HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:21:37 -0500
From:         Anthony Ng <CCENGNM@NUSVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: VM on IBM 3090 200J (mode of operation)

>I am installing a 3090-200J to run VM/HPO6.
>
>I know the machine has 2 processors but cannot find a reference as to
>what mode the machine should be run in.
>
>Should I define it as UP, AP, MP, or what?  Do I need to dedicate
>channel paths from each processor to dasd devices?
>
>Any help would be greatly appreciated...
>
>Galen.

According to IBM ES/3090 Sustems Assurance Product Review Guide,
SA90-004-03, your 3090-200J can:

    run in S/370, ESA/370 and LPAR mode
    a Dyadic machine, meaning can run UP or AP
    comes with standard 32 channel paths (VM/SP HPO can support
         max 64, 32 paths on each of two channel sets in S/370).

Hence if you are only running one VM then you should define
your CP as AP, attached-processor mode, with definition for
32 channels, ie X'00' to X'1F'.

Hope this helps.

---------
*****************************************************************
* Anthony Ng                        * "Don't Look Back !"       *
* Systems Programmer                *      Luke 9:62            *
* NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE  * "Batteries NOT included,  *
* Bitnet : CCENGNM@NUSVM            *  neither any guarantte."  *
*****************************************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Organization: Samford University Computer Services
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 13:26:57 CST
From:         Galen Tillery <RGTILLER@SAMFORD.BITNET>
Subject:      VM on IBM 3090 200J (mode of operation)

Greetings...

I am installing a 3090-200J to run VM/HPO6.

I know the machine has 2 processors but cannot find a reference as to
what mode the machine should be run in.

Should I define it as UP, AP, MP, or what?  Do I need to dedicate
channel paths from each processor to dasd devices?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Galen.
Organization: Mythos/Xcalbrin Inc.
X-School: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 16:07:07 EST
From: Mythos / Xcalbrin <JKK103@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Subject: IBM mainframe transfer protocols?

I am wondering if it is possible to use zmodem, xmodem, ymodem, etc...on
a 3090 mainframe in vm/cms for mainframe to PC/AT file transfers via modem.
Also if anyone has already  done so, are the programs available for others?
If no programs are available, I would like as much info as anyone has to the
possibility of these protocols being implemented.  If I get enough info, I plan
to try and get some of them working if they are not already available.
(sorry if that was confusing)

                          Thanks,
                                  Joe Krug
========================================================================
'Whoever said that life was fair must have been giving their opinion
 about either the cereal or the magazine.' - Joe Krug

Joe Krug (JKK103@PSUVM.PSU.EDU)
808-B West College Ave.
State College, PA 16801
========================================================================
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 17:01:00 PST
Reply-To:     Leonard D Woren <LDW@USCMVSA.BITNET>
From:         Leonard D Woren <LDW@USCMVSA.BITNET>
Subject:      HLASM survey (was Re: PL/S etc)

> > The difference is that Rexx was provided at no cost just when VM was
> > really taking off, while the HLA is provided at extra cost when people
> > are thinking about shutting down mainframes. How on earth is one supposed
> > to make a business case for spending serious money on this product?
> > I mean, at my last job (before I quit) I couldn't even convince them to
> > get the (free) SLAC assembler mods, let alone CMS pipelines.

This situation is probably growing at many mainframe shops.

> > When will IBM learn the lesson from Unix that the more system programming
> > tools you bundle in, the more useful bits of software get written for the
> > system?

Never.

> I totally agree; requiring an extra fee for the HLA is going to be its
> most serious drawback.

Yes, but it's worse than that.  For those of us who believe in writing
transportable code, how can we use any HLASM features when so few
sites have it?  Unless it shows up on HESC, we won't get it.  In fact,
I don't know of any shops with plans to get it.  Hence, the following
survey.  (Note that the reply-to is set to me.  If you're not on Bitnet,
you can email the survey to my Internet address LDW@MVSA.USC.EDU
instead.  If you reply to other parts of this message than the survey,
please reply to the list.)  I'll attempt to summarize the results of
this in a couple of weeks.

