Re: IBM commitment to academia
Maybe IBM can offer uni's a version of zPDT that can run on multi-socket rack servers so they don't have to subsidize hardware, only software. I'm sure that would be more than capable for running z/OS with more than acceptable performance. On 19/06/2013 4:22 PM, Timothy Sipples wrote: Yes, sorry about that. Well, the problem probably got fixed ~10 years ago. Which is better than, say, ~5 years ago. It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free stuff into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). My recollection is that DEC didn't really want it that way. DEC would have very much preferred if VMS and/or TOPS-10/20 got more popular in academia. Sure, DEC was happier if BSD UNIX ran on their PDP or VAX hardware rather than somebody else's hardware, but in hindsight that wasn't enough. It's impossible to re-run history, but I suspect that if DEC didn't provide subsidized hardware to run ATT's/BSD's operating system then there'd just be some other subsidized hardware performing the same role. It would have been something of early 1970s vintage that competed with the PDP-11. Maybe something from CDC, Data General, or Honeywell/Prime. There was also a fortuitous bit of DARPA funding aimed at Berkeley that helped UNIX at a critical stage in its evolution. Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com -- 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
Re: IBM commitment to academia
gerh...@valley.net (Gerhard Postpischil) writes: Unless one is in the possession of detailed data, unlikely to become public, it is difficult to judge why a company makes decisions. It is doubtful that clinical kainophobia is pertinent; more likely factors are cash flow, risk aversion, sales projections, and other non-technical issues. For a successful company like DEC, technical aspects were the least of their problems, as they had exemplary staff, including some ex-IBMers. This is why I conclude that their collapse and sale was due to poor management, even if that doesn't provide any specifics. re: re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia over in a.f.c. there are quite a few former DEC people ... and while they don't criticize the influx of people from the vm370 burlington mall development group (at the very start of vax/vms development) ... they don't have any kind words for the former IBM middle managers. recent mention shutdown of vm370 burlington mall development group (i.e. name comes from location of the bldg. in burlington mall ... when the group outgrew the space in 545 tech sq. ... they move out to the vacant former SBS building ... SBS having gone to CDC as part of legal settlement). http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia more details about DEC ... Compaq then bought DEC (there have been lots of comments that Compaq wanted DEC's field service division) ... then HP buys Compaq. Just recently comment that HP has decommitted OpenVMS and hoping that HP would release source of open use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation Note that as the Time magazine article details ... IBM only narrowly missed the same fate with the perparation for breaking up into the baby blues ... 28Dec1992 ... downfall oof IBM How IBM Was Left Behind http://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html we had left early in the year ... 31July1992 coincidentally the same day they shutdown all the scientific centers (had been part of the salesmarketing division and major interface to academia). old email reference http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.htmL#email920722 note that the split up into the 13 baby blues ... was a lot more complicated that one might thought. Early 1993 (before board brought in new executive that reversed the breakup and resurrects the company). We were invited in to do detail examination of all the contractual arraignments ... one business unit might have contract with outside supplier ... but other business units would be relying on the same contract. All of those implicit business arrangements were going to have to be explicitly recognized -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: DEC Demise (was IBM commitment to academia)
My original objection to the term poor management was that it was too generic; it was not wrong, only inspecific. Other, sublethal examples abound. John Cocke invented RISC as an IBM employee/fellow. IBM did not quite ignore it, but it was left to others to exploit it (as something more than a sea anchor to windward) until its much later reincarnation as millicode. Or again, misinformation and hyperbole abound; but Xerox did fail, conspicuously and repeatedly, to exploit Xerox Parc innovations John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: DEC Demise (was IBM commitment to academia)
jwgli...@gmail.com (John Gilmore) writes: Other, sublethal examples abound. John Cocke invented RISC as an IBM employee/fellow. IBM did not quite ignore it, but it was left to others to exploit it (as something more than a sea anchor to windward) until its much later reincarnation as millicode. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#7 IBM commitment to academia advice to self: have to be really careful when going out drinking with john. I've often contended that, in part, John did 801/risc as reaction to the horrible complexity in Future System ... misc. past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys 79-80 there was big push to move that vast array of internal microprocessors to 801/risc ... microprocessors in lowmid range 370, control microprocessors, the as/400 (merged followon to s/36 s/38), etc. these were in large part Iliad chips of one form or another. for various reasons, the efforts faltered and you saw some number of the engineers leaving to do risc at other vendors. ... misc. old 801 email http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801 The 43314341 followons (43614381) were going to be Iliad (801/risc) ... I helped with whitepaper that derailed those efforts. An