From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: CP67 Terminal Support Date: 27 Mar, 2026 Blog: FacebookWithin year taking two credit hr intro fortran/computers, univ got 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never coming to production). A little over another year, CSC came out to install CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs). CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support (134.5baud) and auto-terminal ident, capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also had TTY33&35 (110 baud) and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal type.
I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired port line speeds
... so we start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel
interface board for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller
with the addition for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for
channel interface and cluster of Interdata/3s for port
interfaces. Interdata (and later Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone
controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone controller business
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Clone/Emulated IBM mainframe controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM System/R Date: 30 Mar, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS. Others went to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center on 4th flr, virtual machines (wanted 360/50 to add virtual memory, but all spare 50s were going to FAA/ATC so had to settle for 360/40 to add virtual memory and do (virtual machine) CP40/CMS, morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory).
With decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, some of CSC went to
the 3rd flr, taking over the IBM Boston Programming center for the
VM370 development group. The Future System effort overlapping the
adding virtual memory to (and replacing) all 370s
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
I had joined CSC in early 70s and then transfer out to SJR later 70s, which was doing original SQL/relational, System/R (was done with VM370) and I worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson (lots of opposition from IMS and EAGLE groups). Jim leaves SJR fall1980 and pawns off various stuff on me.
My (future) wife had been in the GBURG JES group and one of the
catchers for ASP/JES3, Then she was con'ed into going to POK
responsible for loosely-coupled (mainframe for cluster) architecture
where she did Peer-coupled Shared Data architecture (late
70s). She didn't remain long because 1) sporadic battles with
communication group trying to force her into using SNA/VTAM, 2) little
uptake (until much later with SYSPLEX and Parallel SYSPLEX, 90s)
except for IMS hot-standby, she asked Vern Watts who he would ask to
get permission, he replies nobody, he will just tell them when its all
done
https://www.vcwatts.org/ibm_story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Information_Management_System
Vern also had major problem with SNA/VTAM, IMS hot-standby could "fall over" in minutes ... SNA/VTAM overhead of sessions establishment increased non-linear and typical large terminal (or ATM) configuration could take hour and half (even on max configured 3090).
While IBM company was pre-occupied with next great DBMS "EAGLE", managed to do System/R tech transfer to Endicott (mid-range mainframes) for SQL/DS. Then when "EAGLE" implodes, there was request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS (eventually ships as DB2 for "decision support" only).
1988, HA/6000 was approved (for my wife and me), originally for
NYTimes to move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to
RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing (technical/scientific) cluster scale-up with
national labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up
with RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (work with Ingres, Oracle and
Sybase on redoing cluster logic & distributed lock manager
for scaling to 128-system clusters)
IBM was also remarketing Stratus as S/88 ... and the S/88 product administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write section for the corporate continuous available strategy document (it was removed when both Rochester/AS400 and POK/high-end mainframe complained).
Early Jan92, there was meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD executive
Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92
and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update IBM FSD on HA/CMP
work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for federal
supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster scale-up is
being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM Supercomputer
(technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to work with
anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few months
later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news ... IBM
establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
TPC
https://tpc.org
former co-worker at SJR
http://www.tpc.org/information/who/gray5.asp
TPC-C
https://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results5.asp?resulttype=all
A Tribute to Jim Gray: Sometimes Nice Guys Do Finish First
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/a-tribute-to-jim-gray-sometimes-nice-guys-do-finish-first/
Sailing Mystery Unsolved: Court Declares Jim Gray Dead
http://www.informationweek.com/database/sailing-mystery-unsolved-court-declares-jim-gray-dead/d/d-id/1104453
above references (from 2007):
The Search For Microsoft Researcher Jim Gray; Colleagues rallied to
look for the renowned computer scientist, but to no avail.
http://www.informationweek.com/the-search-for-microsoft-researcher-jim-gray/d/d-id/1053601
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
Peer-coupled Shared Data posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 370/195 Date: 1 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookNot long after graduating and joining IBM CSC, I was asked to help with multithreading (more detail in this post about terminating ACS/360, Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible, then he leaves IBM after ACS/360 was killed)
Besides a few new instructions for 360/195=>370/195 ... they had also added instruction retry ... for attempting (hardware) recovery after hardware fault.
195 had pipeline and out-of-order execution ... but no branch prediction so conditional branches drained the pipeline. As a result most code ran at half 195 rated speed. Idea was that two instruction streams (simulating multiprocessor), each running at half rated speed, would keep 195 execution running full capacity. However, then it was decided to add virtual memory to all 370s and it wasn't really practical to add virtual memory to 195 and all new 195 efforts were terminated.
Early last decade, I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and I found staff to executive making decision. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that regions had to be specified four times larger than used. As a result, standard 1mbyte, 370/165 typically could only run four regions concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual address space (sort of like running MVT in CP67 16mbyte virtual machine), allowed number of concurrent regions increased by factor of four times (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging. Ludlow was doing initial VS2/SVS on 360/67 (pending engineering 370s with virtual memory). I would drop in on him periodically, he was doing little bit of code for virtual address space and some simple paging. Biggest problem was EXCP/SVC0 was now being passed channel programs with virtual addresses and channels required real addresses (CP67 had similar issue). Ludlow borrows CP67 CCWTRANS (that performed same function) to integrate into EXCP.
In any case, MVT (and continue VS2/MVS) multiprocessor support had so much overhead, IBM documents said the MVT&MVS multiprocessor support, 2-CPU systems only had 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of MVT&MVs 1-CPU operation (so 370/195 two i-stream throughput wouldn't have been twice actual throughput).
The IBM "Future System" effort (overlapping 370 virtual memory effort)
was totally different than 370 and was planned to totally replace
370. During FS, internal politics was also killing new 370 efforts and
lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving clone 370 makers
(including Amdahl) their market foothold.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
Future System disaster, from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive.
... snip ...
When FS finally implodes there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipeline, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts. I was asked to help with a 16-CPU multiprocessor and we con the 3033 processor engineers into helping in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (i.e. MVS multiprocessor overhead even for 2-CPU operation, POK doesn't ship 16-CPU system until after the turn of century). Head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs the 3033 processor engineers heads down, and no distractions.
Head of POK was also convincing corporate to kill VM370 product,
shutdown the development group and transfer to POK for MVS/XA
development (Endicott eventually acquires the VM370 product mission
for the mid-range, but had to recreate a development group from
scratch). Likely contributing was CERN had presented VM370/CMS -
MVS/TSO comparison at 1974 SHARE meeting ... copies inside IBM were
stamped "IBM Confidential - Restricted" (2nd highest
classification). Somewhat similar to POK's original plans for
customers migrating to MVS
http://www.mxg.com/thebuttonman/boney.asp
Not long later, I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and got to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test across the street. They were doing 7x24, prescheduled, stand-alone testing. They said that they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment), requiring manual re-ipl. I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor making it bullet proof and never fail so it could do any amount of on-demand testing, greatly improving productivity. I then write an internal IBM I/O Reliability Enhancement research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MTBF bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
Bldg15 gets 1st engineering 3033 outside POK 3033 processor
engineering. Testing only took percent or two of 3033 and so we
scrounge up 3830 controller and string of 3330 setting up our own
private online service. At the time air-bearing simulation (part of
thin-film disk head design) was only getting a couple
turn-arounds/month on the SJR 370/195. We set it up on bldg15 3033 and
they were able to get several turn-arounds/day.
https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/thin-film-heads-introduced-for-large-disks/
Thin-film heads originally used for FBAs 3370 ... both fixed-block and thin-film used for future disks. For 3380 fixed-block ... CKD simulation can be seen in 3380 records/track formulas, where record lengths have to be rounded up to multiple of fixed cell size.
trivia: IBM 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement started to charge for (application) software (managed to make case kernel software was still free) SE services, maint. etc. Part of SE training was part of SE group at customer datacenter, however after unbundling they couldn't figure out how not to charge for trainee SEs. Eventually solutions was several US HONE CP67/CMS datacenters for branch office SEs to login and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines. One of my hobbies (after graduating and joining IBM CSC) was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was one of my first (and long time) IBM internal customers. CSC also ports APL\360 to CP67/CMS for CMS\APL and HONE starts using it for online sales&marketing support applications (which come to dominate all HONE activity; guest operating system use just dwindling awaY).
Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS. Others went to IBM CSC on the 4th flr and did virtual machines. They initial wanted 360/50 to add hardware virtual memory, but all the spare 50s were going to FAA/ATC, and they had to settle for 360/40; adding virtual memory and doing CP40/CMS. Then when 360/67 standard with virtual memory became available, CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS.
With the decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, some of the CSC people take-over the IBM Boston Programming Center on the 3rd flr for the VM370 Development Group. In the morph of CP67->VM370, lots of stuff was simplified or dropped (including "wheeler scheduler" and multiprocessor support). I then start adding lots of CP67 features into a VM370R2-base (including necessary kernel reorg for multiprocessor operation) for my internal CSC/VM. US HONE then consolidates their datacenters in Silican Valley. Then with VM370R3-base, I add more stuff in, including multiprocessor support, originally for HONE so they can upgrade their 158s&168s to 2-CPU operation (getting twice throughput of 1-CPU systems).
Factoid: when Facebook 1st moved into Silicon Valley, it was into new bldg built next door to the former consolidated US HONE datacenter.
IBM CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
dynamic adaptive resource management, "wheeler" scheduler posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 370/195 Date: 1 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
1980, IBM STL (since renamed SVL) was bursting at the seams and 300 people from IMS DBMS group were moving to offsite bldg with dataprocessing back to STL datacenter. They had tried "remote" 3270 support and found the human factors totally unacceptable. I got con'ed into doing channel-extender support so channel-attached 3270 controllers could be placed at the off-site bldg ... resulting in no perceptible human factors difference between off-site and inside STL. An unintended consequence was mainframe system throughput increased 10-15%. STL system configurations had large number of 3270 controllers spread all across channels shared with 3830/3330 disks ... and significant 3270 controller channel busy overhead was effectively (for same amount 3270 I/O) being masked by the channel extender (resulting in improved disk throughput). Then there was consideration to use channel extenders for all 3270 controllers (even those located inside STL).
An attempt was made to get it released to customers, but there was group in POK working on serial stuff (becomes ESCON) that got it vetoed (worried that if it was in the market, it would be harder to justify getting their stuff released).
1988 also HA/6000 was approved, originally for NYTimes to move their
newspaper system ("ATEX") from DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename it
HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing (technical/scientific) cluster scale-up with
national labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up
with RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (work with Ingres, Oracle and
Sybase on redoing cluster logic & distributed lock manager for scaling
to 128-system clusters)
Early Jan92, there was meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD executive
Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92
and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update IBM FSD on HA/CMP
work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for federal
supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster scale-up is
being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM Supercomputer
(technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to work with
anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few months
later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news ... IBM
establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
I had been planning on using (native) FCS for both storage I/O as well as cluster coordination.
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS,
... 128-systems: 16BIPS
Executive we reported to goes over to head of Somerset/AIM (Apple,
IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses Motorola
88k bus/cache enabling multiprocessor implementations (and large
clusters of multiprocessor systems).
90s, i86 chip makers do a hardware layer that translates i86
instructions into RISC micro-ops, largely negating difference with
RISC. 1999 industry benchmark:
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Pentium3: 2,054MIPS (twice PowerPC 440)
Also 1988, branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab)
standardize some serial stuff they were working with that becomes
fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in
1980, initial 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
Then POK finally announces their serial stuff in the 90s as ESCON
(when it was already obsolete), initially 10mbytes/sec, upgraded to
17mbytes/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and
define a heavy-weight FCS protocol that drastically cuts native
throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max
configured z196 "Peak I/O" benchmark released publicly, getting 2M
IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS"
was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two
such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over
FCS). Note IBM docs has SAP (system assist processors that do actual
I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have
been made for decades (just simulated on industry fixed-block
devices).
• max configured z196: 50BIPS, 80cores, 625MIPS/core
• E5-2600 server blade: 500BIPS, 16cores, 31BIPS/core
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
fiber-channel standard (FCS) and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Virtual Machine Date: 3 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookIn college took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers. At the end of the semester, I was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO in assembler for 360/30. Univ was getting 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily until availability of 360/67s. Univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). I was given pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card 360/30 assembler program
360/67 arrived within year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never came to fruition). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over minute. I install HASP for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler, (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs (NCSS).
CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support and auto-terminal ident,
capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also
had TTY33&35 and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal
type. I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired line speed ... so we
start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel interface board
for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller with the addition
for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for channel interface
and cluster of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Interdata (and later
Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone
controller business
Before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton largest datacenter in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing Field for payroll, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff. 747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification. Tours of mock-up of 747 cabin just south of Boeing field would claim 747s carried so many people, there would never have fewer than four jetways.
Boeing Huntsville had got a 2-CPU 360/67 with several 2250 graphic displays for TSS/360 CAD/CAM (but tss/360 wasn't production), so configured as two MVTR13 systems. They ran into same problems that resulted in decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and modified MVTR13 to run in virtual memory mode (but w/o paging).
Early last decade I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that region sizes had to be specified four times larger than used, limit standard 1mbyte, 370/165 to four concurrent running regions, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Running MVT in 16mbyte virtual address space (similar to running MVT in a 360/67, CP/67 16mbyte virtual machine) allowed number of concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four times (capped at 15 concurrent regions because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging.
When I graduated, I joined the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying w/CFO) and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters. Ludlow was doing the initial implementation of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (until engineering 370 with virtual memory) and I would drop by periodically. He had a little bit of code for the 16mbyte virtual address space and some simple paging. Biggest task was channel programs passed to EXCP/SVC0 now had virtual addresses and channels required real addresses and he borrows CP67's CCWTRANS for integrating into EXCP (creating channel program copies, replacing virtual with real addresses).
Overlapping with 370 virtual memory was IBM's Future System project,
totally different than 370 and planned to totally replace 370. Lack of
new 370s during Future System is credited with giving the clone 370
makers (including Amdahl) their market foothold. Observation was that
any other computer company with a failure the magnitude of FS would
have been bankrupt
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
When Future System imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back into
the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty
3033&3081 in parallel. Future System from: Computer Wars: The Post-IBM
World
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and
*MAKE NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that
thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the
heavy investment of face by the top management, F/S took years to
kill, although its wrong headedness was obvious from the very
outset. "For the first time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became
politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
With implosion of FS, Endicott talks me into helping with 138/148
microcode assist (ECPS). Archived post with copy of initial analysis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
I was also talked into helping with 16-CPU 370 and we con the 3033 processor engineers into working on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (IBM docs had MVS 2-CPU only getting 1.2-1.5 times throughput of 1-CPU, POK doesn't ship a 16-CPU system until after turn of century). Then head of POK invite some of us to never visit POK again and instructs 3033 processor engineers, heads down and no distractions.
I then transfer out to SJR and get to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, including disk bldg14/engineers and bldg5/product test, across the street. They were doing prescheduled, 7x24, stand-alone testing and mentioned that they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment) requiring manual re-ipl. I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet-proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 then gets the first engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. Testing only took a percent of testing so we scrounge up a 3830 controller and 3330 string and setup our own private online service. trivia: 303x channel directors were (still) periodically hanging, requiring manual reset and discover if I quickly hit all six channel addresses with CLRCH, the channel director would automagically re-IMPL. I then write an (internal) I/O Reliability Enhancement research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MTBF, bringing the wrath of the MVS organization down on my head.
Note that the head of POK had also convinced corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. They weren't planning on telling the people until the very last minute (to minimize the numbers that might escape into the Boston area). The information managed to leak early and some number managed to escape and there was search for the leak source (fortunately for me, the source wasn't given up). Endicott eventually manages to acquire the VM370 product mission for the mid-range, but had to recreate a development group from scratch. This was in the very early days of DEC VMS and there was joke that the head of POK was major contributor to VMS. Also IBM was under restrictions that machines had to ship in the same sequence as the orders. There is folklore that the 1st 3033 order was VM370 customer and it would be great loss of face for the head of POK (having convinced corporate to kill VM370, there is folklore that the 3033 moving van left the shipping dock in the "correct" order, but they managed to fiddle the van travel path and the MVS shipment arrived first).
One of the other places in silicon valley would drop in at Tymshare,
Aug1976 starts offering their CMS-based online computer conferencing
free to SHARE
https://www.share.org/
I cut a deal with Tymshare to get monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE
files for putting up on internal network and internal systems
(including HONE, internal online sales&marketing support
systems). Initially lawyers objected, they were concerned about
exposing internal employees with unfiltered customer information (that
was possibly different from corporate party line). This is similar to
a 1974 CERN comparison of VM370/CMS with MVS/TSO that was presented at
SHARE (copies inside IBM were stamped "IBM Confidential - Restricted")
... archive here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I got some push back, concern that internal employees might be contaminated by exposure to unfiltered customer information. Something like this showed up in 1974 when CERN presented a comparison of VM370/CMS and MVS/TSO at SHARE (even though presentation was freely available, inside IBM copies had been stamped "IBM Confidential - Restricted" aka only available on need-to-know
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
clone, plug-compatible terminal controller posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, share memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
recent posts mentioning undergraduate:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#98 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#95 CP67/CMS, CMS\APL, HONE, VM370/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#91 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#83 Touch Type, Typewriters, Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#82 IBM DASD, CKD, FBA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#78 IBM OS Debugging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#67 Early Mainframe work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#59 IBM CP67 and VM370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#28 360 Channel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#24 IBM 360, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#57 IBM 360/30 and other 360s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#55 Univ, 360/67, OS/360, Boeing, Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#69 The joy of FORTH (not)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#136 HASP, JES2, NJE, VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#76 Some work before IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#60 Vintage Selectric
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#65 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#88 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#64 Computing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#54 VM370/CMS Shared Segments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#34 IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#106 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#26 Global & Local Page Replacement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#31 IBM OS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#12 Programming Skills
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#51 System/360 consoles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#51 All programmers that developed in machine code and Assembly in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s died?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:53:28 -1000antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) writes:
implying the tss/360 implementation was much better than the MVT 2-CPU 360/65MP (& later MVS 2-CPU) only had 1.2-1-5 times the throughput of 1-CPU.
As undergraduate, univ hired me fulltime responsible for os/360 (360/67 running at 360/65).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs.
Early last decade I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that region sizes had to be specified four times larger than used, limit standard 1mbyte, 370/165 to four concurrent running regions, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Running MVT in 16mbyte virtual address space (similar to running MVT in a 360/67, CP/67 16mbyte virtual machine) allowed number of concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four times (capped at 15 concurrent regions because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging.
When I graduated, I joined the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying w/CFO) and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters (one of the 1st & long time was the online termainl sales&marketing support HONE). Ludlow was doing the initial implementation of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (until engineering 370 with virtual memory) and I would drop by periodically. He had a little bit of code for the 16mbyte virtual address space and some simple paging. Biggest task was channel programs passed to EXCP/SVC0 now had virtual addresses and channels required real addresses and he borrows CP67's CCWTRANS for integrating into EXCP (creating channel program copies, replacing virtual with real addresses).
Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people go to the 5th flr to do MULTICS. Others when to the IBM Cambridge Science Center and did virtual machine (initially wanted 360/50 to add hardware virtual memory but all the extra 50s were going to FAA/ATC and they had to settle for 360/40 to modify with virtual memory and did CP40/CMS, when 360/67 standard with virtual memory are available, CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS. With decision to add virtual memory to 370s and some of CSC spins off and goes to the 3rd flr, taking over the IBM Boston Programming Center for the VM370 Development Group. In the morph of CP67->VM370, lots of stuff was simplified and/or dropped (including paging, "wheeler scheduler", multiprocessor support).
Then with VM370R2-base, I start adding lots of stuff back in for my internal CSC/VM release (paging, wheeler scheduler, etc). Then with VM370R3-base, I add more back in, including 2-CPU multiprocessor support (initially for internal HONE so they can upgrade 158s&168s systems to 2-CPU (getting twice the troughput).
SMP, tightly-coupled, multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:40:02 -1000Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
after CSC came out to install CP67/CMS (and before I had done any major rewrites), IBM still had a TSS/360 SE onsite and I had to periodically let him use some of my weekend time.
we put together a simulated interactive fortran edit, compile, execute benchmark (10 secs delay between every simulated terminal input; ... and cp67/cms had much better throughput and much better interactive response for 30 simulated users than tss/360 for 4 simulated users
after I joined IBM and integrated all my CP67 enhancements and did more ... the CSC 768kbyte 360/67 was running 75-80 users (104 pageable 4kbyte pages after fixed kernel and my global page replacement).
IBM Grenoble Scientific Center had a 1mbyte 360/67 and modified it to correspond to the 60s literature on paging working set dispatcher with "local LRU" page replacement (155 pageable 4kbyte pages after fixed kernel) running 35 users. The two user workloads were similar, but CSC had higher throughput and much better interactive response.
Early 80s, Jim Gray had left SJR and joined Tandem and asked me if I could help a Tandem co-worker get his Stanford Phd ... which involved global LRU page replacement and the 60s "local LRU" forces were trying to block Phd involving global LRU ... Jim knew I had loads of my CSC CP67/CMS global LRU data as well as loads of Grenoble CP67/CMS "local LRU" data ... more than twice as many users with better performance but only 2/3rds the pageable real storage.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
page replacement, global LRU, wsclock posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:31:34 -1000Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to 5th flr to do MULTICS, others went to IBM Cambridge Science Center on the 4th flr and did CP40&CP67 virtual machine (and single user monitor "CMS" specifically designed for running in virtual machine ... although originally it could run on 360 native hardware (early CMS development was on "bare" 360/40 before CP40 was operational) .... but that capability was removed in transition from CP67 to VM370).
Originallly CSC wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory ... but all the spare 50s were going to FAA/ATC and so had to settle for 360/40 and did CP40/CMS ... when 360/67 standard with virtual memory came available, CP40 morphs into CP67.
Note: virtual memory done for 360/40 modifications were somewhat
different from virtual memory done from 360/67 ... more information
available here:
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/JimMarch/CP40_The_Origin_of_VM370.pdf
with decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, some of the CSC people, took over the IBM Boston Programming Center on the 3rd flr for the VM370 Development group.
3rd flr BPC before becoming VM370 development group, had earlier done
CPS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversational_Programming_System
... although a lot was subcontracted out to Allen-Babcock (including the
CPS microcode assist for the 360/50)
https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/allen-babcock/cps/
https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/allen-babcock/cps/CPS_Progress_Report_may66.pdf
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:53:28 -1000antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) writes:
trivia: at the time TSS/360 was "decomitted", there were 1200 people in the TSS/360 organization and 12 people in the CP67/CMS group.
the CP67/CMS organization got even smaller by the time I graduated and joined CSC with the commercial CP67/CMS online 60s' spin-offs of CSC (along with some from MIT Lincoln Labs).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
past posts mentioning 1200 tss/360 and CSC 12 CP67/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#12 IBM Virtual Machine and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#20 IBM HASP & JES2 Networking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#19 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#41 Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#5 Dataprocessing Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#40 IBM Virtual Memory Global LRU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#20 IBM 360/30, 360/65, 360/67 Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#21 360/50 and CP-40
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#102 Chipsandcheese article on the CDC6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#74 Some Email History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#62 360/65, 360/67, 360/75 750ns memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#93 ASCII/TTY33 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#35 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#1 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#113 360/67 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#65 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#46 MTS & IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#2 VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#113 360/67 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#34 Vintage Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#17 What's different, was Why did Dennis Ritchie write that UNIX was a modern implementation of CTSS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#95 Operating System File/Dataset I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#17 Computer Server Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#40 Mythical Man Month
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#32 IBM TSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#121 IBM Acronyms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#67 Facebook Knows More About You Than the CIA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#59 IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#100 The (broken) economics of OSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#50 MVS vs HASP vs JES (was 2821)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#25 MVS vs HASP vs JES (was 2821)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014l.html#20 Do we really need 64-bit addresses or is 48-bit enough?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#3 50th anniversary S/360 coming up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#37 Why is the mainframe so expensive?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#24 Teletypewriter Model 33
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#45 Storage paradigm [was: RE: Data volumes]
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#16 How about the old mainframe error messages that actually give you a clue about what's broken
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#8 Is Microsoft becoming folklore?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#34 Regarding Time Sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#25 VM370 40yr anniv, CP67 44yr anniv
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012f.html#24 Time to competency for new software language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#48 Hello?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#14 John R. Opel, RIP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#6 What is IBM culture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#25 computer bootlaces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#69 IBM Mainframe (1980's) on You tube
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#20 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#17 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#42 While watching Biography about Bill Gates on CNBC last Night
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#1 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#48 New machine code
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#83 How powerful C64 may have been if it used an 8 Mhz 8088 or 68008 ?microprocessor (with otherwise the same hardware)?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#78 Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#62 Remembering the CDC 6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#58 Remembering the CDC 6600
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#60 Scholars needed to build a computer history bibliography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#29 sizeof() was: The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#9 IBM S/360 series operating systems history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#8 virtual 360/67 support in cp67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#16 Performance and Capacity Planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#45 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#18 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#55 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#61 IBM 360 memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#16 OSI not quite dead yet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#62 PLX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#32 why does wait state exist?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: CMS, Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:30:15 -1000John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
"Future System" overlapped adding virtual memory to all 370s, FS was totally different than 370 and was going to completely replace it, internal politics during FS was killing off 370 projects and lack of new 370 during FS period is credited with giving clone 370 makers their market foothold.
when "FS" finally imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipeline, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 in parallel.
1974, CERN presented comparison of VM370/CMS and MVS/TSO at SHARE ... inside IBM the report was classified "IBM Confidential - Restricted" "on need to know" only (not wanting internal employees see the comparison). How much better VM370/CMS looked, likely was major factor in the head of POK (high-end 370s) convincing corporate to kill the VM370/CMS product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott lab eventually manages to acquire the VM370/CMS product mission, but had to recreate a development group from scratch).
part of reason that other RDBMS shipping before System/R was opposition from "IMS" (& then EAGLE)
I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and work with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/relational, System/R (all work having been done on VM370/CMS). Sign a System/R joint study with BofA and they order 60 VM/4341s for distributed operation (sort of leading edge of coming distributed computing tsunami). Branch office hears about engineering 4341 and Jan1979 cons me into doing benchmark for national lab that was looking at ordering 70 VM/4341s for compute farm (sort of leading edge of coming cluster super computing tsunami).
VM/4341 starts shipping to customers summer 1979 and begin seeing large corporations ordering hundreds of VM/4341s at a time for placing out in departmental areas (inside IBM, departmental conference rooms were becoming scarce since so many were being converted into departmental VM/4341 computing rooms).
Was also able to do System/R tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS ("under the radar" with the corporation pre-occupied with the next great DBMS, "EAGLE" ... System/R having met lots of opposition by both the "IMS" & "EAGLE" DBMS forces). When "EAGLE" implodes, get request from STL for how fast could "System/R" be ported to MVS ... eventually released as "DB2" originally for "decision support" only.
trivia: old archived post with decade of VAX/VMS numbers ... VM/4341s
sold in approx. same numbers in single or small unit numbers ... big
difference were the large orders for hundreds of VM/4341 at a time.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: CMS, Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:19:00 -1000Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
TSS/360 supported position independent code .... could have same shared segments across different virtual address spaces at different address locations.
OS/360 languages generated executable with "relocatable" addresses and loader, loading the executable images when loaded, the relocable addresses were updated for the ("fix") loaded address locations (aka "relocatable" until loaded for execution).
after joining IBM CSC ... with competition from TSS/360 and MULTICS up on the 5th flr ... I did a page-mapped filesystem for CP67's CMS (nominal filesystem workload about 3times faster (and degrading much more gracefully as load increased) and since CMS used OS/360 language processors ... it had fixed addresses as part of loading. I had to do a lot of code fiddling in order to emulate TSS/360 being able to load shared segments at independent locations.
With TSS/360 decommitted and all the 360 systems (MVT, MFT, DOS, etc) having to support 370 virtual memory .... the wide-spread implementation of the "relocatable addresses" updating to correspond to the loaded address ... sort of negated any position-independent orientation.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
location independent code posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#adcon
page mapped filesystem posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: CMS, Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:39:18 -1000Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> writes:
OS/360, etc ... large programs required addresses ... on disk the addresses were relative to position within the program ... but loaders were required to modify the addresses to fixed real addresses in real storage.
tss/360 and support for multiple virtual memory address spaces and shared segments wanted the image in memory be exactly the same as the image on disk ... w/o requiring all addresses to be modified as the whole program was swapped into real memory ... but allowing for demand paged in w/o requiring for executable images to be preloaded (and addresses modified for their loaded position). Also not requiring for shared segments to have the same addresses in different virtual addresses spaces.
OS/360 MVT in transition to VS2/MVS kept the OS/360 preloading/swapping in executable image and changing location addresses (making the affected pages of the executing image changed). TSS/360 just mapped portions of the virtual address space to the executable image on disk ... and in case of shared segments could just change segment table pointer to that of same shared segment concurrently in use by multiple other virtual address spaces.
W/o location independence and requiring executable image to be otherwise preloaded to have address constants to be modified to their executing position ... would have required every executing program image to have unique address across the whole system (or have restricted only have certain executables to be concurrently mapped into the same address space).
That is what got me providing page-mapped filesystem for CMS ... and CMS was using OS/360 compilers and assemblers which assumed address constants had to be modified as executables were loaded (had to fiddle the programs so the executables images on disk were identical to the same as executable images mapped to virtual address spaces).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
location independent code posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#adcon
page mapped filesystem posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: CMS, Self-hosting and the 6502 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:41:54 -1000Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> writes:
A lot of the page-mapped filesystem and advanced shared-segments, I updated from CP67 to VM370R2 for my internal CSC/VM ... and very small subset was added to VM370R3 as DCSS.
VM370 had been restricted to "IPL by-name" where images were saved in locations defined and disk location specified in DMKSNT. For DCSS a special API interfacing to entires in DMKSNT using several of the things I had extended for page-mapped filesystem shared-segments (some that I had twiddled for location independent ... but wasn't supported by the small subset used for DCSS).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
location independent code posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#adcon
page mapped filesystem posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RAS Date: 7 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebook1988, branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS.
Also 1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP (high-availability, cluster multiprocessor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX. trivia: 2nd half of 70s, when I
transferred to SJR on the west coast, I worked with Jim Gray and Vera
Watson on the original SQL/relational, System/R ... had been developed
on VM/370 ... then while corporation was preoccupied with the next
great DBMS, EAGLE ... was able to do tech transfer (under the radar)
to Endicott for SQL/DS ... then EAGLE implodes and was asked how fast
could System/R be ported to MVS, eventually announced as "DB2"
originally for decision-support *ONLY*.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS,
... 128-systems: 16BIPS
i86/RISC quicky search, highly pipeline, translation from i86 to RISC
micro-ops to execution complete is highly overlapped (and can be
out-of-order)
http://gec.di.uminho.pt/DISCIP/MInf/ac0607/FAQ-03.pdf
In each clock cycle, three IA-32 instructions can be fetched, decoded,
and translated into RISC instructions. But only six RISC instructions
or micro-operation can be generated by each clock cycle. If the IA-32
instruction needs more than four uops, they will be generated in
multiple clock cycle, being the first four uops to the first IA-32
instruction and the others to the remaining instructions [3].
