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IOCS

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There was no point in e-mailing me stuff about IOCS - it just goes into a black hole. But do, please, post the information at Input/Output Control System (IBM). — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 01:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome

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Hello, Chatul, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Our intro page provides helpful information for new users - please check it out! If you need help, visit Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on this page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Happy editing! Captain n00dle\Talk 09:33, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Your message at Requests for feedback

You can find live help on Wikipedia's
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Hello, Chatul. I have replied to your request for feedback.
Best regards, Captain n00dle\Talk 09:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I replied to your request again. Regards, Captain n00dle\Talk 11:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
感情真的有第三者介入了嗎？我的先生他是否真心外遇了？ 2404:0:803E:9B97:C198:4B74:FD47:B05A (talk) 13:35, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging for verifiability in new articles

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{{helpme}} If I write an article based on personal experience but no longer have copies of the relevant references, is it appropriate to tag parts of the text as a means of soliciting feedback from those having copies of the references? If it is appropriate, which of {{citation needed}}, {{cn}}, {{fact}} or {{verification needed}} should I use for the purpose.

Note that I'm not talking about cases where the facts are questionable, but simply cases where I need to add unavailable (to me) references for purposes of verifiability. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first three are the same, and those would be better than the last. If you know or can find online some details of a reference, though (as in publisher, author, date, etc.), that can still be cited. —fetch·comms 21:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The case I'm talking about is where I used to have copies of the relevant documents but no longer have a record of the titles or order numbers. In some cases I've been able to locate manuals with bitsaver and google, but not in all.
Does {{fact}} go before or after the text that needs a reference? Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After usually a sentence.[citation needed] mono 17:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are private communications legitimate as citations for verifiability

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{{helpme}} Is it legitimate to cite private communications from the author of a program as verification of facts concerning that program? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, because anything you cite has to be relatively easy for someone else to verify (and published by a reliable source). Killiondude (talk) 17:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Input/Output Control System move

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Hi there, I have moved the page to Input/Output Control System as I couldn't see anyone rejecting the request. It just needs the categories checked over and any other cleaning up, then you can remove the template up the top. Wongm (talk) 13:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FEED

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I've replied, in Wikipedia talk:Requests for feedback#Clarification of leadin for feedback requests.  Chzz  ►  03:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

...and again. Please don't be offended; I'm just saying...please edit it yourself. If you don't know how, that's another issue, just ask for help.

Signature

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Re. your signature, [[User:Chatul|Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]]

Would you mind changing that a little; it is confusing when a sig does not include the actual username somewhere; While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the user name it represents (WP:SIGEDITORIMPERSONATE).

If you'd rather have a different username, you could request a change of name in WP:CHU. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  19:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is this better? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:13, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute tag on Drum memory

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Hi

I see that you may be a newcomer to wikipedia.

Yes.

It is normally best to insert the material, if you know it, be bold rather than tag the article in the way you have. Wiki editors may often respond in a negative way if they perceive "Although I know the info I am asking someone else to do the work" :¬)

When I add a {{disputed}} tag, I also add an item to my personal todo list and start looking for references. Meanwhile the original editor has a chance to revise the text his way if he wishes. Even if I wind up making the change, other may know of relevant references that I've missed, or may point out facts that I was unaware of. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 11:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS I would remove any personal info, especially your name, as this has been known to cause problems for ppl in the past

Removal of IBM 2361

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Why did you remove the references to the IBM 2361 Core Storage device from the article on the IBM System/360? Do you dispute the reality of the device? I have added a section to the talk page of the IBM System/360 page to discuss this edit, please respond there. John Sauter (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the dispute in the History of the floppy disk article

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See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_floppy_disk&action=historysubmit&diff=369454727&oldid=369453094 Please put something on the Talk:History of the floppy disk page. Tom94022 (talk) 00:02, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was in the process of doing so. The dispute is in the changes that you reverted, dealing with the loading of microcode. If you want I can provide references in the article talk page. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Variable Block Size HDDs

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I repeat my request that you name one HDD currently for sale that supports variable block sizes. Until you have some evidence, you really should not change my statement about "Modern HDD" to "Most modern ..." Tom94022 (talk) 02:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you assume that I have no evidence? IBM's flagship operating system doesn't support anything but CKD and ECKD, despite requests from customers. Google for DS8000 for one example. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because I have repeatedly asked for evidence and you have not responded. There are only five HDD manufacturers in the world and none of them offer variable block length devices. The hardware supporting IBM's flagship operating system comes from these five manufacturers and the subsystems emulate CKD and ECKD on fixed block devices. So unless you know of something different there is no evidence. Tom94022 (talk) 15:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence of what? I've provided you with citations and quotes from them. Further, you keep switching the terms of debate. When there is a dispute as to what information is presented to the host, then statements about the underlying hardware are irrelevant. When there are disputes about the underlying hardware, then statements about the host interface are irrelevant. When there are disputes about both, then context is paramount. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK I get your point. I changed the language to "HDDs ... appear at their interfaces as a contiguous ..." This should end this discussion. Tom94022 (talk) 16:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Last CKD HDD

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Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that "The last IBM HDD to directly support variable block size was the IBM 3350?" I have provided you evidence that the 3380 and the 3390 supported native CKD. I also speak from personal experience with the 3380 and just had lunch with one of the principal engineers on the 9345 who also was of the opinion that the 9345, 3390 et al were native CKD DASD. Please produce some evidence to support your assertion and then we can discuss this. Tom94022 (talk) 02:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the fact that IBM customer have been asking IBM for decades to provide MVS support for the native formats and the fact that the space calculations for the 3375 and later disks involved rounding off to fixed length cell sizes IBM (November 1977). OS/VS2 System Programming Library: Data Management Release 3.8. Fourth Edition. p. 124. GC26-3830-3. If bit 3, byte 1 of word 4 is one, this byte contains the modulo factor for a modulo device. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)
A more recent version is IBM (2007). z/OS V1R8.0-V1R9.0 DFSMSdfp Advanced Services. SC26-7400-07. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help), but it lacks mention of the older devices.
You provided no evidence that the 3380 and 3390 provided native CKD support. The primary issue is the underlying hardware, not the appearance presented to the host.
And the hardware manuals all say they are CKD machines, e.g., IBM 3390 Direct Access Storage Introduction, GC26-4573-03, May 1995, Chapter 2, "All 3390 models store data using the count-key-data record format." This is a hardware manual not the SRL manuals u quote. Tom94022 (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is not a hardware manual, and no, it does not say anything about the underlying hardware; it is describing what is visible at the channel interface. And BTW, it is part of the SRL. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since the article is about HDDs and not about subsystems, the presentation at the channel level is not particularly germane to the article. Tom94022 (talk) 05:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then it shouldn't be making statements about the host. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your personal experience was on a different device. A PCM 3380 is not a 3380. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A PCM 3380 must support the identical track formatting +/- 0 bits or it is not Plug Compatible. You must have used PCM DASD in your vast experience. Tom94022 (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PCM DASD must present an identical appearance at the channel interface; what happens under the covers need not be identical. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the time of the 3830 it was not possible to design a PCM 3380 compatible at the A-Box (the lowest level of attachment) and not have identical track formatting +/- 0 bits because as you well know channel operations were synchronous to the disk. Any deviation, sometimes as little as one bit time could cause unpredictable results and I have personal experience debugging and fixing such underlying bugs. With non-synchronous channels the degree of commonality was less severe but they came much later than the 3380. Tom94022 (talk) 05:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I don't know; the channel does not connect to the head of string, but to the control unit. I don't know the internal logic of the 3880. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I presume u don't know the internal logic of the controller in the A-Box. The article is about HDDs; in IBMs terms that is a B Box.
Furthermore, according to IBM:
IBM (January 1990). Introduction to Nonsynchronous Direct Access Storage Subsystems. GC26-4519-0. Since he introduction of System/360 in 1964, nearly all IBM large and intermediate system Direct Access Storage devices have use a CKD track format. ... CKD devices and their storage controls operate synchronously with the system channel. Channel data transfer for each search, read or write command occurs as the target data field passes the read/write head on the device.
This is long after the 3380 shipment and well after the 3390 first shipment. Again note the distinction between the device and the control unit. This article is about devices. Tom94022 (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, the Devil is in the details. Look for the definition of synchronous in the glossary of the manual you quoted from. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since you have the manual please read Chapter 2, I think you will find that the glossary is the definition of what is synchronous and the chapter describes how it was achieved in CKD devices such as the 3380 and 3390. I can tell you from experience it was no different beginning with the 2311. Tom94022 (talk) 18:22, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Additional citation IBM (September 2008). Device Support Facilities R17 (ICKDSF R17) Guide and Reference. Thirty-fifth Edition. GC35-0033-35. When you emulate a CKD device on the 9313, 9332, or 9335, you can use the same commands and parameters that you use when not emulating a CKD device. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)
The fact that the blocks written to a device have a modulo size of either 32 or 34 bytes does not make the device a fixed block device. On one track there can be records with different physical block sizes, modulo 32 (or 34) of 32, 64, 128, ... in any combination of up to the track capacity, and the track can then be rewritten into any other combination. This is in marked contrast to the current structure where every block on the drive is the same size. If you want to make the distinction between CKD with and without modulo block limitations that is a very fine point but I think u go way to far when you say a CKD device with modulo block size restrictions is neither a CKD device nor a variable block size device. And the distinction is way TMI. Tom94022 (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did you bother to read the citation I provided? The quotation used the wording emulate a CKD device .
Sorry if I confused you by placing this comment here but I thought it was pretty obvious that this comment was directed to your first cite since only your first cite mentions the modulo phenomena. Now will you respond to my point about the existence of modularity in the size of the key and data fields of the later subsystems does not make them fixed block nor does it make them not CKD? Especially given the fact that the IBM documents say they are CKD? Tom94022 (talk) 05:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are no imposed blocks sizes in CKD. So whether there is a palette of imposed block sizes or only a single imposed block size, it's not CKD.
Actually either there are or there are not - see my bulleted comment below and you can't have it both ways. It appears to me that this is a distinction without substance that only you are making. All the IBM device documents clearly say the 3380 and 3390 were CKD devices.
There's more than one IBM document concerned with a given device. An introduction is not a reference manual, much less a low level hardware manual. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually according to the 3390 document it is the lowest level document short of the maintenance documents and a part of the Storage Subsystem Library. Tom94022 (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no the 3390 document; the document that you cited, GC26-4573-03, is not a low level manual at all. Now, if you referred to a CE manual as the 3390 document, I might consider that reasonable. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing lower than GC26-4573-03 other than the CE manuals. There is no reference manual for the 3390 Tom94022 (talk) 20:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, it is not clear to me that this modularity limitation is required by the device controller and it is certainly not required by the drive which presents a totally available track to the controller! It may very well be a system imposed constraint perhaps coming from paging limitations. That is the device may be able to write a 1 byte data field but the system never issues that command. One place to look for an answer to this is the maintenance manuals for the A-Boxes where such detail would be exposed. Perhaps there might be some explanation back in the time when it was first implemented, probably circa 3380, but as a PCM subsystems designer I can recall no discussion which makes me think it was a system imposed constraint. One other point, although the space calculation is modularized I am pretty sure there is nothing that stops the channel programmer from formatting a track with 12 byte data fields, which further suggests a system limitation and not a device limitation. FWIW, the hardware will pad handle the distinction between a one byte logical record and a 32 byte physical record by padding and/or truncating again further suggesting a system limitation. Tom94022 (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to find someone that still has the CE manuals for old DASD, but not everyone is a pack rat like I am. And even I got rid of some dead trees that I now wish I had kept. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am looking at the IBM 3390 Storage Control Reference manual, GC32-0099-04, 5th Edition , Sept 1991. In the section on Format write commands I find no modulo constraints on the size of the Key or Data fields, any number is permitted from 0 to field max. So at this level there is no difference from any earlier CKD device!
The difference is in the calculation of track capacity, not in the data transfered from the host for a single record. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think we agree that from the host CCW perspective there is no difference between a 3350 and a 3380 other than those coming from geometry and performance, they both are CKD devices!
Well, there are some new CCW opcodes, but those are for other things. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is different about the 3380/3390 than the 3350 is that the formula for determining track capacity (p.82) is now modulo but that doesn't change much at all! In every CKD device from the beginning, the written data and key fields were always larger than the KL or DL specified in the CCW and/or Count field, so contrary to your statement above, CKD did impose a block size from the very beginning! In the 3380/3390 they are just a little bit larger and little bit variable due to the rounding up. For example, the overhead of a Data Field on a 3380 is 1309/hex bytes (Sense bytes 23+24) while the modulo factor is 02/hex bytes (sense byte 22) - this is nothing, 2 parts in 1309 maximum! And as best I can tell it is not visible at the host interface, it only affects the number of records that can fit on a track and by only a very small amount. IBM's literature says the 3380 and 3390 are CKD devices; what is it about this additional modulo calculation that causes you to find a distinction? Tom94022 (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what statement you're responding to, but it's not the statement I wrote. Adding fixed padding is not the same as imposing a specific block size. On the 3350 and earlier the size of the padding depended only on whether KL was zero and whether DL was 0; on the 3375 and later the size of the padding depended on the exact value of KL and DL.
Your statement was "There are no imposed block sizes in CKD." At the physical level there are indeed imposed block sizes in all CKD machines!
Added overhead is different from an imposed block size. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no imposed size of the key or data fields of the 3380 or 3390 just like any CKD drive; the physical block is larger than the user length of the fields and the calculations have changed over time. FWIW, the physical block length calculations for the data field are:
  • 2314: constant + int(1.043*DL)
  • 3330 - 3350: constant + DL
  • 3380 - 3390: constant + DL + DL mod 32
Just because the physical blocks are now oriented to any 32nd byte (3380) as opposed to any byte (3330) or not oriented to any byte (2314) doesn't change the behavior of the drive. Tom94022 (talk) 23:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The forumlae differ but there is a minimum physical block size for each field, for example the 2311 minimum physical data field was 109 bytes (CL=0) and the physical block sized increased byte for byte as the CL increased. In a modulo CKD machine the physical block size increases from a minimum but it is not linear because it is a function of the modulo calculation. A different formula doesn't make it not a CKD machine, nor does in not make it a variable block size machine.

