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Input/Output Packages for the

Systems 360 Assembly Language Processor

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Bureau of Standards
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NBS TECHNICAL NOTE 433

ISSUED SEPTEMBER 1968

Input/Output Packages for the

Systems 360 Assembly Language Processor

P. A. D. deMaine

Systems Research and Development Division

Center for Computer Sciences and Technology

Institute for Applied Technology

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

NBS Technical Notes are designed to supplement the Bureau's regular publications program. They provide a means for making available scientific data that are of transient or limited interest. Technical Notes may be

listed or referred to in the open literature.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C, 20402

Price 25 cents.
Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Description of new I/O packages 2

3. Computer procedures 6

U. Examples 10

Acknowledgments 12

II
INPUT/OUTPUT PACKAGES FOR THE SYSTEMS 360

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROCESSOR

P. A. D. deMaine

Three input-output (I/O) software packages for use with the Assembly Language Processor (ALP) of the Systems 360 are described.

They are for card read, on-line-print and

card punch operations. A single pseudo-operation statement, which contains all required

formats and addresses, suffices for the execution of each input-output package. Printed

error and guide messages aid in program

debugging. In addition to the conventional

formats (A, I, F and E), Systems 360 column

binary (X) and hexadecimal (J and B) are permitted. With a single pseudo-operation these

I/O packages can handle up to eight individual

Items or arrays of any length in a single or

mixed format

.

Key words: Assembly language; card punch; card read;

input/output j on-line print; system 36O.

1. Introduction

As the first step in coding the SOLID System [1] for the

Systems 360, some additions to the Assembly Language Processor

(APL) had to be made. At the time of writing there is still

a lack of input/output capability for handling any but the most

primitive formats (Systems 360 column binary and core dumps).

The I/O packages which are described here have been coded In

compiler. The packages themselves have been incorporated into

the Systems [2], which is now being implemented for evaluation on

the IBM 360/40 (with 262K memory, two 2311 disk drives and eight

2402 tape drives) at the Washington Data Processing Center,

Department of Agriculture, Independence Avenue, Washington, D. C.

The author's prior experience with monitors for medium machines and the PORTHEUS and IBSYS executive systems have contrib1

See IBM manuals A22-6821-2 and A22-6810-7

2

For example, the IBM 620/40K with 1316 disk drive at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the IBM 620/60K at the

University of Mississippi, Oxford.

1
uted much to the design of the new I/O packages. Basic to the

design is the concept that I/O should be easy to use, without

sacrificing the versatility achieved In some large systems

(e.g., with FORTRAN IV). In this regard the elegant simplicity

of the I/O for earlier versions of FORTRAN for smaller machines,

notably the FORTRAN WITHOUT FORMAT (IBM 4-1-61), and especially

for FAP in PORTHEUS are particularly attractive. The Systems

360 assembly language, with its instructions for selectively

opening (OPEN) and closing (CLOSE) peripheral devices and its

dual logic appears to be ideally suited for designing generalpurpose I/O packages that can be used in any of the coding

levels of the SOLID System.

The purpose of this report is to describe the essential

features of the new Systems 360 I/O packages. The individual

packages are described in detail in other reports J

.

2. Description of New I/O Packages

Each of the three new I/O packages, read cards (REIDY),

punch cards (PUNXH), and print (PRINT), contains a single macrosubroutine and at least one calling macro, which generates the

calling procedure for the subroutine at assembly time. The

prototype statements for each macro contain all the information

needed to execute the I/O operation. The prototype statement

for each macro-subroutine defines the registers which are to be

used to establish addressability, i.e., USING, and to branch,

i.e., the return vector. See Table I. Storage (in bytes)

required for the assembled components are given in the table.

At assembly time the instruction SUBMP correctly positions each

subroutine. Calling procedures, generated by the single pseudooperations are assembled in the main body of the object program;

formats (&F) and addresses (&FROM, &T0, &W1 , &W2, ..., &W8) are

defined, and the USING and branch registers &UR and &RR are

discussed in the following paragraphs.

PORTHEUS, the executive system for the IBM 709V1401 at the

University of Illinois, is itself a modification of the University

of Michigan's MAD System, and the IBSYS is the executive system

for the IBM 709V7040 at the Western Data Processing Center,

University of California, Los Angeles.

