ponce...@bcs.org.uk (CM Poncelet) writes: > That is what an ex-IBMer from the old days told me 'CICS' originally > stood for - before it was renamed as 'Customer Information Control > System' and sold to the rest of the world. I have no supporting > evidence apart from this hearsay.
I was undergraduate at the univ. and responsible for os/360 ... and also did a bunch of cp67 stuff. the univ. library got an ONR grant to do online catalog ... they used some of the money to buy a 2321 (datacell). that effort also got selected to be beta-test for CICS product release ... and I got tasked to (also) debug/support CICS. I was told it was originally developed at some utility customer ... before being selected for release. One of the bugs I remember tracking down turned out to be an BDAM OPEN bug ... it involved some conflict between the BDAM features used in the original implementation and the BDAM features selected by the library. misc. past posts mentioning CICS (&/or BDAM) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics doesn't mention any of that here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21025234 this has a little more (but can't always trust wiki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICS from above: The first CICS product was released in 1968, named Public Utility Customer Information Control System, or PU-CICS. CICS was originally developed to address requirements from the public utility industry, but it became clear immediately that it had applicability to many other industries, so the Public Utility prefix was dropped with the introduction of the first release of the CICS Program Product. ... snip ... cics specific wiki http://cicswiki.org/cicswiki1/index.php?title=History from above: CICS is born In 1968, CICS became available as a free, Type II Application Program, with users in every industry category. Transamerica in Los Angeles, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), Colorado Public Service of Colorado, United Airlines, and many others were early adopters of the software known as CICS. The other accounts which had begun to develop their own approach (Commonwealth Edison, ConEd, etc) continued with their proprietary software. In 1969, IBM announced Program Products and CICS was no longer a free software offering. This did inhibit sales and customer acceptance. CICS enabled customers, in any industry, to quickly implement their online systems, most of which were inquiry only at that time. ... snip ... aka 23jun1969 ... "unbundling announcement" ... starting to charge for software, se services, maint. etc. misc. past posts mentioning unbundling http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle this use to be an authoritative source for things CICS http://www.yelavich.com/ but it has gone 404 ... although it still lives on at the wayback machine http://web.archive.org/web/19990427231345/http://www.yelavich.com/ CICS Reference Information & Trivia http://web.archive.org/web/20010104201400/www.yelavich.com/5000fram.htm CICS-Related Announcements, 1968-Present http://web.archive.org/web/20010709064102/www.yelavich.com/5100cont.htm from above ... this claims available mid-69 (which better corresponds to my fading memory) ... as opposed to the above reference of availble in in 1968 P68-66 4/29/68 Three New Type II Programs on Information Systems to be Available Mid 1969 Overview - Generalized Information System (Basic) - Information Management System/360 - Public Utility Customer Information Control System Generalized Information System Basic (GIS) - Data set creation, maintenance, retrieval Information Management System/360 (IMS/360) - Implementation of medium to large data bases - Teleprocessing and conventional batch processing - Operate under MFT-II or MVT - Highlights - Messages to/from remote input/output devices - Aplications scheduled concurrently under unique storage protection key of OS/360 - System provides checkpoint/restart capabilities Public Utility Customer Information Control System - Planned availability - June 30, 1969 - Overview - Control system structure for installation of electric, gas and telephone information systems - Designed for inquiry and order entry applications - Highlights - Macro instructions for user communication with his input-output devices and terminals - Control programming services reduce programming by the user - Provides multi-programming capabilities - Serviceability of system components to maximize availability - Records system performance statistics - Uses OS/360 services ... snip ... some other cics historical trivia http://web.archive.org/web/20010721114117/www.yelavich.com/dfh.htm from above: I have been involved with CICS since 1968. I taught Ben Riggins and his (then) small staff, BTAM. Ben Riggins is the father of CICS. He was a CE/FE at one time and switched over to being an SE. He was located in Richmond, Virginia when he came up with the idea for what we know today as CICS. His account at that time was Virginia Electric Power Co (VEPCO). ... snip ... the above also speculates where the CICS 3-letter prefix "DFH" came from. -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
