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Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410869 is a reply to message #410857] Thu, 09 September 2021 21:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Levine is currently offline  John Levine
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Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>> don't expect any performance.
>
> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...

CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
dozen disk drives.

These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410872 is a reply to message #410868] Thu, 09 September 2021 23:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>
>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>>> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> > John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z†box.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >
>>>> > Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> the 1960s.
>>>>
>>>
>>> ? I thought that the 5500’s successor systems weren’t object-compatible
>>> with it. I don’t know about the degree of compatibility between the 6000s,
>>> 7000s, and 8000s. Id be happy to be corrected.
>>
>> There was a step change between the B5500 and the B6500; after than they
>> were binary compatible (e-mode in the early 1980s added support for larger
>> memory, but still ran old codefiles).
>
> I see a date of 1969 for the B6500.
> That gives the title back to S/360.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that B5000 applications
ran on the B6500 - Burroughs was good about backwards
compatability - as shown by the B3500 line which ran
the original binaries through end of life (last system
powered off in 2010 so far as I'm aware - 45 year run).

Someone pointed to this, which talks about the
Pasadena plant and the development of the B5000
line. I hadn't realized that Cliff Berry had
any connection to Burroughs when I was working
there; one my school's most famous Alumni.

http://www.digm.com/UNITE/2019/2019-Origins-Burroughs-Algol. pdf


>
> I had to support a project moving Unisys code to z-Arch.
> We had persistent performance issues, the mainframe just couldn't deal
> with loading lots of small programs while the app was running.

The Burroughs systems were all designed to be very easy
to use and to program.

> I see Unisys is naturally reentrant. That probably had a lot to do with
> the problems we were having.

Yes, it was quite advanced for the day. The capability model
that Burroughs invented with the large systems line is being
investigated for new processor architectures today, see for example CHERI.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410873 is a reply to message #410869] Thu, 09 September 2021 23:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 01:35:34 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>> don't expect any performance.
>>
>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...

No. The pi is painfully slow running the emulator.

> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
> dozen disk drives.
>
> These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
> think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.

It's I/O is a USB port, Gigabit, and wifi. It can also implement I/O
with a USART but that's very limited bandwidth.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410874 is a reply to message #410869] Thu, 09 September 2021 23:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel is currently offline  Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel
Messages: 3156
Registered: January 2012
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Senior Member
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
> dozen disk drives.
>
> These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
> think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.

raspberry Pi 4 specs and benchmarks (2 yrs ago)
https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/raspberry-pi-4-specs- benchmarks

SoC: Broadcom BCM2711B0 quad-core A72 (ARMv8-A) 64-bit @ 1.5GHz
GPU: Broadcom VideoCore VI
Networking: 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac wireless LAN
RAM: 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.0, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
GPIO: 40-pin GPIO header, populated
Storage: microSD
Ports: 2x micro-HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm analogue audio-video jack, 2x USB 2.0,
2x USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, Camera Serial Interface (CSI), Display Serial Interface (DSI)
Dimensions: 88mm x 58mm x 19.5mm, 46g

linpack mips 925MIPS, 748MIPS, 2037MIPS
memory bandwidth (1MB blocks r&w) 4129/sec, 4427/sec
USB storage thruput (megabytes/sec r&w) 353mbytes/sec, 323mbytes/sec

more details
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
best picks Pi microSD cards (32gbytes)
https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/raspberry-pi-microsd -cards

===

by comparison, 145 would be .3MIPS and 512kbyte memory,

2314 capacity 29mbytes ... need 34 2314s/gbyte or 340 2314s for
10gbytes
https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_231 4.html
2314 disk rate 312kbytes/sec ... ignoring channel program overhead, disk
access, etc, assuming that all four 145 channels would continuously be doing
disk i/o transfer at sustained 312kbytes/sec ... that is theoritical
1.2mbytes/sec

trivia: after transferring to San Jose Research (bldg28), I got roped
into playing disk engineer part time (across the street in
bldg14&15). The 3830 controller for 3330 & 3350 disk drives was replaced
with 3880 controller for 3380 disk drives. While 3880 had special
hardware data path for handling 3380 3mbyte/sec transfer ... it had a
microprocessor that was significantly slower than 3830 for everything
else ... which drastically drove up channel busy overhead ... especially
for the channel program chatter latency between processor and
controller.

The 3090 folks had configured number of channels, assuming the 3880
would be similar to 3830 but handling 3mbyte data transfer ... when they
found out how bad the 3880 channel busy really was ... they realized
they would have to drastically increase the number of channels. The
channel number increase required an extra (very expensive) TCM (there
were jokes that the 3090 office was going to charge the 3880 office for
the increase in 3090 manufacturing cost). Eventually marketing respun
big increase in number of channels (to handle the half-duplex chatter
channel busy overhead) as how great all the 3090 channels were.

Other triva: in 1980, IBM STL (lab) was bursting at the seams and they
were moving 300 people from the IMS DBMS development group to and
offsite bldg with dataprocessing back to STL datacenter. The group had
tried "remote" 3270 terminal support and found the human factors totally
unacceptable. I get con'ed into doing channel-extender support so they
can put local channel connected 3270 controllers at the offsite bldg
(with no perceived difference in human factors offsite and in STL).