You haven't read IBM's literature; you've only read the manuals that were easy to come by. The relevant manuals are the CE manuals or design documents, which neither of us has copies of.
I have read the published IBM literature that I happen to have in my files and that which I have found on the web, all of which says the 3380 and 3390 were CKD machines. You have not produced one document that says otherwise. You apparently conclude from the modulo calculation that they are not CKD drives - if they are not CKD drives what are they? Do you think they are fixed blocks like the current drives, with blocks of 32 (or 34 bytes), each separated by some padding and including some form of block ID? Tom94022 (talk) 20:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The material that you found on the web is the nontechnical stuff.
You seem to assume the worst. I did not conclude from the modulo calculation that they are not CKD drives; rather, I presented that as evidence of what I already knew from other sources; people who actually worked with the drive developers. Unfortunately, my best sources threw out a lot of the documentation that I would otherwise have asked them to contribute to bitsavers. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, sorry about the assume - I should have said, you know from personal contacts that they are not CKD drives and you think that their modular nature proves that. I disagree with your proof for reasons stated hereinabove. What you or I know from personal contacts does not constitute a reliable source for the purposes of Wikipedia articles and so far you have not produced any such material to support an assertion that the 3350 was the last CKD drive. Whether the material I read was technical or not, I have identified IBM published a reliable sources that state the 3380 and the 3390 were CKD drives. I happen to live near and know many of the IBM San Jose developers of these drives and they do not agree with you as to your conclusion based upon the modulo nature of these two drives, but likewise I cannot cite them as reliable sources. Again I ask, if they are not CKD drives what are they? Tom94022 (talk) 23:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where do you believe that modulo factor comes from if not from a hardware imposed cell structure? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is a good question. I suspect it comes from data encoding and/or error correction requirements that require the physical block to have a modularity; however there is no requirement that adjacent blocks be the same size. I like your use of the term cell, a block must consist of an integer number of cells but there is no requirement that the blocks be of any size. Blocks can be count key or data blocks comporting to IBM CKD architecture. This is in contrast to today's machines where the blocks are fixed in size and the CKD is overlayed upon them. Tom94022 (talk) 20:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, cell is IBM's term rather than mine. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The physical gaps, if any, are not part of the CKD architecture. Each CKD device had it's own unique characteristics. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:22, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the gaps are critical to successful native CKD operation since there must be sufficient space between fields (i.e., time) for the channel to turnaround and issue the correct next command. As an example, this simple command chain will overrun if the gap between the count and data fields is too small or the channel too slow:
Search ID Equal
TIC
Write Data
With channel retry there will not be an error but it will run very slow compared to a properly functioning subsystem because it will miss revolutions.
I may have worded that improperly. The existence of gaps is certainly necessary for native CKD, but the sizes of the are constrained by factors outside of the architecture. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might take a look at [10] and [11] which I happen to think are correct but unfortunately are not primary sources. It is correct that the 3350 was the last IBM drive that was not cached in the Storage Director, but neither were the 3380 nor the 3390 until 1991. As part of the 1991 ESCON introduction IBM announced caching as the 3880-2x and 3990-3 Storage Directors. This occurred well after the 3380 (June 1980)and 3390 (Nov 1989) were first introduced. Prior to caching they were native CKD drives; caching didn't change them, but it was necessary for the subsystem to support ECKD which in turn was necessary for ESCON which because of the long cable lengths (speed of light) could no longer support synchronous operation of the drives - the gaps could be zero but the information could not travel the distance and back and still give the channel enuf time to respond. Synchronous subsystems were replaced by non-synchronous subsystems but the DASD didn't change to FBA until RAMAC. On short channels the running CKD commands a 3380 or 3390 DASD appeared to the system and performed as any other CKD DASD.
Well, http://www.answers.com/topic/kd-4 claims Count-key-data (CKD) was built into IBM hardware through the 3330 and then implemented in microcode through the 3390 and 9340 series.
As for http://www.answers.com/topic/count-key-data, it's just a copy of the Wiki article, which I plan to correct and expand as soon as I get a reading on the proper level of detail
Buffering of CKD on S/370 came in with the Speed Matching Buffer (SMB) on the 3880; the formal cache support came in on the 3880-11 and 3880-13. The 3880-2x models simply enhanced the facilities added by the 3880-1x. Those devices did do caching for a 3350 and did attach to bus&tag channel.
Of course, you could legitimately claim the old Airlines buffer as the progenitor, although it was a one of a kind product: IBM. IBM 2314/2844 Multiplex Storage Control Feature-Airlines Buffer. A26-5714. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help) Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So i think we agree that the use of a buffer does not change a native CKD device into something else. Tom94022 (talk) 21:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Structurally the track layout of a native CKD drive is very different than that of a FBA drive emulating CKD. In a native CKD drive the key and data fields are contiguous and exactly equal to the KL and DL specified in the count field while the gaps between vary by small amounts but always are just sufficiently long to allow the worst case channel turnaround - in the 3380 and 3390 the gaps round up modulo a small number, in the 2314 the gaps were extended by a percentage of the KL or DL, so what. In an FBA drive the gaps and information fields are all the same length, the latter usually 512 bytes; an FBA drive emulating a CKD drive fits the key and data fields into one or more of these 512 byte blocks which may not be contiguous internally nor between fields. I suspect the count fields are compacted and not contiguous or perhaps they are prefixed to the key and data fields (interesting design trade off). As a consequence the subsystem using FBA drives to emulate CKD cannot perform synchronous to the drive and its performance suffers substantially with regard to a native CKD drive executing the same CKD commands (all other performance parameters held equal). Tom94022 (talk) 18:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Basically a bit-oriented recording systems and electronics to generate the proper gaps. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what u mean by a "bit-oriented recording system" since I would characterize all as byte oriented, but from the 2311 thru the 3390 the all used the electronics to generate the proper gaps. Tom94022 (talk) 21:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please take a look at Figure 3 of US Patent Number 5,446,853 (try [12] if the link doesn't work). While this is an STK patent I am pretty sure the track format disclosed is the IBM 3380 or very close thereto (the spec discloses the 3380 as "typical" and the modularity is 32). Remember, based upon my experience in those days to be plug compatible on a synchronous CKD subsystem you had to have the track format identical to the byte +/- 0 bits otherwise you ran into overrun or truncation problems. What this shows is that the blocks start and end on 32 byte boundaries, the fields within the blocks are not so constrained (e.g. the HA Block starts at segment 0 but the HA Field starts at segment 15.75, etc.) It further shows that the data and key field length are precisely that specified in the CCW. Finally it states, "This format is the standard count key data format well known in the field of data storage systems." (Col 7, 49-50) If this is how the IBM 3380 operates (and I believe that to be true) then it seems to me this it is a synchronous CKD subsystem. So far I have been unable to find any IBM patent with such disclosure nor have I been able to find any CE manuals so this maybe the best we can do. Tom94022 (talk) 17:18, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The diagram seems to support my claim that it's FBA under the covers, but the text reads like it was written by a lawyer and I spotted enough errors that I wouldn't cite it. I found a CE handbook on the web, but it doesn't have enough detail.
IBMs Definition of FBA disk drive

fixed-block architecture disk device (FBA disk device)
A disk device that stores data in blocks of fixed size. These blocks are addressed by block number relative to the beginning of the file.
(emphasis added)

IBM z/OS CICS

The diagram shows the device's addressable blocks include the variable length key and data fields and the count field, and that the addressing is by record (BBCCHHR) and not relative to the beginning of the file. Therefore according to IBM the device in the patent is not an FBA device. The unaddressable cells (or segments) like all the other unaddressable control, recovery and gap information is not relevant to the type of device. What matters is the device's addressable blocks. Furthermore:
IBMs Definition of CKD disk drive

Count-Key-Data
Count-Key-Data (CKD) is a DASD data storage architecture in which the data is stored in variable-length records. Each record contains a count field, usually followed by a key field, followed by the actual data of the record. The count field contains the cylinder number, head number, record number, and the length of the data. The key field contains the record’s key (search argument).

IBMs z/VM Software Information Center

The patent's diagram shows the device's track format has the CKD fields which makes it a CKD device according to the IBM definition. Note that the same device could be formatted into a FBA device by for example just making all the record's KL=0 and DL=any number but that would be a terrible waste of space since the gaps would be far larger than required. One might to that expeditiously but most (all) OEMs took the IBM removable CKD media and reformatted it into a FBA architecture with smaller gaps and thereby achieving higher capacity. Tom94022 (talk) 21:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The timing issues are different depending on whether you are talking channel-to-controller, controller to string controller or string controller to drive. The gaps must be large enough to present SM to the channel and for the channel to process the next+1 CCW. Whether that is done by large gaps between sectors or by skipping sectors is unimortant to the channel, although it might have performance ramifications. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The timing issues are indeed different but more importantly they are cumulative and the two biggest constraints are the speed of light (how far away the disk is from the host) and the decision making time at the host channel interface - the further away one goes the less time the channel has. The reason CKD gaps are so much larger than FBA gaps is to give the host/channel sufficient time so as to avoid overruns. That's why the BMUX cable length was limited on high performing DASD. The ESCON distances left no time for the channel necessitating an architecture change. Tom94022 (talk) 21:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Margin reset Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course a simulated CKD device will include the data from the count, key and data.

IBM's fixed Block Architecture is actually more complicated than what you describe. Blocks are addressed from the beginning of the disk, but there is a channel command called Define Extent that specifies what blocks are relevant to the current operation. It's possible that LOCATE uses relative block addresses, but if so they would be relative to whatever Define Extent had specified, regardless of what any particular file might be using.

If you don't like using FBA as generic, call it sectored: the fact remains that the track layout is fixed blocks rather than variable, and that the fields are package into those blocks: IBM (June 1989). Storage Subsystem Library IBM 3390 Direct Access Storage Reference Summary (PDF). First Edition. GX26-4577-0. 3390 Mode Each 3390 Mode track is divided into 1720 user data cells (with IBM standard R0) or 1749 user data cells (without IBM standard R0 record). A record can occupy from 20 to 1749 of these cells. The number of cells (Space) occupied by a record is a function of the Key Length (KL) and Data Length (DL) as specified in the count area of the record.

It doesn't matter that IBM uses the nomenclature cell, and it doesn't matter whether the cell sizes are determinned by holes in the disk, low level formatting at the factory or by the formatting of the DSF command INSTALL; what matters is that you wind up with a track layout of fixed sized sectors and that each of the areas of a CKD record is mapped into a string of those sectors. CKD device is not the same as native CKD device.

  • Nomenclature doesn't matter but it sure can confuse. What does matter is that in an FBA device there is a gap between each fixed block otherwise the block cannot be updated in place - accordingly, the blocks and gaps are fixed in place on the track of a FBA drive! The "cells" of the 3380 and 3390 have no such gaps - they are contiguous! An examination of a track will find the physically recorded count, key and data fields are exactly equal to the lengths specified, not modulo the cell length (as in an emulating device) and the key and data fields stop at any arbitrary location on the track. The gaps and fields (after R0) move about on the track as a function of the number of records and each record's KL and DL. That is why the 3380 and 3390 can support Synchronous operation whereas I know of no subsystem with FBA drives supports Synchronous CKD operation - do you? The reason of course, is that Synchronous operations requires relatively speaking very large gaps between the CKD fields in order to support the channel turnaround. One could map the CKD fields into FBA blocks and map the CKD required gaps as empty FBA blocks but that means u need a lot of wasted space to accommodate the shortest fields; for example, using the 3390 with a KL<23 and a DL=1 yields 57 records per track but supporting the records by mapping would require a gross track capacity of about {[((3 gap blocks/field +1 data block/field)*3 CKD fields/record]*57 records/track + 8 HA RO fields/track}*512 bytes/field = 354,304 bytes/track or a utilization of 1254/354,304 = 0.3%. This then maps to a 3390 full track R1 length of 56,664 bytes giving a best case utilization of such a machine at 16% - I suspect this is why no one supports Synchronous CKD on FBA subsystems. IMO, any drive incorporated in a subsystem that supports Synchrouous CKD is a native CKD drive - its the gaps ;-). Tom94022 (talk) 20:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is your evidence that the cells of a 3375. 3380 or 3390 are contiguous?
There is not enough unformatted track capacity to allow for any gaps between the cells on any of these products. One can estimate the unformatted track capacity from the data rate and rotational period and then add up the capacity used by the various fields. If there were a gap between each cell it would show up as a substantial difference in the unformatted track capacity and the user available capacity (including gaps and control information). This is because the gaps between cells need to allow space for read to write and write to read transitions along with at least a minimum of some control and checking information. The gap for example on the 3310 is 21 bytes for a 512 byte sector. Reducing the data field length doesn't really change the gap length, perhaps some of the control and checking info can be somewhat reduced.
So, for example on the 3375:
Estimated unformatted track capacity = 20.2 msec * 1.859 MByte/sec =
37,536 unformatted bytes per track (rounded to nearest 32)
1,173 unformatted cells per track
Byte consumption by CKD format =
36,000 available for user data in IBM CKD format (RO and HA)
+ 448 allowance for RO
+ 224 allowance for HA
---------------
36,672 bytes used by format
The difference of 864 bytes is less than one byte per cell and most of it is consumed by defect skipping so there is simply no space on the track for gaps between cells.
I could do a similar calculation for the 3380 and 3390 but I am sure the results would be the same. If you don't believe it, why don't you do the calculations, the format data are here and the drive latency and data rate info are readily available.
BTW, contiguous cells are what is shown in the STK patent which I believe to be the 3380 format.
Tom94022 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for writing in place, that capability exists for CKD as well.
Of course it does, but writing in place doesn't exist for the cells of the 3375 et al. Tom94022 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How did you examine the track? If you were using CKD commands, then the results you describe would be necessary regardless of how the data were actually recorded. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we had the CE documents we might find an actual track layout, but in its absence the best I can do is the calculations above. Tom94022 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, those sectors have nothing to do with the sectors refered to in Set Sector.

As a side note, the CKD architecture does not provide for direct addressing of blocks, other than HA and R0; you have to either do a search or chain from a previous I/O that has established orientation. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • More supporting evidence:

"When data is stored on the DASD's included in Group 1 in Table 2, the data records are stored in count-data format or count-kev-data format.
…
Table 2, Group 1: 3330 thru 3380 inclusive of 3375.
Table 2, Group 2: 3310 and 3370
…
When data is stored on the DASD's included in Group 2 in Table 2, the data records are not stored in variable- size blocks with a variable number of gaps (depending on the number of records per block, and blocks per track). Instead the recording surfaces of the disks are preformatted to accept equal-length blocks. Each block ran hold 512 bytes of user data. The maximum capacity or the DASD is not dependent on whether the records have keys, the number of records that can be fit on one track, and so on. In fact, the user need not be aware of the number of bytes per track, tracks per cylinder, or cylindcrs per DASD. Only the maximum number of blocks is of concern to the user."

