The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.
[email protected] (Scott T. Harder) writes: > VBG. Too funny. I've heard many stories about card decks being > dropped every which-way, but what did you have to do when that > happened? Were they numbered or denoted in some way where you could > put the deck back together? Must have been, but what a job; like > trying to find a mis-filed tape. ;-) And, I would think that > everything else came to a halt while the deck was re-ordered. one of the standard drop decks stories is placing cards on top of 1403N1 ... when the printer ran out of paper ... it would automatically lift the cover ... dumping whatever was on top of the printer; coffee cups and card decks (i.e. rubber band around smaller decks would hold cards together when dumped on floor ... but larger decks ... the rubber band wasn't strong enough to hold the cards together or if it was box of cards w/o buffer band). standard assembler "ISEQ" statement specifies the columns (normally defaulted to 73-80) that the assembler was to check sequence numbers for correct order ... reference: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wdzinfo/v7r0/topic/com.ibm.ent.asm.zos.doc/topics/fn1lrmst146.htm standard sort would be start in column 80 and then pull cards out of stackers in correct order and then sort on column 79 (i.e. stacker 1 would have all "1x" cards ... and the "x" would be in correct order because of previous sort). Then sort on column 78 (again stacker 1 would have all "1xx" cards ... and the "xx" could be in correct order because of previous two sorts). once things were in CMS files with virtual (cp67) punches and readers ... it was possible to use CMS sort command to correctly reorder card sequence. some reference: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#47 CMS "update" command also made use of the sequence number fields to select card images to be deleted &/or replaced. However, it (the original CMS update command implementation) still required manual effort (in the CMS editor) to set sequence number field for replaced cards. As undergraduate ... I was making so many (CP67 & CMS) source changes ... having to manually type-in the sequence numbers for inserted/replaced card images ... that I hacked the program to accept specification for automatically generating the sequence numbers. It survives today as the "$" field on the cms update command "INSERT" and "REPLACE" statements. Standard process started out with CMS exec that would find an "update" file and apply it to the base assembly source file ... creating a temporary file ... which was then assembled and "binary" output file generated. Subsequently there was support added for multi-level updates where the "front-end" exec would look for multiple update files to be applied in specific order ... before assembling. Later, the multi-level update process (as well as the "$" sequence number field generation) was incorporated directly into the update command (and source editors ... both for applying updates before editing as well as saving changes in update file format). In the 70s, internal development of quite a few products were being done on cp67/cms (later vm370/cms) using the CMS multi-level update process. There was something of disconnect for some of the os/360 (mvt/svs later MVS) products because of conflicts the standard os/360 distribution management (some conflicts between the cms stuff being converted to os/360 distribution). One product that had this problem for some time was JES. misc. past posts mentioning cms multi-level update process: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#39 CMS update http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#66 History of project maintenance tools -- what and when? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#1 History of project maintenance tools -- what and when? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#59 A POX on you, Dennis Ritchie!!! http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#43 Sequence Numbbers in Location 73-80 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#30 Shipwrecks http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005i.html#30 Status of Software Reuse? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005i.html#39 Behavior in undefined areas? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005p.html#45 HASP/ASP JES/JES2/JES3 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#5 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005r.html#6 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#10 IBM 3090/VM Humor http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#7 About TLB in lower-level caches http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#5 3380-3390 Conversion - DISAPPOINTMENT http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006f.html#38 Over my head in a JES exit http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#45 sorting http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#14 SEQUENCE NUMBERS http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#19 Source maintenance was Re: SEQUENCE NUMBERS http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#45 Was FORTRAN buggy? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#26 Assembler question http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#42 vmshare http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#48 vmshare http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#12 FBA rant http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#11 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#32 What I miss in my OS -- 40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