issue was that circuits were getting small enough that it was possible to directly implement much of 370 directly in hardware (rather than having to resort to the microcode implementations of previous generations). one of the efforts was ROMP chip for what was going to be the displaywriter follow-on ... however that got canceled (lot of word processing was moving to personal computing). the group looked around and decided to retarget it to the unix workstation market. they got the company that had done the unix port for ibm/pc (pc/ix) to do one for romp ... and it came out as pc/rt and aix. followon to ROMP was RIOS chipset for rs/6000. recent post about los gatos lab doing blue iliad ... first 32bit 801 ... never got much past sample chips: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#0 By Any Other Name past posts mentioning 801, risc, fort knox, iliad, romp, rios, power, power/pc, etc http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801 however, there is the tale of ACS360 ... which ibm management shutdown because they were afraid that it would advance computing technology too fast, and they would loose control of the market. http://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html above also discusses features from ACS360 showing up more than 20yrs later in ES/9000. other recent posts referencing ACS360 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#10 The Knowledge Economy Two Classes of Workers http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#18 What in your opinion is the one defining IBM product? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#26 The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#52 32760? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#1 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#10 SAS Deserting the MF? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#13 Is newer technology always better? It almost is. Exceptions? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#40 The Mainframe is Alive and Kicking http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#44 Why does IBM keep saying things like this: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#72 Minicomputer Pricing http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#83 Minicomputer Pricing -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On 19/06/2013 11:14 PM, John Gilmore wrote: I should perhaps have written failure to come to terms with disruptive technology. Let's not forget IBMs failure to foresee the growth explosion of PCs in the 90s. Lack of vision and poor management gifted microsoft the opportunity to become a market leader who constantly outmanoeuvred IBM (anybody still running OS/2?). It took strong leadership from Gerstner to turn around a sinking ship. Times change, and to quote (or misquote) Darwin It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. Microsoft knows very well that the PCs days are numbered and they're adapting. It's worth noting that Mark Shuttleworth recently closed Ubuntu Bug #1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834. Certainly it is possible, albeit uncommon, for an organization to come to terms with new, disruptive technology. Failures to do so may well, however, be more frequent. Retreat from the unfamiliar, back into the familiar, is common. I suspect that we are all guilty of it from time to time; and terms like 'good management' and 'bad management' describe outcomes without being diagnostic. Olsen was a remarkable man; and in DEC he created a remarkable if not a long-lived organization. Many, many years ago, as I was introduced to the DEC salesman (sic) with whom I was supposed to work to interface a DEC and an IBM system, I noticed the rat ring he was wearing and judged, rashly but in the event correctly, that he would be easy to work with. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- 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
Re: IBM commitment to academia
IBM already provide access to z/OS to Universities teaching z/OS / z/VM in the IBM Academic Initiative via the Dallas RDP systems. I taught several units at Canberra university here in Australia. The class sizes varied between 8 and 20 students. Units were offered as part of a Masters IT degree, with specialization in mainframe. I covered z/VM, Unix Systems Services, DB2/COBOL programming, REXX/CICS. The advantage of the Dallas systems is that they are looked after by IBM professional systems programmers. The zPDT has some of the overheads of a bigger box, whereas the z/VM hosted z/OS virtual LPARS have all the maintenance done for you. On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 8:50 PM, David Crayford dcrayf...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe IBM can offer uni's a version of zPDT that can run on multi-socket rack servers so they don't have to subsidize hardware, only software. I'm sure that would be more than capable for running z/OS with more than acceptable performance. On 19/06/2013 4:22 PM, Timothy Sipples wrote: Yes, sorry about that. Well, the problem probably got fixed ~10 years ago. Which is better than, say, ~5 years ago. It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free stuff into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). My recollection is that DEC didn't really want it that way. DEC would have very much preferred if VMS and/or TOPS-10/20 got more popular in academia. Sure, DEC was happier if BSD UNIX ran on their PDP or VAX hardware rather than somebody else's hardware, but in hindsight that wasn't enough. It's impossible to re-run history, but I suspect that if DEC didn't provide subsidized hardware to run ATT's/BSD's operating system then there'd just be some other subsidized hardware performing the same role. It would have been something of early 1970s vintage that competed with the PDP-11. Maybe something from CDC, Data General, or Honeywell/Prime. There was also a fortuitous bit of DARPA funding aimed at Berkeley that helped UNIX at a critical stage in its evolution. Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com -- 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 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
