z10 presentation on 26 Feb
Going to be more fun, I suspect, than many realise. There are n new instructions? Some have mentioned 50. Will it still be 'z/Architecture'? z/Architecture is the subject of litigation - does IBM wish to include the new stuff in that - changing the effective meaning of the expression halfway through a lawsuit? Or, indeed, _can_ they? Some think not. There are those who believe that any extension of z/Architecture (which this will de facto be) could invalidate at least one and possibly two of the main planks in IBM's case against PSI. There is a LOT going on behind the scenes. Another z10 source: http://topgun-tech.com/resource-center/zseries-library/articles/marketplace-trends-ibm-zseries And you may care to check out the definition of NDA at http://www.isham-research.co.uk/dd.html -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
2097?
I'm glad I didn't post this - I'm a bit bored with having my throat jumped down. First of all, some systems are soft. Flex-ES and Hercules could be trivially modded to store such values. Secondly, even if '2097' were the designator of some future IBM system, it doesn't follow that this is a real one - it might easily be a current or earlier generation patched in microcode to see what the software does. Life would become _exceedingly_ interesting if either PSI or T3 (or both) applied for an injunction to prevent IBM from changing its product lineup until the outstanding legal issues are resolved. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
In the UK and outsourced to India?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7219781.stm Giggle. Snort. LOL! -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Hey, it's Friday!
No wonder it's so freakin' hard to recruit new blood with miserable curmudgeons like this around. What happened to the community that deveoped SCIDS, and paddles, and the Guide Goodie Tape almost three decades before Open Source was invented? I feel like I'm watching an episode of http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onefootinthegrave/index.shtml And I'm ashamed. I know the population of mainframe sysprogs is ageing, but to get as grumpy as this ... The list falling into disrepute? GMAB. Where? When? Show me _ONE_ external reference. WAY more strict? Must be either Webmaster World or the Trappists. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Another bite at the cherry
T3 Technologies' application to intervene in the IBM vs PSI case has brought a new development - it has essentially given IBM an opportunity to restate its Amended Complaint all over again. A first viewing creates the impression of: c /PSI/PSI and T3/ But that's an oversimplification and there are some interesting twists. I can't spend time on preparing it in a more digestable manner until Thursday/Friday, but if anyone wants to read the raw PDF that IBM filed: http://www.isham-research.co.uk/IBM2ndAmendedComplaint.pdf (You would imagine that the current availability of their previous output in machine-readable - HTML - form on the Internet might have persuaded the TinyBrains that making the PDF text non-selectable wasn't working - but no, they've done it again. And so will I.) -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
NDAs (was New Opcodes)
The traditional way to tell if it's really good stuff if if the presentation is given by a diferent team and your usual IBM people are asked to leave the room. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
New Opcodes
New opcodes aren't something I worry too much about - I managed to solve quite a few business problems with System/360. Now old opcodes - I hope they all stick around. The terminology used in the PDF file is interesting: 50+ instructions added to improve compiled code efficiency. It almost sounds like these will be unpublished instructions foro use exclusively by IBM's compilers. Down at metal level it's quite a different architecture. I wouldn't be surprised to see some object code optimized a little with special instructions. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
New Mainframes coming in February
IBM has announced the new generation at the top of its range ever since the 370/165. This time, it has been suggested, large and small might come closer together than has been normal - perhaps a half year gap. What interests me is the physical granularity. Will the new packaging allow the production of genuinely smaller machines with low prices accompanied by lower productionn costs and thus more profit and interest by IBM - as distinct from knee-capped versions of larger machines with high production costs? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
New Mainframes coming in February
The announcement in February is scarcely news. I predicted 'late 2007 or early 2008' back in June 2005 ( http://www.isham-research.co.uk/mainframe_2008.html ) and the dates have only firmed up since then. Shipment in 1Q is a mild surprise - I was expecting April. Whilst I happily accept the overall performance claims, I'll be interested to see variations between workloads. The LSPR guys have likely been having a fun time. And it's the small ones that will really be interesting. Let's see what the physical granularity is like. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Worst Predictions of All Time
Sorry - can't less this pass. I've got it wrong a few times. The ones that embarrass me the most: a) MacDonalds opening in Germany. Germany has a long history of family-friendly eateries, mostly Italian-themed, but many Greek etc., mostly offering quite high quality food at very reasonable prices. I though MacDonalds' garbage would stand no chance - but they went for the kids. b) GSM text messaging. I got a Nokia 1011 within days of GSM going live in Europe. 160 byte messages sent clumsily by multiple key depressions? Get outa here! And an estimated 43,000,000,000 were sent this last New Year's Eve alone. Yup - all those noughts belong there - forty-three US billion. (Spread over the whole day, that's 50,000 a second. Just under half passing through one message centre. You thought your mainframe had throughput?) The great thing about Gartner is they believe everything. It doesn't matter what strategy you espouse, you will find a Gartner Research Service that will back you up. And such a company cannot be wrong, can it? I've had several recruitment run-ins with Gartner. I know several of the mainframe guys quite well. Why not? In the first place, they work them far too hard. At my time of life, the schedule is quite punishing. Secondly, the sales content of even a lead analyst job is very high - they spend around 60% of their time selling. A Gartner analyst who visits you and leaves without an additional signature will get ROASTED back at the office. And - thirdly - you have to support the 'corporate view'. This is bizarrely influenced, and every time I've come up against it I've found it impossible. And the last hurdle is that you effectively have to be 'voted in' by the incumbent team. Somehow, that never happened. Giggle. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
OT: IBM gives ITANIUM five yearss to live
I questioned PSI's choice of Itanium in the very first PSI analysis I did: http://www.isham-research.co.uk/platslns.html Now that discovery in the court case has blown away some of the mist and smoke, we can see the game plan. It was impossible for PSI to build a support structure like the old PCMs had - there just isn't enough gross margin in the market, perhaps by an order of magnitude. Fundamental (via T3 and CSI - and originally Intelliware) used IBM Business Partners and sold Flex-ES mostly on IBM hardware. It was obvious right from the start that this route wasn't ever going to be available to PSI. Competing for the partner as well as for the customer? HP was the only company in the enterprise market with a suitable support structure. And it seems the guys at PSI wanted to get rich quick by talking up the product and market, and then selling to HP at what I can only describe as a ludicrous valuation. The lawsuit gave HP cold feet - and the loss of HP caused a major problem. Itanium is fundamentally an HP design - Intel is merely the foundry and Itanium has virtually no role to play in any Intel roadmap. But PSI was up a gum tree with its code dependency on Itanium - so it went to NEC. A good product, but a very different support model. HP is on every street corner in Europe - in Germany, for example, there is only one main NEC office. When PSI lost HP, it lost a LOT more than the hardware platform. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
loose vs. lose
Utilization is the correct spelling of the noun derived from the verb to utilize. In British as well as American English. There is no 'utilise' in the Oxford English Dictionary, although it notes -ise as an alternative ending. This was a plot feature in one of the Inspector Morse stories, with Morse differentiating between an 'educated' and an 'uneducated' man by their correct use of -ize on a number of English words that are spelt that way. There is no universal -ise is British English and -ize is American English' rule. Similarly several British English -ise words take a z in the noun form. Oddly enough, the alternate spelling 'utilise' is one of them. Time, perhaps, for the OED to be updated. 'Utilisation' appears in Google ten times as often as the (correct) 'utilization'. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
It keeps getting uglier
I understand certain invitations are about to be issued. They won't have crinkly edges, engraved lettering and gold blocking, though. I think Americans call them 'subpoenas'. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
VTOC Fmt6 (just curious)
For around 18 months I supported a card input validation suite that ran on a 24KB 360/25. The backup system was a 360/50 under OS/360 MFT. The code was all written quite deliberately with this compatibility in mind, and it actually wasn't hard. The DOS system used split cylinders on 2311s and the OS system was file compatible - if the /25 died (which I don't think it ever did, but the building power did on many occasions) the pack was carted up to the /360. We noticed that formatting this full-pack split cylinder dataset took AGES under OS/360. It turned out that the /25 DOS system was stripped down as a single user system and the file masks permitted all seeks within a cylinder - even to the other dataset. The /50 set a file mask to inhibit all seeks - thus each track format cost two revolutions. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
SEMI off topic
Few realise the PCM mainframe industry was not only controlled from Japan, but that they also had a strategy and defined routes to market. NEC was told to enter joint ventures. Fujitsu to take a large equity share in the companies it dealt with (not just Amdahl - 419 companies in total) and Hitachi was told to stay in Japan and use dealerships abroad. This explains a lot of the major design differences. Alone among the three Hitachi had no control over site preparation, etc., so right from the S6 (AS/6 from Itel, AS/7000 from NAS) every machine was powered via motor-generators. The S6 would survive a complete 0.6 second brownout, the S8 (AS/9000) 0.8 seconds. Amdahl used similar technology, but bought them mostly from Pillar. I had a customer in Aßlar, near Wetzlar - RZ Schulte. They were plagued by CPU outages caused by lightning strikes to the transmission lines in the hills. I recommended an S6 because of its built-in motor generators. About six months after installation, I sa a massive thundrestorm pass over his area - our Frankfurt office was on the ninth floor. The phone rang. 'Payne' 'HERR PAYNE - HIER IST SCHULTE!' 'Ja, Herr Schulte. How are you?' 'HERR PAYNE, WHEN I BOUGHT THIS MACHINE YOU PROMISED ME IT WOULD NOT FAIL BECAUSE OF LIGHTNING STRIKES!' 'True, Herr Schulte.' 'WELL, IT HASN'T! BUT EVERYTHING ELSE HAS!' I heard later he made the call from a darkened data centre, with every single piece of equipment silent except the quietly humming CPU asking where its disks had gone. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM LCS
BM LCS was 8 microseconds, not 8ms. As was AMPEX's first product - about the size of a 2821 or perhaps a little longer, with a stripe of pale lights down the middle of a long side. Data chaining was an absolute no-no - sometimes even command chaining broke. It didn't like 2305s and I think _all_ DASD opens got buffers and built CCW chains in H0. CDC also made a storage product that pretended to be LCS but cycled at the processor's 750ns. It also fitted under the console reading board. We had one of each (Ford of Europe). Got some weird results from the charging algoritm. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
VTOC Fmt6 (just curious)
Release of OS - I can guarantee doing it under 18.6 because that's what we ran at the time we started and for quite a while - we skipped 19. I have a funny feeling there was a downward compatibility problem. Bear in mind it's nearly 40 years. MFT would certainly create the split cylinder files and the format programme (it wa sa weird interlinked structure) would run, but DOS didn't like the results. ISTR we restored (essentially) a DOS VTOC to the pack and then formatted with the application tool. Possibly one of the Herculeans could comment - I think there are a few with OS/360 running. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
JCL parms
.. I wonder how Phil moved the PARM .. I've long since forgotten. One thing I _do_ know - it wouldn't have been with EXECUTE. It was banned in the installation standards manual. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
z/OS and VM Control Blocks