- Yes/No - HLASM is installed or on order.
         - MVS   - VM   - other?
- Yes/No - HLASM is planned for the next budget year.
         - MVS   - VM   - other?
- Yes/No - HLASM is not planned.
         - Why not?
         - Yes/No - If HLASM was only 10-20% higher cost than ASMH V2,
                    would this alter your "no" decision?

/Leonard
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Thu, 31 Dec 1992 12:05:32 CST
From:         Larry Holder <##09@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Reply to the new year

> > example, we are beginning to push ahead toward some distributed
> > processing, but there are no forseeable plans to chuck the mainframe
> > applications.
>
> Yes, but where are the *new* applications being written?
>
> /Leonard

It really depends upon how the new application fits into the current
system.  As much as possible, we are trying to identify distributed
possibilities, and offload that work to a PC.  However, additional
development of our existing Student Information System, which is spread
over several years, continues to include new mainframe screens, batch
reports, etc.  Now, a new system that can stand alone, such as an
application for motor pool to keep up with their cars, is an ideal
candidate for PC-only design (and, in our case, already is).

At least for us, distributed and cooperative processing is a new
venture, and not an overnight drop-this and start-that.  I suspect
this is true for a lot of places.  Take operating systems; some shops
don't even keep up with the latest release of, say, VSE, and they go on
their merry way with what they have (until IBM discontinues maintenance
perhaps).  I'll conclude by noting that there is really no "typical"
shop; personnel sizes range from 1 or 2 people to hundreds; budgets from
a few thousand to millions; philosophies, budgets, steering committees,
all force us to march to different drummers, enabling some to take
advantage of the latest and greatest sooner than others.

Larry Holder,  Senior Programmer/Analyst         Bitnet: ##09@UTMARTN
The University of Tennessee at Martin            Phone:  901-587-7890
Martin, Tennessee  38238  U.S.A.                 Fax:           -7841

VM/ESA 1.0, VSE/ESA 1.1, CICS/VSE 2.1, COBOL-II, DL/I, SQL/DS, QMF
PSW (Personal Status Words): "Saved By Grace" (Romans 1:16 & 8:38)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 10:16:00 EST
From:         Jim Blalock <CAREY@CLEMSON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Is PL/S a dead language?

I too have been amused and/or annoyed at this discussion, but not for
the same reasons as John.

Here we have a programming language which we, as end-users of IBM's MVS
and VM operating system software, need to be able to read and understand
from time to time.  We might have to look over PL/S code (or one of its
relatives) for any of several reasons:  to figure out why a component
behaves the way it does;  to install a hook or determine the actual
environment when an exit is called;  to shoot a bug that Level 2 won't
help us with, or whatever.  We don't have any documentation for this
language, although parts of it look vaguely familiar and it contains
structures that we've seen before.  We do have assembler listings for
the modules involved, but it was produced by this "translator" for the
sole purpose of feeding the Assembler, and wasn't really meant for human
consumption.

John is right;  most of the assumptions being made about PL/S are not
valid, because we are "ignorant" of how it works.  If IBM goes to the
trouble to send out PL/S listings on microfiche and leaves out any
documentation of how to interpret the listings, they should expect
complaints like we've seen in this discussion.  I don't want a PL/S
compiler;  I don't need it, and besides, we have all these compilers
that we're paying good money for :-)   I _would_ like to see something
like a "Fiche Reader's Guide To PL/S" which explains some of the quirky
features of the language that we've all had to guess at.

As long as IBM continues to send the stuff to users, they should at
least tell us what it means.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 15:14:27 CST
From:         David E Boyes <dboyes@IS.RICE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Logical Partitions/Physical Partitions
Comments: To: IBM-MAIN@ricevm1.rice.edu
              30, 92 3:37 pm

> Apropos of this discussion, I just got an IBM document on the subject!
> It's one of the ITSC "red books", GG24-3920, entitled "ES/9000 Multi-
> Image Processing Volume 1: Presentation and Solutions Guidelines".