The break up of IBM was going full tilt when I worked there in 1978. Back then it was being discussed in response to all the antitrust legislation but had dragged on through the judicial process for years. I was part of General Business Group back then and we were quite excited at the thought of going head to head against the DP group (mainframes). Of course it never happened. When I left IBM my manager asked what I was going to work on. I told him, micro computers, non-IBM stuff, XENIX, CP/M, Apple IIs, Cromemco, Altos, Northstar. He said, I don't ever see IBM getting into those markets. A couple of years later the PC was launched and IBM still didn't get it. And yesterday I was solving CICS/ Debug Tool problems on the CICS group. The more things change, the more they stay the same. On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 12:10 AM, Anne Lynn Wheeler l...@garlic.com wrote: gerh...@valley.net (Gerhard Postpischil) writes: Unless one is in the possession of detailed data, unlikely to become public, it is difficult to judge why a company makes decisions. It is doubtful that clinical kainophobia is pertinent; more likely factors are cash flow, risk aversion, sales projections, and other non-technical issues. For a successful company like DEC, technical aspects were the least of their problems, as they had exemplary staff, including some ex-IBMers. This is why I conclude that their collapse and sale was due to poor management, even if that doesn't provide any specifics. re: re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia over in a.f.c. there are quite a few former DEC people ... and while they don't criticize the influx of people from the vm370 burlington mall development group (at the very start of vax/vms development) ... they don't have any kind words for the former IBM middle managers. recent mention shutdown of vm370 burlington mall development group (i.e. name comes from location of the bldg. in burlington mall ... when the group outgrew the space in 545 tech sq. ... they move out to the vacant former SBS building ... SBS having gone to CDC as part of legal settlement). http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia more details about DEC ... Compaq then bought DEC (there have been lots of comments that Compaq wanted DEC's field service division) ... then HP buys Compaq. Just recently comment that HP has decommitted OpenVMS and hoping that HP would release source of open use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation Note that as the Time magazine article details ... IBM only narrowly missed the same fate with the perparation for breaking up into the baby blues ... 28Dec1992 ... downfall oof IBM How IBM Was Left Behind http://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html we had left early in the year ... 31July1992 coincidentally the same day they shutdown all the scientific centers (had been part of the salesmarketing division and major interface to academia). old email reference http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.htmL#email920722 note that the split up into the 13 baby blues ... was a lot more complicated that one might thought. Early 1993 (before board brought in new executive that reversed the breakup and resurrects the company). We were invited in to do detail examination of all the contractual arraignments ... one business unit might have contract with outside supplier ... but other business units would be relying on the same contract. All of those implicit business arrangements were going to have to be explicitly recognized -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN -- Wayne V. Bickerdike -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
wayn...@gmail.com (Wayne Bickerdike) writes: When I left IBM my manager asked what I was going to work on. I told him, micro computers, non-IBM stuff, XENIX, CP/M, Apple IIs, Cromemco, Altos, Northstar. He said, I don't ever see IBM getting into those markets. A couple of years later the PC was launched and IBM still didn't get it. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#5 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#7 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#8 DEC Demise (was IBM commitment to academia) for the fun of it, i periodically post ... recently in (closed linkedin) IBM'ers ... partially archived here: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#0 What is you opinion is the one defining IBM product? and as for ms/dos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS before ms/dos there was seattle computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products and before seattle computer there was cp/m http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M and before cp/m, kildall worked on cp/67-cms at npg school (gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine) http://web.archive.org/web/20071011100440/http://www.khet.net/gmc/docs/museum/en_cpmName.html npg reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School additional lineage is that some of the CTSS people went to the 5th flr and did Multics, others went to the science center on the 4th flr and did cp/67-cms (actually 360/67 wasn't ready yet so they did hardware modifications to 360/40 for virtual memory and did cp/40-cms ... which later morphs into cp/67-cms when 360/67 becomes available). folklore is that unix is outgrowth of Multics work (and the name a play on Multics). ctss http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System multics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics cp/40-cms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-40 cp/67-cms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS Last year, Les sent me scan of his 82SEAS CP/40 talk, I OCR'ed it http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/cp40seas1982.txt -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On 6/20/2013 9:09 PM, David Crayford wrote: Let's not forget IBMs failure to foresee the growth explosion of PCs in the 90s. Lack of vision and poor management gifted microsoft the opportunity to become a market leader who constantly outmanoeuvred IBM (anybody still running OS/2?). In 1984 I built a PC from parts; in that time I've had to replace two memory chips, and still have some spares. It's running OS/2, not connected to my home network, and used for finances and a data base. Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
