memory became available, three engineers from San Jose came out to add
3330 and 2305 device support to CP67I for CP67SJ. CP67SJ was in
regular use inside IBM, even after VM370 became available.

CSC posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

recent posts mentioning cp/67h, cp/67i cp/67sj
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#122 Clone 370 System Makers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#121 Clone 370 System Makers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#120 Microcode and Virtual Machine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#10 IBM 37x5
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#108 IBM 370 Virtual Storage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#73 Early Email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#112 IBM Email and PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#80 CP67 And Source Update
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#29 IBM 370 Virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#68 ARPANET & IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#88 Virtual Machines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#63 CP67 support for 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#4 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#47 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#70 The IBM System/360 Revolution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#44 IBM 360/65 & 360/67 Multiprocessors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#98 IBM DASD, Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#24 VM370, SMP, HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#74 IBM 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#71 IBM 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#22 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#94 Enhanced Production Operating Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#80 IBM Quota
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#59 CMS OS/360 Simulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#55 Precursor to current virtual machines and containers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#12 Programming Skills
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#23 MS/DOS for IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#34 IBM Fan-fold cards
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#6 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#39 IBM 370/155
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#5 Z/VM

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

Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:11:15 -1000

John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:

I'm not so sure. The IBM Fortran H compiler used a lot of the 360's instruction
set and it is my recollection that even the dmr C compiler would generate memory
to memory instructions when appropriate. The PL.8 compiler generated code for 5
architectures including S/360 and 68K, and I think I read somewhere that its
S/360 code was considrably better than the native PL/I compilers.

I get the impression that they found that once you have a reasonable number of
registers, like 16 or more, the benefit of complex instructions drops because
you can make good use of the values in the registers.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#2 Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#4 Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC

long ago and far away ... comparing pascal to pascal front-end with
pl.8 back-end (3033 is 370 about 4.5MIPS)


Date: 8 August 1981, 16:47:28 EDT
To: wheeler

the 801 group here has run a program under several different PASCAL
"systems".  The program was about 350 statements and basically
"solved" SOMA (block puzzle..).  Although this is only one test, and
all of the usual caveats apply, I thought the numbers were
interesting...  The numbers given in each case are EXECUTION TIME ONLY
(Virtual on 3033).

6m 30 secs               PERQ (with PERQ's Pascal compiler, of course)
4m 55 secs               68000 with PASCAL/PL.8 compiler at OPT 2
0m 21.5 secs             3033 PASCAL/VS with Optimization
0m 10.5 secs             3033 with PASCAL/PL.8 at OPT 0
0m 5.9 secs              3033 with PASCAL/PL.8 at OPT 3

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

801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

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

The joy of FORTRAN

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, comp.os.linux.misc
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2025 06:46:48 -1000

cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

VAX was really meant to unify the product line, offering PDP-10
class performance in something that was architecturally
descended from the PDP-11, which remained attractive at the low
end or embedded/industrial applications.

DEC in the 80s and 90s had a very forward-looking vision of
distributed computing; sadly they botched it on the business
side.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#142 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#143 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#144 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#145 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#2 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#7 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#8 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#16 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#17 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#22 stacks are not hard, The joy of FORTRAN-like languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#124 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#125 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#131 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#132 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#133 The joy of FORTRAN

IBM 4300s competed with VAX in the mid-range market and sold in approx
same numbers in small unit orders ... bit difference was large
corporations with orders for hundreds of vm/4300s (in at least one
case almost 1000) at a time for placing out in departmental areas
(sort of the leading edge of distributed computing tsunami). old afc
post with decade of VAX sales, sliced&diced by year, model, US/non-US.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0

Inside IBM, conference rooms were becoming scarce since so many were
being converted to vm4341 rooms. IBM was expecting to see same
explosion in 4361/4381 orders (as 4331/4341), but by 2nd half of 80s,
market was moving to workstations and large PCs, 30rs of pc market
share (original articles were separate URLs, now condensed to single
web page (original URLs remapped to displacements)
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/

I got availability of early engineering 4341 in 1978 and IBM branch
heard about it and in jan1979 con me into doing national lab benchmark
(60s cdc6600 "rain/rain4" fortran) looking at getting 70 for compute
farm (sort of leading edge of the coming cluster supercomputing
tsunami). Then BofA was getting 60 VM/4341s for distributed System/R
(original SQL/relational) pilot.

upthread mentioned doing HA/CMP (targeted for both
technical/scientific and commercial) cluster scale-up (and then it is
transferred for announce as IBM Supercomputer for technical/scientific
*ONLY*) and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than
four processors.

801/risc (PC/RT, RS/6000) didn't have coherent cache so didn't have
SMP scale-up ... only scale-up method was cluster ...