2 These are identified at (1) storage-to-storage instructions in

which only base registers appear and (2) the normal instruction

set in which registers are used for indexing and/or arithmetic.

All detailed reports on the SOLID System are published as

National Bureau of STnadards Technical Notes. Listing of the

packages can be obtained on request.
TABLE I . Prototype statements for the calling procedure macros

and macro-subroutines for the indicated I/O packages.

Calling Procedure Macro Macro-Subroutine

I/O Prototype Statement for

Package I/O Pseudo-Operstions

Storage

Storage

PRINT &J PRINT &F, &FROM,&TO

PUNCH &J PUNXH &F, &FROM, &T0

(Cards)

12.6 SPRINT PRINT,

&UR, &RR

356* SPUNXH PUNCH,

&J REIDI &F, &W1

&J REID2 &F, &W1, &W2

&J REID3 &F, &W1, &W2, &W3

READ &J REID4 &F, &W1, &W2, ..., &V/4 182

(Cards) &J REID5 &F, &W1, &W2,...,&W5 1

&J REID6 &F, &W1, &W2,...,&W6 194

&J REID7 &F, &W1, &W2,...,&W7 200

&J REID8 &F, &W1, &W2,...,&W8 206

&UR, &RR

164

170

176

182 SREID READC,

&UR, &RR

1406

1400

2400

* Special X-format version requiring no SPUNXH subroutine.

Two other macros, which have no arguments, play an important

part: (1) RESERVE, which is inserted immediately after the START

instruction of the source program, generates instructions for

opening peripheral devices and defines all constants, counters,

words, DCB or format statements , arrays and registers used in

the SOLID System. If the new I/O packages are to be used separately from the SOLID System some instructions In RESERVE can be

omitted. (2) SUBMP, which precedes the END instruction in the

source program, generates instructions for closing peripheral

devices, establishes addressability (via the USING statement),

allocates the branch register and correctly positions each subroutine. The branch, i.e., the return vector, and USING registers

for each subroutine are changed by replacing a single instruction

(the prototype statement for the macro-subroutine) in the SUBMP

macro. In our programs either of two registers ( 8 or 9) may be

used to establish addressability in the subroutine. Any one of

five registers (1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 or 9) may be assigned for

1

Two DCB T s are defined: The first (for printing) handles 133

bytes, and the second (for punching or reading) handles 80 bytes;
branching back from the subroutine to the calling procedure.

The single statement (pseudo-operation) which assembles

the calling procedure for the designated subroutine can be

inserted anywhere in the source program between the RESERVE

and SUBMP pseudo-operations. The storage required for each

calling procedure is given in Table I.

INPUT/OUTPUT PACKAGES

I/O PSEUDO-OPERATIONS

The pseudo-operations for the three I/O packages are as

follows

:

PRINT F, FROM, TO ... On-line print

PUNXH F, FROM, TO ... Punch card(s)

REIDY F, Wl, W2, ..., . .

. , WY ... Read cards(s)

In the REIDY pseudo-operation, Y is a numeral (1 to 8) which

corresponds to the number of variables (Wl, W2, ...) entered.

Addressing : Addresses of variables appearing in the pseudoop eraTTons~TFROM, TO, Wl, W2, 113, ..., W8) can have any form,

permitted for the Systems 360 assembly language, except D1(R1, Bl)

Some examples of permitted addresses are Z, Z+l, Z(IR), O(IR),

1000, 1000(IR), IR, = C ADDRESS', and *+r, with IR an index

register

.

PRINT F,0,9 will list the contents of general registers

to 9. Except .for the requirement that FROM must not be greater than TO 9 there Is no restriction on the addresses which can

appear in the PRINT and PUNXH pseudo-operations. If protected

locations in low and high core areas are addressed in a REIDY

pseudo-operation, the ADDRESSING ERROR message is given and the

I/O is terminated.

Formats : The code F, which appears in all pseudo-operations,

is used to compute the individual formats for each string or

word handled by the I/O packages. The seven individual formats

are Hollerith (A), Systems 360 Column Binary (X) , Strings (J) and

four-byte words (B) of hexadecimal digits, and the conventional

decimal formats (I, E and F)

.