Yes, sorry about that. Well, the problem probably got fixed ~10 years ago. Which is better than, say, ~5 years ago. It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free stuff into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). My recollection is that DEC didn't really want it that way. DEC would have very much preferred if VMS and/or TOPS-10/20 got more popular in academia. Sure, DEC was happier if BSD UNIX ran on their PDP or VAX hardware rather than somebody else's hardware, but in hindsight that wasn't enough. It's impossible to re-run history, but I suspect that if DEC didn't provide subsidized hardware to run ATT's/BSD's operating system then there'd just be some other subsidized hardware performing the same role. It would have been something of early 1970s vintage that competed with the PDP-11. Maybe something from CDC, Data General, or Honeywell/Prime. There was also a fortuitous bit of DARPA funding aimed at Berkeley that helped UNIX at a critical stage in its evolution. Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
The classic business-school analysis of DEC's misfortunes makes them an instance of the effects of disruptive technology: microprocessors replacing mnicomputers. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
jwgli...@gmail.com (John Gilmore) writes: The classic business-school analysis of DEC's misfortunes makes them an instance of the effects of disruptive technology: microprocessors replacing mnicomputers. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia vax sold into the same mid-range market as 4300s and except for large corporate orders, in about the same numbers. the large corporate 4300s orders hundred to large hundreds at a time to be placed out in departmental areas was sort of the leading edge of the distributed computing tsunami wave. these distributed vm/4300s inside ibm contributed to scarcity of conference rooms inside ibm (i.e. they were going out into departmental supply rooms and conferences rooms) and big contributer to the internal network passing 1000 nodes in 1983 ... the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86 ... some past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet it also contributed to ibm coming out with the 3375 ... emulated CKD on FBA 3370. I had been told that even if I provided fully integrated and tested FBA support to MVS, I still needed a $26M business case to cover education, training, and documentation ... oh and I couldn't use long-term life-cycle changes ... I could only use incremental new sales ... and customers were already buying as much disk as could be made ... so customers would just switch from same amount of FBA as they had been buying CKD. some past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd the issue was that 3380s were the high-end disk ... and the only disks in the lowmid-range were FBA. MVS couldn't participant in this huge explosion in distributed processing on 4300s ... in part because it didn't have support for disk that was suitable in non-datacenter environments. Disk division was forced into producing 3375 (CKD emulated on 3370) ... however MVS support paradigm also didn't scale well to running on hundreds of distributed systems. old post with decade of vax sales, sliceddiced by US/non-US, year, model http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0 clusters of 4300s also represented threat to 3033 ... they had more aggregate processing power than 3033 and were significantly cheaper and required significantly less floor space and environmental resources. at one point, POK 3033 was playing internal politics and got the allocation of critical 4300 manufacturing component cut in half. old 4300-related email http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx in the decade of vax sales, towards the end, it is possible to see workstations and large PCs moving up into the mid-range market. something similar happened to 4300s ... the 4331/4341 followons (4361/4381) was expecting to continued explosion in sales ... but the mid-range market was already starting to move (4361/4381 suffering same effects as vax). before 4300s shipped, there were engineering 4341 models in disk engineeringtest ... and I had better access to 4341 for doing benchmarks than the performance group in (endicott) 4341 manufacturing. one of the benchmarks that I ran was for LLNL ... that were looking at buying 70 4341 for compute cluster ... if they met certain performance price/performance requirements. old reference http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email790220 sort of start of being involved with LLNL compute clusters ... reference to more than decade later on cluster scaleup ... recent post with old email http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#email910808 other old email on cluster scaleup http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa within hrs of the last email in the above, cluster scaleup was transferred and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors ... and within week or two, it was announced as IBM supercomputer. I was also working with Jim Gray on original relational/SQL implementation ... system/r ... originally done on vm 370/145 in bldg. 28 (san jose research). early joint study on system/r was with bank of america. Old email from Jim about BofA doing 60 vm/4341s and I needed to further reduce the effort to manage large numbers of distributed machines. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email800311b later when Jim was leaving for Tandem ... he was palming bunch of stuff on me (including dealing with BofA, DBMS consulting with IMS group, etc) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016 system/r folklore is that mainstream corporate attention was focused on EAGLE ... and was able to do technology transfer and get System/R out (under the radar) through Endicott as SQL/DS. Later when EAGLE imploded, the System/R group was asked how fast could they do a port to MVS ... which eventually comes out as DB2. misc. past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr the late 80s was when senior disk engineer got a talk
