The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.
Steve Samson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I would regard SP as the "inside" job, designing, writing, testing, > and integrating code to accomplish some well-defined purpose. An SE > would be on the interface between "inside" and "outside", meeting with > TPTB and the end users to arrive at a set of specs that would then be > reviewed and/or revised with the SP to assess cost and schedule, thus > defining the purpose of the SP's effort. > > In the dawn of history, an SE was the IBM sales team member who would > provide on-site training and act as the level 1 contact for solving > problems. By 1965 the SE became not much more than the guy you called > to order manuals, as all of them with half a brain were pulled into > the S/360 development effort. > > Just my opinion and recollections... big change was 23jun69 with unbundling announcement and charging for SE time. prior to that a lot of SEs got "hands-on" training at customer installations do real-live technical things (sort of on-the-job training after introductory school). after 23jun69 announcement, customers were less likely to pay for SE "services" ... especially younger ones getting their on-the-job training. that sort of created two-class system ... those that had hands-on experience prior to 23jun69 ... and customers were more likely to pay for their time ... and those that came after 23jun69. before 23jun69, for a period as an undergraduate, i had responsibility for the univ. production os/360 system (and also got to play with cp67). I had done a lot of stuff to significantly soup up mft (and then mvt) thruput ... part of of it doing carefully crafted sysgens. There was a period where I would see brand new SEs in the branch office (fresh out of corporate schools) for 3-4 month period and then be replaced by new batch (getting their "hands-on" by "helping" me). the early "HONE" system http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone was largely instituted as countermeasure to training issues introduced with 23jun69 announcement ... started out as clone of science center's http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech cp67 (virtual machine) system on a few 360/67s at locations around the states and remote login access from branch offices ... being able to use dos/360, os/360, etc (i.e. behind the original "hands-on" in the HONE acronym). the focus somewhat changed after science center did the port of apl\360 to cms for cms\apl and the explosion in the number apl applications supporting sales & marketing appeared ... like the "configurators". Early in 370 product time-frame ... there was transition where sales couldn't even submit orders until after they had been processed by HONE configurator. The explosion in the use by direct sales & marketing sort of swamped the processors and there was then transition away from its original purpose of allowing SEs to get hands-on system expierence. HONE would migrate (from cp67) to vm370 and eventually had HONE systems sprouting up all around the world ... some of the early ones, i even got to do the installation. Many of the HONE APL modeling applications would also permeate hdqtrs locations, in addition to direct branch office sales & marketing support. One of my first HONE installs outside the US was when EMEA hdqtrs moved from NY to La Defense (outside paris) in the early 70s. for other drift ... misc. posts mentioning 23jun69 unbundling http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#unbundle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