Every now and then the status quo _needs_ to be upset. In the mid-80s I joined Morino Associates and discovered their incredible engine - the Component Generator. Anyone passed the legendary five-day MICS User Adminstrator Course? Back then, Mario himself had to grant instructors' licenses, and I was the first one certified by him in two languages. XML would be an excellent and platform-independent way to build something analogous to the Component Generator for live in-storage facilities. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
z/OS and VM Control Blocks
We have interesting technologies available. It would be relatively trivial to devise an XML Schema that would support fields by name, with attributes including the control block in which they resided, their offsets, means of access of the control block, field characteristics, etc. It's the sort of thing that, e.g., the Hercules group would be well suited for. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM Hardware Group in Big Restructuring
Parrots and perches. Once I see a senior manager without a box target I'll start to believe it. IBM's legal challenge to PSI has frozen PSI's business. IBM _may_ have intended to run PSI's money out, but after the third financing round and Microsoft's entry any such hope will have vapourized - Microosft can easily afford to keep the case going for years using the coffee machine budget. But, of course, IBM has also frozen its own business. An obvious consequence of the action, but one they may have planned to be short-lived. And now it isn't. So - with the case ongoing - what and how can they change without implicit admissions that some things they were doing were questionable? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
JCL parms
Tom and Rick's comments about moving the PARM. There was once a reason, but I've forgotten it. One of the first things I did when I learnt to write Assembler macros was to write my own initialisation and termination macros, making more use of the save area chain conventions than IBM's equivalents did. One thing it did was a GETMAIN for the parm length and a move - and there was at that time a solid recommendation to do that. Thing is - I can't remember why. The only possible suggestion I can come up with, but feel free to shoot it down. Under the PCP option of OS/360, the parm field was not protected from write access by the program. Under the MFT option, it was. Is this a PCP-MFT compatibility issue? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
It keeps getting uglier
There is no need to speculate on the 1956 Consent Decree - its status and both parties' opinions of it are documented in the filings. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. See http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm-vs-psi-amended.html and use your browser's search to find 'Consent Decree'. Note especially the extract PSI quotes at 50: If, after the Decree terminates, IBM engages in any activity that would violate the antitrust laws, it would be immediately liable to suit. I was surprised to find these still online: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E7D81E3AF937A25755C0A962958260 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE6DC143BF93BA25752C0A963958260 This is turning into a very complex issue, because PSI claims IBM did and IBM claims it didn't, but even if it had it would be protected by alleged transgressions on PSI's part. Some people are saying the latter protection might be a defense against some antitrust activity but not in every case. And then in the EU there seems to be no such defense at all, but also no automatic right to reimpose the 1984 Undertaking.. One thing no one seems to have suggested yet, and I'm not sure how useful it will prove: Some agencies (governments, defence departments, etc.) require vendors to supply FULL documentationn on any products delivered. IMO that would include the trade secret stuff. Someone needs to find a jurisdiction where this rule is completely enforced _and_ where there's a strong local Freedom of Information Act. Than ask for a copy. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
It keeps getting uglier
http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm-vs-psi-amended.html amended again. I also understand Sam Palmisano might be asked (!) to make a deposition to the Court in the next couple of weeks. Although it looks like these cases take months longer than they should, it's actually a pretty frenetic process and a lot of people are really paying attention. I _really_ think that IBM's eighth (amended version of complaint) deserves hugely wider discussion. If a software vendor is permitted to prevent execution of software under emulation via its license agreements, all future architecture transitions - on all platforms - may become very difficult. As regards the soon-to-expire copies of Flex-ES - their users might have claims of promissory estoppel - only a lawyer could tell them, but a 'class action' style of intervention in the IBM/PSI case could be considered. Maybe the ISVs should temporarily bury the hatchet and share T3's costs. I'm sorry the following is in German, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere in English at this level: http://www.sva.de/files/RZ_SVA%20z%20Hosting_web.pdf This is the first example I've seen of a hosting service designed specifically for ISVs. Other, that is, than IBM's - and some ISVs may have concerns about hosting their development on an IBM site. SVA have a 2-CP z990 - the sketch in the PDF document is pretty self-explanatory. SVA is a _very_ well-respected company - I've known Felix for years and you won't find anyone with a bad word for him. The company is largely (entirely?) staffed by techies who understand real world problems. For customers with Flex-ES systems additional special incentives are offered. I think SVA was the largest Flex-ES dealership in Germany by a very large margin. zPDT has been rumoured for at least four years and possibly more. Given the access to IBM intneral stuff the team should have had, this seems a long time. The 'old' PCMs had machine-readable (think Backus Naur on steroids) definitions of the architecture. Any new feature was simply encoded and the CAD system rerun to generate a new chip design. From discussions I had, I believe Hitachi was quite some way ahead of everyone else. What now seems to be emerging as zPDT seems to have started in Böblingen, at one time a true hotbed of Hercules use within IBM. Böblingen was always interested because it was the home of VSE, which was highly dependent on small mainframes and thus neglected by PoK. The Germans took this almost as a national insult, given the size of the VSE installed base in Germany. Then - for a while, about three years ago - came the story that [zPDT] had been outsourced to India. And not even IBM India. And then about a year and a half ago, a story of a grab by PoK. That may have happened as part of the preparations for this daft lawsuit. One [highly unsubstantiated and dubious] report suggests zPDT is not a JIT emulator but more of an interpreter. To pick up on Warner's point (4) about IBM not wanting to produce a low-end emulated-on-Intel system - they did. It was called the xSeries 430 Enabled For System/390 and it bombed. http://www.isham-research.co.uk/numaq.html A fully enabled and licensed Flex-ES system can literally run anything ever supported on an IBM mainframe. ECPS:VSE? And there's other stuff - networking, printer emulation, FakeTape, etc. Every time I ask these questions about zPDT, I just get embarrassed smirks. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Use of TinyURLs - Unnecessary?
The text of my 'curt' response to Ed: One missing 'w' which someone else pointed out within minutes? I'd hate to see you debugging JCL. And I really don't think a missing 'w' is 'badly mangled'. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
It keeps getting uglier
With the caveat that any new competition that enters the market would trigger a renewed round of privacy for any future improvements. Rather like establishing and publishing a checkpoint. Who's going to enter a market that they know they'll be thrown out of ? The VCs wouldn't think of supporting such a company. And PSI has already burnt around ten times what UMX or Fundamental burnt. Eating shoe leather (not my expression) is what they _haven't_ been doing. At the end of a working day, 3/4s of Fundamental's staff go home in the same car. Look at PSI's run rate, even without the lawyers. Rebuilding Amdahl with the air conditioning but without the revenue. IBM has pretty much replaced its architecture in the first couple of years of each decade - System/370, XA, ESA, zArchitecture. Very roughly once per decade. Next one due after z6 - 2012?. Memory sharing with Intel IA64 processors? It took the old PCMs _years_ to get established. More recently look at how long it took Fundamental - and they were using IBM's hardware and IBM's VAR chain. Seven years? Does NOT happen overnight. Hell, even working COMPLETELY within IBM, it took nearly a year to get xSeries 430 EFS TsCs agreed. 4.5 years now to run to zFuture? If z/Architecture were completely released now, PSI _might_ have a 30 month window. And that's assuming they can execute - I don't see that from their company structure, which I strongly suspect was built around the idea of doing an IPO/sale and leaving the sales/marketing to others. The loss of HP was a total disaster for PSI. HP is on every street corner in Europe - NEC has _nothing_ _like_ the dealer or support structure. It's pretty close to one office per country. PSI can't, like Fundamental did, use IBM's dealer chain - which adds to the complexity because it will need to use them to dispose of the hardware it displaces and also supply ancilliaries. Putting together a reseller chain in Europe would be several times as difficult as doing the same for Fundamental - not least because the number of target sites has halved, as had the number of potential partners. Plus the Intel processors will be unknowns for performance purposes. Things got a whole lot easier for Fundamental once I persuaded its partners to use xSeries platforms. The EU case changes a few things. I don't think there's a doctrine of unclean hands in EU law. The trade secrets business might just evaporate. I know several Amdahlers who said they were hacked off at having to sign TIDA/TILA because they'd reverse engineered most of it anyway. If PSI is right and you just have to know where to look (source for Hercules, source for z/Linux,etc.) then it's not an issue. There is no secrecy regarding patents - the whole point is to publish the discovery so you can claim it. Reading patents, of course, is dangerous and most lawyers recommend against it. Closing roads to keep them private? Yup - common in the UK. There's at least one road locally that levies a toll of 1p per person passing on Maundy Thursday. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
It keeps getting uglier
PSI has also filed its anti-trust suit in the EU. Dearly beloved DG IV is a little different from the New York District Court - it has teeth that it's not afraid to use. http://ww.isham-research.co.uk/ibm-vs-psi-amended.html Has anyone from the Hercules team read IBM's rather stunning admission (on the above page - paragraph 176) that there is a confidential version of the PoP? Their words, not mine. And linked this to IBM's commitments under the 1984 EEC Undertaking? Read the words VERY carefully. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
CPU groups
IBM never defined Group 110 or Group 120. As far as I'm aware, there were never any submissions. It did - for a short period - define Group 90 and Group 100; these were rapidly replaced by IMLC after someone in IBM hit someone else in IBM over the head with a shovel because both groups were a tacit admission that another vendor had Top Gun. 110 and 120, as far as I remember, came from the febrile imaginations of CA and SAS in Europe only. I remember having a long discussion (two decades ago???) with one Rosemary Pyne at CA about this. One of Amdahl's better lawyers (Simon Awde) threatened to sue and they believed him. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Mainframe Assembler Coding Contest
.. BCTR Rx,0 .. I've had conversations with processor designers at both Amdahl and IBM. The general idea is that a BCTR that cannot be taken (target register = 0) is recognized as a special form of BCTR and has been, in fact, since the 360/85. And a BCTR or BCT with a non-zero target is always assumed taken, although with modern pipelines it doesn't matter because multiple paths are followed. Exactly how many is a commercial secret. These guys get up to stunts it's hard to believe. In-flight register renaming has been with us for three decades or so. The last time I hand-coded and tuned a loop for an IBM mainframe was a Fibonacci-based parts lookup for Ford in about 1974. And apropos of nothing at all, except that it's nearly Friday ... http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm-vs-psi-amended.html now contains all the filings. Comments, hypertext links to other sources, etc., will be added between now and January. Depending on the court's reaction to T3's motion, I might have to integrate that in some way. This thing is BIG - well over 300KB and 140-odd pages when printed. Comments, public and private, welcome. And I thought IBM was bad at communications. But getting any sort of confirmation about Microsoft's contribution to PSI's C financing round and/or the status of the reciprocal marketing agreement out of Microsoft is like pulling teeth. From http://www.isham-research.co.uk/images/teeth.jpg But it sure would be nice to know if Microsoft intends selling PSI's box. PSI creates that impression and many reporters have picked up on it - but I'd rather hear it from the Vole. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Mainframe Assembler Coding Contest