Marilyn J. Bohl, "Introduction to IBM Direct Access Storage Devices and Information Processing," J. Int. CMG Conference, 1984

Of course this was published before the 3390, but since it and both the 3375 and 3380 use a cellular structure to build CKD track formats, that means the 3390, like all the others in Group 1 are native CKD drives.Tom94022 (talk) 16:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More to the point, it's a secondary, non-technical source. The manual that I quoted from is an official IBM document. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually IBM's Ms. Bohl's says the same thing in Introduction to IBM Direct Access Storage Devices, SR20-4378-00, SRA an IBM Subsidiary, (c) 1981, which, to your point, is a an official IBM document which in the preface states, "This text replaces the existing publication, Introduction to IBM Direct-Access Storage Devices and Organization Methods (IBM Order No. GC20-1649). The intent of the author, SRA, and IBM is that the text be updated, as appropriate, to maintain its currency and coverage." Tom94022 (talk) 16:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IBM instructional texts and Redbooks are secondary sources. Instructional texts for computers are generally error prone. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:19, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • After a lot of asking, I found out from a reliable IBM source that the cellular nature of these last native CKD drives is related to a two level error correcting coding architecture (see e.g. US 4,706,250) which has nothing to do with FBA and in fact may be applied to either FBA or CKD track architecture. The 3380 implementation is described in Section 10.12, "Multiburst Correction In Magnetic Disk Storage," Magnetic Storage Handbook, Second Edition, (c)1996 which discloses the cells as contiguous and without the inter-cell gaps that are necessary for FBA. This original research on my part merely confirms what the many IBM publications states and rebuts the assumption that the cellular nature of these last CKD drives makes them FBA drives under the skin. Therefore, I believe it is consistent with Wikipedia policy that the 3390-3 be identified as the last native CKD drive citing the Introduction to Nonsynchronous DASD manual as a reference. I will also summarize this long dialog in an appropriate article, perhaps the CKD one. Comments? Tom94022 (talk) 21:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've asked a couple of people who worked with the developers to read it and comment. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edit to HDD article

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You might want to join the dialog at the HDD page see: what Alexdi has done. Tom94022 (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Does he think that No technology exists untill Bill Gates invents it.?
I added a comment; I'm not sure whether it would be appropriate to throw in references to the use of disks on various mainframe operating systems, or whether that would be TMI. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

IBM System/360 I/O channel description

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I plan to add explanations of the channel programs for CKD and ECKD to Count Key Data; those explanations will depend on some details of IBM's channel architecture that are currently not present in either Channel I/O or IBM System/360. I've considered three options:

  1. Add the material to Channel I/O
  2. Add the material to IBM System/360
  3. Include the material in the update to Count Key Data

Were I to be writing a complete description of the channel architecture, I would rule out the third option. However, I have reservations to adding what amounts to a stub to one of the eixting articles. I'm soliciting advice as to which route is the most consistent with Wiki policy. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert in that specific area, and I haven't bothered to do more than skim over it, but...it seems to me like you should add the stuff that is generic to Count Key Data to that article, and the stuff that is specific to e.g. IBM System/360 to that article. As the latter uses the former, then a simple sentence in the latter saying so, with a wikilink to the former, should cover that.
Do you feel that I should do it there even if the material specific to the channel architecture is woefully incomplete? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I've got that totally wrong, then I'm sorry; I suggest you're more likely to get an expert if you asked on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing - or, you could try and explain a bit more about it here, and I might be able to help more. I'm leaving the helpme above 'live', because it's possible another helper might know the area better than I.  Chzz  ►  17:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to explain without getting into TMI. An I/O operation on the S/360 presents a chain of channel command words to the channel, one at a time. The channel presents status flags at the completion of the operation. Only about half of those flags are relevant to the text that I want to write for CKD and ECKD. I planned to omit explanations of the flags that I did not intend to refer to, and to omit several other details that, while important, don't relate to CKD. So the basic question is whether it is appropriate to put the text into an article where the reader would legitimately expect more complete material? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think they are separable which means yr item 1 or a separate article. I would either add it to I/O Channel which would benefit from a section on the S/360 channel or build a second article on S/360 & 370 I/O Channel with a link therefrom. CKD and ECKD are more about DASD implementation on the IBM I/O Channel and could be linked from a generic S/360 & 370 I/O Channel article or section. Just my 2 cents. Tom94022 (talk) 20:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the B&T, ESCON and FICON channels are notable; if I were planning to do a complete description then I would put it in either a separate Bus and tag channel article, Channel I/O or IBM System/360 , with wikilinks among the articles. My problem is that I've already taken on too many editing tasks to be able to do the topic justice; I only plan to write enough to make the CKD and ECKD narrative intelligible. I believe that I'll need to explain CE, DE, UC, UE and SM flags, but not, e.g., protection key checking. So would it be proper to add a section to one of those articles that I don't expect to complete any time soon? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:52, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of OS/VS2

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A tag has been placed on OS/VS2 requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag - if no such tag exists then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hangon tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Coolug (talk) 21:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ORVYL and WILBUR article updates

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Thanks for your corrections and additions to the ORVYL and WYLBUR article. I noticed you added "There are also proprietary versions." I saw something called WYLBUR, Inc., but that was from an article published in CACM back in 1973. A simple Google search didn't turn up anything that looked like proprietary versions. Do you know if proprietary versions are still available? Is there a URL or a citation we could use in the article? Jeff Ogden (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that there were proprietary versions from all of
There was also something called INTERACT, which I believe was a rebranded Wylbur.
I can provide you with the home page for SuperWylbur™ but I have no information about OBS. I've got a friend who can probably provide some history on the various versions, and I've got manuals for HIH Wylbur and SuperWylbur™. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

360/65 (and /67) on Microcode

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The section on microcoded S/360's doesn't mention the /65; it - and, presumably, the /67 - were, I think, microprogrammed. Any idea what the details were? (I think it had a 32-bit integer data path; what did it have for floating point? Guy Harris (talk) 22:40, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The 2065 and 2067 were definitely horizontally microcoded. I just checked my book shelves and I don't have the CE manuals for the 2065 and 2067, although I do have them for the 2040, 3145, 3155 and 3165. I'm not sure whether the data path was 32 bits or 64 bits.
My recollection is that both general registers and floating point registers in the 2065 are in local storage. I don't recall what hardware is available to the microcode for use in floating point arithmetic.
You might ask in IBM-MAIN; there are still some old-timers left.

For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to listserv@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion of OS/VS2 (SVS)/to do

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A tag has been placed on OS/VS2 (SVS)/to do, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to an article talk page, file description page, file talk page, MediaWiki page, MediaWiki talk page, category talk page, portal talk page, template talk page, help talk, user page, user talk or special page from the main/article space.

If you can fix the redirect to point to a mainspace page, please do so and remove the speedy deletion tag. However, please do not remove the speedy deletion tag unless you are fixing the redirect. If you think the redirect should be retained as is for some reason, you can request that administrators wait a while before deleting it. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page and state your reasoning on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. DASHBot (talk) 00:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recovering lost OS/VS2 (SVS) todo list

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{{adminhelp}} I originally wrote OS/VS2 (SVS) in userspace, and when I realized that the move to mainspace did not automatically move the todo list, I mad a manual move request, inadvertently moving it to OS/VS2 (SVS)/todo instead of Talk:OS/VS2 (SVS)/todo. When I noticed my typo I made a second manual move request.

This morning I saw that Talk:OS/VS2 (SVS)/todo had been marked at midnight for speedy deletion, with an explanation that it was a redirect page. I need help in locating or restoring the actual todo list so that I can move it to Talk:OS/VS2 (SVS)/todo. Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:14, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

working on it... JohnCD (talk) 15:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - it's back at Talk:OS/VS2 (SVS)/to do. JohnCD (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Chatul. You have new messages at Rjanag's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.


IBM

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Thanks for letting me know about this!

What are the other "IBM platforms" available? What source explains all of the platforms available? This can help form a disambiguation page. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:25, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on how far back you want to go. In general, IBM has the following current platforms, most of which have Wiki articles; the names may have changed:

  • Architectures
    • z/Architecture

You may want to limit the disambiguation to the above. For older stuff, look at

But watch out for errors in nomenclature

There's a lot of stuff at http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm on the older platforms.

Note that IBM sold off its PC business, although it still sells Intel servers under the xSeries (System x) name. There may be some that I've overlooked. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not archive instead of deleting

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I know a User talk page belongs to the user but there was a lot of good information on yr page, particularly the CKD drive discussion so may I suggest u archive it rather than delete it. Alternatively, I will copy it to the CKD discussion page Tom94022 (talk) 05:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was a finger check. It might be a good idea to move the CKD discussion to Talk:Count Key Data now; once I finish User:Chatul/IBM System/360 architecture I will propose it for merger into IBM System/360 and start updating CKD, with references to the new material on S/360 I/O architecture. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Avada Kedavra

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You have as much as right as any to post what you like...but please either take a correct stance or lay off me in the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone debate. Your opinion about the mythological philosopher's stone is so incredibly irrelevant to the argument that I laughed out loud...and I have to thank you for that.

However, I do not thank you for accusing me of making faulty arguments just because I have the courage to tell these people they are wrong. Do you not read the talk pages? They make it clear they know they are wrong. By sound of your remarks, I'd say you have absolutely NO idea what you're on about.

Anything with more than one title, simultaneously known and in the same language, MUST list all titles equally in whatever order the source wishes to list them. Banishing alias titles far down the 1st paragraph is no intelligent move. Clearly you don't realize that. Read the way they handled it in the article about the film version.

Anyway, just a friendly request: lay off if you don't know what you are on about.76.195.86.50 (talk) 05:58, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PKB. It is clear that you did not understand my comments.
In fact, I did read the talk pages, and two things were clear:
  • You were relying on argumentum ad hominem
  • You didn't understand what others were telling you.
This discussion belongs on the talk pages of the articles, not in user talk pages. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, very well, not going further but I do take exception to your accusation that I'm going ad hominem. I've had this before, being accused of logical fallacy...do you even know what it means? Just curious....75.21.150.217 (talk) 08:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Data is vs. data are

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I happen to agree with your recent HDD article edit that data are is proper, but this is an ongoing dispute and unfortunately many style guides now allow data is as a "mass noun" usage. So don't be surprised if yr edit gets reverted and I recommend not getting into an edit war on this subject. Tom94022 (talk) 21:44, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CPU cache page's somewhat x86-biased history section

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The CPU cache page has 5 paragraphs in the history section talking about x86, but the only occurrence of the number "85" on the page is in the number 1048576 in the "Address translation" section. This seems wrong. :-) I suspect you're in a better position than I to fix that (in that you probably know a lot more of the 360/85 history and cache than I do). Guy Harris (talk) 10:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I need to check a 360/67 manual to refresh my memory before hitting that section; there was a claim on the talk page that it had a TLB, which I don't recall. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The 360/67 Functional Characteristics manual on bitsavers.org says, on page 11, "To avoid repeating this translation process for every memory reference by a user program, the page table entry (page starting address, bits 8-19) is recorded with, and identified by, its virtual address (segment and page address, bits 8-19) in an associative storage register. If a subsequent reference is within that virtual page, the virtual address accesses the associative register. The page starting address stored in the register is affixed to the byte address and forwarded to the BCU." "This translation process" refers to the page-table walk described in the previous paragraph. The paragraph after the quoted one gives details about the "associative storage registers"; it sounds like an 8-entry TLB. Guy Harris (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Policy on unilateral removal of split template?

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{{Adminhelp}} What is Wikipedia policy on removing a {{split}} template from an article, e.g., Burroughs large systems, with no discussion? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you reviewed Wikipedia:Splitting? There is no official policy on how much discussion needs to take place before removal of tags such as these. The page is 52 kilobytes long, so it's getting into the suggested range. If you feel it should be kept together then you can easily post a note to that effect on the article's talk page and wait a week or so to see if anyone replies. Or, if anxious you could boldly remove the tag now and give your reason in the edit summary... but in the spirit of collaboration the first option may be better.  7  05:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The intent of my question was the opposite; I added a {{split}} template and someone else removed it with no discussion. I don't feel that it should be kept together because there were three unrelated line of Burroughs large computers. I hadn't even considered the size issue, but it's certainly another argument in favor of splitting it. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP Computing and System/360 arch

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I responded to your request at WP:COMP/A. I posted on the talk page some suggestions for next steps to improve the article. I also replaced the "unreviewed" banner with some cleanup messages. Please take a look at what I posted, and let me know if there are other ways I can help. Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia's coverage of computing! --Pnm (talk) 19:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's on my watch list, and I actually saw that before I saw this note. If you have time, all of the articles listed in User:Chatul#My contribs could use another set of eyes.
My motivation for writing the architecture article was that I wanted to add technical descriptions of CKD and ECKD to Count Key Data, and the material would rely on details of the S/360 architecture thqt really didn't belong in the CKD article itself, so I wanted to add architectural details to IBM System/360. Because of the size, someone suggested that I first write the text as a separate article in user space and then merge it.
Note that I wrote from a programmers perspective; I made no effort to describe the electrical and mechanical details of the I/O channel architecture. If you know of a URL for FIPS 60 then I probably should cite it for details, since I have neither the time nor the background to write an article covering those aspects. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yr Disk Formatting Edit

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In yr Disk Formatting Edityou introduced the concept of "Intermediate-level formatting" a concept that I am not familiar with, does not appear in the art and as you describe it does not appear to be much different than high level formatting. At best this is WP:OR but I really think it is a distinction without substance, but before I revert or tag the change I thought I would give u a chance to explain. Tom94022 (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I'm not sure there is or has been any substantive difference between mainframe, server and/or PC - differences in detail yes, but not substantive enough for this article Tom94022 (talk) 21:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting volumes for use by the operating system has been around since the mid 1960's. In OS/360 it was done by the IEHDASDR utility, or stand-alone with the IBCDASDI utility. For newer devices ICKDSF replaced IEHDASDR, and is still used for the same purpose in z/OS. These utilities clearly are part of the art.
The formating donw by ICKDSF et al are totally unrelated to factory formatting. The functions include creating a volume label, creating a volume label and writing Record 0 on every track. ICKDSF does not handle low level functions such as writing timing marks, and ICKDSF cannot reinitialize a disk that has been degaussed or otherwise lost the factory formatting.
Similarly, FDISK et al do not do low level formatting, but are at a lower level than file systems.
One difference between the mainframe and PC world is that mainframe operating systems[1] do not support DASD partitioning while PC operating systems do not support a volume table of contents (VTOC).
I have no objection if you want to pick a different term than intermediate, but the actual formatting is real, well established and well documented in the literature.


Notes

  1. ^ As opposed to mainframe DASD subsystems

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the IBM formatting utility is accurately described as a combination of what is now commonly called low-level and high-level formatting, that is it both lays down the (variable) block structure and then applies into the structure the data structures and other information necessary for access by IBMs OSes. I suspect most early minicomputer utilities operated in the same manner but Unix today is more PC like. The lack of partitioning in IBM OSes is a detail that really doesn't change anything. So I am going to rewrite your edit back to two types of formatting with the note that IBM utilities combined them. Tom94022 (talk) 17:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your belief is incorrect; as I explained, the utilities in question do neither the low level formatting nor the high level formatting. I am restoring my changes and marking the article for dispute resolution. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is now being discussed at Talk:Disk_formatting#Three_levels_of_formating where there is some support for my belief Tom94022 (talk) 17:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File Systems

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Hi: In your spare time :-) you might take a glance at List of file systems and Comparison of file systems; this appears to me to be yet another PC (and minicomputer) oriented article completely oblivious to IBM and other mainframe systems. There is some coverage at MVS#MVS_filesystem. I will defer to your expertise in this matter, but it seems the lack of IBM Access Methods, BDAM, SAM, ISAM and VSAM from these articles is a serious omission. Comment? Tom94022 (talk) 17:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Verizon did some work on a neighbors local loop and managed to disconnect me in the process. Their taking their own sweet time cleaning up after themselves, so I currently have no internet access at home. I'm using the computers at the library, but they have a 30 minute time limit. I'll get back to you when I'm back on the air. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SCRIPT

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I have copies of the DWScript manuals along with voluminous amounts of examples of documents written in SCRIPT. Some of the documents were written such that they'd format properly in either DWScript or SCRIPT/VS (so that they could be printed on high speed mainframe printers).

I can license the examples in whatever's needed.

Let me know if you're interested. Joshua (talk) 14:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be willing to contribute them to bitsavers? I've got dead tree documentation for several versions of Script, but I'd rather use online sources where possible. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SPF Disambiguation

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I noticed that you had added the second entry pointing to ISPF. At first glance it looked to me like a duplicate entry. Only after I re-read the entry did I notice the slight name difference. It confused me, so it could probably confuse others as well. I combined the two entries, clarifying the apparent duplication as intentional. If you feel it could be better explained, please go ahead.

