Re: history is hard

[Stefan Skoglund via cctalk]

sön 2020-05-31 klockan 10:04 -0500 skrev Jon Elson via cctalk:
> On 05/31/2020 02:06 AM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:
> > 
> > On 5/30/2020 11:15 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
> > > On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > > >  
> > > > Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
> > > > keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
> > > > although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.
> > Our /50 had it and I have never seen any indication in the 
> > documentation for the hardware that
> > indicated that it was an option.
> > 
> > I don't think that either MVT or MFT would have been very 
> > stable without it.  I certainly spent a lot of time
> > studying how to get around it, and am responsible for a 
> > couple of SPIE patches in the MVT product
> > from exploits trying to get into supervisor mode to muck 
> > with such.
> > 
> Yes, the SPIE call as supplied from IBM was surely the 
> security hole big enough for 5 ocean liners abreast to steam 
> right through! Everybody had to patch that, and the patch 
> was fairly simple.  But, it was a clear indication of how 
> LITTLE IBM thought about security. Of course, they were 
> thinking about banks where 3 teams reviewed code before it 
> ever ran on the machine, not universities where kids would 
> try all sorts of mischief.
> > Yes, I know supervisor state isn't tied to the storage 
> > keys, but that was the way I went to
> > try to circumvent the storage keys.
> Oh, once you have the P bit set to zero, you can do 
> anything, such as changing the storage protection key of 
> your own program.
> 
> Jon

I have a school memory of something like that:
my school had a PRIME 9955 with PRIMOS 19, well that system had a hole
in the handling of serial lines with modems. One municipality employee
was logged in from home/work and went home (basically pulled the plug
on the pc and went home.) My friend dialed in and got into the
employees login session

I have a memory of the responsible system admin when he speaks with
PRIME in Stockholm, well it wasn't the first time this happened...

Re: history is hard

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/31/2020 02:06 AM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:



On 5/30/2020 11:15 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 
Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.
Our /50 had it and I have never seen any indication in the 
documentation for the hardware that

indicated that it was an option.

I don't think that either MVT or MFT would have been very 
stable without it.  I certainly spent a lot of time
studying how to get around it, and am responsible for a 
couple of SPIE patches in the MVT product
from exploits trying to get into supervisor mode to muck 
with such.


Yes, the SPIE call as supplied from IBM was surely the 
security hole big enough for 5 ocean liners abreast to steam 
right through! Everybody had to patch that, and the patch 
was fairly simple.  But, it was a clear indication of how 
LITTLE IBM thought about security. Of course, they were 
thinking about banks where 3 teams reviewed code before it 
ever ran on the machine, not universities where kids would 
try all sorts of mischief.
Yes, I know supervisor state isn't tied to the storage 
keys, but that was the way I went to

try to circumvent the storage keys.
Oh, once you have the P bit set to zero, you can do 
anything, such as changing the storage protection key of 
your own program.


Jon

Re: history is hard

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/30/2020 11:15 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 
Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.
Our /50 had it and I have never seen any indication in the documentation 
for the hardware that

indicated that it was an option.

I don't think that either MVT or MFT would have been very stable without 
it.  I certainly spent a lot of time
studying how to get around it, and am responsible for a couple of SPIE 
patches in the MVT product

from exploits trying to get into supervisor mode to muck with such.

Yes, I know supervisor state isn't tied to the storage keys, but that 
was the way I went to

try to circumvent the storage keys.

thanks
Jim

Re: history is hard

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 3:30 PM Jon Elson via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> >  > From: Jon Elson
> >
> >  > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which
> was out
> >  > in the early 1970's
> >
> > CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically
> the
> > same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was
> > descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that
> I think it was, too.  But, only a /67 could run this.  Any
> other 360 would have big security/reliability problems if
> they tried to implement this kind of virtualization.
> Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
> keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
> although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.  And,
> the storage protection keys were a very coarse/crude tool,
> although you could set up
> sharable read-only areas.
>

The issue wasn't whether the machine had storage keys (protection, SSK and
ISK instructions). AFAIK CP/67 didn't use that even when available. What
CP/67 and VM/370 required was Dynamic Address Translation (DAT), and the
360/67 was the ONLY 360 model for which that was available. Contrary to
popular belief, DAT wasn't even available on every 370 model, as it was an
optional feature of the 370 architecture.

CP/40 was developed on a modified 360/40 that had DAT (with the addition of
a "CAT box"), but was never available as a product.

RE: history is hard

[Dave Wade via cctalk]

Phil (and the rest of you)

You may find this interesting:-

http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse.cgi?fn=HISTORY=MEMO=cp67#hit

note that you won't find VMSHARE articles via google. The site isn't indexed
anywhere else.

Dave

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Phil Budne via
> cctalk
> Sent: 29 May 2020 23:39
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: history is hard
> 
> > From: Noel
> > > From: Jon Elson
> >
> > > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was
> out
> > > in the early 1970's
> >
> > CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was
> > basically the same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that
> > the code was descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that
> > - although see Varian, below.)
> 
> In the last decade worked with another contractor (whose name I have
> thankfully forgotten: after he removed a purely symbolic layer of
indirection
> in my code, and when I explained why it was there (to allow hardware
> operations to be specified in a platform independent way, to make it easy
to
> move the system to new hardware) tritely
> replied: "if wishes were fishes") who made it ABUNDANTLY clear to me that
> VM/370 was significantly different from CP-67. Aw rats, found his
> name: Dave Tuttle.
> 
> FWIW, on VM/370 being a reimplementation:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS says:
> 
>   In 1972, IBM announced the addition of virtual memory to the
>   S/370 series, along with the VM/370 operating system, a
>   reimplementation of CP/CMS for the S/370.
> 
> also
>   IBM reimplemented CP/CMS as its VM/370 product line, released
>   in 1972 when virtual memory was added to the S/370
>   series. VM/370's successors (such as z/VM) remain in wide use
>   today. (It is important to note that IBM reimplemented CP-67,
>   as it had CP-40, and did not simply rename and repackage
>   it. VM coexisted with CP/CMS and its successors for many
>   years. It is thus appropriate to view CP/CMS as an independent
>   OS, distinct from the VM family.)
> 
> and
>   hypervisor: a mechanism for paravirtualization. This term was
>   coined in IBM's reimplementation of CP-67 as VM/370.
> 
> > One version of CP/67 provided a /370 virtual machine; it was used
> > extensively by the MVS development team. CP/67 was also brought up on
> > /370 hardware.
> 
> To amplify: My introduction to "how wonderful VMs are" were was when I
> worked at BU (after leaving DEC) and told story of how CP or VM was ported
> to new hardware by running a second level VM (on a production
> system) that simulated the new hardware, and then VM for the new
> hardware could be booted in a THIRD level VM.  (As a DECie I was dubious
> about such things, tho they could have helped me debug TOPS-20 monitors
> in daylight, as opposed to waiting to take BUCS20 standalone at night).
> 
> Maybe this is it, on pdf page 30, document page 28 of Varian's paper:
> http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/25paper.pdf
> 
> Alain Auroux did most of the actual coding and testing for the
> bootstrapping, but Rip Parmelee, Bob Adair, and Charlie Salisbury
> were also heavily involved in working out the design.  When Auroux
> started, Cambridge was running a 360/67, not a S/370, and that 67
> was a production system, so he had to avoid destabilizing it.
> ?Vanilla? CP-67 systems created System/360 virtual machines, but
> they did not virtualize the 360/67; that is, they did not allow a
> guest to create its own virtual storage.  Auroux?s first step was
> to modify CP-67 to create virtual 360/67s, which used 4K pages and
> 1M segments.  Once he had convinced the Cambridge Operations
> Manager torun that as the production system, he could then proceed
> to develop a CP-67 that virtualized theSystem/370 architecture.
> 
> The System/370 relocation architecture was different from the
> 360/67 architecture; it allowed both 2K and 4K pages and both 64K
> and 1M segments.  So, Auroux modified his modified CP-67 to
> support 64K segments and the new System/370 instructions.  He ran
> that system second-level, so he could run a virtual S/370
> third-level.  He developed a prototype ?CP-370? in that
> third-level virtual machine.  Then, to test this CP-370?s
> virtualization of System/370 virtual memory, he had to run it both
> third- and fourth-level, with a couple of CMS machines running
> fifth-level.  He remembers doing much of his testing from home at
> night using an ?old, slow, noisy teletype?. His 

Re: history is hard

[Phil Budne via cctalk]

> From: Noel
> > From: Jon Elson
>
> > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was out
> > in the early 1970's
>
> CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically the
> same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was
> descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that - although see
> Varian, below.)