1

In case of this error the I/O operation is terminated with the

message ADDRESSING ERROR, and control returns to the calling

procedure for reassignment to the next instruction.
The following definitions are needed to understand the computational rules A field of length N contains N printed or

punched EBCDIC codes (the System 360 field data doces of eight

bits). In the PUNXH and PRINT pseudo-operations B, I, F, E, or

mixed formats yield fields with a fixed length of 14 EBCDIC

codes, which are separated either by two blanks (PRINT) or by

a blank and a 0-8-2 punch (PUNXH). With the REIDY pseudooperation and the same formats a single card can have up to 20

fields with a maximum total length of 80 columns. In this case

a single 0-8-2 punch terminates each field. However, only for

single arrays (Y + 1) will the computer read more than Y fields

per card.

With an A, X, or J format and one variable the single field

can have any length. Strings of Hollerith (A) or hexadecimal

(J) information are terminated with two 0-8-2 punches. Each

field of Systems 360 column binary (X format) is prefaced with

a single card which contains the total number of bytes which

are to be read (REIDY) or punched (PUNXH).

A variable designates either an array or a single item of

I/O information. The number of variables (NOV) in the REIDY

pseudo-operation equals the integer Y, which is less than nine.

In the PUNXH and PRINT the number of variables equals the number

Of individual formats in the format code F. In this case the

maximum value for NOV is five (PUNXH) or eight (PRINT).

The format code F in each I/O pseudo-operation consists of

a single string of from one to five (PUNXH) or eight (PRINT

and REIDY) format symbols (i.e., A, X, J, B, I, F and E). Mixed

strings like AEIFBB can contain the column binary (X) and hexadecimal string (J) formats but the reader is advised to avoid

their use. Word alignments are particularly important and, in

the general case, difficult to keep straight. In the REIDY

pseudo-operation an asterisk at the beginning of the format

code F means that the information will be read from more than

one card.

X format was designed for the esay manipulation of Systems

360 column binary information. The pseudo-operation PUNXH X,

FROM, TO means that (TO - FROM + 1) bytes of information, located

in the computer in the area FROM to TO, are to be punched in

column binary, I.e., 80 bytes/card. A single card containing

the column binary number (TO - FROM + 1) prefaces the card deck.

The pseudo-operation REID1 *X, BEGIN means that column binary is

to be loaded starting at the byte with address BEGIN. The first

card, of the input deck contains the number of bytes (column

binary) to be read.

A typical mixed format is obtained by entering ABFIEIII for the

code F; this means that eight fields are to have formats A, B,

F, I, E, I, I and I, respectively.
3, Computer Procedures

One feature of the new I/O package is a system of error

messages and corrective procedures that greatly increases its

usefulness. In this section the computational procedures are

first described and then some actual examples of formats and

I/O messages are given.

At assembly time the Pseudo-operations, which appear in

the source program, are used to construct the calling procedures

for the I/O subroutines. The flow-chart for a typical calling

procedure is given in Figure I. After saving all index registers,

the format (P) and number of variables (Y) are transferred to

storage areas FORMAT and NOV. In the next step certain information from the calling procedure (see examples) is stores in a temporary array. This Information will be used in the subroutine to construct the printed guide statement. Next the

absolute address for each variable (Wl, W2, WY) is obtained

by the load address operation and stored in the array ADDRESS.

The location of the pseudo-operation in the source program is

stored in register 5, after which the branch-and-link procedure

is executed. The return vector (branch register) contains the

address of the last statement in the calling procedure, which

resets all index registers to their initial values. For the

PUNXH and PRINT I/O packages, NOV (number of variables) is

calculated in the subroutines.

In all subroutines the number of format symbols in FORMAT

are counted in NF. In the REIDY subroutine the next step is to

compare the number of variables (NOV) and the number of formats

(NF) . If NOV = NF ^ 1, either arrays (designated by an asterisk

in the left-hand byte of FORMAT) or NOV single items are to be

read. If NOV = NF = 1 and a single array is indicated (see

previous discussion of Formats on page ) , NOV is set equal to

20 and the format symbol (in the left byte of FORMAT) is propagated in the first 20 positions of array FORMAT. If NOV ?