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On 6/19/2013 7:36 AM, John Gilmore wrote: The classic business-school analysis of DEC's misfortunes makes them an instance of the effects of disruptive technology: microprocessors replacing mnicomputers. That might answer the how, but not the why. I attribute it to bad management that failed to innovate in a timely fashion, didn't provide proper technical direction (1), nor effective sales. Ultimately I blame Ken Olsen: There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (2) As a glaring example of this. DEC marketed three distinct lines of PCs, all failures. Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont (1) AMS acquired a DEC-System 20 in the seventies. To get acquainted with it, I tried a Monopoly game (about 1000 lines) written in BASIC. The source files were rounded up to a word boundary, padded with nulls. After a system update that tracked exact file length, loading an old file resulted in an error message for each null. (2) In a talk given to a 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston. Olsen later explained that he was referring to smart homes rather than personal computers. At snopes.com is an article explaining that his statement, in original context, was a little more plausible - he meant computers that controlled operation of a house, not a PC. -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:36:59 -0400, Gerhard Postpischil wrote: ... Ultimately I blame Ken Olsen: There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (2) As a glaring example of this. DEC marketed three distinct lines of PCs, all failures. He was only trying to prove his point. -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
In 985915eee6984740ae93f8495c624c6c231975f...@jscpcwexmaa1.bsg.ad.adp.com, on 06/18/2013 at 10:24 AM, Farley, Peter x23353 peter.far...@broadridge.com said: It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free stuff into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). It didn't help that the MVS address space was painfully small compared to the VAX. It wasn't until MVS/ESA that IBM caught up. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT Atid/2http://patriot.net/~shmuel We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress. (S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003) -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
shmuel+...@patriot.net (Shmuel Metz , Seymour J.) writes: It didn't help that the MVS address space was painfully small compared to the VAX. It wasn't until MVS/ESA that IBM caught up. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#76 DataPower XML Appliance and RACF http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#78 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#2 IBM commitment to academia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#4 IBM commitment to academia during the Future System period ... 370 (hardware software) development was being killed off (and lack of new products is credited with giving clone processors market foothold). with death of FS ... there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline ... misc. past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys part of that was 303x in parallel with 3081 370/xa. The head of POK also managed to convince corporate to kill off the vm370 product, shutdown the burlington mall development group and move all the people to POK ... or otherwise he wouldn't be able to meet the mvs/xa ship schedule. the burlington mall group wasn't going to be told until the very last moment in order to minimize people being able to escape ... however it leaked a few months early ... and quite a few people were able to escape the move to POK ... quite a few going to DEC to work on vax/vms (this was in the very early days of starting vax/vms development) ... resulting in the head of POK being considered one of the biggest contributors to vax/vms. endicott eventually managed to save the vm370 product mission ... but had to reconsitute a development group from scratch ... the resulting learning curve resulted in quite a few comments on VMSHARE during the period. http://vm.mairist.edu/~vmshare/ there was also quite a bit of enhancements to vm370 lost in the burlington mall shutdown ... including a major expansion of MVS emulation in cms. -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On 6/19/2013 11:14 AM, John Gilmore wrote: Retreat from the unfamiliar, back into the familiar, is common. I suspect that we are all guilty of it from time to time; and terms like 'good management' and 'bad management' describe outcomes without being diagnostic. Unless one is in the possession of detailed data, unlikely to become public, it is difficult to judge why a company makes decisions. It is doubtful that clinical kainophobia is pertinent; more likely factors are cash flow, risk aversion, sales projections, and other non-technical issues. For a successful company like DEC, technical aspects were the least of their problems, as they had exemplary staff, including some ex-IBMers. This is why I conclude that their collapse and sale was due to poor management, even if that doesn't provide any specifics. Olsen was a remarkable man; and in DEC he created a remarkable if not a long-lived organization. I see an analogue with physicists, who are reputed to make all great discoveries when young, and very little thereafter. Once you have the second largest computer company, what incentive is there to gamble it away, rather than progress incrementally? Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