The hardware vendor tries to get IBM to release my support, but there
were some people in POK playing with some serial stuff that get it
vetoed (they were worried that if it was in the market, it would harder
to justify releasing their stuff). Then in 1988, I'm asked to help LLNL
standardize some serial stuff they are laying with ... which quickly
becomes fibre channel standard (including some stuff I had done in
1980), initially 1gbit (100mbyte) full-duplex (2gbit, aka 200mbyte,
aggregate)

In 1990, the POK people get their stuff released with ES/9000 as ESCON
(when it is already obsolete, around 17mbyte aggregate). Later some of
the POK people start playing with fibre channel standard and define a
heavy weight protocol that drastically cuts the native throughput which
is finally releaseed as FICON.

The latest published benchmarks I can find is "peak I/O" for z196 that
used 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre channel) to get 2M IOPS. About
the same time there was a fibre channel announced for E5-2600 blade
claiming over million IOPS, two such fibre channel getting higher
(native) throughput than 104 FICON running over 104 fibre channel).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410876 is a reply to message #410874] Fri, 10 September 2021 01:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Thu, 09 Sep 2021 17:56:21 -1000, Anne & Lynn Wheeler
<lynn@garlic.com> wrote:

> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
>> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
>> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
>> dozen disk drives.
>>
>> These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
>> think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.
>
> raspberry Pi 4 specs and benchmarks (2 yrs ago)
> https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/raspberry-pi-4-specs- benchmarks
>
> SoC: Broadcom BCM2711B0 quad-core A72 (ARMv8-A) 64-bit @ 1.5GHz
> GPU: Broadcom VideoCore VI
> Networking: 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11b/g/n/ac wireless LAN
> RAM: 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR4 SDRAM
> Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.0, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
> GPIO: 40-pin GPIO header, populated
> Storage: microSD
> Ports: 2x micro-HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm analogue audio-video jack, 2x USB 2.0,
> 2x USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, Camera Serial Interface (CSI), Display Serial Interface (DSI)
> Dimensions: 88mm x 58mm x 19.5mm, 46g
>
> linpack mips 925MIPS, 748MIPS, 2037MIPS
> memory bandwidth (1MB blocks r&w) 4129/sec, 4427/sec
> USB storage thruput (megabytes/sec r&w) 353mbytes/sec, 323mbytes/sec
>
> more details
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
> best picks Pi microSD cards (32gbytes)
> https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/raspberry-pi-microsd -cards
>
> ===
>
> by comparison, 145 would be .3MIPS and 512kbyte memory,
>
> 2314 capacity 29mbytes ... need 34 2314s/gbyte or 340 2314s for
> 10gbytes
> https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_231 4.html
> 2314 disk rate 312kbytes/sec ... ignoring channel program overhead, disk
> access, etc, assuming that all four 145 channels would continuously be doing
> disk i/o transfer at sustained 312kbytes/sec ... that is theoritical
> 1.2mbytes/sec
>
> trivia: after transferring to San Jose Research (bldg28), I got roped
> into playing disk engineer part time (across the street in
> bldg14&15). The 3830 controller for 3330 & 3350 disk drives was replaced
> with 3880 controller for 3380 disk drives. While 3880 had special
> hardware data path for handling 3380 3mbyte/sec transfer ... it had a
> microprocessor that was significantly slower than 3830 for everything
> else ... which drastically drove up channel busy overhead ... especially
> for the channel program chatter latency between processor and
> controller.
>
> The 3090 folks had configured number of channels, assuming the 3880
> would be similar to 3830 but handling 3mbyte data transfer ... when they
> found out how bad the 3880 channel busy really was ... they realized
> they would have to drastically increase the number of channels. The
> channel number increase required an extra (very expensive) TCM (there
> were jokes that the 3090 office was going to charge the 3880 office for
> the increase in 3090 manufacturing cost). Eventually marketing respun
> big increase in number of channels (to handle the half-duplex chatter
> channel busy overhead) as how great all the 3090 channels were.
>
> Other triva: in 1980, IBM STL (lab) was bursting at the seams and they
> were moving 300 people from the IMS DBMS development group to and
> offsite bldg with dataprocessing back to STL datacenter. The group had
> tried "remote" 3270 terminal support and found the human factors totally
> unacceptable. I get con'ed into doing channel-extender support so they
> can put local channel connected 3270 controllers at the offsite bldg
> (with no perceived difference in human factors offsite and in STL).
>
> The hardware vendor tries to get IBM to release my support, but there
> were some people in POK playing with some serial stuff that get it
> vetoed (they were worried that if it was in the market, it would harder
> to justify releasing their stuff). Then in 1988, I'm asked to help LLNL
> standardize some serial stuff they are laying with ... which quickly
> becomes fibre channel standard (including some stuff I had done in
> 1980), initially 1gbit (100mbyte) full-duplex (2gbit, aka 200mbyte,
> aggregate)
>
> In 1990, the POK people get their stuff released with ES/9000 as ESCON
> (when it is already obsolete, around 17mbyte aggregate). Later some of
> the POK people start playing with fibre channel standard and define a
> heavy weight protocol that drastically cuts the native throughput which
> is finally releaseed as FICON.
>
> The latest published benchmarks I can find is "peak I/O" for z196 that
> used 104 FICON (running over 104 fibre channel) to get 2M IOPS. About
> the same time there was a fibre channel announced for E5-2600 blade
> claiming over million IOPS, two such fibre channel getting higher
> (native) throughput than 104 FICON running over 104 fibre channel).