Not my day. The 404 is fixed. And after slagging off the Vole, I just got this from a Microsoft spokesperson: We believe Platform Solutions, Inc. is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between legacy mainframe computing and 21st century server technology in today's enterprise environment. We've decided to join the current round of investment funding and enter into a collaborative sales and marketing agreement with PSI because of the benefits we believe PSI offers to enterprise customers trying to manage data in mixed mainframe and server environments. So there we go. The Vole is in the frame. Oooops. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Share registration
I nearly fell off my chair when I read the thread title. Please capitalize SHARE properly. I bet there's someone else here had the same reaction. Memories of IBM's 2651 Paper Tape Reader with its feed and takeup mechanisms removed for speed, spooling foot-diameter rolls of paper tape into a wheelie bin to be wound back on the roll by hand. When it stopped you made a little hook in the end of the tape, hooked it on the side of the bin, and rolled it away to Control Section to be wound back. And sometime just a little 2 strip of tape - all that setup for a burp of 15 bytes. And woe betide anyone who got in the way of the operator. The someone else mentioned above managed it, though - they've now got grandchildren. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Open z/Architecture or Not
Belated birthday greetings. Hmm. I grant you that untrammeled access to source code _can_ result in disasters. But - IMO - user access to source code made ASP/JES3 (thanks, e.g., to Rolls-Royce and Rank Xerox) and many other products into what they are today. Would JES2/MAS have been available that early if it hadn't been for Mellon Bank? And the Open Source community has developed disciplines that deal with the exposure. I certainly wouldn't suggest that Open Source software isn't industrial strength. Back when you and I started, there were perhaps 10,000 computers in the world capable of running a compiler. Now there are probably hundreds of millions. That's a huge 'cloud' of potentially competent programmers - if one in a million has a bright idea. that's hundreds of ideas. But they won't be having them in the z/OS enviroment. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly
I can guess who suggested this ... Bet you can't. Entirely internal to Amdahl - remember I worked there seven years and had Amdahl as a client for another eight. Looks like PSI have already spotted this angle ... I posted that reference yesterday evening - do at least try to keep up. The fun starts if PSI is right. If the information is indeed there, how did it get there? And who is IBM going to ask? There's a significant chance of Hercules being drawn into discovery. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly
Hmmm. Well, first of all, T3 isn't suing anyone. Not yet, anyway. If its motion is granted on 11 January ... And it was IBM that started the whole business. Secondly, appealing to Sam Palmisano is a complete waste of time. An IBM CEO very rarely interferes with a strategy already agreed with a subordinate, and in my judgement SP is even less likely to do so than most. One reason - and far from the only one - is that the executive(s) actually in charge of zSeries are already executing against an agreed plan and messing with it mid-flight would give them an excuse opportunity. More than most, he has a reputation as a numbers man. Thirdly, there's no business case. Fourthly, I would avoid ALL references to Hercules in any message to IBM. IBM has already formally stated its position. Making it MUCH worse is PSI's response to paragraph 34 of IBM's Amended Complaint, identifying Hercules as a source of information that IBM alleges to be trade secret. Paragraphs 38ff are crucial - it has been suggested that these diagnostics, and especially Amdahl's architecture validator, were the route by which TIDA/TILA information got into Hercules and thence to both UMX and PSI. Given that PSI has asserted as part of its defence that this information is in Hercules, it would not surprise me one jot if IBM decided to inquire more closely now as to how it got there. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Microsoft and T3 backing PSI
The Register has now picked up the story. http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/11/29/t3_wants_piece_of_psi_lawsuit/ I've collected the court filings together by date - they're linked from http://www.isham-research.co.uk/t3t_vs_ibm.html The date for T3's motion to be heard may be 10 January 2008. There are little hints (e.g., in T3's Memorandum, para 2 of Background) that suggest T3 and PSI were perhaps planning to partition the market - T3 below 350 MIPS and PSI above. IBM's 17 August amended claim is heavily redacted, but PSI's responses to some of the redacted points give clues about the content of the redacted paragraphs. Not good news for the Hercules crowd if IBM wins some of the points. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM preannounces next IBMLink failure
I can only dimly remember planned outages. In my capacity as Customer Services Marketing Manager in Amdahl UK, one of the metrics I had to deal with was MTBUI - Mean Time Between Unscheduled Interruptions. It was essentially downtime with scheduled maintenance factored out - a planned two-hour slot didn't count as downtime unless it overran, and then an MTBUI incident was recognized and the clock started ticking. But as long ago as 1990 - some might say before - it became quite evident that customers were simply not able to take systems down for scheduled maintenance. A processor, a storage bank, a channel group - maybe. And it wasn't just Amdahl customers - we shared most installations with at least one other supplier and it was the same for them. Indeed, as long ago as 1979, I remember Eternit swapping MVS releases and providing continuous RJE service (and pretty continuous TSO) using shared spool. That's nearly three decades. I can't think of another supplier who has outages like this. My personal systems are set up for automatic virus definition updates, automatic Microsoft patches, etc., and they never fail. I'd love to see someone try to sell a mobile phone with the caveat that it can't be used between 03:00 and 04:00 on Sundays because the network goes down for maintenance. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Microsoft and T3 backing PSI
El Reg has caught up with what I commented on obliquely yesterday in the Sam Palmisano thread: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/28/microsoft_funds_psi/ There has been speculation (some from me) about whether PSI had the funding to go the distance with IBM on this. IBM has legendarily deep pockets. But to Microsoft, $27 million is a rounding error. T3's Notice of Motion to Intervene as Counterclaim-Plaintiff broadens things further, since T3 has additional complaints and may have an additional jurisdiction. If anyone's mad keen (and you would HAVE to be) to read T3's filing, it's at http://ww.isham-research.co.uk/t3t-3.pdf - but be warned, it's 1.8MB. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Microsoft and T3 backing PSI
Sorry - missed out a wubble-u http://www.isham-research.co.uk/t3t-3.pdf -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Archives for IBM-MAIN
Interesting that the CMG is actively removing its older material: http://www.cmg.org/robots.txt -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
iPhone
Well, it looks like the dratted, overhyped, overpriced, underspecified and downright pedestrian contraption might have its uses after all. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21919098/ I though I was familiar with the Kartellgesetz, but it seems not familiar enough. What surprised me was the apparent ease with which Vodafone got its Unterlassungsklage through the court, given that Apple just HAS to fail the 'dominant provider' test in the mobile phone market. If the dominance test can fail for Apple in the mobile phone market, it can also fail for IBM in the IT market. Since one of PSI's complaints against IBM is of tying the use of z/OS to the purchase of IBM hardware, perhaps one of their lawyers should nip over to Hamburg and have a chat with a suitably qualified Rechtsanwalt? (I could suggest a couple of names, if pressed.) And the squirrels are at it again: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071120/D8T1CBTG0.html And I notice my offer of z6 Performance and Pricing Predictions at UK GSE hasn't been taken up. I wonder why? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
UK - GSE Large Systems Meeting Announcement and call for papers
Giggle. z6 Performance and Pricing Predictions? Yeah, rght! Anyone fancy forming a _really_ _independent_ user group? You can surely depend on me. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Even got the capitalization right!!!
You missed the real cause of my jubilation - that I got the capitalization right almost 2 1/4 years ago. The IT Jungle story still doesn't manage it. But an invitation IBM recently sent to analysts says ... the eClipz processor ... YES!!! You wouldn't believe how much time was spent on that. You sometimes have to wring clues out of the thinnest information, and the capitalization of a mnemonic can be a major clue to the importance of its components. The IT Jungle piece seems to be a combination of four sources, three of which were reasonable. One was mine, and one was one derived from mine. It's a bit like analysing a commentary on the synoptic Gospels. He's not quite right on many details, but the crucial one is the discrepancy between the z9 --- z6 native cycle time improvement and the delivered grunt of around +50%. That means this machine works differently. Not worse, not better - differently. And I don't think he understands decimal arithmetic. Money math. The greatest strength of System/360 even at launch - how does he think it got where it got? ZAP was and is a wonderful instruction, if you were used to what went before. The piece is overcrowded with numbers. Speeds and feeds. What matters is what comes out the back - I've long since stopped caring how it's done. I lack the qualifications to judge design decisions like cache sizes - if you see the guys that make these decisions working, you leave the room with your head spinning. Serious, serious math. Sometimes it gets funny. 1,199 signal pins and a total of 8,765 pins. So what do the other 7,566 pins do? Knit? As I've said here before, I believe it would be a good idea to prepare for some turbulence - similar to but greater in magnitude than the issues we got with the 128 byte cache lines. I'm really not that happy with the implied reduction in SMP factors. I've heard the opposite in some rumours. As I've also said, I do not doubt for one second that IBM will meet the overall box performance target. But I think it would be very prudent to ensure that you can support performance measurements at fine granularity - transaction level, subroutine level - very rapidly if asked to do so. Who markets Strobe these days? Stick a few bucks in the stock. Again, it's the old law that the grumblings of one unhappy user can drown the cheers of 99 happy ones - except this time I'd expect two unhappy users. I don't buy the z9 sales affected by z6 leaks angle. In the first place, there have been no substantive leaks. And in the second, the z9 is very much a known quantity and the safe bet. I would not be at all surprised to see z9 sales pick up slightly in 2008Q1. Anyway, next week Charles Webb is going to read his PDF to those analysts too stupid to have found it for themselves. Which is quite a few. I won't be taking part - the bit I miss most is the QA at the end where each analyst spends the first 75% of their allotted question time gushing to the executives. I mean. wow, I'd just like to say how wonderful this is for our customers ... Get OUTAH HERE, you moron! Anyone with a brain has known this stuff for two years! You frankly wouldn't believe it. Hi, I'm so-and-so from household-name. And then the dumbest question you've ever heard. I'm sometimes amazed that you can't hear the executives smirking when they answer. On at least one occasion a few years back a question was asked directly of an executive - there was a slightly muffled noise and the facilitator came back with: Well, I'll ask xyz to answer that one instead. I strongly suspect the original target was rolling on the floor with several colleagues sitting on him, trying to stifle his paroxisms of laughter. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
High order bit in 31/24 bit address
From a Hasselblad brochure: The Hasselblad 6 x 6 cm ( 2 1/4 x 2 1/4) square format uses size 120 film and the square format eliminates the need to turn the camera sideways for landscape or portrait. It's very nearly Friday now. I travel very frequently from Sheffield Midland Station with a HUGE toolbox on wheels. Around 150kg. So I use the lifts. Around a year ago I was in a real hurry. When I bought my ticket, there was a blind woman at the same counter aiming for the same train. The station staff (knowing I would have to use the lift system) asked if I would guide her to the train. Sheffield station is almost all glass and 200% CCTV covered - no issue. So I took her to the lift and up we went. Small talk - I said that all of the controls had Braille superscripts. She reached out, slid a finger along one, and burst into paroxisms of laughter that made it hard to get her to the train. She didn't say why. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Even got the capitalization right!!!