IBM commitment to academia|academe
καινός means 'new'; and kaino[lo]phobia, fear of the new, probably figures in most such problems; but attachment to the successful old is usually more important; and this attachment is often crucial when the successful old was in its time innovative. DEC technology, once itself disruptive, confronted another disruptive technology in turn; and DEC's management responded dismissively and in the event inadequately, fatally so. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
Peter Farley writes: AFAIK, that is a (relatively) recent *new* initiative. About 10 years and counting, if my recollection is correct. We cannot change the past, and the original assertion was not in the past tense. Here's a bit more history for perspective. DEC was particularly aggressive in courting universities in the 1970s and 1980s, providing them with lots of low priced and/or free stuff. DEC's technologies are now a very minor and shrinking part of HP, which in turn is struggling. As another example, Apple has been powerful in education for many years, but then graduates mostly bought PCs for a couple decades as Apple's marketshare mostly dropped. It was only recently that Apple moved into an industry leadership position (though not necessarily in marketshare), and it's hard to make an argument that Apple's strength in education had much to do with its recent successes. I'm a huge proponent of assisting universities and other educational institutions -- don't get me wrong. But we should be both enthusiastic and realistic about the impact of that support. There are many, many popular products and services that are mostly or completely absent from university campuses. The technologies I learned and used on campus I mostly never used again after I graduated. John Gilmore opines: We are in a situation much like that of the atomic-energy industry some years ago. I think that analogy breaks down pretty quickly -- my view. Eric Bielefeld observes: This isn't really about IBM academia, but I think it may speak to IBM's commitment to the mainframe. As many of you know, I worked for a little over 3 years for IBM in Dubuque Iowa. The Dubuque facility is primarily for outsourcing. They have some Mainframe clients, but many many more clients that they outsource for doing Windows, Unix, Linux, and just about anything companies want. I believe there are at least 2 or 3 other places in the US that provide the same services. I think the biggest problem IBM has, at least in Dubuque, is low pay. If the pay is too low, the market will correct that. Any employer that fails to offer adequate compensation won't be able to attract and to retain an appropriate workforce. However, compensation is now globally sensitive in many more professions. Yes, even (increasingly) for top managers. Still, I'm quite sure IBM's pay in Dubuque is not even close to the lowest in the world. Also, I'm quite sure there's nothing platform-specific about these compensation trends (as you allude to). If anything, mainframe-related skills should be less sensitive to cross-border compensation pressures, other things being equal. IBM has hired and presumably will continue to hire from the groups of students studying in mainframe-related areas, in Iowa and elsewhere. As another personal editorial comment, I think there's a strong role for government in setting tax and spending policies that promote the general welfare. As one example among many, U.S. corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP used to be over 6% in the early 1950s. Last year they were about 1.2% of GDP, and corporate profits are particularly strong. That's a big policy change, and I don't think it's the right one. (I'm pretty much a Rawlsian.) Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:28:50 +0800, Timothy Sipples wrote: Peter Farley writes: AFAIK, that is a (relatively) recent *new* initiative. About 10 years and counting, if my recollection is correct. We cannot change the past, and the original assertion was not in the past tense. The original assertion was indeed in the past tense. You quoted it in your first reply to this thread: Peter Farley writes: When ... IBM stopped supporting computer science in universities with free or low-cost hardware and software... When I read that, I thought that Peter meant around 30-40 years ago. -- Tom Marchant -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
Indeed I did refer to the past, specifically the 1980's and 1990's, as mentioned in one of my later replies. It is my faded-memory impression that it was, as Timothy pointed out, DEC's aggressive push of very low-cost and free stuff into universities that both permitted and accelerated the rise of *ix and also contributed to the decline of IBM mainframes on campus (though that was not the only reason). Some other mini-computer vendors had similar push efforts, but DEC was the 800-pound gorilla of the group. As others have pointed out, the unbundling and pricing restrictions placed on IBM may have contributed to IBM's loss of university market-share but they also never pursued keeping university mind-share, and so the mainframe products and ideologies were lost to the *ix world-view on campus. It's all water-under-the-bridge now, and I am happy that IBM's academic initiative seems to be making some progress. I just have the distinct impression that it is far too little, far too late. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Tom Marchant Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 8:55 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: IBM commitment to academia On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:28:50 +0800, Timothy Sipples wrote: Peter Farley writes: AFAIK, that is a (relatively) recent *new* initiative. About 10 years and counting, if my recollection is correct. We cannot change the past, and the original assertion was not in the past tense. The original assertion was indeed in the past tense. You quoted it in your first reply to this thread: Peter Farley writes: When ... IBM stopped supporting computer science in universities with free or low-cost hardware and software... When I read that, I thought that Peter meant around 30-40 years ago. -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia (was:ataPower XML Appliance and RACF)