I supposed I could compile Linpack under Z/OS on the pi and see what
it actually does. I'm not that ambitious though. Native on the pi
doesn't count.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410881 is a reply to message #410869] Fri, 10 September 2021 11:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> schrieb:
> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>> don't expect any performance.
>>
>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>
> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
> dozen disk drives.

The "Functional characteristics" document from 1972 from Bitsavers
gives a maximum rate per channel of 1.85 MB per second with a
word buffer installed, plus somewhat lower figures for four channels
for a total of 5.29 MB/s (which would be optimum).

> These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
> think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.

A single USB2 port can do around 53 MB/s theoretical maximum, a factor
of approximately 10 vs. the 370/145. I didn't look up the speed
of the Pi's SSD.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410882 is a reply to message #410873] Fri, 10 September 2021 11:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> schrieb:
> On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 01:35:34 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
> <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> don't expect any performance.
>>>
>>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>
> No. The pi is painfully slow running the emulator.

Slower than the original? How many cycles per S/360 instruction does
it take? If it was really slower than the original, it would have
to be more than 100 cycles per instruction. I find that hard to
believe.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410885 is a reply to message #410882] Fri, 10 September 2021 12:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel is currently offline  Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel
Messages: 3156
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
> Slower than the original? How many cycles per S/360 instruction does
> it take? If it was really slower than the original, it would have
> to be more than 100 cycles per instruction. I find that hard to
> believe.

Endicott cons me into helping do ECPS for 138/148. I was told that
low/mid 370, 115-148 avg ten native instructions per 370 emulated instructions
(i.e. 80kips 370/115 had 800kips engine, 120kips 370/125 had 1.2mips
engine, etc) and the 138/148 had 6kbytes of available microcode storage.
I was to identity the 6k bytes highest executed kernel instructions
for moving to microcode (on roughtly byte-for-byte basis). old
archived post with the analysis
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21

6kbytes of kernel instructions pathlength accounted for 79.55% of kernel
execution time ... dropped directly into microcode would run 10times
faster. Also implemented for later 4331/4341.

In the early 80s I got permission to give howto ECPS presentations at
local user group (silicon valley) monthly baybunch meetings and would
get lots of questions from the Amdahl people.

They would say that IBM had started doing lots of trivial microcode
implementations for the 3033 which would be required for MVS to
run. Amdahl eventually responded with "macrocode" ... effectively
370-like instruction set that ran in microcode mode ... where Amdahl
could implement the 3033 microcodes changes much easier with much less
effort.

Note the low/mid range 370s had vertical instruction microcode
processors (i.e. programming like cics/risc processors). high-end 370
had horizontal microcode and typically expressed in the avg. number of
machine cycles per 370 instruction. The 370/165 ran 2.1 machine cycles
per 370 instruction. That was optimized for 370/168 to 1.6 machine
cycles per 370 instruction. The 3033 started out as 168-3 logic remapped
to 20% faster chips and the microcode was further optimized to one
machine cycle per 370 instruction. It was claimed that all those 3033
microcode tweaks ran same speed as 370 (and some cases slower).

Amdahl was then using macrocode to implement hypervisor support ...
subset of virtual machines support w/o needing vm370 ... which took IBM
several years to respond with PR/SM and LPAR in native horizontal
microcode (well after 3081 and well into 3090 product life).

some years later after retiring from IBM ... I was doing some stuff with
http://www.funsoft.com/

and their experience with emulating 370, avg. ten instructions per 370
was about the same as low&mid range 370s ... although they had some
other tweaks that could dynamically translate high-use instruction paths
directly into native code on-the-fly (getting 10:1 improvement).

I believe hercules is somewhat similar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_(emulator)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410886 is a reply to message #410882] Fri, 10 September 2021 12:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andreas Kohlbach is currently offline  Andreas Kohlbach
Messages: 1456
Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 15:57:39 -0000 (UTC), Thomas Koenig wrote:
>
> J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 01:35:34 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
>> <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>
>>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> > A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> > don't expect any performance.
>>>>
>>>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>>
>> No. The pi is painfully slow running the emulator.
>
> Slower than the original? How many cycles per S/360 instruction does
> it take? If it was really slower than the original, it would have
> to be more than 100 cycles per instruction. I find that hard to
> believe.