Thanks, WesT (talk) 21:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IBM provided a succession of program products starting from the original code base. The first two were Structured Programming Facility and Structured Programming Facility Version 2. They used the name System Productivity Facility for only one version and used the name Interactive System Productivity Facility from then on. For a while some of the ISPF functionality was broken out into separate products, ISPF and ISPF/Program Development Facility, but ultimately ISPF and ISPF/PDF were merged back. I believe that it is appropriate to have separate entries for Structured Programming Facility and System Productivity Facility, but am not sure how much of the background to include on the disambiguation page. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Steps to format a disk

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Please see Steps to format a disk. Tom94022 (talk) 22:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback Requested: Replace Assembly Language Example

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Hi Shmuel, Since you have been heavily involved in maintaining the Assembly_language page, and since I seldom edit wikipedia, I wanted to get your feedback. I am proposing to replace the Assembly Language Example with a program that I wrote. But I don't want to start an edit war etc.. So I have posted the proposed change on the Talk:Assembly_language#Don.27t_like_the_example talk page (it's at the bottom). Please let me know what you think, please put your response with the proposal, that's where I will look. Thanks. OldCodger2 (talk) 10:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also if you would review my comments about Talk:Assembly_language#I_disagree_with_your_revert_--_Data_Sections, I'd appreciate that as well. IMHO EvilCat seems rather clueless, 'pseudo-ops' has zero relevance. OldCodger2 (talk) 11:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Web site with hardware/firmware information about the Model 65 (and the FAA version thereof)

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I stumbled upon www.ibm360.info, which says

[2012-01-04]
This embryonic site will eventually hold a great deal of hardware detail pertaining to the IBM S/360 Models 65 and 67. At the moment it is just a repository for the odd snippet where there is an immediate need to make information available for a particular purpose.
If you link to any particular part of this website be aware that the structure will change when I revamp it and "do it properly"! (The home URL will, of course, remain.) This is not likely to be for at least a year though. You are welcome to download anything on the site for reuse with suitable attribution - e.g. "Source: www.IBM360.info".
All the documents below are scans from my own hardcopies. To keep thing quick and tight I have used the lowest resolution that is easily readable. At some point I intend to high-res scan the main IBM documents (FETOMs, FEMMs, etc) for inclusion on the bitsavers site.
Whilst there will be much of general IBM S/360 interest my main focus at the moment is on the 2065 Model 65 and its enhanced sibling the FAA IBM 9020D 7201-02 Computing Element (CE). Whilst the FAA CE is generally understood to be based on the Model 65 I believe it may actually be closer to the Model 67 (it has a DAT frame). I have the FETOM and FEMM for the Model 65 but would welcome links to any other Model 65 or 67 documentation out there (there's nothing on bitsavers). ...

It was referred to by watermarks added to this FAA manual on the microinstruction format for the Model 7201-02 Computing Element. That guy's site is a wiki he set up for his project:

On November 29th, 2011, I acquired an IBM System/360 model 65 operator's console panel. I have been working to restore this panel (see a blog of this project). I am now planning to write a software emulator that mimics the model 65's microarchitecture. For that purpose I have set up this wiki to gather as much information as I can about the microarchitecture of the '65. Without a lot of model 65 specific documentation available, most of the information comes from interpretation of the legends to the register lamps. Please join this wiki if you can contribute.

He's now building an FPGA-based hardware emulator, as per his blog for the project. He has a video of it running. (Another guy reimplemented the Model 30 microengine out of an FPGA; video here, project page here.) Guy Harris (talk) 03:01, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Email in 1962 on the IBM 1440? Surely you're joking, Mr. Chatul.

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I'm not sure what it is about email that encourages people to present overreaching claims to have invented it. There's a guy at MIT who has made a career of it!

Well, I never claimed to have invented it, or even to have used the first e-mail system. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk)

I removed the 1962 reference in Email because the cited document (IBM H20-0129-1) did not support the allegation.

It did; read the beginnning of Email, where it says "Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging.". Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You reinstated it, citing a page number, and chastizing me for "deleting references without reading them". I had read the document, and found no reference at all to email. Rather than start an edit war, please tell me what content on page 10 of that document supports your allegation that the IBM 1440 Administrative Terminal System supported email? The closest I can see is: 

 TERMINAL COMMUNICATIONS
 Any terminal may transmit its working storage to any other terminal
 and as many messages as desired to the same terminal.  Since the
 system does not poll, the receiving terminal must request that messages
 be transmitted to it. The computer attracts the receiving terminal
 operator's attention by typing the word (MSG) the first time that
 terminal is used after a message has been directed to it.

This is not email. This is, at best, squirting a file to a terminal. Many older systems had a way to send a message to another logged-in user's terminal. That's different than sending an email to a user (which works whether or not they are logged in, for example, and doesn't need to know what terminal the user is logging in on). Do you have any other text from that page that you think supports your claim of ATS offering email service?

See above. Also note that the messages are queued, not simply written to the destination terminal. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If not, I believe the claim that the IBM 1440 in 1962 had an email system is false.

It's true for email as defined in the introduction to Email . Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A separate question is whether the IBM 360 version of ATS included an email function. I did not remove that 1968 entry from Email because I did not have access to the document cited. But if you do have access, and all it offers is the same "send a document to a terminal" function, then please remove that entry from Email too.

Not that it's relevant, but ATS on DOS and OS supported queuing messages to an operator rather than to a terminal. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I used an IBM 1401 extensively in 1970-71, and used many IBM 370's throughout the 1970s, both at the console and through timesharing at terminals.

By then I had stopped using the 1401 and had been doing systems programming on the S/360 for several years. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did you have personal experience with ATS? Gnuish (talk) 02:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I used ATS under DOS/360; I installed and maintained ATS under OS/360.
PS: Doesn't this discussion belong in talk:Email? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SY24-3581

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You cite SY24-3581-2 on IBM System/370; bitsavers.org has SY24-3581-1, but not -2. I don't see any mention of DAT in the -1 manual, but it does mention the "logical" to "real" address mapping for the DOS compatibility feature - does the -2 version mention DAT (and possibly mention that the associative memory used for "logical" to "real" address mapping was also used as a TLB for DAT)?

(It'd be nice to refer to an on-line version of SY24-3581, but if the references have to be to the -2 version in order to fully describe how DAT could be added with only a microcode change and no hardware/data path changes....) Guy Harris (talk) 00:12, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the description of the DOS compatibility feature, you'll notice that the hardware doesn't do relocation but instead matches the high bits of the address against an associative memory (p. 2-118), trapping to microcode if there is no match. It was hard to read that and not anticipate paging.
As for the edition, I relied on my dead tree bookshelf, and generally prefer to use the most recent edition that I have access to, but SY24-3581-1 does contain the relevant material, and I have no objection if you want to use that instead. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:27, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

B5000 processor A and B model numbers

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According to The Operational Characteristics of the Processors for the Burroughs B 5000, processor A was a B 5280 and processor B was a B 5281. The same numbers were used for the B5500, according to the Burroughs 5500 Information Processing Systems Reference Manual. Guy Harris (talk) 19:29, 26 March 2014‎ (UTC)[reply]

Formal mediation has been requested

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The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Tensor". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 14 April 2014.

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Request for mediation rejected

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The request for formal mediation concerning Tensor, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

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Any non-IBM compatible system use CKD?

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Hi Chatul - hope u are well.

Off the top of yr head do u know if any computer system manufacturer other than IBM (and its clones) that implemented a CKD file system? To the best of my knowledge none did, but my knowledge is limited. Tom94022 (talk) 00:45, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The only systems that I know to use CKD were clones or near clones, e.g., RCA Spectra 70. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is my understanding also, Thanks Tom94022 (talk) 05:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

IBM 3310

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U added a section on the IBM 3310 but it was already discussed in the IBM 680 section as are all other IBM small disk drives that wound up on IBM computer systems. I don't think it would be a good idea to add back all the other stuff. It maybe that this is the only OEM product that was re-badged as a mainframe drive (33xx series) in which case it would be OK to leave it, shortened and with a link to the 680. We could also retitle Section 4 to "OEM HDDs (many offered on IBM computing systems)" or some such. I'm watching this page for yr response. Your thoughts? Tom94022 (talk) 16:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Section 4 is just "OEM and System's HDDs" with appropriate correction to the section lede. Tom94022 (talk) 16:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It might be appropriate to add cross-links, but the 3310 definitely belongs in IBM System/360 and other IBM mainframe HDDs; in particular, the fact that it was FBA rather than CKD. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My Library (computing) edit edited only an HTML comment

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My edit only affected an HTML comment, so the page should look the same to the viewer in the version before the edit and the version after the edit. If you try to edit the page, however, you should see an undamaged version of the "This statement is overly broad..." comment preceding the article's text. Guy Harris (talk) 20:12, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What was the RAMAC price and capacity?

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You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Hard_disk_drive#An_End_To_The_RAMAC_Price_Duologue. Please help end the duologue on capacity and price of the IBM RAMAC Model 350 disk file. Thanks. Tom94022 (talk) 21:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

360/50 maximum memory size

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Sorry, I was using http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2050.html for the memory size (see "Memory cycle time"); the IBM functional characteristics manual are presumably better sources. Guy Harris (talk) 19:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EXEC II produced by UNIVAC or CSC?

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The UNIVAC EXEC II page says:

EXEC II was an operating system developed for the UNIVAC 1107 by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) while under contract to UNIVAC to develop the machine's COBOL compiler. They developed EXEC II because Univac's EXEC I operating system development was late. Because of this the COBOL compiler was actually designed to run under EXEC II, not EXEC I as specified in the original contract.

so should the History of operating systems page say UNIVAC, or CSC, produced EXEC II? Guy Harris (talk) 21:09, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If it's not TMI, say that CSC produced it under contract to UNIVAC. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The George Gray reference says "EXEC I wasn't ready yet, so CSC went ahead and devised its own operating system for the 1107, which became EXEC II. CSC stretched the terms of their contract a good bit: when the COBOL compiler was finished, it was for an EXEC II environment, not EXEC I!", so while CSC was under contract to UNIVAC, they were under contract to produce a COBOL compiler, not an operating system, so the operating system itself was only loosely produced under contract - I guess CSC could have argued "hey, we needed an operating system for the compiler, and yours wasn't ready yet, so we had to roll our own" and thus say EXEC II was produced as part of the contract.
I'd be inclined to say CSC produced it and delivered it to UNIVAC. Guy Harris (talk) 22:05, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That works: whatever level of detail you believe to be appropriate. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:24, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Formal mediation has been requested

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The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Vectors are not tensors". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 6 April 2015.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 21:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request for mediation rejected

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The request for formal mediation concerning Vectors are not tensors, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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CKD I/O Graphic

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I think the CKD article needs some graphics to make it understandable so I already posted the track format which shouldn't be an issue. Please take a look at this "architecture" graphic and comment on it before I post it into the article

IBM S/360 & S/370 Input/Output operations for CKD DASD showing channel, storage control unit and DASD device

You can comment at the graphic or here. Thanks Tom94022 (talk) 16:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to read the text; otherwise it looks reasonable. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I can make the heading and box headings bigger, what would u suggest? Did u like the IBM Blue :-)Tom94022 (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Lt's the internal text that I was referring to. I'd suggest enlarging all of the text and expanding the box as necessary to avoid overruns. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disconnected Command Chaining/Command Retry

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To the best of my recollection these two features were introduced with the Block Multiplexer Channel and for DASD with the 2835:

  • Disconnected Command Chaining - specifically for Seek CCW
  • Command Retry - in channel retry, especially for certain data errors

I've looked for RS's without much success. Any recollections and RSs? Tom94022 (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The logical disconnect is discussed in various manuals under the heading of multiple requesting.
Command Retry is signaled by the combination of a unit check and status modifier.
The first place I'd look is System/360 and System/370 I/O Interface Channel to Control Unit OEMI, Eleventh Edition, IBM, September 1992, GA22-6974-10. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:21, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is a nice section in 3830/3300 RM GA26-1592-2 p.1 which covers in sequence RPS, Multiple Requesting and Command Retry. Is it also your recollection that these were simultaneous introduced with the BMux Channel and the 2835? If so, it maybe that the RPS section of the CKD article needs to expand to cover all three. BTW, I've always preferred the term Disconnected Command Chaining to Multiple Requesting but I guess I'll have to use the IBM term. Tom94022 (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the 2305/2835 reference manual has discussions of all three, and if you're looking for the earliest publication that covers them, that's it. I cited GA22-6974-10 primarily because it's available in a form that lets me give a link to a specific section, as opposed to the PDF files on bitsavers, where I can only point to the entire document. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Caching/Paging 3880 Manuals

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There are 3880-11 and -13 manuals at Chicago Classic Computing. I plan to referencing them when I update the Caching section of the CKD article. Tom94022 (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the source for User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count key data/notes you will see numerous citations, including reference manuals for the 3880-11 and 3880-21. Unfortunately, I have still been unable to locate copies of the manuals for the 3880-21, 3880-23 and ISC; I may wind up using the 370/168 Functional Specifications for the latter.
A number of the online manuals that I found are linked to from Shelf: Hardware collection, June 2000 or bitsavers.
A number of the announcement dates are available from Storage product profiles, although there are some strange gaps. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:05, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the site referenced above has -13 manuals and as near as I can tell u have not yet cited any. For the purposes of Wikipedia there should not be much if any substantive difference between the -13 and -23. Tom94022 (talk) 01:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Storage product profiles, Storage product profiles doesn't have any manuals. I plan to use it as a RS for the announcement and ship dates that it contains.
Please take a look at the table [13] following the outline in User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count key data/notes and at User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count key data/notes#Proposed table; I expect to include some verion of them in User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count key data Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:37, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Formal mediation has been requested

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The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Count key data". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 15 January 2016.

Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you.
Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 20:56, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would happily agree to mediation but not with the issues as u state them, see: please see "Malformed statement of primary issues" in Talk section Tom94022 (talk) 01:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Request for mediation rejected

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The request for formal mediation concerning Count key data, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:24, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Request for arbitration

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Hi Chatul. I'm an arbitration clerk, which means I was appointed to assist the Arbitration Committee in the administration of arbitration proceedings. Regarding your recently-filed request for an arbitration case, the Committee has requested that the clerks informally ask you to withdraw your request for arbitation, as the case is fundementally a content dispute (which the Committee cannot handle) and would certainly be declined, in order to save everyone the hassle of formally voting to decline the case. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks. In my capacity as a Clerk of the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know, I have removed the case as a ArbCom clerk, as it has been declined by the committee. Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{cite manual}} vs. {{cite book}}

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As of December 2012, {{cite manual}} is an alias for {{cite book}}, so either one works. (Here's a discussion of that.) If you reverted Yobot's change of {{cite manual}} to {{cite book}} in this edit because you wanted the page's editable text to reflect that the book being cited was a manual, you should probably suggest to Yobot's master that it not make that particular change. Guy Harris (talk) 00:47, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Done. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:03, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Should the current artist's impression be removed from the Planet Nine infobox?