I'll second this recommendation. I learned a lot of what really
works in LPARs from this set of books. It's worth reading.

Joe Bob sez "Check it out."
From: ag129@cus.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Subject: Re:      Re: Is PL/S a dead language?
Date: 29 Dec 92 13:49:41 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <IBM-MAIN%92122814293609@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU> Michael Stein <CSYSMAS@UCLAMVS.BITNET> writes:
>Ha!  Exactly backwards.  PL/S allows writing a structure which
>you *know* the mapping of, while C doesn't (the C mapping depends

Good point. But PL/S only runs on one machine, so there are no endianness
or word-size issues. It would be possible to say that _for any given CPU_
the layout of C structures would be well-defined, but the C standard cannot
do this. In fact (FLAME ON) IBM should have way back said what C compilers
on MVS should do, how they should handle the record-oriented file system,
what the ASCII-to-EBCDIC translation routines should be called, then we
wouldn't have to put up with oddball compilers.

>PL/S allows bare machine instructions (in addition to inline
>assembly), ie:  MVCL(R2,R4);

Yes. I can't think why I implied it didn't; one of my peeves with PL/S
is that programmers drop into machine instructions when they should use
PL/S itself, e.g. why use MVCL instead of a PL/S assignment?

>No, I've heard that at least one level of PL/S accepts
>declarations of fields as needing CS and will generate the
>required code.  I've never seen any code which uses this though.

Neither have I.  What use is a language if programmers don't understand it?

>-- CS and CDS use should be minimized by avoiding the updates
>from asynchronous processes first.  (Anyway, CS/CDS force a
>pipeline drain and are slooooow compared to normal instructions).

I've seen plenty of assembler code which uses CS for _all_ updates to
certain variables, even when unnecessary (e.g. setting counters to zero).
The whole point about high-level optimising compilers is that they should
take this burden away from the programmer.  Minimizing use of CS is
something PL/S would be useful for, if it had the intelligence to
understand multitasking issues.  But it seems that most IBM programmers
use PL/S as no more than one of those dreadful "structured macro" packages.

Your point about SRBs etc. is a good one. But under an SRB it's important
to have highly optimised code. I use MVS TCP/IP a lot and I think many of
its problems (not just performance) are due to vast amounts of bloated PL/S
in the system (IRB, SRB, PC-call etc.) code.  Surely not all the assembler
wizards at IBM are working on VM/CMS?
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 09:31:59 CST
From:         Larry Holder <##09@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject:      PL/S etc

> ...
>       John Pershing                             PERSHNG at YKTVMH.BITNET
>       IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY        pershng @ watson.ibm.com

John,
I've been meaning to thank you for the great sessions at GUIDE Atlanta
regarding the new high-level assembler.

Maybe when it becomes generally available, we can drop the speculations
about PL/S, and zero in on the practical application of the new features
the assembler will provide.  The advent of the new assembler seems to
me to be comparable with the initial release of REXX, as far as showing
how IBM can break thru with a truly redesigned product, and largely due
to grass-roots efforts.

Larry Holder,  Senior Programmer/Analyst         Bitnet: ##09@UTMARTN
The University of Tennessee at Martin            Phone:  901-587-7890
Martin, Tennessee  38238  U.S.A.                 Fax:           -7841

VM/ESA 1.0, VSE/ESA 1.1, CICS/VSE 2.1, COBOL-II, DL/I, SQL/DS, QMF
PSW (Personal Status Words): "Saved By Grace" (Romans 1:16 & 8:38)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Thu, 24 Dec 1992 17:49:00 PST
From:         Leonard D Woren <LDW@USCMVSA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Logical Partitions/Physical Partitions

On Mon, 21 Dec 1992 10:38:18 EST,
   "Duane D. Weaver" <WEAVER@OHSTVMA.BITNET> said:
> There is a possibility that each center may want to run Unix in partition.
> The administrative center is currently running Amdahl's UTS Unix,
> which can only run under VM on an IBM machine, but may consider AIX.