Having the issue here with an (aged) AMD PC. It's since years (software
bloat over the years I assume) no longer able to emulated a Commodore 64
with full speed (around 1 MHz for the 6510 CPU), while the host is
supposed to run at 780 MHz (according to /proc/cpuinfo here in Linux), so
780 times faster. Yeas ago it was able to emulate the C64 at its max
speed, while I could run other tasks on the host at the same time.
--
Andreas
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410887 is a reply to message #410881] Fri, 10 September 2021 16:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> schrieb:
>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> don't expect any performance.
>>>
>>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>>
>> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
>> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
>> dozen disk drives.
>
> The "Functional characteristics" document from 1972 from Bitsavers
> gives a maximum rate per channel of 1.85 MB per second with a
> word buffer installed, plus somewhat lower figures for four channels
> for a total of 5.29 MB/s (which would be optimum).

But it is unlikely that a single drive was dense enough to drive
anywhere near that rate. Regardless of the channel speed, the
drive is limited by how fast it can get the data off the platter.

Burroughs disk channels had similar transfer rates and supported
multiple independently seeking drives on a single channel (up
to 16) to use the available bandwidth. The I/O controller on
the B4900 was rated at 8MB/sec across 32 channels.

USB3.0 on a raspberry pi crushes that by orders of magnitude.

>
>> These days one SSD holds more data than two dozen 2314 disks, but I wouldn't
>> think a Pi has particularly high I/O bandwidth.
>
> A single USB2 port can do around 53 MB/s theoretical maximum, a factor
> of approximately 10 vs. the 370/145. I didn't look up the speed
> of the Pi's SSD.

The fastest NVME SSDs can read three GByte/second and write one Gbyte/second.

The fastest USB SSDs are limited to 600MByte/sec, but few can reach that speed.

As NVME simply requires a PCI express port, which is available on many raspberry
pi boards, the max I/O speed for a pi is the speed of a single PCI Express Gen 3
(1GByte/s) or Gen 4 (2Gbytes/s) lane depending on the pi. Might even see
Gen 5 in the next couple of years (4Gbytes/sec) in future Pi processors.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410893 is a reply to message #410887] Fri, 10 September 2021 18:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Levine is currently offline  John Levine
Messages: 1405
Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
According to Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net>:
>> The "Functional characteristics" document from 1972 from Bitsavers
>> gives a maximum rate per channel of 1.85 MB per second with a
>> word buffer installed, plus somewhat lower figures for four channels
>> for a total of 5.29 MB/s (which would be optimum).
>
> But it is unlikely that a single drive was dense enough to drive
> anywhere near that rate. Regardless of the channel speed, the
> drive is limited by how fast it can get the data off the platter.

That's why there were four channels. Each channel can have a
disk transfer going. An IBM web page said a 2314 could transfer
312L bytes per second so the fastest burst speed would be four
times that, say 1.2M bytes/sec.

I'd think later on people would be more likely to use 3330 or 3340
disks, which were 800K bytes/sec so say total data rate of 3.2MB/sec.

> USB3.0 on a raspberry pi crushes that by orders of magnitude.

Yeah, I would think so. No seek time on your SSD either.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410894 is a reply to message #410866] Fri, 10 September 2021 21:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest z box.
>>>> >
>>>> > I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> > maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>>
>>>> Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>
>>> Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>> as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>> the 1960s.
>>
>> hmm, I actually have been in contact with some of those systems but had
>> no idea they went back as far as 64.
>
> Here's a video from 1968 on the B6500. I worked at that plant in Pasadena
> in the 1980s.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBtjEBYFPk

White shirts and ties, sideburns, and cigarettes in the office.


>
> The family really started with the B5000
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3q5n1mR9iM
>
> which was quickly superceded by the B5500:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KswWJ6zvBUs
>



--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410895 is a reply to message #410868] Fri, 10 September 2021 21:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
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Senior Member
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>
>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>>> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> > John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z†box.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >
>>>> > Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> the 1960s.
>>>>
>>>
>>> ? I thought that the 5500’s successor systems weren’t object-compatible
>>> with it. I don’t know about the degree of compatibility between the 6000s,
>>> 7000s, and 8000s. Id be happy to be corrected.
>>
>> There was a step change between the B5500 and the B6500; after than they
>> were binary compatible (e-mode in the early 1980s added support for larger
>> memory, but still ran old codefiles).
>
> I see a date of 1969 for the B6500.
> That gives the title back to S/360.
>
> I had to support a project moving Unisys code to z-Arch.
> We had persistent performance issues, the mainframe just couldn't deal
> with loading lots of small programs while the app was running.
> I see Unisys is naturally reentrant. That probably had a lot to do with
> the problems we were having.
>

You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
deliberately wrote them to be otherwise. There were lots of tuning
techniques you could use to optimize the “lots of small programs,” too, but
they weren’t automatic. That is what CICS is really good at. I thought
UNIVAC TIP would be a dog compared to CICS, because it did just run lots
of small programs.