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Hello, Chatul. You have new messages at Talk:Planet Nine#Conclusion 2.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Regards, nagualdesign 15:02, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the 3830-2 a Director?

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IBM apparently thought so long before the 3880 shipped

"The NAS [New Attachment Strategy] essentially split the function of the controller into various boxes such as a director, or integrated storage controller, and a blivet"
"The "Smash" announcement in August 1972 included two directors, the 3345 and the 3830-II."
"And one IBM planner wrote that "one of the motives for the A box attachment strategy was to restrict our PCM vulnerability by embedding the initial drives in the A box.""
"A July 6, 1971 memo from Lewis Branscomb to Evans indicated the corporate technology committee "is not convinced that the director plan for machines noted above or the proposed NAM which integrates channels and control units is sound. The directors do not provide any technical or functional advance, cause some serviceability problems and reduce the flexibility for file switching."
"On July 29, 1971, Evans indicated to Cooley that, concerning the director approach on tapes, "there is no new engineering with regard to logic on directors. Existing control units are merely split apart and repackaged with part of the logic in the drives and the remaining part in the appropriate CPU"
""It is our intent to price the inboard directors to cut off production of 3830s, but not to displace those already installed in small 155 and 165 systems," the [1972] memo said."

From: Via 'New Attachment Strategy' IBM Meant to Frustrate PCMs February 20, 1978

The quotes are mainly from IBM internal documents mostly in 1971 and 1972 and were made public both in the US Government case and in the Memorex case. Also note the use of A Box within to apply to the 3330 and beyond IBM long before the 3380 even started FWIW, a blivet is a string controller.

Jack Harker pretty much says the same thing in his oral history - he was the SJ Lab Director at the time of the NAS

I hope this puts to bed the endless discussion about both the director and the A-unit Tom94022 (talk) 08:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The source you cite includes "Gardner says that memo supports his conclusion that the cost and price of directors are disproportunate to the cost and price of the 3830-II." In general, the article seems to be talking about directors as components of integrated adapters. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What is it about
"The "Smash" announcement in August 1972 included two directors, the 3345 and the 3830-II."
that doesn't say the 3830 is a director? Furthermore, I can find nothing in the article about directors as components of integrated adapters; directors are not "components" of anything, director type storage controls have one or two direstors. The Gardner quote is about the ISC of thde 148 {and of the 158 and 168) for which there are RS's that the ISC and the 3830-2 are the same thing in two different packages. Of course if you accept the ISCs as directors we can stop here.
If you didn't stop above please read the Oral History of Jack Harker at the Computer History Musuem on "attachment strategy"
If you didn't stop above, please read, "Extracts relating to New Attachment Strategy" from the US v IBM antitrust matter.
There are now multiple reliable secondary sources that 3830-2==ISC==Director; please stop denying it. Tom94022 (talk) 16:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, it appears that all you have to support an POV that the 3830-2 is not a director are several non-statements in primary sources. The fact that such primary sources say nothing about directors, is not a reliable source for asserting the 3830-2 is not a director. Now that we have at least three reliable sources calling the 3830-2 a director, I again request you stop asserting the POV that the 3830-2 and -3 are not director type storage controls. Tom94022 (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the text I quoted? The article that you cited contradicts itself. As to the antitrust suit, Memorex alleged that the issue in contention began with the 2319. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:08, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is quite clear that Gardner is talking ISCs versus the 3830-2. It is an invention on your part that Gardner is talking about integrated attachments. I can find no contradictions in the article, but even if there were there are now at least two other RS's that say or can be interpreted to say that the 3830-2==ISC==Director. You have no evidence to contradict this, just the lack of the word director in some publications.
There were many issues in contention in both the Memorex and the US anti trust matters including 2319A, 2319B, FTP, ETP, 3705, New Attachment Strategy and others. No one ever contended or referred to anything other than the 3830-2 and the ISCs as directors. Again you have no evidence to support your POV that, "the issue in contention began with the 2319." Tom94022 (talk) 00:47, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Speed of light issues in CKD DASD Cabling

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You are just wrong about the speed of light not being among the limiting factors in cable lenghts in CKD subsystems. The speed of light part of the latency budget in the gap is twice the distance from the furthest head to the control unit and can as I recall is 275 feet max or well in excess of 0.5 usec. Maybe u didn't know that data cables between the SCU and B-unit could be as long as 75 feet? So if the latencies of the SCU and channel are held constant extending the cables will increase the latency until the subsystem overruns. Anyone who worked on SCUs and B-units knows this but finding RS's is a challenge since they are likely buried deep inside IBM and the PCMs archives. On the other hand, I doubt if you have any source for your assertion that, "cabling limit is not SOL." just your POV.

Perhaps the parenthentical comment should have been {latency issues, including speed of light). In any event it is a small point and I am tired of your insistence on your POV over facts, so I am not going to restate the parenthentical comment. Tom94022 (talk) 01:09, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you are unaware that the parallel channel use electrical signals over copper rather than light signals over optical fiber. There's also an ambiguity as to what cable length refers to, but all are affected by electrical issues, e.g., inductance, resistance, except for ESCON and FICON cables.
As to On the other hand, I doubt if you have any source , you are wrong yet again. My source is the channel to control unit OEMI, especially 2.8.3 System Configuration. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Some how I missed yr snide comments, but let me guess that perhaps you are unaware that the speed of light applies in both electrical cables and optical cables? I know there are internal documents at IBM and Memorex that discussed this, the problem is finding and liberating them. Tom94022 (talk) 22:32, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Snide? You mean like On the other hand, I doubt if you have any source ? PKB
Snide - like "Perhaps you are unaware that the parallel channel use electrical signals over copper ..." As it turns out your reference is a source that something limits the distance other than the resistance. Tom94022 (talk)
BTW, your relied upon source says, "For specific control units, the signal delays due to cable length will require that the control unit be relatively close to the channel." Care to speculate as to what might be the cause of "signal delays due to cable length" and why moving closer might decrease the delay? Tom94022 (talk) 22:39, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Care to speculate on what primarily limited by the resistance to the interface lines' means? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If the resistance is the primary limitation then why do DASD control units have to be closer than the primary limitator - after all doesn't the resistance go down as the length decreases? Tom94022 (talk) 01:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why does the maximum permitted length decr4ease as the number of control units increases? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Because each CU has internal cable. Tom94022 (talk) 09:09, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which, along with the contacts, contribute to the resistance. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:45, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your question and answer does not answer my question (now highlighted above); the decrease in distance for one DASD SCU is way more than that of other SCUs and if you bothered to calculate the numbers, you would find that the decrease is way more than is accounted for by the resitance of the cables and contacts. Tom94022 (talk) 17:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If you bothered to calculate the numbers you would find that a DC signal in a copper wire does not travel at the speed of light. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I check a DC signal doesn't travel at all - but a signal does propgate down a coaxial cable at a significant percentage of the speed of light and I seem to recall IBM channel cables had air dielectric so they may have propogated signals at very close to the speed of light but in no case less than 50% the speed of light. Your question and answers still do not answer my question (highlighted above). Tom94022 (talk) 01:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

multiplexer vs. multiplexor

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I'll take your word on usage in the manuals. Currently IBM seems to have a split personality - google shows a lot of hits there with both spellings. I always used to think it was "or", until I started noticing a lot of"er".Peter Flass (talk) 18:15, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Record-oriented filesystem stream file

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Why did you remove this entire section I added?

An alternate to a Record-oriented file is a stream. In a stream file, the filesystem treats files as an unstructured sequence of bytes. A delimiter character ( a reserved bit pattern) must be inserted by the writer application to separate records. The read routine provides as many bytes as requested, not to exceed the size of the file. It is the responsibility of the reading application program to recognize the delimiter, not the file system routines. This approach significantly reduces the size and complexity of the library and reduces the number of utilities required to maintain files. Unfortunately the cpu time required to parse for the record delimiter is significant and the exclusion of the record delimiter pattern from the data is frequently undesirable.

DGerman (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because it is incorrect. There are a lot of things that you can do in a stream oriented file system without using delimiter characters. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Other pages whose titles should probably be capitalized

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Basic sequential access method, basic direct access method, basic telecommunications access method, basic partitioned access method, and possibly object access method. Guy Harris (talk) 17:30, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, along with Indexed Sequential Access Method and Queued Telecommunications Access Method. However, the ISAM article is about the generic term and only mentions the IBM access method in passing. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:39, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy disk formating

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The lede to Disk formatting has a note mainly covering legacy IBM mainframe OSes, a subject which is not supported by the body of the article, so it probably shouldn't be in the lede. I'd like to move the note into text in the History section and leave these these exceptions out of the lede. To the best of my knowledge all modern OSes in general do not overwrite sectors during a format unless otherwise instructed. It could be that the legacy OSes still do so but I can't figure out why they would waste so much time since everything today is FBA. You seem to be the advocate of including these exceptions so I thought I would first check with you about both the movement and whether it is still true that the cited IBM legacy OSes still always do overwrite all blocks during format? I'm thinking of a paragraph in the History section along the lines of:

  • "Early disk drives did not have any intrinsic block size so a format of necessity overwrote all old data. With the fixed block size of modern disk drives, modern OSes in general do not overwrite all blocks as a part of the format process; however, some legacy mainframe OSes still do so (insert footnotes).

Do you have a reference for the z/OS Unix? Comments? Suggestions? Tom94022 (talk) 19:11, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The lede shouldn't provide details but it should be accurate. It's enough to note that there are exceptions with the details given later.
Unfortunately MVS still expects CKD, and does do a formatted write for an entire container. The details vary depending on context, e.g., VSAM, HFS, zFS.
You might find some of the relevant manuals in User:Chatul/References. I'm providing citations for two of the relevant manuals, not at the same release level. There are other manuals that you would need if you were using Unix System Services, but I don't believe that they are relevant to formatting.
z/OS V1R13.0 UNIX System Services Planning (HTML), 2011, GA22-7800-19
z/OS UNIX System Services Command Reference Version 2 Release 3 (PDF), 2017, SA23-2280-30
Talk:Disk formatting#Steps to format a disk describes the different formatting steps for a zFS; it's one step shorter[a] for an HFS. May be TMI to include the details in the article. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:44, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have no doubt that formating on legacy CKD SLEDs of necessity overwrote the entire disk, e.g., formating a 3380 took several hours. However, CKD SLEDs are no longer offered and may not even be maintained but instead IBM host software is supported by emulation on IBM Storgage Systems which are today all FBA. So the question of whether all blocks are overwritten during a format is a function of emulation algorithms in the subsystems and I have a hard time accepting that today's algorithms would actually overwrite all blocks. It suspect today's efficient emulation algorithms would simply rewrite the pointers leaving the allocated blocks unchanged. For example the DS8880 features "slim provisioning" in which "Application developers can provision and de-provision z/OS applications in minutes" which suggests all blocks are not overwritten. It maybe that as part of a backround process unallocated blocks are overwritten but at this point its not clear to me that today's emulating subsystems all blocks are overwritten. The cites above really don't answer the question, it would take cites from the storage system SRLs to answer the question and so far I can't find any cites other than the purported minutes to provision which is suggestive but not dipositive. Do you have any references from IBMs storage system manuals that would help? Tom94022 (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To MVS[b] a CKD device is a black box[c]; MVS uses a formatting write CCW[d] and from its perspective the track is erased when the command completes[e]. Whether the DASD subsystem physically rewrites sectors or just manipulates pointers isn't visible to MVS. Some of the early DASD subsystems did do physical writes but it didn't take long before there were DASD subsystems that virtualized the erases. Given that, the text should be generic or use weasel words for formating the volume.
Formatting a HFS or linear data set is another matter, since it also involves writing the control intervals. I don't know of any DASD subsystem smart enough to virtualize that. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:12, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still poking around in this area to gain enough knowledge to post a short but accurate sentance or two into the article and then update the Lede.
It seems like there are multiple steps, create a virtual volume on the subsystem, format the volume to make it available to an OS (at minimum volume label & VTOC), format additional portions of the volume as necessary to make it available to OSes or applications. Is this all handled in ICKDSF or are there other utilities that get involved. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that any format process that requires fixed length blocks will use WCKD on all tracks and the only unerased data would be in the blocks allocated to the track beyond the last data. On the other hand, if the OS only requres IBM formatted tracks with nothing other than HA and R0, then only the tracks containing the Volume Label and VTOC tracks might actually have data fields written; the the HA and RO required for the remaining tracks could only be pointers with the data blocks unchanged. BTW ICKDFS seems to support only a limited number of virtual CKD volumes, e.g. 3380, 3390 and 9345, all old hardware - true? I would have thought by now IBM would have virtualized CKD, that is, a new virtual device type more or less at the limits of C, K and D fields. Also ICKDSF seems to imply that a MINIMAL INIT only writes Volume Label and VTOC on FBA DASD implying the remainining blocks are not written.
This is informed speculation - you seem to be better informed on this subject, why don't you take a crack at revising the article and then I'll see if it raises any questions Or I can keep looking into this. Tom94022 (talk) 19:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've given up making major revisions to Wiki articles; it takes up too much of my time, and the lack of an effective dispute resolution mechanism makes it a hostile work environment. I'll continue to provide references and minor corrections, but no more major word-crafting. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:56, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry u feel that way. I think we agree the nb2 in the lede is better placed in a section, perhaps just one or two sentances in Section 2 or maybe in Section 6, so it wouldn't be a major revision. I'll keep looking into this at at some point make the edit.
Can u help by commenting on my question, "Is this all handled in ICKDSF or are there other utilities that get involved?" Tom94022 (talk) 07:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
ICKDSF full full formatting writes Home Address and R0 on each track, erases all tracks, creates VTOC and creates VTOC index. There are also faster and slower options. Whether the erase is a physical erase or pointer manipulation depends on the device and is transparent to ICKDSF.
A VSAM data set can be allocated through JCL or through IDCAMS; either way, the processing formats the new data set into control intervals.
An HFS is allocated through JCL with FILETYPE=HFS; the proceesing formats the data set into control intervals.
The IOEAGFMT program creates zFS in an existing VSAM linear data set. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]


  1. ^ Allocating a dataset with FILETYPE=HFS both format the tracks into control intervals and creates the file system. Allocating a linear data set for a zFS only formats the tracks into control intervals. A separate utility builds the zFS in the linear data set
  2. ^ Similar considerations apply to CKD and ECKD devices in, e.g., z/TPF, z/VM, z/VSE. However, they have earlier and more extensive support than MVS for other interfaces, e.g., FBA, FCP.
  3. ^ Except when it isn't ;-)
  4. ^ E.g., Write Home Address, Write RO, Write Count, Key, and Data, Write Special Count, Key, and Data and Erase
  5. ^ possibly asynchronously

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

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Origin of CKD

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Hi: Hope this finds u well. Any idea about the origins of CKD? It certainly was included from the beginning of S/360. What we now call the count field was included on the 1301 for the 7000 series and then for the 1410. I think there were key fields in the 1301 but in a separate track index but not the inline CKD as in S/360 and beyond. Any comments or corrections? The penultimate question is whose idea was it? Tom94022 (talk) 19:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I know of no DASD with a count field prior to the DASD for the S/360.
The 1301 and 1302 did not have self-formatting tracks. Rather, each cylinder had a formatting track. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, FWIW it may be semantics but:
Characteristics of IBM Files Using 1301 As An Example

A data track and the data to be written on a track or read from a track are identified by the means of a home address one, a home address two, and as many record addresses as there are recorded areas to be established.
...
Each record area established for a data track is preceeded by a record address. The address consists of six or more characters ...