YES!! http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.isham-research.co.uk/mainframe_2008.html Check out the capitalization in the second paragraph. Posted in July 2005 - OVER TWO YEARS AGO - and as accurate today as the day it was written. Anyone still subscribing to Gartner? Why? You'll all hear more about this on the 16th. http://www.isham-research.co.uk/dd.html#nda Two years late. Why now - so early? Because 2007Q4 sucks large rocks through small straws. IBM is hurting. Key question - is this a transient phenomenon or the true end of the mainframe? I'd have thought at least one more generation viable (zFuture) but the economic environment and IBM's FLEX-ES stupidity ... They just won't admit the flight of ISVs. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
High order bit in 31/24 bit address
I'm tempted to agree about the stack - for the last quarter-century my calculator of choice (and it's right here now) has been a HP41CV. Back then, though, IBM perceived the lack of a stack as a marketing _adantage_. The competition (Burroughs, CDC, ICL) was all stack-based. The previous generations of machine in the UK market that IBM was trying to address - e.g., the KDF9 - were also stack machines. You can turn any feature or the lack of a feature into a benefit with enough marketing. Look at the inanity surrounding the very ordinary iPhone. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Bruce Black passed away
I suspect he'll go on answering questions from the archives for some time to come. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
High order bit in 31/24 bit address
It wasn't in the PoP - it was in the back of the Functional Characteristics manual for the 360/67. There was a note that addresses in the upper half of a 32-bit address space might appear negative because of the sign bit causing address comparisons to be reversed. In 32-bit mode, LA loaded 32 bits. I had a word with Gene Amdahl about it once - he said the word 'algebraic' in the BXLE/BXH definition was the biggest mistake in the /360 design and the ultimate reason XA was only 31-bit. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM Confidential
In some cases we had flight numbers. So with moderate effort you could reproduce the list of attendees. Giggle. I'd forgotten this bit until I got an email today. Hi, Peter - hope the fish are OK. The Connaught and the Hilton (for that was where IBM met) shared a courtesy bus from Dublin airport. We didn't realise this until some people were already in the air, so we had to book a few cab companies to aggressively find and scrape away our people from the arriving flight before IBM saw any of them. He he. I have it on very good authority that a number of IBMers passed a cab driver holdng up a sign saying: Phil Payne - Amdahl without turning a hair. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM Confidential
By the z6 stuff are you referring to materials about or related to z6 marked IBM Confidential? (The z6 chip information from Charles Webb is not confidential. An unusual step for IBM, yes, but not confidential.) 17. And it's not at all an unusual step for IBM, which has the most hypocritical attitude in the whole industry towards pre-announcing. Like Dr Goebel putting the z890 MIPS table up in the opening plenary session at WAVV in Leipzig weeks before the announcement? Get out of here. (I actually called my IBM contact [name withheld] in the UK on my cellphone while the slide was on the projector. What did IBM do? You guessed right. Shot the messenger.) This is a game I'm not going to play again. The last time, as I say, I sent 13 (thirteen) notes to various parts of IBM about z890 materials in general circulation before announcement. It earned me the most insulting and threatening letter I've ever had. It's on the web at http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm_letter.html - I have never received an apology, a retraction, or even an acknowledgement of my concerns. And until I do, it stays there and I will do as I damn well please. I shall continue to open my email, no matter what IBM's lawyers say. And if stuff turns up that IBM thinks shouldn't - that's not MY problem, it's IBM's. Duty of care. I have no relationship with IBM and no obligation to treat anything that arrives as anything other than public domain. It was IBM legal that threw our relationship into the toilet, not me. In days of yore, this was a competitive issue. IBM spoon-fed Gartner and Meta and even corrected their draft copy for them - competing with that was very tough. IBM's letter names Tiiu Mayer - ask her how many times I complained about this, and how many times I held back from publishing only to see Gartner publish first. I find it hilarious here sometimes, where certain people desperately point you to every MIPS source but mine when I'm actually supplying the ones they point you to. Do a Google Search on IBM Confidential - with the quotes. 13,500 hits. There was an article in Datamation over three decades ago concluding with the suggestion that IBM should introduce a new classification: WOW! This one's REALLY secret. But for now what IBM Confidential really means is Please turn over. E.g. - check out: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/conference/2006/douglass-competitive_eval.pdf IBM Confidential? GMAB. It's absolutely meaningless. Not even up to the task of frightening infants and puppies. And on the subject of z6: Many, many years ago IBM made a word that I already knew but thought very obscure into a part of my life. Concatenation. Had I not got involved with System/360, I doubt I would have used that word more than three or four times in my lifetime. Working - as I now do much of the time - with malformed websites, I've learnt to use another obscure word. Deprecated. It's used to describe HTML features that are really obsolete and have been replaced by better ways of doing things. Hmmm. Has LSPR been deprecated on z6? A poisoned chalice, if ever I heard of one. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM Confidential
Friday. I'm currently working on a new version of the IBM vs PSI analysis, based upon IBM's Amended Complaint and PSI's response thereto. Because this set of documents essentially represents the endgame, I'm taking a little time. But I was forced into spontaneous gigglery (think LOL, ROTF,LMAO) when I read IBM's petty grumble about IBM Confidential materials. The fire is out and the ashes are cold - some of the stories can be told. IBM has _NEVER_ been security-conscious. Even to today. Idiots, who've failed to take on board the most elementary principles. Every IBMer in such a situation should read R. V. Jones' discussion of working fiction during the U-boat war. And take note - it's a seminal text on how to drag something out of what looks like nothing. In the very early 1990s - 1990 or 1991, I can't be bothered to check - IBM set up a meeting in Dublin for all of the competitive marketing people in Europe. Oh, dear Lord - run by the Danes. Next time pick people with smaller egos. Incredibly, IBM had published (and still publishes) the internal structure of this group via Blue Pages. Equally incredibly, they always used the same hotels in every European city. A few beers and a good meal for a few staff in each of their hotels earned a stream of: Guess who's booked twenty rooms next Friday? And so it was in Dublin this time. People whom one would expect to be there 'disappeared' from their geographies. You got a customer to call: Sorry - he's back on Friday. In some cases we had flight numbers. So with moderate effort you could reproduce the list of attendees. Now - there is a general principle within most European countries of totters rights What this means is that what you discard (in the trash) is no longer yours. For a variety of legal reasons (to do with liability about its treatment) ownership and legal title passes to the cleasing/refuse department. It's theirs to do what they want with it. And they have an obligation at law to get the best price for all the recyclable material they collect. All meetings and conferences are the same. There's always someone who doesn't turn up. Business commitments change, grandmothers get ill. So a very simple offer to the Dublin Cleansing Authority (actually privatized, but that's a detail) for GBP1 for every 1lb weight of materials marked IBM Confidential was not only 100% legal but also quite productive. Two complete copies of the secret squirrel manual and the handouts. GBP10 plus the airfare and one night in the Connaught on the same square. And a receipt. Followed by a discussion with corporate counsel. How did you get this? Here's the receipt. Every page had to be marked with its certified origin, etc. For a lot of people I know - and certainly for myself - IBM Confidential at the bottom of a page effectively means Please turn over. Those familiar with my dispute with IBM's aßhole lawyer will know I sent them 13 (thirteen) warnings about the z890 data before using it. And being shat on for my trouble. I've now got more than one unsolicited copy of the z6 stuff - what in hell am I (or we, including PSI) supposed to do about this? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Another squirrel strike
ISTR one of their number taking hte list down a while back ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/24/kamikaze_squirrel/ -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Dead operating systems
Dr Goebel is the most fanatical anti-Flex-ES person within the whole of IBM. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Hardware slowdown sours IBM numbers
MIPS sales down 21% year-on-year is indeed a difficult comparison. Nine months is a long time to run at standard expense levels until the cash starts to flow again. I don't share the view that the turndown is due to people waiting for new processors. The rumour mill has not been that active. Some is undoubtedly due to economic circumstances, and some due to the fact that just about every e-commerce supplier you find on the web is promoting another platform. As a measure, I was amazed to find someone I was helping with a web site was selling a Series i solution - first IBM VAR I've bumped into at random for a year or more. More and more mid-sized and even large companies are turning to Open Source. http://www.oscommerce.com and http://www.joomla.org being prime examples. Not only do they work - they're free, which means no budgetary barriers to growth. There are also huge skill pools out there. It reminds me very much of the early days of OS/360, HASP and ASP - when everyone had the source code and a huge community debugged and developed for free. APARs were often sent in with suggested (and tested) code changes attached. Various IBM field types were commenting as early as April that they simply couldn't see sales opportunities. To quote one: My customers are all full or gone - I have nowhere left to place machines. z6 is going to be more fun than anyone wants - whilst I believe it will meet its general performance targets, I suspect there will be great variation between workload types - possibly greater than we've seen before. We might see a much greater demand for capacity planning and tuning skills than we've seen for many years. If this machine is 50% faster than the z9, why does my application run slower? Isolated cases, certainly, but we all know how much effort has to go into dealing with each one before the user is placated. One unhappy user gets more management time than 99 happy ones. As always, my attention is drawn to smaller offerings. It would be nice to think some of the fraying at the edges could be stopped. There is a significant downside for Software Division rolling forward into a brick wall over the next couple of years - users paying software charges on Flex-ES systems who could never dream of affording a real box. I believe the potential among current Flex-ES users is around 15 to 20 real boxes. That's a LOT of software revenue to lose for such a small return. It really is quite incredible. I've heard of executives regarding 5% installed base shrinkage per year as acceptable. I wonder what Thomas J. Watson would have said if anyone had said that to him. IMO IBM works too much to its own internal goals and not enough to industry benchmark goals. Many expect the Baby z6 to have much finer granularity with an entry level system having much lower product costs than a z9 BC. But the dear old HP41 says that by the end of 2008 it won't actually help. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
FW: IBM's Next Generation Mainframe Processor
This has been a pretty well kept secret, at least in IBM circles. Many did not know of its existence. Giggle. Snort! Online since July 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.isham-research.co.uk/mainframe_2008.html (I have to admit I was taken aback that I posted that so long ago.) 17? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
how to know CPU MIPS?
http://www.tech-news.com Haven't sent them to Hesh either yet. Don't be misled by the presentation. The move from 1.7GHz to 4.2GHz will not result in a similar z/Series MIPS increase. Rather expect a lift similar to previous lifts. Damn. Did I say 4.2GHz? As with the last few generations, the key metric will be the MIPS/MSUs ratio. And that's purely a marketing decision. The open question is whether IBM will be able to connect a reasonable (non-tricky, non-quirky) software pricing plan to the baby z6 expected in 3Q08. There is actually a major opportunity. 17? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
how to know CPU MIPS ?
