4 ms·

I remember talking to this chap on the hercules-os380 mailing list. It used to be on Yahoo Groups but now it's here: https://groups.io/g/Hercules-OS380 https:/

I remember talking to this chap on the hercules-os380 mailing list. It used to be on Yahoo Groups but now it's here: https://groups.io/g/Hercules-OS380 https://groups.io/g/Hercules-OS380 The list was once for people extending the FOSS Hercules emulator and the early IBM OS/360 source code (available, but not technically FOSS) to make an emulator for an updated mainframe that never existed but could have more memory than the real things. Sounds crazy but it has some practical uses: IBM did do this later, but its OSes from that era are not FOSS or free: they are very expensive. The author of PDOS seemed to feel that PCs ought to have descended from miniaturised mainframes, not from a scaled-up Intel 8080. He wanted to write a Unix-like OS but for mainframes, and port it to the PC. It was very strange and confusing, and he did not explain it well at all. He seemed not to know (or care) about a lot of the history of computers, OS development or anything else: he seemed to feel he knew better and didn't need to know. In the end, the group was almost all his posts, and I left it, unable to cope with the torrent.

LBJsPNS 4y ago
It would seem this individual is a bit unbalanced...
- lproven 4y ago
  Could well be, yes. Our exchanges on the Hercules list were very unproductive and in fact frustrating to very unpleasant for me. Just remembering where I'd seen this before was slightly upsetting.
turtleyacht 4y ago
Thank-you for the link. Messages continue here: https://groups.io/g/hercules-380/messages https://groups.io/g/hercules-380/messages
kerravon86 4y ago
I am the main author of PDOS. I am not claiming to "know better" (or even know what that means). And I don't recognize your description of "PCs ought" as an accurate description of my views. Or even understand what that means either. If you ask a specific question I'll try to give an answer, based on my current understanding, but note that all my beliefs are tentative.
- lproven 4y ago
  My screen name here is my real name and the same name I used on the old Hercules list. Your posts were the main reason I left that list, in fact. I tried very hard to explain stuff to you, and offer what I hoped would be some useful guidance, information, history, code to read about, etc. You dismissed it all, and everything that everyone else on the list offered or said. I couldn't stand the constant negativity, and in the end, I left. If nothing else, as someone who's worked with Free Software and Open Source for this entire century so far and made it my career, your total misunderstanding of it and passionate unreasonable antipathy to it was extremely tiresome. I am happy for you that you've got this far, and I wish you no ill. All possible luck with the project. I will not be getting involved with it again, though.
  - kerravon86 4y ago
    I dismissed "everything" that "everyone" said? What nonsense. Some people on the list made extremely valuable contributions. Some even provided extremely valuable code. Whatever this stuff was that I allegedly unreasonably dismissed, it apparently didn't stop getting PDOS working. Note that that was predominantly a mainframe list, and PDOS now works on real z/Arch hardware. And accesses 4 GiB of memory instead of being limited to 2 GiB. On real hardware. Despite being almost entirely S/370 code (generated by a slightly modified GCC 3.2.3).
    - radiojasper 4y ago
      > I dismissed "everything" that "everyone" said? What nonsense. You just... dismissed everything they said again.
      - kerravon86 4y ago
        Dismissing one phrase/sentence from one person is a different concept to dismissing everything from everyone. And I have counter-examples of people providing value information. Only one counter-example is required to dismiss the original claim. Quite apart from the fact that it's his burden to prove.
lproven 4y ago
> The list was once for people extending the FOSS Hercules > emulator and the early IBM OS/360 source code (available, > but not technically FOSS) to make an emulator for an > updated mainframe that never existed but could have > more memory than the real things. BTW, I put a link to that project here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35307444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35307444
userbinator 4y ago
It was very strange and confusing, and he did not explain it well at all. He seemed not to know (or care) about a lot of the history of computers, OS development or anything else: he seemed to feel he knew better and didn't need to know. IMHO that's a good thing. We need more people who haven't been indoctrinated (for lack of a better word) in the same old ways and are willing to think independently and discover what works and what doesn't for themselves.
- kerravon86 4y ago
  Exactly. Conventional wisdom said that the 16 MiB barrier was impossible to break. After that was broken, the next thing that was impossible to break was the 2 GiB barrier. That was broken too. I'm talking about 32-bit S/370 code. Obviously IBM independently broke the 2 GiB barrier by switching to 64-bit programming. But in hindsight, a "properly-written" program from the 1970s would have been restricted to 16 MiB at that time, but magically turned into 2 GiB in the 1980s, and then magically turned into 4 GiB in I think the 2010s (but this is murkier about when you want to start counting - real hardware was only demonstrated in 2022 or 2023 - can't remember).
skissane 4y ago
> He wanted to write a Unix-like OS but for mainframes Historically that was a very common thing, numerous examples from the 70s and 80s. Princeton's 1970s port (which Eric Schmidt worked on) that evolved into Amdahl UTS; AT&T's early 1980s port which run on top of TSS/370; Nixdorf ported Coherent from the PC to run on top of DOS/VS (IBM mainframe DOS/360, unrelated to MS-DOS/PC-DOS) and sold that as PWS/VSE-AF. There was also VM/IX, IX/370, AIX/370, AIX/ESA, MVS OpenEdition (now z/OS Unix System Services) and its VM/CMS equivalent (originally also called OpenEdition, now z/VM OpenExtensions). And nowadays z/Linux is big, and there was also Sine Nomine Associates' OpenSolaris port (which sadly went nowhere). Writing a Unix subsystem which runs on top of MVS 3.8J (or DOS/VS, or VM/370, or MTS, or MUSIC, etc) would be interesting. Utterly pointless and practically irrelevant, but still interesting. But, since stuff like OS/380 and PDOS is just a hobby, who cares if it has a point or practical relevance? It has a point so long as somebody enjoys it.