Really?  Before we moved unitree to an RS/6000, we were running UTS
under LPAR on our IBM 9121-320.

> The academic center is interested in AIX.

My condolences.  All I've heard from people who have experience with
both AIX and some other *ix is negative to AIX.  The TCF (?) looks
spiffy to me, if you can use it, but other than that, I don't see much
point in AIX.  Once you have a general-use mainframe *ix system, users
might find it quite easy to move their work from there to cheap(er)
hardware.

/Leonard

P.S.  Apparently UTS's TCP/IP is a CPU pig.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 10:33:44 EST
From:         "John A. Pershing Jr." <PERSHNG@YKTVMH.BITNET>
Subject:      Is PL/S a dead language?


    Date:    Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:05:00 PST
    From:    Michael Stein <CSYSMAS@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
    [...] I'm wondering if IBM's PL/S is now a dead language?

The last I heard, no. I'm expecting the Beta drop of the next release
of the compiler Real Soon Now.  This next release has lots of really
good stuff in it -- we really should market this *excellent* systems
programming language!  (sigh...)

      John "PL/X Bigot" Pershing                PERSHNG at YKTVMH.BITNET
      IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY        pershng @ watson.ibm.com
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 23:39:17 CST
From:         David E Boyes <dboyes@IS.RICE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Logical Partitions/Physical Partitions
Comments: To: IBM-MAIN@ricevm1.rice.edu
              92 12:51 pm

>  - support of new hardware
>    VM tends to have later support for new hardware, thus
>    restricting you from installing new hardware (and selling the
>    old while it's still worth something).

I've never had trouble defining new whiz-bang devices to VM as
unsupported devices. Yes, VM can't use them, but if the object is
to supply them to a guest MVS, who cares? Let MVS deal with them
-- 3390 and 3490 support started this way, and it's been
succesful in our environment with non-blue gear.

>  - complexity
>    VM is much more complex than LPAR.  Besides taking system
>    programmer time to support/maintain it, there are more things
>    which can go wrong (I/O support, CMS which is at least needed
>    to maintain VM).

I'm not sure I buy this at all. By the time you keep track of the
microcode in the redundant controllers you need for good LPAR
support and tune the LPAR configuration to get the right CPU caps
and allocations, you've spent about as much time as you would
have installing VM once and been done with it. If you are using
VM for nothing but running guest MVS machines, you don't have to
do diddly to VM -- you set up really big V=R/V=F areas and VM
pretty much stays out of the way and lets MVS do it's thing.

There's also a pretty considerable hardware expense involved in
LPAR operations -- duplicate controllers & devices aren't cheap.
The cost of a used 3880/3380K on the used market is small and
VM runs OK in 1 3380 box, compared to duplicating a complete
system configuration for each LPAR to maintain separation of
devices.

>    It's easy to say that VM and LPAR should have the same
>    overhead, however it may not be.  It's probably easy to start
>    using some VM services which have a large impact on the
>    performance.  And if you can't use the VM services why pay for
>    VM?  (reliability, $, maintenance, support etc).

LPARs are a lot easier to tune, I'll admit. I dearly wish for an
absolute CPU cap in VM. Most MVS-intensive shops with VM that I know of
use VM to replace real CTCA or 3088 hardware and not much else.
The maintenance on one real CTCA makes up a significant portion of
the cost of VM, especially for academic sites eligible for the
HESC discounts.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Thu, 24 Dec 1992 17:24:00 PST
From:         Leonard D Woren <LDW@USCMVSA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Spool file size inconsistency

>          As John Pedlow and Steve Entwistle noted in responses sent to
> IBM-MAIN, the spool space used for purged data sets is not reclaimed until all
> of the SYSOUT data sets for a job are purged.

