Basic-Plus COMPILE

I compiled, .BAC, my TAPE06 program.

DIR TAPE06.*
 Name .Ext    Size   Prot    Date       SY:[1,2]
TAPE06.BAS      10   < 60> 01-Jan-99
TAPE06.BAC      35C  <124> 01-Jan-99

Total of 45 blocks in 2 files in SY:[1,2]


Ready

I didn’t seem any faster for my small test…1000 records…about 3 seconds. I don’t remember perhaps compile is more about protecting the code.

CA Dynam

I Forgot about this cool VSE program we ran at the Bank, until I saw it in my log. There is DYNAM/T(Tape) and DYNAM/D (Disk). The biggest thing I remember was

CA Dynam/D manages your disk data sets in the following ways:

  • „ Allocates primary and secondary disk space
  • „ Permits automatic space release
  • „ Protects disk data sets from overlapping and deleting active files
  • „ Provides device independence for automatic conversion to new DASD devices

IBM 9121 (Computer at bank)

I honestly couldn’t have told you, from memory, what IBM computer we were using at the Bank. However I saw these entries in my log (doesn’t tell me what we were using prior)…

07/02/93 – 9121-210 (ES/9000) ARRIVED TODAY.
07/11/93 – SUN. IN 7:30-12:45PM FOR VM/ESA REL 2 INSTALL.
CALLED IBM LEVEL 1 (1X331) WITH PROBLEM DEFINING V=R AREA,
KAREN FAXED ME SOME INFORMATION ON CHANGING THE LOAD ORIGIN
ON THE STAND ALONE LOADER, WHICH WORKED.
ALSO 9121-210 (ES/9000) INSTALL.
BACK 3:30PM-6:45PM FOR PROBLEM WITH VM NOT RECOGNIZING 3890 DEVICE,
WAS NOT IN SYSTEM CONFIG (see previous post).
07/18/93 – SUN. IN 9AM-11AM FOR 9121-210 (ES/9000) INSTALL,
08/27/95 – SUN. CPU UPGRADED FROM A 9121-210 TO A 9121-260.

FYI: These models were air cooled.
Also FYI: According to Wikipedia on the IBM 3890…”This piece of equipment is used by financial institutions to sort and tally all cheques, utility payment and gift certificates at the end of each banking day.

Two dates for 9121-210 (ES/9000) INSTALL?

DMKRIO/HCPRIO

I was looking at an old mainframe log file I kept. I was looking up various words. Since I’ve been working with VM lately for some reason I decided to look for DMKRIO. I was shocked not to find it in my log file. How can this be? I remember DMKRIO. I did find a HCPRIO…which I don’t remember. Apparently I added some device to it. Long story short I found a Conversion Guide and Notebook PDF for VM/ESA. There was a section that said…Converting DMKSYS and DMKRIO [S370]. You cannot use DMKSYS and DMKRIO files in the new system. IBM strongly recommends that you convert your DMKSYS and DMKRIO files to a CP system configuration file. The CP system configuration file, named SYSTEM CONFIG, is new. The other method of defining your CP configuration is with HCPSYS and HCPRIO files. It is possible to convert your DMKSYS and DMKRIO files to HCPSYS and HCPRIO files but this makes your conversion more difficult.

I found a reference to SYSTEM CONFIG later in my log file so evidently the DMKSYS and DMKRIO were eventually converted to IBM’s recommendation.

So my previous job I think I was probably using VM/SP, and there DMKRIO. I don’t have a log file (at least not handy), for that job (it might be on a VMFPLC2 tape).

Haptics?

I was researching mobile phones and a couple places started talking about haptics. WTH are haptics? Even worse it rolls off their tongue as if, of course, everyone should know what that is. I know I’m sure a lot of younger people would say “OK boomer”. So I look it up and I found this stating it’s first use was in 1734. See you stupid boomer! I don’t care…it’s not a word that’s been in common use, maybe until mobile phone reviews. They weren’t talking about mobile phones in 1734.

So I also found this article titled We Put a Bunch of New Words in the Dictionary in September 2018. So I was right! Which they describe as” the science of touch, is behind the vibration of a smartphone in response to your finger, which might be switching the phone to airplane mode, or choosing to force quit an app so that we can restart and begin Instagramming again“. What? Is this important? I’m not against new words. It’s just slightly annoying how it’s used as if, of course, everyone knows haptics….I’m so intelligent.

I think I came across this word a few months ago reading another cell phone review. So somewhere down the line some respected reviewer used the word and now all the better reviewers better know and use it too…like sheep.

Posted 3 YouTube videos in the last week.

No I’m not trying to be a regular YouTube contributor. One of the reasons I sometimes like to post a video is to have a date/time stamp of when I did something. I had recently put a lot of effort in reading IBM type tapes using Basic-Plus on a PDP-11, like I did many years ago. That lead to my 1st in a long time video. This was my favorite of the 3 videos. Because I had to remember everything, since I have no old Basic-Plus listings. The fact that I have no Basic-Plus listings also amazes me. Because I actually sought and found a job using RSTS/E on a PDP. And those memories were older than the other 2 videos. Glad I remembered GET and FIELD, which was important to de-block those old IBM tapes. However the first thing I did was figure out how to convert EBCDIC to ASCII. I used a table I created in Julia a few years ago, to help me there.

Then I decided I’d like to do a little more with DOS/VS than I have. In playing with DOS/VS It became extremely annoying to bring it up over and over manually, because in trying things, I would frequently mess things up and needed to restore a good backup, and re-IPL. So I searched for and found a way to make that process easier. So that lead to my 2nd video. Once I got a little more comfortable with DOS/VS, since it’s strictly batch, that led me to wanting to use VM/370 CE as a development environment. And that led me to dive back into REXX. I spent more than a few minutes getting those old REXX EXECs working. VM/370 CE certainly helped in that department. I could again see that VM really was great for that. Starting to remind me of the old days. Now that DOS/VS was running reliably, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to run TK4- and DOS/VS on VM/370 which lead me to my 3rd recent video. I don’t have anymore projects up my sleeve right now.