SPPS reminds of a little war story. The garment retailer had a ticketing system whereby we printed sticky labels, numbered in 100 increments. That's what the analyst specified. These labels were quite expensive compared to line printer paper. They were printed on the 1403 or whatever.
We ran a few thousand off and the analyst realised that he should have said increments of 10, not 100. We were going to run out of numbers. Lots of useless labels and red faces.... On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 3:06 PM Wayne Bickerdike <wayn...@gmail.com> wrote: > Seymour, > > The assembler was SPPS. Too close to the stats package name SPSS. > > I was working at a DOS/VSE shop in England in 1983 and they had COBOL and > SPPS on their IBM cash registers. > > I had neither mainframe COBOL nor SPPS skills but I'd written a whole > bunch of Microfocus COBOL on CP/M micros. > > I convinced them that I could do mainframe COBOL, which wasn't that > difficult. When I looked at the SPPS code, it was macro Assembler, so that > was the start of a short time with same. > > A few years later I found myself in Melbourne, Australia working for a > department store. They also had 3651 store controllers and 36.. POS > terminals (point of sale LOL). > The 3651 implemented a local area network before I'd seen what we know now > as LAN. Connected to a FEP, it was quite smart in its day. The PC killed > off this technology and within a few years most of this type of kit was on > the scrap heap. > > > > > On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 6:46 AM Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: > >> > I thought the macros were part of CONCEPT 14? >> >> CONCEPT 14 (http://skycoast.us/pscott/software/mvs/c14/c14-0000.html) >> could be what I was thinking of. It's the basis for the macro package in >> the HLASM Toolkit. >> >> The macro package I actually used was called PROC. >> >> > http://skycoast.us/pscott/software/mvs/c14/c14-0000.html >> >> The only SPSS I ever heard of was Statistical Package for the Social >> Sciences, and it didn't look like assembler. >> >> >> -- >> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf >> of Wayne Bickerdike [wayn...@gmail.com] >> Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2020 4:01 PM >> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU >> Subject: Re: C >> >> I thought the macros were part of CONCEPT 14? I do remember working on IBM >> 3684 point of sale systems between 1982 and 1986. They were programmed >> using an Asembler like language called SPSS II, it had IF THEN ELSE and >> other macros. >> >> On Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 03:36 Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: >> >> > Those macros were not part of the assembler. As I recall there was a >> > popular macro package called CONCEPT 101 (sp?) floating around, and >> another >> > package called PROC, but they didn't come from IBM. >> > >> > >> > -- >> > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> > >> > ________________________________________ >> > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on >> behalf >> > of Mike Schwab [mike.a.sch...@gmail.com] >> > Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2020 1:25 PM >> > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU >> > Subject: Re: C >> > >> > I was doing an internship in the Chicago area during the summer of >> > 1984. They were using an assembler with IF macros. >> > >> > On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 2:11 PM Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: >> > > >> > > HLASM in 1980? Not before June 1992. I assume that you were using XF >> and >> > H, possibly with the SLAC mods on the latter (thank you, Greg and John.) >> > > >> > > >> > > -- >> > > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> > > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> > > >> > > ________________________________________ >> > > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on >> > behalf of Donald Blake [dhbl...@gmail.com] >> > > Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2020 8:51 AM >> > > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU >> > > Subject: C >> > > >> > > I took my first C course in 1980. The text was the original *The C >> > > programming Language* by Kerrigan and Richie, which I still have on my >> > > shelf, The text is copyright 1978. That's 42 years ago. I was an IBM >> HL >> > > Assembler programmer at the time. BTW ... we still were using IFOX00 >> at >> > the >> > > time as well. >> > > >> > > > Hey, it's not politically correct to point out how old C is. >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> > > > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> > > > >> > > >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> > > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO >> IBM-MAIN >> > > >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> > > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO >> IBM-MAIN >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA >> > Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all? >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> > >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> > > > -- > Wayne V. Bickerdike > > -- Wayne V. Bickerdike ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