After the IA-32 instructions are decoded into RISC instructions or
into a series of RISC instructions, if it needs more than 4 uops, they
will be executed in an out-of-order pool of pending instructions,
where these instructions can be executed without following the same
order of program instructions, considering that there is not a
dependency between them, rising the hardware utilization [5].
... snip ....
... AWD executive we reported to (doing HA/CMP) goes over to head up Somerset/AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) for Power/PC, uses Motorola RISC 88k cache&bus enabling shared memory multiprocessor.
1999 benchmark (number of program iterations/sec compared to industry
MIPS/BIPS reference platform)
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Intel Pentium3 2,054MIPS
2010 benchmark
• max configured IBM z196: 50BIPS, 80cores, 625MIPS/core
• Intel E5-2600 server blade, two 8-core chips, 500BIPS, 31BIPS/core
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
misc. posts mentioning i86 chips translating instructions to
RISC micro-ops for execution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#108 System Throughput and Availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#86 Big Iron Throughput
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#94 Mainframe Integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#81 Benchmarks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#67 VM Microcode Assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#52 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#46 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#11 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#85 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#82 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#64 Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#66 where did RISC come from, Holy wars of the past - how did they turn out?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#48 IBM NUMBERS BIPOLAR'S DAYS WITH G5 CMOS MAINFRAMES
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#62 instruction clock speed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#97 ABO Automatic Binary Optimizer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#164 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#70 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#59 Why Intel can't retire X86
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#26 Mainframes are still the best platform for high volume transaction processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#6 Mainframes are still the best platform for high volume transaction processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#45 Under what circumstances would it be a mistake to migrate applications/workload off the mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#81 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#26 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#1 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#74 Execution Velocity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#64 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#35 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#59 Memory versus processor speed
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Bad Responsee Date: 7 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookI took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers and at the end of semester was hired to rewrite 1401 MPIO for 360/30. Univ. was getting 360/67 for TSS/360, replacing 709/1401. The univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place (although 48hrs w/o sleep made monday classes hard). I was given a pile of hardware and software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card assembler program. The 360/67 arrived within a year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 not coming to production).
709 ran student fortran in under a second, but 360/67 took over a minute. I install HASP (MFT9.5) cutting time in half. Then for MFT11, I start redoing STAGE2 SYSGEN to carefully place datasets and PDS members to optimize arm seek and multi-track search, cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 student fortran never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR (360/67 WATFOR clocked at 20,000 cards/min; 333 cards/sec, student fortran tended to run 30-60 cards).
CSC comes out to install CP67/CMS (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincol Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my dedicated weekend time. I initially work on rewriting pathlengths to optimize running OS/360 in virtual machines. Test stream was 322secs, under CP67 ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 online commercial spin-offs.
Before I graduate, I was hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all data processing into an independent business unit, including offering services to non-Boeing entities). I think Renton datacenter largest in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO who only had 360/30 up at Boeing field for payroll (although they enlarge the room and install a 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff).
When I graduate, I join CSC (instead of staying with CFO). One of my hobbies at CSC was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was one of the first (and long time) customers. CSC already was running performance monitoring that gathered periodic data. HONE was originally CP67 datacenters part of branch office SEs dialing in to practice with guest operating systems running in CP67 virtual machines (SE training use to include part of group on-site at customer, but with 23jun69 unbundling and charging for SE services, couldn't figure out how NOT to charge for trainee SEs). CSC had also ported APL\360 to CP67/CMS as CMS\APL and HONE started using it for deliver CMS\APL online sales&marketing support apps which came to dominate all HONE activity (and virtual machine guest operating system practice withered away).
One of CSC co-workers did a very sophisticated CMS\APL-based system model (considered part of original capacity planning) and it was made available on HONE as Performance Predictor). Branch Office IBMers could enter customer configuration and workload information and ask "what-if" questions about changes to configuration and/or workload.
Turn of century I was doing some work for financial outsourcing business (had been part of AMEX, reporting to Gerstner, but in 1992 was spun off in the largest IPO up until that time, same year that IBM had one of the largest losses in the history of US corporations and was being re-orged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company). I was asked to look at datacenter that handled half of all credit card accounts in the US including real-time transactions, 40+ max configured IBM mainframes, constant rolling updates, none older than 18months, all running same 450k statement Cobol program, number needed to finish settlement in the overnight batch window (they had large performance group doing pretty much same approach for previous 20yrs). Using some 60s/70s CSC technology managed to identify 14% improvement. They also had hired an EU consultant (that had acquired rights to a descendant of the performance predictor during IBM's early 90s troubles and run it through an APL->C converter, doing lots of performance consulting) and found another 7% improvement.
IBM Jargon:
bad response - n. A delay in the response time to a trivial request of
a computer that is longer than two tenths of one second. In the 1970s,
IBM 3277 display terminals attached to quite small System/360 machines
could service up to 19 interruptions every second from a user I
measured it myself. Today, this kind of response time is considered
impossible or unachievable, even though work by Doherty, Thadhani, and
others has shown that human productivity and satisfaction are almost
linearly inversely proportional to computer response time. It is hoped
(but not expected) that the definition of Bad Response will drop below
one tenth of a second by 1990.
... snip ...
Thadhani studies showed needed quarter second or better response.
70s 3277 terminal w/3272 channel attached controller had .086 hardware response. Then 80s, IBM introduced 3278 with lots of electronics moved back to the 3274 controller (reducing 3278 manufacturing costs), but increasing coax protocol chatter, latency and hardware response became .3sec-.5sec (depending on amount of data, but not possible to achieve quarter sec). Letters to 3278 product administrator got response that 3278 wasn't designed for interactive computing, but data entry. At the time, I had lots of internal SJR/VM systems with interactive system .11sec response (hardware .086sec plus system .11sec result in .196sec).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
IBM 23Jun1969 unbundling announce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
some posts mentioning 3277 & 3278 hardware response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#100 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#86 IBM 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#61 IBM SNA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#9 IBM Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#102 Rapid Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#13 MVS/ISPF Editor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#31 HONE, Performance Predictor, and Configurators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#68 IBM Mainframe market was Re: Approximate reciprocals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#25 ARM Cortex A53 64 bit
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#51 How the internet was invented
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014g.html#26 Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 16-CPU SMP Date: 7 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookOverlapping adding virtual memory to all 370s, the first half of 370s was "Future System", completely different from 370 and planned to completely replace 370. Internal politics during FS was killing off 370 efforts and lack of new 370 during FS is credited with giving clone 370 makers (including Amdahl) their market foothold.
When Future System imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033&3081 in parallel. One of the last nails in FS was analysis by the IBM Houston Scientific Center that if 370/195 applications were redone for FS machine made out of fastest technology available, it would have throughput of 370/145 (30 times slowdown).
Future System from: Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
With the demise of FS, I was talked into helping with a 16-CPU design and we con the 3033 processor engineers into helping in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168-logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before the POK favorite son operating system ("MVS") has ("effective") 16-CPU support (at the time, MVS documents had its 2-CPU support only getting 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of 1-CPU system, POK doesn't ship 16-CPU system until after the turn of the century, z900). The head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and the 3033 processor engineers directed to heads down and no distractions.
Other trivia, 1988, branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON.
Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPUs be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD has been made for decades, all simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 16-CPU SMP Date: 8 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
After 16-CPU was torpedoed, I transfer out to SJR (on the west coast) and got to wander around silicon valley datacenters, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test across the street. They were were doing 7x24, pre-scheduled, stand-alone mainframe testing and mentioned they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF requiring manual re-ipl. I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet-proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity.
Bldg15 (product test, which frequently gets earliest engineering machines), gets first engineering 3033 (outside POK 3033 processor engineering). Since testing only took a percent or two CPU, we scrounge up 3830 controller and 3330 string setting up our own private online service. Did have some problems with the 303x channel director (they had taken a 158 engine w/o 370 microcode and just integrated channel microcode for the channel director, a 3031 was two 158 engines, one with just 370 microcode and 2nd with just integrated channel microcode; a 3032 was 168-3 reworked to use channel director for external channels, a 3033 could have up to three channel directors). We find channel directors were still periodically hanging requiring manual re-IMPL and find if I execute CLRCH quickly to the channel director six channels, would force re-IMPL.
Then summer 1978, bldg15 gets engineering 4341 (its integrated channel microcode could be tweaked to do 3mbyte/sec data streaming channel testing, aka 3880/3380). Branch office hears about it and Jan1979 cons me into doing national lab benchmark that was looking at ordering 70 VM/4341s for a compute farm (sort of the leading edge of the coming cluster supercomputing tsunami). Later in the 80s, large corporations were ordering hundreds of VM/4341s at a time for distribution out in departmental areas (inside IBM, conference rooms became scarce with so many departmental rooms being converted to distributed VM/4341 rooms) ... sort of the leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami.
I write on internal "I/O Reliability Enhancement" research report and happen to mention the MVS MTBF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
When I 1st transfer to SJR, I also worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/Relational, System/R (done on VM/370 systems). BofA signed System/R joint study and ordered 60 VM/4341s for distributed RDBMS. Fall of 1980, Jim leaves SJR for Tandem and palms off some amount of things on me ... including wanted me to help BofA with large scale distributed VM/4341 operation. Was then possible to do System/R technology transfer (under the radar while corporation was preoccupded with the next, great DBMS "EAGLE") to Endicott for SQL/DS. When "EAGLE" implodes, request is made how fast could System/R be ported to MVS, eventually released as DB2, initially for "decision support" *ONLY*.
trivia: at the time, the thin-film disk head group was getting a
couple turn-arounds a month on the SJR 370/195 for air-bearing
simulation (part of thin-film head design). We set them up on bldg15
3033 and they can get several turn-arounds a day.
https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/thin-film-heads-introduced-for-large-disks/
1980, IBM STL (since renamed SVL) was bursting at the seams and 300 people from IMS DBMS group were moving to offsite bldg with dataprocessing back to STL datacenter. They had tried "remote" 3270 support and found the human factors totally unacceptable. I got con'ed into doing channel-extender support so channel-attached 3270 controllers could be placed at the off-site bldg ... resulting in no perceptible human factors difference between off-site and inside STL. An unintended consequence was mainframe system throughput increased 10-15%. STL system configurations had large number of 3270 controllers spread across all channels shared with 3830/3330 disks ... and significant 3270 controller channel busy overhead was effectively (for same amount 3270 I/O) being masked by the channel extender (resulting in improved disk throughput). Then there was consideration to use channel extenders for all 3270 controllers (even those located inside STL).
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
original SQL/relational System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 16-CPU SMP Date: 10 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
same time Endicott also asked me to work on 138/148 microcode assist
"ECPS" .... old archived post with the initial analysis for ECPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
And Boeblingen ask me to work on 5-CPU 125. 115&125 had nine position memory bus ... the 115 had microprocessors all the same for controllers and 370 CPU, microcode for the 370 CPU getting about 80kips 370. The 125 was identical except the microprocessor for the 370 CPU was about 50% faster getting 120kips 370. The 5-CPU had up to five of the nine positions with the faster microprocessor & 370 microcode, each getting 120kips ... and I was also going to include the 138/148 ECPS microcode assist. Then Endicott complains that the 5-CPU 125 would overlap the throughput of the 148 and got the Boeblingen 5-CPU 125 canceled. I had also tweaked the I/O architecture that turned out to look a little more like 370/XA (giving DASD controller a queue of work).
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
125 5-CPU effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 16-CPU SMP Date: 10 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
After graduating and joining IBM Cambridge Scientific Center one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and I would also get to continue going to SHARE and drop in on various customers ... the director of one of the largest true blue commercial financial datacenters liked me to drop by and talk technology. At some point the branch manager horribly offended the customer. In retaliation, they order an Amdahl machine (lone Amdahl in a vast see of blue). This was during "Future System" and Amdahl was primarily selling to technical/scientific/university ... and this would be the 1st commercial. I was asked to go onsite for a year (apparently to help obfuscate the reason for the order). I talked it over with the customer and was told they would like me onsite, but it would make no difference in the Amdahl order ... and I told IBM I declined the offer. I was then told that the branch manager was good sailing buddy of IBM CEO and if I refused, I could forget a career, promotions, raises.
note web page about Amdahl leaving IBM ... Amdahl had won the battle
to make ACS, 360 compatible. Then ACS/360 was canceled and Amdahl
leaves.
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Science Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
posts mentioning declining offer to go onsite
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#99 IBM Fortran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#61 Amdahl Leaves IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#25 IBM Management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#42 IBM 70s & 80s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#121 Clone 370 System Makers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#64 old pharts, Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#19 60s Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#122 IBM Downturn and Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#62 Amdahl and other trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#50 IBM 3081 & TCM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#23 Future System, Single-Level-Store, S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#65 Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#42 IBM Koolaid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#14 Copyright Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#84 Clone/OEM IBM systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#51 IBM Bureaucrats, Careerists, MBAs (and Empty Suits)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#103 John Boyd and IBM Wild Ducks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#60 IBM CEO: Only 60% of office workers will ever return full-time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#14 IBM "Fast-Track" Bureaucrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#35 IBM Business Conduct Guidelines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#95 IBM Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#88 Computer BUNCH
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#27 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#74 165/168/3033 & 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#47 IBM Conduct
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#15 Mainframe I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#66 Amdahl
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#63 IBM / How To Stuff A Wild Duck
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#82 Kinder/Gentler IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: DUMPRX Date: 10 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookEarly in REX (before renamed and provided to customers), I wanted to show it wasn't just another pretty scripting language. I select large assembler dump analysis program to redo in REX with ten times the function and ten times the performance (lots of hack to run interpreted REX faster than assembler) with objective of working half time over three months. I finish early and add library of automated processes that search for common failure signatures. I assume that it would replace the assembler version, but for what ever reason it wasn't, even though it was in use by nearly every internal datacenter and PSR. I eventually get permissions to give presentations on how it was implemented at user group meetings (and shortly similar implementations started to appear) old 3090 reference
other trivia: mentioning after FS implodes getting talked into working
on 16-CPU SMP and we con the 3033 processor engineers into working on
it in their spare time; once the 3033 is out the door, they start on
trout/3090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#15 IBM 16-CPU SMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#16 IBM 16-CPU SMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#17 IBM 16-CPU SMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#18 IBM 16-CPU SMP
The 3092 started out a 4331 running modified copy of VM370R6 with all the service screens done in CMS IOS/3270, it was then upgraded to a pair of 4361s.
Some old email from the 3092 group
Date: 31 October 1986, 16:32:58 EST
To: wheeler
Re: 3090/3092 Processor Controll and plea for help
The reason I'm sending this note to you is due to your reputation of
never throwing anything away that was once useful (besides the fact
that you wrote a lot of CP code and (bless you) DUMPRX.
I've discussed this with my management and they agreed it would be
okay to fill you in on what the 3090 PC is so I can intelligently ask
for your assistance.
The 3092 (3090 PC) is basically a 4331 running CP SEPP REL 6 PLC29
with quite a few local mods. Since CP is so old it's difficult, if not
impossible to get any support from VM development or the change team.
What I'm looking for is a version of the CP FREE/FRET trap that we
could apply or rework so it would apply to our 3090 PC. I was hoping
you might have the code or know where I could get it from (source
hopefully).
The following is an extract from some notes sent to me from our local
CP development team trying to debug the problem. Any help you can
provide would be greatly appreciated.
... snip ... top of post, old email index
Date: 23 December 1986, 10:38:21 EST
To: wheeler
Re: DUMPRX
Lynn, do you remember some notes or calls about putting DUMPRX into an
IBM product? Well .....
From the last time I asked you for help you know I work in the
3090/3092 development/support group. We use DUMPRX exclusively for
looking at testfloor and field problems (VM and CP dumps). What I
pushed for back aways and what I am pushing for now is to include
DUMPRX as part of our released code for the 3092 Processor Controller.
I think the only things I need are your approval and the source for
RXDMPS.
I'm not sure if I want to go with or without XEDIT support since we do
not have the new XEDIT.
In any case, we (3090/3092 development) would assume full
responsibility for DUMPRX as we release it. Any changes/enhancements
would be communicated back to you.
If you have any questions or concerns please give me a call. I'll be
on vacation from 12/24 through 01/04.
... snip ... top of post, old email index
DUMPRX posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 3090 EREP Date: 11 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookA year after 3090 started shipping, I got a call from the IBM 3090 product administrator. He said 3090 channel FEC was designed that there would only be an aggregate of 3-5 channel errors across all 3090 systems for a year period, but found 15-20 errors were reported (there was a industry operation that collected customer EREP information for all IBM and non-IBM clone systems and published them). Turns out in 1980, I simulated "channel check" (for any kind of channel-extender transmission error) for invoking error retry/recovery and was later emulated by a channel-extender vendor. I then did some research and found IFCC (interface control check) would effectively invoke the same retry/recovery and got the vendor to change their "CC" to "IFCC" (to improve the 3090 comparison to clone 370 makers.
channel extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel-extender
archived posts mentioning 3090 channel check
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#33 IBM, NSC, HSDT, HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#53 IBM 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#47 IBM 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#42 SNA & TCP/IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#53 IBM Datacenters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#28 IBM 3090
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#42 Back When Geek Humour Was A New Concept To Me
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#50 Architectural implications of locate mode I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#27 STL Channel Extender
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#107 DataTree, UniTree, Mesa Archival
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#4 Some 3090 & channel related trivia:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#122 Mainframe "Peak I/O" benchmark
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#48 IPCS, DUMPRX, 3092, EREP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#53 Why Can't You Buy z Mainframe Services from Amazon Cloud Services?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#54 Why are organizations sticking with mainframes?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#32 At least two decades back, some gurus predicted that mainframes would disappear
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#83 3270 Emulator Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#10 Hannaford case exposes holes in law, some say
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#43 Remote Tape drives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#34 TOD clock discussion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#19 Wars against bad things
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 3090 EREP Date: 11 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
3090 group assumed that 3880 disk controller support was same as 3830, but with 3mbyte/sec data streaming channel added ... and configured the number of channels passed on planned throughput. However the 3830 horizontal microcode microprocessor was significantly faster. The 3880 except for special hardware for data moving, ad very slow vertical microcode microprocessor ... as a result, except for pure data transmission, all other operations had signiificantly higher channel busy. As a result to meet planned throughput the number of 3090 channels had to be significantly increased ... and the increase in number channels required another TCM. The 3090 group semi-facetiously said that they would bill the 3880 group for the extra TCM increase in 3090 manufacturing costs. Eventually marketing spun the large increase in channels as a wonderful I/O machine, when it was actually required to offset the huge increase in channel busy from 3880 processing.
trivia: I worked with 3033 processor engineers when we con'ed them into working on 16-CPU SMP in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). After 16-CPU was torpedoed, transfer to SJR on he west coast and allowed to play in disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test cross the street, and then bldg15 gets the 1st engineering 3033. Then stayed in touch with them when they start on trout/3090 after 3033 is out the door.
I've mentioned before when I 1st got involved with bldg14&5, they mentioned that they hard tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF requiring manual reipl. Then a few months before 3380s were about to ship, FE had a set of 57 simulated hardware errors and found that MVS failed for all 57 errors requiring manual reipl and for 2/3rds of the errors, no indication of what caused the failure.
posts mentioning getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
some posts mentioning 3880 busy, increase in number 3090 channel, MVS
failure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#35 Disk Capacity and Channel Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#36 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#18 IBM 3880 Disk Controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#100 Mainframe Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#49 Channel Program I/O Processing Efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#77 Channel I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#6 3880 & 3380
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#61 What is the most epic computer glitch you have ever seen?
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Marketing Date: 12 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookIn 80s, co-worker at IBM San Jose Research has left and was doing lots of contracting work in silicon valley. He had redone a lot of mainframe C, significantly improving instruction optimization for mainframe and ported the Berkeley chip tools to the mainframe. One day the local IBM marketing rep stopped by and asked him what he was doing ... and he said mainframe<->SGI ethernet support, so they can use SGI graphical workstations as front-ends to the mainframe. The IBM rep then told him he should do token-ring instead or customer might find that their mainframe support wasn't as timely as in the past. I then get a phone call and had to listen to an hour of four letter words. The next morning, the senior engineering VP of the (large VLSI chip) company has a press conference and says they are moving everything off the IBM mainframe to SUN servers. IBM then have a bunch of task forces to decide why silicon valley wasn't using IBM mainframes ... but the IBM task forces weren't allowed to evaluate some of the real reasons
Decade later IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
Part of the reorganization was unloading VLSI chip applications to industry vendors and get a contract to port IBM VLSI chip design tool from mainframe to SUN workstation (industry standard platform). Have a 50k statement Pascal/VS IBM chip design tool to try and move to SUN. In retrospect, it would have been easier to rewrite it in "C", SUN Pascal seemed to have never been used for other then educational instruction. It was easy to drop by SUN hdqtrs, but they had outsourced Pascal to a organization on the opposite side of the world (space city, had put up the space station, did get space command billcap).
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
past refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#53 IBM RS/6000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#40 Mainframe Development Language
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#7 Cloud Timesharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#125 Google Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#77 IBM Tokenring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#59 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014.html#71 the suckage of MS-DOS, was Re: 'Free Unix!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#21 New HD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#64 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#56 Virginia M. Rometty elected IBM president
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011h.html#2 WHAT WAS THE PROJECT YOU WERE INVOLVED/PARTICIPATED AT IBM THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#24 Berkeley researcher describes parallel path
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#8 Free to good home: IBM RT UNIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#53 Varian (was Re: UNIVAC - Help ??)
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CSC, IBM Unbundle, IBM HONE, IBM System/R, SCI, FCS, IBM HA/CMP Date: 13 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
also in 1988, branch office asked me if I could help SLAC/Gustavson
with SCI standard (various uses including shared memory
multiprocessor, up to 64 cache consistency, some efforts Data General
and Sequent 64 4-i486 boards (256 processors), Convex 64 2-HP-snake
boards (128 processor), SGI 64 4-MIPS boards, etc),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Coherent_Interface
https://www.scizzl.com/SGIarguesForSCI.html
Early 90s, IBM Kingston was "funding" Chen Supercomputing
company. Then after I left IBM in the 90s, Chen was CTO at Sequent and
I did some consulting for Chen (this was before IBM bought Sequent and
shut it down).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems
Had Sequent SCI NUMA. I was also doing consulting for financial
outsourcing and brought in Sequent 256-processor shared memory
multiprocessor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequent_Computer_Systems#NUMA
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CICS Date: 15 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookas undergraduate, I had been hired fulltime by the univ responsible for OS/360 (univ had 360/67 to replace 709/1401, originally for tss/360 but didn't come to fruition, so ran as 360/65). Then the Univ. library got ONR grant and used some of the money for 2321 datacell. IBM also selected it as betatest for the original CICS program product (result of the IBM unbundling) and CICS support was added to my tasks. some CICS history ... website gone 404, but lives on at the wayback machine
1st problem at the univ, was CICS wouldn't come up, turned out (betatest) CICS had some (undocumented) hard coded BDAM dataset options and library had created BDAM datasets with different set of options.
Before I graduate, I was hired into small group in the Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit, including offering services to non-Boeing entities). I think Renton datacenter possibly largest in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around the machine room).
When I graduate, I join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying with CFO) ... then less than decade later, I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/relational, System/R. Then was able to do tech transfer ("under the radar" while company was preoccupied with the next, new DBMS, "EAGLE") to Endicott for SQL/DS. Then when EAGLE imploded, there was request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS, which was eventually released for DB2 (originally for decision support only). All System/R work having been done on VM/370 systems (starting with VM/145) and met a lot of opposition from the IMS & EAGLE forces. Did have a joint study with BofA who ordered 60 VM/4341s for distributed operation.
CICS &/or BDAM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
original sql/relational System/R
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CICS Date: 15 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/suptopic.html#hacmp
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CICS Date: 15 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
early 80s, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links
(terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the communication group
(60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM cap'ed
controllers at 56kbits, early 80s, FSD came out with S/1 ZIRPEL T1
card for gov. customers who's 2701s were failing). Also working with
NSF director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF
supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other
things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part based
on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement:
https://web.archive.org/web/20251217225848/https://web.archive.org/web/20251217225848/
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Mainframe Date: 16 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookEarly 80s, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the communication group (60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM cap'ed controllers at 56kbits, early 80s, FSD came out with S/1 ZIRPEL T1 card for gov. customers who's 2701s were failing). Also working with NSF director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part based on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement:
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
IBM mainframe TCP/IP was somewhat kneecaped when it was released, getting aggregate 44kbytes/sec using large amount of 3090 CPU. I then add RFC1044 support and in some tuning tests at Cray Research, between Cray and 4341, got nearly full 4341 channel sustained throughput, using only modest amount of 4341 CPU (something like 500 times improvement in bytes transferred per instruction executed)
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
Sometime after leaving IBM, I was brought in as consultant into small
client/server startup. Two of the Oracle people that were in the
Ellison/Hester meeting are there responsible for something they called
"commerce server" and they wanted to do payment transactions. The
startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they
wanted to use. I was responsible for everything between commerce
servers (now frequently called e-commerce) and payment networks. I
then do talk: "Why Internet Isn't Business Critical Dataprocessing"
(based on processes, documentation and software I had to do for
e-commerce) that (Internet, IETF) RFC standards editor Postel
sponsored at ISI/USC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
He also had me help with the periodically re-released STD1.
Also, 1988, branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
RFC1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
HA/CMP postings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
ecommerce gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
1980 channel-exender work for STL (now SVL) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: How We Put It Together Date: 16 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookaround 1980, from internal IBM conference "How we put it together" ... they gave up before they determined the level of MVS required and how many other components would have to be changed. Just the following would have taken at least a weekend ... and possibility that any problems would require reversing the process (and then possibly a repeat):
A year or so later, got "HSDT" project, T1 and faster computer links
(terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the communication group
(60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM cap'ed
controllers at 56kbits, early 80s, FSD eventually came out with S/1
ZIRPEL T1 card for gov. customers who's 2701s were failing), had to
resort to mostly non-IBM hardware. Also working with NSF director and
was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers
(before corporate politics blocked any participation). NSF 28Mar1986
Preliminary Announcement:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
IBM mainframe TCP/IP was somewhat kneecaped when it was release, getting aggregate 44kbytes/sec using large amount of 3090 CPU. I then add RFC1044 support and in some tuning tests at Cray Research, between Cray and 4341, got nearly full 4341 channel sustained throughput, using only modest amount of 4341 CPU (something like 500 times improvement in bytes transferred per instruction executed)
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
Concurrently, IBM branch office for a baby bell and the Boca S/1 group
talks me into taking the baby bell VTAM/NCP emulation implemented in
S/1s (much better price, performance, feature, function) and turning
it out as a TYPE-1 product, with later migration to RIOS/RS6000. Old
archived post with pieces of presentation I gave to Raleigh SNA ARB
meeting (executive running ARB wanted to know who allowed me to talk).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#67
and part of baby bell presentation at COMMON Spring '86 Conference
(session 43U, Series/1 As A Front End Processor)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70
Both IBM groups had lots of familiarity with communication group
internal political tactics and tried to wall them all off, but what
the communication group then did to torpedo the effort can only be
described as fact is stranger than fiction. Trivia: IMS group was
interested for "hot standby", Vern Watts:
https://www.mercurynews.com/obituaries/vernice-lee-watts/
Large 3090 IMS "hot standby" with possibly 40k-60k terminals where IMS could fall over in a few minutes, but hot-standby 3090 VTAM would take 90mins or more, to get all terminal sessions back up. The S/1 emulation could do "shadow/copy" duplicate sessions with the hot-standby 3090.
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
RFC1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
Some recent Posts mentioning S/1 VTAM/NCP emulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#40 IBM HSDT, Series/1 T1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#51 IBM VTAM/NCP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#47 IBM HSDT and SNA/VTAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#70 Series/1 PU4/PU5 Support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#79 IBM 3081
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#43 IBM 70s & 80s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#40 IBM APPN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#109 IBM Process Control Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#97 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#6 IBM 37x5
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#60 IBM 3705
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#48 IBM Telecommunication Controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#110 IBM 3705 & 3725
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#53 IBM 3705 & 3725
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#62 Vintage Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#83 SNA/VTAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#34 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#44 IBM Vintage Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#89 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#62 Conflicts with IBM Communication Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#60 VM/370 3270 Terminal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#57 Conflicts with IBM Communication Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#91 360 Announce Stories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#62 Ethernet (& CAT5)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#4 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#3 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#98 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#50 SystemView
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#32 IBM 37x5 Boxes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#79 Peer-Coupled Shared Data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#102 370/158 Integrated Channel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#120 Series/1 VTAM/NCP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#115 Peer-Coupled Shared Data Architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#87 IBM and Internet Old Farts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#14 IBM SNA ARB
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#83 IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#2 IBM Series/1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#91 IBM SNA/VTAM (& HSDT)
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Silicon Valley Lab Date: 17 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookThe original name was going to be Coyote Lab ... after IBM convention of closest post office. That spring I was in DC for spring vacation with the kids and SanFran Coyote Professional Ladies organization was demonstrating on steps of capital. Within day or two ... IBM name change to Santa Teresa Lab (for closest main street).
I had transferred out to SJR and worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on original SQL/relational, System/R (all work being done on VM/370) and also got to wander around datacenters in silicon valley including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test (across the street). They were doing 7x/24, prescheduled stand-alone testing and mentioned that they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment). I offered to rewrite I/O supervisor making it bullet proof and never fail allowing any amount of on-demand concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 gets 1st engineering 3033 (outside POK 3033 processor engineering) and since testing only took percent or two of CPU, we scrounge up 3830 and 3330 and setup our own private online service).
1980, STL was bursting at the seams and moving 300 people/3270s from IMS group to offsite (complex just south of main plant site) with computing services back to STL datacenter. They had tried "remote 3270" but found the human factors unacceptable. I get con'ed into doing channel-extender support so channel-attached 3270 controllers could be positioned at offsite bldgs ... with no difference in human factors (compared to inside STL). Actually slightly better, STL had spread channel-attached 3270 controllers across all channels with 3830 dasd controllers. Turns out standard 3270 channel controllers had excessive channel busy, placing them offsite at end of channel controllers reduced channel busy (for same amount of 3270 transmission) and improved system throughput by 10-15%. There was some consideration to move all 3270 controllers (including inside STL) for all systems 10-15% improvement.
IMS and next great new DBMS "EAGLE" forces somewhat accounted for not releasing System/R as product (although had joint study with BofA that was ordering 60 VM/4341s for System/R). When Jim Gray departs for Tandem, he asked me to pick up BofA support and IMS consulting. Was able to do tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS ("under the radar", while company was preoccupied with "EAGLE"). Later after "EAGLE" imploded there was request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS .... eventually released as DB2 (originally for decision support only)
Getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Silicon Valley Lab Date: 17 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
1988, IBM Branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS. Also no CKD DASD have been made for decades, all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices.
Also 1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000
(running project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (planning on using Hursley 9333
for mid-range and full FCS for both technical and commercial scaleup).