In the last decade worked with another contractor (whose name I have
thankfully forgotten: after he removed a purely symbolic layer of
indirection in my code, and when I explained why it was there (to
allow hardware operations to be specified in a platform independent
way, to make it easy to move the system to new hardware) tritely
replied: "if wishes were fishes") who made it ABUNDANTLY clear to me
that VM/370 was significantly different from CP-67. Aw rats, found his
name: Dave Tuttle.

FWIW, on VM/370 being a reimplementation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS says:

In 1972, IBM announced the addition of virtual memory to the
S/370 series, along with the VM/370 operating system, a
reimplementation of CP/CMS for the S/370.

also
IBM reimplemented CP/CMS as its VM/370 product line, released
in 1972 when virtual memory was added to the S/370
series. VM/370's successors (such as z/VM) remain in wide use
today. (It is important to note that IBM reimplemented CP-67,
as it had CP-40, and did not simply rename and repackage
it. VM coexisted with CP/CMS and its successors for many
years. It is thus appropriate to view CP/CMS as an independent
OS, distinct from the VM family.)

and
hypervisor: a mechanism for paravirtualization. This term was
coined in IBM's reimplementation of CP-67 as VM/370.

> One version of CP/67 provided a /370 virtual machine; it was used
> extensively by the MVS development team. CP/67 was also brought up on
> /370 hardware.

To amplify: My introduction to "how wonderful VMs are" were was when I
worked at BU (after leaving DEC) and told story of how CP or VM was
ported to new hardware by running a second level VM (on a production
system) that simulated the new hardware, and then VM for the new
hardware could be booted in a THIRD level VM.  (As a DECie I was
dubious about such things, tho they could have helped me debug TOPS-20
monitors in daylight, as opposed to waiting to take BUCS20 standalone
at night).

Maybe this is it, on pdf page 30, document page 28 of Varian's paper:
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/25paper.pdf

Alain Auroux did most of the actual coding and testing for the
bootstrapping, but Rip Parmelee, Bob Adair, and Charlie Salisbury
were also heavily involved in working out the design.  When Auroux
started, Cambridge was running a 360/67, not a S/370, and that 67
was a production system, so he had to avoid destabilizing it.
?Vanilla? CP-67 systems created System/360 virtual machines, but
they did not virtualize the 360/67; that is, they did not allow a
guest to create its own virtual storage.  Auroux?s first step was
to modify CP-67 to create virtual 360/67s, which used 4K pages and
1M segments.  Once he had convinced the Cambridge Operations
Manager torun that as the production system, he could then proceed
to develop a CP-67 that virtualized theSystem/370 architecture.

The System/370 relocation architecture was different from the
360/67 architecture; it allowed both 2K and 4K pages and both 64K
and 1M segments.  So, Auroux modified his modified CP-67 to
support 64K segments and the new System/370 instructions.  He ran
that system second-level, so he could run a virtual S/370
third-level.  He developed a prototype ?CP-370? in that
third-level virtual machine.  Then, to test this CP-370?s
virtualization of System/370 virtual memory, he had to run it both
third- and fourth-level, with a couple of CMS machines running
fifth-level.  He remembers doing much of his testing from home at
night using an ?old, slow, noisy teletype?. His prototype CP-370
had been debugged in simulation by the end of 1970.  Late in
January, 1971, just before Auroux was to return to France, he
and Bob Adair and Rip Parmelee took copy of his system to Endicott
so that they could test it on a prototype 370/145 with relocation
hardware.  It IPLed the first time

My recall was that they booted (sorry, IPL'ed) on the real hardware
before any of IBM's "real" operating systems did.

This may be it, in footnote 91, which spans across two pages(!),
starting BEFORE the previous paragraph:

An IBM newsletter announced the awards given for the
virtualization of System/370 on the 360/67 (?Cambridge Men
Modified CP-67, Providing Tool for Developers?, IBM News,vol. 9,
no. 15, August, 1972, p. 1.):

  CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: The work of four men at the Scientific Center
  here begun 

Re: history is hard

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 > From: Jon Elson

 > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was out
 > in the early 1970's

CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically the
same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was
descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that
I think it was, too.  But, only a /67 could run this.  Any 
other 360 would have big security/reliability problems if 
they tried to implement this kind of virtualization.  
Low-level machines did not even have storage protection 
keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option, 
although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.  And, 
the storage protection keys were a very coarse/crude tool, 
although you could set up

sharable read-only areas.

The other issue was that very few 360's had enough storage 
to really use a virtual environment.


Jon

Re: history is hard

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Jon Elson

> As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which was out
> in the early 1970's

CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically the
same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was
descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that - although see
Varian, below.) It was used by many customers who had purchased 360/67's.

The 370/67's instruction set didn't need to be tweaked at all to run a
virtualization (although it had added hardware to do virtual memory, which
CP/67 needed); the '360 Principles of Operation' was defined in such a way
that it could be virtualized. (Unlike, say, the PDP-11, where a RESET
instruction in User mode is a NOP, and does not trap). All that's needed is
the virtual memory hardware, because otherwise the real addresses of the
underlying machine have to be exposed to the virtual machines.

CP/67 was preceded by two earlier iterations: CP/40, which ran on a special
360/40 which has been hacked to have paging hardware added; it was likewise
almost identical to CP/67 (a hacked version of CP/40, with the memory
management of the 370/67 substituted for the special 360/40's, was booted on a
360/67). An older system, M44, which was similar in functionality (although
not a perfect virtualization of the underlying machine), it ran on a modified
7044.

One version of CP/67 provided a /370 virtual machine; it was used
extensively by the MVS development team. CP/67 was also brought up on
/370 hardware.

Full details in "VM and the VM Community: Past, Present and Future",
by Melinda Varian.

Noel

Re: history is hard

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Wed, 27 May 2020, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:

I would be most intrigued to see what a hardware lock and soft-eject for a USB
key would look like.


Eject would require fairly precise fit for a solenoid follower around the 
perimeter.

Are the square holes in the USB-A top and bottom side standardized?
Are they strong enough to discourage ham-fisted users? (needs to also 
ba a flashing light surrounding the port!)

Would red/green lights be enough to help mitigate the problem?

Win7 does sometimes erroneously report a device in use when all 
application programs that accessed it have been closed.   I am unaware of 
how to query "WHICH program claims to still be using it?"
But the memory leaks and a few other problems are enough that WIN7 can 
benefit from periodic restarts.  It, at least MY copies, are definitely 
NOT a permanently ON OS.




Fortunately, there now exist robust filesystems which ensure that partial
writes are not visible and that only the last few seconds of uncommitted data
still in the write queue is lost. Unfortunately, these tend not to be used much
because they're "slow"[0] and/or because it's on removable media formatted with
a joke filesystem because of Windows.


A joke operating system doesn't provide much CHOICE of which filesystems 
to use.
And it dates back decades, even to "advice" columns in magazines 
recommending to turn VERIFY off in DOS.
(NOTE: for those unfamiliar: "VERIFY" (both DOS and Int13h) was not a read 
after write compare of content; it merely confirmed that each sector that 
was written was readable.)



[0] For anybody who values throughput over durability, may I recommend
   /dev/null for the ultimate in performance?

Re: history is hard

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 05:04:10PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> also, the Amiga wrote track rather than sector at a time, so a sector write
> needed to be delayed until the track was ready to be written

And could therefore corrupt ten unrelated sectors from other files at the same
time. When it popped up "You MUST replace volume Empty in DF0:", it was not
messing about.

[...]
> computer/OS control of disk eject and power is what's needed to solve it.
> Either hardware locks, or very thorough (difficult) eductaion of users. If
> the user ASKS THE OS to eject the disk, then it can easily be delayed until
> safe to do it. Similar with power shutdown (which users are now familiar
> with)

There are SCSI commands for locking drives and performing eject and
contemporary operating systems do seem to use them. You'll mostly observe this
when using optical media because that's the only non-obsolete hardware left
which still supports them, and most of the time they're used for read-only
media anyway so it's somewhat moot.

I would be most intrigued to see what a hardware lock and soft-eject for a USB
key would look like.

> In addition, the performance improvement that SMARTDRV did of optimizing the
> sequence of multiple writes out of sequence (all directory sectors, THEN all
> disk sectors) was dangerous if there was an interruption (not necessarily
> just user) before it was finished.

Fortunately, there now exist robust filesystems which ensure that partial
writes are not visible and that only the last few seconds of uncommitted data
still in the write queue is lost. Unfortunately, these tend not to be used much
because they're "slow"[0] and/or because it's on removable media formatted with
a joke filesystem because of Windows.


[0] For anybody who values throughput over durability, may I recommend
/dev/null for the ultimate in performance?

Re: history is hard

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Fred 
... discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later).


On Tue, 26 May 2020, Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote:

I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS
delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems
for Amiga users.  (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack
of market success.)
Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out.You now
have a corrupted floppy.  You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to
decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to
that floppy".

