Re: Only sorta OT

[M. Ray Mullins]

Have you seen the LEGO® z16?

I'm all for bringing our culture to the youth of the world using icons 
they understand.


On 2023-08-31 07:44, Steve Thompson wrote:
That was a good laugh. But about time someone did something that was 
not a put down of Mainframes.


Steve Thompson

On 8/31/2023 9:26 AM, Phil Smith III wrote:

"Mainframer Barbie"! You knew it had to happen:
https://twitter.com/psqlctln/status/1696864584848605554


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Re: Ray Mullins on Assembler demand.

[M. Ray Mullins]

Thank you, Matt. I'm humbled. I keep forgetting how long ago that was.

For context - this response was to a specific question regarding 
learning assembler. Basic assembler programming knowledge is a good 
thing to have on your resume, because it gives you the insights to how 
programs work on the platform.


A "cheap" way to learn some assembler basics is to turn on the LIST 
options for the COBOL, C/C++, PL/I, and FORTRAN compilers. You can see 
how language statements get converted to the machine instructions. It's 
very helpful in understanding how COBOL deals with MOVEs with mixed 
USAGE and computational verbs with different USAGE and PIC clauses.


On 2023-09-05 09:37, Matt Hogstrom wrote:

FWIW, I’ve known Ray for as long as I’ve been programming in Assembler.
Ray is the man.



You guys know who Ray Mullins is right?

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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Re: Ray Mullins on Assembler demand.

[M. Ray Mullins]

There's a bit of context that is lost here. I purposely said "invisible 
hand", playing on the imagery. But just because that's what the owner of 
the "invisible hand" wants doesn't necessarily mean that's happening.


Metal C in a JES2 environment is extremely difficult to implement, which 
is why you're now seeing the JES2 policy direction. IMHO if IBM had 
provided Metal C PROLOG/EPILOG for JES2 and z/OS exits, as well as APIs 
covering the common macros*, I think would have seen more Metal C 
take-up. I presented a few times at SHARE about converting 
SAMPLIB(IEEACTRT) to Metal C. I originally envisioned it as a "how-to", 
but it became instead a user experience, as my experience was mixed.


On 2023-09-05 09:39, Bill Johnson wrote:

Metal C, exactly what Mullins said is replacing assembler. In the end, my 
contention in the beginning is proving truer by the day. And you’re right, 
assembler isn’t that hard to learn and not hard to replace,


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, 12:36 PM, Matt Hogstrom  
wrote:

My take is that Assembler is just a language and honestly I don’t think its
all that hard to learn.  What it does require is more understanding of the
OS and the ability to setup for calls to other services.

The higher languages simply obscure, or encapsulate, those low level
services.

I use Metal C for new code as it is more easily understood by developers.
That said, there are times for pure assembler code and I enjoy it.  I
started out as a batch assembler programmer but I was drawn to understand
the OS and its structure.  Assembler was the way to interface and now there
are other options.

As an ISV we want Assembler programmers.  In a business, I’d focus on the
languages that the market understands.  The important thing is to not be
religious about a language.  Its just a tool.

On Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 08:22 David Elliot  wrote:


Very little from what I see. What little
   there is is stupid stuff like reverse engineering code so that the client
can rewrite it in JAVA or whatever the language of the day is.





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Re: I have an Idea for ISPF...

[M. Ray Mullins]

Just a correction: the default number of screens in ISPF is 8, but you can 
configure up to 32. My site uses 16. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 18, 2023, at 12:06, Schmitt, Michael  wrote:
> 
> Same problem occurs with any other application that doesn't use the same 
> RFIND as ISPF. DSLIST entered from that command can lead to errors. I just 
> used SDSF because it is an example of an IBM application, so they can't blame 
> it on some other company.
> 
> The root cause here is that ANY command that can lead to ISPF Edit or Browse 
> or View needs to switch to the ISPF applid, or else that application must 
> define the commands as ISPF expects. The DSLIST command can lead to ISPF 
> Edit/Browse/View, but it doesn't switch the APPLID. It should.
> 
> My company has corrected the problem internally but that doesn't help anyone 
> else.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of 
> Sri h Kolusu
> Sent: Monday, September 18, 2023 1:38 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: I have an Idea for ISPF...
> 
>>> For example, go to SDSF, then do DSLIST, then browse a data set from the 
>>> list, then find something, then PF5 (RFIND). It won't work, because SDSF's 
>>> PF5 is not RFIND; it is IFIND and there's no RFIND defined in ISFCMDS.
> I reported this to IBM YEARS ago but they haven't fixed it.
> 
> https://www.mail-archive.com/ibm-main@bama.ua.edu/msg06759.html
> 
> Thanks,
> Kolusu
> 
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Re: I have an Idea for ISPF...