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS,
128-systems: 16BIPS
Fibre-Channel Standard and/or FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#FICON
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Silicon Valley Lab Date: 18 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
One of my hobbies when I graduated and 1st joined IBM (Cambridge Scientific Center) was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and online sales&marketing support (CP67/CMS virtual machine datacenters) HONE was one of the 1st (and long time) customers. 23Jun1969 unbundling started to charge for (application) software (managed to make case kernel software was still free), SE services, maintenance, etc. SE training had included part of group onsite at customer but they couldn't figure out how not to charge customers for trainee SEs onsite. Solution was CP67/CMS datacenters around US where branch people could login and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines.
CSC had also ported APL\360 to CP67/CMS as CMS\APL and HONE started providing CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications which came to dominate all HONE activity (with guest operating system practice just withering away). A little before I transferred to SJR, all US HONE datacenters were consolidated in Palo Alto (trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moved into silicon valley, it was a new bldg built next door to the former US HONE consolidated datacenter).
Announce for adding virtual memory to all 370s, also included doing CP67->VM370 (but a lot of features were simplified or dropped, including "wheeler scheduler" and multiprocessor support. Then I start adding stuff back into VM370R2-base for my internal CSC/VM (including kernel reorg as part of adding multiprocessor support back in). Then I add multiprocessor support back into VM370R3-based CSC/VM, initially for consolidated US HONE so they can upgrade all their 158s&168s to 2-CPU systems (getting twice throughput of the 1-CPU systems).
There was joke that I worked 1st shift in SJR, 2nd shift in bldgs14&15, 3rd shift in STL, and 4th shift/weekends at HONE.
IBM CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
dynamic adaptive resource management, "wheeler" scheduler posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Silicon Valley Lab Date: 18 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
OSI: The Internet That Wasn't. How TCP/IP eclipsed the Open Systems
Interconnection standards to become the global protocol for computer
networking
https://spectrum.ieee.org/osi-the-internet-that-wasnt
Meanwhile, IBM representatives, led by the company's capable director
of standards, Joseph De Blasi, masterfully steered the discussion,
keeping OSI's development in line with IBM's own business
interests. Computer scientist John Day, who designed protocols for the
ARPANET, was a key member of the U.S. delegation. In his 2008 book
Patterns in Network Architecture(Prentice Hall), Day recalled that IBM
representatives expertly intervened in disputes between delegates
"fighting over who would get a piece of the pie.... IBM played them
like a violin. It was truly magical to watch."
... snip ...
CSC member responsible for the CP67-based Science Center wide-area
network ... One of the CSC inventors of GML in 1969
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
... morphs into the IBM internal network (RSCS&VNET, larger than
ARPANET/Internet from beginning until sometime mid/late 80s about time
that it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM)) and the technology also
used for the corporate sponsored Univ. BITNET.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Ed had transferred w/me out to SJR, 2nd half of 70s. Early 80s, got HSDT, T1 and faster computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and battles with communication group (60s IBM had 2701 that supported T1, 70s issues with SNA/VTAM capped links at 56kbits, early 80s, FSD came out with S/1 ZIRPEL T1 card for gov. customers who's 2701s were failing). Also working with NSF director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part based on what we already had running).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Posts mentioning GML, SGML, HTML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
Internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: DEC VAX/VMS Date: 19 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookHA/6000 was approved 1988, originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (running project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
Old archived post with decade of VAX market sliced&diced by year,
model, US/non-US along with some installs of VAXCluster
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0
related
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#4
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#5
Mid-70s, after IBM's "Future System" imploded (totally different than 370 and was planned to totally replace all 370, internal politics had been shutting down 370 efforts, credited with giving clone 370 makers their market foothold), there was mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipelines. The head of POK (high-end 370s) was also convincing corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group (out in Burlington Mall off 128), and transferring all the people to POK for MVS/XA. They weren't planning on telling the people until very last minute to minimize the number that might escape into the Boston area. There was leak (joke was head of POK was major contributor to VAX/VMS) and hunt for the source (fortunately for me, nobody gave up the source).
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers (pitching HA/CMP) and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update IBM
Federal System Division on HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD
decides to go with HA/CMP for federal supercomputers. By end of Jan,
we are told that cluster scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for
announce as IBM Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we
aren't allowed to work with anything that has more than four systems
(we leave IBM a few months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992,
Computerworld news ... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel
systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the IBM mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
FCS and/or FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP Date: 19 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebook1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (ran it from Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Had been using Hursley 9333 for small/medium cluster ... but was
hoping to have 9333 follow-on be factional speed (and interoperable
with) FCS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
but became SSA instead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Storage_Architecture
Also 1988, IBM Branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS. Also no CKD DASD have been made for decades, all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices.
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
Executive we had reported to goes over to head of Somerset/AIM (Apple,
IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses Motorola
88k bus/cache enabling multiprocessor implementations (and large
clusters of multiprocessor systems).
Sometime after leaving IBM, I was brought in as consultant into small
client/server startup. Two of the Oracle people that were in the
Ellison/Hester meeting are there responsible for something they called
"commerce server" and they wanted to do payment transactions. The
startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they
wanted to use. I was responsible for everything between commerce
servers (now frequently called e-commerce) and payment networks. I
then do talk: "Why Internet Isn't Business Critical Dataprocessing"
(based on processes, documentation and software I had to do for
e-commerce) that (Internet, IETF) RFC standards editor Postel
sponsored at ISI/USC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
He also had me help with the periodically re-released STD1.
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
FCS and/or FICON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
Payment network gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP Date: 19 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
i86/RISC quicky search, highly pipeline, translation from i86 to RISC
micro-ops to execution complete is highly overlapped (and can be
out-of-order)
http://gec.di.uminho.pt/DISCIP/MInf/ac0607/FAQ-03.pdf
In each clock cycle, three IA-32 instructions can be fetched, decoded,
and translated into RISC instructions. But only six RISC instructions
or micro-operation can be generated by each clock cycle. If the IA-32
instruction needs more than four uops, they will be generated in
multiple clock cycle, being the first four uops to the first IA-32
instruction and the others to the remaining instructions [3].
After the IA-32 instructions are decoded into RISC instructions or
into a series of RISC instructions, if it needs more than 4 uops, they
will be executed in an out-of-order pool of pending instructions,
where these instructions can be executed without following the same
order of program instructions, considering that there is not a
dependency between them, rising the hardware utilization [5].
... snip ...
1999 benchmark (number of program iterations/sec compared to industry
MIPS/BIPS reference platform)
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Intel Pentium3: 2,054MIPS
2010 benchmark
• max configured IBM z196: 50BIPS, 80cores, 625MIPS/core
• Intel E5-2600 server blade, two 8-core chips, 500BIPS, 31BIPS/core
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP Date: 20 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
Some Stanford people approached IBM Palo Alto about getting IBM to produce workstation product. Palo Alto scheduled a Stanford presentation for several IBM organizations ... all of which claimed that they were doing things that were much better than Stanford ... and IBM declines. Then Stanford people created their own company, SUN.
801/RISC ROMP chip was for follow-on to DISPLAYWRITER, no floating point and 200 PL.8 programmers. Market was moving to IBM/PC and DISPLAYWRITER follow-on was canceled. They decide to pivot to the UNIX workstation market and hire the company that did UNIX port for IBM/PC (PC/IX) to do port for ROMP .... that becomes AIX for the "PC/RT".
Palo Alto was also working on port of BSD UNIX to 370 and were redirected to do it instead for PC/RT (which ships as "AOS" taking very small percentage time&resources that took to do VRM+AIX).
AWD (as independent business unit) was allowed to do their own cards for the PC/RT (16bit PC/AT bus), including 4mbit token-ring card. Then for RS/6000 AWD was told they couldn't produce their own microchannel cards, but had to use the heavily performance kneecapped PS2 cards (PC/RT 4mbit T/R card had higher throughput than PS2 16mbit T/R card). New Almaden research bldg was heavily provisioned with IBM CAT wiring (supposedly for 16mbit T/R), but found 10mbit Ethernet had lower latency and higher aggregate throughput than 16mbit T/R. Also $69 10mbit Ethernet cards had much higher throughput than $800 16mbit T/R cards
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Internal Network and BITNET Date: 20 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookEdson responsible for CP67-based science center wide-area networking, centered in IBM Cambridge Science Center. One of the people hired to promote the wide-area network (before co-inventor of GML at CSC in 1969):
It morphs into the IBM internal network (RSCS&VNET), larger than
arpanet/internet from the beginning until sometime mid/late 80s, about
the time it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
Newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
The technology also used for the corporate sponsored Univ. BITNET.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
We transfer out to SJR on the west coast in 2nd half of 70s. Got the
HSDT program, T1 and faster computer links (terrestrial and satellite)
and battles with the communication group (60s had 2701 that supported
T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM cap'ed controllers at 56kbits, early
80s, FSD came out with S/1 ZIRPEL T1 card for gov. customers who's
2701s were failing). Also working with NSF director and was suppose to
get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress
cuts the budget, some other things happened and eventually there was
RFP released (in part based on what we already had running). NSF
28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
First webserver in the US was Stanford's VM370 (CP67 offspring)
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit/early-web-chronology-and-documents-1991-1994
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML postings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: RDBMS Date: 22 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookI transferred from CSC out to SJR 2nd half 70s and worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on original SQL/relational, System/R (all work occurring with VM370/CMS). Backus (Fortran) office just down the hall and Codds (RDBMS) office was on flr above. IMS and great new DBMS "EAGLE" forces contributed to System/R not released as IBM product (although System/R joint study with BofA ordering 60 VM/4341s). Then was able to do tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS ("under the radar" while company was preoccupied with "EAGLE").
Then when "EAGLE" implodes there was request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS ... eventually released as DB2 (originally for decision support only).
Note: Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people go to the 5th flr for
MULTICS. Others go to IBM Cambridge Scientific Center and virtual
machines (initially wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory
hardware, but all the extra 360/50s going to FAA/ATC, so had to settle
for 360/40 to modify and did CP40/CMS, which morphs into CP67/CMS when
360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available, then morphs
into VM370/CMS after decision to add virtual memory to 370s)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
CP67-based wide area network (morphs into corporate internal network
and technology used for corporate sponsored univ. BITNET/EARN)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
invented GML in 1969,
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Language
lots of other stuff. Note MULTICS ships RDBMS (w/o SQL) well before
IBM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics_Relational_Data_Store
https://www.mcjones.org/System_R/mrds.html
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
biitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: VM370/CMS Editors Date: 22 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookFuture System was going to completely replace 370s:
and internal politics were killing off 370 efforts (lack of new 370s is credited giving clone 370 makers, including Amdahl, their market foothold), when FS implodes there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel. Head of POK also lobbying corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott eventually manages to acquire the VM370 product mission, but has to recreate a development group from scratch). POK executives were then going around internal datacenters to strong arm their converting to MVS.
Endicott starts on XEDIT for release to customers. I send Endicott
email asking might they consider one of the internal 3270 fullscreen
editors (like RED), that were much more mature, more function and
faster (got answer that since it was RED author's fault that RED was
so much better than XEDIT, he should be responsible for "fixing"
XEDIT). red, ned, xedit, edgar, etc. had similar capability ("EDIT"
was the old CP67/CMS editor) ... but simple cpu usage test that i did
(summery from '79) of the same set of operations on the same file by
all editors showed the following cpu uses (at the time, "RED" was by
far my choice):
RED 2.91/3.12 EDIT 2.53/2.81 NED 15.70/16.52 XEDIT 14.05/14.88 EDGAR 5.96/6.45 SPF 6.66/7.52 ZED 5.83/6.52
some posts mentioning editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#0 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#94 old pharts, Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#13 MVS/ISPF Editor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#40 CMS RED, XEDIT, IOS3270, FULIST, BROWSE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#90 IBM, Unix, editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#5 RED and XEDIT fullscreen editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#101 Online Computer Conferencing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#49 What microprocessor is more powerful, the Z80 or 6502?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#34 Programmers Who Use Spaces Paid More
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#84 Hottest Editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#107 CMS Editors was TSO Test does not support 65-bit debugging?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#89 Real Programmers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#41 CMS load module format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#80 TSO Profile NUM and PACK
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#36 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#54 THE runs in DOS box?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#5 Call for XEDIT freaks, submit ISPF requirements
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#26 Assembler question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#45 sorting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#40 FULIST
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#25 Which Editor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#22 Which Editor
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: GOSIP Date: 22 Apr, 2026 Blog: FacebookI had PC/RT w/megapel display at Interop88 in (non-IBM) booth immediate right angles to SUN booth, Case was in the SUN booth with SNMP and con'ed him into installing it on my workstation. trivia: Sunday before the show opens, the floor nets were crashing with packet floods .... eventually got diagnosed ... provision about it shows up in RFC1122.
At the time there was gov. mandate eliminate internet and go GOSIP .... so there was lots of OSI stuff in the booths.
I was also on Chessin's XTP TAB (which communication group fought hard to block). TCP had minimum 7 packet exchange and XTP defined a reliable transaction with minimum of 3 packet exchange. Issue was that TCP/IP was part of kernel distribution requiring physical media (and typically some expertise for complete system change/upgrade, browsers and webservers were self contained load&go). XTP also defined things like trailer protocol where interface hardware could do CRC as packet flowing through and do the append/check ... helping minimize packet fiddling (as well as other pieces of protocol offloading, Chessin also liked to draw analogies with SGI graphic card process pipelining). Problem was that there were lots of push back for anything that required kernel changes.
There were some number of gov. entities participating and so pressures to standardize in ANSI X3S3.3 (ISO chartered for OSI level 3&4). At 1st X3S3.3 was going to consider, but then said ISO required that standards work only on things that conformed to OSI model. XTP didn't because 1) supported internetworking, which doesn't exist in OSI, 2) skipped level 3/4 interface, 3) went directly to LAN MAC interface that doesn't exist in OSI (sitting someplace in middle of level 3).
Interop88 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#interop88
XTP/HSP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP Date: 22 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
About same time we got started with HA/CMP, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at a annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but open the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division.
GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us drop by his investments to see if would could give some help ... also get their systems running on HA/CMP (including NCAR's "Mesa Archival" spin-off and LLNL's LINCS system).
A couple years later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history
of US companies (communication group stranglehold on mainframe
datacenters wasn't just disks) and was being re-orged into the 13
"baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company (take-off on
"baby bells" breakup a decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
demise of disk division and communication group stranglehold posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Email and PROFS Date: 23 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
Ed and I had transferred out to SJR on the west coast. Then SJR
installs 1st corporate gateway to CSNET Oct1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSNET
Some email about the CSNET install and then CSNET comment about
difficulties with internetworking cut over 1jan1983.
Date: 10/22/82 14:25:57
To: CSNET mailing list
Subject: CSNET PhoneNet connection functional
The IBM San Jose Research Lab is the first IBM site to be registered
on CSNET (node-id is IBM-SJ), and our link to the PhoneNet relay at
University of Delaware has just become operational! For initial
testing of the link, I would like to have traffic from people who
normally use the ARPANET, and who would be understanding about delays,
etc. If you are such a person, please send me your userid (and nodeid
if not on SJRLVM1), and I'll send instructions on how to use the
connection. People outside the department or without prior usage of
of ARPANET may also register at this time if there is a pressing need,
such as being on a conference program committee, etc.
CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) is funded by NSF, and is an attempt
to connect all computer science research institutions in the U.S. It
does not have a physical network of its own, but rather is a set of
common protocols used on top of the ARPANET (Department of Defense),
TeleNet (GTE), and PhoneNet (the regular phone system). The
lowest-cost entry is through PhoneNet, which only requires the
addition of a modem to an existing computer system. PhoneNet offers
only message transfer (off-line, queued, files). TeleNet and ARPANET
in allow higher-speed connections and on-line network capabilities
such as remote file lookup and transfer on-line, and remote login.
... snip ... top of post, old email index
Date: 02/02/83 23:49:45
To: CSNET mailing list
Subject: CSNET headers, CSNET status
You may have noticed that since ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the new
version of software on top of it, message headers have become
ridiculously long. Some of it is because of tracing information that
has been added to facilitate error isolation and "authentication", and
some of it I think is a bug (the relay adds a 'From' and a 'Date'
header although there already are headers with that information in the
message). This usually doesn't bother people on the ARPANET because
they have smart mail reading programs that understand the headers and
only display the relevant ones. I have proposed a mail reader/sender
program that understands about ARPANET headers (RFC822) as a summer
project, so maybe we will sometime enjoy the same priviledge.
The file CSNET STATUS1 on the CSNET disk (see instructions below for
how to access it) contains some clarification of the problems that
have been experienced with the TCP/IP conversion. Here is a summary:
- Nodes that don't yet talk TCP (but the old NCP) can be accessed
through the UDel-Relay. So if you think you have problems reaching
a node because of this, append @Udel-Relay to the ARPANET address.
- You can find out about the status of hosts (e.g., if they run TCP or
not) by sending ANY MESSAGE to Status@UDel-Relay (capitalization is
NOT significant).
- If your messages are undeliverable, you get a notice after two days,
and your messages get returned after 4 days.
- Avoid using any of the fancy address forms allowed by the new header
format (RFC822).
- The TCP transition was a lot more trouble than the ARPANET people
had anticipated.
Also after transfer to SJR, I was blamed for online computer
conferencing, it really took off spring of 1981 after distributing
trip report to visit Jim Gray at Tandem. There was only about 300 that
directly participated but claims there were 25,000 reading (and when
the corporate executive committee was told, claims that 5of6 wanted to
fire me). There was researcher hired to sit in the back of my office
for nine months studying how I communicated, face-to-face, telephone,
got copies of all my incoming and outgoing email (claim that I had
email with avg of 270 different people/week during the 9months), and
logs of all my instant messages. The material was used for papers,
conference talks, books and a Stanford Phd (joint with language and
computer AI; Winograd was advisor on computer AI side), "Computer
Mediated Communication". The researcher at one point claimed that I
had all the characteristics of ESL (English as 2nd language), but w/o
any (other) natural language.
... snip ... top of post, old email index
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: 6-10Oct1986 SEAS Date: 28 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebookgave VM Performance History paper SEAS (EU SHARE) 25th Anniversary Meeting, Jersey Oct 6-10, 1986 and again WashDC Hillgang meeting 16Mar2011 ... with background simulating green bar paper
SEAS session was going to run way over, so scheduled couple hr BOF session that evening
'86 presentation includes pieces of one of my undergraduate SHARE '68 presentations
past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#40 IBM Virtual Memory Global LRU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#34 IBM Virtual Memory Global LRU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#29 IBM 370 Virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#22 stacks are not hard, The joy of FORTRAN-like languages
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#90 Computer Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#107 DASD, Channel and I/O long winded trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#67 VM/370 3270 Terminal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#60 Stanford SLAC (and BAYBUNCH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#47 z/VM 50th
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#17 VM Workshop
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#8 VM Workship ... VM/370 50th birthday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#22 IBM Cloud to offer Z-series mainframes for first time - albeit for test and dev
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#20 CP-67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#94 VM/370 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#93 HSDT Pitches
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#59 Order of Knights VM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#82 IBM Internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#46 6-10Oct1986 SEAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#65 SHARE (& GUIDE)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#41 Teaching IBM Class
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#17 Performance History, 5-10Oct1986, SEAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#4 Oct1986 IBM user group SEAS history presentation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#22 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011e.html#20 Multiple Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#72 A History of VM Performance
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: STL Channel Extender Date: 30 Apr, 2026 Blog: Facebook1980, STL was bursting at the seams and moving 300 people/3270s from IMS group to offsite (complex just south of main plant site) with computing services back to STL datacenter. They had tried "remote 3270" but found the human factors unacceptable. I get con'ed into doing channel-extender support so channel-attached 3270 controllers could be positioned at offsite bldgs ... with no difference in human factors (compared to inside STL). Actually slightly better, STL had spread channel-attached 3270 controllers across all channels with 3830 dasd controllers. Turns out standard 3270 channel controllers had excessive channel busy, placing them offsite at end of channel controllers reduced channel busy (for same amount of 3270 transmission) and improved system throughput by 10-15%. There was some consideration to move all 3270 controllers (including inside STL) for all systems 10-15% improvement.
channel-extender posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#channel.extender
then (in part because STL machine room was bursting at the seams) they started installing (distributed) vm/4341s on nearly every floor in every tower (which also had the side effect of moving nearly all the remaining 3270 controllers off the datacenter's channels).
Then bldg26 was being faced with a similar problem (datacenter cramed to the gills), but most of their stuff was MVS ... that didn't run on distributed vm/4341s which were in non-datacenter environments with FBA 3370s (not supported by MVS). A large part of SJ-bldg26 MVS workload was a large controller microcode application which wouldn't run on CMS. Los Gatos VLSI lab looked at the functions that weren't supported in CMS, needed by the MVS microcode application ... and were able to add the necessary functions with 12kbytes added to the CMS OS/360 simulation.
Then Los Gatos tried to help (IBM) Burlington (VT) with their VLSI Fortran chip design app. The Fortran app was constantly under stress at 7mbytes ... requiring running special MVS where CSA was capped at 1mbyte (and any app changes were forced to never exceed 7mbytes). With the Los Gatos fixes for CMS OS/360 simulation, the Burlington Fortran VLSI chip design could run under CMS and have nearly the whole 16mbyte virtual address space. The problem of course would be enormous loss of face for the head of POK, who (after Future System imploded) had convinced corporate to kill VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. Endicott eventually managed to acquire the VM370 product mission (for the mid-range), but had to recreate a VM370 development group from scratch.
First saw large corporations ordering hundreds of VM/4341s at a time for distribution out in departmental areas (sort of leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami). Inside IBM, departmental conference rooms became scarce because so many were converted to VM/4341 rooms. The other MVS barrier (besides lack of FBA 3370 support) were companies looking at having scores of VM/4341 systems per support person ... while MVS still tended to be scores of support people per MVS system.
After doing channel-extender support for STL (1980), also deployed one for IMS PSRs in Boulder being moved to bldg across highway ... used infrared modems between roofs of the two bldgs (microwave would have required special permit). Then the group in POK working on fiber were able to veto releasing my support to customers.
Later 1988, IBM Branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM POK finally releases their serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec, upgrading to 17mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON.
2010, there was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPUs be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS.
FCS &/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: STL Channel Extender Date: 01 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
Mid-90s, after leaving IBM was brought into the largest ACP/TPF airline res system to look at the ten impossible things they couldn't do; started with ROUTES ... got a complete softcopy of OAG (all commercial schedule airline flts in the world) and redid implementation on Unix workstation that ran 100 times faster than on ACP/TPF. Then added the impossible things and only ten times faster ... but after a couple months was able to demo on unix workstation and show that ten RS/6000-990s could handle all ROUTE request for all airlines in the world.
1993 benchmarks (number of program iterations compared to industry
standard MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
• RS6000/990 : 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
Less than decade later, cellphone (XSCALE) processor had more MIPS
than ten 990s.
Also note mid-90s, RISC, highly pipeline, translation i86 instruction
to RISC micro-ops for execution, highly overlapped (and can be
out-of-order)
http://gec.di.uminho.pt/DISCIP/MInf/ac0607/FAQ-03.pdf
In each clock cycle, three IA-32 instructions can be fetched, decoded,
and translated into RISC instructions. But only six RISC instructions
or micro-operation can be generated by each clock cycle. If the IA-32
instruction needs more than four uops, they will be generated in
multiple clock cycle, being the first four uops to the first IA-32
instruction and the others to the remaining instructions [3].
After the IA-32 instructions are decoded into RISC instructions or
into a series of RISC instructions, if it needs more than 4 uops, they
will be executed in an out-of-order pool of pending instructions,
where these instructions can be executed without following the same
order of program instructions, considering that there is not a
dependency between them, rising the hardware utilization [5].
... snip ...
1999 benchmark (number of program iterations/sec compared to industry
MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Intel Pentium3: 2,054MIPS
Dec2000 benchmark:
• z900, 16 processors 2.5BIPS (156MIPS/core)
2010 Benchmark:
• z196: 50BIPS, 80cores, 625MIPS/core
• E5-2600 server blade, two 8-core chips, 500BIPS, 31BIPS/core
posts mentioning redoing ACP/TPF OAG "ROUTES" for unix platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#85 IBM OS/360, ACP/TPF, CICS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#55 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#92 IBM TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#122 Assembler language and code optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#90 Has anybody worked on SABRE for American Airlines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#74 MVS/TSO and VM370/CMS Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#8 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#96 Mainframe Assembler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#77 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#76 IBM ITPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#5 Can you have a robust IT system that needs experts to run it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#87 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#42 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#53 Article says mainframe most cost-efficient platform
posts mentioning Intel instruction translation to RISC micro-ops
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#35 IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#13 IBM RAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#108 System Throughput and Availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#86 Big Iron Throughput
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#94 Mainframe Integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#81 Benchmarks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#67 VM Microcode Assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#52 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#46 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#11 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#85 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#82 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#64 Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#66 where did RISC come from, Holy wars of the past - how did they turn out?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#48 IBM NUMBERS BIPOLAR'S DAYS WITH G5 CMOS MAINFRAMES
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#62 instruction clock speed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#97 ABO Automatic Binary Optimizer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#164 Slushware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#68 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#70 50,000 x86 operating system on single mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#53 Mainframe On Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#59 Why Intel can't retire X86
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012p.html#26 Mainframes are still the best platform for high volume transaction processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#6 Mainframes are still the best platform for high volume transaction processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#45 Under what circumstances would it be a mistake to migrate applications/workload off the mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#81 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#26 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#1 Can anybody give me a clear idea about Cloud Computing in MAINFRAME ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#74 Execution Velocity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#64 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#35 Layer 8: NASA unplugs last mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012c.html#59 Memory versus processor speed
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Silicon Valley Lab Date: 02 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
We, SJR, STL, LSG (LSG let me have part of a wing), bldg 14, bldg15, couple others; would have vote from selection of Fridays at half dozen places in south San Jose and a couple in Los Gatos (Chuck E. Cheese, Courtyard, Heidi, Spencers, etc). After Eric's moved in across Cottle, started to be regular there .... they normally had overflow backroom that was shut. But somebody convinced them to post my name on the door and open on Fridays and we would get half-priced pitchers of Anchor Steam. Some of us would also go to the monthly meetings hosted at Stanford SLAC ... normally adjourn to Oasis "Beer Garden" on El Camino Real. Then started to periodically get some of the (non-IBM) SLAC attendees at Eric's on Fridays.
a few of the posts mentioning after work on friday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#74 IBM San Jose
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#92 In Silicon Valley, dropping in at the GooglePlex, tech museums and the Jobs garage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#89 Royal Pardon For Turing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#76 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#62 some '83 references to boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#51 Baudot code direct to computers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#54 Trusted (mainframe) online transactions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#37 American Airlines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003o.html#7 An informed populace
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: 370 Virtual Memory Date: 03 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookIt was possible to field upgrade 155 & 165 with virtual memory to 155-II and 165-II. Early last decade, I was asked to track down the executive decision to add virtual memory to all 370s (and found staff to executive making the decision). Basically MVT storage management was so bad that REGION sizes had to be specified four times larger than used, as a result, typical 1mbyte 370/165 only ran four concurrent REGIONS, insufficient to keep system justified and busy. Basically going to 16mbyte virtual memory (sort of like running MVT in a CP/67 16mbyte virtual machine) allowed number of concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four (caped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging. I would stop by to see Ludlow who was doing the code changes & testing on 360/67 (pending engineering 370 with virtual memory support). MVT with a virtual memory tables and little bit of simple paging. The biggest issue was EXCP/SV0 was being called with channel programs that contained virtual addresses and channels required real addresses; same problem that CP67 had with virtual machine channel programs ... and Ludlow borrows CP67 CCWTRANS for incorporating into EXCP.
trivia: 165 engineers started lobbying to drop several pieces of the original 370 virtual memory architecture, otherwise the planned 370 virtual memory announce would have to slip 6months. Eventually the decision would drop those features ... and other systems had to regress to the 165 subset and software groups supporting the full architecture had to drop back to the 165 subset.
posts mentioning virtual memory for all 370s:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#98 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#12 IBM Virtual Machine and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#106 CP67, VM370, MVT, VS2/SVS, VS2/MVS, MVS/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#46 IBM 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#91 IBM VM370 And Pascal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#79 IBM System/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#13 IBM 4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#42 Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#113 IBM 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#29 IBM 370 Virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#20 IBM 360/30, 360/65, 360/67 Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#19 CSC Virtual Machine Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#9 Emulating vintage computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#140 HASP, JES2, NJE, VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#24 ARM is sort of channeling the IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#88 Virtual Machines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#52 backward architecture, The Design of Design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#11 370 Multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#6 Testing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#98 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#58 Vintage MVS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#6 Vintage Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#47 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#40 Rise and Fall of IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#70 The IBM System/360 Revolution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#65 PDP-6 Architecture, was ISA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#43 IBM 360/65 & 360/67 Multiprocessors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#15 Copyright Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#4 HASP, JES, MVT, 370 Virtual Memory, VS2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#32 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#20 IBM 360/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#9 IBM MVS RAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#6 z/VM 50th - part 7
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#0 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#2 VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#61 IBM 360/50 Simulation From Its Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#18 Computer Server Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#72 IBM Mainframe market was Re: Approximate reciprocals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#92 Computer BUNCH
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#113 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#23 fast sort/merge, OoO S/360 descendants
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#25 Execute and IBM history, not Sequencer vs microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021g.html#6 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#63 Early Computer Use
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#78 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019.html#18 IBM assembler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#23 VS History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#19 MVT doesn't boot in 16mbytes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#45 Resurrected! Paul Allen's tech team brings 50-year-old supercomputer back from the dead
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#90 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#69 A New Performance Model ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015b.html#50 Connecting memory to 370/145 with only 36 bits
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: 370 Virtual Memory Date: 05 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
major virtual memory (dropped for 370/165) i remember was segment protect (server could even have r/w ... while clients would have r/o) ... vm370/cms had to fall back to cp67/cms storage key fiddling for r/o shared segments)
When I graduate and join IBM, one of my hobbies is enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and US (online sales&marketing support) HONE systems was early (and lont-time) customers. IBM 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement started to charge for (application) software (managed to make the case that kernel software as still free), SE services, maint, etc. Part of SE trainee had been part of SE group at customer location. IBM could NOT figure how not to charge for trainee SEs at customer. Eventually IBM decided to deploy several CP67 virtual machine datacenters, where trainee SEs in branch office can dialin to practice with guest operating systems running in virtual amchines. CSC also ported APL\360 to CP67/CMS as CMS\APL and HONE started offering marketing&CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications, which come to dominate all HONE activity (and guest operating system practice just withered away).