MIPS charts are available from a variety of sources some free, some will cost you (www.watsonwalker.com) Not yet for z6/zNext - haven't sent them over yet. 17? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
1401 simulator for OS/360
Of course there was a console ... Which is why I added in the conventional sense. Your apparent need to snipe at every post I make is becoming tiresome. And I would have called it a control panel, not a console. The only way it could talk to you was to halt at specific adresses. The only way you could talk back was via sense switches. Flick 'A' on, press start - that kind of thing. Not a console in a conventional sense. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Mir habe' schon widder Freitag
And I'm off to see Carnival at the Broadfield in the excellent company of not-mad-Alison. http://www.isham-research.co.uk/fb/index.html Been a fun couple of weeks. For students of the IBM vs PSI lawsuit, I've done an update to reflect the quite extraordinary leak of discovery materials to Linuxgram - it's at http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm_vs_psi_update.html I've also got a whole load of stuff on z6 (or zNext, or whatever) and even zFuture. What price an IFL when you can have a real Intel chip sniffing around prefixed storage? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
1401 simulator for OS/360
Pedantry - it's an emulator, not a simulator. Did the 1401 have a program timer? No. It had no program-accessible clock. It didn't know clock time at all, and dates were input via date cards that were application-specific. In most senses, there was no operating system and no supervisor. Any exceptional conditions were spotted simply: a) it stopped b) a peripheral had a light on, or some equally obvious state. There was, in the conventional sense and on the majority of systems, no console. There was a backlit panel, and next to it was a swing-out gate that let you do highly illegal things with the tape units. I can still close my eyes, reach for the little flap at the top of that gate, flip it upwards, reach in and squeeze the gate lock, and pull the gate forward and down. I must have done it thousands of times. In the early days of System/360, the great and infallible IBM shipped Series 500 2400' tapes from the plant with no tapemarks. I spent hour after happy hour mounting these tapes on 7330s attached to a 1401, dialing up each unit in turn, and flipping the Write Tape Mark switch. Whole shifts, sometimes. System reset, check reset, start. And what no one ever seems to mention - the 1401 had a _unique_ smell. And it was good for drying wet trainers. The 1406 Memory Extension Unit was just the ideal height for a standing four-handed card game. And even coffee-proof. You don't get that from an emulator. Back then, the operators used to reuse tape trimmings by taping them to the tops of all grey boxes so the fans made them stream upwards. If you saw one down, the fan had failed - call your friendly CE. We gave CEs free parking spots, free canteen meals, free coffee. Never had to look far for one. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Solaris on z
Interesting. One might start a rumour or two. The zSeries suggestion is pie-in-the-sky - but just suppose it WERE true. As has already been said, it take a little time to implement - so the target platform would not be the z9 but one of its successors. And it has been suggested that the next generation might make use of more pSeries technology. The issue is quite possibly scalability. Only a tiny fraction of Solaris users need huge machines, and scalability is something IBM is quite good at. It might make good business sense for Solaris to cede the very top end to IBM and avoid the huge expense of extreme scalability when only a few of their customers need it. Similar discussions - that didn't come to fruition - took place a few years ago between Microsoft and IBM about implementing the Windows NT API set on iSeries. As I understand it, the main sticking point was the volatility of the API set - Microsoft was actively changing the APIs on almost a daily basis to support their applications (and lock others out) and it would not have been economic for IBM to track them. A television commercial here a few minutes ago crowed about Nissan (I think) managing 56,500 servers using Microsoft System Center. THEY GOT THEMSELVES INTO THAT MESS, AND THEY'RE _PROUD_ OF IT ?!? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
The Isham Research web site
Thank you all for the comments. http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm_vs_psi.html has been refreshed this morning, but the changes are minor. The .com version of the address, as someone furtled from the archives, was lost to me some time ago. Unfortunately, as the .co.uk TLD grows in traffic terms the mental defectives who now trade in the .com address demand ever higher prices for me to regain control of it. $1500 has been mentioned recently. If you've seen the version of www.isham-research.com that simply advertises all things Audi, you've been spared. The one featuring two guys wearing the Kippah and keyworded gay Jewish dating was the best, since at least one of the guys quite obviously wasn't Jewish, even at 800x640. They wanted $5000 for me to reassert editorial control over that one. It's nothing other than extortion and even - were it to occur in the UK - demanding money with menaces - which is a very serious offence. I keep reporting them to Google and Nominet, but another one springs up every month or so. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
OT Funny IT Movie
Finnish can be cured by antibiotics. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBMLINK Planned outage?
Some techie yelled it over the cubical walls: IBM´Link is coming down for maintenance! Some techie yelled it over the cubicle walls: IBM´Link has come down for maintenance! -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
The Development of the Vital IBM PC in Spite of the Corporate Culture of IBM
Spam, and reported to Google. At least the version Copscape found on the ezine site has been spell checked. Still makes as little sense. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Patents, Copyrights, Profits, Flex and Hercules
Then there was Nestle Frankfurt, who wanted both CPUs to have the same serial number. BS3000 was pulled because Fujitsu (deservedly) lost a court case. One of the settlement conditions was the withdrawal of BS3000, another was $600 million, if memory serves. At the time, I not only expected it but felt it long overdue. Served 'em right. AIM was an affront to IBM. I keep seeing this Hercules [EMAIL PROTECTED] turning up, and [EMAIL PROTECTED] it is. For the nthousandth time - it ain't EVER going to happen - there are so many things against it there's no time to list them. It wasn't going to happen before the IBM/PSI thing (for a number of reasons, one being the attitude of the owners) and IBM actually said so at the time: IBM has taken a business decision not to license its software on this platform. IBM chooses with whom it sleeps. And after IBM/PSI - Jeez! I wish we could save the bandwidth. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
mainframe = superserver
Sorry - no zSeries content. The idea of an IBM platform acting as a consolidation target for n x 100 Windows servers is not new, nor is it IBM's. Perhaps a little more than a decade ago, Microsoft (and perhaps involving billg in person) realized that a very small but not ignorable fraction of their user base had scalability requirements that vastly exceeded what Intel and the server builders could cope with. We're talking about a fraction of 1% of the Windows NT server installed base at that time. Every now and then some new business gets it right and goes gangbusters. There were some very fundamental discussions, one problem being the disconnect between Microsoft and Intel. Yes, the large enterprise market is valuable, but most of that value is in software revenue - invisible to Intel. But graphics performance was - at the time - a lucrative market. This was at a time when Hercules graphics cards were going into Intel-based systems at twice the price of the Intel chip. If you were Intel, where would you spend the money - MP efficiency or graphics acceleration? So there was a discussion (fact, not hypothesis) between IBM and Microsoft about the idea of hosting a massively scalable Windows NT environment on IBM hardware. My information is that the discussions ended amicably after best efforts on both sides when it proved that IBM's hardware development lead times could not be reconciled with the volatilty of Microsoft's APIs. At the time. Microsoft was exploiting API volatility as a competitive tool - IBM would have found it relatively easy to implement any given state of the NT API set, but staying up to date would have placed impossible loads on IBM's support structure. Enterprises have different support requirements to mom-and-pop. C'est la vie. But it wasn't zSeries - it was iSeries. Actually (heresy - I shall be beaten up) much more scalable. (Heading for the hills.) P.S. (before this ships out) To pick up on Tom Moulder: I'm not aware of _ANY_ involvement of FLEX or Fundamental Software in the _IBM_ versus _PSI_ lawsuit. Indeed, I've commented several times on the deafening silence from Fremont (and Ann Arbor). Hercules references are a bad joke in this context and I just wish people would GROW UP and stop making them. A lot more care is needed, guys. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Is WaveMind spamming entire IBM-MAIN readership?
Probably desperate. The web site is a disaster - www.wavemindinc.com is a duplicate of www.wavemindit.com and copyscape spits it straight out. Then there's what Google refers to as canonicalization. Duplicate -30 places penalty from Google for a start. Then all the title statements are the same and there's no real content on the site. Orange webmail recognized it for what it was and threw it straight into the sinbin. I've added both domain names to the filters as well. Plus the HTML is garbage. 48 validation errors - you would think someone offering IT services would at least show the public they can code cleanly. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
3350 failures
Yers. I can't remember a seal problem. There were problems sometimes which were supposedly to do with the lubricant on the heads (they land on the pack when it's switched off) causing stiction if the drive wasn't powered up for a while. Not a problem with Hitachi or Amdahl, not too bad with IBM units, worse with Memorex, a lot worse with STC, and Darren would go absolutely postal if I used the correct language to describe ISS drives. They're quite maintenance-intensive - certainly by modern standards. There's a HUGE filter in the back of the drive that needs changing (IIRC) about every three months. They also pull a fair bit of current - it would be that that worried me, rather than the weight. And, of course, the weight of a 3880. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
OT - The antikythera mechanism
Alexander Thom has pointed out that the Hill o' many Stanes in mid-Clyth can be used to solve the general equation of the parabola. Circa 1500BCE. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Analysts squash rumors of 150,000 IBM layoffs
Hmmm... This sounds a lot like Phil Payne's take on the situation ... Perhaps they read IBM-MAIN. You heard it here first, and free. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, I recommend John Allen Paulos' excellent little book: Innumeracy - Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences - ISBN 0-14-012255-9. Bob Djurdjevic (one of the analysts quoted) is seriously up to speed on IBM's finances - he's always done more work on IBM's numbers than anyone else. He predicted the 1990 loss back in 1986 with his famous Cash, Debt and Revenues analysis. And he has a tendency to show the dark side. If he doesn't see a problem, my reaction is not to look for one. He's good enough for me. He's certainly not on their payroll. On another subject - did you see that IBM and Amazon have settled? Wanna take a bet that Amazon got a sweetheart deal to get the case off the table and clear the way for the PSI issue? $1 damages? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Where did the term clip come from?