1993 large mainframe compared to RS/6000

ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
RS6000/990  : 126MIPS; 16-system: 2BIPS; 128-system: 16BIPS

executive we reported to went over to head up AIM/Somerset to do
single-chip power/pc ...  and picked up Motorola 88k bus ... so could
then do SMP configs (and/or clusters of SMP)

HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

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

HSDT

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: HSDT
Date: 07 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

long winded:

In early 80s, got IBM HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links
(terrestrial and satellite) and some amount of conflicts with the
communication group (note in 60s, IBM had 2701 controller that
supported T1 computer links, but going into 70s and uptake of
SNA/VTAM, issues appeared to cap controller links at 56kbits/sec). I
was working with NSF director and was to get $20M to interconnect NSF
Supercomputer Centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other
things happen and eventually an RFP is released (in part based on what
we already have running).

NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12

The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.

... snip ...

IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid (being blamed for
online computer conferencing inside IBM likely contributed, folklore
was when corporate executive committee was told, 5of6 wanted to fire
me). The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter
(3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and
director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other
gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as
did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs
ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, it becomes
the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.

in between, NSF was asking me to do presentations at some current
and/or possible future NSF Supercomputer locations (old archived
email)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850325
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850325b
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850326
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850402
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#email850408
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email850425
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email850425b
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email850607
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email850930
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email851001
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email851106
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email851114
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email860407
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email860428
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email860428b
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email860430

had some exchanges with Melinda (at princeton)
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist

from or to Melinda/Princeton (pucc)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email860111
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email860113
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email860114
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email860217
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email860217b
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email860407

related
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#email850426
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#email850506
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email860124

earlier IBM branch brings me into Berkeley "10M" looking at doing
remote viewing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email830804
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email830822
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email830830
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email841121
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#email850409
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#email860519

HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet

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

IBM Token-Ring

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Token-Ring
Date: 08 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

The communication group dumb 3270s (and PC 3270 emulators) had
point-to-point coax from machine room to each terminal. Several large
corporations were starting to exceed building load limits from the
weight of all that coax, so needed much lighter and easier to manage
solution ... and CAT (shielded twisted pair) and token-ring LAN
technology (trivia: my wife was co-inventor on early token passing
patent used for the IBM Series/1 "chat ring")

IBM workstation division did their own cards for the PC/RT (16bit
PC/AT bus), including 4mbit token-ring card. Then for RS/6000
w/microchannel, they were told they couldn't do their own cards and
had to use PS2 microchannel cards. The communication group was
fiercely fighting off client/server and distributed computing (trying
to preserve their dumb terminal paradigm and install base) and had
severely performance kneecapped microchannel cards. The PS2
microchannel 16mbit token-ring card had lower card throughput than the
PC/RT 4mbit token-ring card (joke was PC/RT 4mbit T/R server would
have higher throughput than RS/6000 16mbit T/R server) ... PS2
microchannel 16mbit T/R card design point was something like 300 dumb
terminal stations sharing single LAN.

The new IBM Almaden research bldg had been heavily provisioned with
IBM wiring, but they found a $69 10mbit ethernet card had higher
throughput than the $800 16mbit T/R card (same IBM wiring) ... and
10mbit ethernet LAN also had higher aggregrate throughput and lower
latency. For the price difference for 300 stations, could get several
high-performance TCP/IP routers with channel interfaces, dozen or more
ethernet interfaces along with FDDI and telco T1 & T3 options.

1988 ACM SIGCOMM had article analyzing 30 station ethernet getting
aggregate 8.5mbit throughput, dropping to effective 8mbit throughput
when all device drivers were put in low level loop constantly
transmitting minimum size packets.

posts about communication group dumb terminal strategies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall

recent posts mentioning token-ring:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#2 Why VAX Was the Ultimate CISC and Not RISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#106 Giant Steps for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#97 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#96 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#95 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#23 IBM NY Buildings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#101 IBM Token-Ring versus Ethernet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#53 IBM RS/6000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#18 PS2 Microchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#42 IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#39 IBM 801/RISC, PC/RT, AS/400
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#27 The Fall Of OS/2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#6 IBM (Empty) Suits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#138 IBM - Making The World Work Better
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#102 Rise and Fall IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#81 IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#71 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#64 RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#56 IBM SAA and Somers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#52 IBM Token-Ring, Ethernet, FCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#30 Future System and S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#7 TCP/IP Protocol
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#69 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#57 IBM Mainframe, TCP/IP, Token-ring, Ethernet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#56 Token-Ring Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#47 IBM Mainframe LAN Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#33 Old adage "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#50 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#47 OS2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#41 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#22 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#0 Assembler language and code optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#117 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#68 IBM 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#41 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#37 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#5 How IBM Stumbled onto RISC

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

IBM Token-Ring

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM Token-Ring
Date: 08 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#10 IBM Token-Ring

other trivia: In early 80s, I got HSDT, T1 and faster computer links
(both terrestrial and satellite) with lots of conflict with SNA/VTAM
org (note in the 60s, IBM had 2701 controller that supported T1 links,
but the transition to SNA/VTAM in the 70s and associated issues
appeared to cap all controllers at 56kbit/sec links).