(I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to
floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.)


also, the Amiga wrote track rather than sector at a time, so a sector 
write needed to be delayed until the track was ready to be written



They probably would just have to implement a "sync" command, and tell people 
to use use it before ejecting a disk...


computer/OS control of disk eject and power is what's needed to solve it.
Either hardware locks, or very thorough (difficult) eductaion of users.
If the user ASKS THE OS to eject the disk, then it can easily be delayed 
until safe to do it.  Similar with power shutdown (which users are now 
familiar with)



In addition, the performance improvement that SMARTDRV did of optimizing 
the sequence of multiple writes out of sequence (all directory sectors, 
THEN all disk sectors) was dangerous if there was an interruption (not 
necessarily just user) before it was finished.

Re: History is hard

[Stan Sieler via cctalk]

I accidentally attributed text from Liam as being from Fred C,
""MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache."

Sorry Fred!

Stan

Re: history is hard

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, 26 May 2020, Stan Sieler via cctalk wrote:


Fred writes:
  ..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a
disk cache."

I definitely never said THAT.


and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later).
Yes, THAT I said, but in terms of Win3.10 installing SMARTDRV, rather than 
DOS 4.01




I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS
delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems
for Amiga users.  (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack
of market success.)
Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out.You now
have a corrupted floppy.  You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to
decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to
that floppy".

(I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to
floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.)


Yes, I would agree with calling it that, although different reasons why it 
was done.

Re: history is hard

[Christian Groessler via cctalk]

On 2020-05-26 22:06, Stan Sieler via cctalk wrote:

Fred writes:
..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a
disk cache."
and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later).

I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS
delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems
for Amiga users.  (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack
of market success.)
Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out.You now
have a corrupted floppy.  You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to
decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to
that floppy".

(I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to
floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.)



They probably would just have to implement a "sync" command, and tell 
people to use use it before ejecting a disk...


regards,
chris

Re: history is hard

[Stan Sieler via cctalk]

Fred writes:
   ..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a
disk cache."
and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later).

I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS
delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems
for Amiga users.  (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack
of market success.)
Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out.You now
have a corrupted floppy.  You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to
decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to
that floppy".

(I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to
floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.)

Stan

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 14:13 -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
> > I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in 
> > its entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its
> operation). 
> > I was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and 
> > was looking at how to make disk operations faster in DOS at the
> time 
> > when I came up with the idea. There was a *huge* battle within IBM
> on if 
> > it should be released and in order to do so, it was fairly well 
> > hidden.
> 
> I think that I recall a mention of REFERENCE disk of PS/2?
> (NOT model 25 or 30, which didn't have extended memory)
> 
> 
> Can IBMCACHE co-exist with HIMEM.SYS?
> Or require it?
> Or the A20 support needed by Windows 3.10?
> When SMARTDRV was activated, did it disable IBMCACHE? or conflict
> with it?
> 

No, IBMCACHE was standalone.  As I recall (I wish I'd kept a copy of
the source), you could tell it how much (and starting address) of where
it would use memory > 1MB (I think there was also a mode that allowed
you to use it < 1MB as well).  That was done to allow for co-existence
with HIMEM.SYS.

When the write back cache was enabled (it would always allow write-
thru), in addition to intercepting INT 13 (and timer) it would also
intercept INT 21 so that if you did a "close" it would immediately
flush out the dirty buffers.

One of the differences between between IBMCACHE and SMARTDRV as I
recall (I really didn't spend too much time thinking about SMARTDRV)
was that IBMCACHE was block based versus SMARTDRV being track based. 
It allowed for much better caching (from my own analysis when I was
developing it).  It also allowed for caching blocks that had bad
sectors (which was one of the patents for IBMCACHE).

When IBMCACHE did a write out of dirty blocks they were always in
sorted order (the list of dirty blocks was kept in sorted order).  I
recall playing around with dual elevator algorithms (it knew where the
last read/write was) so it could do the writes that required the
fewest/shortest seeks.  It turned out now to be a huge win (for DOS)
versus the complexity, so I never released that.

I even had a version that cached floppies (but would *never* enable the
write-back cache for devices that it thought were removable).  If it
detected a disk change it would flush the cache for that drive.  

TTFN - Guy

Re: history is hard

[Evan Koblentz via cctalk]

Some things are easy to check, like the fact that the Z80 came out in 1976 when 
Woz was already finishing the Apple II so he couldn't have considered using it 
for the Apple I.


I haven't personally looked into whether he considered using the Z80, 
but your statement there is oversimplified. Define "came out". If you 
mean "announced in public" or "officially went on sale", then that 
doesn't prove anything. It is quite plausible that anyone in/around 
Silicon Valley and/or in the Homebrew Computer Club knew about the Z80 
before it officially "came out".


But, yes, history IS hard for exactly these kinds of reasons. Too many 
people are concerned with "first" and "invent", etc., when what really 
matters is generations of tech and overall impact.

Re: Standard Cocktail Napkin Size [WAS: RE: history is hard

[Rod Smallwood via cctalk]

On 25/05/2020 20:56, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al
Chou from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5�-inch FDD was
to replace in Wang and other systems.  As near as I can tell it was
not the same size as a �standard� cocktail napkin.

"standard"??!?
"I believe in standards.  Everyone should have [a unique] one [of their
own]." - George Morrow I have seen napkins that are about 5.25".


On Mon, 25 May 2020, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
I did attempt to see if there is a "standard" cocktail napkin size 
and as

best I can tell it is today 5-inches square not 5�-inches square.

A friend who is a veteran of the paper products industry provided me an
actual cocktail napkin circa 1980 (a promotional give away for his 
business)
that he recalls was procured to the then standard size which I 
measured as

5-inches square.  Apparently cocktail napkins have not deflated over the
intervening 40 years :-)

This supports Adkisson's recollection that the customer wanted something
about the size of a cocktail napkin and Chou's description of the
development process that tried to maximize the size of the disk that 
could

be received in a drive which in turn was designed to fit into the then
existing 8-track tape drive slot.



While 5" seems to be "standard", here is 5.25":
https://www.amazon.com/Beistle-S20936AZ3-Snowflake-Beverage-Napkins/dp/B076QC44WJ/ 



and here is 5" x 5.25"
https://www.amazon.com/SB-Design-Studio-D4430-Beverage/dp/B07R15GNGX/


Cocktail napkin HOLDERS seem to be 5.25", supporting 5" for the napkin.


5.25" = 3U (Standard rack size)

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.?? I wrote it in 
its entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its operation). 
I was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and 
was looking at how to make disk operations faster in DOS at the time 
when I came up with the idea. There was a *huge* battle within IBM on if 
it should be released and in order to do so, it was fairly well 
hidden.


I think that I recall a mention of REFERENCE disk of PS/2?
(NOT model 25 or 30, which didn't have extended memory)


Can IBMCACHE co-exist with HIMEM.SYS?
Or require it?
Or the A20 support needed by Windows 3.10?
When SMARTDRV was activated, did it disable IBMCACHE? or conflict with it?


Microsoft, with SMARTDRV, found out the consequences of write cacheing if 
you don't teach or succeed in teaching people to do a proper shutdown.
SMARTDRV, in addition to being in DOS 6.00 was loaded and activated by 
SETUP of WINDOWS 3.10.  If a write error occured during Windows 
installation, SMARTDRV had already prematurely reported successful write, 
so there was no way to continue and go back and fix that file.
You could "RETRY" (with no success), "ABORT" and restart the installation 
with no DIRectory or files having successfully copied.  But, you could NOT 
"IGNORE" or "FAIL" and then go back and manually copy just the file that 
had failed.  I was on the Win3.1 BETA; Microsoft support's response was, 
"THAT is a hardware problem; not our concern".  I suggested that NOT 
dealing with it would be costly.
My solution was to place a dummy file (BADSECS.DAT) where the error was 
(which neither SSTOR nor SPINRITE had been able to find.
Shutting off the machine prematurely, power glitch, etc. gave disk 
corruption, which was blamed on disk compression, since that was the most 
"VISIBLE" thing that users were aware of.


When my girlfriend went back to college, she would stand next to the 
printer, with her coat on, pulling on the paper to get her homework out to 
leave for class.  She would hit the power switch of the computer as soon 
as the paper came out.  Failing to wait for SMARTDRV's write cacheing 
corrupted stuff.  In addition to write cacheing, SMARTDRV also optimized 
the sequence of the writes, (it is faster to write all of the directory 
sectors and then all of the data sectors, rather than bounce around 
doing them in their original sequence)  so sometimes she would get 
DIRectory entries written without file content.  "Ever since I installed 
DOS6 with disk compression, I keep getting bad files!"