B Wyatt, Jr., IBM Corp, Western Regional Office, Los Angeles, CA, Characteristics of IBM Files, Disc File Applications, American Data Processing, (c) 1964

The record address sounds like the equivalent of a count field albeit without the standard format that was introduced with S/360. Also the same article notes that in the 1311 "An idelible five digit sector address addrss preceedes each addressable location in a disk pack." This sounds like a count field for this fixed block device. I agree that CKD with the IBM defined count field is was unique to S/360 but am really exploring how IBM got there and how the industry came up with record ID fields. Tom94022 (talk) 20:10, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
At least as I read IBM 1301, Models 1 and 2, Disk Storage and IBM 1302, Models 1 and 2, Disk Storage with IBM 7090, 7094, and 7094 II Data Processing Systems and IBM 1301, Models 1 and 2, Disk Storage and IBM 1302, Models 1 and 2, Disk Storage with IBM 1410 and 7010 Data Processing Systems, there isn't anything that looks like a count field in any record on the disk, but there are things that look like keys, namely the record addresses. From my quick look at the document, for any given cylinder on the device, all data tracks must have the same layout in terms of record addresses, record data, and gaps, and thus the same layout in terms of record length; the format track for the cylinder specifies the layout. That, rather than a count field, indicates the length of particular records. Guy Harris (talk) 21:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The record address more more like the record address of a S/360 count field than like a key. Note also:
  • There is no requirement that all format tracks be the same
  • The format track determines which record areas are 6 bit and which data areas are 6 bit;
    the architecture derives from the 7030
  • Not all bits in the record area are used for verification.
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The record address on the 1301 is variable-length ("six or more characters"), alphanumeric ("characters", not "digits", although only the numeric part of the first four characters, and the entirety of the next two characters, are verified), and are "assigned and written by the user to fit any convenient addressing scheme". The count field on a 2314, according to IBM System/360 Component Descriptions, 2314 Direct Access Storage Facility and 2844 Auxiliary Storage Control, contains a cylinder number, head number, and one-byte record number; that's more of a physical address than a programmer-settable field. So I'm not seeing the record address on a 1301 being like the cylinder/head/record in the count field.
It's certainly conventional to put the physical address in those 5 bytes, and the standard utilities do so, but the controller does not use them as physical addresses. Instead, they are matched against the storage designated by a Search Id Equal CCW. In fact, there was a modification to CP/67 to write duplicate copies of pages with identical count fields in order to speed up pagein operations. Nonstandard, but it worked. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anybody said that all format tracks must be the same on the 1301. As I read the 1301 manuals, a given cylinder has only one format track, so all tracks in the cylinder must be formatted the same, but other cylinders have their own format tracks and can be formatted differently. Guy Harris (talk) 18:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments. I asked Chatul the question because over the last several years I've come to appreciate his deep knowledge of IBM subsystems. The question comes out of a dialog that started at Disk sector where an editor claimed that disk sectors were invented at Bell labs in the early 1960s. I rebutted that and then started to add some history to the article starting with the IBM 350s's fixed sized, no header (ID Field), parity per character sector. Now I am trying to identify early if not first examples of sector header, zonded sectors, CRC and ECC. It is likely IBM was first with many of these changes (other than ZBR) so I'm not too worried about using IBM examples - if there are earlier versions I'm sure someone will correct it. BTW not yet in the article but as near as I can now tell:

  • The 1301 with its record address field was the first to provide an ID field for a sector separate from the data field. GE may have embedded one with the data before the 1301.
  • The 1311 was a fixed sized sector with a "count" field separate from a data field. Count in the sense that it was a count of the number of sectors from the first sector on the first drive. IBM published algorithms for programmers to calculate the DCCHHR from the sector count.
  • System/360 DASD introduced CRC on the data and ID field. The ID field's format in part defined what became pretty much an industry standard of CCHHS. It also introduced, unique to IBM, a key field inbetwen the ID and data fields of a sector (record in IBM's terminology.

You all are invited to edit the Disk sector histoy section. Thanks again. Tom94022 (talk) 23:51, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

IBM had a sector organization on the 350 disk for the 305 RAMAC in the 1950s. IBM even used the word sector in the 305 RAMAC documentation. See, e.g., IBM General Information Manual 305 RAMAC Programmer's Guide (PDF), 1958, p. 8, Although the file is divided into 50,000 one-hundred character sectors, each directly addressable by a five-digit number,. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Marketing of electronic cigarettes

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IOCS

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Sorry about that change. It must be a weird assembler that doesn't require a blank between the opcode (or macro) and the operands. Some of that old stuff was pretty funky. Peter Flass (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it was fairly common for assemblers through the mid 1960s to require the operand in a specific column. The coding forms had vertical bars separating the fields and the assembler listing spread out over 120 columns. I don't know of any assembler from 1970 on that was so tied to specific columns.
As to funky, I challenge you to find anything as funky as the UNIVAC 1005, with its Grey coded address rows and columns. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, most stuff was column-oriented, but I don't recall ever seeing a case where the opcode wasn't separated from the operand by at least one space. Peter Flass (talk) 15:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Boeing 787 Dreamliner

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IEHPROGM

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https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.1.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r1.idau100/iehprog.htm

Is PASSWORD totally obsolete or, in typical IBM fashion, is it still supported but largely unused?

This link includes both the "program maintenance" tag and the function "Maintain data set passwords." Since this is reasonably recent information on zOS utilities, I presume it's still an available option. Peter Flass (talk) 19:43, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Read the actual text to see the three functions that it performs, none of which relate to program maintenance. I'm not sure when the tag was added or why.
  2. The most recent version, V2R3, still describes the PASSWORD update function, but I'd be very surprised if anybody has used it in the last few decades.
  3. OS/360 IEHPROGM had other functions that have been replaced by similar functions in AMS:
  • Catalog or uncatalog a data set.
  • Build or delete an index or an index alias.
  • Connect or release two volumes.
  • Build and maintain a generation index.
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:45, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Burroughs large systems#B6500: Historical Narrative The 1960s; US vs IBM, Exhibit 14971

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diff

"This reference relates to antitrust litigation and is not a good source for technical details."

The year of the first delivery (to a customer?; but does a date is a technical detail?) seems somewhat accurate.

B6500 Status Report (to about 0:46), date: March 1969 (and possibly at 4:20), here on number one system, 6:27 - hardwiring a prototype B6500, 6:45 - system no 1 is a production unit, 8:14

B6500 Status Report, Apr 1970, p. 2 (search for first system).

This also matches the shipment rates (pp. 1-2): 

3 per month	1970
Apr 14-16
Mar 11-13
Feb 8-10
2/m (optimistic)	1/m (pessimistic): (12+1)-7=6
Jan 6-7
	1969
Dec 4-5
Nov 2-3
around Oct 1-2			around Jun

Your ref to date doesn't have a page number(s) (I assume it was supposed to go next to the last Historical ... ref?). --MarMi wiki (talk) 02:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[[Burroughs#B6500]] takes me to a disambiguation page; did you mean[[Burroughs large systems#B6500]]?
The reference to that document is on a sentence [a] that has nothing to do either with the date of the FCS or with the antitrust litigation.
I didn't have a reference to date. I did have a date of publication on the reference I added[b], but I doubt that you are referring to that. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this will clear things up:
"The B6500 (1968)[1][2] ..."
Where is the page number to "1968" claim in second ref?
"The B6500 used monolithic integrated circuits with magnetic thin-film memory.[3]"
That reference on p. 648 contains both info about IC and that it was not delivered until 1969.
--MarMi wiki (talk) 20:40, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That 1968 reference was not mine; it's from the version that I reverted to. The announcement date was neither 1968 nor 1969, but 1966. I don't know whether the article elsewhere uses announcement date, ship date or a random mix.
The 1968 ref was mine (before I found evidence convincing me that it not may be the case). 1969 is mentioned also in the models table (below B6500 section, in History). --MarMi wiki (talk) 22:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The reference I restored was on sentence[c] where the date was only incidental. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And you added a new ref after the date, which doesn't seem to belong there (or it was mentioned on one of the pages, but you didn't specify on which, and that pdf is not searchable). I moved it next to the monolithic antitrust ref. --MarMi wiki (talk) 22:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I added the reference to the sentence where it belongs, at the beginning of Burroughs large systems#B6500. It doesn't belong after the reference to thin film. If you feel that the date is misplaced, move the date. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I'm misunderstand something, but references are for text preceeding them? --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:14, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it seems that it could be placed also before (WP:INTREF2). But why confusing the reader, mixing the two styles? --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and the text preceding the reference is B6500 (1968). If you think that the date should be after the reference, then it's the date that you should move.
If your ref is ONLY for the B6500, then it should have been placed AFTER B6500 in the first place, and not after the date. --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, should it be announcement (1966), the SJCC paper by Hauck (1968) or the shipment date (1969)? I haven't checked what the rest of the article uses for dates.
I prefer shipment (or first run/use for earlier systems) date. Announcement date isn't so important (to me) because it may be a couple years off of actual use. But when they differs, then probably both should be given.
In History section is a table with 1969. --MarMi wiki (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Metanote: please leave the {{Notelist-talk}} and {{Reflist-talk}} at the end of the section. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 23:25, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you're suggesting making the <ref></ref> a <ref name=> referring to a citation in {{Reflist|refs=}}, I have no problem with that. If you're referring to something else, please explain. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ "The B6500 used monolithic integrated circuits with magnetic thin-film memory"
  2. ^ Burroughs B6500 Information Processing System Reference Manual
  3. ^ The B6500 (1968)[4] and B7500 were the first computers in the only line of Burroughs systems to survive to the present day.

References

  1. ^ Stuart, Sam (2014). "Burroughs 6500". The European Computer Users Handbook 1968/69: Pergamon Computer Data Series. Elsevier. p. 111.7. ISBN 9781483146690.
  2. ^ Burroughs B6500 Information Processing System Reference Manual (PDF), Burroughs, September 1969, 1043676
  3. ^ "Historical Narrative The 1960s; US vs IBM, Exhibit 14971, Part 2" (PDF). ed-thelen.org. US Government. July 22, 1980. p. 648. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  4. ^ Stuart, Sam (2014). "Burroughs 6500". The European Computer Users Handbook 1968/69: Pergamon Computer Data Series. Elsevier. p. 111.7. ISBN 9781483146690.

You revert of short description of IBM System/370

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I am attempting to add short descriptions to as many articles as possible because wikipedia has made it a goal to add short descriptions to all main space articles. Many articles already have wikidata entries, including the one in question, and I merely imported the wikidata entry as the short description. Obviously, you didn't agree that it adequately described the topic in 40 characters or less, but instead of reverting it, you should have edited the {{short description}} and substituted what you felt was more appropriate. I have gone back and made another attempt at it, this time putting something that I feel better describes the topic. --rogerd (talk) 19:25, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the new {{short description}} is correct. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:58, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My point was, that it would be helpful if, in the future, you find an article that either doesn't have a short description, or has one that doesn't correctly summarize the topic, that you could correct the situation yourself instead of removing it. --rogerd (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides

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user:Peter Flass#Background,

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Yes, a certain amount of condensation was done. Peter Flass (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Ralph Northam

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Please comment on Talk:Superconductivity

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Please comment on Talk:Electric smoking system

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Speedy deletion nomination of Thin film (disambiguation)

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A tag has been placed on Thin film (disambiguation) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G14 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an orphaned disambiguation page which either

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If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator. ... discospinster talk 19:19, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If there's only two possible titles for a phrase and one of them is clearly the main usage then a hatnote is the usual way of handling the disambiguation, rather than a disambiguation page. Thin film has a hatnote for Thin-film memory. Hut 8.5 21:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Abortion

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Rexx/Script

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OK, I'll agree with you on Rexx, even though it was invented for VM and was the primary scripting language there long before it was ported elsewhere. I disagree on Script, however, that dates back to CP-67 days and seems more tied to the VM family, even though it also runs on the OS/360 family. Peter Flass (talk) 20:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's no question that Script originated on CP-67/CMS, but it was in use on SVS and MVS in the early 1970s and was heavily used in MVS by the 1980s. Eventually it was partially bundled with OS/390 and z/OS (installed but you needed a license to use it.) BTW, do you have the manuals for Waterloo Script - I'd like to add a reference.Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no. Was Waterloo Script ever updated for laser printers? I’m not sure whether or not OpenWatcom has any Script sources or doc. Peter Flass (talk) 18:49, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
According to https://csg.uwaterloo.ca/sdtp/watscr.html it does support laser printers, but that page doesn't list the manuals. I contributed the free SCRIPTW to cbttape.org, but later versions are chargeable, or at least they used to be. I definitely don't have the NSCRIPT manuals, not do I know the dates.Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment on Talk:Noah Kraft

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3180/3290

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How quickly they forget, thanks. Peter Flass (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Please comment on Talk:Dennis Bonnen

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Edit contradicts edit summary

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Your edit to Mainframe computer makes the end of the period when there were several manufacturers of mainframes earlier, 1 January 1970 instead of 1 January 1980. But your edit summary indicates the endpoint should be later than 1 January 1980. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:27, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No, it indicates that the endpoint is sometime between 1970 and 1979. But now that I think about it, there were still several mainframe vendors much later: Amdahl was around until 1993, Bull until 1999 and Unisys until 2014, and some of those are still supporting their architectures through simulation on Intel chips. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:12, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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Please comment on Talk:Unicode

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bitsavers.org mirrors

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If you're looking for bitsavers references, you could try one of the mirror sites, such as bitsavers.trailing-edge.com. (Hopefully it'll be back up at some point.) Guy Harris (talk) 05:58, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; bitsavers is still down but trailing-edge is up. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:29, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
bitsavers.org is back up. Guy Harris (talk) 18:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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Word Size

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Hi, thank you for pointing out the omission of 36-bit. I've added representative links for all the strange word sizes. Murray Langton (talk) 21:05, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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5450

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I found enough in the code to show the 5450 used a datastream similar to the 3270, including write/erase write commands, SBA and SF orders. I couldn’t find the address characters, but I would assume that they were similar, especially as the 3270 architecture was later extended to 160x80. Peter Flass (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Flass: Could you e-mail me a copy of that code? Thanks.
BTW, the 3270 architecture never required specific screen geometries; initially you had to specify the model and later a more general mechanism gave you the screen configurations. You had to know the geometry to construct the data stream, as the addresses were not row and column. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:59, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have to look around for the code again. There's nothing useful in any one place, but I looked in the OS/360 source for display console support, and unfortunately it seems to be broken up into 100 different bits. I found some bits that relate to the Model 85, but I haven't been able to put it all together. Peter Flass (talk) 16:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The obvious place to look for OS/360 is IEECVETH (IGC5H07B); for MVS I'd guess IEECVET1. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:50, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That. I found these:
SETBUF   EQU   X'27'               SET BUFFER ADDRESS                   73800000
READ     EQU   X'06'               READ                                 74000000
SOUND    EQU   X'0B'               SOUND ALARM                          74200000
INSERT   EQU   X'0F'               INSERT CURSOR                        74400000
WRITE    EQU   X'01'               WRITE                                74600000
ERASE    EQU   X'07'               ERASE                                74800000

So, while apparently the functionality is equivalent to a 3270, the order codes are completely different. Why IBM did this I'll never understand. Still haven't located the buffer address characters. Peter Flass (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You need to look at the actual code, not just the equates, but off the top of the head those look like CCW opcodes, not buffer orders or WCC bits, which is already a massive difference from the 3270. As to why, the 360/85 came out before the 3270 and IBM has always been over compartmentalized. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:01, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SCAT Assembler

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Hopefully I or someone will write a SCAT article, hence the redlink. I had never heard of SCAT, so I did a quick Google and came up with Solomon. This really has nothing to do with SQOZE, somI didn’t put anything in the article. I putnthe Solomon reference in the comment just as a poor way to remember the reference. Peter Flass (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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You reverted my edit changing "a" to "an" -- why?

