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IBM historically was the most proprietary of the most proprietary. Like, if there were ANY information sharing out there in public about mainframe programming t

IBM historically was the most proprietary of the most proprietary. Like, if there were ANY information sharing out there in public about mainframe programming the way there is about Java/JavaScript/Node/Go/Rust or even Windows programming today, that would get you visited by an army of men in suits. Not government agents, but just about as scary: IBM lawyers. So that cultural value of keep everything close to the vest and only learn through official channels, still persists in IBM mainframe culture today. Especially since there is little to no "hacker culture" surrounding mainframes since it's not like you can download z/OS and run it on your PC (things like Hercules notwithstanding).

adrian_b 4y ago
This might have become true mostly after 1987 to 1990, when the IBM managers began to regret the former openness of IBM, (wrongly) believing that it might have contributed to their diminishing share in the computer market, and they have made various, mostly failed, attempts to replace more open products with proprietary products, like the IBM PS/2. At least before 1980, during the IBM System/360 and IBM System/370 generations, abundant documentation about any aspect of any IBM product was available, much more detailed than any modern documentation. Moreover, for many of the programs provided by IBM with the hardware, the source code was available, even if they were not open-source in the modern sense, because the users were not encouraged to modify and redistribute them, even if such activities happened sometimes, e.g. within the IBM SHARE user group. When the IBM PC was introduced in 1981, this policy of providing exhaustive documentation was still active, which is why the IBM PCs were delivered with a ton of manuals, including descriptions of the hardware interfaces and the complete listing of the source code for the BIOS firmware.

adrian_b 4y ago

This might have become true mostly after 1987 to 1990, when the IBM managers began to regret the former openness of IBM, (wrongly) believing that it might have contributed to their diminishing share in the computer market, and they have made various, mostly failed, attempts to replace more open products with proprietary products, like the IBM PS/2. At least before 1980, during the IBM System/360 and IBM System/370 generations, abundant documentation about any aspect of any IBM product was available, much more detailed than any modern documentation. Moreover, for many of the programs provided by IBM with the hardware, the source code was available, even if they were not open-source in the modern sense, because the users were not encouraged to modify and redistribute them, even if such activities happened sometimes, e.g. within the IBM SHARE user group. When the IBM PC was introduced in 1981, this policy of providing exhaustive documentation was still active, which is why the IBM PCs were delivered with a ton of manuals, including descriptions of the hardware interfaces and the complete listing of the source code for the BIOS firmware.