There was a media frenzy about "Microsoft disk compression currupts 
disks".
Microsoft had to release free "Step-Up" from MS-DOS 6.00 to 6.20, then 
6.21 (identical but without compression due to Stacker lawsuit), then 
6.22 (same but with non-infringing compression.
The "repairs to disk compression" (which was never the actual problem) of 
DOS 6.00 consisted of

1) not enabling write cacheing by default in SMARTDRV
2) IF write cacheing was enabled on the machine in SMARTDRV:
  A) do not resequence the writes in SMARTDRV
  B) do NOT display the DOS prompt when closing an application
program, until all buffers were written by SMARTDRV

6.2x also included patches to a few other long-standing problems.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 13:21 -0700, Ali wrote:
> 
> >I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in its
> >entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its operation).
> I
> >was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and was
> >looking at how to make disk operations faster in >DOS at the time
> when I
> >came up with the idea.
> 
> >There was a *huge* battle within IBM on if it >should be released
> and in
> >order to do so, it was fairly well hidden.
> 
> 
> Guy,
> 
> It is so well hidden I don't think I have ever seen it. Was it part
> of pc-dos? If so what version?

No, it came on one of the diskettes supplied with PS/2 systems though
it would work on any system.  That is, it didn't do anything to detect
that it was running on a PS/2 system.  There was a lot of discussion to
have the "core" of IBMCACHE actually in BIOS and a tiny .SYS file to
allocate the memory above 1MB.

Most interest in it faded when Microsoft started shipping smartdrv.sys
which IMHO was not as good as IBMCACHE, but smartdrv.sys came with DOS.

TTFN - Guy

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Ali via cctalk]

>I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in its>entirety 
>(there's even a patent that covers some of its operation). I>was in an AdTech 
>(Advanced Technology) group at the time and was>looking at how to make disk 
>operations faster in >DOS at the time when I>came up with the idea.>There was 
>a *huge* battle within IBM on if it >should be released and in>order to do so, 
>it was fairly well hidden.Guy,It is so well hidden I don't think I have ever 
>seen it. Was it part of pc-dos? If so what version?-Ali

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 20:28 +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 20:22, Guy Sotomayor 
> wrote:
> > 
> > I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in its
> > entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its operation).
> > I
> > was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and was
> > looking at how to make disk operations faster in DOS at the time
> > when I
> > came up with the idea.
> 
> Oh my word! Well I thank you for it. It helped a very great deal and
> made dozens of users of rather expensive IBM PS/2s in the Isle of Man
> very happy for a while in the late 1980s and early 1990s. :-)

You're very welcome!  I know that there were some bids that IBM
marketing needed IBMCACHE.SYS to win (millions of dollars) and it was
*still* a battle to get it released!

> 
> > There was a *huge* battle within IBM on if it should be released
> > and in
> > order to do so, it was fairly well hidden.
> 
> I can believe that! I think I read of it in a magazine and thought
> "never! I'd know!" -- so I looked and there it was.
> 
> > There was a switch on config.sys statement for IBMCACHE.SYS to turn
> > off
> > the write-back cache (e.g. writes would always go straight to
> > disk).
> > As I recall, there was a 30 second timer for the writeback cache so
> > that if a disk block was "dirty" for more than 30 seconds it would
> > get
> > flushed to disk.
> 
> Yes, both true. I think I may have used the write-through switch for
> some people, but ISTR it reduced performance a little bit. Just
> teaching people to be a bit more patient was sometimes hard -- after
> all, this was a tool that appealed to the impatient!
> I think for them it was easier to teach them to  press C-A-D and then
> wait for the RAM check before turning off.
> 
> Or hit C-A-D, let it boot all the way, then turn it off!
> 
> Great bit of work, if I may say so!

Yea, not only did I have to write it, but I had to write a series of
tests to run through billions of disk operations (and go validate the
internal state of the cache) before it could even be considered for
release.  ;-)

BTW, as a bit of copyright paranoia, if you do an ASCII dump of
IBMCACHE.SYS, you'll see my 3 initials (GGS) (or it may have been
IBM...it's been so long I can't remember).  They are actually
instructions!  It was required at the time to have code embed a text
string as actual instructions that get executed.  It took me a bit of
time to figure out (in x86 assembler) how to generate an appropriate
string.  The idea was that if someone "cloned" the program and just did
a replacement of the string, it would stop working because the string
was actually instructions.

TTFN - Guy

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 20:22, Guy Sotomayor  wrote:
>
> I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in its
> entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its operation). I
> was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and was
> looking at how to make disk operations faster in DOS at the time when I
> came up with the idea.

Oh my word! Well I thank you for it. It helped a very great deal and
made dozens of users of rather expensive IBM PS/2s in the Isle of Man
very happy for a while in the late 1980s and early 1990s. :-)

> There was a *huge* battle within IBM on if it should be released and in
> order to do so, it was fairly well hidden.

I can believe that! I think I read of it in a magazine and thought
"never! I'd know!" -- so I looked and there it was.

> There was a switch on config.sys statement for IBMCACHE.SYS to turn off
> the write-back cache (e.g. writes would always go straight to disk).
> As I recall, there was a 30 second timer for the writeback cache so
> that if a disk block was "dirty" for more than 30 seconds it would get
> flushed to disk.

Yes, both true. I think I may have used the write-through switch for
some people, but ISTR it reduced performance a little bit. Just
teaching people to be a bit more patient was sometimes hard -- after
all, this was a tool that appealed to the impatient!
I think for them it was easier to teach them to  press C-A-D and then
wait for the RAM check before turning off.

Or hit C-A-D, let it boot all the way, then turn it off!

Great bit of work, if I may say so!

-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Standard Cocktail Napkin Size [WAS: RE: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)}

[Tom Gardner via cctalk]

On Sunday, May 24, 2020 11:23 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote in part:

>> On Sun, 24 May 2020, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:
>>The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al 
>> Chou from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5¼-inch FDD was 
>> to replace in Wang and other systems.  As near as I can tell it was 
>> not the same size as a “standard” cocktail napkin.

>"standard"??!?
>"I believe in standards.  Everyone should have [a unique] one [of their
own]." - George Morrow I have seen napkins that are about 5.25".

I did attempt to see if there is a "standard" cocktail napkin size and as
best I can tell it is today 5-inches square not 5¼-inches square.

A friend who is a veteran of the paper products industry provided me an
actual cocktail napkin circa 1980 (a promotional give away for his business)
that he recalls was procured to the then standard size which I measured as
5-inches square.  Apparently cocktail napkins have not deflated over the
intervening 40 years :-)

This supports Adkisson's recollection that the customer wanted something
about the size of a cocktail napkin and Chou's description of the
development process that tried to maximize the size of the disk that could
be received in a drive which in turn was designed to fit into the then
existing 8-track tape drive slot.

Tom

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 20:00 +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 05:30, Fred Cisin via cctalk
>  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> IBMs came with an installable driver called, I think, IBMCACHE.SYS.
> This used extended RAM (above 1MB) as a hard disk cache, without XMS
> or HIMEM.SYS or any of that. I played with it and was amazed by the
> results. I started enabling it by default on customers' machines. 

I hadn't thought about IBMCACHE.SYS in *years*.  I wrote it in its
entirety (there's even a patent that covers some of its operation). I
was in an AdTech (Advanced Technology) group at the time and was
looking at how to make disk operations faster in DOS at the time when I
came up with the idea.

There was a *huge* battle within IBM on if it should be released and in
order to do so, it was fairly well hidden.

> Most
> were happy but some had the habit of just turning off -- DOS didn't
> really have a shutdown routine. Some, I could train to press
> Ctrl-Alt-Del before turning off. Some I couldn't, so I had to disable
> the disk cache.

There was a switch on config.sys statement for IBMCACHE.SYS to turn off
the write-back cache (e.g. writes would always go straight to disk). 
As I recall, there was a 30 second timer for the writeback cache so
that if a disk block was "dirty" for more than 30 seconds it would get
flushed to disk.

> 
> But for those that could learn and adapt, it made DOS _much_ faster,
> and on a 1MB PS/2 Model 50 or 60, it was about the only thing you
> could do with the extra 386 KB of RAM before MS-DOS 5 came out.
> 

TTFN - Guy

Re: history is hard

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Mon, May 25, 2020, 8:40 AM Jon Elson  wrote:

> On 05/24/2020 04:18 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
> > IBM's standard VM/360. Sorry for the confusion. That will
> > teach me to reply on my phone... Warner
> As far as I know, there was no VM/360.  There WAS VM/370,
> which was out in the early 1970's, but
> on 370 mainframes, not 360s.
>


Even off my phone I can't get it right.

Warner

> Jon
>

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 25 May 2020 at 05:30, Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> I played briefly with Xenix on an XT (or MAYBE an AT) on a 15MB? drive
> partition.   MS-DOS was a better match for that hardware.