I yield to the expansions, but the term predates System/360. I remember a Software CE ordering a copy for us back in 1969 and getting something unuseable. I was present when he called home and said: No, I want it for a /360. It was a very small and very useful little deck. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Leann and Mean: 150,000 U.S.layoffs for IBM?
I don't believe a word of it. I _might_ if persuaded believe a couple of the full stops. Both the Indian and the Chinese economies are growing, in the latter case very much faster than the USA. IBM has always tried to persuade local goverments that it's a local company. Back in the 1970s IBM lobbied for an got a Queen's Award to Industry for its exports from the UK. Never mind the fact that it imported more than it exported that year. Before the EU really became a common market, IBM distributed its manufacturing in Europe across countries. Large processors in England, terminals in Scotland, medium and small processors in France, DASD in Germany - to balance imports against exports. Now the EU doesn't even collect statistics, and that structure has gone. But when the Eastern Bloc fell apart, IBM was right in there starting HDA manufacture in Hungary - to persuade the Hungarian government it was a local company. It will always be like this - as soon as any major economy becomes more open and develops growth, IBM will shift some operations into it and try to be considered a local company. At least it sends some of its profits home, which is more than can be said for others. But 150,000 layoffs in the USA? Does IBM even _HAVE_ 150,000 employees in the USA? Global Services is too fat and inefficient, that's true (and its margins are awful) but it's worse in some other countries than in the USA. According to Slashdot, 150,000 employees represents 40% of the US workforce. Yeah, rght. Every one of IBM's 355,766 employees is in the USA? Their headline is great - IBM to lay off Half of Global Services Division and then make that 150,000. So by Slashdot's calculation IGS is 300,000 people, which means the other 55,766 IBMers must be working pretty hard to do all the things I see IBM do. I'd suggest giving these guys calculators, but that would be like giving Cheney a loaded duck gun. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Are you developing for the Web?
I would think just about everyone running a proportion of non-legacy applications would be developing for the web. The more important thing to think about is the future of handhelds. The Nokia Communicator, the Blackberry, etc., were only really technology demonstrators. WAP seems finally to have curled up its toes. I've been messing around with XHTML and multi-media CSS - it looks like a huge proportion of modern handheld devices support this, sometimes better than the classic browsers like IE. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
The Sky is indeed Falling
Forget PSI. Forget Fundamental. And forget PWD. It's about zSeries End of Life, and how to control the collapse. http://www.isham-research.co.uk/ibm_vs_psi.html -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Missing IBMers on whois.ibm.com
The circumvention is to establish really good relations with an IBMer who will have access to Blue Pages. Then make damn sure every request you make is fully justified in IBM's interest as much as yours. It worked for me for many, many years. Some IBMers - especially the executives - do _NOT_ want their email addresses made public. I've seen a few email addresses bandied about even in the last few days related to the PWD issues - if you really want to get to these people, get someone with Blue Pages access to give you the name of their PA or admin assistant and write to them saying: If people are lobbying [their boss] for this reason, please add my name to the list. The more business case you can add, the better. To say that they're busy people is something of an understatement. They do not want and cannot use hundreds of emails turning up in their intrays. It's a damn nuisance when email #85 might be something important from Sam. But if their PA comes in and says: 150 people have suggested this then it might get air time. Remember that IBM (including its antecedents) has been a major force in business for over a century. Very, very few technology companies can claim that. What it does has worked so far - telling IBM it is wrong requires some depth of proof. And http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/01/spado_vs_watsons/ -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM S/360 series operating systems history
SVS was bizarrely popular in Germany, and lived on there for longer than almost anywhere. IBM Bonn produced an _excellent_ SVS 1.7K DLIB tape that really was well sorted out and I had over a dozen customers using it. One customer - Maizena in Heilbronn, part of Knorr and manufacturers of the German Army's pea soup tablets - converted from MFT to SVS in 1982 - well after stable MVS was available. They had two systems programmers - Herr Jung and Herr Joshonek. Their IT manager called them together after the MFT --- SVS migration and said something to the effect that MFT had served them well for ten years and he expected SVS to do the same. One quarter later he was asking us for a remote support contract because both had left the company. We (Itel) sold them a 370/145 with a 3205-5 (? 4?) IPA-attached printer. Lovely little thing - built-in vacuum cleaner, etc. IMO one of IBM's best ever line printers. I went down one day and they weren't using it. I asked why, and opened a hornet's nest. SVS HASP didn't support it, and there were legal proceedings in progress about the mis-sale. I pointed out that HASP always assembled one spare printer device support block, and you just had to zap in the FCB CCW and the UCS load CCW. We had it working perfectly within an hour - very, very happy data centre. I also patched the HASP source to reassemble it correctly if they reinstalled. When I got back to Frankfurt from Heilbronn, I got roasted. The management were hoping to ride the court case and place a /158 - I'd blown their deal. Another SVS customer was Kommunalesgebietsrechenzentrum Kranichstein. You can't make names like that up. They had Memorex Double Density 3350s with IDI - Intelligent Dual Interface. Was ever anything so inappropriately named? A status bus parity check - a common occurence - caused all IDI-linked controllers to forget all owed interrupts. Total system hang. SVS had a MIH, but its channel redrive was - IMO - incorrect. I can't remember after a quarter of a century, but it did a Clear IO when it should have done a Clear Channel or vice versa. I zapped the opcode SUCCESS!!! No more system hangs. A MIH message, and off it went again. Happy, happy operators. Claps on the back and lots of beer. Then their management reassigned all of the outages to a software fault and billed us for them. TOS error recovery brings back nightmares. Ford of Europe had a small /360 - perhaps a 25 - at Warley used for shipping data to Germany. It ran TOS - but on 2415s. If you've ever watched error recovery running off 2415s, you know what it's really like watching paint dry. Literally HOURS. I always though COS stood for Card Operating System. ISTR it was very similar in practical ways to the BPS card loader, but 8 cards instead of 6. You just loaded the 8 cards, and then it watched for not-ready to ready transitions at the loading card reader -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Interesting PDF doing the rounds
http://www.isham-research.co.uk/T3Feb13.pdf In the last 60 days is a clear reference to the period since IBM filed its suit on 7 December 2006 - and the message is we're still selling despite being sued - up yours, IBM. And it names customers - including the University of Alabama Hospital. This list server is, of course, hosted by UA. It says For Immediate Release and is dated 13 February - but I haven't seen it released. It's not on T3's web site, as far as I can see. And I've checked with some T3 customers, who haven't seen it either. One other little inconsistency. If you open it and click on File, Document Properties the author is given as christianr. Who works for PSI, not T3. T3 usually uses QuarkExpress to produce its PDFs, but this PDF was produced with Acrobat Distiller. Which is what PSI normally uses. (You have to download http://www.platform-solutions.com/news/Itanium_Alliance_Final.pdf and open it from a hard drive to see PSI's PDF creator.) I'm not at all sure this is a bona fide document. Was it only released to the venture capitalists? The thot plickens. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Interesting PDF doing the rounds
re: 404 Finger trouble. Works now. Someone who started with punched card JCL and used both MVT/TSO in line mode and CRJE on 2741s ought to be more sensitive to the effects of a single misplaced space. If IBM's lawyers don't frighten me, PSI's sure as Hades don't. (Bowdlerization of reference to the Nether Regions in the hope Darren doesn't get snowed under with bounces.) -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Interesting PDF doing the rounds
Just for the record there's three of us included in the University of Alabama Systems. Us at _www.ua.edu_ (http://www.ua.edu) (Crimson Tide), them at www.uab.edu_ (http://www.uab.edu) (Blazers), and up there at _www.uah.edu_ (http://www.uah.edu) (Chargers). We're located in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and Huntsville respectively. We're administered by a Common Chancellor and Board of Trustees, but each campus has it's own President and budget. Tuscaloosa is oldest and largest enrollment. UAB is a massive teaching and research center with a larger and more complex budget arrangement with public and private health care providers. UAH grew from technological and training requirements from the early days of the space program and Redstone Arsenal. Interesting. Thanks for that, Eric. So the PSI machine is on the UAB (Birmingham) site? BTW - The Register story is http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/16/psi_ibm_hp/ -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Vehicle Automation Fee Systems??
Looks to me like a complete waste of time. In the first place, the dates on the sample document are 1995/6. Not only is that a decade ago, but it's also pre-Year2000. In the second, there are scads of press releases dated around 2003 mentioning NCR/SCO UNIX. In the third, I've seen MANY projects in which the underlying technology has been swapped out with a requirement that the end user see no detectable change in documents, etc. If this document had a turnaround function and was being OCRed somewhere, it would greatly simplify the changever if compatibiity were retained. After all, the punch card we've only recently retired stemmed from the 1880s - could you tell if a given card was punched by a Hollerith operator on a manual from or by a 3525? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
[SPAM] Transactions per Watt
I have not seen any statements of power efficiency on a transaction/watt metric. You haven't been to any analyst briefings in the last five years, then. Transaction processing capacity per unit power consumption has been a theme for a long time. IBM has several times put up graphics of various sorts discussing the problem. Simple extrapolation takes gate temperatures to rocket nozzle levels in the very near future. Advanced chip designs (perhaps even ECLIPZ) include concepts like powering off bits of the processor chip that aren't being used. Your company may never use Move Inverse or even floating point - if it takes three to five cycles to power these functions up when they're needed, why not turn them off after 100 cycles of non-use? However - sadly for this group - when IBM discusses transaction power efficiency it's MUCH more likely to mention iSeries (and pSeries) than zSeries. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
[SPAM] PSI sues IBM in mainframe emulator spat (Not Phoenix !)