LBJsPNS 4y ago

It would seem this individual is a bit unbalanced...

lproven 4y ago
Could well be, yes. Our exchanges on the Hercules list were very unproductive and in fact frustrating to very unpleasant for me. Just remembering where I'd seen this before was slightly upsetting.

turtleyacht 4y ago

Thank-you for the link. Messages continue here: https://groups.io/g/hercules-380/messages https://groups.io/g/hercules-380/messages

kerravon86 4y ago

I am the main author of PDOS. I am not claiming to "know better" (or even know what that means). And I don't recognize your description of "PCs ought" as an accurate description of my views. Or even understand what that means either. If you ask a specific question I'll try to give an answer, based on my current understanding, but note that all my beliefs are tentative.

lproven 4y ago
My screen name here is my real name and the same name I used on the old Hercules list. Your posts were the main reason I left that list, in fact. I tried very hard to explain stuff to you, and offer what I hoped would be some useful guidance, information, history, code to read about, etc. You dismissed it all, and everything that everyone else on the list offered or said. I couldn't stand the constant negativity, and in the end, I left. If nothing else, as someone who's worked with Free Software and Open Source for this entire century so far and made it my career, your total misunderstanding of it and passionate unreasonable antipathy to it was extremely tiresome. I am happy for you that you've got this far, and I wish you no ill. All possible luck with the project. I will not be getting involved with it again, though.
- kerravon86 4y ago
  I dismissed "everything" that "everyone" said? What nonsense. Some people on the list made extremely valuable contributions. Some even provided extremely valuable code. Whatever this stuff was that I allegedly unreasonably dismissed, it apparently didn't stop getting PDOS working. Note that that was predominantly a mainframe list, and PDOS now works on real z/Arch hardware. And accesses 4 GiB of memory instead of being limited to 2 GiB. On real hardware. Despite being almost entirely S/370 code (generated by a slightly modified GCC 3.2.3).
  - radiojasper 4y ago
    > I dismissed "everything" that "everyone" said? What nonsense. You just... dismissed everything they said again.
    - kerravon86 4y ago
      Dismissing one phrase/sentence from one person is a different concept to dismissing everything from everyone. And I have counter-examples of people providing value information. Only one counter-example is required to dismiss the original claim. Quite apart from the fact that it's his burden to prove.

lproven 4y ago

> The list was once for people extending the FOSS Hercules > emulator and the early IBM OS/360 source code (available, > but not technically FOSS) to make an emulator for an > updated mainframe that never existed but could have > more memory than the real things. BTW, I put a link to that project here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35307444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35307444

userbinator 4y ago

It was very strange and confusing, and he did not explain it well at all. He seemed not to know (or care) about a lot of the history of computers, OS development or anything else: he seemed to feel he knew better and didn't need to know. IMHO that's a good thing. We need more people who haven't been indoctrinated (for lack of a better word) in the same old ways and are willing to think independently and discover what works and what doesn't for themselves.

kerravon86 4y ago
Exactly. Conventional wisdom said that the 16 MiB barrier was impossible to break. After that was broken, the next thing that was impossible to break was the 2 GiB barrier. That was broken too. I'm talking about 32-bit S/370 code. Obviously IBM independently broke the 2 GiB barrier by switching to 64-bit programming. But in hindsight, a "properly-written" program from the 1970s would have been restricted to 16 MiB at that time, but magically turned into 2 GiB in the 1980s, and then magically turned into 4 GiB in I think the 2010s (but this is murkier about when you want to start counting - real hardware was only demonstrated in 2022 or 2023 - can't remember).

skissane 4y ago

> He wanted to write a Unix-like OS but for mainframes Historically that was a very common thing, numerous examples from the 70s and 80s. Princeton's 1970s port (which Eric Schmidt worked on) that evolved into Amdahl UTS; AT&T's early 1980s port which run on top of TSS/370; Nixdorf ported Coherent from the PC to run on top of DOS/VS (IBM mainframe DOS/360, unrelated to MS-DOS/PC-DOS) and sold that as PWS/VSE-AF. There was also VM/IX, IX/370, AIX/370, AIX/ESA, MVS OpenEdition (now z/OS Unix System Services) and its VM/CMS equivalent (originally also called OpenEdition, now z/VM OpenExtensions). And nowadays z/Linux is big, and there was also Sine Nomine Associates' OpenSolaris port (which sadly went nowhere). Writing a Unix subsystem which runs on top of MVS 3.8J (or DOS/VS, or VM/370, or MTS, or MUSIC, etc) would be interesting. Utterly pointless and practically irrelevant, but still interesting. But, since stuff like OS/380 and PDOS is just a hobby, who cares if it has a point or practical relevance? It has a point so long as somebody enjoys it.