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In the article "Tensor" I had changed "a" to "an" because the rules of English pronunciation (and thereby of written grammar) require "an" when using the indefinite article more usually written "a" when it occurs directly before a word beginning with a vowel. You reverted that to "a". Why? Dratman (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The referent of the indefinite article was the word following the parentheses. I should have noted that in the change summary. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But that is incorrect. The a/an choice in English is resolved by the pronunciation of the word immediately
following a or an, not by referent. For example, if the parentheses had not been present, so the sentence was
"A tensor may be represented as a potentially multidimensional array"
there would be no ambiguity, and the indefinite article would have to be "a". That is the rule in English.
The fact that there are parentheses does not change that situation, because it is assumed that the parenthetical
expression will be read out loud when the rest of the sentence is read out loud.
For these reasons, I request that you revert your reversion. Thank you. Dratman (talk)

S/370 Architecture

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That looks good. There's nothing canonical about numbering bits, so why not stick with the what relevant documentation says. Otherwise you're back to the way IBM represented ASCII characters at one time - backwards, as read from the communications line, and useless for anything else. Peter Flass (talk) 20:23, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

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Merge proposal which you may be interested in

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Please see Tfd, where I proposed to merge Template:Lang-he-n into Template:Lang-he. Debresser (talk) 09:56, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 2021

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Information icon Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. This is just a note to let you know that I've moved the draft that you were working on to Draft:Track (moving medium), from its old location at User:Chatul/sandbox/Track (moving medium). This has been done because the Draft namespace is the preferred location for Articles for Creation submissions. Please feel free to continue to work on it there. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to ask me on my talk page. Thank you. SK2242 (talk) 17:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

zEnterprise BladeCenter extension

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Hello! Thanks for Your correction. I create a internal link for zBX section instead of direct link for BladeCenter, that's acceptable solution? And, sorry, can I ask Your help for integration of basic zBX description to BladeCenter page (I think, this a notable adition to article)? ThisIsNotABetter (talk) 11:54, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a See Also to IBM BladeCenter. zBX does use a BladeCenter Enclosure; I don't know what type. I don't know enough about zBX to do a proper section on it in BladeCenter, but I agree that it's a good idea. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. As can I see, the first model of zBX was not released, but next models uses a H chassis. Widely known the three released models: 2458-002, 2458-003 and 2458-004. ThisIsNotABetter (talk) 06:54, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew infinitive

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I'm not a native speaker or even all that fluent a speaker of Hebrew, let me get that out of the way. The linguistic info i put on Wikimedia is not stuff I know personally, but rather have already seen on reputable sources or was on the page in the past. Just getting a disclaimer out of the way.

That out of the way: are the non-prefixed infinitives still used in Modern Hebrew? Every single source I've found has it as a Biblical Hebrew feature. But, my main desires with regards to changing the Modern Hebrew Verbs article is to change the table formats/ romanization; not to speak over anyone more familiar with Hebrew grammar. Starbeam2 (talk) 23:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a native Anglophone. I've studied Hebrew at an Ulpan, but I don't have the in the bone understanding of those exposed to Hebrew grammar from birth. I sent my cousin an e-mail asking about מקור מוחלט. I'm pretty sure that I've seen שם הפועל without a preposition. However, it's possible that I've only seen them in Biblical quotations or at least allusions.
I just saw https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-hebrew-language-and-linguistics/infinitive-modern-hebrew-COM_000594#d56709061e45, which seems to confirm the existence of both שם הפועל without a preposition and מקור מוחלט in Modern Hebrew. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 03:55, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll cut the difference and list them, but not make mention of their usage until I have clearer info. Starbeam2 (talk) 04:59, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Your help desk question

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Did you ever find an answer to this question? If not WP:VPT may be the place to ask.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:37, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Never did. I've posted it to WP:VPT#Is there a way to collapse selected rows of a table?. Thanks Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Email address: RFC 6532 or 5322?

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You recently added better RFC links and a helpful clarification to the lede of the Email address page: "and updated by RFC 5322 and 6854. The term email address in this article refers to addr-spec in RFC 6532, not to address or mailbox; i.e., a raw address without a display-name." However, RFC-6532 doesn't seem refer to addr-spec, and wasn't one of the two you'd linked. I reckon it was likely just a typo for 5322, but since 6532 is also an email RFC, I could very well be wrong. Please sanitycheck my edit! DewiMorgan (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, typo. Thanks for catching that. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:08, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Track (moving medium) has been accepted

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Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Recent edit to Disk formatting

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I'm not sure what is meant by your addition of "or containing file system" to the High-level formatting section of the Disk formatting article. This seems to contradict the definition of high level format in lede to the section. Please clarify. Tom94022 (talk) 01:12, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Tom94022: That edit is to the first sentence of the section, so I have no idea of what you mean by contradicting the lede. For that matter, I don't see where it contradits any text that follows, although I could certainly expand it.
As an example of what that edit refers to, creating a zFS in z/OS involves the following steps.
  1. Initialize the volume with ICKDSF to
    • Write R0 on every track
    • Initialize track 0
    • Create a VTOC
    • Create a VTOC index and a DSCB for it.
  2. Use IDCAMS DEFINE to create a linear Data Set (LDS); AMS will format it into control intervals
  3. Use IOEAGFMT to create a zFS aggregate in the LDS; this will format the zFS with an empty root directory.
Each of these steps is a high level format. The initialized volume is the containing file system for the LDS and the LDS is the containing file system for the z/FS. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:50, 4 October 2021 (UTC)--Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:50, 4 October 2021 (UTC)--Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:50, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think I get what you intend but it seems to me that the numbered steps 1, 2 and 3 above collectively are a high level format or alternatively steps 2 and 3 are additional operations not unlike those performed to structure database files in a file system. - do you have any reference that defines them separately as high level formats? Either is consistent with the note in lede to Section 2, "Each process may involve multiple steps, and steps of different processes may be interleaved." FWIW there are not a lot of references in the section and Tannenbaum isn't helpful. Also the lede to Section 2 in paragraph numbered 3 has the original language that you modified, namely, "High-level formatting creates the file system format within a disk partition or a logical volume." Absent a reference your edit may be approaching POV or OR and perhaps the original language should be restored. Tom94022 (talk) 18:42, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Typically steps 2 and three are done months or years after step 1.
I don't have any reference that defines high-level formatting at all.
I'd say that the original language has a WP:NPOV issue. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:08, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If steps 2 and 3 are done months or years after step 1 then that confirms they are not high level formatting any more than database formatting is high level formatting, see, e.g. Database Files for a listing of many of the structures created in a file system for databases. Tannebaum actually does support the original definition of a high level format as follows, "The final step in preparing a disk for us is to perform a high-level format of each partition separately." Absent a ref I think that makes your addition WP:POV or WP:OR so I will remove it and we can see what other editors have to say. Tom94022 (talk) 22:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Assembly language

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You've reverted my edit. I can find no reason for that and your edit reason does not explain it to me. The language is, for all practical purposes, identical. GliderMaven (talk) 16:35, 10 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@GliderMaven:The reason is as stated; there are multiple distinct assemblers for the same architecture and instruction set; clearly rhe reason is not because of the instruction set differing from itself. If that is unclear then the discussion belongs on Talk:Assembly language . --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Speedy deletion nomination of DFSMS (disambiguation)

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BOS/360

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Looking at the BOS manual, it appears BOS was DOS. I've seen some references to it being renamed to DOS at some point. It certainly was a close ancestor of DOS. Peter Flass (talk) 21:51, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Flass: They are certainly compatible, but I have no indication that they share code. If you know of such, please add a citation. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Programmer's guide [14] has a description of some of the internals, and they sound identical. I've come across some messages from old-timers that say BOS was renamed DOS and TOS, but they don't qualify as reliable sources. Peter Flass (talk) 02:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When and where did the term "partition" originate

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Your recollections regarding early IBM OS's usage of the term "partition" of would be appreciated here. Personally I don't recall the use of the term in any of the IBM OSes prior to PC-DOS but I admit my knowledge is limited. It is certainly used in the current ones. Tom94022 (talk) 18:43, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

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The Minor barnstar
For having a signature that actually contains your username, while still containing a unique name. Makes it way less annoying when having to ping you (if I ever have to). ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 17:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Operating system

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I came across a pdf version of Tanenbaum's hardware book. If you're interested, here's a link: http://timriley.net/tanenbaum/structured_computer_organization_6th.pdf . Timhowardriley (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Differential (mathematics) merge

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Hi. I noticed that you performed the merge into Differential (mathematics) that you had mentioned at WT:Merging#Staging merger through sandbox. This edit seems to contain a clause introduced by XOR'easter. While it is brief, providing attribution is safest. A dummy edit with appropriate edit summary per WP:Copying within Wikipedia#List of authors would be best. I can do it if you prefer. Flatscan (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops! I was copying new text from my sandbox and missed that. Yes, please do the dummy edit. Thanks for catching that.
Is there a template to generate copied metadata but not affect rendering? E.g., {{quoted|foo|John Doe|March 9, 2022}} :to render foo as it it weren't in the template. I try to use automated tools to replace error prone manual tasks. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 10:19, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done! To clarify, do you mean generating the edit summary? I don't use automated tools, but I've seen a few users making dummy edits that I can ask. Flatscan (talk) 05:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've revised it, since part was copied from the source article, part added by me and part added by him. Also, part of his edit hit the lead.
I meant something that you could include while editing my sandbox such that when I copied it into the target article for a merge, it would provide the data needed by WP:RIA. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 08:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I should have credited you also. Unfortunately, I do not know of such a tool. Flatscan (talk) 04:23, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IBM's "System Program"

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Thank you for your engaging talk. While exploring your ideas, I came across IBM's 1967 SYSTEM/360 technical reference here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/princOps/A22-6821-7_360PrincOpsDec67.pdf .

Back then, they called the operating system the system program. It says, "The system is designed to operate with a supervisory program that coordinates and executes all I/O instructions, handles exceptional conditions, and supervises scheduling and execution of multiple programs." These are the first level nodes in the operating system tree. It'll be a cool read. Thank you. Timhowardriley (talk) 20:24, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question: The introduction says, "Storage operations initiated from the CPU, as well as those initiated from a channel, are subject to the protection procedure." Is channel what we now call bus? Timhowardriley (talk) 21:20, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it must be the case. Timhowardriley (talk) 01:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, in most cases the channel is not a bus but is attached to one. It's closer to a SATA or SCSI adapter that includes a DMA chip. However, in the computers related to the CDC 6600, the channels are little more than bus interfaces. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 05:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good call. IBM S/360 Principle of Operations (1968) uses the word channel everyplace the word bus would fit. But check out this diagram: https://archive.org/details/structuredcomput00tane/page/55/mode/2up . Then I did a search for bus in the IBM (1968) pdf. Down on page 96 is the only match. It says, "[A]ll communications to and from the channel occur over a common bus, ..." The word bus isn't even in the index. Thanks for the help. Timhowardriley (talk) 06:05, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the word bus would not fit in any Principles of Operation text that I recall; the roles of buses and channels are very different, although part of the parallel channel (Bus and tag channel)[1] architecture is a bus.
Thank you. BTW, I'm reading Principle of Operation with interest. It's very well written -- but dense. I'm on page 13. Timhowardriley (talk) 21:39, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is wide variability in the nomenclature and organization of operating systems. The literature has terms like control program, executive, master control program, monitor, Supervisor and system control program, and the meaning of those terms may vary from system to system. In the case of the S/360 and its descendants, operating system includes applications such as utilities and assemblers. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 05:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ IBM System/360 I/O Interface Channel to Control Unit Original Equipment Manufacturers' Information (PDF) (Fourth ed.). IBM. A22-6843-3. Retrieved April 14, 2022. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

Sarcasm at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Hi, I saw your comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style just now [15] and thought I should let you know that Dumuzid was being sarcastic (and actually agreeing with you on the substance of the issue). I also see on your user page that you encourage people to inform you when you miss something, so I hope you don't mind this message. I know that not everyone picks up on sarcasm in the same way. You might want to self-revert that comment, though of course it's not a big deal. Best wishes, Generalrelative (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Striking that suggestion to self-revert, since I see that Dumuzid has replied. Generalrelative (talk) 14:57, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Since others sometimes miss my jokes, I would be hypocritical were I to complain that someone else's joke was unclear. Thanks for the heads up.

Operating System/Interrupt cleanups

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Thank you for cleaning up my edits. I knew information was missing, but I didn't exactly know how to word it. Timhowardriley (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

cycle stealing

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You inserted a note in the lede of Channel I/O that refers to the use of cycle stealing. I am familiar with this term in the case of memory access, where one device will perform access while another is busy on another task (cf. 6502 graphics). But the note seems to be suggesting that using stealing removes the need for channel hardware and that is not obvious. Can you clarify? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Several IBM systems have control stores containing microcode both to simulate the documented instructions and to implement I/O channels. There is still some hardware for each channel, but not as much as is needed with hardwired channels.
The processor has the ability to interrupt the microprogram in order to allow a brief channel microprogram to run; the way that is done is nodel dependent. In this context the cycles are stolen from the processor rather than from the memory.
Off the top of my head:
360/30
Microprogram
360/40
Microprogram
360/44
Hardwired internal
360/50
:Microprogram
360/65
Hardwried 2860, 2870
360/67
Hardwried 2860, 2870
360/75
Hardwried 2860, 2870
360/85
Hardwried 2860, 2870, 2880
360/91
Hardwried 2860, 2870
360/95
Hardwried 2860, 2870
360/195
Hardwried 2860, 2870, 2880
370/145
Microprogram
370/155
Microprogram
370/158
Microprogram
370/165
Hardwried 2860, 2870, 2880
370/168
Hardwried 2860, 2870, 2880
370/195
Hardwried 2860, 2870, 2880

The IBM 3031, 3032 and 3033 use a 3158 with only the channel microcode to implement the I/O channels. I don't know the implementation for 3081 or later., --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 03:39, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Using some of those model numbers turned up this usage], specifically "Cycle-stealing is a form of interrupt in which the component needing access to memory or the processor takes control for an entire machine cycle." I'm not sure that is a definition that was more widely used though, or perhaps this was a definition that changed over time? Or is this an "IBM thing"? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:30, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised that the search turned up a reference[1] to the 3705 front end processor rather than to one of the IBM documents, but the one you found is a secondary source, making it better for wiki purposes. Thanks. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:38, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "IBM 3705 Communications Controller" (PDF). Datapro Reports on Data Communications. McGraw-Hili. April 1990 [May 1987]. Retrieved April 3, 2022. Cycle-stealing is a form of interrupt in which the component needing access to memory or to the processor takes control for an entire machine cycle.