There is only ONE (pseudo-)University from Canada on the list! Canadian colleges don't cut it! Therefore: there is NO commitment in Canada. And, no propaganda will change that. - Ted MacNEIL eamacn...@yahoo.ca Twitter: @TedMacNEIL -Original Message- From: Timothy Sipples sipp...@sg.ibm.com Sender: IBM Mainframe Discussion List IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:07:42 To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Reply-To: IBM Mainframe Discussion List IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: DataPower XML Appliance and RACF The absence of one or more particular universities is not proof of the original assertion. Many universities decline many offers. Shmuel Metz writes: Yes, IBM used to give schools deep discounts without requiring that the systems be used only for classwork. That wasn't part of the original assertion. But, since you raised the point, should IBM be providing free computing solutions for non-instructional uses to organizations that often charge hefty tuition rates and which have more accumulated wealth than many entire nations? I don't know the answer to that question, but in principle it's reasonable for anybody providing something of high value free of charge to set a couple boundaries. If a university donor is providing millions of dollars to build and maintain a new swimming pool and to provide scholarship aid to poor students, she doesn't expect her money to be used to pay for the university president's private car service: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cuny_perk_is_car_ick_JVb1wlLCyVawz0BjtLJBkL There's also the wee little problem, according to the history books I've read, that, for a period of time, IBM couldn't set its own prices exactly as it wished. Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com -- 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
Re: IBM commitment to academia (was:ataPower XML Appliance and RACF)
The academic computer-science community has been hostile to IBM for a very long time. Some of this hostility was provoked, understandably, by long ago IBM hubris; but it remains pervasive in a period when most of that hubris has been dissipated. Things may change, but at the moment there is no great university demand for mainframes for instructional use. There is instead active hostility to them on many campuses, and this is problematic. I routinely encounter computer-science majors who know nothing of mainframes and a good number of whom 'think' they are no longer being made. Moreover, this problem feeds upon itself. Timothy Sipples is right to emphasize that mainframes figure in, for example, many crucial banking applications; but these students do not perceive such applications to be 'interesting'; and they are right: few of them are of any technical (as opposed to economic) interest. We are in a situation much like that of the atomic-energy industry some years ago. The original Hanford, Washington, gaseous-diffusion facility for the separation of uranium isotopes was designed by Enrico Fermi, slide rule in hand. It then came uinder the control of AEC civil servants; and when decades later it was shut down, after polluting large tracts of the state of Washington all but irretrievably, there was no professional physicist on its staff. I hope not, but I fear that we are at an impasse, in the literal French sense of a dead end. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
jwgli...@gmail.com (John Gilmore) writes: We are in a situation much like that of the atomic-energy industry some years ago. The original Hanford, Washington, gaseous-diffusion facility for the separation of uranium isotopes was designed by Enrico Fermi, slide rule in hand. It then came uinder the control of AEC civil servants; and when decades later it was shut down, after polluting large tracts of the state of Washington all but irretrievably, there was no professional physicist on its staff. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#77 IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today there has been a lot written about Admiral Rickover's exacting standards for nuclear plants not only for naval vessels but also land-based commercial nuclear power plants ... and that standards became more relaxed after Rickover. one of my favorites is Col. John Boyd ... who I knew and I sponsored his briefings at IBM. He wrote jet fighter pilot training manual that came to be used by nearly country in the world. He significantly improved the design of the F15 F18 and responsible for the design of the precursor to F16 (although lots of comments about design was significantly downgraded in becoming F16). I also credit him having big hand in F20/tigershark He is credited with the battle plan for Desert Storm in the early 90s and there have been comments that one of the problems with the conflicts the last decade was that Boyd passed in 1997. One could make a case that many of the F35/JSF could also be attributed to Boyd no longer being here. Lots of Boyd posts references http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html for a little mainframe ... Boyd biographies mention him doing tour in command of Spook Base ... including reference to it being a $2.5B windfall for IBM (possibly $18+B in today's dollars) ... spook base reference ... gone 404 but lives on at wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html Hugh Laurie (actor in TV House) even references Boyd in Gun Seller fiction ... quote in this recent (open linkedin Old Geek) discussion Is newer technology always better? ... also archived here http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#41 as an aside, Boyd