Never tried Xenix on an XT,  but it was the 2nd OS on my PC-AT in my
first ever job. That machine was very limited (512 KB RAM, 20 + 15 MB
ST-506 disks), but on a well-specced 286, it was quite a decent little
Unix. It could properly use an 80286 and up to 16 MB of RAM, something
DOS in the 286 era couldn't do -- MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a
disk cache. (Not counting FILES=20 BUFFERS=20 in CONFIG.SYS!)

IBMs came with an installable driver called, I think, IBMCACHE.SYS.
This used extended RAM (above 1MB) as a hard disk cache, without XMS
or HIMEM.SYS or any of that. I played with it and was amazed by the
results. I started enabling it by default on customers' machines. Most
were happy but some had the habit of just turning off -- DOS didn't
really have a shutdown routine. Some, I could train to press
Ctrl-Alt-Del before turning off. Some I couldn't, so I had to disable
the disk cache.

But for those that could learn and adapt, it made DOS _much_ faster,
and on a 1MB PS/2 Model 50 or 60, it was about the only thing you
could do with the extra 386 KB of RAM before MS-DOS 5 came out.

So the fact that Xenix could use 4 MB or 8 MB in a 286 seemed like wizardry.


> OS/2 (Gordon Letwin at Microsoft) was a substantial step up for MS-DOS.
> Once they added "Windows For Os/2"/"Presentation Manager", . . .
> BUT, then NT was not a direct transition from OS/2.
> And, around 1986? IBM started pushing OS/2 with PS/2 (had they bought OS/2
> from Microsoft by then?)

No, not yet.

OS/2 1.0: 1987. Text-only.
OS/2 1.1: 1988. Finally got the PM GUI.
OS/2 1.2: 1989. Started to be a bit usable.
OS/2 1.3: 1990. Same year as Windows 3.0, which spelled its doom.

OS/2 2: 1992. 1 year before Windows NT 3.1. First IBM-only version,
first 386 version.

AFAIK IBM never _bought_ OS/2. MS walked away from the co-development
deal after Windows 3.0 was a huge hit -- 3 million copies in 1990
alone.

OS/2 2 was the 386 version. OS/2 3 was to be a portable version. There
was next to nothing written, but MS commissioned a line of Intel i860
RISC boxes (codenamed N-10) to prototype it on. When they hired Dave
Cutler & team in 1988, that was the product he was given to salvage.
It became OS/2 NT which became Windows NT.

-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: history is hard

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/24/2020 04:18 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
IBM's standard VM/360. Sorry for the confusion. That will 
teach me to reply on my phone... Warner
As far as I know, there was no VM/360.  There WAS VM/370, 
which was out in the early 1970's, but

on 370 mainframes, not 360s.

Jon

RE: history is hard

[Dave Wade via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan
> via cctalk
> Sent: 25 May 2020 08:10
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> 
> Subject: Re: history is hard
> 
> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 19:24:31 -0400, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >On 5/24/20 5:30 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360
> either.
> >>
> >
> > There was VM/370 in 1980.  I worked under it from May to August.
> > Hosted on a 4331 at Ft. Ben Harrison, IN.  The launch of the Mainframe
> > and COBOL facet of my career and life.
> >
> 
> A variant of VM/370 Release 6 is running here in front of me under Hercules
> running on VMS on a DEC Alphaserver 800 from 20+ years ago.
> I used to think that was a bit special but now one of the other guys whose
> system is on an NJE network with mine is running VM/370 under Hercules on
> a mobile phone.
> 
> Many of the source file dates in VM/370 Release 6 are in 1978.  Some might
> say that Release 6 was the "last" VM/370 but that word is just as difficult to
> pin down as "first" and the devil is in the detail.
> 
> Release 6 seems to be the last freely available release of VM/370 though.
> There were one or two more updates for VM/370 but I think those were
> charged-for software and just after that the name was changed.  If I have the
> sequence right, it went through a succession, of being called VM/SP, VM/XA,
> VM/ESA and is known today as z/VM.
> Under the covers though, it's all the same stuff as VM/370 and it looks like
> VM/370 wasn't even the original name for it.
> 

Early on there was CP/47 and CP/67 which ran on the 360/47 and 360/67 
respectively.
In these systems the end user operating system, CMS, would also IPL (load) on 
bare hardware.
Modern CMS won't do this. It needs some CP services to run.

I would disagree with Peter over the "same under the covers".  
VM/370 on early 370 Hardware was a pure software hypervisor.
With 370 hardware the Hypervisor (CP)  is able to hide the CPU's privileged or 
supervisor state from the machine in the VM.
All attempts to read this state result in a Privileged Exception. CP runs all 
VM's in user mode. When a VM switches to supervisor state CP merely makes a 
note in a control block.
The VM still runs in user mode, and CP has to simulate any privilege mode 
instructions it executes.  

As time progressed "Hardware Assists" were added so that the microcode 
performed some of the functions formally carried out in CP.
When running a "real" OS such as MVS which spends a lot of time in supervisor 
state, this generates a lot of CPU overhead.
The assists help by allowing a guest to execute some privileged instructions 
without involving CP and reducing any CPU overhead.

However, from XA onwards this approach is not possible. In 370/XA mode the 
machine state can be read by non-privileged programs.
IBM also provided a new microcode instruction Start Interpretive Execution 
(SIE) which allows CP to run Virtual Machines with much less overhead.
Whilst I believe much of what SIE does evolved from the assists, to me it’s a 
fundamentally different way of running the machine.
Virtualization is now delivered by the Microcode not the Hypervisor..

> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.
> 

Dave

> >
> > bill
> >

RE: history is hard

[Dave Wade via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Bill Gunshannon
> via cctalk
> Sent: 25 May 2020 00:25
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: history is hard
> 
> On 5/24/20 5:30 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
> >
> >
> > CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360
> either.
> >
> 
> There was VM/370 in 1980.  I worked under it from May to August.
> Hosted on a 4331 at Ft. Ben Harrison, IN.  The launch of the Mainframe and
> COBOL facet of my career and life.
> 
> bill
> 

If any one is interested in the history of VM/CMS then there are various 
accounts on this page (scroll to the bottom)

http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/

Dave
G4UGM

Re: history is hard

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 19:24:31 -0400, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

On 5/24/20 5:30 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:



CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360 either.



There was VM/370 in 1980.  I worked under it from May to August.
Hosted on a 4331 at Ft. Ben Harrison, IN.  The launch of the
Mainframe and COBOL facet of my career and life.



A variant of VM/370 Release 6 is running here in front of me under
Hercules running on VMS on a DEC Alphaserver 800 from 20+ years ago.
I used to think that was a bit special but now one of the other guys
whose system is on an NJE network with mine is running VM/370 under
Hercules on a mobile phone.

Many of the source file dates in VM/370 Release 6 are in 1978.  Some
might say that Release 6 was the "last" VM/370 but that word is just
as difficult to pin down as "first" and the devil is in the detail.

Release 6 seems to be the last freely available release of VM/370
though.  There were one or two more updates for VM/370 but I think
those were charged-for software and just after that the name was
changed.  If I have the sequence right, it went through a succession,
of being called VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA and is known today as z/VM.
Under the covers though, it's all the same stuff as VM/370 and it
looks like VM/370 wasn't even the original name for it.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.



bill

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Sun, 24 May 2020, Jecel Assumpcao Jr via cctalk wrote:

I had heard that Microsoft had licensed Xenix before the IBM thing.


I hadn't known that.

Bill thought he had a gentleman's agreement with Gary to not intrude in 
each other's turf and then DR came out with CBASIC. Furious, Bill got 
into operating systems in retaliation.


Gordon Eubanks (CBASIC) and gary were pretty tight.  I just looked up and 
found out that Gary was his thesis advisor in 1976, when he wrote CBASIC. 
It seems like it was inevitable that Gary would end up marketing it.


I played with it a little in mid 1980s; my recollection was that it was 
expensive, and impressive, but not especially suited for any of my 
projects.


When IBM came to Microsoft for an OS they had specs for a machine that 
was in no way up to running Xenix. So it is just simpler to tell the 
story as "Microsoft didn't have an operating system". Adding DOS 
complicated things for Microsoft so they planned to evolve the two 
systems towards each other until there was a single one. The January 
1982 Byte says instead that there would be 3 systems: Xenix at the high 
end, DOS at the low end and a hybrid in the middle. MS-DOS 2 was 
essentially this hybrid (so most system calls have two versions: a CP/M 
one and a Unix one).


I played briefly with Xenix on an XT (or MAYBE an AT) on a 15MB? drive 
partition.   MS-DOS was a better match for that hardware.


OS/2 (Gordon Letwin at Microsoft) was a substantial step up for MS-DOS.
Once they added "Windows For Os/2"/"Presentation Manager", . . .
BUT, then NT was not a direct transition from OS/2.
And, around 1986? IBM started pushing OS/2 with PS/2 (had they bought OS/2 
from Microsoft by then?)



