No, the 2260 did not use mercury delay lines; in fact, I don't know of anything that used them after the early 1950s. The delay lines on the 2848 used magnetostriction.
The 2265 was remote. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Charles Mills [charl...@mcn.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 9:31 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Colours on screen (mainframe history question) First interactive system I ever wrote was for the 2260. Supported 80 terminals on a 360/50. People thought that was pretty astounding. (This was before CICS.) Control unit was the 2848. Used mercury delay lines for CRT memory. They were heated. On a Power On it took something like 20 minutes for them to come up to temperature. (Marvelous engineering decision -- a heated control unit in an air-conditioned datacenter.) They were mux channel attached; there was no "remote" 2260 IIRC. The client needed remote terminals. We found some third-party 2260 clone that supported bisync attachment. They supported color (because they used more or less off-the-shelf TV's for monitors). IIRC the color was "automatic" (protected fields in blue, unprotected fields in white, or whatever). Or there was some sort of special sequence that customized the display colors. (That is the relevance to this thread; would have been around 1972 or 1973.) The 2250 was a BEAST! Graphics. Light pen. A separate function key keypad. You could put typewritten labels in the function keys, and light up the allowed keys under program control. Had an 1130 computer under the hood as its controller. (No wonder it cost $$$.) The very first 360 application I ever saw was a 2250-driving system written in PL/I for one of the big pharmas -- trying to remember who. It was written by John Gilmore and Associates. (Yes, our very own IBMMAIN John Gilmore.) The idea was you could simulate the flow of a drug through the body, complete with a graphical representation. I don't believe it ever exactly worked. This would have been in 1969. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Attila Fogarasi Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 2:56 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Colours on screen (mainframe history question) The 3279 used tri-plane symbols for extended colour (turquoise, pink, yellow and white, plus blank for all 3 primary colours off). This had the neat trick of allowing easy reverse video highlighting (invert the primary colour bits). GDDM was the software exploitation of 3279, which also introduced program symbols. Most programs used 10% of the 3279s rather complex capabilities (a situation not helped by only 2 of the 3279 models having the full capability set). Great case study on how to design great hardware badly, or rather so that it is not used. Note that the 2260 (3270 predecessor that used a keypunch mechanical keyboard) and 2250 (million dollar vector graphics terminal) were released circa 1965. So the 3279 is 15 years later. On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 7:55 PM Martin Packer <martin_pac...@uk.ibm.com> wrote: > The interesting question to me is "which colours"? > > I would say we started with a 3-bit colour space: R, G, B. And so the > colour Red is 100 in this space and a more complex colour like Yellow is > probably 110. > > Is this right, though? > > In particular I'd be surprised if a 4th bit weren't used. But for what? > > Cheers, Martin > > Martin Packer > > WW z/OS Performance, Capacity and Architecture, IBM Technology Sales > > +44-7802-245-584 > > email: martin_pac...@uk.ibm.com > > Twitter / Facebook IDs: MartinPacker > > Blog: > https://secure-web.cisco.com/1YGPosKZiFUgfxnOBL9vrrVAjRWHCHHO7z9uX-M738wu-ev3aFiqCANnBaIBhZHcmfUwhVDAY8QNWhCMT27G1gfioQM2n6fXggnXsuDkAukM1rmPaG8lj0pNlPi0oSApsRK8OEpEw0Jbh4zl_9Spu_z_L7j03Damb8lo_Mk2Mgpkz-1eLNoCoRVjD3vD5X5H-dDm5rWJ_sUPLtbiLaFwmS6NVvNCN4Vua-LfpzSLYJajU1VTJd7K7ua9Su010mLA_ZYa8kv6Oi1nJ20BuGpKS-NJVGDOza-tGEBPL8w8DLczm3PySk6d2jg74zSzv8NIXUdNMwdMWkW41N7lA0e735MzAKnP_Bt_fbs7bamHqOpW9ic3ifbo1Yy_PghmylbaMzJAuC2gtEa1hBjqcH-8D-XSGLW9kZm1cnmivFXVa0HvnSzkZOwcX7wNkeHTC1obl/https%3A%2F%2Fmainframeperformancetopics.com > > Mainframe, Performance, Topics Podcast Series (With Marna Walle): > https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GJYrwVMB_qhc97VD8hZc5neN28hgVWolmLNJgEKyDU6Msi8U7y4XgLsDUK-1fIeTIVxGV2fmNDRTNlhuV97Grgz2E3HdEaNZBhR3VbT6n3RrToXqW1p8VWq4cJH_5ph8uj8HhZ1wSwDwh1AxamwAA78w7dMFOAuhV7r-avHrJaw2y_7wkz2cguHFnR_mizEMMASR6SuK1uGbHbJMoNTbxaWNvIaVLqu9IT0SdF98159z-IolurlMLAPXS3Cnp9RMNUabVMOI_scgA9bxv0Np_pubnbfYDp4zUJBtBsAGY_wsxxGVqLHIpcklXN7ggAWaSiKnYdOCRYue2ypq-Xbm_6Qo3-XhSgckZhGyr_XlbgwjdUkwfCVK9dIxfTWP5omZ4V9zfEOiLAWEpPiXoEO5PUM3AvznOwKvTgQMwl-hnMr8itR2ZExrQSezhywoCMPYgr5jmL-0lG0mAcVfp840YA/https%3A%2F%2Fanchor.fm%2Fmarna-walle > > Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_65HaYgksbF6Q8SQ4oOvA > > > > From: Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Date: 24/02/2021 01:00 > Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Colours on screen (mainframe history > question) > Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> > > > > On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 19:10, Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: > > > IBM had color support for DIDOCS, ISPF and XEDIT pretty early. I don't > recall when GDDM picked up color support. > > Very early 1980s - earlier than I remember support for DIDOCS or ISPF. > And almost certainly GDDM was under development in parallel with the > 3279 hardware; IBM rarely comes out with hardware on a whim that has > no software to support it. One must also remember that the 3279 was > merely the first implementation of an architectural shift in the 3270 > series. > > Tony H. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > > > Unless stated otherwise above: > IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number > 741598. > Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
