Not true!!!! IBM had other lines such as the 7090 series that were more
powerful, high-end
machines.
The 1401 was a string machine using BCD. Fields were delimited by wordmarks
and each instruction's
opcode had to be wordmarked. Machine registers could not be directly
addressed but one could use the
residual value to "chain" instructions.
I/O did occur to fix storage locations
1-80 card reader
101-180 card punch
201-332(?) printer
op codes
/ clear storage
. set wordmark
, clear wordmark
1 read from card readers
2 punch
3 print
above could be combined so that 4 is read and print
M move
L - load charaters to A-field workmark
B - branch
C - compare
A - add
S - subtract
Interesting capability is the ability to read cards through the punch (punch
feed read feature of 1402) and
then punch additional fields into the cards. Punch feed read was not
supported in OS/360 and I had to
write the EXCP code to migrate applications using this capability.
Hardware multiply and divide was an optional feature along with I/O overlap.
Base machine had 1,200
character storage. Tape and disk were available. An optical mark reader
was an additional peripheral
for which I did some programming. It used "sonic delay lines" to store the
marks read.
All of the above is from long term storage and may be subject to random bit
loss!!!
Don
-----Original Message-----
From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
George Haeh
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 10:39 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: IBM announces LINUX-only 1 to 4 engine zSeries
Something closer in architecture to PC technology is the 1401, a mid-sixties
machine that
was the precursor of the mainframe dinosaur. Substitute the keyboard for
the card reader
and a character monitor for the printer and it's basically an expensive PC
running DOS...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ledbetter, Scott E" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: IBM announces LINUX-only 1 to 4 engine zSeries
> I don't know about VM being the best PC operating system. I'm trying to
> imagine explaining to my 10 year old about readers, punches, CTC's, RSCS
and
> 80 byte records!
>
> Scott Ledbetter
> StorageTek
>
> "Call the operators and tell them to mount the HR pack and load the check
> train so we can get this payroll done"
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karl Tucker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: January 28, 2002 4:23 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: IBM announces LINUX-only 1 to 4 engine zSeries
>
>
> Michael,
> I have worked with many different operating systems as a
sysprog
> over the course of the last 33 years. I now support MVS (OS/390, ZOS
(these
> are IBM marketing terms as I am sure you are aware)), VM/ESA, Linux
(Redhat
> and SUSE) and all resources susch as DASD. My experience includes CICS,
IMS,
> and DB2 with low level programming in assembler. I can do Windows and OS/2
> also.
> Of all operatng systems, I believe that VM (any flavor) far
> exceeds the quality and usability of any other operating system. In fact,
I
> believe it would have been the best PC system and could have been the best
> mainframe system.
> This is why I applaud your statements.