MS-DOS was based heavily on CP/M.  Most university programming 
graduates were into unix.  When Microsoft or Apple were recruiting, 
most of the best pickings were C programmers on unix.  MS-DOS 2.00 was 
definitely moving towards unix, in terms of the sub directories, and file 
handle based API.
I didn't know that there were plans for three levels, just that they were 
moving MS-DOS towards being unix-like.  Keeping the CP/M style API kept 
most software compatible.  FCBs made parsing filenames in the command line 
convenient!




Hmmm... here it says that though CBASIC was developed in 1976 it only
became a DR product in 1981, which is too late for the story I told
above to make sense:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBASIC


Well Gary and Gordon were close in 1976, so you could use any date in that 
1976-1981 range.



I have just watched a talk with Gary where he introduced DR Logo. It
wasn't much cheaper than that. And at the end somebody asked about the
soon to be introduced C compiler and the answer was that it would cost
$600.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4P6MDuk3Zk


Yeah.  some software was free, or almost, and some was very expensive. 
$240 for CP/M-86 was not out of line for the time, other than the fact 
that it was going head to head with an already established $40 (later 
$60?) product.  A few years later, DR dropped the price of CP/M-86 down to 
$60.  TOO LATE.



BTW, once Microsoft started work, IBM insisted on upgraded security and
locks.  For a while, it was referred to as "Project Commodore" as a red
herring for any leaks.


They installed barbed wire in the air ducts going into the room with the
prototype.


I hadn't known that, but it fits with an IBM PHYSICAL SECURITY attitude.
(and totally out of character for west coast software culture!)

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr via cctalk]

Fred,

> Quite true that Gary did not have the ruthless personality to compete. 
> If the roles had been reversed, Gary would NOT have become a bill Gates.
> Yes, the final outcome was inevitable, although the one incident set the 
> path.   It is fairly commonly believed that MS-DOS would not have EXISTED 
> without the DR/IBM incompatability.  Would Microsoft have gotten into 
> operating systems LATER?   Eventually.  Probably.  But probably not for 
> years.   For instance Microsoft Xenix would probably not have happened if 
> they hadn't already been doing MS-DOS.

I had heard that Microsoft had licensed Xenix before the IBM thing. Bill
thought he had a gentleman's agreement with Gary to not intrude in each
other's turf and then DR came out with CBASIC. Furious, Bill got into
operating systems in retaliation.

When IBM came to Microsoft for an OS they had specs for a machine that
was in no way up to running Xenix. So it is just simpler to tell the
story as "Microsoft didn't have an operating system". Adding DOS
complicated things for Microsoft so they planned to evolve the two
systems towards each other until there was a single one. The January
1982 Byte says instead that there would be 3 systems: Xenix at the high
end, DOS at the low end and a hybrid in the middle. MS-DOS 2 was
essentially this hybrid (so most system calls have two versions: a CP/M
one and a Unix one).

Hmmm... here it says that though CBASIC was developed in 1976 it only
became a DR product in 1981, which is too late for the story I told
above to make sense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBASIC

> My recollection (not reliable) was that PC-DOS was originally $40, and 
> then went up to $60 with version 1.10 or 2.00.  (Is that right?)
> There are also conflicting stories about WHO set the price, and HOW; even 
> a conspiracy theory that IBM chose the $240 price to hinder CP/M-86 
> competition.  But, $240 was not grossly out of line in those days, so it 
> very well could have been set by DR, in which case, THAT was a substantial 
> mistake.  At $40 for PC-DOS and $60 or even $80 for CP/M-86, there would 
> have been a better chance to compete, but not at $240.

I have just watched a talk with Gary where he introduced DR Logo. It
wasn't much cheaper than that. And at the end somebody asked about the
soon to be introduced C compiler and the answer was that it would cost
$600.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4P6MDuk3Zk

> BTW, once Microsoft started work, IBM insisted on upgraded security and 
> locks.  For a while, it was referred to as "Project Commodore" as a red 
> herring for any leaks.

They installed barbed wire in the air ducts going into the room with the
prototype.

-- Jecel

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Quite true that Gary did not have the ruthless personality to compete. 
If the roles had been reversed, Gary would NOT have become a bill Gates.
Yes, the final outcome was inevitable, although the one incident set the 
path.   It is fairly commonly believed that MS-DOS would not have EXISTED 
without the DR/IBM incompatability.  Would Microsoft have gotten into 
operating systems LATER?   Eventually.  Probably.  But probably not for 
years.   For instance Microsoft Xenix would probably not have happened if 
they hadn't already been doing MS-DOS.




I maintain that IF IBM and DR had hit it off, that CP/M-86 would have been 
cheaper, and available at the time of the release of the PC, or at least 
VERY soon after.


I have heard (unsubstantiated) that IBM did not give DR any units of 
hardware to develop on (they DID provide Microsoft with some hardware), 
so there was very little work on CP/M-86 for the PC until August 1981 
when the PC was released to the public.


It is not clear whether IBM marketing of CP/M-86 was agreed to before 
finalizing the PC-DOS decisions,or whether it was added on as an 
alternative LATER.  UCSD P-System was ALSO added as an alternative.


There are unconfirmed rumors that IBM had not intended to also provide 
CP/M-86, but that DR screamed until they agreed.  The similarities in the 
operating systems were enough that DR could have had a legal case (even 
before current "look and feel" precedents), but Gary was not into legal 
battles, and being sold IN ADDITION was good enough for him.

IBM had nothing to lose by offering other Operating Systems as alternatives.

My recollection (not reliable) was that PC-DOS was originally $40, and 
then went up to $60 with version 1.10 or 2.00.  (Is that right?)
There are also conflicting stories about WHO set the price, and HOW; even 
a conspiracy theory that IBM chose the $240 price to hinder CP/M-86 
competition.  But, $240 was not grossly out of line in those days, so it 
very well could have been set by DR, in which case, THAT was a substantial 
mistake.  At $40 for PC-DOS and $60 or even $80 for CP/M-86, there would 
have been a better chance to compete, but not at $240.



Nevertheless, in August 1981, when the PC came out, PC-DOS was ready (due 
to IBM and Microsoft working with each other?), and CP/M-86 was 
announced as "coming soon".  Of course CP/M-86 "coming soon" but not 
being ready YET, MUCH earlier, was why Tim Paterson had written 
86-DOS/QDOS.  It was largely intended as a place holder and temporary 
substitute to be able to work on the rest of the projects UNTIL CP/M-86 
was completed and available.


MANY people (not all) thought that CP/M-86 would still become the primary 
operating system, in spite of the price differential.  BUT, "PC-DOS is so 
cheap, that I'll buy a copy of it to use and work on my programs, UNTIL 
CP/M-86 comes out and BECOMES the dominant one."   I did.
By the time that CP/M-86 finally did come out, there was an enormous 
installed base of PC-DOS.  "Are you going to sell software to THEM?"  I 
did. "or wait until CP/M-86 catches up?"  Soon there was also an enormous 
installed base of PC-DOS software.  As I mentioned before, porting to it 
was pretty easy.  "I'll sell my program on PC-DOS.  WHEN (and if) CP/M-86 
catches up, THEN I'll sell it on that."


Soon, it was too late for CP/M-86 to catch up.


A plane is real handy for going to business meetings.  And, is tax 
deductible because of that, even if it is primarily a recreational 
activity and hobby, and the "business meetings" consist of going to hang 
out with friends.  It has been stated that the meeting in question was 
with Bill Godbout, whose business was housed in the north buildings of the 
Oakland Airport, along with Mike Quinn, etc.  Godbout was a valid 
business contact (Compupro) as well as a personal friend, and Gary often 
flew up to visit him.


At the time, there was a minor corruption of the story, that Gary had gone 
off to sail his boat.  It has been reasonably established that it was a 
short flight to Oakland.


I personally think that Gary's attitude was that the money (not clear AT 
THE TIME how much) was not important enough to let IBM push him around.

He was a competnet businessman, but not ruthless.


BTW, once Microsoft started work, IBM insisted on upgraded security and 
locks.  For a while, it was referred to as "Project Commodore" as a red 
herring for any leaks.


I only knew a few people at Microsoft; met Bill Gates a couple of times, 
but he would have no reason to remember me; and met Gary a couple of 
times, but he would have had no reason to remember me (other than as one 
of the many pre-PC jerks who tried to convince him to standardize 5.25 
inch disk formats - his response: "The standard disk format for CP/M 
remains 8 inch Single Sided Single Density"). 
So, my opinions are speculation based on third hand perception of the 
elephant's tail.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


On 

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr via cctalk]

Fred,

> To me, the culture clash aspect makes it one of the greatest stories of 
> the time.
> Was Gary not taking the meeting seriously enough to be there on time, and 
> as a consequence, ending up being $80B behind Bill Gates, the stupidest 
> mistake anybody has ever made?
> Or the bravest thing that anybody has ever done to stand up to them and 
> put refusal to be subservient ahead of the money by deciding that the men 
> from IBM did not deserve different treatment than other customers?