--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410896 is a reply to message #410895] Fri, 10 September 2021 22:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dan Espen is currently offline  Dan Espen
Messages: 3867
Registered: January 2012
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Senior Member
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:

> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>>>> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>>> > Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> >> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z†box.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >>> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>> >
>>>> > Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> > as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> > the 1960s.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> ? I thought that the 5500’s successor systems weren’t object-compatible
>>>> with it. I don’t know about the degree of compatibility between the 6000s,
>>>> 7000s, and 8000s. Id be happy to be corrected.
>>>
>>> There was a step change between the B5500 and the B6500; after than they
>>> were binary compatible (e-mode in the early 1980s added support for larger
>>> memory, but still ran old codefiles).
>>
>> I see a date of 1969 for the B6500.
>> That gives the title back to S/360.
>>
>> I had to support a project moving Unisys code to z-Arch.
>> We had persistent performance issues, the mainframe just couldn't deal
>> with loading lots of small programs while the app was running.
>> I see Unisys is naturally reentrant. That probably had a lot to do with
>> the problems we were having.
>
> You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
> as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
> deliberately wrote them to be otherwise. There were lots of tuning
> techniques you could use to optimize the “lots of small programs,” too, but
> they weren’t automatic. That is what CICS is really good at. I thought
> UNIVAC TIP would be a dog compared to CICS, because it did just run lots
> of small programs.

This was a C project and the Unisys code invoked lots of mains.
The IBM LE code to establish reentrancy (mainly building the WSA)
was a major player in the slowness. I'm guessing that Unisys
had more efficient ways of establishing reentrancy.

--
Dan Espen
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410903 is a reply to message #410887] Sat, 11 September 2021 02:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: maus

On 2021-09-10, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> schrieb:
>>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> > A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> > don't expect any performance.
>>>>
>>>> Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>>>
>>> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
>>> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
>>> dozen disk drives.
>>
>> The "Functional characteristics" document from 1972 from Bitsavers
>> gives a maximum rate per channel of 1.85 MB per second with a
>> word buffer installed, plus somewhat lower figures for four channels
>> for a total of 5.29 MB/s (which would be optimum).
>
> But it is unlikely that a single drive was dense enough to drive
> anywhere near that rate. Regardless of the channel speed, the
> drive is limited by how fast it can get the data off the platter.
>
>
> The fastest NVME SSDs can read three GByte/second and write one Gbyte/second.
>
> The fastest USB SSDs are limited to 600MByte/sec, but few can reach that speed.
>
> As NVME simply requires a PCI express port, which is available on many raspberry
> pi boards, the max I/O speed for a pi is the speed of a single PCI Express Gen 3
> (1GByte/s) or Gen 4 (2Gbytes/s) lane depending on the pi. Might even see
> Gen 5 in the next couple of years (4Gbytes/sec) in future Pi processors.


I have several Pi's, and only in the last have I found what I think is
a grievious error, installed heat sinks, turned it on. After a few
minutes I noticed a searing pain where my hand was leaning on one of
the heat sinks.

greymausg@mail.com
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410904 is a reply to message #410886] Sat, 11 September 2021 03:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> schrieb:
> On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 15:57:39 -0000 (UTC), Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>
>> J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> schrieb:
>>> On Fri, 10 Sep 2021 01:35:34 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
>>> <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> >> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> >> don't expect any performance.
>>>> >
>>>> >Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>>>
>>> No. The pi is painfully slow running the emulator.
>>
>> Slower than the original? How many cycles per S/360 instruction does
>> it take? If it was really slower than the original, it would have
>> to be more than 100 cycles per instruction. I find that hard to
>> believe.
>
> Having the issue here with an (aged) AMD PC. It's since years (software
> bloat over the years I assume) no longer able to emulated a Commodore 64
> with full speed (around 1 MHz for the 6510 CPU), while the host is
> supposed to run at 780 MHz (according to /proc/cpuinfo here in Linux), so
> 780 times faster.

That is a bit different. An emulator for a whole C-64 including
graphics and sound has to do much more work than an emulator for a
370/145 which did computation and I/O.

> Yeas ago it was able to emulate the C64 at its max
> speed, while I could run other tasks on the host at the same time.

"Other tasks" including running a browser?

I agree that modern software, also for Linux, has become incredibly
bloated. IIRC, the first Linux I ran at home was Slackware
0.99-something on a 486 with 4 MB running a simple window manager
and xterm. It wasn't as nice as the HP workstations I used
at the university, but it ran well enough.

Now... not a chance of getting things going with that setup.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410905 is a reply to message #410895] Sat, 11 September 2021 03:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> schrieb:

> You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
> as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
> deliberately wrote them to be otherwise.

Fortran was not reentrant (at least not by default), it used the
standard OS/360 linkage convention.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410907 is a reply to message #410894] Sat, 11 September 2021 07:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> schrieb:
> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> > John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest z box.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >
>>>> > Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> the 1960s.
>>>
>>> hmm, I actually have been in contact with some of those systems but had
>>> no idea they went back as far as 64.
>>
>> Here's a video from 1968 on the B6500. I worked at that plant in Pasadena
>> in the 1980s.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBtjEBYFPk
>
> White shirts and ties, sideburns, and cigarettes in the office.

I have a similar video from the early 1970s about a building I came
to work in a few decades earlier. Same style.

