Re: AS/400 strong points -Reply -- MIDRANGE-L

Message text written by Blair Wyman

<Snip>

>So, while we shout RISC in great big letters, the bigger (IMO) letters
>of _MI_ are what made that possible.  The MI is brilliant, robust, and
>enduring design, and I can only hope our users are reaping the benefits
>of going to 64 bits without recompiling *from source.* 

>I apologize for the fractured nature of this post, and I'm sorry if I'm
>ranting -- I spent a few years of my life making sure this stuff works. 
>So far it's in pretty good shape.  *8-) 
<
       Blair Wyman (wyman@vnet.ibm.com) / Ph: 507.253.2891 

Blair;

Right you are.       BUT   IMO  the REALLY big point is that the "Machine
Abstraction" or virtual machine
(as you most correctly pointed out)  IS TWENTY YEARS OLD.    I worked on the
SYS/38 along along
time ago,  and its marvelous to see that the customer's investment in
software(among other things)
 has been preserved for that length of time.  

 Sitting in front of me is an Obscure/Rare/Precious manual from the SYS/38,
It's called IBM SYS/38 Technical Developments 1980.  
The chapters are STILL amazing,  like;

Translating a Large Virtual Address  ( M.E Houdek, G.R. Mitchell)   
Hardware Organization of the SYS/38  (R.L. Hoffman, F.G. Soltis)
Sys/38 High-Level Machine  (Dahlby, Henry, Reynolds, Taylor)
SYS/38 Addressing and Authorization -{Capability based authorization} (Truxal,
Berstis, Ranweiler)
Sys/38 Object-Oriented Architechure (Pinnow, Ranweiler, Miller)
Sys/38 Machine Data Base Support  (C.T.Watson, G.F. Aberle)
Table-Driven work management interface  (H.T. Norton, T.R. Schwalen)
Rule-Driven Control Language in Sys/38 (Botterill, Evans)
File and Data definition facilities in Sys/38  (C.D. Truxal, S.R .Ridenour)

And other topics and names that alot of us remember like; W.O Evans,  J.H.
Botterill,  R.O. Fess
On and On and On.  

This stuff is nearly 20 years old and Dec, HP,  and most of all WinNT  would
kill to have this type
of stuff as THEIR underling Architecture even today (32 bits,  BIG   @^$*&@
DEAL!!) 
Aaaaany way. 

Awhile ago I asked this group to send me Types and Dates of the oldest
Non-Recompiled program
that they had running on their AS/400.   I think the earlest I got (even within
this small group compared to
the number of the installed base)  was a program that was LAST COMPILED from
source back in 
1983!!!!!!!!!  That to me is the definition of  an enduring architechure.   

Its too bad that the majority of the IS community at large doesn't know whats
its like to recompile 
a program BY CHOICE to take advantage of new machine enhancements(RISC, 64 bit,
etc.) as 
aposed to HAVING TO Redesign/Rewrite/Recompile a program/system just (for
instance) to go
from 16 bit to 32 bit!

Now I'm ranting.   To sum up:  ME TOO,  Ditto,  Right On, Keep up the good work,
and most of all
Thanks for the Memories. 

John P. Carr  CDP
EdgeTech 

This page was intentionally NOT left blank!

(and say hi to Frank S. for me.)

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