The only world I can imagine where Bill wouldn't be orders of magnitude
richer than Gary would be one where they were equal partners in a single
company (with Gary either instead of, or in addition to, Paul Allen).
The difference in their personalities was a far larger factor in the
results than any particular event, though having a single moment be
"pivotal" is better drama.

What I have heard about the "Gary was away flying" story was that he
used his small private plane to travel to business meetings. The airport
was open for instrument traffic (like what the IBM folks were arriving
in) but not for visual traffic (like Gary coming back from his previous
meeting) so there was no way for him not to be late.

Given that Bill Gates had called him to say he was sending some
important people (but he didn't say who) that he should treat well, he
must have been in his office earlier since this was the era of land
lines. He could have then cancelled his previously scheduled meeting to
make sure he would be present for this one even if normally there would
be plenty of time to come back. But he had no clue who was coming. We
know who it was and what it meant but it is not fair for us to pan his
decision based on what he knew.

In any case he did get the contract. When the IBM PC came out Byte
magazine called it the Rosetta Stone of computing:
https://tech-insider.org/personal-computers/research/acrobat/8201.pdf

We know that CP/M86's $240 price made it lose big time against the $60
PC-DOS (prices from memory and could be very wrong) but at that time
there were people betting on a different result. The first network
operating system in Brazil (NetMB), for example, was compatible with
CP/M86. Only in its third version did it add MS-DOS compatibility as by
1985/1986 the OS war was over (and the UCSD system mentioned in the
January 1982 Byte lost by a huge margin to even QNX and others). It is
funny that the DOS-only era was followed by Windows, Linux, BeOS and
eventually even MacOS as options of the PC making the original prophecy
come true.

-- Jecel

Re: history is hard

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 5/24/20 5:30 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:



CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360 either.



There was VM/370 in 1980.  I worked under it from May to August.
Hosted on a 4331 at Ft. Ben Harrison, IN.  The launch of the
Mainframe and COBOL facet of my career and life.

bill

Re: history is hard

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2020-05-24 4:13 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 2:01 PM Toby Thain  > wrote:
> 
> On 2020-05-24 3:20 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk
> > mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> >> wrote:
> >
> >     On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> >     > ... IBM was doing
> >     > Virtualization in the 70's.
> >
> >     1968 and probably before.[1]
> >
> >     Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people
> think.
> >
> >
> > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
> > second Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
> 
> I thought the Interdata port was second?
> 
> 
> Wollongong to the interdata 7/32 was April of 77. Went into production
> July 77.
> Bell Labs to the closely related interdata 8/32 was June of 77. Never
> went into production, but portability fixes plowed back into V7.
> Tom Lyons had his booting to a similar level around May of 77 ("end of
> his junior year"), though he wasn't hired by Amdahl unti the following
> summer and he reports having the full V6 up early in 1979. V7 up later
> in the year when they got it from AT
> 
> I kinda lump the two interdata ports together as 'the first' and I don't
> have good dates for when Tom Lyons booted beyond hello-world, or what
> the benchmark for 'first' should be.

Thanks for the detail! I meant "second after PDP-11" so the confusion
was only an off-by-one error.

--Toby

> 
> Warner
> 
> --T
> 
> >
> > Warner
> >
> >
> >     --T
> >
> >     [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
> >     [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
> >
> >     >
> >     > bill
> >     >
> >
> 

Re: history is hard

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 3:47 PM Peter Coghlan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 15:18:34 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
> >> second
> >> > Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
> >> >
> >>
> >> What do you mean by "Unix had virtualization"?
> >>
> >
> > I mean that 4th edition UNIX ran under a hypervisor in MERT in 74 as a
> > process in that real-time executive.
> >
>
> Oh.  I thought maybe you meant Unix was able to do virtualization.
>
> What's special about being able to run under a hypervisor?  If the
> hypervisor does it's job right, whatever is running under it should
> not be aware that it is not running directly on hardware.
>

MERT was more a real-time executive than a hypervisor, so there was some
work needed to port UNIX to run as a process in MERT. The port was the unix
kernel, so that programs could have a UNIX API. It wasn't a pure
hypervisor, though, since a number of changes were required to Unix itself
to cope with running in what we'd likely call a paravirtualized environment.

>> Come to think of it, what do you mean by "OS/360's VM"?
> >>
> >
> > IBM's standard VM/360. Sorry for the confusion.
> >
>
> CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360
> either.
>

Sorry, it was VM/370, so the successor to CP/67 with virtual memory added.
https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart2/

Warner

Re: history is hard

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 15:18:34 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
>> second
>> > Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
>> >
>>
>> What do you mean by "Unix had virtualization"?
>>
>
> I mean that 4th edition UNIX ran under a hypervisor in MERT in 74 as a
> process in that real-time executive.
>

Oh.  I thought maybe you meant Unix was able to do virtualization.

What's special about being able to run under a hypervisor?  If the
hypervisor does it's job right, whatever is running under it should
not be aware that it is not running directly on hardware.

>
>> Come to think of it, what do you mean by "OS/360's VM"?
>>
>
> IBM's standard VM/360. Sorry for the confusion.
>

CP/67 or something like that maybe?  I don't think there was a VM/360 either.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

>
> That will teach me to reply on my phone...
> 
> Warner
> 
> 
>> Regards,
>> Peter Coghlan
>>

Re: history is hard

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 3:14 PM Peter Coghlan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 13:20:41 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> > On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> >> > ... IBM was doing
> >> > Virtualization in the 70's.
> >>
> >> 1968 and probably before.[1]
> >>
> >> Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.
> >>
> >
> > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
> second
> > Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
> >
>
> What do you mean by "Unix had virtualization"?
>

I mean that 4th edition UNIX ran under a hypervisor in MERT in 74 as a
process in that real-time executive.


> Come to think of it, what do you mean by "OS/360's VM"?
>

IBM's standard VM/360. Sorry for the confusion.

That will teach me to reply on my phone...

Warner


> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan
>
> >
> > Warner
> >
> >
> > --T
> >>
> >> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
> >> [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
> >>
> >> >
> >> > bill
> >> >
> >>
> >>
>

Re: history is hard

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 13:20:41 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
>> On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>> > ... IBM was doing
>> > Virtualization in the 70's.
>>
>> 1968 and probably before.[1]
>>
>> Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.
>>
>
> The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The second
> Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
>

What do you mean by "Unix had virtualization"?

Come to think of it, what do you mean by "OS/360's VM"?

Regards,
Peter Coghlan

>
> Warner
>
>
> --T
>>
>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
>> [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
>>
>> >
>> > bill
>> >
>>
>>

Re: history is hard

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 2:01 PM Toby Thain  wrote:

> On 2020-05-24 3:20 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk
> > mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote:
> >
> > On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> > > ... IBM was doing
> > > Virtualization in the 70's.
> >
> > 1968 and probably before.[1]
> >
> > Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.
> >
> >
> > The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
> > second Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.
>
> I thought the Interdata port was second?
>

Wollongong to the interdata 7/32 was April of 77. Went into production July
77.
Bell Labs to the closely related interdata 8/32 was June of 77. Never went
into production, but portability fixes plowed back into V7.
Tom Lyons had his booting to a similar level around May of 77 ("end of his
junior year"), though he wasn't hired by Amdahl unti the following summer
and he reports having the full V6 up early in 1979. V7 up later in the year
when they got it from AT

I kinda lump the two interdata ports together as 'the first' and I don't
have good dates for when Tom Lyons booted beyond hello-world, or what the
benchmark for 'first' should be.

Warner

--T
>
> >
> > Warner
> >
> >
> > --T
> >
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
> > [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
> >
> > >
> > > bill
> > >
> >
>
>

Re: history is hard

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/24/20 10:04 AM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote:
> On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>> ... IBM was doing
>> Virtualization in the 70's.
> 
> 1968 and probably before.[1]

Don't forget Peter Denning!

--Chuck

Re: history is hard

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2020-05-24 3:20 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk
> mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote:
> 
> On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> > ... IBM was doing
> > Virtualization in the 70's.
> 
> 1968 and probably before.[1]
> 
> Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.
> 
> 
> The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The
> second Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.

I thought the Interdata port was second?

--T

> 
> Warner
> 
> 
> --T
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
> [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
> 
> >
> > bill
> >
> 

Re: history is hard

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sun, May 24, 2020, 11:04 AM Toby Thain via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> > ... IBM was doing
> > Virtualization in the 70's.
>
> 1968 and probably before.[1]
>
> Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.
>

The topic for my talk next week. Unix had virtualization in 74. The second
Unix port ran under OS/360's VM in 78.

