The Paddle Project at SHARE was formed in order to provide a means of support when IBM stopped supporting the OS/MVT Operating System on IBM 360s and ultimately running on the later IBM 4341. IBM had announced the IBM 370 and its OS/VS R2, later becoming MVS and wanted customers to buy new hardware and the new MVS OS. This was in the mid 1970s.
I was in the Air Force and arrived in the Pentagon in early September 1975 just in time to attend the last IBM OS/MVT Workshop given in order to be a SYSProg on a surplus IBM 360/75J. There were quite a few IBM 360s running in private industry and Government. Many SHARE attendees were still running OS/MVT and Dr Robert (Bob) Rannie, Northern Illinois University formed the Paddle Project, mascot an OAR, signifying you could join the members in the symbolic CANOE and we would all SHARE information paddling, providing our own support. IBM was not pleased. Early on a number of attendees also formed a team wearing powder blue berets with the “OS Special Forces” patch. My Data Center was trying to upgrade the IBM 360/75J to an IBM 370/168 but the approval process would take years. In the meantime some high priority workloads needed to keep running and the more they processed, the Air Staff found more things to do. Each SHARE the OS/MVT session were overflowing with our IBM Rep, Jerry Fineman, attending. One meeting Jerry leaped on the stage, snatched the Paddle from Dr Bob, and broke the handle over his knee signifying when OS/MVT breaks, IBM would not assist in fixing; no way. Actually in my prior assignment out in Colorado, IBM was fully supporting OS/MVT on multiple IBM 360/75Js, including some overseas, for a high priority Defense system. In fact IBM would later update OS/MVT to run on multiple IBM 3033s. But for now all of us were “OWN OUR OWN”, up the creek but “WITH A PADDLE”. Brand X vendors including IBM retrofitted, IBM 3330/3350 DASD and Tape drives from 556bpi to 6250bpi to run on them. I help to consolidate and distribute all the know info on OS/MVT plus all the performance related enhancements and ZAPS coded some by IBM’ers, but SHARE members. I applied all to my IBM 360/75J and could outrun an IBM 370/158 on MVS. Getting back to the broken Paddle, Dr Bob took the broken Paddle back to NIU, created an APAR and create a PTF or Paddle Temporary FIX. He drilled holes in each end and inserted a Titanium rod and used epoxy; good as new. I seem to recall he wrapped tape around broken area to give the illusion it was a less than permanent fix. Sure enough at the next SHARE, Dr Bob was on stage with the Paddle, Jerry again leaped onto the stage with malice intent, grabbed the Paddle and in a big display of contempt, raised his leg and slapped the Paddle down to break it. He limped off the stage for the titanium fix had held. It tided me over until we upgraded in late 1978, getting the first IBM 30XX shipped, an IBM 3032; especially the IBM 360/75J was located in the corner with $300M worth of Honeywell Computers. The decision was made to keep the IBM 360/75J, upgrade main memory from 1M to 2.5M, all high speed, add ITEL 3330s and add a COMTEN 3650 Com Controller to offer Dial-up Unclassified Time Sharing. TSO was enhanced with a bunch of TSOCPs, HASP3.1 was modified and many offices installed RJE’s to keep from walking up to a mile to get their output from the data center. Even though IBM wanted everyone to upgrade to MVS and begin paying for parts to the system along with Program Products, the IBM 360 encouraged many government sites to use it. After all, the system was stable, was fully paid for and depreciated to $0. The software was free along with Assembler, COBOL, PL1/F, ALGOL, RPG and JOVIAL. Then there was all the SHAREWARE software written by non-IBM’ers showing up on the SHARE tape and CBT (Connecticut Bank & Trust) maintained by Arnie Casinghino and later picked up by Sam Golob. This free software had source code and was passed around all over the world. Most of these compilers still run today even with z/OS. Plus users were not restricted to work local to the Data Center. It was hard to convince management to upgrade until maintenance issues along arose now done by Third Party vendors along with parts availability. From that point it was into the 1980s and most installations had gotten either the IBM 370 , coming of IBM 3090s where most of the smaller systems jumped onto the IBM 4341 or 4381s. Actually it is little know but the GPS satellites’ Command and Control System, at the time, was running on an IBM 360/65 out of Point Mugu, CA; late an IBM 4381 using OS/MVT under VM. The IBM 360 ran long after because in an attempt to improve US/China relations the US State Dept was buying up obsolete IBM 360/65s and with OS/MVT 21.8E+ plus all the languages, was giving them to Chinese Universities. In fact Dr Bob at NIU was hired to trained Chinese SYSProgs on OS/MVT during summer sessions on campus. There were export restrictions on IBM 370s and above but not obsolete technology like IBM 360 and OS/MVT. I understand OS/MVT still runs today as Virtual machine on a PC using Hercules (VM like). Actually the free MVS 3.8 runs under Hercules on laptops. Before the MVS or maybe it was OS/390 was withdrawn from view, much of its code was still commented as OS/MVT. I would believe it is still in the latest z/OS. Capt Jim Marshall, USAF(Ret) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
