RE: Suggestion for a new System Request option

["Henrik Krebs" <hkrebs@xxxxxxxxx>]

For those with historical interest:

The 'external' switches is (was) what the name sayes: External.

They were physical switches on the console panel that let the system operators 
in their white coats control the current batch run.
I _have_ seen old job sheets (pieces of good old paper) instructing about the 
switch setting, and I believe that you could find them physically on the first 
midrange machines s/3. I used it on a GIER. However my entry to midrange was on 
a s/3 mod 15D, which ran 3 + 1 jobs at the same time (and with CCP it simulated 
even more), so already at that time they were impratical.

So this _is_ the way to meet the need 'by the book'. Today you always have en 
extra session to do the CHGJOB from. As you need to code for this in each and 
every RPG program it's no problem to code it as a 'get job switches'.

There is however a problem. Who knows this special coding? The programmer do 
for the first few months after coding. Nobody else. So of cause the better way 
is the SHTDN operation (I always candidate for: If you need to end something a 
delay of 10 seconds rarely make things much worse, and _maybe_ some pograms are 
coded for this. So: Never du a ENDxxx *IMMED - you can do it with whatever 
delay you would give it in one command).

Btw: On my development machine DSPJOB is replaced by an WRKJOB in CPX2313. 
Simple: This has a command line. Could be much more fancy though.

Henrik
http://hkrebs.dk