Interesting phrase there: ... the mainframe systems architecture developed by Amdahl ... Apparently attributable to Register, not PSI, and true in a sense, but otherwise misleading. Probably derived from PSI's footer boilerplate: The new PSI systems are based on proven systems architecture spun-off from Amdahl Corporation ... It may in retrospect prove to have been a major mistake on IBM's part to hinder Fundamental, since the fact that Fundamental has not been able to get commercial licenses since 1 November makes PSI's first claim true - otherwise it would not be: - Tying its mainframe operating systems to its mainframe computers by conditioning sales of its operating systems on the purchase or continued use of only those IBM-compatible mainframe computers that are manufactured by IBM; Supplied would have been a better word, since the z800 was manufactured by Hitachi. The Register's hypothetical Windows example is not hypothetical at all - Microsoft did in fact withold preloading contracts from PC manufacturers who loaded _any_ of their product with OS2. I find PSI flat dishonest on occasions, I must say. Take this: Reilly additionally stated that, 'IBM's predatory business practices have affected our company, but PSI's open mainframe computers have been well received by customers who value us as the only alternative supplier in the marketplace.' Huh? What customers? ESP sites at LL Bean and Lufthansa that haven't been paid for do not equate to customers. One prerequisite of calling yourself a supplier is that you have actually supplied something, which they blatantly haven't yet done. And they keep on calling themselves the only alternative supplier when all of us know about Flex-ES. If they had said something like: PSI has developed and demonstrated a viable alternative solution of interest to mainframe users ... I'd be a lot happier. But I keep on reading stuff painting a most misleading picture of the true status of their company and product. I sympathize with IBM too about the branding and reputation of z/OS, especially as the IT world becomes more security conscious. How is IBM to know that there are no security exposures in the implementation unless they certify each implementation and any patches to that implementation - an expensive business? This is starting to look like a long-drawn out business. There's also a chance this won't be the only lawsuit. Fundamental Software has patents that are specific to emulation of IBM's architecture. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
So, OK, no more promotions for me - after this one
It's Darren's ball - he gets to choose who plays. If in doubt, ask him first. I must confess I've seen no promotional activity that I would object to for a very long time. We are a bit embattled in this space - those who try and keep it going should be applauded. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
The Windows attitude...
Check out http://www.isham-research.co.uk/dd.html - Rerun the job -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
With a gross margin on mainframe software around 85%, surely IBM would fall over its own feet if another supplier were to promote z/Architecture in a credible way to new accounts and expand the zArchitecture installed base. T'ain't the way. Right from the beginning, the PCM industry concentrated on intercept selling. Find someone about to buy an IBM box, and try and slip one of ours in under the IBM price. In terms of real lead generation - going out and finding people who hadn't considered a mainframe before - all of the PCMs were pathetic. Well, they made no effort whatsoever. The strategy was always to find existing IBM users and take a deal from IBM. If PSI had taken a view - with their multi-OS product - that they'd address HP-UX users and convert them to z/OS - things might have been different. But the implication was the reverse. I'm actually at a loss to know why IBM tolerated PSI's daft little games for so long. Perhaps they expected PSI's VCs to pull the plug and save them the trouble (and the p/r downside) of a lawsuit, as happened with UMX, and were as surprised as me at the VCs' stupidity. Some VCs set new benchmarks for gullibility - one wonders if any of PSI's backers ever consulted an analyst with current mainframe market experience to valid the basic business plan. 'Cos - IMO - even with software rights the numbers don't work. Sure looks to me like they didn't. Serves them right. PSI's monthly run rate is frightening - with no prospect of any return, ever. I still think there'll be another suit. I cannot believe thatt any VC, presented with a cold light of day analysis of this product's prospects, would have advanced one red cent. And I also remain convinced that IBM has ultimately taken action not because of any perceived threat from the product, but because it's just so pissed off at the quarter by quarter uncertainty generated in the market. Eventually, PSI will implode - it's just taking longer than it really ought to. Between writing this and sending it - cited from the PSI web site: PSI Open Mainframes are the first mainframe servers that can run the z/OS, Linux, Windows and UNIX on a single server foorprint. Bolleaux. Even some configurations of the late unlamented IBM xSeries 430 could do that. Some of PSI's claims really stretch credibility. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
What about the American tradition of presumption of innocence? Tell that to the innocent at Gitmo. On an abstracted issue, raised later in the thread: English law was changed in 1996 to essentially combine libel and slander as defamation. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1996/1996031.htm It was felt that - with new media - the distinction was hard to maintain - a slanderous (originally, verbal) comment might (with new technology) be recorded, digitised, processed and otherwise recorded for posterity - it therefore had the same legal weight as libel, which was always regarded as permanently recorded and therefore damaging into the indefinite future. But. In order to be defamed you have to have some fame to start with. It really is the literal interpretation - de-faming is the removal of some kind of fame. It gets a lot more complex. And it gets VERY complex with product libel, because the complainant has to prove actual pecuniary loss. Which means not only proving that the alleged libel cost you a deal, but also that the deal you lost would have been profitable - which means opening your company's books to the court. Thank heavens it's Friday, and even the Friday before Christmas. Best to all. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
With the possible exception of Universities? I'm thinking Leeds, UMRCC, ULCC in the UK. Nyah. Nurdge. Grundle. ULCC would be my most likely admission. There were a very few (3 or 4) Amdahlers who were utterly _PASSIONATE_ supporters of the whole JANET and university networking thing, based down in the office (who's name I've forgotten) off J7 of the M25. Those guys were absolutely commited - they batted well above their average to integrate the Unis. Amdahl threw a few things into the mix. I'd have to say virtualisation - IBM got there first with VM, obviously, but MDF took the concept to a whole new commercial level and - ultimately - forced LPAR-level pricing. Commercially, and ostensibly trivially - Amdahl changed the European market and especially the UK market by not charging for reconfigurations above and beyond the actual field engineering cost. This was a discussion I was part of, in the Doubletree Inn just off 101. The core decision was - should reconfiguration within a customer's assets be a marketing or a service issue? We decided on service - so a customer who owned n processors could move them within the frames owned and pay only the CE time (hours) involved. At that time IBM charged $200,000 to open the doors. British Telecom, once advised of this policy, went _NUTS_. We called it Lego bricks - hardly a week went by without a request to take an engine out of box X and put it in box Y. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Super-Friday
No sign of Darren. Gently closing down. Warm mince pies and red wine on the desk. To one and all - all the best for the season. We may have agreed and disagreed this year, and we may agree and disagree in the coming year, but that's no reason not to wish all and sundry a happy holiday and a happy family time. Enjoy those close to you. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
I'm just guessing but 85% gross margin seems way too high. At 85%, the customers would be throwing a royal fit and the FTC would be sharpening their fangs to take another huge bite out of IBM. 15% is probably more likely. I refer the honourable gentleman to Page 39 of IBM's latest quarterly SEC filing at http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/51143/000110465906069905/a06-19062_710q.htm For the nine months ended 30 September 2006 IBM's gross margin on software was 84.6%. I apologise to IBM for overstating the figure as 85%. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
The System 4 machine architecture was the same as the 360[1] but the operating system, the System 4 DOS, was a bit like IBM DOS (now VSE) but different. Customer programs tended to be written in Assembler because the COBOL compiler was, at the time, the early '70s, rather new. System 4 J, if memory serves. The I/O was different - CCW formats and such. I used the 4/50 at ICL Forest Road, Feltham to write a package converting KeyEdit 1000 captured data into ICL's weird coded variable format - basically a way of omitting null fields to save space. I think there were a couple of additional instructions - Add Immediate comes to mind. Purely interpretive execution has been done before and published - I remember a book called A Compiler Generator in the early 1970s that contained the complete source code for emulation of /360 code on a /360 - the idea being that you could trace every instruction. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
If the PCMs were forced out of the industry by actions taken by IBM, then the counter claim by PSI may prevail in a very big way. Unfortunately, none of the exiting PCMs made that claim. Simply that the business case for their own 64-bit processors didn't fly. Particularly with a Democratically controlled White House in the USofA. ITYM congress, but what does that have to do with a civil suit? No, White House. Anti-trust proceedings take YEARS and would certainly outlive the current Administration. When Ronnie got to the White House, one of his first-day actions was to can the Johnson Administration's anti-trust proceedings against IBM. They continued in Europe and eventually resulted in the 1984 Undertaking, long since voided. Shrub wouldn't entertain it and by the time Hillary gets in it's all moot anyway. I doubt very much whether any such anti-trust proceedings would succeed today, or even that they would be seriously considered. The market has changed a lot in two decades - it's barely recognisable. And if IBM carries its patents case it won't matter anyway, since there is a special provision in anti-trust law that would allow IBM to refuse licences to a patent infringer. There's a risk inherent in all litigation, but anyone who builds a business case on winning a postulated anti-trust case is a fool. For me the killer is the business case. We're really talking about the $100k machine space. So - $100k off the customer, minus the cost of a Superdome leaves how much? This is VERY different from the old days, when Amdahl was earning $1m net per machine. What's PSI's wage bill per month - you can get an idea from the salaries posted in want ads in various places? Double it to get personnel costs. You basically have to sell at least three machines per employee per year just to cover direct wage costs (forgetting operating costs and paying the VCs back) - and as it stands, T3 would have to sell all of them. How many tServers did T3 sell in its first year with the product? How many z800s and z890s has IBM sold, and what percentage of that do you have to take? What percentage of that market is covered by your business partner(s)? What chance do you stand of signing up further business partners to cover the rest of the globe, given that you need a company with in-depth IBM mainframe skills - i.e., an IBM Business Partner - and you're being sued by IBM. A lot of IBM resellers are actually Mom and Pop businesses - or husband and wife. And a lot of these businesses are very strongly associated with one individual - an ex-IBM salesman or SE who wanted to do his/her own thing. They probably have a bank on board and have employees to think about. Are they going to risk poisoning their core business relationship with IBM? Then it gets competitive. What if FSI and IBM get their act together again? Flex-ES has things like ECSP:VSE, emulated printer support, FakeTape, built-in networking support - all things that help a LOT with tight budgets. It's the same cake that UMX Technologies baked, this time iced with a lawsuit. I very much doubt that IBM is seriously worried about PSI as a competitor. It's likely more about the damage it's doing to the market, especially the continual we're not far from shipping, honest that's been going on for more than two years now. If IBM can get a summary judgement next week, at least it will have the monkey off its back for the end of fourth quarter. Amdahl is dead. It should lie down. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
Virtually all commercial software licences contain language covering this; typically the vendor agrees to indemnify the licensee under certain conditions. Even IBM does. See Clause 1.7 on page 6 of the ICA agreement executed by no less that PSI and IBM at http://www.tech-news.com/imagesap/ibmpsiex1.pdf Interesting, in passing, that it took IBM six months to ratify the agreement. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Re: IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