Unfortunately, I do not think I can share it, there are probably
all sorts of legal obstacles, such as the personality rights of
the persons who are shown working in it.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410908 is a reply to message #410903] Sat, 11 September 2021 08:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On 11 Sep 2021 06:42:00 GMT, maus <maus@dmaus.org> wrote:

> On 2021-09-10, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
>>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> schrieb:
>>>> According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>> >> A brand new Z can emulate the 370/145. So can my Raspberry Pi if I
>>>> >> don't expect any performance.
>>>> >
>>>> >Surely, a higher performance than the original? ...
>>>>
>>>> CPU speed, sure, but the point of a mainframe is that it has high performance
>>>> peripherals. A /145 could have up to four channels and could attach several
>>>> dozen disk drives.
>>>
>>> The "Functional characteristics" document from 1972 from Bitsavers
>>> gives a maximum rate per channel of 1.85 MB per second with a
>>> word buffer installed, plus somewhat lower figures for four channels
>>> for a total of 5.29 MB/s (which would be optimum).
>>
>> But it is unlikely that a single drive was dense enough to drive
>> anywhere near that rate. Regardless of the channel speed, the
>> drive is limited by how fast it can get the data off the platter.
>>
>>
>> The fastest NVME SSDs can read three GByte/second and write one Gbyte/second.
>>
>> The fastest USB SSDs are limited to 600MByte/sec, but few can reach that speed.
>>
>> As NVME simply requires a PCI express port, which is available on many raspberry
>> pi boards, the max I/O speed for a pi is the speed of a single PCI Express Gen 3
>> (1GByte/s) or Gen 4 (2Gbytes/s) lane depending on the pi. Might even see
>> Gen 5 in the next couple of years (4Gbytes/sec) in future Pi processors.
>
>
> I have several Pi's, and only in the last have I found what I think is
> a grievious error, installed heat sinks, turned it on. After a few
> minutes I noticed a searing pain where my hand was leaning on one of
> the heat sinks.
>
> greymausg@mail.com

I think this is mostly moot. A maxed out 360 would have under a gig
of DASD. On a pi 4 with 4 or 8 gig of RAM there's enough to buffer
the entire system, so our emulated 360, DASD and all, would be running
mostly RAM resident.

I think we forget how _immense_ the capacity of even a good _watch_ is
by '60s standards.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410910 is a reply to message #410894] Sat, 11 September 2021 11:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> > John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest z box.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >
>>>> > Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> the 1960s.
>>>
>>> hmm, I actually have been in contact with some of those systems but had
>>> no idea they went back as far as 64.
>>
>> Here's a video from 1968 on the B6500. I worked at that plant in Pasadena
>> in the 1980s.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBtjEBYFPk
>
> White shirts and ties, sideburns, and cigarettes in the office.

It wasn't until 1986 that smoking in the Pasadena Burroughs plant
was fully banned. I moved into an office in 1985 and I had to scrub
every surface to remove the nicotine stains and odor.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410913 is a reply to message #410887] Sat, 11 September 2021 15:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andy Burns is currently offline  Andy Burns
Messages: 416
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Scott Lurndal wrote:

> As NVME simply requires a PCI express port, which is available on many raspberry
> pi boards

The latest pi compute module has PCIe and various breakout boards make
it available as a normal X1 slot, but other than that, I thought to get
access to PCIe on any other pi required de-soldering the USB chip?
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410914 is a reply to message #410913] Sat, 11 September 2021 15:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes:
> Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
>> As NVME simply requires a PCI express port, which is available on many raspberry
>> pi boards
>
> The latest pi compute module has PCIe and various breakout boards make
> it available as a normal X1 slot, but other than that, I thought to get
> access to PCIe on any other pi required de-soldering the USB chip?

Hence "many" instead of "all".
Re: reentrant, What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410915 is a reply to message #410905] Sat, 11 September 2021 20:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Levine is currently offline  John Levine
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Senior Member
According to Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>> You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
>> as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
>> deliberately wrote them to be otherwise.
>
> Fortran was not reentrant (at least not by default), it used the
> standard OS/360 linkage convention.

You could write reentrant code that used the standard linkage scheme, but
it was fiddly and used more conventions about handling the dynamic storage areas.

Fortran and Cobol were never reentrant. PL/I could be if you used the
REENTRANT option in your source code. The PL/I programmers' guides
have examples of calling reentrant and non-reentrant assembler code.

My impression is that most reentrant code was written in assembler and preloaded
at IPL time to be used as shared libraries.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410918 is a reply to message #410914] Sun, 12 September 2021 06:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andy Burns is currently offline  Andy Burns
Messages: 416
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Scott Lurndal wrote:

> Andy Burns writes:
>
>> The latest pi compute module has PCIe and various breakout boards make
>> it available as a normal X1 slot, but other than that, I thought to get
>> access to PCIe on any other pi required de-soldering the USB chip?
>
> Hence "many" instead of "all".

