On 16/03/2014 2:53 AM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>>CA-1's support of non-number tape serials was "difficult" (needed some sort
>>of mapping exit as I recall).
>
>Yes, because management got thousands of tape labels printed for the new
>MVS system before the sysprogs heard about it.
>
Details? Does the exit merely map non-number tape serials to numeric?
Yes, my recollection is that the exit's function was to convert
non-numeric characters to EBCDIC numeric characters and then pass it on
for "normal" processing. There may even have been a "reverse the
process" exit - sysprogs who look after such a beast now would be able
to say for sure.
The reason for the non-numeric characters?
Management thought it might be nice if the first two characters were
alphabetics forming a common abbreviation of the corporation name.
Yes, this did limit the tape library to 10**4 carts (this was the epoch
of 3480 cartridge drives), but that limit was not reached while I was there.
I am sure you can imagine our delight when we found out yet another
little set up (the new system) task that could have been oh-so-easily
avoided. And yes, there were upgrades done for which we forgot about
the exit - until jobs ran which could not use their tapes. Oh for DLPA
back then....
Cheers,
Greg
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