I am not sure that you were defending VTAM. All of the interesting things that you did were done to overcome deficiencies. That seems quite the opposite of a defense.
Regards, Richard Schuh > -----Original Message----- > From: The IBM z/VM Operating System > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Neale Ferguson > Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 2:25 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: VTAM R.I.P. > > With all the bad mouthing that poor old VTAM has been copping > I will jump to its defence. Some of the most interesting > things I got to play with were due to it and GCS. First off > we modified our OS/PLI 2.3 source code and added some > function to GCS such that we could write apps in proper > multi-tasking PL/I. We created some VTAM support routines and > we were able to create a system that allowed us to switch > messages from our VSE systems to our > Series/1 (yes we had these babies too). When we phased out > the Series/1s, which were responsible for talking an async > protocol to the racecourses around the state to combine > pools, we used the DATE support of NPSI to bring that > function into a virtual machine. I used to talk to VMSHARE > using another GATE-based NPSI application. All this was > written in PL/I and served us for years and made the company > a lot of money. > > Now as far as the joys of NCP generation and VTAM topologies, > and SNA protocols in general yes I am happy to live without > them now. It reminds me of an ancient joke: > > John Akers answers the phone: Hello > > Caller: John Akers? > > JA: Yes. > > Caller: John Akers of IBM? > > JA: Yes. > > Caller: John Akers of IBM, White Plains? > > JA: Yes! > > Caller: John Akers of IBM, White Plains, NY, USA? > > JA: Yes, WTF do you want????!!! > > Caller: Just wanted to let you know how it feels to set up an > SNA session. >
