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This is very cool! As someone who wishes more people got some programming exposure to IBM z and how it works differently than minicomputer derived operating sy
by Aloha 2y ago
This is very cool!
As someone who wishes more people got some programming exposure to IBM z and how it works differently than minicomputer derived operating systems (both *nix and Windows count here), I think this is awesome.
- ferguess_k 2y agoReading your comments, I suddenly realized that Win NT comes from PRISM which come from VMS so it also derived from minicomputer era. Interesting, never thought about that. I think MS-DOS comes from CP/M which was also sort of rooted in the minicomputer era.
- myrandomcomment 2y agoDave Cutler, the head of the NT project came from DEC where he did VMS. Big lawsuit when MS hired him. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
- ferguess_k 2y agoYeah that's what I read in Showstoppers too.
- marcusb 2y agoWNT = V + 1, M + 1, S + 1
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sillywalk 2y ago"Originally, we were targeting NT to the Intel i860 (code-named 'N-Ten)', a RISC processor that was horribly behind schedule. Because we didn't have any i860 machines in-house to test on, we used an i860 simulator. That's why we called it NT, because it worked on the 'N-Ten.'" -- Mark Lucovsky Distinguished Engineer, Windows Server Architect https://web.archive.org/web/20110720042038/http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-server/windows-server-2003-the-road-to-gold-part-one-the-early-years-127432 https://web.archive.org/web/20110720042038/http://www.winsup...
- myrandomcomment 2y agoSo NT from VMS is not true as pointed out above. However a funning one that is suppose to be true is from the 2001 Space Odyssey series. The name of the insane AI was H.A.L. H>I A>B L>M
- rbanffy 2y agoI found surprising that IBM's CMS had commands like "DIR" and "TYPE".
- rbanffy 2y agoIndeed. The deeply alien nature of MVS and its descendants is fascinating. It's not only a difference in commands, but also the underlying concepts that don't map cleanly to concepts we got used to in Unix and Windows that causes a lot of confusion. For instance, a TSO user being unable to log in from different terminals at the same time confused me a lot until someone told me TSO users are not the same as Unix users. Also, a VM is not the same as a VMWare VM.
- miki123211 2y agoThat, and datasets, which are not really hierarchical. Yes there's a hierarchy (with . as a separator), but it's more naming convention than a description of the underlying filesystem. You can create projects.foo.code.bar without having any entity (like a Unix directory) for projects.foo first.
- rbanffy 2y agoMCP, the only OS older than z/OS in active maintenance, even more alien than IBM’s, does more or less the same. It had at one time a hierarchical file system, but at some point they decided it was pointless and adopted a naming convention instead. I was trying to get around it on SimH, with the B5500 version. Definitely deserves the name.
- 7thaccount 2y agoThe IBM Z mainframes seem really neat. I don't have a use case for using one of course, but I wish IBM had like a weak virtual system for training that was open for the public to play with.
- marcusb 2y agoZ Xplore at least used to include Z series access. https://ibmzxplore.influitive.com/users/sign_in https://ibmzxplore.influitive.com/users/sign_in
- ASalazarMX 2y agoI didn't know about this! Is it truly free of charge? Seems too good to be true.
- lboc 2y agoHaven't used it for a couple of years, but I think it's still a free login ID with 1-year validity. You can re-apply every year.
- lproven 2y agoHercules: http://www.hercules-390.eu/ http://www.hercules-390.eu/ Guidance and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23268307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23268307
- vyrotek 2y agoIt is cool stuff. I got plenty of exposure. My father worked on airline, bank, and credit card systems. and now does work for the IRS on the tax processing mainframes. He's literally "old man yells at cloud".
- miki123211 2y agoAlso true about IBM I (AKA AS400), which is also still in somewhat wide use. Most People seem to at least know that mainframes and Cobol exist, even if they've never seen them. IBM I (and its primary language, RPG) are similar in importance to the global economy and just as different from Nix and Windows systems, but they seem to be far less known. They're also far easier to get access to, there's a free modern system that you can get an account on at pub400.com. With Z/OS, you're stuck with Hercules emulating some ancient version from the 80's which there's barely any documentation for.
- lboc 2y agoThere's a bunch of documentation for MVS 3.8J (or OS/VS2) on Bitsavers. IBM provide free 1-year Z access via the Zxplore program.