NF, NOV is set equal to NF and the first symbol in FORMAT is

propagated for all fields. Some results of these computations

are illustrated below:

1. Each of the pseudo-operations REID2 I,W1,W2; REID2 IBE,

W1,W2 and REID2 II,W1,W2 will read two fields with decimal integer

formats from a single card.

2. REID2 *I,W1,W2; REID2 *IAE,W1,W2; or REID2 *II,W1,W2 will

read two fields per card with decimal integer format until a double 0-8-2 punch, which signified the end of the arrays, is encountered.

3. REID1 *I,W1 will read up to 20 decimal integer fields per

card until the termination code (a double 0-8-2 punch) is encountered.
SAVE ALL

INDEX REGISTERS

NOV = Y

LOAD FORMAT'

WITH F

STORE GUIDE

STATEMENT IN

TEMP. ARRAY

(WORKA)

LOAD ABSOLUTE

ADDRESSES OF

VARIABLES IN

ADDRESS'

LOAD REG. 5 WITH

ADDRESS OF

PSEUDO-OPERATION

LOAD USING'

REGISTER WITH

ADDRESS OF

SUBROUTINE

BRANCH

AND LINK (BALR)

1

I I

i SUB-ROUTINE I

I , l

RESTORE ALL

INDEX REGISTERS

FIGURE 1. Flow Chart for the CALLING PROCEDURE of the Card-Read I/O Package:

Pseudo-Operation REIDY F, Wl, W2, W3, ..., WY
4. REID1 *IX ? W1, with X equal to any format symbol, will

read one decimal integer per card until the termination code is

encountered

,

In the PUNXH and PRINT subroutines, after counting the format

symbols in FORMAT with NF, the two addresses (FROM and TO) are

compared. If FROM is greater than TO, the guide and error statements are assembled and printed (see examples), then control returns to the calling procedure for reassignment. Otherwise, the

number of variables (NOV) is set equal to minimum [N, (1 +

(TO - FROM)/^] 1

, with N = 5 (PUNXH) or 8 (PRINT), and NOV is

compared with NF. If NF equals NOV, all fields have been assigned formats. Otherwise NF is set equal to NOV and the first

format symbol is propagated in the first five (PUNXH) or eight

(PRINT) bytes of FORMAT. The consequences of these actions are

illustrated next:

1. PRINT B,FROM,FROM+28; PRINT BIA,FROMFROM+2 8 will print

a single line with eight fields of length 14. Each field will

contain eight hexadecimal digits, right-adjusted.

2. PRINT IBIEFEIB,FROM,FROM+60 will print two lines, each

with eight fields of length 14 and separated by two blanks. The

eight data fields of numbers, beginning on the left, will be in

I,B,I,E,F,E,I,and B formats. PUNXH would yield similar results

for cards with 80 columns. If single A or J formats are used

in either the PRINT or PUNXH pseudo-operations the field boundaries are ignored and a single string of Hollerith (A) or hexadicimal (J) characters are printed (132 characters per line) or

punched (80 characters per card).

In the next step the guide statement is constructed and

printed. This statement contains the hexadecimal location of the

pseudo-operation, the address(es) in the pseudo-operation (FROM,

TO, etc.), and the format which is to be used for each field.

With the PUNXH pseudo-operation another guide statement, with

an asterisk in column one, is also punched. With the REIDY pseudooperation the first 16 characters on the first data-card are printed immediately after the guide-statement. Also, in REIDY, any

card with an asterisk in column one is treated as a normal comment

card and is printed . The minor restriction this imposes on fields

with Hollerith (A) format is a small price to pay for the easy

method of clearly labeling input information.

No attempt will be made here to describe details of the three

I/O packages. Single strings of Hollerith (A) or hexadecimal (J)

information create no special problems.

