Hi. Welcome to the world of z and IBM-MAIN. Go to http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/bkserv/ On the right side of the page there is a link to the z/OS basics skill center and a z/OS Basics Redbook. This Redbook may be a good place to start along with the basics skill center.
If you want to learn about systems programming at some point, there are also a set of Redbooks called The ABCs of System Programming or the ABCs of z/OS System Programming. z/OS / zSeries / System z is vast... the follow up questions could go on for years! :-) Also learn to search the archives of ibm-main to see if you question has been asked / answered before. More details to your questions below... but you have to do the downloading / reading yourself. :-) >On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:46:27 -0400, Kuredjian, Michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >1. zOS has a kernel called the BCP, or Base Control Program. In Linux or Windows, it's established that the kernel runs on a general purpose CPU( PowerPC, x86, MIPS, etc...); however, I would like to know if such a central CPU exists in the mainframe, and if that central CPU is of some common architecture like, POWER. If not, are there any documents that I can look into that will describe the CPU architecture for me? > Go to http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/ and search for IBM System z9 109 Technical Introduction. This will tell you about the most current technology. The prior technology was z990 (and z890) and before that was z900 (and z800). Prior to the z900 the hardware (and software) was limited to a 31-bit architecture. If you are interested in that look for 9672. >2. ESCON and FICON are data busses used for external storage devices, but what does the mainframe use for internal data bus, InfiniBand, HyperTransport? > See #1. I thought I heard something about InfiniBand being used internally, but that may still be in the next processor generation. >3. Does the mainframe use common interconnects on the hardware level? I'm thinking of PCIe, PCI-X, MCA, or PCI. > Search the same Redbook site for the IBM System z Connectivity Handbook Cheers, Mark -- Mark Zelden Sr. Software and Systems Architect - z/OS Team Lead Zurich North America / Farmers Insurance Group mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] z/OS and OS390 expert at http://searchDataCenter.com/ateExperts/ Mark's MVS Utilities: http://home.flash.net/~mzelden/mvsutil.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