IBM 23Jun1969 Unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
With the decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, there was also decision to do VM370. Some of the IBM CSC (4th flr) CP67 people took over the IBM Boston Programming Center (on the 3rd flr) for the VM370 development group and simplified or dropped some CP67 feature/function for VM370. Some of the rest of us in CSC worked with Endicott to modify "CP67L" (running on real 370/67) to provide 370 virtual machines supporting 370 virtual memory (CP67H). Then a set of CP67 updates to run on 370 virtual memory machines (CP67I). CSC ran my CP67L on real 360/67, CP67H in 360/67 virtual machine, CP67I in 370 virtual memory virtual machine ... for a year before the 1st engineering 370 with virtual memory was operational (in fact CP67I was used to test the 1st engineering 370 virtual memory machine). The extra layer (instead of running CP67H on real machine) was because there were Boston area professors, staff, students using the CSC system (and needed extra security layer to isolate from unannounced 370 virtual memory). Then three San Jose engineers came out and added 2305 and 3330 device support to CP67I for CP67SJ ... which ran internally on real 370s for quite some time even after VM370 was operational.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
For VM370R2-base, I started transferring lots of CP67 feature/function for my internal CSC/VM (including kernel reorg needed for multiprocessor support). Then with VM370R3-base, I add multiprocessor support back in, initially for HONE, so they could upgrade thier CSC/VM 158&168 systems with 2nd CPU. HONE had consolidated all their US datacenters to location in Palo Alto (across the back parking lot from IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center). trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moves into silicon valley, it is into a new bldg built next door to the former consolidated US HONE datacenter.
This was after the "Future System" implosion
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
(which had been totally different from 370 and planned to totally eliminate 370, internal politics had been killing off 370 efforts and the lack of new 370 during the period is credited with giving the clone 370 makers their market foothold) and mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel. The head of POK (high end 370) was also in the process of convincing corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. They weren't planning on telling the people until the very last minute to minimize the number that might escape. The information managed to leak and several managed to escape into the Boston area (very early in the infancy of DEC VAX/VMS and a joke that the head of POK was a major contributor to VMS). Endicott eventually manages to acquire the VM370 product mission, but had to recreate a development group from scratch.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
past posts mentioning 370 virtual memory "segment protect" being dropped
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#112 IBM Virtual Memory (360/67 and 370)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#44 vfork history, Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#42 Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#52 backward architecture, The Design of Design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#86 Shared Memory Feature
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#93 CSC, HONE, 23Jun69 Unbundling, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#61 IBM 360/50 Simulation From Its Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#95 The (broken) economics of OSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#86 History of Virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#90 IBM Embraces Virtual Memory -- Finally
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#36 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#110 IBM mainframes, was PDP-11 architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#97 IBM ACS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#19 What Makes sorting so cool?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#75 Still not convinced about the superiority of mainframe security vs distributed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#32 REFRPROT History Question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#31 REFRPROT History Question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#62 Any cool anecdotes IBM 40yrs of VM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#133 Deja Cloud?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#96 History of copy on write
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#74 shared code, was Speed of Old Hard Disks - adcons
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#75 Location of first programmable computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#9 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#22 Why is JCL so bad was Re: Basic question on passing JCL set symbol to proc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#76 CMS IPL (& other misc)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#67 DCSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#67 Mainframe articles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007r.html#62 CSA 'above the bar'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#43 z/VM usability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#32 Running OS/390 on z9 BC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#26 moving on
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#1 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006s.html#61 Is the teaching of non-reentrant HLASM coding practices ever defensible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#26 Mainframe Limericks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006l.html#22 Virtual Virtualizers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#41 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#5 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#23 Virtual memory implementation in S/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006i.html#9 Hadware Support for Protection Bits: what does it really mean?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#13 VM maclib reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#39 A second look at memory access alignment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#10 Exceptions at basic block boundaries
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005f.html#45 Moving assembler programs above the line
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#53 System/360; Hardwired vs. Microcoded
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: CSC, CP40/CMS, CP67/CMS, Boeing Computer Services Date: 07 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094 went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS. Others went to the Cambridge Science Center on the 4th flr to do virtual machines. They had wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory, but all the spare 50s were going to FAA/ATC, and they had to settle for 360/40 to modify and did CP40/CMS. CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available. CSC also did the CP67-based, wide-area science center network.
IBM CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Account by one of the CSC 1969 inventors of GML:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
It morphs into the corporate internal network (larger than
arpanet/internet from the beginning until sometime mid/late 80s about
the time it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM) and technology used for
the corporate sponsored university BITNET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
person responsible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
IBM Internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET (&/or EARN) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
IBM CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd installation after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs). I had taken two credit hr intro to fortran/computers (Univ was getting 360/67 for TSS/360, replacing 709/1401, when 360/67 arrives, I was hired fulltime responsible for OS/360; TSS/360 not coming to production). I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in CP67 virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher, (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share policy) scheduler, paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial, time-sharing online spin-offs.
Before I graduate, I was hired fulltime into small group in the Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into an independent business unit, including offering services to non-Being entities). I think Renton datacenter largest in the world. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up in machine room up at Boeing field for payroll (although they enlarge the room for 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff). 747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification.
some posts mentioning CP40/CMS, CP67/CMS, Boeing CFO posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#98 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#74 IBM 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#3 Switching On A VAX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#91 IBM VM370 And Pascal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#72 Boeing, IBM, CATIA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#69 VM/CMS: Concepts and Facilities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#103 IBM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#40 IBM Virtual Memory Global LRU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#20 IBM 360/30, 360/65, 360/67 Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#103 IBM 360/40, 360/50, 360/65, 360/67, 360/75
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#25 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#15 360&370 Unix (and other history)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#39 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#65 Vintage TSS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#35 Vintage IBM Mainframes & Minicomputers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#34 IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#32 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#8 Cloud Timesharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#20 1401 MPIO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#51 All programmers that developed in machine code and Assembly in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s died?
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: CSC, CP40/CMS, CP67/CMS, Boeing Computer Services Date: 07 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
Overlapping adding virtual memory to all 370s, 1st half of 70s, there
was Future System, totally different than 370 and suppose to
completely replace 370. Internal politics was suppose to killing off
370 effort and lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving the
clone 370 markers their market foothold. When FS implodes
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking of the quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel. The head of POK was also in the process of convincing corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the VM370 product group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. Eventually Endicott manages to save the VM370 product mission, but has to recreate a development group from scratch. I get talked into helping with a 16-CPU 370 and we convince the 3033 processor engineers into help in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168-3 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decade before POK's favorite sone operating system (MVT, VS2/MVS, MVS/XA) has effective 16-CPU support (MVS docs had 2-CPU support only getting 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of 1-CPU (POK doesn't ship a 16-CPU system until after the new century). The head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions".
multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
When I graduate, I join cambridge scientific center (instead of staying with Boeing CFO). Within month of joining IBM, got a 2741 dialup at home (and could do email at home @23). Edson and I transfer out to IBM SJR on the west coast 2nd half 70s. I work with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on original SQL/Relational, System/R (starting out on VM370 370/145; CP67/CMS followon).
Original SQL/Relational, System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
I also got to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, includiing disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test across the street. They were running prescheduled, 7x24, stand-alone testing and mentioned they had tried MVS (but it had 15min MTBF in that environment). I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor, making it bullet-proof, never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. I write research report on I/O Reliability Enhancement and happen to mention MVS 15min MTBF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&16 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
integrity and/or assurance posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
Fall1980, Jim leaves SJR for Tandem. He does study of service outages
and found that hardware was getting significant more reliable and
service outages increasingly becoming people mistakes and
environmental.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20080724051051/http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~yelick/294-f00/papers/Gray85.txt
available posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
1988, Nick Donofria approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster. I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LLNL, LANL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix that had VAXcluster
support in same source base with Unix; I do distributed lock manager
with VAXCluster semantics to ease ports).
Then the S/88 product administrator (relogo'ed Stratus) starts taking us around to their customers and gets me to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document (it gets pulled when both Rochester/as400 and POK/mainframe, complain they can't meet the objectives). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to just disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88). Work is also underway to port LLNL supercomputer filesystem (LINCS) to HA/CMP and working with NCAR spinoff (Mesa Archive) to platform on HA/CMP.
Early Jan92, there was meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD executive
Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92
and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on HA/CMP
work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for federal
supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster scale-up is
being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM Supercomputer
(technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to work with
anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few months
later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news ... IBM
establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 benchmarks (number of program iterations
compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
• RS6000/990 : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
Also, 1988, IBM branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national lab) with standardization of some serial stuff they were working with, which quickly becomes fibre channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980; initial 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec; planed on using with HA/CMP). POK then release some of their fiber as ESCON (when it is already obsolete), initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK mainframe engineers become involved with FCS and define a heavy-weight protocol that radically reduces native throughput, as FICON. Around 2010 was a max configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPUs be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS. Also no CKD DASD have been made for decades, all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices.
FCS &/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Mainframe, Virtualization, Cloud Date: 08 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookAmdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. Then when ACS/360 was canceled, Amdahl leaves IBM (before "Future System" had started)
When Future System
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
(totally different than 370 and planned to replace 370; internal politics was killing 370 efforts and claims that lack of new 370 during the period is credited with giving clone 370 makers, their market foothold) imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipeliines, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 in parallel. The head of POK (high-end 370s, 155, 165, 158, 168, 3031, 3032, 3033. 3081) was also in the processing of convincing corporate to kill the VM370 development group, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott finally acquires the VM370 product mission for the mid-range, but had to recreate a development group from scratch).
A few of the former vm370 did a very simplified virtual machine
(VMTOOL) for MVS/XA testing, put never intended for production and/or
performance (further aggrevating was SIE needed to move in and out of
virtual machine mode, but 3081 didn't have enough microcode
space ... so SIE microcode had to be "paged" getting in&out
of virtual machine mode). Aggravating things, come release of
MVS/XA ... Amdahl was much more successful in moving customers from
MVS->MVS/XA ... sort of like situation moving customers to VS2/MVS:
http://www.mxg.com/thebuttonman/boney.asp
First off, 3081 was intended to be multiprocessor systems only but Amdahl's single processor had higher mips than aggregate of 2-CPU 3081D (MVS & MVS/XA multiprocessor documentation had 2-CPU systems only got 1.2-1.5 times throughput of 1-CPU ... MVT/MVS/MVSXA SMP overhead increasing as number of CPUs went up, less aggregate MIPS and SMP inefficiency as CPUs increased). Also Amdahl had (performance) hypervisor ("multiple domain"), able to run production MVS and MVS/XA concurrently as part of production conversion. Eventually IBM doubles the processor cache sizes, bringing the aggregate 2-CPU 3081K MIPS up to about the same as Amdahl single CPU (however even with same aggregate MIPS, 2-CPU 3081K MVS&MVS/XA only had about .6-.75 the throughput of 1-CPU Amdahl because of the MVS&MVS/XA multi-CPU overhead).
For 3081 MVS->MVS/XA customers, they get around to shipping (non-production) VMTOOL (w/SIE needed to be paged) as VM/MA & VM/SF. Once the 3033 was out the door, the processor engineers start on trout/3090 ... and do production/performance SIE support, but didn't come out with LPAR-PR/SM until nearly decade after Amdahl's "multiple domain" hypervisor.
trivia: 1988, IBM Branch office asks if I could help LLNL (national
lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which
quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I
had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate
200mbyte/sec, planning on using for HA/CMP scale-up). Then IBM
mainframe release some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON,
initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with
"FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native
throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Around 2010 was a max
configured z196 public "Peak I/O" benchmark getting 2M IOPS using 104
FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time, a "FCS" was announced for
E5-2600 server blade claiming over million IOPS (two such FCS with
higher throughput than 104 FICON, running over FCS). Note IBM docs has
SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O), CPU be kept to 70%
... or 1.5M IOPS. Also no CKD DASD have been made for decades, all
being simulated on industry standard fixed-block devices.
2010 IBM 80-core z196, 50BIPS, 625MIPS/core
2010 Intel E5-2600 server blade, two 8-core chips, 500BIPS, 31.25BIPS/core
Note: IBM price for max configured z196 was $30M ($600,000/BIPS) and
its base price for E5-2600 server blade was $1815 ($3.63/BIPS). When
industry news had articles that open system component makers were
shipping half their product directly to large cloud makers (that
assemble systems themselves), IBM sold off its server product lines.
Also 1988, Nick Donofria approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster. I rename it
HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LLNL, LANL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix that had VAXcluster
support in same source base with Unix; I do distributed lock manager
with VAXCluster semantics to ease ports).
Then the S/88 product administrator (relogo'ed Stratus) starts taking us around to their customers and gets me to write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document (it gets pulled when both Rochester/as400 and POK/mainframe, complain they can't meet the objectives). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to just disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88). Work is also underway to port LLNL supercomputer filesystem (LINCS) to HA/CMP and working with NCAR spinoff (Mesa Archive) to platform on HA/CMP.
Early Jan92, there was meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD executive
Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters by mid92
and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on HA/CMP
work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for federal
supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster scale-up is
being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM Supercomputer
(technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to work with
anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few months
later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news ... IBM
establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that it would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 benchmarks (number of program iterations
compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
• RS6000/990 : (1-CPU) 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
The IBM executive we had reported to, goes over to head up
Somerset/AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) for single chip 801/RISC, using
Motorola 88K bus&cache for shared memory multiprocessor.
IBM Cambridge Scientific Center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Time-Sharing Date: 08 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094
people went to the 5th flr for Multics. Others went to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center and virtual machines (initially wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory hardware, but all the extra 360/50s going to FAA/ATC, so had to settle for 360/40 to modify and did CP40/CMS, which morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available, then morphs into VM370/CMS after decision to add virtual memory to 370s).
I had taken two credit hour intro to fortran/computers. Univ. was getting 360/67 for TSS/360. When the 360/67 arrived, I was hired fulltime responsible for OS/360 (TSS/360 not coming to production).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270).
CP/67 was delivered with 1052 & 2741 terminal support with automagic
terminal identification and could dynamically change each port,
terminal-type port scanner. Univ. had TTY terminals, so I add ASCII
terminal support to CP/67 integrated with automagic terminal
identification. I then want to have a single dial-in number ("hunt
group") for all terminals ... didn't quite work since IBM had taken
short cut and hard-wired each port line speed. This kicks off a
project to do a clone IBM telecommunication controller. Build a
channel interface board for Interdata/3 programmed to simulate a IBM
controller but also supporting dynamic port speed. This is upgraded to
Interdata/4 for channel interface, and cluster of Interdata/3s
supporting ports. Interdata (and later Perkin-Elmer) market this as
clone IBM controller (and four of us are written up for some part of
the IBM clone controller business)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online, time-sharing service bureau spin-offs. Both CSC and online commercial time-sharing service bureaus did a lot of CP67/CMS work, enabling off-shift, dark room, unattended operation.
Before graduating I was hired fulltime into small group in the Boeing CFO office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit, including offering services to non-Boeing entities). I think Renton datacenter largest in the world. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO (who only had a 360/30 for payroll up at Boeing field, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff).
When I graduate, I join CSC (instead of staying with Boeing CFO). Within month of joining IBM, got a 2741 dialup at home (and could do email at home @23). One of my hobbies after graduating and joining IBM Cambridge Science Center was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was one of my 1st (and longtime) customers. IBM 23jun1969 unbundling announcement started to charge for SE services. SE trainee had involved being part of group onsite at customer. However, they could NOT figure out NOT to charge for trainee SEs at customer. Solution was several (virtual machine) CP67 datacenters where branch SEs could dial-in and practice with guest operating systems in virtual machines. CSC also ported APL\360 to CP67/CMS for CMS\APL and HONE started offering CMS\APL-based online sales&marketing support applications ... which came to dominate all HONE use (with guest operating system practice just withered away). HONE also talks me into doing some of the early world-wide HONE installations (HONE becoming the largest APL-based infrastructure world-wide).
Some of the CSC people move to the 3rd flr taking over the IBM Boston Programming Center for the VM370 Development group. In the CP67->VM370 morph, lots of feature/function was simplified or dropped (including wheeler scheduler and multiprocessing support). With a VM370R2-base, I start adding stuff back in for my internal CSC/VM (including kernel re-org needed for multiprocessor support). Then for VM370R3-based CSC/VM, I add multiprocessor support, originally for US HONE consolidated datacenter (US HONE datacenters had been consolidated in silicon valley; trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moved into silicon valley it was into a new bldg built next door to the former consolidated US HONE datacenter).
IBM Cambridge Scientific Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
online/time-share posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#online
CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
23Jun1969 Unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
Early last decade, I was asked to find the decision that added virtual memory to every 370. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that REGION size had to be specified four times larger than used. As a result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 would only run four REGIONs concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory allowed number of concurrent REGIONs to be increased by a factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging (sort of like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). I would periodically drop in on Ludlow who was doing the initial implementation work of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (pending engineering 370 system with virtual memory). A little bit of code to build virtual memory tables and simple paging. The biggest issue was EXCP/SVC0 was now being called with channel programs that had CCWs with virtual addresses (and channels required real addresses). The same issue in CP67 virtual machines, and Ludlow borrows CP67's CCWTRANS to incorporate into EXCP.
trivia: 165 engineers started lobbying to drop several pieces of the original 370 virtual memory architecture, otherwise the planned 370 virtual memory announce would have to slip 6months. Eventually the decision would drop those features ... and other systems had to regress to the 165 subset and software groups supporting the full architecture had to drop back to the 165 subset.
Pieces of email exchange with staff member to executive making
decision
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#73 Multiple Virtual Memory
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: TCP, OSI, XTP, NSFNET Date: 12 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookI was on Chessin's XTP TAB, and because there were some federal efforts involved, we took XTP to (ISO chartered) ANSI X3S3.3 (for network&transport) standards as HSP. Initially they accepted ... but then they said ISO required standards work could only be done for things that conform to OSI model. XTP failed because 1) supported internetworking layer which doesn't exist in OSI, 2) bypassed transport/network interface (going directly to LAN MAC), 3) supported LAN MAC which doesn't exist in OSI (sitting somewhere in middle of network).
There was "joke" that while IETF required interoperable implementations to proceed in the standards process, ISO standards (including ANSI X3S3.3, OSI transport & network) didn't even require a standard be implementable
Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr for MULTICS, others went to the IBM Cambridge Science Center on the 4th flr and did virtual machines (originally wanted 360/50 to add hardware virtual memory, but all the extra 50s were going to FAA ATC, so had to settle for 360/40 and did CP40/CMS ... which morphed into CP67/CMS when 360/67s standard with virtual memory became available.
One of the co-workers was responsible for the CP67-based science
center wide-area network ... account by another science center member
(one of the inventors of GML in 1969, precursor to SGML & HTML):
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
... it morphs into the corporate internal network (larger than
arpanet/internet from the beginning until sometime mid/late 80s about
the time it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM) and technology used for
the corporate sponsored university BITNET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
Old archived '84 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320
from IBM European employee (that had done a year sabbatical at CSC) and
was in Paris to get EARN setup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Academic_Research_Network
person responsible for CP67-based wide-area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
1977, Ed and I transfer to San Jose Research and in early 80s, I get
HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links (both terresrial and
satellite). Also working with NSF director and was suppose to get $20M
to interconnect NSF Supercomputer datacenters. Then congress cuts the
budget, some other things happen and eventually an RFP is released, in
part based on some stuff we already had running, including high-speed
satellite link between IBM Los Gatos VLSI lab and Clementi's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Clementi
E&S lab in IBM Kingston that had a whole boatload of FPS-264 systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Point_Systems
NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
XTP/HSP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
bitnet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: VM4341 Cluster Supercomputing and Departmental Distributed Date: 13 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookEarly last decade, I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to every 370 and found staff member to executive making decision. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that REGION size had to be specified four times larger than used. As a result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 would only run four REGIONs concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory allowed number of concurrent REGIONs to be increased by a factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging (sort of like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). I would periodically drop in on Ludlow who was doing the initial implementation work of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (pending engineering 370 system with virtual memory). A little bit of code to build virtual memory tables and simple paging. The biggest issue was EXCP/SVC0 was now being called with channel programs that had CCWs with virtual addresses (and channels required real addresses). The same issue in CP67 for virtual machines, and Ludlow borrows CP67's CCWTRANS to incorporate into EXCP.
Overlapping adding virtual memory to all 370s, 1st half of 70s, there
was Future System, totally different than 370 and suppose to
completely replace 370. Internal politics was killing off 370 efforts
and lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving the clone 370
markers their market foothold. When FS implodes
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking of the quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel. The head of POK was also in the process of convincing corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the VM370 product group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. Eventually Endicott manages to save the VM370 product mission, but has to recreate a development group from scratch.
Endicott also talks me into helping with ECPS (microcode assis) for
138/148 (& later for 4331/4341). I was told there was 6kbytes
available for ECPS and translating approx 1:1 from 370 instructions to
native instructions (mid-range machines were avg 10:1 native
instructions for each emulated 370 instructions) getting ten times
performance. Initial VM370 kernel path analysis, top 6kbytes of VM370
kernel execution accounted for 79.55% of kernel CPU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
then Endicott wanted to pre-install VM370 on every machine shipped (sort of like LPAR & PR/SM) ... however, with head of POK having originally succeeded in killing VM370 product, corporate vetoed VM370/ECPS preinstall.
I also get talked into helping with a 16-CPU 370 and we convince the 3033 processor engineers into helping in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168-3 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite sone operating system (MVT, VS2/MVS, MVS/XA) has effective 16-CPU support (MVS docs had 2-CPU support only getting 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of 1-CPU, POK doesn't ship a 16-CPU system until after the turn of the century). The head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions".
After being invited to never visit POK again, I transfer out to San Jose Research ... and get to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test, across the street. They were doing 7x24/, prescheduled, stand alone testing ... and mentioned that they recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF in their environment. I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor, making it bullet proof and never fail so they can do any amount of ondemand concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 gets some of the earliest engineering processors (for disk i/o testing), including 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. 3033 product testing was only taking percent or two of CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 disk controller and 3330 string setting up private online service. I do a I/O Reliability Enhancement research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MTBF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
trivia: at the time, the thin-film disk head group was getting a
couple turn-arounds a month on the SJR 370/195 for air-bearing
simulation (part of thin-film head design). We set them up on bldg15
3033 and they can get several turn-arounds a day.
https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/thin-film-heads-introduced-for-large-disks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_read-and-write_head#Thin-film_heads
First used for 3370 FBA architecture (all drives were migrating to fixed-block). Next was 3380 CKD (emulated, can be seen in records/track formulas where record lengths are rounded up to multiple of fixed cell size).
Then bldg15 got engineering 4341, summer of 1978 (year before FCS). Branch office hears about it and Jan1979 get me to do benchmark for national lab lookiing at getting 70 VM4341 for compute farm (sort of the leading edge of the coming cluster supercomputing tsunami). Then early 80s, large corporations were ordering hundreds of vm4341 systems for placing out in departmental areas (sort of the leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami). Inside IBM, departmental conference rooms became scarce, so many being converted to departmental, distributed vm4341s. MVS also looked at that market and wanted some of it. Problem was the only new non-datacenter disks were FBA 3370, which weren't supported by MVS. Eventually there was simulated CKD 3375, but it didn't do MVS much good, customers were looking at scores of distributed vm4341s per support person while MVS was still scores of support personnel per system. trivia: in the 60s the science center (and commercial CP67 service bureau spinoffs) had done a lof of CP67 (vm370 precursor) work supporting unattended, dark room, operation.
IBM Cambridge Scientific Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
DASD, CKD, FBA, multi-track search posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: VM4341 Cluster Supercomputing and Departmental Distributed Date: 13 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at a annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but open the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales.
GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. GPD/Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks.
He also would ask us drop by his investments to see if would could
give some help. The communication group datacenter stranglehold wasn't
just disks and couple years later, IBM has one of the largest losses
in the history of US companies and was being reorganized into the 13
"baby blues" in preparation for breakup of the company (take-off on
baby-bell breakup a decade earlier).
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
demise of disk division and communication group stranglehold posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM HONE and EMAIL Date: 14 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094
people went to the 5th flr for Multics. Others went to the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center on the 4th flr and virtual machines (initially wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory hardware, but all the extra 360/50s going to FAA/ATC, so had to settle for 360/40 to modify and did CP40/CMS, which morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available, then morphs into VM370/CMS after decision to add virtual memory to 370s).
CTSS had form of email ...
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/anhc-34-1-anec.html
https://multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
IBM CP/CMS had electronic mail as early as 1966, and was widely used
within IBM in the 1970s. Eventually this facility evolved into the
PROFS product in the 1980s.
... snip ...
old archived post with sample of 1983 weekly network update
distribution ... and summary of world-wide IBM locations that added
one or more network nodes during 1983.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
PROFS group was collecting internal CMS apps for wrapping 3270 menus around and selected a very early version of VMSG for the email client. Then the VMSG tried to provide them a much enhanced version and they tried to have him separated from IBM. The whole then quieted down after he demonstrated that all PROFS email had his initials in non-displayed field. After that he only shared his source with me and one other person.
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling announce started to charge for (application) software (managed to make the case that kernel software should still be free), SE services, maint, etc.
When I graduate, I join IBM CSC and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was one of the first (and long time) customer. SE training used to be part of group onsite at customer. However, IBM couldn't figure out how to NOT charge for trainee SEs onsite at customer. Solution was several CP67 datacenters around US where branch office SEs would logon and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines. CSC had also ported APL\360 to CMS as CMS\APL (redoing workspaces from small 16kbyte swapped to large virtual memory demand page and also API for system services like file I/O ... enabling lots of real world applications). HONE then starts doing CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications ... which come to dominate all HONE activity (and guest operating system practice fades away). HONE has me do some of the first few non-US installs (before VM370, still CP67).
In the transition to just CMS\APL-based sales&marketing, HONE would automatically put users into highly customized CMS\APL environment. Some users learned out how to drop into CMS and could access standard CMS services like email.
CP67-based Science Center wide-area network (originated in the 60s)
... One of the CSC inventors of GML in 1969
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
... which begins morphing into the IBM internal network
(RSCS&VNET, larger than ARPANET/Internet from beginning until
sometime mid/late 80s, about time that it was forced to convert to
SNA/VTAM)) and the technology also used for the corporate sponsored
Univ. BITNET.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks In June 1975, MIT
Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to DARPA, where
Hendricks described his innovations to the principal scientist,
Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75, Cerf and
Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States, to
attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Majority of the corporate network started out CP67/CMS based and systems then transition to VM370/CMS. To allow limited number of HASP/JES2 systems, there was HASP/JES2 emulated driver done for RSCS/VNET ... but the HASP/JES2 had to be tightly regulated. The HASP/JES2 systems had to be carefully placed for a number of reasons. First the (real) HASP/JES2 used spare entries in the 255 psuedo device table for network definitions, typically around 160-180 (it didn't upgrade to 999 until well into the 80s after internal network passed 10000 systems (and HASP/JES2 protocol would trash any traffic that wasn't defined in its local table). Another problem was HAS/JES2 network architecture had intermixed job control and network fields and minor release changes would crash the host systems. As a result, found MVS/JES2 systems hidden behind RSCS/VNET with customized emulated NJE driver then could reorganize fields to meet the directly connected MVS/JES2 version. There is famous case where Hursley MVS/JES2 systems were crashing because of a newly connected MVS/JES2 in San Jose and Hursley VM370 was blamed because they hadn't installed the latest VNET/RSCS emulated NJE driver (with translation between San Jose system version and Hursley system version).
IBM Cambridge Science Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
IBM 23Jun1969 Unbundling Announce posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
HASP, ASP, JES2, JES3, NJE, NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
and IBM 1983 1000th node globe:
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM IPL and IMPL Date: 16 May, 2026 Blog: Facebook360 "IPL" button for microcode doing program load, first dial in device address. Note: Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 people go to the 5th flr for MULTICS. Others go to IBM Cambridge Scientific Center and virtual machines (initially wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory hardware, but all the extra 360/50s going to FAA/ATC, so had to settle for 360/40 to modify and did CP40/CMS, which morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available, then morphs into VM370/CMS after decision to add virtual memory to 370s)
One of the early CP40 commands was "IPL", software emulation of the microcode "IPL" function. Trivia, some assembler programs would start with three "PUNCH" statements generating the 3-card loader as the 1st cards of the assembler output (self-loading card program).
Future System (different from 370 and planned to completely replace
370)
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
overlapped adding virtual memory to all 370s (internal politics was killing off 370 efforts and the lack of new 370s is credited with giving clone 370 makers their market foothold).
When FS imploded their was mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipelines, including kicking off 3033&3081 efforts in parallel. 16-CPU 370 effort was started and I got talked into helping and we talked the 3033 processor engineers were talked into working on it in their spare time (lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before that POK's favorite son operating system had effective 16-CPU support (at the time, "MVS" documents that 2-CPU support only had 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of 1-CPU, aka high-overhead multiprocessor support; POK doesn't ship 16-CPU system until after turn of century). Then head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions".
With direction to never visit POK again, I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and get to wander around silicon valley datacenters, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test, across the street. They were running 7x24, prescheduled, stand-alone testing and mentioned that they had recently tried "MVS", but found it had 15min MTBF (in that environment). I offer to rewrite I/O Supervisor making in bullet-proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing (greatly improving productivity). Bldg15 then gets 1st engineering 3033 (outside POK processor engineering). Turns out that 3033 product testing was only taking percent or two of the CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 controller and string of 3330 drives for private online service. I then author research "I/O Reliability Enhancement" report and happen to mention MVS 15min MTBF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
For the 303x channel director they took a 158-engine with just the integrated channel microcode (and no 370 microcode). A 3031 was two 158-engines, one with just 370 microcode and one with just the integrated channel microcode. A 3032 is 168 reworked to use channel director for external channels. A 3033 started out with 168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips. The bldg15 3033 channel directors were periodically hanging, requiring somebody to go over and hit their IMPL button. I find out if I quickly execute CLRCH instruction for all six channel director addresses, a channel director would automagically execute IMPL by itself.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM IPL and IMPL Date: 16 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
re: HONE; 23jun1969 unbundling announce started to charge for (application) software (managed to make the case that kernel software should still be free), SE services, maint, etc.
When I graduate, I join IBM CSC and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was one of the first (and long time) customer. SE training used to be part of group onsite at customer. However, IBM couldn't figure out how to NOT charge for trainee SEs onsite at customer. Solution was several CP67 datacenters around US where branch office SEs would logon and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines. CSC had also ported APL\360 to CMS as CMS\APL (redoing workspaces from small 16kbyte swapped to large virtual memory demand page and also API for system services like file I/O ... enabling lots of real world applications). HONE then starts doing CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications ... which come to dominate all HONE activity (and guest operating system practice fades away). HONE has me do some of the first few non-US installs (before transition to VM370, still CP67) ... HONE CMS/APL world-wide became largest APL services in the world
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
CP67l, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
HONE (and APL) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Mainframe, Workstation, Cellphone CPU Date: 16 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookMid-90s, after leaving IBM, was brought into the largest ACP/TPF airline res system to look at the ten impossible things they couldn't do; started with ROUTES ... got a complete softcopy of OAG (all commercial schedule airline flts in the world) and redid implementation on Unix workstation that ran 100 times faster than on ACP/TPF. Then added the impossible things and only ten times faster ... but after a couple months was able to demo on unix workstation and show that ten RS/6000-990s could handle all ROUTE request for all airlines in the world.
1993 benchmarks (number of program iterations compared to industry
standard MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
• RS6000/990 : 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
Less than decade later, cellphone (XSCALE) processor had more MIPS
than ten 990s.
trivia: HA/6000 was approved 1988, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename
it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (planning on using Hursley 9333
for mid-range and full FCS for both technical and commercial scaleup).