A four-byte word is assumed

^All blanks are eliminated from hexadecimal input
The results achieved with these packages are summarized for

B,I,F,E and mixed formats:

1. Input (REIDY ) (B,I,F and E Formats)

a. The actual information stored for each field occupies four bytes. Floating-point numbers are always stored

in their normalized forms. Hexadecimal and decimal integer

numbers are right-adjusted.

b. Blanks and leading zeros in fields with B,I,E

and F formats are eliminated. If the number is too large to

be represented in 32 binary bits, truncation occurs on the right.

Examples are as follows:

Hexadecimal: 00 12 375EF FE1 is stored as 12375EFF.

Decimal Integer: -01 23^56789998 is stored as

-12345678999.

The truncation rules for F and E formats are determined by the

number of significant decimal digits before and after the decimal

point and the magnitude of the exponent. In general, numbers between + 10" 12 and + lO-^ can, of course, be entered via the hexadecimal (B) format.

c. With E or F format 1, 1.0, 0.001E+3, 1000E-02 etc. is

stored as 0.1 E+01.

2. Output (PUNXH and PRINT ) (B,I,F and E Formats)

There is no special problem associated with a field

which has B or I formats. With E and F formats the following

rules apply:

a. All numbers are printed or punched in their normalized forms.

b. If the number requested has an exponent greater

than 11 or less than -11, the hexadecimal form is printed or

punched.

c. Blanks in the fractional part of a printed or punched

floating-point number indicate that significant bits of information were lost during conversion of the binary representation, to

its decimal form. That is 0.11 E+12 means that only the first

two significant numbers are reliable, . 1100000E+12 means that

the first seven significant numbers are reliable. Some examples

of the various forms of 1/0 formats and messages are given in

the next section.
h. Examples

Throughout this section the $ means an 0-8-2 punch. In the

REIDY pseudo-operation a single 0-8-2 punch terminates each field

and a double 0-8-2 punch at the end of the last field terminates

arrays. Each line of data is on a single card.

I. The statement:

REID2 I, NV, JI

(1) read a single card:

2 $0 $ (two fields of length 6)

(2) and printed:

READ IN AFTER STATEMENT 00009E82. INFORMATION FOR NV, JI.

F0RMAT=II

THE FIRST 16 BYTES READ WERE: 2 .8 BYTES STORED.

(Both NV and JI are stored as decimal integers.) The location

of the REIDY operation in the program is 00009E82.

II « The statement:

REID2 IE,SOS(3),LSX(3)

(1) read a single card:

$.12$ (two fields, lengths 6 and 3)

(2) and printed:

READ IN AFTER STATEMENT 00009F34. INFORMATION FOR S0S( 3) ,LSK( 3)

F0RMAT=IE

THE FIRST L§ BYTES READ WERE: .12 .8 BYTES STORES.

(sos(3) contains a decimal integer; and LSX(3) contains a normalized floating point number.)

10
III. The statement:

REID1*E,0(BRYY)

read 561 floating and fixed point numbers and stored them as

normalized floating point in the indicated array, beginning with

0(BRYY)1. The 56l numbers were punched nine to a card, with

fields of length 7. A double 0-8-2 punch terminated the I/O

operation. The guide statement printed was: ****************************************************************

READ IN AFTER STATEMENT 0000A00E. INFORMATION FOR O(BRYY) ARRAYS

FORMAT=EEEEEEEE

THE FIRST 16 BYTES READ WERE: 90.0 88.5 86.2244 BYTES STORED.

IV. The statement:

PRINT I,LEXMODE,LEXCON

printed

:

****************************************************************

AFTER STATEMENT 00009BCA. FIRST=LEXMODE; LAST=LEXCON; FORMAT=I

ADDRESSING ERROR

because the address of LEXMODE was larger than LEXCON.

V. The statement:

PRINT BBBBE,PCORDS(2),PCORDS(3)

1 printed:

AFTER STATEMENT OOOO85BO. FIRST=PCORDS ( 2 )

; LAST=PCORDS ( 3 )

;

PORMAT=BBBBE

01502800 00000000 00000000 00000000 +0.3999996E-02

-BRYY is an index register.

11
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by transfer of funds AG-69 from

the National Science Foundation. The helpful attitudes of personnel on the operations staff at the Washington Data Processing

Center, Department of Agriculture, are gratefully acknowledged.

12
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