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IBM System/360 Principles of Operation (1964) [pdf]
- rbanffy 7y agoFair warning: this is not an introduction.
- brudgers 7y agoTo me, it's a realistic introduction it's just that as computers became ubiquitous, marketing them as easy to use was the dominant strategy. It's been very successful. People will shop weeks on faith in silver bullets to avoid four hours RTFM'ing.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoIt's a typical programmer's hardware manual for the period. More or less until the IBM PC, it was normal for computer vendors to supply a detailed bit-level breakdown of instructions, memory operation, data formats, interrupt structure, and so on.
- ghaff 7y agoAlthough similar information was of course also available for the IBM PC even if it wasn't as routinely used. An assembly language reference for a PC contains much of the same information as a POO for a mainframe or mini.
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoThings were different in the early days. In the 1970's I worked at a company that had an IBM S/370 and a clone, an Itel AS/5. IBM supplied hardware schematics and microcode listings for their S/370 hardware. They were in the machine room and freely available for perusal by us. In a bit of irony, they also supplied schematics and microcode for the Itel clone. That's because the Itel was a true clone. It was designed by copying IBM's circuitry, but implemented in Motorola 10K series ECL instead of IBM's proprietary technology. You read that right. In order to debug a problem with the Itel, the Itel field service engineers used IBM's schematics. I think a lot of this free availability was because IBM was facing antitrust pressure from the US government. I don't know all the details. Here's more history about the clone: http://www.silogic.com/NAS/NAS.html http://www.silogic.com/NAS/NAS.html
- jasomill 7y agoIt's certainly a gentler introduction than the current, 2,000-page z/Arch Principles! And along similar lines, it's kind of fun, if not at all useful in any economically rational sense of the term, to write nontrivial source- and binary-compatible code that builds and runs on everything from a 40-year-old 370 to a current-model Z (speaking hypothetically, as I don't actually have access to even a reasonable facsimile of the latter; I have, however, tested as far forward as late-model OS/390 running in 64-bit z/Arch mode on emulated hardware).
- StudyAnimal 7y agoIf anyone is looking for an introduction to the modern version of the platform, this free e-book from IBM is great: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246366.html?Open http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246366.html?Open
- cptnapalm 7y agoI'm trying to get my Multiprise 3000 up and running. Is there something like this for S/390?
- lboc 7y agoSearch that Redbooks site for 'abcs of systems programming'. There's a 5-volume set from 2000 that covers S/390 and OS/390. Also check out the OS/390 ADCD Redbook: https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246204.pdf https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246204.pdf Which I found pretty helpful for finding my way around. (I see from the cover that it includes MP3000 info!) Edit: Have you seen this? (I think this guy hangs out on HN) ftp://ps-2.kev009.com/incoming/timc/PDFS/IBM/S370%20&%20S390/MultiPrise%203000
- cptnapalm 7y agoHe does. He's been a great help as I try to piece together enough stuff to function as a system element. And thank you for that redbook link; I have a load of stuff, but somehow missed that one. Thanks!
- monocasa 7y agoIt is compared to the rest of their documentation. 360s would come with a bookshelf of binders going down to the circuit level.
- dang 7y agoAnybody got a year for this?
- grzm 7y agoIBM System/360 Principles of Operation, 1964. https://books.google.com/books?id=OjUyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1028&lpg=PA1028&dq=File+No.+S360-01+ibm+360&source=bl&ots=VLzlgPhVgC&sig=ACfU3U1EeYlMCF0Uind-L4qf7KT_vWeQhw&hl=en&ppis=_c&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjXwIqPht7lAhUX7J4KHY0TAg8Q6AEwCnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage https://books.google.com/books?id=OjUyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1028&lpg...
- dang 7y agoAdded. Thanks!
- MarkMMullin 7y agoHeh - had to go look up storage protect, aka 'red light errors' . Kept getting in trouble in the beginning of my career when I didn't realize snooping about lit up lights on the front panel . :-)
- GnarfGnarf 7y agoIn 1970, I actually got paid a salary to write applications in this Assembler language. Abjectly inefficient, but what a blast!