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the commercial market.
other trivia: When I 1st transfer out to SJR on westcoast, I worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/Relational, System/R (all work done on VM370). I considered that it was some IMS and "EAGLE" (next great DBMS) forces that stood in way of release. There eventually was joint study with BofA that had ordered 60 VM4341s for System/R. Then was able to do tech transfer ("under the radar" while company was preoccupied with "EAGLE") to Endicott for SQL/DS. Then when "EAGLE" implodes there is a request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS .... which eventually ships as DB2, originally for decision support *ONLY*.
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#cmp
System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
Posts mentioning ACP/TPF, airline, route
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#45 STL Channel Extender
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#85 IBM OS/360, ACP/TPF, CICS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#55 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#92 IBM TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#122 Assembler language and code optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#90 Has anybody worked on SABRE for American Airlines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#74 MVS/TSO and VM370/CMS Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#8 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#96 Mainframe Assembler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#77 IBM ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#76 IBM ITPS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#58 Man Versus System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015f.html#5 Can you have a robust IT system that needs experts to run it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015d.html#84 ACP/TPF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#87 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#43 Sabre; The First Online Reservation System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#42 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#53 Article says mainframe most cost-efficient platform
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#2 Computers in Science Fiction
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: DEC VAXCluster, IBM HA/CMP Date: 17 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookArchived post with VAX sales sliced&diced by year, model, us/non-us, along with some cluster stats.
IBM 4300s sold in the same mid-range market in similar numbers for small unit orders. Biggest difference was large corporations with orders of hundreds of VM4341s at a time for placing out in departmental areas (sort of the leading edge of the coming distributed computing tsunami).
1988 got HA/6000 approved, originally for NYTimes to move newspaper
system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (was down the road in IBM
VLSI Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (planning on using Hursley 9333
for mid-range and full FCS for both technical and commercial scaleup).
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the commercial market.
1993 benchmarks (number of program iterations compared to industry
standard MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, 51MIPS/CPU
• RS6000/990 : 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS, 128-systems: 16BIPS
other trivia: When I 1st transferred out to SJR on westcoast, I worked
with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/Relational, System/R
(all work done on VM370). I considered that it was some IMS and
"EAGLE" (next great DBMS) forces that stood in way of release. There
eventually was joint study with BofA that had ordered 60 VM4341s for
System/R. Then was able to do tech transfer ("under the radar" while
company was preoccupied with "EAGLE") to Endicott for SQL/DS. Then
when "EAGLE" implodes there is a request for how fast could System/R
be ported to MVS .... which eventually ships as DB2, originally for
decision support *ONLY*.
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
fiber-channel standard (FCS) and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
Original SQL/Relational, System/R
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory Date: 17 May, 2026 Blog: Facebook... account customers weren't converting to MVS and IBM started special bonuses for sales&marketing to get customers to convert to MVS (I was at that SHARE).
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling announce start to charge for (application) software (managed to make the case that kernel software was still free), SE Services, maint, etc.
Early last decade was asked to track down executive decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that REGION size had to be specified four times larger than used. As a result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 would only run four REGIONs concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory allowed number of concurrent REGIONs to be increased by a factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging (sort of like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). I would periodically drop in on Ludlow who was doing the initial implementation work of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (pending engineering 370 system with virtual memory). A little bit of code to build virtual memory tables and simple paging. The biggest issue was EXCP/SVC0 was now being called with channel programs that had CCWs with virtual addresses (and channels required real addresses). The same issue in CP67 for virtual machines, and Ludlow borrows CP67's CCWTRANS to incorporate into EXCP.
Problem was as systems became larger, VS2 needed more than 15 concurrent REGIONS ... and VS2 evolves from single address space (SVS) to address space for every execution (MVS).
In parallel with 370 virtual memory 1st part of 70s, there was "Future
System" program, completely different from 370 and planned to
completely replace 370 (internal politics was killing off 370 efforts
and the lack of new 370s during the period is credited with giving the
clone 370 makers their market foothold).
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
When FS implodes, there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipeline, including kicking off 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel. With the rise of 370 clone makers, there is also decision to start charging for kernel software ... staring with new incremental kernel add-ons and eventually charging for all kernel software in the 80s (and the OCO-wars with customers ... object code only).
When I 1st joined the Cambridge Scientific Center, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters (one of the 1st and long time customers was the online sales&marketing support HONE systems). With the decision to start charging for new kernel add-on, some of my internal system code was selected to be the initial guinea pig.
During FS I continued to work on 360 and 370 and would periodically ridicule what they were doing ... wasn't exactly career enhancing .. especially when I turned out to be right. One of the last nails in the FS coffin was study by Houston Scientific Center that if 370/195 applications were redone for FS machine made out of fastest hardware technology available, they would have throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times slowdown)
Unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
charging for kernel software posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#52 Time-Sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#31 IBM Silicon Valley Lab
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#2 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#92 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#91 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#115 IBM VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#123 VM370/CMS and MVS/TSO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#83 Scheduler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#45 Wheeler Scheduler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#87 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#113 VM370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#58 Stanford SLAC (and BAYBUNCH)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#50 Channel Program I/O Processing Efficiency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#42 Automated Benchmarking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#3 Cloud computing's destiny
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#89 IBM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#15 IBM Recruiting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016g.html#29 Computer hard drives have shrunk like crazy over the last 60 years -- here's a look back
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#15 History of Hard-coded Offsets
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#37 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#16 No Glory for the PDP-15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005n.html#21 Code density and performance?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#42 wheeler scheduler and hpo
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#45 hung/zombie users ... long boring, wandering story
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003.html#5 vax6k.openecs.org rebirth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#74 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#2 Schedulers
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory Date: 18 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
trivia: "not career enhancing activity" scientific centers were DPD and after unbundling, DPD employees that developed & shipped software product got 1st month fee charged for each copy shipped. Two months before my kernel add-on shipped, two CSC employees shipped "VS/REPACK" (traced applications and does automagic program reorganization to improve performance running in virtual memory). The month before my kernel add-on ("Dynamic Adaptive Resource Manager" ... $895/month) shipped, Scientific Centers were removed from employees being eligible and the month it shipped, almost immediately, 1000 customers signed up (would have been $895,000)
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling announce posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
dynamic adaptive resource management posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
past posts mentioning science center, VS/Repack, and dynamic adaptive
resource management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#129 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#61 Performance Monitoring, Analysis, Simulation, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#37 Some CP67, Future System and other history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#20 Operating System, what is it?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#9 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#8 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#16 Kernels
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#78 CPU time differences for the same job
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#41 Age of IBM VM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#23 Strobe equivalents
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#15 {SPAM?} Re: Expanded Storage
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005o.html#5 Code density and performance?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#17 More on garbage collection
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#48 Secure design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#41 Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#76 Athlon cache question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#15 Disk capacity and backup solutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#15 Alpha performance, why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#45 cp/67 addenda (cross-post warning)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#28 OS Workloads : Interactive etc
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: More IBM Downturn and Downfall Date: 19 May, 2026 Blog: Facebooklate 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at a annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but open the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us drop by his investments to see if would could give some help.
The communication group datacenter stranglehold wasn't just disks and
couple years later, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history
of US companies and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breakup of the company (take-off on baby-bell breakup
a decade earlier).
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
1972, Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists,
and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of
management briefings 1958-1988
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/IBM_Thirty_Years_of_Mangement_Briefings_1958-1988.pdf
Future System disaster, from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
FS was completely different than 370 and was going to replace 370;
internal politics was killing off 370 efforts and the lack of new 370
is credited with giving the 370 clone makers their market
foothold. When FS finally imploded, there was mad rush to get stuff
back in the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off quick and dirty
3033&3081 in parallel. One of the last nails in the FS coffin was
study by the IBM Houston Scientific Center; redo 370/195 applications
for a FS machine made out of the fastest available hardware
technology, would have throughput of 370/145 (slowdown something like
30 times). Also claims that any other company with loss/failure the
magnitude of FS would have gone bankrupt? More FS:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
Late 70s and early 80s, I was blamed for online computer conferencing (precursor to social media) on the internal computer network, it didn't really take-off until spring of 1981 when I distributed trip report of visit to Jim Gray at Tandem
Only about 300 directly participated but claims that 25,000 were
reading. From IBMJargon:
https://havantcivicsociety.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ibmjarg.pdf
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh
of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry
middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely
distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed
dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and
also constructively criticized the way products were [are]
developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious
interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try
reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.
... snip ...
--- six copies of 300 page extraction from the memos were printed and
packaged in Tandem 3ring binders, sending to each member of the
executive committee, along with executive summary and executive
summary of the executive summary (folklore was 5of6 corporate
executive committee wanted to fire me). From summary of summary:
• The perception of many technical people in IBM is that the company is
rapidly heading for disaster. Furthermore, people fear that this
movement will not be appreciated until it begins more directly to
affect revenue, at which point recovery may be impossible
• Many technical people are extremely frustrated with their management
and with the way things are going in IBM. To an increasing extent,
people are reacting to this by leaving IBM. Most of the contributors
to the present discussion would prefer to stay with IBM and see the
problems rectified. However, there is increasing skepticism that
correction is possible or likely, given the apparent lack of
commitment by management to take action
• There is a widespread perception that IBM management has failed to
understand how to manage technical people and high-technology
development in an extremely competitive environment
... snip ...
Opel's obit ...
https://www.pcworld.com/article/243311/former_ibm_ceo_john_opel_dies.html
According to the New York Times, it was Opel who met with Bill Gates,
CEO of the then-small software firm Microsoft, to discuss the
possibility of using Microsoft PC-DOS OS for IBM's
about-to-be-released PC. Opel set up the meeting at the request of
Gates' mother, Mary Maxwell Gates. The two had both served on the
National United Way's executive committee.
... snip ...
... before ms/dos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
there was Seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before Seattle computer, there was CP/M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before developing CP/M, Kildall worked on IBM CP/67 (precursor to
VM/370) at NPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School
... aka CP/M "Microprocessor" rather than "CP/67"
Communication group datacenter stranglehold posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
Online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: More IBM Downturn and Downfall Date: 19 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
After transferring from CSC to SJR, in the early 80s, I got HSDT
project, T1 and faster computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and
battles with the communication group (60s had 2701 that supported T1
links, 70s issues with VTAM capped controllers at 56kbits). Also
working with NSF director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect
the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some
other things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part
based on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
Communication group datacenter stranglehold posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
internet posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: More IBM Downturn and Downfall Date: 20 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
My (future) wife did a stint in the gburg JES group (reporting to Crabtree, Crabtree & Simpson had been in Houston on HASP) and one of the catchers for ASP/JES3 ... also one of the co-authors of "JESUS" (JES Unified System) , all the features of JES2 & JES3 that the respective users couldn't live w/o (for whatever reason never came to fruition).
Then was con'ed into going to POK responsible for loosely-coupled
architecture (Peer-Coupled Shared Data) ... didn't remain long: 1)
periodic battles with the communication group trying to force her into
using SNA/VTAM for loosely-coupled operation and 2) little uptake
(until much later with SYSPLEX and Parallel SYSPLEX) except for IMS
Hot-Standby. She has story about asking Vern Watts who he would ask
permission to do Hot-Standby, he replies "nobody, he would just tell
them when it is all done".
https://www.vcwatts.org/ibm_story.html
HASP/JES2, ASP/JES3, NJE/NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
Peer-Coupled Shared Data posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Protect Visual Basic Investment Date: 20 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookJan1996 MSDC at Moscone center there were "Internet" banners everywhere ... but constant refrain in every session was "protect your investment" ... aka automatic execution of visual basic in data files (including email).
a few posts mentioning Jan1996 MSDC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#124 MOSAIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#113 CERN WWW, Browsers and Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#70 HSDT, HA/CMP, NSFNET, Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#32 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#91 Vintage Christmas Tree Exec, Email, Virus, and phone book
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#9 Viruses & Exploits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#53 Conflicts with IBM Communication Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#41 Security
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2020.html#19 What is a mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#16 The Microsoft security hole at the heart of Russian election hacking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#19 Is it a lost cause?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#79 Is it a lost cause?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#69 Open DoD's Doors To Cyber Talent, Carter Asks Congress
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#20 Computer theft 1971
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#87 On a lighter note, even the Holograms are demonstrating
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014h.html#23 weird trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#11 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#10 It's all K&R's fault
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013k.html#68 Steve B sees what investors think
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#66 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 3350FH and 1655 Date: 23 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookWhen I transferred to SJR I got to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg15/product test, across the street. They said that they were doing 7x24, prescheduled stand along testing and had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment), requiring manual re-ipl. I offer to rewrite I/O Supervisor to make it bullet proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. I then wanted to do multiple-exposure for 3350FH (similar to 2305).... so could do FH data transfer overlapped with arm movement. There was VULCAN group in POK that got it canceled (thought it might compete) ... however before VULCAN (electronic disk) was released, it was canceled (claim was that all electronic memory made was already being sold as processor memory at higher profit) was canceled.
Bldg15 then got 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. Disk testing was only taking a percent or two of CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 controller and 3330 string and set up our private online service. The FBA group was running air bearing simulation (thin-film head design) on SJR 370/195 but only getting a couple turn arounds a month. We set them up on bldg15 3033 and they could get a few turn arounds a day.
Then early 80s, IBM was getting non-IBM electronic disk as paging devices for internal datacenters (gen'ed as "1655"). Simulating CKD-mode only ran at 1.5mbyte/sec channel. Gen'ed as FBA-mode would run 3mbyte/sec data streaming.
I was officially in research across the street, but I kept being asked to play disk engineer in 14&15 ... and also got part of wing in VLSI Group Los Gatos lab.
posts mentioning getting to play disk engineer in bldg14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
some posts that mention both 3350FH and 1655
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#58 IBM DASD, CKD, FBA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#70 Building the System/360 Mainframe Nearly Destroyed IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#61 IBM "Winchester" Disk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#29 IBM Disks and Drums
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#84 Vintage DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#49 IBM 3350FH, Vulcan, 1655
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#38 Disk optimization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#65 IBM DASD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021f.html#75 Mainframe disks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#36 National Telephone Day
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Career, Promotions, Raises Date: 23 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookAfter joining IBM science center, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and (online sales&marketing support) HONE was one of my first (and long time) customers. I also got to attend user group meetings and drop by customers. One of the directors of one of the largest financial datacenters liked me to stop by and talk technology. At one point, the IBM branch manager horribly offended the customer and in retaliation, they ordered a single (lone) Amdahl machine (in vast sea of blue). Amdahl had been selling into technical/scientific and univ. market, but this would be first true-blue commercial account. I was asked to go onsite at the customer for 8-12 months (to obfuscate the reason for the Amdahl order). I talk it over with the customer and decline IBM's offer. I was then told that the branch manager was good sailing buddy of a senior IBM executive, and if I didn't, I could forget raises, promotions, career.
1972, Possibly contributing, Learson tried (& failed) to block the
bureaucrats, careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson
culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of management briefings 1958-1988
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/IBM_Thirty_Years_of_Mangement_Briefings_1958-1988.pdf
Future System disaster
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. Then when
ACS/360 was killed, he leaves IBM:
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Employed at IBM for almost 15yrs (previously had fulltime jobs at Univ responsible for OS/360 and then in small group reporting to Boeing CFO helping with the formation of Boeing Computer Services, consolidating all dataprocessing into independent business unit), I submit an IBM "Speak UP" that I was underpaid with lots of supporting information. I get back written reply from head of HR that after detailed review of my whole career, I was being paid exactly what I was suppose to. I then create copy of everything with a written cover letter to send back ... pointing out that I was being asked to interview people, that were about to graduate, for a new group that would be operating under my technical direction ... and they were being offered starting salary 30% more than I was currently making. I never get a written reply, but within a few weeks, I get a 30% raise (putting me on level playing field with new graduates). Not the first time, co-workers had to remind me in IBM, "Business Ethics" is an oxymoron. At the time I was in San Jose, my badge not only worked in research, but a lot of disk division and in the Los Gatos VLSI lab (which had also given me part of wing, offices and labs).
trivia: After IBM 23June1969 unbundling announce, IBM started charging for (application) software, SE Services, Maint, etc. SE training previously included being part of group onsite at customer, but IBM couldn't figure out how not to charge for trainee SEs at customer. Result was CP67 datacenters around US that branch office trainees could dial-in and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines. CSC had also ported APL\360 to CMS as CMS\APL and HONE started doing CMS\APL-based online sales&marketing support apps ... which started to dominate all CP67 (and later VM370) use (and trainee guest operating system practice just withered away). HONE also cons me into going along for the early non-US HONE installs.
post mentioning unbundling announce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
A few past posts mentioning career, promotions, raises:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#35 IBM Business Conduct Guidelines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#95 IBM Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#15 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#82 Kinder/Gentler IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#47 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Just How Bad Was The Intel IAPX432? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Mon, 25 May 2026 07:54:10 -1000Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> writes:
I had recently done something similar for entry IBM 370 ... but it was microcode ... scheduling/dispatching for five CPU SMP, I/O drivers, etc. ... so I could sympathize.
posts mentioning 5-CPU 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bounce
posts mentioning SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
past post mentioning i432
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#96 5-CPU 370/125
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#17 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#16 The joy of FORTRAN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#114 Copyright Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#22 Copyright Software
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#38 IBM Boeblingen
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#91 IBM XT/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019e.html#27 PC Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#33 IBM Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#52 All programmers that developed in machine code and Assembly in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s died?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#28 Eliminating the systems programmer was Re: IBM cuts contractor bil ling by 15 percent (our else)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#61 Typesetting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#63 PL/I advertising
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#62 PL/I advertising
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#107 IBM 360/85 vs. 370/165
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014k.html#23 1950: Northrop's Digital Differential Analyzer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#33 Delay between idea and implementation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#57 1132 printer history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#14 International Business Marionette
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#42 i432 on Bitsavers?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#15 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#79 Selectric Typewriter--50th Anniversary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#91 If IBM Hadn't Bet the Company
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#7 RISCversus CISC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#22 Personal use z/OS machines was Re: Multiprise 3k for personal Use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#40 Faster image rotation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#8 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#45 IA64
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#1 IA64
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#74 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#46 U.S. begins inquiry of IBM in mainframe market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#52 Lack of bit field instructions in x86 instruction set because of patents ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#22 CLIs and GUIs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#32 CPU time differences for the same job
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#54 Throwaway cores
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007s.html#36 Oracle Introduces Oracle VM As It Leaps Into Virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#44 Any resources on VLIW?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#42 Why is zSeries so CPU poor?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#47 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#46 Performance and Capacity Planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#64 Misuse of word "microcode"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#73 Athlon cache question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#64 Will multicore CPUs have identical cores?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#60 Will multicore CPUs have identical cores?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#52 Infiniband - practicalities for small clusters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#27 iAPX432 today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#6 Ridiculous
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Online Systems Date: 25 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookIn college took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers. At the end of the semester, I was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO (709 tape->tape, 1401 reader/punch/printer front-end) in assembler for 360/30. Univ. was getting 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily until availability of 360/67s. Univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). I was given pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card 360/30 assembler program
360/67 arrived within year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never came to fruition). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over minute. I install HASP for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs.
CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support and auto-terminal ident,
capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also
had TTY33&35 and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal
type. I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired line speed ... so we
start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel interface board
for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller with the addition
for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for channel interface
and cluster of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Interdata (and later
Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone controller business
Before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton largest datacenter in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing Field for payroll, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff. 747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification. Tours of mock-up of 747 cabin just south of Boeing field would claim 747s carried so many passengers, they would never have fewer than four jetways. Both Boeing and IBM told stories about on 360 announcement day, Boeing submitted an order making the IBM marketing rep, highest paid IBM employee that year. Sales was still straight commission; the next year, IBM shifts to quota.
Boeing Huntsville had got a 2-CPU 360/67 with several 2250 graphic displays for TSS/360 CAD/CAM (but tss/360 wasn't production), so configured as two MVTR13 systems. They ran into same problems that resulted in decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and modified MVTR13 to run in virtual memory mode (but w/o paging). When I graduated, I joined the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying w/CFO) and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters.
Early last decade I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that region sizes had to be specified four times larger than used, limit standard 1mbyte, 370/165 to four concurrent running regions, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Running MVT in 16mbyte virtual address space (similar to running MVT in a 360/67, CP/67 16mbyte virtual machine) allowed number of concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four times (capped at 15 concurrent regions because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging. Ludlow was doing the initial implementation of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (until engineering 370 with virtual memory) and I would drop by periodically. He had a little bit of code for the 16mbyte virtual address space and some simple paging. Biggest task was channel programs passed to EXCP/SVC0 now had virtual addresses and channels required real addresses and he borrows CP67's CCWTRANS for integrating into EXCP (creating channel program copies, replacing virtual with real addresses).
Machines & systems were getting larger and needed to move past (4bit storage protect key) 15 concurrent region limit and started giving each region its own 16mbyte virtual address space (VS2/MVS), however OS/360 ancestry was heavily pointer-passing API, and so mapped an 8mbyte image of the MVS kernel into every address space (leaving 8mbyes). Then every subsystem went to their own 16mbyte virtual address space and for passing info to/from subsystem calls, mapped a one mbyte "Common Segment Area" into every address space, leaving 7mbytes. Common area requirement somewhat proportional to number of concurrent regions and subsystems ... and by 3033 common area exploded to 5-6mbytes as Common System Area leaving 3-2mbytes (and threatening to become 8mbyte CSA, leaving zero) .... part of the desperate need getting to MVS/XA.
70s channel attached 3272&3277 was getting .086 hardware response and studies were starting to show that (total) .25sec response was showing improved productivity. Some number of VM370 systems was claiming quarter second system response ... however I was showing .11sec system response plus (3272&3277) hardware .086sec response equals .196sec, meeting quarter sec (total) response. For 80s 3274&3278, lots of electronics was moved back into (shared) controller driving up coax protocol chatter to .3-.5sec hardware response (depending on amount of data). MVS users hardly noticed since it was rare that MVS system response even made 1sec. Complaining letters to 3278 product administrator got response that 3278 was not intended for interactive computing, but (electronic keypunch) data entry. Later IBM/PC 3277 emulation cards had 4-5 times the throughput of 3278 emulation cards.
trivia: IBM US 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement started charging for (application) software (made case kernel software was still free), SE services, maint, etc. SE training used to be part of group of SEs at customer site. After unbundling, IBM couldn't figure out how NOT to charge for trainee SEs at the customer's location. Eventually it was decided to deploy several CP67 datacenters where branch office SEs would dial-in and practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines (and HONE was one of my 1st and long time customers). CSC also ported APL\360 to CMS as CMS\APL, replacing 16kbyte swapped workspaces with large virtual memory, demand paged workspaces ... also APIs supporting use of system services like file I/O ... enabling real world applications. HONE then started offering online CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support applications which came to dominate all CP67 use (and guest operating system use just withered away).
I had transferred out to SJR (my CSC/VM becoming SJR/VM) and worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on original SQL/relational, System/R (all work occurring with VM370/CMS). IMS and great new DBMS "EAGLE" forces contributed to System/R not released as IBM product (although System/R joint study with BofA ordering 60 VM/4341s). Then was able to do tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS ("under the radar" while company was preoccupied with "EAGLE"). Then when "EAGLE" implodes there was request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS ... eventually released as DB2 (originally for decision support only).
I also got to wander around silicon valley datacenters, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg5/product test, across the street. They were running 7x24, prescheduled, stand-alone testing. They mentioned that they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (requiring manual IPL) in that environment. I offered to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 would get early engineering systems for test and got the 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. Testing took only percent or two of CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 controller and 3330 string and setup our own private online service. I write a I/O Integrity research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MBTF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
IBM 23jun1969 unbundling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
Original SQL/relational
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
getting to play disk engineer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
some recent posts mentioning 3272/3277 & 3274/3278 hardware response:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#9 IBM Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#91 Re-impl Controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#75 Interactive response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#31 IBM 3274/3278
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#53 IBM 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#47 IBM 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#6 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#0 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#115 SHARE, MVT, MVS, TSO
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#47 IBM Datacenters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#127 3270 Controllers and Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#69 old pharts, Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#12 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#13 MVS/ISPF Editor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#19 IBM Millicode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#68 IBM 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#70 MVS/TSO and VM370/CMS Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023f.html#78 Vintage Mainframe PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#0 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#4 IBM 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#2 big and little, Can BCD and binary multipliers share circuitry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#96 IBM 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#68 IBM Mainframe market was Re: Approximate reciprocals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#110 IBM 4341 & 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#33 IBM 3270 Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#94 VM/370 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#74 IBM 3278
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#69 IBM MYTE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#92 IBM SNA/VTAM (& HSDT)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#84 3272/3277 interactive computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019c.html#4 3270 48th Birthday
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018d.html#32 Walt Doherty - RIP
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 3350FH and 1655 Date: 26 May, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
business card titles; had battles to not have any title at all ... none at the science center, after transfer to san jose research ... "staff member" or sometimes "research staff member". Then for various transgressions was transferred to Yorktown research hdqtrs on the east coast, left to live in san jose, kept offices in SJR, then Almaden with move up the hill and part of wing in Los Gatos VLSI lab ... but had to commute to YKT a couple times a month
Knights of VM
http://mvmua.org/knights.html
Mainframe Hall of Fame
https://web.archive.org/web/20110727105535/http://www.mainframezone.com/blog/mainframe-hall-of-fame-four-new-members-added/
full list
https://web.archive.org/web/20210613131721/https://www.enterprisesystemsmedia.com/mainframehalloffame
Mar/Apr '05 eserver magazine article (some text garbled)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200103152517/http://archive.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/stop-run/making-history/
some post posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#68 IBM Suits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#56 Computer science hot major in college (article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#30 OFF TOPIC: University of California, Irvine, revokes 500 admissions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016g.html#52 "I used a real computer at home...and so will you" (Popular Science May 1967)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005e.html#4 Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 2321 Datacell, CICS Date: 27 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookIn college took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers. At the end of the semester, I was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO (709 tape->tape, 1401 reader/punch/printer front-end) in assembler for 360/30. Univ. was getting 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily until availability of 360/67s. Univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). I was given pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card 360/30 assembler program
360/67 arrived within year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never came to fruition). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over a minute. I install HASP for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
Univ. library got ONR grant for online catalog and used some of the money for 2321 datacell. IBM also selected catalog project as betatest for the CICS program product and CICS support was added to my tasks (1st problem was CICS wouldn't come up, problem was CICS had hard coded some BDAM options and library had built BDAM files with different set of options).
Nearly 30yrs later (after leaving IBM) was brought into NIH NLM to discuss support for UMLS and a couple of original developers were still there and spent time gossiping about the 60s.
posts mentioning CICS and/or BDAM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#bdam
Some past posts mentioning NIH NLM UMLS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#33 IBM 23June1969 Unbundling Announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#7 Ingenious librarians
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#74 WAIS. Z39.50
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022c.html#39 After IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#13 Graph database on z/OS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#55 Brain size of human ancestors evolved gradually over 3 million years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#54 Brain size of human ancestors evolved gradually over 3 million years
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#57 Stopping the Internet of noise
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#34 The head of the Census Bureau just quit, and the consequences are huge
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#14 Fast OODA-Loops increase Maneuverability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#55 Difference between MVS and z / OS systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#87 Old data storage or data base
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#74 Speculation ONLY
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#47 Where should the type information be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#45 Where should the type information be?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#57 Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#0 Relational vs network vs hierarchic databases
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#67 Relational vs network vs hierarchic databases
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#52 Specifying all biz rules in relational data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#53 c.d.theory glossary (repost)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm15.htm#15 Resolving an identifier into a meaning
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM System/360 Date: 28 May, 2026 Blog: FacebookIn college took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers. At the end of the semester, I was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO (709 tape->tape, 1401 reader/punch/printer front-end) in assembler for 360/30. Univ. was getting 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily until availability of 360/67s. Univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). I was given pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card 360/30 assembler program
360/67 arrived within year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never came to fruition). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over a minute. I install HASP for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs. NOTE, officially 360/67 was for TSS/360, then when TSS/360 was decommitted, they had 1200 people ... at a time when CSC had 12 CP67/CMS people.
CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support and auto-terminal ident,
capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also
had TTY33&35 and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal
type. I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired line speed ... so we
start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel interface board
for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller with the addition
for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for channel interface
and cluster of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Interdata (and later
Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone
controller business
Before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit, including services for non-Boeing entities). I think Renton largest datacenter in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room. Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing Field for payroll, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff. 747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification. Tours of mock-up of 747 cabin just south of Boeing field would claim 747s carried so many passengers, they would never be serviced by fewer than four jetways. Both Boeing and IBM told stories about on 360 announcement day, Boeing submitted an order making the IBM marketing rep, highest paid IBM employee that year. Sales was still straight commission; the following year, IBM moves to "quota".
Boeing Huntsville had got a 2-CPU 360/67 with several 2250 graphic displays for TSS/360 CAD/CAM (but tss/360 wasn't production), so configured as two MVTR13 systems. They ran into same problems that resulted in decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and modified MVTR13 to run in virtual memory mode (but w/o paging). When I graduated, I joined the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying w/CFO) and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters.
Early last decade was asked to track down executive decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that REGION size had to be specified four times larger than used. As a result a typical 1mbyte 370/165 would only run four REGIONs concurrently, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory allowed number of concurrent REGIONs to be increased by a factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging (sort of like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). I would periodically drop in on Ludlow who was doing the initial implementation work of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (pending engineering 370 system with virtual memory). A little bit of code to build virtual memory tables and simple paging. The biggest issue was EXCP/SVC0 was now being called with channel programs that had CCWs with virtual addresses (and channels required real addresses). The same issue in CP67 for virtual machines, and Ludlow borrows CP67's CCWTRANS to incorporate into EXCP.
Overlapping adding virtual memory to all 370s, was Future System,
completely different than 370s and was going to completely replace
it. Internal politics was killing 370 projects and claims are that the
lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving clone 370 makers
(including Amdahl) their market foothold. When FS implodes there is
mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including
kicking off quick and dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel. One of
the final nails in the FS coffin was study by IBM Houston Science
Center that if 370/195 apps were redone for a FS machine out of the
fastest available hardware technology, it would have throughput of
370/145 (something like 30 times slowdown)
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. Then when
ACS/360 was killed, he leaves IBM:
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html
Early 80s, I'm introduced to John Boyd and would sponsor his briefings
at IBM. He had lots of stories including being very vocal that
electronics across the trail wouldn't work and possibly as punishment
is put in command of "spook base" (about the same time I'm at
Boeing). He claimed "spook base" had largest air conditioned bldg in
that part of the world. Boyd biography claims that "spook base" was
$2.5B "windfall" for IBM.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_M._Gray_Jr%2E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Books-by-topic/MCUP-Titles-A-Z/A-New-Conception-of-War/
John Boyd - USAF The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of Air Warfare
http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/boyd.htm
His fame came on the wings of the quirky and treacherous F-100; the
infamous "Hun." Boyd was known throughout the Air Force as
"Forty-Second Boyd," because he had a standing offer to all pilots
that if they could defeat them in simulated air-to-air combat in under
40 seconds, he would pay them $40. Like any gunslinger with a name and
a reputation, he was called out many times. As an instructor at the
Fighter Weapons School (FWS) at Nellis AFB, he fought students, cadre
pilots, Marine and Navy pilots, and pilots from a dozen countries, who
were attending the FWS as part of the Mutual Defense Assistance Pact.