It'd be "a few" in my book.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410922 is a reply to message #410918] Sun, 12 September 2021 12:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 11:45:01 +0100, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

> Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
>> Andy Burns writes:
>>
>>> The latest pi compute module has PCIe and various breakout boards make
>>> it available as a normal X1 slot, but other than that, I thought to get
>>> access to PCIe on any other pi required de-soldering the USB chip?
>>
>> Hence "many" instead of "all".
>
> It'd be "a few" in my book.
>
I think "hardly any" comes closer.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410942 is a reply to message #410905] Mon, 13 September 2021 14:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
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Senior Member
Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> schrieb:
>
>> You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
>> as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
>> deliberately wrote them to be otherwise.
>
> Fortran was not reentrant (at least not by default), it used the
> standard OS/360 linkage convention.
>

Okay, I guess just PL/I and assembler then. I’m not sure CICS supported
FORTRAN. The linkage convention isn’t the problem, FORTRAN and COBOL used
only static storage for data, rather than automatic per-task data. For PL/I
you just had to not modify STATIC storage (AUTOMATIC) is the default, or at
least be careful about how you modified it.

--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411064 is a reply to message #410844] Fri, 17 September 2021 23:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Branimir Maksimovic

On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> wrote:
>> On 2021-09-07, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> https://governor.kansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ginth erTaxCouncilKDOT.pdf
>>>> hints that it may be an IBM System 370/Model 145.
>>>
>>> I'd be very surprised if it actually was. When did IBM end
>>> maintenance on those?
>>
>> I have no more information, other than that link claims "The Kansas UI System
>> runs on a Mainframe that was installed in 1977."
>>
>> Is it possible the hardware was upgraded to something that can emulate the
>> 370/145, and that difference was lost on a non-technical author? Sure.
>>
>> I have known other places to run mainframes an absurdly long time. I've seen it
>> in universities and, of course, there's the famous CompuServe PDP-10 story -
>> though presumably they had more technical know-how to keep their PDP-10s alive.
>> You are right; it does seem farfetched.
>>
>> ... so I did some more digging, and found
>> https://ldh.la.gov/assets/medicaid/mmis/docs/IVVRProcurement Library/Section3RelevantCorporateExperienceCorporateFinancia lCondition.doc
>> which claims that the "legacy UI system applications run on the Kansas
>> Department of Administration's OBM OS/390 mainframe."
>>
>> I know little of IBM's mainframe lineup, but
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/390 claims that the System/390 has some
>> level of compatibility with the S/370.
>>
>> - John
>>
>
> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>
Why?

--
bmaxa now listens rock.mp3
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411065 is a reply to message #411064] Sat, 18 September 2021 00:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Levine is currently offline  John Levine
Messages: 1405
Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>
> Why?

Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411067 is a reply to message #411065] Sat, 18 September 2021 02:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
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Senior Member
On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

> According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>
>> Why?
>
> Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?

I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
binaries for which there is no source ?

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411068 is a reply to message #411067] Sat, 18 September 2021 02:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Grant Taylor

On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
> binaries for which there is no source ?

Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?

If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411070 is a reply to message #411067] Sat, 18 September 2021 05:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Thomas Koenig

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> schrieb:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>> According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>>
>>> Why?
>>
>> Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?
>
> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
> advantage of the newer hardware.

Recompile?

You mean re-assemble?

> I know during Y2K work that a lot of
> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
> binaries for which there is no source ?

AFAIK, people still use commercial software like Microsoft Windows.
One can presume that Microsoft has the source, but most users
certainly don't (and for the user, this amounts to the same thing).
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411072 is a reply to message #411068] Sat, 18 September 2021 05:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:49:00 -0600, Grant Taylor
<gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

> On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>
> Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?
>
> If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?

However sometimes there are binaries with no source. Source was on a
tape or card deck that got archived and can no longer be found.
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411074 is a reply to message #411068] Sat, 18 September 2021 10:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:49:00 -0600
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:

> On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>
> Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?
>
> If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?

Yeah I get it, you might be depending on an old undocumented
compiler bug or you might fall foul of a new one so why risk the new shiny
compiler that might get 10% better performance and might break the
application.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411080 is a reply to message #411064] Sat, 18 September 2021 14:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
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Senior Member
Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> wrote:
>>> On 2021-09-07, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > https://governor.kansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ginth erTaxCouncilKDOT.pdf
>>>> > hints that it may be an IBM System 370/Model 145.
>>>>
>>>> I'd be very surprised if it actually was. When did IBM end
>>>> maintenance on those?
>>>
>>> I have no more information, other than that link claims "The Kansas UI System
>>> runs on a Mainframe that was installed in 1977."
>>>
>>> Is it possible the hardware was upgraded to something that can emulate the
>>> 370/145, and that difference was lost on a non-technical author? Sure.
>>>
>>> I have known other places to run mainframes an absurdly long time. I've seen it
>>> in universities and, of course, there's the famous CompuServe PDP-10 story -
>>> though presumably they had more technical know-how to keep their PDP-10s alive.
>>> You are right; it does seem farfetched.
>>>
>>> ... so I did some more digging, and found
>>> https://ldh.la.gov/assets/medicaid/mmis/docs/IVVRProcurement Library/Section3RelevantCorporateExperienceCorporateFinancia lCondition.doc
>>> which claims that the "legacy UI system applications run on the Kansas
>>> Department of Administration's OBM OS/390 mainframe."
>>>
>>> I know little of IBM's mainframe lineup, but
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/390 claims that the System/390 has some
>>> level of compatibility with the S/370.
>>>
>>> - John
>>>
>>
>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>
> Why?
>

Because they still work, and do what you need them to do. If it works,
leave it alone.