There is an exception to this -- the spool space from sysout datasets
with FREE=CLOSE should be freed when that dataset is printed/purged.

/Leonard
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Thu, 31 Dec 1992 11:05:38 NFT
From:         INIST <UCAD331@FRORS12.BITNET>
Subject:      shared printers

Hi
To share my laser printer team (ibm 3816,3812,4224,Laserwriter,
Laserjet and other things) between the Host environment which
runs MVS and PSF/AFP and the UNIX environment (TCP/IP and POSTCRIPT),
I see a product named PSF/2 which runs on OS/2.
Has anybody tested this configuration ?. Any suggestions and responses
are welcome. Could it be other solution ?.
Happy New Year ...

                  Laurent SAUDER
                    INIST/CNRS
      Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique
      Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
      2,Allee du Parc de BRABOIS
      54514 VANDOEUVRE LES NANCY FRANCE
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 14:40:17 CST
From:         David E Boyes <dboyes@IS.RICE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Reply to the new year
Comments: To: IBM-MAIN@ricevm1.rice.edu
              92 10:24 am

> size, speed, etc.  Perhaps my VSE/ESA operating system will never die;
> in a decade it may run on a box sitting on part of my desk.

It already does. The Personal/370 cards will run VM/ESA 1.0 and
VSE runs just fine on it. All you need is a MCA bus PS/2 and the
cards, plus licenses for the other software. I saw this gadget
demoed in a PS/2 P70 with a Sequoia parallel channel interface
going out to a set of 3380s -- it was *weird*, but it worked
pretty well.

> Larry Holder,  Senior Programmer/Analyst         Bitnet: ##09@UTMARTN
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Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 09:33:17 EST
From:         "Steven P. Roder" <TKSSTEVE@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject:      Re: VM on IBM 3090 200J (mode of operation)

On Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:21:37 -0500 Anthony Ng said:
>>I am installing a 3090-200J to run VM/HPO6.
>>
>>I know the machine has 2 processors but cannot find a reference as to
>>what mode the machine should be run in.
>>
>>Should I define it as UP, AP, MP, or what?  Do I need to dedicate
>>channel paths from each processor to dasd devices?
>>
>>Any help would be greatly appreciated...
>>
>>Galen.
>
>
>Hence if you are only running one VM then you should define
>your CP as AP, attached-processor mode, with definition for
>32 channels, ie X'00' to X'1F'.
>
Well, we used to run HPO5 on 3081's, and we always genned the system as
an MP, and split the I/O paths over the two channel sets where appropriate.
That is, for multi-path hardware (e.g. 3380/3880, 3380/3990, 3390/3990, 37x5),
define the one path on one channel set and the other path on the other channel
set.  The 3090, when operating in S/370 mode, can have the 32 channels defined
as channels X'00 to X'0F' in both channel sets 0 and 1.  Doing it this way
is nice, since the chpid 00 can be assigned to Channel 0 on both channel sets,
and avoids having devices with multiple addresses (however, in some cases,
multi-addressed devices may be desireable).  This is an MP definition, and
will require very few changes (actually no "required" changes) to IML in
ESA/370 mode.  You don't mention what machine you are upgrading from, but if
it is another dyadic, then you probably only need to change the Chipid
numbering.

As far as AP goes, I think that the definition of an AP configuration is that
all the I/O is attached to one processor, and therefore, all I/O must be
handled by that processor.  MP says that both CP's can do I/O, as defined by
you in the IOCP.

Go the MP-way.  Worked for us.  Better yet, install VM/ESA-ESA on your new
3090-200J as soon as possible, and a lot of this becomes sort of moot ( :-))
You will get all sorts of goodies over HPO6, not the least of which is
better performance, without giving up anything (except maybe your "old"
ways of doing Maintenance).

Good luck !, and I hope this helps,

Steve Roder
(tkssteve@ubvm.bitnet | tkssteve@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu | (716)645-3564
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