Tony, I think you misunderstand patents. As a user of a commercial software product, I have no involvement in whatever patent licenses were required to CONSTRUCT that product. The patent protects certain hardware or software process inventions, and the patent holder can sue anyone who uses their hardware or software process in the contruction of a product. Not true in all jurisdictions, which is why most contracts have a patent suit indemnity clause in them. But of course, most such users would also be IBM customers - bad karma to sue them when the real cause of the problem is someone else. It's pretty unlikely that IBM would sue a customer in such a case, unless the customer wilfully ignored copious warnings. Even at the peak of the vicious FUD campaigns in the 1980s it was never suggested as one of the outcomes of going PCM. Around a quarter of a century ago (!) I actually wrote such a document - Gewährleistung für Rechts- und Sachmängel. Basically it indemnified the user against patent suits provided we were informed of them promptly and given control of the defence. I think such clauses are still quite common. (Our lawyers reviewed it and complained about a misplaced comma. I was quite pleased. I then got a ten-minute lecture on the significance of comma placement in German legal documents. In some jurisdictions, commas may be ignored in determining meaning. Not in Germany. There used to be 57 rules concerning the use of commas - thanks to the German Orthography Reform there are now only 9.) -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
I found this nonsense on the Hercules mailing list: With this news now I strongly feel that IBM is willing people to use hercules to learn about mainframes. Why IBM till date did not take any action against hercules?? There are repeated and obvious indications that some posters are either using or trying to use z/OS under Hercules - the latest being serious enquiries about running CF code and the new zArchitecture floating point decimal instructions. If IBM succeeds with the software license infringement part of its suit against PSI, I would strongly advise Herculeans to delete, erase, dispose of, and remove all trace of IBM licensed code. It could be your source of z/OS they pick on, and the more noise you've made about it in the past, the more likely it is to be them. They only need one. LEARN from this suit - it's not the LL Beans or the Lufthansas of this world IBM is going after for license infringement - it's the original licensee; PSI. If you have an illegal copy of z/OS, it is the licensee you got it from that IBM will sue, not you. And one consequence of action is immediate revocation - how would your company survive if IBM cancelled its licenses? -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
Apparently, from the article referenced, it seems the basis of the IBM lawsuit is that it's one thing to licence IBM's software to run on a plug-compatible machine, but if you try to do so for an Itanium-based machine using just-in-time recompilation technology, then you're making an unauthorized translation of the software to another processor's instruction set - hence violating copyright law. No logic. a) Amdahl machines used to do just that - infrequently used and new instructions were implemented in Macrocode that used essentially the same technique. As previous posts in this thread have also indicated, Itel's EXTEND and other packages did the same thing. b) Fundamental Software has sold over 1,000 machines using the JIT technique with IBM's full permission and sometimes assistance. IBM demonstrators are still using Flex-ES machines. I had mentioned the company myself in a posting to alt.folklore.computers and comp.arch, having run across information on them in an Intel advertisement. I won't read either. I get upset easily. Apparently, the versatility of the Itanium is such that it makes all proprietary architectures obsolete, and this was one example. Giggle. 21 November 2006 - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/21/itanium_q3_hp/ Sun and Dell - the oddest couple - led the revenue charge. Sun's sales increased a stunning 25 per cent, while Dell enjoyed a nice turnaround on the back of an 11 per cent sales hike. IBM boosted sales as well by 7 per cent. HP joined Fujitsu as the biggest losers in the quarter. HP's sales slipped 6 per cent, and Fujitsu's fell 9 per cent. We'll let you guess which two of the five vendors mentioned sell Itanium-based servers. Hint - never believe what you read on a manufacturer's web site. _ESPECIALLY_ not PSI's - they're just as bad as UMX was. They've been a leading supplier for over two years despite never suppling anything? Since this case raises the issue of the legitimacy of JIT emulation, it seems that it will have wide-reaching implications. False premise - false consequence. Of course, we could be really lucky, and some good could come out of this. In order to do right by one of its showcase customers, Intel might begin making microprocessors that handle the System/360 instruction set directly. It would be nice to have some architectural choice. Intel has considered it - Amdahl looked at outsourcing to them. But neither Hitachi nor Fujitsu believed they could make a profit given the incredibly high cost of developing zArchitecture CMOS processors - and they had a head start with years of knowledge of the architecture, their own validation engines, etc. It's even beyond IBM, and the next chip generation will have some POWER commonality. To imagine that Intel could fund such a massive operation for a couple of hundred chips a year is pure, unalloyed fantasy. This is one of the whacky bits of PSI's blurb - they're using Amdahl technology to implement zArchitecture on a chip that was available in testing quantities two years before Amdahl butted out of the business. So don't you think Amdahl would have rescued its business that way if it were possible? In fact PSI is a continuation of Stingray, which Amdahl vetoed as not cost effective. $60 million for the rights to CFCC code? How many systems are you going to sell? Even if you beat FSI's 1,000, it's still $60,000 per system. FSI benefited from IBM not having a product in the low end space - go head to head up at the top end against IBM's full basket of tactics and how many will you sell? Amdahl sold just one in its first year, Itel about four. Any business plan built on more than ten is bound to fail. You'll notice even PSI left out Parallel Sysplex claims. It's fun to look at what else they left out as well. Not viable in a modern data centre, even if IBM hadn't fired a shot across their bows. I cannot understand PSI's business model. Not only can I not make it work - I can't make it work by several orders of magnitude. I just don't know why they started. I'd love to know what they told their VC. We may not have seen the last lawsuit. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
One of the Flex resellers told me that IBM fixed the Hercules problem by giving all those employees a copy of Flex-ES to run on their laptops. For free, of course. It seems logical that part of the agreement between FSI and IBM would be a number of free copies of Flex-ES for IBM's use. What their status is now is not clear. IBM strictly bans its employees from installing unauthorised software on company systems - a sensible precaution for any company. It also bans employees from using their own systems for work purposes. In theory, using Hercules was always a dismissable offence. IBM isn't always that strict, of course, it wants its employees to innovate. But tolerating such widespread abuse became impossible - especially when it became public. If the agreements between IBM and Fundamental prove completely void, of course, IBM will find itself having to replace Flex-ES in its internal applications. I gather Software Division at least is not planning on this. My money is on IBM's Indian Intel-based development not shipping before 2008 - I think 1Q or 2Q 2007 total fantasy. And even then it most likely won't have the FakeTape, printer emulation, ECPS:VSE and so on that make Flex-ES so valuable, over and above simple zArchitecture emulation. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
Re: IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones
I'll try again - maybe Darren has fixed the SORBS problems. I am not at all surprised at IBM's action. When the ESP box turned up at Lufthansa, one of my IBM contacts was quite literally very nearly speechless. Our speculation was that PSI had found some ruddy great hole in IBM's TsCs, but that seems not to have been the case. IBM and the industry have generally implemented IBM's software TsCs to the letter. In the PCM days, it was the #1 rule. I had a situation once where a customer was down with a Sev2 blocking a major application - another customer running the same system in the same town had just received a PTF for the same problem - but it was licensed code. We asked IBM formally (via Telex) if we could have permission to copy the PTF between systems, or if they could get a local IBM branch SE to do it. The answer was a firm _NO_ to both - they would cut a new tape and ship it ASAP. They did - it was hand-carried by an IBM courier by air at hideous expense right across Europe. Didn't take very long, in the end. If I build some box that will run z/OS and succeed - by whatever means - in getting a valid licence out of IBM, it does NOT mean I can ship that box to someone else and transfer the licence without IBM's permission. And certainly not to another country. In general terms - the box is not licensed, the user is. As to why IBM is using software patents - the explanation might be quite simple. They know that certain patents must be licensed to run z/OS and they might also know these patents have not been licensed. Simple - if z/OS runs, you're using the patents and that might be quite sufficient proof without IBM ever touching the box. The absence of hardware patent assertions in the filing might therefore just be because IBM has not yet had a chance to examine the physical box. In the PCM era, IBM and the PCMs used to buy time on each others' systems and sometimes even temporarily lease systems. I worked quite closely on several occasions with Simon Awde, European Corporate Counsel at Amdahl. He once told me his job specification was: a) Don't get sued by IBM b) Don't sue IBM c) Repeat for the rest of the industry -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
What's a mainframe?
There used to be a rule: a) If you push it and it doesn't move, it's a mainframe. b) If you push it and it moves, it's midrange. c) If you can pick it up and steal it, it's a PC. Now: d) If it's a major source of p/r egg-on-face for a bank and causes a Financial Services Authority investigation, it's a hot laptop. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/moneybox/6160054.stm -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
1401 and MUSIC
Wasn't MUSIC McGill's predecessor to TSO? Another MUSIC. Machine Utilization Statistics and Information Collection. Wrote to SYS1.ACCTA and SYS1.ACCTB alternately. I'm not sure what data it collected - it was just a flaming nuisance to me. I think it only collected at end of step, but it did it while the initiator was enqueued on Q4 and Q5, so if the operator didn't spot the Reply 'U' message it took a while to work out why a couple of dozen tapes had stopped going round. And further on printers - I'd like a 1443 flying broomstick. We had a 2821 go down one day and take two 1403N1s with it, so we printed a staff salaries three-part NCR paper report on the 1443. The print clarity was stunning, but it was dog-slow and for boxes took all night. The next day we had a request to use that printer for all future reports ... Zing zing zing zing zing zing zing zing zing for four freakin' hours. Printers were fun sometimes. I once saw an IBM engineer who'd been told by his boss to clean the 1043s. I came upon the scene just after the event, but it was obvious he dodn't know what he was doing. The usual way was to take the ribbon off, put cleaning paper in the tractors (funny stuff with a coating of tiny stiff nylon bristles), close the gate and run a test pattern while manually advancing the cleaning paper. The little bristles would prod out the slugs and carry off the old ink. Not this guy. He opened the gate, took the ribbon off. sprayed (a lot of - must have been) tape cleaner on the train and worked the gate interlock with his thumb to power up the train. I heard the scream. He was standing there, completely black across the waist, shading to grey for inches above and below. The train had siezed and the train motor overload had tripped. It was a custom train, too. The 1403 had four tractors and the 3211 only three. The reason was Keith, who one day left the lower right open when he slammed the gate shut. He was irritable that day, and did it with such force that the gate was bent and we couldn't get uniform density across it. It went back to IBM for reworking. Then we dropped one forty feet into the car park. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
1401 and Music
She'll be coming round the mountain on a 1403. You had to disengage the tractor clutch and wind the paper through slowly by hand. Radio music was played by tuning to the medium wave and placing the radio on the processor unit, towards the front left. And there was the other MUSIC - OS/360's precursor to SMF. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.co.uk +44 7833 654 800 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