2nd half of 80s, I was on Greg Chesson's XTP TAB and there were some
gov. operations involved ... so we took XTP "HSP" to ISO chartered
ANSI X3S3.3 for standardization ... eventually being told that ISO
only did network standards work on things that corresponded to OSI
... and "HSP" didn't because 1) was internetworking ... not in OSI
sitting between layer 3&4 (network & transport), 2) bypassed
layer 3/4 interface and 3) went directly to MAC LAN interface also not
in OSI, sitting in middle of layer3. had a joke that while IETF
required two interoperable implementations for standards progression,
that ISO didn't even require a standard to be implementable.

HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
XTP/HSP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet

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

IBM 3880, 3380, Data-streaming

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: IBM 3880, 3380, Data-streaming
Date: 08 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

when I transfer to San Jose Research in 2nd half of 70s, was allowed
to wander around IBM (& non-IBM) datacenters in silicon valley,
including disk bldg14/engineering & bldg15/product test across the
street. They were running 7x24, prescheduled, stand-alone testing and
mentioned they had recently tried MVS for concurrent testing, but it
had 15min MTBF (requiring manual re-ipl) in that environment. I
offered to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet proof and never
fail so they can do any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing,
greatly improving productivity. Downside they started calling me
anytime they had a problem and I had to increasingly spend time
playing disk engineer.

Bldg15 got early engineering systems for I/O product testing,
including 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor development
flr. Testing was only taking a couple percent of 3033 CPU, so we
scrounge up 3830 and 3330 string and setup our own private online
service. One morning I get a call asking what I had done over the
weekend to completely destroy online response and throughput. I said
nothing, and asked what had they done. They say nothing, but
eventually find out somebody had replaced the 3830 with early
3880. Problem was the 3880 had replaced the really fast 3830
horizontal microcode processor with a really slow vertical microcode
processor (the only way it could handle 3mbyte/sec transfer was when
switched to data streaming protocol channels (instead end-to-end
handshake for every byte transferred, it transferred multiple bytes
per end-to-end handshake). There was then something like six months of
microcode hacks to try to do a better masking of how slow 3880
actually was.

Then 3090 was going to have all data streaming channels and initially
figured that 3880 was just like 3830 but with data streaming
3mbyte/sec transfer and configured number of channels based on that
assumption to meet target system throughput. When they found out how
bad channel busy (increase) was (unable to totally mask), they
realized they would have to significantly increase the number of
channels (which required extra TCM, they semi-facetiously claimed they
would bill the 3880 group for the extra 3090 manufacturing cost).

Bldg15 also get early engineering 4341 in 1978 ... and with some
tweaking of the 4341 integrated channels, it was fast enough to handle
3380 3mbyte/sec data streaming testing (the 303x channel directors
were slow 158 engines with just the 158 integrated channel microcode
and no 370 microcode). To otherwise allow 3380 3mbyte/sec to be
attached to 370 block-mux 1.5mbyte/sec channels, the 3880 "Calypso"
speed matching & ECKD channel programs were created.

Other trivia: people doing air bearing thin-film head simulation were
only getting a couple turn arounds/month on the SJR 370/195. We set
things up on the bldg15 3033 where they could get multiple turn
arounds/day (even though 3033 was not quite half the MIPs of the 195).
https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/thin-film-heads-introduced-for-large-disks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM_magnetic_disk_drives#IBM_3370

trivia: there haven't been any CKD DASD made for decades, all being
simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices (dating back to
3375 on 3370 and can be seen in 3380 records/track formulas where
record size is rounded up to 3380 fixed cell size).

posts getting to play disk engineering in 14&15:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
DASD, CKD, FBA, multi-track search posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd

posts mentioning Calypso and ECKD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#3 IBM CKD DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#74 Mainframe and Blade Servers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#117 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#111 3380 Capacity compared to 1TB micro-SD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#105 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#103 IBM Term "DASD"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#81 CKD details
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#15 Formal definition of Speed Matching Buffer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#89 Formal definition of Speed Matching Buffer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#86 Formal definition of Speed Matching Buffer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#64 Random thoughts: Low power, High performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#12 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#35 junking CKD; was "Social Security Confronts IT Obsolescence"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#30 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#36 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#11 Secret Service plans IT reboot
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#40 FBA rant

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

Learson Tries To Save Watson IBM

From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Learson Tries To Save Watson IBM
Date: 08 Mar, 2025
Blog: Facebook

Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and
MBAs from destroying Watson culture&legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of
management briefings 1958-1988
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/IBM_Thirty_Years_of_Mangement_Briefings_1958-1988.pdf

20 yrs later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup

IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall

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