Skip:
I think you are about right on the time line. I do remember the two
separate products. We had look at ISPF (we had gone FSE instead).
Our IBMers at the time went AWOL and I could never get a good
explanation between the two products.
We decided to keep FSE as it was a lot less $$$ . We also did not
like the proliferation of ISPF datasets (at the time DASD was
expensive).
*MAYBE* if IBM hadn't gone AWOL we would have been persuaded to go.
My memory is sketch but my memory seems to recall we were paying $95
a month for FSE and if memory serves me IBM's ISPF was like $395 a
month.
The programmers seemed happy with FSE and we (systems programmers)
were happy as I can recall only one bug in the several years we had
the product (it was a minor bug at that).
Flash forward 4 or so years and at another shop we bit the bullet and
went ISPF. Luckily the programmers were unsophisticated but we got a
few complaints about bugs.
Flash forward 10 years and IBM really put out a reasonably good
product maybe 1 bug report in a year and I think I found the bug
myself. To this day IBM (as long as you don't do too exotic things
with it ISPF is a good solid product, IMO.
Ed
On Dec 21, 2011, at 7:24 PM, Skip Robinson wrote:
SPF (Structured Programming Facility) when I entered this biz in
the late
70s was a single product that essentially provided only what came
later to
be called PDF: Browse, Edit, Data Set, etc. It was not intended for
installation applications, but if you were clever you could jury
rig one
of the 'foreground' functions like Compile to perform your own pet
tricks.
In my shop we created a few such RYO adaptations that were pretty
crude
and limited in feature. But like the dog who can walk on two legs, it
amazed us for being even possible.
Around 1980 the product morphed into ISPF (Interactive System
Productivity
Facility)--one of the great feats of acronym acrobatics in IT history.
This transformation more or less coincided with the advent of MVS/SP.
Initially there were two products: ISPF and PDF. You could buy and
run PDF
without ISPF. (I'd be curious to know how many shops ever did
that.) The
magic advance in ISPF was the notion of a 'dialog', a fully
documented and
extremely powerful mechanism for creating your own interactive
applications that could even--miracle of miracles--be driven by COBOL.
ISPF and PDF eventually melded back into a single product--probably an
indication of how few shops wanted one component without the other.
.
.
JO.Skip Robinson
SCE Infrastructure Technology Services
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]
From: "Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Date: 12/21/2011 03:23 PM
Subject: Re: SPF timeline?
Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]>
In <[email protected]>, on
12/21/2011
at 07:22 AM, Elardus Engelbrecht <[email protected]>
said:
http://www.planetmvs.com/spfeditor/ispfhist.txt
Thanks. Now if I could just get the dates for 5740-XT8 and 5787-XT2.
Some background of TSO and ISPF (missing good citations... :-( ) :
I've probably edited one or both of those.
Apparently TSO is not an 'option' in MVS, if I understand these
links correctly, so ISPF came with MVS in 1974.
No, ISPF was not part of either MVS or the later TSO/E.
BTW, I would encourage anybody with copies of the relevant manuals oe
announcement letters to edit the wiki articles and to add references
where appropriate.
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