...
Boyd then used E-M as a design tool. Until E-M came along, fighter
aircraft had been designed to fly fast in a straight line or fly high
to reach enemy bombers. The F-X, which became the F-15, was the first
Air Force fighter ever designed with maneuvering specifications. Boyd
was the father of the F-15, the F-16, and the F-18.
... snip ...
1989/1990, the Marine Corps Commandant leverages Boyd for a corps make-over (at a time when IBM was desperately in need of make-over). By the time Boyd passed in 1997, the USAF had pretty much disowned him and it was the Marines at Arlington. We continued to have Boyd conferences at Quantico MCU up through last decade.
Early 90s, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies and was being re-orged into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the comapny (take-off on "baby bell"
breakup a decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
Boyd posts and WEB URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
recent posts mentioning Univ, Boeing, OS/360, CP67/CM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#70 IBM Online Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#68 IBM Career, Promotions, Raises
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#52 Time-Sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#49 CSC, CP40/CMS, CP67/CMS, Boeing Computer Services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#14 Bad Responsee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#4 IBM Virtual Machine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#98 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#95 CP67/CMS, CMS\APL, HONE, VM370/CMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#91 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#83 Touch Type, Typewriters, Terminals
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#82 IBM DASD, CKD, FBA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#78 IBM OS Debugging
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#67 Early Mainframe work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#59 IBM CP67 and VM370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#53 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#48 UofM MTS and IBM CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#28 360 Channel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#24 IBM 360, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#104 Early Mainframe Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#84 IBM 360, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#74 IBM 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#64 IBM Module Prefixes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#57 IBM 360/30 and other 360s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#16 CTSS, Multics, Unix, CSC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#9 IBM Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#3 Switching On A VAX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#112 Mainframe and Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#99 IBM Fortran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#91 IBM VM370 And Pascal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#72 Boeing, IBM, CATIA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#69 VM/CMS: Concepts and Facilities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#55 Boeing Computer Services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#28 Univ, Boeing/Renton, IBM/HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#16 Some VM370 History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#15 MVT/HASP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#115 IBM VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#103 IBM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#64 IBM Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#56 IBM OS/2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#55 Univ, 360/67, OS/360, Boeing, Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#95 MVT to VS2/SVS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#85 An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#47 IBM Datacenters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#38 IBM Computers in the 60s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#24 Forget About Cloud Computing. On-Premises Is All the Rage Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#111 Computers, Online, And Internet Long Time Ago
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#105 Giant Steps for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#91 IBM Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#8 IBM OS/360 MFT HASP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#6 IBM 37x5
recent posts mentioning 370 virtual memory, mvt, ludlow
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#70 IBM Online Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#61 Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#54 VM4341 Cluster Supercomputing and Departmental Distributed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#52 Time-Sharing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#47 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#5 Self-hosting and the 6502
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#4 IBM Virtual Machine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#2 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#98 IBM 360&370 Experience
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#91 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#88 IBM HONE Training
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#60 IBM 135/145, 138/148, 4331/4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#48 UofM MTS and IBM CP67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#12 IBM Virtual Machine and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#115 Comsat
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#106 CP67, VM370, MVT, VS2/SVS, VS2/MVS, MVS/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#105 Early Mainframe Work
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#103 IBM CSC, HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#84 IBM 360, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#71 IBM 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#68 Mainframe to PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#46 IBM 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#100 Stanford WYLBUR, ORVYL, MILTON
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#91 IBM VM370 And Pascal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#82 360/67 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#69 VM/CMS: Concepts and Facilities
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#19 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#108 IBM OS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#79 IBM System/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#95 MVT to VS2/SVS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#120 Microcode and Virtual Machine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#15 Dataprocessing Innovation
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Executives and Downfall Date: 29 May, 2026 Blog: Facebook1972, Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of management briefings 1958-1988
Future System disaster,
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Late 80s, senior disk engineer gets a talk scheduled at annual, world-wide, internal communication group conference supposedly on 3174 performance, but opens the talk with statement that communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division (GPD/AdStar). They were seeing drop in disk sales with data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms. GPD/AdStar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were constantly being vetoed by the communication group (with their corporate responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls). GPD/AdStar software executive partial countermeasure was investing in distributed computing startups and would ask us to drop by his investments (like NCAR's "Mesa Archival" spinoff) to see if we can offer any help.
Early 80s, I was introduced to John Boyd and use to sponsor his briefings. 1989/1990, Marine Corps Commandant leverages Boyd for a corps make-over (at a time IBM was desperately in need of make-over) and sponsored Boyd conferences at Quantico MCU up through last decade.
1992, communication group stranglehold on datacenters wasn't just
disks and IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US
companies and was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in
preparation for breaking up the company (take-off on "baby bell"
breakup decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
We had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the
board brings in the former AMEX president as CEO to try and save the
company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same
techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
Late 70s and early 80s, I was blamed for online computer conferencing (precursor to social media) on the internal computer network, it didn't really take-off until spring of 1981 when I distributed trip report of visit to Jim Gray at Tandem
Only about 300 directly participated but claims that 25,000 were
reading. From IBMJargon:
https://havantcivicsociety.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ibmjarg.pdf
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh
of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry
middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely
distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed
dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and
also constructively criticized the way products were [are]
developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious
interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try
reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.
... snip ...
six copies of 300 page extraction from the memos were printed and
packaged in Tandem 3ring binders, sending to each member of the
executive committee, along with executive summary and executive
summary of the executive summary (folklore was 5of6 corporate
executive committee wanted to fire me). From summary of summary:
• The perception of many technical people in IBM is that the company is
rapidly heading for disaster. Furthermore, people fear that this
movement will not be appreciated until it begins more directly to
affect revenue, at which point recovery may be impossible
• Many technical people are extremely frustrated with their management
and with the way things are going in IBM. To an increasing extent,
people are reacting to this by leaving IBM. Most of the contributors
to the present discussion would prefer to stay with IBM and see the
problems rectified. However, there is increasing skepticism that
correction is possible or likely, given the apparent lack of
commitment by management to take action
• There is a widespread perception that IBM management has failed to
understand how to manage technical people and high-technology
development in an extremely competitive environment
... snip ...
in wake of online computer conferencing, there were task forces to look at the activity and there was official computer conferencing software and official, sanctioned, moderated forums. There was also researcher paid to sit in back of my office (for 9 months) to take notes on how I communicated, face-to-face, telephone, etc ... also got logs of all my instant messages and copies of all my incoming and outgoing email. Material was used for research reports, conference talks & papers, books, and Stanford Phd (joint with language and computer AI).
Opel's obit ...
https://www.pcworld.com/article/243311/former_ibm_ceo_john_opel_dies.html
According to the New York Times, it was Opel who met with Bill Gates,
CEO of the then-small software firm Microsoft, to discuss the
possibility of using Microsoft PC-DOS OS for IBM's
about-to-be-released PC. Opel set up the meeting at the request of
Gates' mother, Mary Maxwell Gates. The two had both served on the
National United Way's executive committee.
... snip ...
... before ms/dos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
there was Seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before Seattle computer, there was CP/M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before developing CP/M, Kildall worked on IBM CP/67 (precursor to VM/370) at NPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School
... aka CP/M "Microprocessor" rather than "CP/67"
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: compilers and architecture, Just How Bad Was The Intel IAPX432? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 31 May 2026 13:52:34 -1000John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
Early last decade, I got asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370. Bascially (os/360) MVT storage management was so bad that REGION sizes frequently had to specified four times larger than used. As result a typical 1mbyte, 370/165 would only run four concurrent regions, throughput insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual address space could increase number of concurrent regions by factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging (similar to running MVT in CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). I had dropped by Ludlow doing the initial implementation, using 360/67 (pending 370 engineering system with virtual memory). He was doing little bit of code to create virtual memory tables and some simple paging. Biggest issue was EXCP/SVC0 was now being passed channel programs with virtual addresses and channels required real addresses (similar to CP67 running virtual machines), and he borrows CP67 CCWTRANS integrated into
One of my hobbies after joining IBM was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters (HONE, online branch office sales&marketing support, was one of the 1st and long time customers). With decision to add virtual memory to all 370s, also including doing VM370. In transition of CP67->VM370, lots of stuff was simplified or dropped (including SMP support). I then start adding a lot of stuff back into VM370R2-base, including kernel reorged needed for SMP support (but not full SMP). Then with VM370R3-base, I put lot more stuff back in, including SMP support, originally for HONE so they could upgrade their 158 & 168 systems to 2-CPU (getting twice throughput of single CPU systems).
I then get sucked into helping with an effort to do 16-CPU 370 SMP (shared memory multiprocessor) and we con the 3033 processor engineers into helping in their spare time (a lot more interesting that remapping 370/168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells head of POK (DSD, high-end systems), that it could be decades before the POK favorite son operating system ("MVS") has effective 16-CPU support (MVS docs were that 2-CPU systems were only getting 1.2-1.5 times throughput of 1-CPU; POK doesn't ship 16-CPU system until after turn of century).
1976, there is an "advanced technology" conference in POK where both 801/RISC and 16-processor is presented. One of the 801/RISC people gives me a bad time claiming he had looked at the VM370 product code which had no SMP support. I've observed that it was the last adtech conference until sometime in the 80s (because so many adtech groups were being thrown into the 370 development breach). I had joked that John came up with 801/RISC to be the opposite of the complexity of "Future System".
Overlapping transition of 370 to virtual memory the 1st half of the 70s was the "Future System" project, completely different than 370 and was suppose to completely replace 370 (I continued to work on 360&370 all during FS and would periodicall ridicule what they were doing). Internal politics was working on shutting down 370 activities and lack of more new 370 during FS is credited with giving the clone 370 system makers (including Amdahl), their market foothold. When FS finally implodes, there is mad rush getting new stuff into 370 product pipelines, including kicking off quick&dirty 3033&3081 efforts in parallel.
Head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again and directed the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions"
Part of 801 presentation was PL.8 would only generate correct code and the CP.r operating system would only execute correct PL.8 code. As a result, 801 RISC didn't need hardware protection domains (things like changing address spaces could be done with inline application code). 801 ROMP chip was originally for OPD Displaywriter follow-on. When Displaywriter follow-on was canceled, they decided to pivot to the UNIX workstation market and hired the company that had done PC/IX (for IBM/PC) to do AIX for the PC/RT workstation (but needed ROMP to support UNIX paradigm hardware protection).
FS had a lot of object-like characteristics, however one of the last
nails in the FS coffin was analysis by IBM Houston Scientific Center
that 370/195 apps redone for a FS machine made with the fastest
technology available, would have throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times
slow down). FS disaster
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE NO
WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in
the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment of face by
the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its wrong
headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during
F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former
top executive
... snip ...
Decade after 16-CPU 370 effort, get project to do HA/6000, originally
for NYTimes to move their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to
RS/6000. I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with RDBMS
vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster support in
same source base with UNIX.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters by
mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on HA/CMP
work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for federal
supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster scale-up is
being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM Supercomputer
(technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to work with
anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few months
later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news ... IBM
establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS, 16-systems: 2BIPS,
128-systems: 16BIPS
Executive we had reported to, goes over to head up Somerset/AIM (Apple,
IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses Motorola
88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.=
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: compilers and architecture, Just How Bad Was The Intel IAPX432? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 31 May 2026 14:41:49 -1000re:
... trivia: after FS implodes, head of POK was convincing corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for (370/XA) MVS/XA ... possibly because of how bad it made POK's favorite son operation system, MVS, look; ... which 16-CPU SMP would have just made MVS look worse.
Endicott (370 mid-range) eventually manages to acquire the VM370 product mission ... but has to recreate a development group from scratch.
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: compilers and architecture, Just How Bad Was The Intel IAPX432? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:08:06 -1000re:
25oct2006 comp.arch/a.f.c post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#9 32 or even 64 registers for x86-64?
with archived 08aug81 email pascal "benchmark" including pascal w/pl.8
backend
6m 30 secs PERQ (with PERQ's Pascal compiler, of course)
4m 55 secs 68000 with PASCAL/PL.8 compiler at OPT 2
0m 21.5 secs 3033 PASCAL/VS with Optimization
0m 10.5 secs 3033 with PASCAL/PL.8 at OPT 0
0m 5.9 secs 3033 with PASCAL/PL.8 at OPT 3
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Early CSC (& CP67/CMS) Date: 29 May, 2026 Blog: Facebooksome of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr for MULTICS. Others went to the IBM Cambridge Science Center on the 4th flr for virtual machines. They had wanted 360/50 to modify with virtual memory, but all the spare 50s were going to FAA/ATC, and they had to settle for 360/40 to modify (w/virtual memory) and did CP40/CMS. CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS (precursor to VM370/CMS) when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available.
CSC also did the CP67-based, wide-area science center network
(technology used for the corporate sponsored university network and
also morphs into the corporate internal network, larger than
arpanet/internet from beginning until sometime mid/late 80s about time
forced to convert to sna/vtam). Account by one of the CSC 1969
inventors of GML (precursor to ISO standard SGML and CERN HTML).
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
360/67 officially was for TSS/360 ... when TSS/360 was "decommitted",
there was something like 1200 people ... another example of Brooks
mythical man-month
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
... and at the time, the CSC CP67/CMS group had something like 12
people (factor of 100 times difference).
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
... more CSC & CP67
In college took two credit hr intro to fortran/computers. At the end of the semester, I was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO (709 tape->tape, 1401 reader/punch/printer front-end) in assembler for 360/30. Univ. was getting 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily until availability of 360/67s. Univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I got the whole place dedicated (although 48hrs w/o sleep made Monday classes hard). I was given pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error recovery, storage management, etc ... and within a few weeks had 2000 card 360/30 assembler program
360/67 arrived within year of taking intro class and I was hired fulltime responsible for os/360 (tss/360 never came to fruition). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over minute. I install HASP for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs.
CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support and auto-terminal ident,
capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also
had TTY33&35 and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal
type. I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired line speed ... so we
start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel interface board
for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller with the addition
for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for channel interface
and cluster of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Interdata (and later
Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone
controller business
clone controller business posts
https://www.garliic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
Before I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton largest datacenter in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room (did have lone 360/75, mostly for classified work). Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing Field for payroll, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff. 747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification. Tours of mock-up of 747 cabin just south of Boeing field would claim 747s carried so many passengers, they would never have fewer than four jetways. Both Boeing and IBM told stories about on 360 announcement day, Boeing submitted an order making the IBM marketing rep, highest paid IBM employee that year. Sales was still straight commission; the next year, IBM shifts to quota.
Boeing Huntsville had got a 2-CPU 360/67 with several 2250 graphic displays for TSS/360 CAD/CAM (but tss/360 wasn't production), so configured as two MVTR13 systems. They ran into same problems that resulted in decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and modified MVTR13 to run in virtual memory mode (but w/o paging).
When I graduated, I joined the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying w/CFO) and one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE online sales&marketing support was one of my first (and long time) customers (growing world wide).
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
Early last decade I was asked to track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that region sizes had to be specified four times larger than used, limit standard 1mbyte, 370/165 to four concurrent running regions, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Running MVT in 16mbyte virtual address space (similar to running MVT in a 360/67, CP/67 16mbyte virtual machine) allowed number of concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four times (capped at 15 concurrent regions because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging. Ludlow was doing the initial implementation of MVT->VS2/SVS on 360/67 (until engineering 370 with virtual memory) and I would drop by periodically. He had a little bit of code for the 16mbyte virtual address space and some simple paging. Biggest task was channel programs passed to EXCP/SVC0 now had virtual addresses and channels required real addresses and he borrows CP67's CCWTRANS for integrating into EXCP (creating channel program copies, replacing virtual with real addresses).
... and much later
Sometime after leaving IBM, joined First Data (in 1992, AMEX had spun
off much of its transaction & financial service outsourcing (will have
all processing aspects for over half of all credit cards in US; in the
largest IPO up until that time) as Chief Scientist (many of top
executives had previously reported to Gerstner). Mid-90s, FDC was in
competition w/First Financial for Western Union (and drops out because
WU poor financials). Shortly afterwards, FDC merges with First
Financial and has to divest MoneyGram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Union#Financial_difficulties,_bankruptcies_and_restructuring_(1984%E2%80%932006)
There is huge lobbying effort starting at turn of century about
bringing in undocumented workers from Mexico and by 2005, Western
Union has exploded to half of total FDC revenue (fees on undocumented
workers sending money home). The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber
of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life
https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Machine-Commerce-Corporate-American-ebook/dp/B00NDTUDHA/
and FDC spins off Western Union (and WU shifts out of message business and more into money transfer).
Slightly garbled (mar/apr '05 article)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200103152517/http://archive.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/stop-run/making-history/
Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Netscape Date: 02 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebook1988 get HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (running project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Sometime after leaving IBM, I was brought in as consultant into small client/server startup. Two of the (former) Oracle people that were in the Ellison/Hester meeting, are there responsible for something they called "commerce server" and they wanted to do payment transactions. The startup had also invented this technology they called "SSL" they wanted to use. I was responsible for everything between commerce servers (now frequently called e-commerce) and payment networks. I then do talk: "Why Internet Isn't Business Critical Dataprocessing" (based on processes, documentation and software I had to do for e-commerce) that (Internet, IETF) RFC standards editor Postel sponsored at ISI/USC.
Netscape was using SUN servers. BSD TCP/IP stack had problem with browser HTTP/HTTPS and FINWAIT linear lookup ... heavy load, spending 95% of CPU running FINWAIT list ... having to keep adding SUN servers and working on various load balancing strategies. Eventually Netscape installs large Sequent multiprocessor with DYNIX that had already fixed the FINWAIT list scanning problem.
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
ecommerce gateway posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
a few recent posts that mention finwait problem and business critical
dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#14 Webservers and Browsers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#4 43 Years Of TCP/IP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#97 Open Networking with OSI
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#71 Netscape Ecommerce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#92 TCP Joke
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#62 HTTP over TCP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#106 OSI: The Internet That Wasn't
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#38 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#82 Memories of Mosaic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#42 IBM AIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#28 IBM "nine-net"
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Machine Rooms, Datacenter and Dataprocessing Date: 04 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookBefore I graduate, I'm hired fulltime into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). I think Renton largest datacenter in the world, 360/65s arriving faster than they could be installed, boxes constantly staged in hallways around machine room (does have single 360/75, frequently used for classified work, heavy felt draped over console lights and 1403 exposed areas). Renton bldg looked like it had formally been large airplane assembly.
Lots of politics between Renton director and CFO, who only had a 360/30 up at Boeing Field for payroll, although they enlarge the room to install 360/67 for me to play with when I wasn't doing other stuff. Disaster plan (Mt. Rainier heats up and the resulting mud slide takes out Renton) was to replicate Renton up at the new 747 plant in Everett.
Both Boeing and IBM told story, on day 360 was announced, Boeing gives IBM marketing rep an order, making him the highest paid IBM employee that year (in days of straight commission; the following year, IBM institutes quota)
747-3 was flying skies of Seattle getting FAA flt certification. Tours of mock-up of 747 cabin just south of Boeing field would claim 747s carried so many passengers, they would never have fewer than four jetways.
When I graduate, I join Cambridge Scientific Center (instead of staying with Boeing CFO). Within month of joining IBM, got a 2741 dialup at home (and could do email at home @23).
One of my hobbies at IBM was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters. One of my first (and long time) customers was internal online sales&marketing support HONE systems. IBM 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement started to charge for (application) software (managed to make case that kernel software was still free), SE Services, maint, etc. SE training used to include part of group on site at customer, however IBM couldn't figure out how NOT to charge for those trainee SEs onsite at customer datacenter. Solution was several HONE CP67 datacenters around the US, where branch office SEs could dial-in and practice with guest operating systems running in CP67 virtual machines. CSC had also ported APL\360 to CP67/CMS for CMS\APL and HONE started offering CMS\APL-based sales&marketing support apps ... which come to dominate all HONE activity (and guest operating system practice withers away).
Early last decade, I was asked if I could track down decision to add virtual memory to all 370s and located staff member to executive making decision. Basically, MVT storage management was so bad that REGION sizes were being specified four times larger than used. As a result, typical 1mbyte, 370/165 would only run four concurrent REGIONs, insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Running MVT in 16mbyte virtual address space allowed concurrent regions to be increased by factor of four (capped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect key) with little or no paging (sort of like running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine).
370 Virtual Memory decision also including doing VM370; but morph of CP67 to VM370 simplified or dropped a lot of stuff. I started with VM370R2-base adding a bunch of stuff back in, including kernel reorganization needed to support multiprocessor operation. HONE converted from my CP67L to my internal CSC/VM and consolidated all US HONE datacenters in Palo Alto (trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moved into silicon valley, it was into a new bldg built next door to the former US HONE consolidated datacenter). I had also been asked to go along for the first few non-US HONE datacenters (as HONE datacenters began cropping up all over the world). For VM370R3-based CSC/VM, I also add multiprocessor support back in, initially for US HONE consolidated datacenter so they could upgrade all the 370/158 and 370/168s to 2-CPU multiprocessors. Then after the Cal earthquake, the Palo Alto consolidated US HONE datacenter was replicated 1st in Dallas and then another in Boulder.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Internal CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
recent posts mentioning Boeing CFO, Renton, 360 announce, commission and quota
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#78 Early CSC (& CP67/CMS)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#73 IBM System/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#70 IBM Online Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#81 IBM 60s-90s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#53 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#100 When Big Blue Went to War
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#59 IBM Retain and other online
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#105 Giant Steps for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#97 IBM 360 Announce 7Apr1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#87 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#66 IBM System/360, 1964
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#86 IBM Commission and Quota
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#91 360 Announce Stories
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#12 IBM Marketing, Sales, Branch Offices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#99 IBM 360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#31 IBM OS/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#95 Iconic consoles of the IBM System/360 mainframes, 55 years old
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#31 Technology Flashback
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#106 IBM Quota
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#100 IBM Stretch (7030) -- Aggressive Uniprocessor Parallelism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#34 April 7, 1964: IBM Bets Big on System/360
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#48 IBM Quota
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#60 IBM 360/67
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#51 System/360 consoles
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#38 Reminder over in linkedin, IBM Mainframe announce 7April1964
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Token-Ring Date: 05 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookThe AWD workstation division had done their own cards for IBM PC/RT (16bit AT BUS) including 4mbit token-ring card. For the microchannel RS/6000, they were told they couldn't do their own cards but has to use (heavily performance kneecapped by the communication group) microchannel cards (the PC/RT 4mbit token ring card had higher card throughput than the PS2 microchannel 16mbit token ring card; joke that a PC/RT 4mbit T/R server would have higher throughput than RS/6000 16mbit T/R server).
The new Almaden bldg was heavily provisioned with IBM CAT wiring (assuming 16mbit T/R) ... but found that 10mbit Ethernet over CAT wiring had lower latency and higher aggregate throughput than 16mbit T/R. Also $69 10mbit Ethernet cards had much higher throughput (8.5mbit/sec) than $800 PS2 microchannel 16mbit T/R cards.
Donofrio approved HA/6000 project in 1988, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS
Executive we had reported to, goes over to head up Somerset/AIM
(Apple, IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses
Motorola 88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.
Also 1988, IBM branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... which quickly becomes Fibre Channel Standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980; initially planning on using 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate transfer 200mbytes/sec & 64 non-blocking switches, with high-end HA/CMP installations).
Then IBM POK got their serial stuff that they had been working with since at least the early 80s announced as "ESCON" (when it was already obsolete), initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that radically cuts the native throughput which is announced as FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the same time a native FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPUs be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
some recent posts specifically mentioning token-ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#36 IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#41 Ethernet and IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#32 IBM SNA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#88 IBM 3270 Emulators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#40 IBM Boca and IBM/PCs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#2 PS2 Microchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#81 Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#73 Boeing, IBM, CATIA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#8 IBM ES/9000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#2 Mainframe Networking and LANs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#114 IBM VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#74 IBM RS/6000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#95 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#101 IBM Token-Ring versus Ethernet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024g.html#18 PS2 Microchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#42 IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#27 The Fall Of OS/2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#102 Rise and Fall IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#71 The IBM Way by Buck Rogers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#64 RS/6000, PowerPC, AS/400
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#7 TCP/IP Protocol
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#69 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024c.html#56 Token-Ring Again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#50 IBM Token-Ring
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#47 OS2
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#41 Vintage Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#76 Another IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#30 Apple Versus IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#26 Some IBM/PC History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#27 IBM 3278
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#6 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#83 IBM's Near Demise
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#50 Ethernet (& CAT5)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#13 IBM/PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#77 IBM/PC and Microchannel
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022h.html#57 Christmas 1989
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#107 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#18 Strange chip: Teardown of a vintage IBM token ring controller
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#4 What is IBM SNA?
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Interdata Plug-Compatible Controller Date: 06 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookThen CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67 CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the dispatcher/scheduler , (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). Six months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online spin-offs.
CP/67 arrived with 1052&2741 terminal support and auto-terminal ident,
capable switching terminal type scanner type for each port. Univ. also
had TTY33&35 and I add ASCII support integrated with auto-terminal
type. I then want to have single dial-in number (hunt group) for all
terminals. Didn't quite work, IBM had hard-wired line speed ... so we
start a clone terminal controller. Build a IBM channel interface board
for Interdata/3 programmed to emulate IBM controller with the addition
for auto-baud. Then upgraded with Interdata/4 for channel interface
and cluster of Interdata/3s for port interfaces. Interdata (and later
Perkin-Elmer) sell them as clone controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkin-Elmer#Computer_Systems_Division
... and four of us are written up responsible for (some part of) clone
controller business
turn of century had tour of machine room that had descendant of the box we did in the 60s for ibm 360 telecommunication controller, was handling nearly all payment card POS calls, east of the mississippi.
trivia: 1st bug testing, IBM 360/67 would "red-light"; turns out machine cpu timer updated each "tic" in main memory (location 80). If channel held the memory bus interface when the timer went to tic, it would hold the tic until the channel released the memory bus. It the timer went to tic again and it had a pending timer tic (the memory bus was still held), it would machine check the machine ("red-light"). Had to make sure the channel interface board would frequently release memory bus so timer could update loc 80.
clone/plug-compatible controllers posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
cambridge scientific center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: HONE, Virtual Machines, Internal Network, EMAIL, PROFS Date: 08 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookHONE was 1st CP67/CMS and then VM370/CMS underneath ... 1st CMS\APL ,,, then APL\CMS, for sales&marketing support apps ... put directly in can'ed APL "padded cell" environment for most users. Usually needed some technical expertise to get to native CMS environment.
HONE originated after IBM 23jun1969 unbundling, online environment for US branch office SEs to practice with guest operating systems running in virtual machines. Science center had also ported APL\360 to CMS as CMS\APL, fixing storage management going from 16kbyte to large virtual memory workspaces, API for systems service like file I/O, etc) and HONE started using it for sales&marketing support apps that came to dominate all use (guest operating use dwindling away). When I joined IBM, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and HONE was long time customer. They also had me go along for the first few installs outside US (EMEA, AFE).
In mid-70s US HONE datacenters were consolidated in Palo Alto (trivia: when FACEBOOK 1st moves into silicon valley, it was into a new bldg built next door to the former US HONE datacenter). Consolidated US HONE was configured for single-system image, loosely-coupled, shared DASD with load balancing and fall-over across all systems in the complex. Note in the initial transition from CP67->VM370, lots of features were eliminated and/or dropped (including tightly-coupled multiprocessor). I start adding stuff (for internal datacenters) for my VM370R2-base CSC/VM. Then initially for HONE, add multiprocessor support into VM370R3-base CSC/VM ... so they can add a 2nd processor to each system for 16-CPUs total.
In the 80s, US region and branch offices started getting "VMIC" 4341s for native vm370/cms use (instead of using HONE for that).
trivia: with consolidating of US HONE datacenters in Palo Alto, normally put sales&marketing automagically into "SEQUOIA", large scale tailored APL app environment. Some people found out how to drop into native CMS
Start of PROFS was picking up CMS applications for wrapping the PROFS menu around. For the email client that chose very early VMSG for the email client. When the VMSG author tried to offer them a much enhanced version, they tried to have him separated from IBM. The whole thing quieted down when he demonstrated every VMSG (& PROFS) email had his initials in non-displayed field. After that he only shared his source with me and one other person.
Email had started off with MIT CTSS/7094 system
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/anhc-34-1-anec.html
Then some of the CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS. Others went to the IBM Cambrdige Scientific Center to do virtual machines They had wanted a 360/50 to modify, adding hardware virtual memory, but all the spare 360/50s were going to FAA/ATC, so they had to settle for 360/40 to modify ... adding hardware virtual memory and did CP40/CMS; CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS when 360/67 standard with virtual memory becomes available.
One of the CSC members was also responsible for Science Center CP67-based wide-area network (later morphs into the IBM internal network (larger than arpanet/internet until sometime mid/late 80s when it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM) and technology also used for the corporate sponsored UNIV "BITNET").
One of the (1969) GML inventors originally hired to promote use of
science center wide-area network
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
Co-worker responsible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
History of Electronic Mail
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
IBM CP/CMS had electronic mail as early as 1966, and was widely used
within IBM in the 1970s. Eventually this facility evolved into the
PROFS product in the 1980s.
... snip ...
... above slightly garbled since non-PROFS CMS email clients continued well thru 80s. VMSG had interface supporting VNET/RSCS internal gateway with ITPS. I used it early 1980 to contact Fujisawa lab about getting 3101 glass teletype "mod2 block mode" ROMS. First half of 70s, Tokyo was 2nd non-US HONE installation I was asked to do.
Other trivia, SJR was first with external VNET/RSCS gateway to (non-IBM) CSNET, Oct1982 (which provided connectivity to lots of other networks)
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
IBM 23Jun1969 Unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: SQL/Relational, System/R Date: 09 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookI transfer from CSC to SJR on west coast and worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/Relational, System/R (all development & work having been done on VM370). Was able to do tech transfer to Endicott for SQL/DS (while company was preoccupied with the next, "great" DBMS, "Eagle"). After "Eagle" implodes there is request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS, eventually announced as DB2 (originally for decision support "only").
1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (running
project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX (planning on using Hursley 9333
for mid-range and full FCS for both technical and commercial
scaleup). DB2 was still all mainframe source, IBM non-mainframe "DB2"
had yet to be developed.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS
Executive we had reported to, goes over to head up Somerset/AIM
(Apple, IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses
Motorola 88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.
Also 1988, IBM branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... which quickly becomes Fibre Channel Standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980; initially planning on using 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate transfer 200mbytes/sec & 64-port non-blocking switches, with high-end HA/CMP installations). POK mainframe eventually announces its serial stuff (when it is already obsolete) as "ESCON" (initially 10mbytes/sec). Some POK engineers then become involved with FCS and define a heavy weight protocol that radically cuts the native throughput, eventually announced as FICON.
SQL/Relational, System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
Fibre-Channel standard and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory Date: 10 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
One of CSC co-workers did a very sophisticated CMS\APL-based system model (considered early/original capacity planning) and it was made available on HONE as Performance Predictor). Branch Office IBMers could enter customer configuration and workload information and ask "what-if" questions about changes to configuration and/or workload.