wasn't authorized to do the design for what became the F16 ... and MICC felt threaten by his activities and tried to get the Air Force to sentence him to life in Leavenworth for stealing millions of dollars in gov. property (i.e. the unauthorized use of supercomputer time for the F16 design) ... fortunately he had carefully covered his tracks and they couldn't find evidence of his use (somewhat analogous to part of Laurie's theme in Gun Sellers). The issue of IBM short-term/long-term recently came up in this (closed linkedin) IBMers discussion: IBM going ahead with more U.S. job cuts today. part of my contribution archived here http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#77 for even more drift ... past couple months there has been lots of divers doing repair work on the seawall on the perimeter of the naval academy ... workers say that the concrete has significant erosion. Its only something like 30yrs old ... this compares to sea structures made from Roman concrete that has survived for 2000yrs Ancient Roman Concrete Is About to Revolutionize Modern Architecture http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-14/ancient-roman-concrete-is-about-to-revolutionize-modern-architecture -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
Ted MacNEIL wrote: There is only ONE (pseudo-)University from Canada on the list! Canadian colleges don't cut it! Therefore: there is NO commitment in Canada. And, no propaganda will change that. If you mean Academic Initiative members, I'm confused by your post. The efforts of Parti Quebecois notwithstanding, Quebec was still a Canadian province when last I checked. There are two universities listed in Quebec at: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/education/academic/schools_na.html#quebec in addition to the one in Ontario (and in addition to the eight colleges you discount). Also, the people at Ryerson (which I see has been gaining accreditation for their programs) might dispute characterization of their institution as a pseudo-University, if that's who you meant. In fact, to be a full participant in the Academic Initiative, the institution must be accredited. It so happens that the Academic Initiative team is in the process of updating the list, so there will probably be additions and subtractions some time relatively soon. Finally, the commitment has to come from the institution itself. As I understand it, within the bounds of the program, it's open to any of them. So IBM's commitment is the same in Canada as it is in the USA or elsewhere. -- John Eells z/OS Technical Marketing IBM Poughkeepsie ee...@us.ibm.com -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia (was:ataPower XML Appliance and RACF)
IBM Mainframe Discussion List IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU wrote on 06/17/2013 10:15:25 AM: From: Paul Gilmartin paulgboul...@aim.com My recollection is that gaseous-diffusion separation of uranium was performed at Oak Ridge and Hanford separated plutonium chemically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project Thanks for the link. Very accurate information. Lots of good memories. I did research @ X10 for 3 yrs and used a lab in the Graphite reactor, which had already been decommissioned. Glad so see they had the Treasury silver story. They don't have the later story about the medium level waste cells and the great contamination they caused. But those cells must have been where the waste went form the initial plutonium purification. Explains why they were located where they were on expensive, exposed real estate. - The information contained in this communication (including any attachments hereto) is confidential and is intended solely for the personal and confidential use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this communication in error and that any review, dissemination, copying, or unauthorized use of this information, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message. Thank you -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: IBM commitment to academia
This isn't really about IBM academia, but I think it may speak to IBM's commitment to the mainframe. As many of you know, I worked for a little over 3 years for IBM in Dubuque Iowa. The Dubuque facility is primarily for outsourcing. They have some Mainframe clients, but many many more clients that they outsource for doing Windows, Unix, Linux, and just about anything companies want. I believe there are at least 2 or 3 other places in the US that provide the same services. I think the biggest problem IBM has, at least in Dubuque, is low pay. I'm sure a few of you have had offers from IBM, but when you saw the pay, you just rejected it. The people they hire, at least when I worked there, are paid about half what they used to make. Obviously, if you've been unemployed for 6 months, and no prospects, you may decide to take the job but just for a while until you find something else. At least that's what I did. Unfortuneatly, I have that thing that almost no company wants, I'm old. I will say for IBM, they do hire older people, whereas most companies don't, although they will never tell you that's the reason for not hiring you. They also hire people who have no IT experience and train them, which is also a good thing. This is illustrated by one guy in my group who was in his 20's. He was hired and worked about 2 years for IBM. He then quit and found a job that I think paid about triple what he was getting. There are some very good MVS people working for IBM in Dubuque, but they are really overworked. There are also many more good people who are looking to get out of IBM. I haven't talked to anyone in Dubuque since I've left, so I can't comment on the current situation, but I know there were a lot of unhappy people there. To me, the unwillingness to pay market rate for employee's says a lot about IBM's commitment to high profits, but not to their people. It used to not be that way. Eric Bielefeld Retired z/OS Systems Programmer Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