- protomyth 7y ago360 Assembly was actually pretty ok once you get past the whole EBCDIC thing. I still judge other companies documentation versus the banana book.
- opsunit 7y agoI was being paid to do the same in 1999!
- throwawayForMe2 7y agoI did about 5 years of assembler in the late 80’s for a major bank (IMS and CICS systems). A set of structured macros supposedly from NASA, made it quite readable. These added if/else, case, loop constructs, etc. Around 2012(?), working for another major bank, I was asked to make an enhancement to a funds transfer system written in assembler, as no one else left in the pool of programmers had any experience. I had to dig out my old text book which I luckily found, and my old yellow card, and relearned enough to make the change.
- kpgraham 7y agoThis was my bible for many years. We called it POOP (Principles Of OPeration. I loved assembler on the 360 and the 370. I learned Assembly Language by cross listing my COBOL programs and using POOP to find out what the op codes meant.
- jackfoxy 7y agoSystem 370 assembler was the first language I worked in professionally. We called it the POPS manual. As I recall it was a paragon of technical writing. I learned how to read technical documentation on this manual.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 7y agoThat's the easy one. z/Arch is way more intricate. As noted in my moniker, you can do fun stuff with BXLE,as described in the "Difficult Code" section on FINCH (aka program fetching) in an OS/360 PLM (Program Logic Manual).
- dbcurtis 7y agoI did a tour of duty as a CPU logic designer at Amdahl. The POO was my bible, although it was the 370 version in those days. The thing to remember about ISA specs like this is that they are works of fiction. The contract goes: “If you programmers are willing to pretend this is how the machines work, we will build a machine that pretends to work that way.” That concept is the key innovation of the 360 system architecture, attributed to Gene Amdahl. After leaving Amdahl I worked for a while in Electronic Design Automation. One year at the IEEE Design Automation Conference I met a random person at a happy hour who was an ex-IBM OS programmer. He said that he once spent a year rewriting a part of the OS to use a particular instruction entirely because “Amdahl didn’t have it yet.” Says I: “When was this?” ... “Ah, at that time part of my job was adding that instruction to the Amdahl CPU.” The conversation felt like an old Mad Magazine “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon. We were both bemused.
- cptnapalm 7y agoBy pure random luck and if you know, has Amdahl's UTS survived anywhere? Mainframe software seems to simply disappear into the void after its useful life is over.
- michaelwilson 7y agoWhen IBM introduced the AP (attached processor) and MP (multi-processor) systems, they had to add instructions that were guaranteed to be atomic since both processors had uniform access to main memory. Interestingly enough, they only added two instructions (compare and swap, compare double and swap) to support these configurations. (I think there might have been one or two other supervisor mode-instructions, but there were weirdos like "stop the other processor", for example).
- RickJWagner 7y agoI remember reading a similar document for my shop's IBM 4381. When I started mainframe programming, I was given a pocket-sized 'yellow card' that listed all the machine instructions and arguments. It was invaluable for dump-reading. My co-workers (who were all older when I started) had similar cards, except in different colors. There were white, pink and green cards, too. You could tell when somebody started programming by the color of their card. I kept mine, still have it.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 7y agoThe card is now a 116 page booklet aka Reference Summary
- DonHopkins 7y agoThe Adolescence of P-1 was set on IBM System/360 mainframes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adolescence_of_P-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adolescence_of_P-1 >Reception >BYTE criticized The Adolescence of P-1 for what it stated were unrealistic expectations for an artificial intelligence running on 1970s IBM mainframes. It suggested that the author could have set the novel in the 1990s and use fictional future IBM computers to make the plot more plausible. https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-09/BYTE_Vol_06-09_1981-09_Artifical_Intelligence#page/n201/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-09/BYTE_Vol_06...
- cptnapalm 7y agoCoincidentally, I finished reading "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems" earlier today. I highly recommend it and its predecessor, "IBM's Early Computers" from the MIT press. The business aspect is there, of course, but it's really about the development of the machines themselves, down to how they developed the transistors they used along with who did it.
- Cuckoo123 7y agoI dare say these boys will find the manual rather handy. https://ibms360.co.uk/ https://ibms360.co.uk/