Uithoorn HONE did VM/370 loosely-coupled/cluster using special channel program that sort of simulated the semantics of CAS (compare&swap) 370 instruction (didn't have overhead of RESERVE/RELEASE and worked for up to eight systems with two string switch, 3830 DASD controllers, aka ACP/TPF locking facility only worked within same 3830, didn't work across string switch).
This was picked up by US consolidated HONE in Palo Alto and a modified version of the Performance Predictor used to make load balancing login decision (i.e. directing CCDN front-end). I've made jokes about don't release software before its time, releasing z/VM loosely-coupled support more than 30yrs later. Part of the problem was after "Future System" had imploded in 70s, head of POK managed to convince corporate to kill VM370/CMS, shutdown development group, and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. Then POK executives were visiting internal datacenters attempting to strong arm them to migrate from VM370/CMS to MVS. HONE complained about the tactic and the executive had to come back and tell them that they had misunderstood what he said. Note, Endicott eventually managed to save the VM370 product mission, but had to recreate a development group from scratch.
Note: I had upgraded my internal VM370R3-based CSC/VM with SMP multiprocessor support,initially for HONE, they upgraded all the 168s (& 158 HONE9/HONEDEV "development" machine) to 2-CPU ... able to run full 8 system (16-CPU) operation.
... wandering around silicon valley including TYMSHARE and the
Stanford SLAC-sponsored monthly BAYBUNCH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
started offering their VM370/CMS-based computer conferencing
(precursor social media) system to SHARE (for free)
http://www.share.org
as VMSHARE in Aug1976, archives here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
I cut a deal with TYMSHARE to get a monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE
(and later PCSHARE) files for putting up on internal IBM network and
systems (including US & non-US HONE systems; 1983 got a
VMSHARE-related email from marketing rep in Kuwait on behalf of their
customer),
... late 1976 was about the time the head of POK managed to convince corporate to kill VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA.
unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
HONE posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
some performance predictor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#72 Vintage Internet and Vintage APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#31 HONE, Performance Predictor, and Configurators
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023e.html#87 CP/67, VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#88 IBM Cambridge Science Center Performance Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#120 Computer Performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#30 VM370, 3081, and AT&T Long Lines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#10 A brief overview of IBM's new 7 nm Telum mainframe CPU
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#61 Performance Monitoring, Analysis, Simulation, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#43 IBM Powerpoint sales presentations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#32 HONE story/history
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019d.html#106 IBM HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#30 Bottlenecks and Capacity planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#54 CMS\APL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#50 Can any one tell about what is APL language
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011o.html#53 HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#63 JCL CROSS-REFERENCE Utilities (OT for Paul, Rick, and Shmuel)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011f.html#49 Dyadic vs AP: Was "CPU utilization/forecasting"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#43 SNA: conflicting opinions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005h.html#1 Single System Image questions
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory Date: 11 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
When I transferred to SJR, in addition to getting to play disk engineer in bldg14&15 across the street, I worked with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on original SQL/Relational, System/R (all done on VM/370). While company was preoccupied with next, great, new DBMS, "EAGLE", was able to do tech transfer to Endicott (under the radar) for SQL/DS. Then when "EAGLE" implodes, there is request for how fast could System/R be ported to MVS, eventually announced as DB2 (originally for decision support only). There was System/R joint study with BofA that had ordered 60 VM/4341s for System/R deployment.
Original SQL/Relational, System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: ARPANET and Internet Date: 13 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094 people went to the 5th flr for MULTICS, others went to the IBM Cambridge Science Center on the 4th flr and did virtual machines (originally wanted 360/50 to add hardware virtual memory, but all the extra 50s were going to FAA ATC, so had to settle for 360/40 and did CP40/CMS ... which morphed into CP67/CMS (precursor to VM370 after decision was made to add virtual memory to all 370s) when 360/67s standard with virtual memory became available. 360/67 was intended for tss/360 which never really came to production. trivia: at the time that tss/360 was "decommited", the tss360 group had 1200 people while the cp67/cms group had 12.
One member of CSC, was also responsible for the CP67-based scientific
center based wide-area network ... which later morphs into internal
corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet from the beginning
until sometime mid/late 80s, about the time it was forced to convert
to SNA/VTAM). The technology was also used for the corporate sponsored
bitnet (also larger than arpanet/internet for a time, later CSNET &
BITNET were merged)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
account by other CSC (one of the members that invented GML in 1969,
precursor to ISO Standard SGML & HTML)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
Old archived '84 email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320
from IBM European employee (that had done a year sabbatical at CSC)
and was in Paris to get EARN (European "BITNET") setup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Academic_Research_Network
person responsible for CP67-based wide-area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Ed and I transfer out to SJR on the west coast in 1977. Oct1982, we
have 1st IBM gateway to non-IBM (CSNET):
Date: 02/02/83 23:49:45
To: CSNET mailing list
Subject: CSNET headers, CSNET status
You may have noticed that since ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the new
version of software on top of it, message headers have become
ridiculously long. Some of it is because of tracing information that
has been added to facilitate error isolation and "authentication", and
some of it I think is a bug (the relay adds a 'From' and a 'Date'
header although there already are headers with that information in the
message). This usually doesn't bother people on the ARPANET because
they have smart mail reading programs that understand the headers and
only display the relevant ones. I have proposed a mail reader/sender
program that understands about ARPANET headers (RFC822) as a summer
project, so maybe we will sometime enjoy the same priviledge.
The file CSNET STATUS1 on the CSNET disk (see instructions below for
how to access it) contains some clarification of the problems that
have been experienced with the TCP/IP conversion. Here is a summary:
- Nodes that don't yet talk TCP (but the old NCP) can be accessed
through the UDel-Relay. So if you think you have problems reaching
a node because of this, append @Udel-Relay to the ARPANET address.
- You can find out about the status of hosts (e.g., if they run TCP or
not) by sending ANY MESSAGE to Status@UDel-Relay (capitalization is
NOT significant).
- If your messages are undeliverable, you get a notice after two days,
and your messages get returned after 4 days.
- Avoid using any of the fancy address forms allowed by the new header
format (RFC822).
- The TCP transition was a lot more trouble than the ARPANET people
had anticipated.
... snip ... top of post, old email index
Note: 1Jan1983, Arpanet had approx 100 IMP nodes and 255 hosts
... while the IBM internal network was rapidly approaching 1000. Old
archive post with sample of internal network weekly node updates and
list of IBM world-wide corporate locations that added one or more
network nodes during 1983.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
Archived CSNET email post w/30Dec1982 about Internet conversion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#3
Other trivia: In the early 80s, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster
computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the
communication group (60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues
with VTAM capped controllers at 56kbits). Also working with NSF
director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF
supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other
things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part based
on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
trivia: Mockapetris was co-op student at CSC in early 70s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mockapetris
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Internal Network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
Internet Network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Fortran Date: 15 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookI had taken two credit hr intro to fortran/computers and at the end of semester was hired to re-implement 1401 MPIO on 360/30. The univ was getting a 360/67 for tss/360 replacing 709/1401 and got 360/30 temporarily replacing 1401. The univ. shutdown datacenter on weekends and I had the place dedicated to myself (although 48hrs w/o sleep made monday classes hard). I was given a pile of hardware & software manuals and got to design and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, storage management, error recovery, etc. and after a few weeks had a 2000 card 360/30 assembler program.
Within a year of taking intro class, 360/67 arrived and I was hired fulltime responsible for OS/360 (tss/360 didn't come to production). 709 did student fortran in less than second, but 360/67 os/360 took over minute. I install HASP (precursor to JES2) for MFT9.5 cutting time in half. I then start redoing MFT11 SYSGEN STAGE2 carefully placing datasets and PDS members optimizing arm seek and multi-track search cutting another 2/3rds to 12.9secs. 360/67 never got better than 709 until I install UofWaterloo WATFOR, clocked on 360/67 at 20,000 cards/min (333 cards/sec ... student fortran tended to run 30-60cards/job).
A decade later, after joining IBM Cambridge Scientific Center and then transfer to San Jose Research (on the west coast), had office a few doors down from Backus
HASP/ASP, JES2/JES, NJE/NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
science center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM 370/148 VM/370 ECPS Date: 17 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebook370/148 announced 6/30/1976 (original 370 operator consols were mostly printing, not 3270 display)
Palo Alto Scientific Center did "APL Assist" originally for 370/145. I
was at Cambridge Scientific Center and Endicott cons me into working
on 138/148 VM/370 "ECPS" ... old archived post with initial analysis
for ECPS ... then Endicott cons me into doing justification ECPS
presentations for country (& US regional) business planners around the
world
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21
This was after "Future System" had imploded (completely different than
370 and was going to completely replace 370, internal politics was
killing off 370 efforts and lack of new 370 products during FS is
credited with giving the clone 370 makers their market foothold).
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
One of the final nails in the FS coffin was analysis by the Houston Scientific Center that if apps from 370/195 were redone for FS machine made from the fastest available technology, it would have throughput of 370/145 (approx 30 times slowdown).
Part of ECPS was after FS imploded, head of POK (high-end mainframes) was in the process of convincing corporate to kill the vm370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA. Endicott manages to save the VM370 product mission (for the mid-range) but had to recreate a development group from scratch.
Entry and mid-range 370s had "vertical" microcode (somewhat similar to Intel i86 instructions) and averaged 10 native instructions per 370 instruction. ECPS translated 370 instructions to native instructions on approx 1:1 basis (getting ten times performance). First, I was to identify 6kbytes of highest executed VM370 kernel instructions (79.55% of kernel CPU).
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
some recent posts mentioning head of POK convincing corporate to kill
VM370 product
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#85 Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#54 VM4341 Cluster Supercomputing and Departmental Distributed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#51 Mainframe, Virtualization, Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#50 CSC, CP40/CMS, CP67/CMS, Boeing Computer Services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#48 370 Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#44 STL Channel Extender
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#39 VM370/CMS Editors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#33 DEC VAX/VMS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#4 IBM Virtual Machine
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#2 IBM 370/195
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#92 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#85 Some IBM History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#71 IBM 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#60 IBM 135/145, 138/148, 4331/4341
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#52 CMS SFS (Shared File System)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#37 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#36 IBM, NSC, HSDT, HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#15 IBM 360s, Unbundling, 370s, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#12 IBM Virtual Machine and Virtual Memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#10 4341, cluster supercomputing, distributed computing
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CEOs and IBM Downfall Date: 18 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebook1972, Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of management briefings 1958-1988
Future System disaster,
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Early 80s, I was introduced to John Boyd and would sponsor his briefings at IBM. He had lots of stories including being very vocal that electronics across the trail wouldn't work and possibly as punishment put in command in "spook base" (about the same time I'm at Boeing, I was undergraduate at univ, responsible for os/360 when was brought into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation of Boeing Computer Services, consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit; I think Renton datacenter largest in the world). Boyd claimed "spook base" had largest air conditioned bldg in that part of the world. Boyd biography claims that "spook base" was $2.5B "windfall" for IBM.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_M._Gray_Jr%2E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Books-by-topic/MCUP-Titles-A-Z/A-New-Conception-of-War/
http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/boyd.htm
Boyd was the father of the F-15, the F-16, and the F-18.
1989/1990 (at the time, IBM & Marines had about same number people),
the Marine Corps Commandant leverages Boyd for a corps make-over (at a
time when IBM was desperately in need of make-over).
1992, IBM has one of the largest losses in history of US companies and
was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for
breaking up the company (take-off on "baby bells" breakup a decade
earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of Amex as CEO, who
(somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses some of the same techniques
used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at internal, annual, world-wide communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us to drop by his investments to see if would could give some help.
1988, IBM Branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe releases some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the same time a native FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
Boyd posts (& URLs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
Communication group responsible for demise of GPD/AdStar
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#terminal
FCS &/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
IBM DASD, CKD, FBA, multi-track search
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dasd
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CEOs and IBM Downfall Date: 19 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
The AWD workstation division had done their own cards for IBM PC/RT (16bit AT BUS) including 4mbit token-ring card. For the microchannel RS/6000, they were told they couldn't do their own cards but had to use (heavily performance kneecapped by the communication group) microchannel cards (the PC/RT 4mbit token ring card had higher card throughput than the PS2 microchannel 16mbit token ring card; joke that a PC/RT 4mbit T/R server would have higher throughput than RS/6000 16mbit T/R server).
New Almaden research bldg had been heavily provisioned with IBM CAT wiring assuming token-ring ... but found 10mbit ethernet LAN had lower latency and higher aggregate throughput than 16mbit token-ring. Also 10mbit ethernet $64 cards had higher card throughput than 16mbit token-ring $800 microchannel cards.
Communication group had been fighting off release of mainframe TCP/IP support. When they lost, they changed and said that since they have corporate strategic responsibility for everything that crossed datacenter walls, it had to be released through them. What shipped got 44kbyte/sec aggregate using nearly whole 3090 CPU. I then implement RFC1044 support and in some tuning tests at Cray Research, between Cray and 4341, got sustained 4341 channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341 CPU (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed).
In the early 80s, I got HSDT project, T1 and faster computer links
(terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the communication group
(60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM capped
controllers at 56kbits). Also working with NSF director and was
suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer
centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other things happened and
eventually there was RFP released (in part based on what we already
had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
RFC1044 posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CEOs and IBM Downfall Date: 20 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
After graduating, I left the Boeing CFO group (that was creating Boeing Computer Services) to join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center (early 70s). I continued to attend IBM user group conferences and visit customers. The director of one of the largest customer financial datacenters liked me to stop in and talk technology. Then the IBM branch manager horribly offended the customer, and in retaliation, they ordered an Amdahl system (single Amdahl in large sea of IBM blue; up until then Amdhal had been selling into univ. and technical/scientific customers, but this would be the 1st "true blue" commercial). I was then asked to go onsite at the customer for 6-12months (to help obfuscate the purpose for the order). I talk it over with the customer and decline IBM's offer. IBM then told me that the branch manager was a good sailing buddy of IBM CEO, and if I don't agree, I can forget a career, promotions, and raises.
posts menionining: I can forget career, promotions, raises:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#68 IBM Career, Promotions, Raises
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#93 CP/67 and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#71 IBM 3033
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#78 IBM 360, Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#43 IBM 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#42 IBM 360/85
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#16 CTSS, Multics, Unix, CSC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#99 IBM Fortran
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#61 Amdahl Leaves IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#35 IBM Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#42 IBM 70s & 80s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#64 old pharts, Multics vs Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#122 IBM Downturn and Downfall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#62 Amdahl and other trivia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#50 IBM 3081 & TCM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#23 Future System, Single-Level-Store, S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023g.html#42 IBM Koolaid
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#56 IBM Empty Suits
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023.html#51 IBM Bureaucrats, Careerists, MBAs (and Empty Suits)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#82 Enhanced Production Operating Systems
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#60 IBM CEO: Only 60% of office workers will ever return full-time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#21 COMPUTER HISTORY: REMEMBERING THE IBM SYSTEM/360 MAINFRAME, its Origin and Technology
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#95 IBM Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#27 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#15 Mainframe I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#15 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#52 Amdahl Computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Hercules IBM Emulator Date: 21 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookAmdahl won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. When ACS/360 was killed (folklore: executives were afraid it would advance state of art to fast and IBM would loose control of the market), Amdahl leaves IBM.
23Jun1969 unbundling announcement, start to charge for things, (application) software (managed to make the case kernel software was still free), SE services, maint. etc.
Then "future system" disaster (completely different than 370 and was
going to completely replace it, internal politics was killing 370
effort which is credited with given the clone 370 makers, their market
foothold)
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
After graduating and joining IBM Cambridge Scientific Center, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters; one of the first (and long time) was the online sales&marketing support HONE systems (started US then started cropping up all over the world). I would periodically ridicule the FS activiity (which wasn't exactly career enhancing).
When FS implodes (one of the last nails in the coffin was analysis by IBM Houston Science Center that taking 370/195 apps and redoing for FS machine made out of fastest technology available would have throughput of 370/145, about 30 times slowdown), there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel. The FS implosion and rise of the 370 clone makers was also responsible for the decision to transition to charging for kernel software (initially incremental add-ons, but eventually in the 80s charging for all kernel software). A bunch of my internal enhancements was selected as the initial guinea pig and I had to spend time with lawyers and business planners.
Back in the 70s, mainframe hardware was something like 40% of IBM revenue, saw big drop in late 80s and early 90s and by turn of century it was something like 4-5% of IBM revenue. EC12 time-frame, there was analysis that mainframe hardware revenue was 4% of IBM revenue, but the total mainframe revenue was 25% of IBM revenue (software & services) and 40% of the profit (huge profit margin from software&services big motivation to keep the mainframe market going).
1972, Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists,
and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of
management briefings 1958-1988
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/IBM_Thirty_Years_of_Mangement_Briefings_1958-1988.pdf
Hercules (emulator)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_(emulator)
The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator
https://hercules-390.github.io/html/
23Jun1969 Unbundling Announce posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
Cambridge Science Center posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Past posts mentioning Hercules emulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#20 Virtual Machine History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#3 Emulating vintage computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#31 Future System and S/38
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#63 VM Microcode Assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023d.html#34 IBM Mainframe Emulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#91 bootstrap, was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#31 What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#49 Holy wars of the past - how did they turn out?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#28 Eliminating the systems programmer was Re: IBM cuts contractor bil ling by 15 percent (our else)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#13 Pascal Source for APL Interpreter--Want Info
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#46 [CM] What was your first home computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#7 SC/MP (1977 microprocessor) architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#66 just what is micro-code anyway?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016f.html#97 ABO Automatic Binary Optimizer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#78 Microcode
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#32 Query: Will modern z/OS and z/VM classes suffice for MVS and VM/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#42 John Titor was right? IBM 5100
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013m.html#55 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made 30 years ago today
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#38 Assembler vs. COBOL--processing time, space needed
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#56 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#42 "25 Years of IBM's OS/2"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012g.html#36 Should IBM allow the use of Hercules as z system emulator?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#30 New IBM mainframe instructions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#34 CMS load module format
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011c.html#93 Irrational desire to author fundamental interfaces
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#41 Colossal Cave Adventure in PL/I
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#42 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#43 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#42 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#26 PDP-10s and Unix
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#21 IBM tried to kill VM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#64 Computer History Museum
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#6 Multics on Vmware ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#16 IA64 and emulator performance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#30 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#4 [newbie] Ancient version of Unix under vm/370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004g.html#2 Text Adventures (which computer was first?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#32 The attack of the killer mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#9 IBM system 370
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#48 SHARE Planning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#61 GE 625/635 Reference + Smart Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#42 Beginning of the end for SNA?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#44 PDP-10 Archive migration plan
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: S/38, AS/400, HA/CMP Date: 22 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebook1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000 (running project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as alternative to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Also 1988, IBM Branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe releases some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the same time a native FCS is announced for Intel E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has mainframe SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
I had been planning on FCS for high-end HA/CMP and Hursley 9333 for entry/mid range ... with trying to get 9333, fractional-speed interoperable with FCS.
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS
2010 industry benchmarks (program interactions compared to the
industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform)
• Max-configured z196, 80 cores: 50BIPS
• Intel E5-2600, 16 cores: 500BIPS
Executive we had reported to, went over to head up Somerset/AIM
(Apple, IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses
Motorola 88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.
trivia, my brother was Apple regional marketing rep (largest physical region CONUS) and when he came into town, I could attend business dinners and argue MAC design with the developers (before MAC was announced). My brother told how he learned to remotely dial into the IBM S/38 (that ran Apple) to track manufacturing and delivery schedules.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
ha/cmp posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
fiber-channel standard (FCS) and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Future System, 16-CPU, 3033, 3081, 3880, 3380 Date: 22 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebook60s, Amdahl had won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. Then when ACS/360 was killed, Amdah left IBM (folklore is that IBM was afraid that ACS/360 would advance the state-of-art too fast and IBM would loose control of the market)
Future System, 1st half of 70s, was completely different from 370 and
was going to replace 370. Internal politics was killing off 370s
efforts, and the lack of new 370s is credited with giving clone 370
makers (including Amdahl) their market foothold. When FS finally
implodes, there is mad rush kicking off new stuff for 370 product
pipelines, including quick&dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
I got asked to help with a new 370 16-CPU and we con the 3033 processor engineers working on it in their spare time (a lot more interesting that remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system, "MVS", had effective 16-CPU support (POK doesn't ship 16-CPU until after the turn of the century). MVS documentation at the time was its 2-CPU support overhead, only had 1.2-1.5 times the throughput of single CPU. Head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions" (once 3033 was out the door, 3033 processor engineers start on trout/3090).
3081 was originally going to be multiprocessor only and 2-CPU 3081D ships with aggregate 10MIPS ... while Amdahl's 1-CPU was 14MIPS. IBM was also concerned that the whole ACP/TPF market would go Amdahl (in part because ACP/TPF didn't have multiprocessor support). Eventually IBM doubles 3081 processor cache sizes and ships 3081K with aggregate of 14MIPs (same as Amdahl single processor). However MVS with its two processor support overhead, met that 3081K only had .6-.75 times the throughput of Amdahl single processor running MVS. IBM eventually also ships 3083 single processor, a 3081K with one processor removed. Folklore, 3081K proc0 was in the top of the box, removing proc1 in the middle of the box, would have left box dangerously top heavy ... so box had to be rewired, 3083 single processor was in the middle.
After invited to not visit POK, I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and get to wander around silicon valley mainframe datacenters, including bldg 14 (engineering) and 15 (product test) across the street. They were running prescheduled, 7x24, stand-alone testing and mentioned they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment). I offer to rewrite I/O Supervisor making it bullet proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 would get early engineering systems for test and got the 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. Testing took only percent or two of CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 controller and 3330 string and setup our own private online service.
For the 3031/3032/3033 channel director, they took 158 engine with just integrated channel microcode. A 3031 was two 158 engines, one with just 370 microcode and the other with just the integrated channel microcode. A 3032 was 168-3 reworked with just the 158 engine & integrated channel microcode (for external channels). A 3033 could have 1-3 channel directors. The 3033 channel directors were periodically hanging, requiring manual re-impl. I discover if I quickly executed CLRCH instruction for all six channel addresses, the channel director would automagically re-impl itself
I write a I/O Reliability Enhancement research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MBTF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
A couple years later, a few months before 3880/3380 ship, FE had regression test of 57 simulated hardware errors and found that MVS failed for all 57 errors requiring manual reipl and for 2/3rds of the errors, no indication of what caused the failure.
1988, IBM Branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe releases some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec.
Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the same time a native FCS is announced for Intel E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has mainframe SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
2010 industry benchmarks (program interations compared to the industry
MIPS/BIPS reference platform)
Max-configured z196, 80 cores: 50BIPS
Intel E5-2600, 16 cores: 500BIPS
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared-memory multiprocessor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
Fibre-channel standard and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM CEOs and IBM Downfall Date: 23 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
Not long later, I transfer to SJR on the west coast and get to wander around silicon valley datacenters, including disk bldg14/engineering and bldg5/product test, across the street. They were running 7x24, prescheduled, stand-alone testing. They mentioned that they had recently tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (requiring manual IPL) in that environment. I offered to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet proof and never fail, allowing any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity. Bldg15 would get early engineering systems for test and got the 1st engineering 3033 outside POK processor engineering. Testing took only percent or two of CPU, so we scrounge up 3830 controller and 3330 string and setup our own private online service. I write a I/O Reliability Enhancement research report and happen to mention MVS 15min MBTF, bringing down the wrath of the MVS organization on my head.
Around decade after the Amdahl incident, I submit an IBM "Speak UP" that I was underpaid with lots of supporting information. I get back written reply from head of HR that after detailed review of my whole career, I was being paid exactly what I was suppose to. I then create copy of everything with a written cover letter to send back ... pointing out that I was being asked to interview people that were about to graduate, for a new group that would be operating under my technical direction ... and they were being offered starting salary 30% more than I was currently making. I never get a written reply, but within a few weeks, I get a 30% raise (putting me on level playing field with new graduates). Not the first time, co-workers had to remind me in IBM, "Business Ethics" is an oxymoron.
posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
posts mentioing salary "speak up" and "Business Ethics" oxymoron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#68 IBM Career, Promotions, Raises
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023c.html#89 More Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2023b.html#101 IBM Oxymoron
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022f.html#42 IBM Bureaucrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#59 IBM CEO: Only 60% of office workers will ever return full-time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022d.html#35 IBM Business Conduct Guidelines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#95 IBM Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#27 Dataprocessing Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021k.html#125 IBM Clone Controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021j.html#39 IBM Registered Confidential
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021i.html#82 IBM Downturn
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021h.html#61 IBM Starting Salary
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#15 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021d.html#86 Bizarre Career Events
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021c.html#40 Teaching IBM class
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021b.html#12 IBM "811", 370/xa architecture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021.html#82 Kinder/Gentler IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018f.html#96 IBM Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#47 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014c.html#65 IBM layoffs strike first in India; workers describe cuts as 'slaughter' and 'massive'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#28 How to Stuff a Wild Duck
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Unbundling, Future System, Virtual Memory Date: 23 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
23jun69 today
the original announcement charging for software, they managed to make the case that kernel software was still free.
when I graduated (and left the Boeing CFO office) and joined Cambridge Science Center, one of my hobbies was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters (including HONE online sales&marketing support).
Future System effort 1st half of 70s was completely different than 370
and planned to replace 370. Internal politics was killing off 370
efforts ... the lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving
clone 370 makers (including Amdahl) their market foothold
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html ... from "Computer
Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous," recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
When FS implodes (one of the last nails in the coffin was analysis by IBM Houston Science Center that taking 370/195 apps and redoing for FS machine made out of fastest technology available would have throughput of 370/145, about 30 times slowdown), there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel. The FS implosion and rise of the 370 clone makers was also responsible for the decision to transition to charging for kernel software (initially incremental add-ons, but eventually in the 80s charging for all kernel software). A bunch of my internal enhancements was selected as the initial guinea pig and I had to spend time with lawyers and business planners.
23Jun1969 unbundling posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
HONE, online sales&market online support posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: What Became of Mainframes? Date: 24 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookWhat Became of Mainframes?
1991 prediction somewhat based on following year, IBM had one of the
largest losses in the history of US corporations. IBM was being
reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for the company
breakup (take-off on "baby bell" breakup a decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left the company, but get a call from the bowels of
Armonk about helping with breaking up the company, but before we get
started, the board brings in former president of AMEX, as IBM CEO to
try and save the company.
Back in 2012, mainframe hardware accounted for 4% of revenue (back in the 70s it was more like 40%), however mainframe group accounted for 25% of revenue ... and 40% of profit/bottome line (mostly software and services).
Late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at internal, annual, world-wide communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us drop by his investments to see if we could give some help.
Communication group stranglehold on mainframe datacenters wasn't just disks and early 90s, IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies and was being re-orged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company (take-off on "baby bell" breakup a decade earlier)
1988, IBM branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... which quickly becomes Fibre Channel Standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980; initially planning on using 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate transfer 200mbytes/sec & 64-port non-blocking switches, with high-end HA/CMP installations). POK mainframe eventually announces its serial stuff (when it is already obsolete) as "ESCON" (initially 10mbytes/sec). Some POK engineers then become involved with FCS and define a heavy weight protocol that radically cuts the native throughput, eventually announced as FICON. Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time a native FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
Also 1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000
(running project out at Los Gatos lab). I rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX,
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as alternative to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Also 1988, IBM Branch office had asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980, initially 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbyte/sec). Then IBM mainframe releases some serial (when it was already obsolete) as ESCON, initially 10mbyte/sec. Then some POK engineers become involved with "FCS" and define a heavy-weight protocol that drastically cuts native throughput, eventually ships as FICON.
Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON. About the same time a native FCS is announced for Intel E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has mainframe SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
I had been planning on FCS for high-end HA/CMP and Hursley 9333 for entry/mid range ... with getting 9333, fractional-speed interoperable with FCS.
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS
2010 industry benchmarks (program interations compared to the industry
MIPS/BIPS reference platform)
• Max-configured z196, 80 cores: 50BIPS
• Intel E5-2600, 16 cores: 500BIPS
Executive we had reported to, went over to head up Somerset/AIM
(Apple, IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses
Motorola 88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Communication Group stranglehold on IBM mainframe datacenters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: SP Cluster Multiprocessor Date: 27 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookJan1979 benchmarking 4341s for national lab looking for 70 for cluster supercomputer
decade later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#98 What Became of Mainframes?
1988, Nick Donofrio approves HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to move
their newspaper system (ATEX) off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I rename
it HA/CMP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs (LANL, LLNL, NCAR, etc) and commercial cluster scale-up with
RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Informix) with VAXCluster
support in same source base with UNIX
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (SP1, technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed
to work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a
few months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
trivia, also 1988, IBM branch office asked if I could help LLNL (national lab) standardize some serial stuff they were working with ... which quickly becomes Fibre Channel Standard ("FCS", including some stuff I had done in 1980; initially planning on using 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate transfer 200mbytes/sec & 64-port non-blocking switches, with high-end HA/CMP installations). POK mainframe eventually announces its serial stuff (when it is already obsolete) as "ESCON" (initially 10mbytes/sec). Some POK engineers then become involved with FCS and define a heavy weight protocol that radically cuts the native throughput, eventually announced as FICON.
Latest public benchmark I've found is 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time a native FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
getting to play disk engineer (and doing national lab benchmark on engineering
4341 ... sort of the leading edge of the coming cluster supercomputing tsunami)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Amdahl Date: 27 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookAmdahl won the battle to make ACS, 360 compatible. When ACS/360 was killed (folklore: executives were afraid it would advance state of art too fast and IBM would loose control of the market), Amdahl leaves IBM.
Future System effort 1st half of 70s was completely different than 370
and planned to replace 370. Internal politics was killing off 370
efforts ... the lack of new 370s during FS is credited with giving
clone 370 makers (including Amdahl) their market foothold
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Before I graduated in the 60s, I was hired fulltime into small group in the Boeing CFO group to help with the formation of the Boeing Computer Services (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit).
When I graduate, I join IBM CSC (instead of staying with Boeing CFO). At CSC, I continued to be allowed to attend user group meetings and drop in at customers. Director of one of the largest financial datacenter, liked to have me drop in and talk technology. At one point the IBM branch manager horribly offended the customer and in retaliation, they ordered a (lone) Amdahl machine (will sit in a large sea of blue) ... Amdahl had been selling into univ and technical/scientific market and this would be the first true blue commercial. I was then asked to go onsite at the customer for 6-12 months (to help obfuscate the reason for the Amdahl order). I talk it over with the customer and then decline IBM's offer. I was then told the branch manager was good sailing buddy of IBM's CEO and if I refuse, I can forget career, promotions, raises.
future system posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
posts mention forgetting career, promotions, raises:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#18 IBM 16-CPU SMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022e.html#14 IBM "Fast-Track" Bureaucrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#74 165/168/3033 & 370 virtual memory
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#47 IBM Conduct
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022.html#15 Mainframe I/O
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2021e.html#15 IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#49 IBM Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#2 IBM 1970s
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016h.html#86 Computer/IBM Career
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016e.html#95 IBM History
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Amdahl Date: 28 Jun, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
When FS implodes (one of the last nails in the coffin was analysis by IBM Houston Science Center that taking 370/195 apps and redoing for FS machine made out of fastest technology available would have throughput of 370/145, about 30 times slowdown), there is mad rush to get stuff back into the 370 product pipelines, including kicking off the quick&dirty 3033 and 3081 efforts in parallel.