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Notice of edit warring noticeboard discussion

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Information icon Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Timhowardriley (talk) 15:22, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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“Smart quotes”

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In this discussion you mentioned that "Smart quotes" tend to break things when they get inserted in places where they are invalid. Can you expand on this? I’m not looking to pick a fight, just to understand. — HTGS (talk) 05:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@HTGS: There are many common languages in which apostrophe (') or quote (") are string delimiters but «»‘’“”‹› are invalid except when quoted in string or character values. Consider this REXX snippet:
say 'text' /* valid syntax   */
say ‘text’ /* invalid syntax */
If an editor changes the first into the second, it will break the code. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:05, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha! Thanks! — HTGS (talk) 21:53, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up Operating system

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I noticed that the archiving bot had archived some comments on Talk:Operating system, and the diff showed some comments you made about the article being too oriented towards microprocessors (and, to some extent, minicomputers).

One place that seemed particularly egregious was the "Hardware interrupts" seciton, which was not just microprocessor-oriented but, in some places, PC-compatible oriented. I just sliced it out, as that stuff might belong somewhere on Wikipedia, but not here. (I have a copy of Ubuntu for z/Architecture running on my machine, and not only is it most definitely not handling interrupts caused by applying 5v to an interrupt pin, the emulator on which it's running is running on Ubuntu for x86-64 where it's not handling interrupts caused by applying 5v to an interrupt pin, either, so I really don't consider interrupt pins a relevant detail in an article about operating systems.)

The I/O sections seem to be the main offenders; a lot of it is written based on the "minicomputer model" of I/O, with the CPU doing I/O by banging on device registers and either transferring data directly in the I/O call, transferring data in response to an interrupt, or banging on those device that cause the device to perform a DMA operation. That's the same model that most microprocessor-based systems use, although the device registers might be for a peripheral controller with a lot of its own smarts.

The abstraction presented by channel-based I/O systems is different, although it still has interrupts, so, in some ways, I suspect it's not so different that a high-level description couldn't cover both, such as "the operating system starts an I/O operation that proceeds while the CPU is doing something else; when the data from the operation has been transferred, or an error occurs, an interrupt occurs, and the operating system responds to the interrupt by doing whatever needs to be done at that point". (Well, obviously not something that vague.) It probably also needs to cover I/O that's not initiated by the CPU, such as input from terminals that can occur when there's no read posted, and network packets arriving.

Are there other parts that are overly microprocessor-oriented? Any other comments or suggestions? Guy Harris (talk) 07:01, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've also tried to dec-PCify the DMA section, and put both it and the interrupt-driven I/O section into an "Input/Output" parent section separate from the Interrupts section, as they have more to do with I/O in general than interrupts in particular.
Speaking of I/O, interrupts, etc.:
Presumably the System/360 models with separate channel controllers supported "DMA" in the sense of "data is transferred into memory without using CPU cycles", but the smaller models implemented channels using CPU microcode and data paths (I just looked through one of the Model 40 FE manuals on bitsavers, and, for example, while burst-mode I/O on a multiplexor channel is in progress, the CPU can't execute instructions, as it's busy moving data); does that count as DMA, or does that require either 1) an Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). note or 2) more discussion in that section? Guy Harris (talk) 09:39, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Guy Harris: The S/360 architecture defines channels as logically autonomous but does not specify implimentation. There were models that had outboard channels in separate boxes and smaller models that had inboard channels with channel microcode stealing cycles from the CPU, but that is a distinction that is only relevant in articles on I/O channels, not in software articles.
Yes, S/360 I/O, or most[a] channel I/O, is a special case of DMA. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Operating system#Interrupts is also a mess. First, it contains a lot details on interrupt architecture that belong in Interrupt but not in a software article, second, it conflates hardware facilities with software facilities, third it lacks a NPOV.
At one point I was making a serious effort to clean up some of the issue and got dragged into a major controversy; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Chatul reported by User:Timhowardriley and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Chatul reported by User:Timhowardriley. Right now I'm trying to find an old RS for the definition of kernell; I don't have the original papers and the library system in Virginia isn't very good. The issue is that in much IBM software there is no kernel as the term was originally defined; the Nucleus does not satisfy the classical definition. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Guy Harris: With regard to network packets, the OS does I/O to enable monitoring for incoming packets and a separate I/O to upload (download) packets to (from), e.g., 37XX running NCP, IBM 3172[1][2][3][4] running Interconnect Controller program,[5][6] OSA on IBM Z. The details of the I/O, e.g., use of seldom ending channel programs, depend on the device and the software running on the adapter. There are NCP logic manuals, but for the OSA you'd probably need to look at Hercules or Linux source code. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:56, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ I/O channels on the CDC 6600 et al lack DMA.

References

  1. ^ "IBM 3172 INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER". Announcement Letters. IBM. October 24, 1989. 189-157. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  2. ^ "IBM 3172 INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER ANNOUNCEMENT OVERVIEW". Announcement Letters. IBM. September 5, 1990. 190-150. Retrieved August 14, 2022.
  3. ^ "IBM 3172 INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER MODEL 1 ENHANCEMENTS". Announcement Letters. IBM. September 5, 1990. 190-151. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  4. ^ "IBM 3172 INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER MODEL 2". Announcement Letters. IBM. September 5, 1990. 190-152. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  5. ^ "IBM INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER PROGRAM VERSION 1.0". Announcement Letters. IBM. October 24, 1989. 289-539. Retrieved August 16, 2022.
  6. ^ "IBM 3172 INTERCONNECT CONTROLLER PROGRAM VERSION 2.0 WITH OPERATOR FACILITY". Announcement Letters. IBM. September 5, 1990. 290-565. Retrieved August 16, 2022.

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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A less flippant response

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I want to give you a less flippant response regarding your comment about tachyons. Both of your comments ignore the principle that the person asserting the existence of a hypothetical object has the burden of proof (philosophy). In other words, I am allowed to presume that tachyons do not exist since you have not provided evidence that they do exist. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:45, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Proposed deletion of Universal Character Set feature

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Tape: Volume Stacking and Partitions

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Hi Seymour: The segmenting of tape seems to be missing from Wikipedia. The little I know is that IBM introduced Volume Stacking into its OSes in the 1990s and then Partitions followed as early as 1993 but became "standard" with LTO5 and LTFS in 2010. I think the difference is that with Partitions one physical drive responds as multiple logical drives whereas in the IBM world with Volume Stacking one physical drive has multiple logical volumes. LTFS adds to the complexity. I suspect u know quite a bit more about this than I do so if you are interested I'd like to work with you on an article or the revision to one to cover this issue. If you agree, how do suggest we work this in, new article, section in existing article, ... ? Tom94022 (talk) 19:12, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any virtual tape experience and am really only aware of implementations on the mainframe side. I'd suggest a single article covering multiple logical drives on a single physical tape drive, multiple logical drives implemented in DASD and multiple logical drives implemented with a DASD cache and tapes. There's a lot of variability in both the design and nomenclature, so I'd advise keeping it general, but with examples. A search for ATL and VTL might help. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:42, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Am I correct that Volume Stacking is an IBM OSes phenomenon which allowed one physical IBM tape drive to have multiple virtual tape volumes? If so, do u know of a reference and its origin? Tom94022 (talk) 21:05, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about the PC technologies that you mentioned, but the virtual tape products that I'm familiar with involve code both within the library and in z/OS. I'm not sure whether IBM used the term stacking, but there were products that had multiple drive addresses backed up by a single cartridge. The VTL article may have some useful links. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You might find this interesting: TS7700 Introduction; sheets 5, 6 and 9 make Volume Stacking a term of the art of TS7740 as of 2010 and it implies it might have been as early as 1996 in TSS (32 Virtual Drives and 50k Logical Drives). Tom94022 (talk) 21:56, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see that they use the term. It appears that the TS7700 not only supports stacking but also a tape library; it can automatically mount a physical cartridge on a physical drive. I also see that the logical drives look like 3490E rather than like the physical drives. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Hebrew years (AM) in roman numerals?

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Are you suggesting that wiki displays jewish dates in roman numerals? Riskit 4 a biskit (talk) 18:55, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not. Are you suggesting that most American Jews are unfamiliar with Arabic numerals? Most Americans are unfamiliar with Roman numerals, and that is what I was comparing familiarity with Hebrew numerals to. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Proposed deletion of Input queue (disambiguation)

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Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Function nested scope

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Hi, I think that you correctly noticed that the original text was not quite right in that an inner can directly call itself (via recursion) and it can be called via function reference. Good find and thanks. ... I have two concerns. First, I'm not sure that closure is the right concept in this context. I think it would be function pointer/reference. Second, I think the info added is too much detail. Scope creep seems common on wikipedia. Related info is added, with the best intentions, but makes the info hard for the reader to consume. It's tiring to assimilate info, so keeping an article on topic, minimizing tangents, makes it easier for the reader to understand that topic. I think this article is already on the edge of going off topic. Much of it is about examples of features in various languages which I think is good to show the breadth of the topic. But, I don't think we should get into every nuance since it makes it hard for a reader to consume. I suggest we keep this section about scope; not recursion or function references or closure. How about we replace what you added with something like: an inner callable is hidden within the outer callable – can only be directly called by code inside the outer callable. Maybe called by name instead of directly called. Stevebroshar (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Stevebroshar: My concern is that the text be correct; if you can fix it without adding off topic information, that's desirable, and the term by name is certainly bog standard nomenclature.
When an outer block passes a procedure reference to a nested procedure, the data passed include the stack frame; doesn't that make it a special case of a closure? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I'm not sure whether that is considered a closure. I don't think so. None-the-less, I think that talking about closure in this section, about nested scope, muddles the point. ... Taking a step back, there are more aspects of good writing than being correct. A good writer tries to balance all aspects; not just strive for one. Put one way: correctness is necessary but not sufficient. Staying on topic is also important. Being gentle with the reader is another. Good organization another. These and many other aspects of writing are more subjective than objective. But, that's what good writing is. ... I can tell from your reply alone that you have talent with and are interested in writing. That's great. ... Was hoping you'd take another stab at that section, but I'll do it and you can feel free to comment or even reject it. ... what does "bog standard" mean? I assume that's s typo, but I can't guess what bog is suppose to be. Is it supposed to be 'the'? Stevebroshar (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While re-writing that section I had some thoughts. Maybe you are thinking about lambas. They can be declared within a function body, but I think that's a different concept from nested functions which I think are named functions inside other functions. ... I found a page on nested functions which I linked in the section, and I'm editing it since it's scruffy. Feel free to review my work. Stevebroshar (talk) 11:36, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Stevebroshar: I thought that lambdas were anonymous procedure declarations.
I looked at your edit and have one problem with it: not all scopes are procedure definitions. Adding an , e.g., would resolve that.
In 
FOO PROCEDURE OPTIONS(MAIN);
   DEFINE ORDINAL RANK
      (  LOW VALUEE)-1) 
         EQUAL,
         HIGH
      )  SIGNED;
   ...
   BEGIN;
      COMPARE: PROCEDURE(K1,K2) RETURNS RANK;
         ...
      END;
      CALL SORT(FOO,...,COMPARE);
   END;
      CALL SORT(FOO,...,COMPARE);   /* INVALID! */
END;
COMPARE is in a nested scope but not in a nested function. The second call to SORT is invalid because COMPARE is undefined in the outer scope.
I revised the text; should I also include the example? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:05, 25 February 2024 (UTC) -- Revised 17:09, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I like the back and forth we're having. And I think we're on a good path to keeping this article accurate, useful and readable. ... discussions in a talk page get messy fast ... I think you're writing pascal, but whatever it is, i'm less than familiar with the syntax. Anyway, I think COMPARE is a reference to a lambda. The lambda has no name, but is accessible via the variable COMPARE. I am pretty sure that a lambda is not what folks mean by nested function (aka procedure). I think to be a nested function, it has to be declared like a function ... which is subtly yet significantly different than lambda syntax. But that is neither here nor there WRT the block scoping you are talking about. I don't know whether that language supports a nested function inside of a block inside of a function body ... and if it does whether it is scoped to the block. But, that would all make sense to me if it did. Thing is, for this article, that's too much detail; down a rabbit hole; off topic ... IMO. So, I did find a page on nested functions. I added a link to it in the section of Function that we're working on. If you want to get into more detail, I think you should do it there. ... I did a major edit on that page already for wording, clarity and organization. ... I do think it's important to clearly say that a lambda is not a nested function. I think they are two different technologies that are easily confused. ... You're talk of closures apparently does apply to nested functions (as described in the nested function page). It is a rather advanced topic, but does makes sense to include in that page. ... I don't think we need an example on the Function page since there is a page for nested function. Please review examples on the Nested Function page and add details there that you think are missing ... as for the particulars of your edits mostly you have a different style than I do which is OK, but you must realize that style changes without substance tend to be annoying. You seem to like 'e.g' whereas I prefer 'like' or 'such as'. You seem to like comma instead of dash. You like to order a list alphabetically whereas I like to order it by relevance. ... I think adding 'and defining' adds confusion. Declaring and defining are different, but confusing even to me. You are right that a nested function is declared and defined inside of a function body, but it seem sufficient to say defined (I think defined is better choice than declared in this context). ... To say something is declared in a function body implies that it may be declared in a sub-block of that function body block. That is how blocks work, right? No need to go down that rabbit hole IMO. ... How about this: Some languages, e.g. Ada, Pascal, PL/I, and Python, support declaring a function inside a function body such that the name of the inner is only visible within the body of the outer. Stevebroshar (talk) 17:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The language is PL/I, and SORT is not a lambda because it is not anonymous. In PL/I, a PROCEDURE statement defines a function or a subroutine and must have a label; the matching END statement terminates the scope. A BEGIN statement heads a nested inline scope and is also terminated with an END; functions declared in the BEGIN/END block are not visible outside of it, although they may be passed as ENTRY arguments.. PL/I also has the type ENTRY for procedure variables, but that's not needed in the example unless you want to show the definition of the SORT procedure.
The reason that I added e.g. is that a BEGIN/END block is a nested scope but is neither a function nor a subroutine.
I would say that a lambda is a nested anonymous function, at least in a language with a simple control stack. If the language allows a closure to persist beyond the lifetime of the block that created it then things get more complicated.
If you prefer to avoid Latin abbreviations that's fine; I had to rework the sentence regardless and threw in that change from habbit. The same applies to issues of commas versus parentheses. As long as the content is correct I'll be happy. But any wording that excludes scopes that are not callable is incorrect, and from your previous comment I was tring to avoid providing TMI.
BTW, PL/I also has an inline DO/END block, but the code within does not have a nested scope. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:16, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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IETF template

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Hi, if you look at Template:Cite_IETF you'll see that |sectionlink= isn't a standard parameter and that just having |section= filled adds a link to the correct section in the source, so you don't need a redundant entry. ~ฅ(ↀωↀ=)neko-channyan 16:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

?
I see in Template:Cite IETF that |section-url= is valid, although I also see in Template:Cite IETF#URL anchor generation that it is unnecessary. Thanks. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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