Warner


--T
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
> [2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems
>
> >
> > bill
> >
>
>

RE: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Some don't matter; some can be enough to ruin a good anecdote; some create
a different story.

I'm saddened that Jim Adkisson and Don Massaro of Shugart have changed
their story and now deny that the size of the 5.25" disk was based on Dr.
Wang pointing to a bar napkin.  The "Bar Napkin Disk" was a GREAT
anecdote; now ruined.



On Sun, 24 May 2020, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote:

It's probably OK for Fred to be saddened at the demise of a good story but
isn't it better to have the true story?


"better", yes.
but still sadder


Neither Jim Adkisson nor Don Massaro of Shugart ever promulgated the urban
legend of Dr. Wang and the napkin in the bar - as near as I can tell it was
invented from whole cloth by Jim Porter who repeated it so many times that
it became legend.


I read it in one of the popular magaazines decades ago.


The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al Chou
from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5¼-inch FDD was to replace
in Wang and other systems.  As near as I can tell it was not the same size
as a “standard” cocktail napkin.


"standard"??!?
"I believe in standards.  Everyone should have [a unique] one [of their 
own]." - George Morrow

I have seen napkins that are about 5.25".


I wanted to track down which bar, and get napkins from them.
And/or get napkins commercially printed (and give them a supply) with the 
bar personalization on one side, and an outline picture of a 5.25" disk 
jacket and the story on the other.  optional signatures of those 
involved, and provide to CHM to sell in the giftshop.




The idea for a smaller FDD with cocktail napkin sized medium did come
through Adkisson but it originated at his customers such as Lanier,
Phillips and Varisyst among others before it was taken to Wang.
History is hard - I researched this for the Computer History Museum and
prevented the legend from making it into their exhibits.


I have to thank you for debunking a cherished legend.

Myths and legends can be nice, even if they have to be disproven.  Even 
nonexistent characters can be handy, such as Santa Claus and \newline



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: history is hard

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 5/24/20 1:04 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote:

On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

... IBM was doing
Virtualization in the 70's.


1968 and probably before.[1]

Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.

--T

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
[2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems



bill





I only picked 70's because I used VM370 on a 4331 in 1980
and it was a mature product already then.

bill

RE: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Tom Gardner via cctalk]

Fred Cisin [mailto:ci...@xenosoft.com]  wrote on Saturday, May 23, 2020
11:28 PM





Some don't matter; some can be enough to ruin a good anecdote; some create 

a different story.

 

I'm saddened that Jim Adkisson and Don Massaro of Shugart have changed 

their story and now deny that the size of the 5.25" disk was based on Dr. 

Wang pointing to a bar napkin.  The "Bar Napkin Disk" was a GREAT 

anecdote; now ruined.

 

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102657925-0
5-01-acc.pdf

 



 

It's probably OK for Fred to be saddened at the demise of a good story but
isn't it better to have the true story?

 

Neither Jim Adkisson nor Don Massaro of Shugart ever promulgated the urban
legend of Dr. Wang and the napkin in the bar - as near as I can tell it was
invented from whole cloth by Jim Porter who repeated it so many times that
it became legend.

 

The final media size was determined by Shugart Engineering led by Al Chou
from the size of the 8-track tape drive that the 5¼-inch FDD was to replace
in Wang and other systems.  As near as I can tell it was not the same size
as a “standard” cocktail napkin.

 

The idea for a smaller FDD with cocktail napkin sized medium did come
through Adkisson but it originated at his customers such as Lanier,
Phillips and Varisyst among others before it was taken to Wang.

 

History is hard - I researched this for the Computer History Museum and
prevented the legend from making it into their exhibits.

 

Tom

 

 

Re: history is hard

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2020-05-24 11:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> ... IBM was doing
> Virtualization in the 70's.

1968 and probably before.[1]

Most operating systems concepts[2] are much older than people think.

--T

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
[2] e.g. ref: Per Brinch Hansen, Classic Operating Systems

> 
> bill
> 

Re: history is hard

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 5/24/20 2:28 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
 

Either way, changing it from IBM not wanting to deal with DR into Bill 
Gates cold calling IBM to tell them "what an operating system is" is 
totally invalidating, marginalizing, and misrepresenting a significant 
aspect of the microcomputer culture, and the people who made it.  (AND 
is ridiculously insulting to the IBM culture to state that they didn't 
know what an operating system is!)




Even more-so in todays light when you realize that IBM was doing
Virtualization in the 70's.

bill

Re: history is hard (was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Yes, there will always be discrepancies.
I have to admit that many/most?/all? of my memories may be inaccurate or 
wrong.



Some don't matter; some can be enough to ruin a good anecdote; some create 
a different story.


I'm saddened that Jim Adkisson and Don Massaro of Shugart have changed 
their story and now deny that the size of the 5.25" disk was based on Dr. 
Wang pointing to a bar napkin.  The "Bar Napkin Disk" was a GREAT 
anecdote; now ruined.

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102657925-05-01-acc.pdf

Whether Jobs saw the Apple1 after it was finished V had worked on it seems 
pretty big, but might not necessarily really be, since they HAD worked 
together on other projects around the same time.


Whether Gary missed the meeting, or was late for it will matter to some 
people.  To Gary, it might not have mattered much, but to the IBM people, 
EITHER is inexcusably disrespectful.  Gary's wife was quite capable of 
handling everything that needed to be done (although the IBM suits likely 
didn't see it that way - women in authority was contrary to their culture 
at the time). A comment by Gary of let them wait in the living room like 
any other customer seems in character with Gary's personality, but would 
enrage certain IBM types.


There was certainly significant culture clash.  Whether it was solely 
Gary's casual and informal attitude to business relationships, or whether 
it was the IBM people SHOCKED by the casual and informal business behavior 
and attire and unable to consider doing business with such a "hippy" 
doesn't surprise me.
I had dealings with similar culture clashes around that time.  Maybe I'm 
just still pissed off about how my uncle, who was an IBM suit, used to be 
extremely obnoxiously unpleasant about my having a beard. Was I the ONLY 
programmer without a crew-cut and not wearing a suit and tie at all times?


To me, the culture clash aspect makes it one of the greatest stories of 
the time.
Was Gary not taking the meeting seriously enough to be there on time, and 
as a consequence, ending up being $80B behind Bill Gates, the stupidest 
mistake anybody has ever made?
Or the bravest thing that anybody has ever done to stand up to them and 
put refusal to be subservient ahead of the money by deciding that the men 
from IBM did not deserve different treatment than other customers?


It might be excusable if the film makers chose to downplay that, or even 
not mention it (which they didn't), but to replace it with a grossly 
untrue "historical lesson" reversing and incompatible with the truth is 
not excusable, and incompatible with the spirit of the story.



Either way, changing it from IBM not wanting to deal with DR into Bill 
Gates cold calling IBM to tell them "what an operating system is" is 
totally invalidating, marginalizing, and misrepresenting a significant 
aspect of the microcomputer culture, and the people who made it.  (AND is 
ridiculously insulting to the IBM culture to state that they didn't know 
what an operating system is!)



The gratuitous fourth wall "Study this, because this is the way that it 
really happened" finally took it COMPLETELY out of the realm of 
"differing memories", "artistic license", and "improving the narrative" 
(all of which have a place) into gross misrepresentation.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

On Sun, 24 May 2020, Jecel Assumpcao Jr via cctalk wrote:


Fred Cisin advised on: Sat, 23 May 2020 20:29:28 -0700 (PDT)

But, read carefully the corrections that others made!


Some things are easy to check, like the fact that the Z80 came out in
1976 when Woz was already finishing the Apple II so he couldn't have
considered using it for the Apple I. Note that this correction doesn't
really add anything to your nice history and I am only using it to
illustrate the general topic.

People's memories are complicated. I used to tell people a story from
1983 about something I did. But around 2010 I found a text I had written
in 1989 and it had a very different version of what happened. While my
current memory is the same as in 2010 I have to trust that my 1989
self's memory was more correct. That is a good rule to follow, though
sometimes I learn things that change how I remembered something so that
the new memories are the more accurate ones.

A good example is the Gary Kildall and the IBM guys story that you
mentioned. Gary claimed that though the meeting was delayed by the NDA
thing, it eventually started without him since his wife took care of
100% of the business side of DR. Then he arrived and was able to discuss
the technical side. The IBM people remember the meeting not happening at
all and not talking to Gary. How is this possible? Was one of them
lying?

I recently saw a very old interview with Steve Jobs. The reporter asked
what had been his reaction when he first saw the Apple I. Steve claimed
the question didn't make sense because he and Woz had come up with the
computer