The FS implosion and rise of the 370 clone makers was also responsible for the decision to transition to charging for kernel software (initially incremental add-ons, but eventually in the 80s charging for all kernel software; i.e. 23jun1969 unbundling started to charge for application software, but managed to make the case that kernel software was still free). One of my hobbies after joining IBM was enhanced production operating systems for internal datacenters and a bunch of my internal enhancements was selected as the initial guinea pig and I had to spend time with lawyers and business planners.
I get asked to help with a 16-CPU 370 design and we con the 3033 processor engineers into helping in their spare time (a lot more interesting than remapping 168 logic to 20% faster chips). Everybody thought it was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (MVS documentation was 2-CPU SMP throughput only 1.2-1.5 times 1-CPU, high-overhead, inefficient multi-CPU support, POK doesn't ship 16-CPU SMP until after turn of century). Head of POK then invites some of us to never visit POK again and directs 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions". Once 3033 is out the door, the processor engineers start on trout/3090.
Originally 308x was only going to be multiprocessor. The original 3081D 2-CPU was lower MIPS than Amdahl single CPU. Then IBM doubles the processor cache sizes for the 3081K, bringing aggregate MIPS up to about the same as Amdahl single processor (although MVS 3081K 2-CPU support only .6-.75 throughput of MVS Amdahl 1-CPU, even with approx some aggregate MIPS). Also because ACP/TPF didn't have SMP support, IBM concern was that the whole ACP/TPF market would move to Amdahl.
trivia: Early last decade, I had been asked to track down the decision to had virtual memory to 370s and found one of the staff to executive making decision. Basically MVT storage management was so bad that typical 1mbyte, 370/165 only ran four concurrent regions (region sizes had to be increased by factor of four), insufficient to keep system busy and justified. Going to 16mbyte virtual memory (VS2/SVS) allowed number of regions to be increased by a factor of four times (caped at 15 because of 4bit storage protect keys) with little or no paging (similar to running MVT in a CP67 16mbyte virtual machine). Decision was also made for morph of CP67->VM370 and some of the CSC people on the 4th flr, move to 3rd flr taking over the IBM Boston Programming Center for the VM370 development group (initially lots of CP67 features were simplified and/or dropped). For VM370R2-base, I start adding a bunch of CP67 stuff back in for my internal CSC/VM (including kernel re-org needed for SMP support). Then for VM370R3-base I add SMP support back in, originally for US consolidated HONE systems (online sales and marketing support apps) so they could add 2nd CPU to 168 systems (getting twice throughput of 1-CPU operation).
Also, with the demise of FS, head of POK was lobbying corporate to kill VM370 product, shutdown the development group and transfer all the people to POK for MVS/XA (Endicott eventually acquires the VM370 product mission for the mid-range, but had to recreate a development group from scratch). Later POK finds that customers were slow in moving from MVS to MVS/XA ... but found Amdahl was having more success ... having done the MACROCODE HYPERVISOR allowing MVS and MVS/XA to be run concurrently.
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
SMP, tightly-coupled, shared memory multiprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp
IBM CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Cambridge Scientific Center, VNET, GML, PROFS Date: 30 Jun, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094
CTSS RUNOFF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF
redone for CMS as SCRIPT.
One of the CSC members was responsible for Science Center CP67-based
wide-area network; later morphs into the IBM internal network (larger
than arpanet/internet until sometime mid/late 80s when it was forced
to convert to SNA/VTAM) and technology also used for the corporate
sponsored UNIV "BITNET". From one of the CSC member co-inventers of
GML (precursor to SGML & HTML) in 1969:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
After GML invented, GML tag processing was added to SCRIPT.
Co-worker responsible for Science Center wide-area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Email had started off with MIT CTSS/7094 system
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/anhc-34-1-anec.html
History of Electronic Mail
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
IBM CP/CMS had electronic mail as early as 1966, and was widely used
within IBM in the 1970s. Eventually this facility evolved into the
PROFS product in the 1980s.
... snip ...
Start of PROFS was picking up CMS applications for wrapping the PROFS (3270) menus around. For the email client they chose very early VMSG for the email client. When the VMSG author tried to offer them a much enhanced version, they tried to have him separated from IBM. The whole thing quieted down when he demonstrated every VMSG (& PROFS) email had his initials in non-displayed field. After that he only shared his source with me and one other person.
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
CP67L, CSC/VM, SJR/VM posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
IBM Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
some recent VMSG & PROF posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#83 HONE, Virtual Machines, Internal Network, EMAIL, PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#56 IBM HONE and EMAIL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#90 Early EMAIL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#77 Early EMAIL
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#43 PROFS, VMSG, 3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#19 IBM Online Apps, Network, Email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026.html#5 PROFS and other CMS applications
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025e.html#103 IBM CSC, HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#112 Mainframe and Cloud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#109 Internal Network, Profs and VMSG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#43 IBM OS/2 & M'soft
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025d.html#32 IBM Internal Apps, Retain, HONE, CCDN, ITPS, Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#113 IBM VNET/RSCS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025c.html#6 Interactive Response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025b.html#60 IBM Retain and other online
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#90 Online Social Media
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#91 IBM Email and PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024f.html#44 PROFS & VMSG
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#99 PROFS, SCRIPT, GML, Internal Network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#48 PROFS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024e.html#27 VMNETMAP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#109 IBM->SMTP/822 conversion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024b.html#69 3270s For Management
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: REXX and DUMPRX Date: 02 Jul, 2026 Blog: Facebookbefore rex was renamed and released to customers, i wanted demo it wasn't just pretty scripting ... so decided to rewrite large assembler dump analysis in rex working half time over 3months with ten times the function and ten times the performance ... finished early so did automated library that looked for common problem signatures.
i thot it would replace assembler version, but for what ever reason didn't (even tho almost every PSR and internal datacenter was using it). I then got permission to give talks at user group meetings on how it was done
later was ask if 3092 (service processor) can ship it
https://web.archive.org/web/20230719145910/https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3090.html
DUMPRX posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM Downfall and Breakup Date: 04 Jul, 2026 Blog: Facebook1972, Learson tried (& failed) to block the bureaucrats, careerists, and MBAs from destroying Watson culture/legacy, pg160-163, 30yrs of management briefings 1958-1988
Future System disaster,
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Future_Systems_project
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
... from "Computer Wars: The Post-IBM World"
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Wars-The-Post-IBM-World/dp/1587981394/
... and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr
of free and vigorous debate was replaced with *SYNCOPHANCY* and *MAKE
NO WAVES* under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM
lived in the shadow of defeat ... But because of the heavy investment
of face by the top management, F/S took years to kill, although its
wrong headedness was obvious from the very outset. "For the first
time, during F/S, outspoken criticism became politically dangerous,"
recalls a former top executive
... snip ...
Early 80s, I was introduced to John Boyd and would sponsor his
briefings at IBM. He had lots of stories including being very vocal
that electronics across the trail wouldn't work and possibly as
punishment put in command in "spook base" (about the same time I'm at
Boeing, I was undergraduate at univ, responsible for os/360 when was
brought into small group in Boeing CFO office to help with formation
of Boeing Computer Services, consolidate all dataprocessing into
independent business unit; I think Renton datacenter largest in the
world). Boyd claimed "spook base" had largest air conditioned bldg in
that part of the world. Boyd biography claims that "spook base" was
$2.5B "windfall" for IBM.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Igloo_White
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_M._Gray_Jr%2E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Books-by-topic/MCUP-Titles-A-Z/A-New-Conception-of-War/
http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/boyd.htm
Boyd was the father of the F-15, the F-16, and the F-18.
... snip ...
late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at internal, annual, world-wide communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us to drop by his investments to see if would could give some help.
1989/1990 (at the time, IBM & Marines had about same number people), the Marine Corps Commandant leverages Boyd for a corps make-over (at a time when IBM was desperately in need of make-over).
Communication group datacenter stranglehold wasn't just disks and
1992, IBM has one of the largest losses in history of US companies and
was being reorganized into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for
breaking up the company (take-off on "baby bells" breakup a decade
earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of Amex as CEO to
try and save the company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses
some of the same techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at
wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
note: I was blamed for online computer conferencing in the late 70s &
early 80s, on the IBM online computer network (started out in the 60s
as the Science Center wide-area network by co-worker, morphing into
the internal network, larger than arpanet/internet from beginning
until sometime mid/late 80s when forced to convert to SNA/VTAM) and
technology also used for the corporate sponsored Univ. "BITNET". It
really took off spring 1981 when I distributed a trip report of visit
to Jim Gray at Tandem. Claims 25,000 were reading, but only about 300
actively took part. Six copies of 300 pages were packaged in Tandem
3-ring binders and sent to the corporate executive committee (folklore
5of6 wanted to fire me). From IBM Jargon:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh
of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry
middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely
distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed
dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and
also constructively criticized the way products were [are]
developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious
interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try
reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.
... snip ...
There was executive summary and a summary of the executive summary;
from summary of summary:
• The perception of many technical people in IBM is that the company is
rapidly heading for disaster. Furthermore, people fear that this
movement will not be appreciated until it begins more directly to
affect revenue, at which point recovery may be impossible
• Many technical people are extremely frustrated with their management
and with the way things are going in IBM. To an increasing extent,
people are reacting to this by leaving IBM. Most of the contributors
to the present discussion would prefer to stay with IBM and see the
problems rectified. However, there is increasing skepticism that
correction is possible or likely, given the apparent lack of
commitment by management to take action
• There is a widespread perception that IBM management has failed to
understand how to manage technical people and high-technology
development in an extremely competitive environment
... snip ...
There were task forces to look at online computer conferencing resulting in official IBM forum software and approved, moderated forum discussions. Also a researcher was paid to study how I communicated; sat in the back of my office for nine months taking notes on how I communicated, also got copies of all my incoming and outgoing email and logs of all instant messages. The result was used for IBM research reports, conference talks and papers, books and Stanford Phd (joint with language and computer AI, Winograd was advisor on computer AI side).
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
Demise of the disk division posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation
Boyd posts and/or URLs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: 1988 FCS and HA/CMP Date: 04 Jul, 2026 Blog: Facebook1988, branch office asks me if I could help LLNL (national lab) with standardizing some serial stuff they had been working with ... which quickly becomes fibre-channel standard ("FCS", initial 1gbit transfer, full-duplex, aggregate 200mbytes/sec, including some stuff I had done in 1980).
1988, Nick Donofrio also approved HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing cluster scale-up with national labs (LANL, LLNL,
NCAR, etc) and cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase,
Ingres, Informix; with VAXCluster in same source base with Unix
support). Planning on using Hursley 9333 for entry level and FCS for
high-end.
Then POK releases some of their serial stuff as ESCON (when it is already obsolete), initially 10mbytes/sec.
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as counter to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (SP, technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed
to work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a
few months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
Some speculation that HA/CMP would have eaten the mainframe in the
commercial market. 1993 industry benchmarks (number of program
iterations compared to the industry MIPS/BIPS reference platform):
• ES/9000-982 : 8CPU 408MIPS, (51MIPS/CPU)
• RS6000/990 (RIOS chipset) : 1-CPU: 126MIPS
Executive we had reported to, goes over to head up Somerset/AIM
(Apple, IBM, Motorola) to do single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) and uses
Motorola 88k bus/cache enabling SMP implementations.
Some POK engineers become involved with FCS and define a heavy weight protocol for FCS, that significantly reduces the throughput, eventually announced as FICON. Latest public benchmark I found was 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" getting 2M IOPS using 104 FICON (20K IOPS/FICON). About the same time a native FCS is announced for E5-2600 server blades getting over million IOPS (two such FCS higher throughput than 104 FICON running over FCS). Note IBM docs has SAPs (system assist processors that do actual I/O) CPU be kept to 70% ... or 1.5M IOPS ... also no CKD DASD have been made for decades (just simulated with industry standard fixed-block devices).
This "Evolution of the System z Channel" (SHARE 2011 presentation at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20170829213251/https://share.confex.com/share/117/webprogram/Handout/Session9931/9934pdhj%20v0.pdf
talks about after 2010 z196 "Peak I/O" benchmark and "zHPF" that
increased throughput from 20K IOPS/FICON to 52K IOPS/FICON then to 92K
IOPS/FICON (aka from 1/50th to almost 1/10th the native FCS announced
in 2010).
FCS and/or FICON posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ficon
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: AMEX, IBM, CITI, Weill, Gerstner, Date: 04 Jul, 2026 Blog: FacebookWeill was in competition with Gerstner to be next AMEX CEO and Weill lost. Weill left AMEX with protegee Dimon and take-over some Baltimore financial loan operations, and eventually CITI (in violation of Glass-Steagall, Greenspan gives them exemption while they lobby congress for repeal).
AMEX was in competition with KKR for LBO of RJR and lost. KKR had problems with RJR and hires away AMEX president to help with RJR. IBM has one of the largest losses in the history of US companies and was being reorged into the 13 "baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company (take-off on "baby bells" breakup a decade earlier). We had left IBM, but get a call from bowels of Armonk asking if we could help with the breakup. Before we get started, the IBM board brings in the former AMEX president to try and save IBM.
In Jan1999 I was asked if I could help prevent the coming economic mess (we failed). Decade later, Jan2009, I was asked to HTML'ize the Pecora Hearings (crash of '29, resulted in jail times and "Glass-Steagal" as countermeasure; had been scanned previous fall) with URLs showing what happened then and what happened this time (comment that the new congress might have appetite to do something).
Gerstner posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner
Greenspan posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#greenspan
economic mess posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#economic.mess
too-big-to-fail, too-big-to-jail, too-big-to-prosecute posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#too-big-to-fai
Pecora &/or Glass-Steagall
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#Pecora&/orGlass-Steagall
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Network History Date: 07 Jul, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094
CTSS/7094 email https://www.multicians.org/thvv/anhc-34-1-anec.html
History of Electronic Mail
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html
IBM CP/CMS had electronic mail as early as 1966, and was widely used
within IBM in the 1970s. Eventually this facility evolved into the
PROFS product in the 1980s.
... snip ...
Co-worker responsible for Science Center wide-area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ...
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
One of the 1969 GML co-inventers had originally been hired to promote
science center wide-area network.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
The science center wide-area network evolves into the internal
corporate network (larger than arpanet/internet from beginning until
sometime mid/late 80s about when it was forced to convert to
SNA/VTAM). Technoloogy also used for the corporate sponsored
univ. BITNET.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET
He and I transfer out to SJR in 1977 and SJR does the first (IBM)
gateway to (non-IBM) CSNET in fall of 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSNET
About same time (as CSNET gateway), got HSDT project, T1 and faster
computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the
communication group (60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues
with VTAM capped controllers at 56kbits). Also working with NSF
director and was suppose to get $20M to interconnect the NSF
supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts the budget, some other
things happened and eventually there was RFP released (in part based
on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary
Announcement
https://web.archive.org/web/20250428194307/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers
Program to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program
to foster new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and
the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access
Network - NSFnet.
... snip ...
IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to modern internet.
Somebody was collecting internal SNA/VTAM misinformation email about
justification for converting internal network to SNA/VTAM as well as
using SNA/VTAM for NSFNET and forwarded it to us ... old archive post
(email heavily clipped and redacted to protect the guilty)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
archive site until garlic.com from cellphine is repaired
https://web.archive.org/web/20251219034850/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email870109
Communication group had been fighting the release of mainframe TCP/IP support. When they lost, they changed that it had to be released through them (they had corporate ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls), what shipped got 44kbytes/sec using nearly whole 3090 processor. I then did support for RFC1044 and in tuning tests at Cray Research between Cray and 4341, got sustained 4341 channel throughput using only modest amount of 4341 processor (something like 500 times improvement in bytes moved per instruction executed).
TUCC trivia: JES2 networking originally came from HASP and had "TUCC" in cols 68-71 of the source. To internally connect HASP/JES2 nodes, had to have NJE simulation driver in RSCS/VNET ... but still had to be kept to network boundary behind RSCS/VNET. Their source defined nodes in spare entries in the 255 entry psuedo device table ... typically around 160-180. However, the internal network had quickly passed 255 and the JES2/HASP code would trash traffic that origin and/or destination wasn't defined in local table (JES2 eventually increased network table to 999, but it was after internal network had passed 1000).
archived post with list of corporate locations that added one or more
new network nodes the year internal network passed 1000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
archive site until garlic.com from cellphine is repaired
https://web.archive.org/web/20251204205713/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8
wierd, garlic urls not working for (my) firefox&samsung cellphone browsers ... but works fine with desktop browser
1000 node globe
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
GML, SGML, HTML posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
HASP, ASP, JES2, JES3, NJE, NJI posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
internal network posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
BITNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
HSDT posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
NSFNET posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: S/38, AS/400, HA/CMP Date: 10 Jul, 2026 Blog: Facebookre:
I would periodically claim John did 801/RISC to go to the opposite extreme of (failed) future system. One of the last nails in the future system coffin was analysis by the IBM Houston Scientific Center was if 370/195 apps were redone for FS machine made out of the fastest hardware available, it would have throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times slowdown). There was then internal adtech conference 2nd half of 70s with the 801/RISC group and I was there as part of the 16-CPU 370 group (we had also con'ed the 3033 processor engineers into working on it in their spare time).
Everybody thought 16-CPU 370 was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (MVS documtation was 2-CPU throughput was only 1.2-1.5 times throughput of 1-CPU; POK doesn't ship a 16-CPU system until after turn of century). Then head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again and directed the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions".
Early 80s, there was effort to use 801/RISC ILIAD chips as microprocessor for mid-range 370 (4331/4341 follow-ons 4361, 4381), AS/400, misc. other stuff. For whatever reasons, it wasn't succesful and things reverted to CISC (I was asked to help with analysis for 4361/4381, that nearly full 370 could be directly implemented CISC circuits at much higher performance than microcode). Note IBM Germany had done a CISC 3chip 370 (ROMAN) that had 360/168 performance.
810/RISC ROMP chip was supposed to be for the Displaywriter follow-on (CP.r operating system, PL.8 programming language). When that was caceled (possibly market moving to PCs), they decided to pivot to the unix workstation market and got the company that did AT&T UNIX port to IBM/PC for PC/IX, to do AIX for the PC/RT.
Later IBM does 801/RISC 6-chip RIOS for RS/6000. The executive we reported to when doing HA/CMP, goes over to head up Somerset/AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorolo) that does single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) with Motorola 88K bus/cache (enabling multiprocessor configurations).
Note, mid-90s, i86 chips are done with hardware layer that tranlates
i86 instructions into RISC micro-ops for actual execution (largely
negating performance difference with Power/PC). 1999 benchmark (number
of program iterations/sec compared to industry MIPS/BIPS reference
platform):
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Intel Pentium3: 2,054MIPS
Dec2000 (mainframe) benchmark:
• IBM z900: 16CPU, 2.5BIPS, 156MIPS/CPU
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM downturn/downfall/breakup Date: 11 Jul, 2026 Blog: FacebookSome of the MIT CTSS/7094
One of the CSC members was responsible for Science Center CP67-based
wide-area network; later morphs into the IBM internal network (larger
than arpanet/internet from beginning until sometime mid/late 80s when
it was forced to convert to SNA/VTAM) and technology also used for the
corporate sponsored UNIV "BITNET". From one of the CSC member
co-inventer of GML (precursor to SGML & HTML) in 1969:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for
the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my
knowledge of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the
staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the
CP-67-based Wide Area Network that was centered in Cambridge.
... snip ...
After GML invented, GML tag processing was added to SCRIPT.
Co-worker responsible for Science Center wide-area network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which
paved the way to the Internet as we know it today.
... snip ..
newspaper article about some of Edson's Internet & TCP/IP IBM battles:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed, Internet &
TCP/IP) references from Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm
Later in 70s, he and I transfer to SJR on west coast and I work with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/relational RDBMS, System/R. I also get to wander around datacenters in silicon valley, including disk bldg14 engineering and bldg15 product test across street. They were running pre-scheduled, 7x24, stand-alone testing and mentioned they had tried MVS, but it had 15min MTBF (in that environment, requiring manual re-IPL). I offer to rewrite I/O supervisor to make it bullet proof and never fail, enabling any amount of on-demand, concurrent testing, greatly improving productivity.
Bldg15, product test gets the 1st engineering 3033 outside POK 3033 processor engineering. Product test was only taking a percent or two of processing, so we scrounge up a 3830 controller and 3330 string for our own private online service (also run 3270 coax under the street to my office in bldg28). The 303x channel director was periodically still hanging and required somebody to walk over and hit IMPL button. I then find if I quickly hit all six channel addresses with CLRCH, it would automagically re-IMPL. Note for 303x channel director, they took 158-engine with just the integrated channel microcode (and no 370 microcode). A 3031 was two 158-engines, one with just 370 microcode and one with just integrated channel microcode. A 3032 was 168-3 reworked to use 303x channel director for external channels. A 3033 started out with 168 logic remapped to 20% faster chips.
I was also blamed for online computer conferencing (precursor to
modern social media) in the late 70s and early 80s on the internal
network. It really took off the spring of 1981 when I distributed trip
report to see Jim Gray at Tandem (he had left SJR fall of 1980). Only
about 300 directly participated, but claims 25,000 were reading. We
did six printed copies of about 300 pages, packaged in Tandem 3-ring
binders and sent them to the corporate executive committee (folklore
is 5of6 wanted to fire me). There was an executive summary and a
summary of the summary ... portion:
• The perception of many technical people in IBM is that the company is
rapidly heading for disaster. Furthermore, people fear that this
movement will not be appreciated until it begins more directly to
affect revenue, at which point recovery may be impossible
• Many technical people are extremely frustrated with their management
and with the way things are going in IBM. To an increasing extent,
people are reacting to this by leaving IBM. Most of the contributors
to the present discussion would prefer to stay with IBM and see the
problems rectified. However, there is increasing skepticism that
correction is possible or likely, given the apparent lack of
commitment by management to take action
• There is a widespread perception that IBM management has failed to
understand how to manage technical people and high-technology
development in an extremely competitive environment
From IBM Jargon:
Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh
of breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry
middle management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely
distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed
dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and
also constructively criticized the way products were [are]
developed. The memos are required reading for anyone with a serious
interest in quality products. If you have not seen the memos, try
reading the November 1981 Datamation summary.
... snip ...
Late 80s, senior disk engineer got talk scheduled at internal, annual, world-wide communication group conference ... supposedly on 3174 performance, but opened the talk with statement that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise of disk division. GPD/Adstar was seeing data fleeing mainframe datacenters to more distributed computing friendly platforms, with drop in disk sales. GPD/Adstar had come up with a number of solutions, but they were all being vetoed by the communication group with their corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed datacenter walls. Adstar software executive partial solution was investing in distributed computing startups that would use IBM disks. He also would ask us drop by his investments to see if we could give some help.
Communication group stranglehold on mainframe datacenters wasn't just
disks and a couple years later, IBM had one of the largest losses in
the history of US companies and was being reorganized into the 13
"baby blues" in preparation for breaking up the company (take-off on
"baby bells" breakup a decade earlier)
https://web.archive.org/web/20101120231857/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977353,00.html
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,977353-1,00.html
we had already left IBM but get a call from the bowels of Armonk
asking if we could help with the breakup of the company. Before we get
started, the board brings in the former president of Amex as CEO to
try and save the company, who (somewhat) reverses the breakup and uses
some of the same techniques used at RJR (gone 404, but lives on at
wayback)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181019074906/http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml
CSC posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
GML, SGML, HTML, etc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
SQL/RDBMS System/R posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
getting to play disk engineer posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
online computer conferencing posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
IBM downturn/downfall/breakup posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#ibmdownfall
pension posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#pension
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: IBM RDBMS Date: 11 Jul, 2026 Blog: FacebookSecond half 70s, I transfer to SJR on west coast and work with Jim Gray and Vera Watson on the original SQL/relational RDBMS, System/R (implemented in mainframe PLS and all work was done with VM370). It was somewhat being boxed in by mainstream DBMS and the next great DBMS, "EAGLE". Did have joint study with BofA that ordered 60 VM/4341s. Then did technology transfer ("under the radar" while company was preoccupied with "EAGLE") to Endicott for SQL/DS. Then after "EAGLE" imploded, there was a request for how fast could "System/R" be ported to MVS, which was eventually released as DB2 (originally for "decision support" *ONLY*).
1988, Nick Donofrio also approved HA/6000, originally for NYTimes to
move their newspaper system ("ATEX") off DEC VAXCluster to RS/6000. I
rename it HA/CMP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing
when I start doing cluster scale-up with national labs (LANL, LLNL,
NCAR, etc) and cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors (Oracle, Sybase,
Ingres, Informix; with VAXCluster in same source base with Unix
support).
IBM S/88 (relogo'ed Stratus) Product Administrator started taking us around to their customers and also had me write a section for the corporate continuous availability strategy document (it gets pulled when both AS400/Rochester and mainframe/POK complain they couldn't meet requirements). Had coined disaster survivability and geographic survivability (as alternative to disaster/recovery) when out marketing HA/CMP. One of the visits to 1-800 bellcore development showed that S/88 would use a century of downtime in one software upgrade, while HA/CMP had a couple extra "nines" (compared to S/88).
One of the first HA/CMP customer installs was new Indian Reservation
Casino in Connecticut, was suppose to have week of testing before
opening ... but after 24hrs, they decided to open the doors (based on
projected revenue; at the time was largest in the US, still one of the
largest in the country)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino#Debt_default
Early Jan92, there was HA/CMP meeting with Oracle CEO and IBM/AWD
executive Hester tells Ellison that we would have 16-system clusters
by mid92 and 128-system clusters by ye92. Mid-jan92, I update FSD on
HA/CMP work with national labs and FSD decides to go with HA/CMP for
federal supercomputers. By end of Jan, we are told that cluster
scale-up is being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we aren't allowed to
work with anything that has more than four systems (we leave IBM a few
months later). A couple weeks later, 17feb1992, Computerworld news
... IBM establishes laboratory to develop parallel systems (pg8)
https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1992-02-17_26_7
There was a simplified portable SQL/RDBMS (aka "Shelby") being developed for OS/2 being done in Toronto lab (but was years away from running on UNIX or supporting cluster operation).
Shelby/Crosswinds email; a couple weeks earlier, was told cluster
scale-up was being transferred to Kingston for announce as IBM
Supercomputer) and HA/CMP would be limited to no more than four
systems in a cluster (serious throughput kneecapping).
Date: Feb 14 18:03:11 1992
To: <xxxxxx@almaden.vnet>
cc: <yyyyyy@ausvm6.vnet>,
<zzzzzzzz@rhqvm08.vnet>
Subject: Highly-Available Crosswinds
i'm not sure you want to hear it ... but the Oracle people doing the
HA/Oracle mode3 parallel server work (many of them the top technical
people working on Oracle release 7 and 8 as well as N-cube stuff)
understand that the HA/6000 software/architecture supports generalized
n-way ... and believe that there will be hardware dasd products (if
not from IBM then from other vendors) that support greater than 2-way
processor attach before year end (i.e. fault-tolerant, raid-5 with
n-way processor attach capability).
In a meeting between Larry Ellison (Oracle president) and Phil Hester
(AWD vp) during Uniform ... Larry effectively bet that he (ha/oracle
parallel server) would be doing at least 1000 TPC-As on a HA/6000
n-way configuration by year end.
there was also a strong suggestion that we (ha/6000) may only be 9
months ahead of the competition and they (other vendors with ports of
oracle parallel server) are moving extremely fast to catch up
(i.e. ha/oracle parallel server is going to have trouble staying even
6 months ahead of the competition).
... snip ... top of post, old email index
Original SQL/Relational RDBMS, System/r
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
HA/CMP posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: What Became of Mainframes?From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: What Became of Mainframes? Date: 11 Jul, 2026 Blog: Facebook
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#98 What Became of Mainframes?
I would periodically claim John did 801/RISC to go to the opposite extreme of (failed) future system. One of the last nails in the future system coffin was analysis by the IBM Houston Scientific Center was if 370/195 apps were redone for FS machine made out of the fastest hardware available, it would have throughput of 370/145 (about 30 times slowdown). There was then internal adtech conference 2nd half of 70s with the 801/RISC group and I was there as part of the 16-CPU 370 group (we had also con'ed the 3033 processor engineers into working on it in their spare time).
Everybody thought (16-CPU 370) was great until somebody tells the head of POK that it could be decades before POK's favorite son operating system ("MVS") had (effective) 16-CPU support (MVS documtation was 2-CPU throughput was only 1.2-1.5 times throughput of 1-CPU; POK doesn't ship a 16-CPU system until after turn of century). Then head of POK invites some of us to never visit POK again and directed the 3033 processor engineers, "heads down and no distractions".
Early 80s, there was effort to use 801/RISC ILIAD chips as microprocessor for mid-range 370 (4331/4341 follow-ons 4361, 4381), AS/400, misc. other stuff. For whatever reasons, it wasn't succesful and things reverted to CISC (I was asked to help with analysis for 4361/4381, that nearly full 370 could be directly implemented CISC circuits at much higher performance than microcode). Note IBM Germany had done a CISC 3chip 370 (ROMAN) that had 370/168 performance.
810/RISC ROMP chip was supposed to be for the Displaywriter follow-on (CP.r operating system, PL.8 programming language). When that was caceled (possibly market moving to PCs), they decided to pivot to the unix workstation market and got the company that did AT&T UNIX port to IBM/PC for PC/IX, to do AIX for the PC/RT.
Later IBM does 801/RISC 6-chip RIOS for RS/6000. The executive we reported to (when doing HA/CMP), goes over to head up Somerset/AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorolo) that does single chip 801/RISC (Power/PC) with Motorola 88K bus/cache (enabling multiprocessor configurations).
Note, mid-90s, i86 chips are done with hardware layer that tranlates
i86 instructions into RISC micro-ops for actual execution (largely
negating performance difference with Power/PC). 1999 benchmark (number
of program iterations/sec compared to industry MIPS/BIPS reference
platform):
• IBM PowerPC 440: 1,000MIPS
• Intel Pentium3 2,054MIPS
Dec2000 (mainframe) benchmark:
• IBM z900: 16CPU, 2.5BIPS, 156MIPS/CPU
Future System posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
801/risc, iliad, romp, rios, pc/rt, rs/6000, power, power/pc posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
posts mentioning i86 hardware translate CISC instructions to RISC
micro-ops for actaul execution.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#45 STL Channel Extender
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#35 IBM RS/6000 HA/CMP
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2026b.html#13 IBM RAS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2025.html#86 Big Iron Throughput
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024d.html#94 Mainframe Integrity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#81 Benchmarks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#67 VM Microcode Assist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#52 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2024.html#46 RS/6000 Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#85 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022g.html#82 RS/6000 (and some mainframe)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2022b.html#64 Mainframes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#6 Mainframes are still the best platform for high volume transaction processing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#81 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
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