--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411081 is a reply to message #411070] Sat, 18 September 2021 14:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
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Registered: December 2011
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Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> schrieb:
>> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>
>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>> > You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>> >
>>>> Why?
>>>
>>> Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?
>>
>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>> advantage of the newer hardware.
>
> Recompile?
>
> You mean re-assemble?
>
>> I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>> binaries for which there is no source ?

There was a lot of this during conversions from 1401 to S/360. People
tended to patch the 1401 object decks rather than change the source and
recompile. If the source hadn’t been lost, it likely didn’t reflect the
running program.

>
> AFAIK, people still use commercial software like Microsoft Windows.
> One can presume that Microsoft has the source, but most users
> certainly don't (and for the user, this amounts to the same thing).
>



--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411082 is a reply to message #411072] Sat, 18 September 2021 14:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
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Senior Member
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:49:00 -0600, Grant Taylor
> <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>
>> On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>>
>> Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?
>>
>> If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?
>
> However sometimes there are binaries with no source. Source was on a
> tape or card deck that got archived and can no longer be found.
>

Or at least messed up. I tried to rebuild the PL/I(F) compiler from source.
Several modules had minor problems, missing or extra END statements, but
one had a major problem: a large chunk of the program was missing. I spent
several days working from a disassembly to reconstruct the original.

IBM had a big fire at PID in Mechanicsburg, and a lot of sources went
missing. Digital Research lost the source to PL/I-86. The source for PL/C
hs not (yet) been found, although the executable still works fine.

--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411083 is a reply to message #411074] Sat, 18 September 2021 14:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
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Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:49:00 -0600
> Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>
>> On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>>
>> Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?
>>
>> If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?
>
> Yeah I get it, you might be depending on an old undocumented
> compiler bug or you might fall foul of a new one so why risk the new shiny
> compiler that might get 10% better performance and might break the
> application.
>

I ran into this trying to recompile some code that was written for PL/I(F)
with the Enterprise compiler. Several constructs were rejected. This was in
gray areas where the documentation didn’t definitively allow or not allow
the code. After a while it became not worth it to me to make a lot of
changes to fit the new compiler.

--
Pete
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411084 is a reply to message #411067] Sat, 18 September 2021 14:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Levine is currently offline  John Levine
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Senior Member
It appears that Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> said:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>> According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>>
>>> Why?
>>
>> Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?
>
> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
> advantage of the newer hardware.

A lot of 360 software was written in assembler. I gather a fair amount still is.
For some they still have the source, some they don't, but even if they do, it's assembler.

The newer hardware has bigger addresses and some more instructions but they don't run any faster.
If you look at the zSeries principles of operation you can see the many hacks they invented to
let old 24 bit addresss 360 code work with more modern 31 and 64 bit code.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411087 is a reply to message #411082] Sat, 18 September 2021 16:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 11:02:05 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:

> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:49:00 -0600, Grant Taylor
>> <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/18/21 12:27 AM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>>> advantage of the newer hardware. I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>>>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>>>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>>>
>>> Why recompile something just for the sake of recompiling it?
>>>
>>> If it's working just fine and is exhibiting no symptoms, why mess with it?
>>
>> However sometimes there are binaries with no source. Source was on a
>> tape or card deck that got archived and can no longer be found.
>>
>
> Or at least messed up. I tried to rebuild the PL/I(F) compiler from source.
> Several modules had minor problems, missing or extra END statements, but
> one had a major problem: a large chunk of the program was missing. I spent
> several days working from a disassembly to reconstruct the original.
>
> IBM had a big fire at PID in Mechanicsburg, and a lot of sources went
> missing. Digital Research lost the source to PL/I-86. The source for PL/C
> hs not (yet) been found, although the executable still works fine.

And I remember the time that NASTRAN got dropped down the stairwell at
a PPOE. Three floors with cards flying merrily the whole way. I
_think_ they were all found (I had to be somewhere and didn't get to
participate in the search).
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #411088 is a reply to message #411084] Sat, 18 September 2021 16:13 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: J. Clarke

On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 18:20:22 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

> It appears that Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> said:
>> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>
>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>> > You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>> >
>>>> Why?
>>>
>>> Because they are still useful? Is this a trick question?
>>
>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>> advantage of the newer hardware.
>
> A lot of 360 software was written in assembler. I gather a fair amount still is.
> For some they still have the source, some they don't, but even if they do, it's assembler.
>
> The newer hardware has bigger addresses and some more instructions but they don't run any faster.
> If you look at the zSeries principles of operation you can see the many hacks they invented to
> let old 24 bit addresss 360 code work with more modern 31 and 64 bit code.

Something that ran adequately on a machine with a 10 MHz clock will
generally run so much more than adequately on a machine with a 5 GHz
clock that there's not much incentive to optimize anyway.
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