[M. Ray Mullins]

I have done this, too. Since I’m on vacation, I couldn’t remember all the steps 
to do this, so I didn’t want to mention it. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 18, 2023, at 13:22, Tom Marchant 
> <000a2a8c2020-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote:
> 
> I have been unable to convince my site to increase the maximum number of 
> split screens, so I created my own ISPCFIGU that allows 32 and placed it in 
> ISPLLIB. I've shown a few other people how to do it. I often use more than 8, 
> and sometimes more than 16.
> 
> -- 
> Tom Marchant
> 
>> On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 13:11:23 -0700, M. Ray Mullins  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Just a correction: the default number of screens in ISPF is 8, but you can 
>> configure up to 32. My site uses 16. 
> 
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Re: Looking for COBOL SYSADATA record layouts

[M. Ray Mullins]

Charles,

Would you like me to ping Captain COBOL?

Cheers,
Ray

Sent from Outlook for iOS on my personal iPhone

From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  on behalf of 
Charles Mills 
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2023 9:47:54 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU 
Subject: Re: Looking for COBOL SYSADATA record layouts

@Kirk, interesting. I was not aware of that tool. I have used the DSECT to C 
header conversion tool that is part of the XLC product, but I was not aware of 
this tool.

I am not much of a Java guy but IIRC it would be a fairly short editing leap 
from Java classes to C structs.

Unfortunately, as you imply, it needs DSECT or COBOL layouts as input, and I 
don't have that. What is needed is a tool that would take a PDF manual as 
input! (Only half kidding. Could ChatGPT do that?)

I have the HLASM ADATA layouts in DSECT form, but most of the record types are 
not alike beyond the name and the type code.

Charles

On Sat, 16 Dec 2023 11:28:22 -0600, Kirk Wolf  wrote:

>Hi Charles,
>
>This may not be what you are looking for, but as I recall it's pretty cool:
>
>https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/record-generator/3.0?topic=what-is-record-generator-java
>
>Along with generating Java mapping classes, you can also spit out XML 
>descriptions.
>
>I haven't looked at this in a long time and I'm not 100% sure that IBM 
>provided DSECTS, but I think that they did.  I looked and can't find them 
>either.

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Re: 3420 conversion?

[M. Ray Mullins]

The only person that comes to mind is Al Kossow of Bitsavers, but based 
on your other comment I understand the reluctance of shipping. (He read 
my old Prime tapes and back when Paul Allen's museum was running, they 
became the base for their PRIMOS emulations.)


On 2023-02-09 17:32, Tony Thigpen wrote:
I need a single 3420 tape converted. Anyone know of someone that can 
do it?


Tony Thigpen

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Re: XLC architecture level question

[M. Ray Mullins]

Since this is C++, I'd stick it in a constructor for main, or (less 
desirable) main::init(). No LE games needed.


Cheers,
Ray

On 2023-04-25 14:26, Charles Mills wrote:

Setting ARCH is like playing Blackjack or Twenty-one: guess too low and it is 
sub-optimal; guess too high and you bust.

Note that everything we have said here about ARCH and TUNE applies equally to 
COBOL as to C/C++. Of course if you are writing programs for in-house use your 
universe of machines to support is much smaller. The classic error is 
forgetting about your DR machine.

At CorreLog we managed to ship a C++ build to someone who was too back-level 
for our ARCH. So George -- any of you who know George know that he is a good 
guy but a yell-er -- yelled at me that the S0C1 was totally unacceptable -- we 
needed an error message. I pointed out that SYSTEM COMPLETION CODE=0C1 *is* an 
error message, but he was not having that. So I wrote some assembler code and 
C++ to compare the compiled ARCH level -- you can retrieve it with __ARCH__ -- 
and put out our own message if there were a conflict. Obviously you need to do 
that just as early in your run process as possible or the train will have 
already left the station and run into a wall.

Here's an exercise for the readers. If you want to insert some code into a C++ module 
such that it will run just as early as possible during the run processing, where do you 
put it and what else do you do? (Hint: "right after int main(int argc, char* argv[]) 
and cross your fingers" are NOT the right answers.)

Charles


-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf 
Of Charles Mills
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 7:06 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: XLC architecture level question

ARCH level is a "problem" I have dealt with for 12 or so years.

I say "problem" in quotes because it is not much of a problem -- you only have 
to revisit it once every two years, and even then it is not an urgent problem. So you 
don't need a solution that runs on autopilot -- you can just revisit your decision every 
two years or so.

You need a management policy. The one I have advocated to my management is "we will 
support the oldest hardware supported by the oldest supported release of z/OS." I 
point out that while there may be lots of customers out there running z9's, they probably 
are not buying a whole lot of OEM products. Currently that would be ARCH(10), 
representing the zB/EC12, supported by z/OS V2R4. Once V2R4 goes out of service it would 
become

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Re: JES2 $SUBMIT Command

[M. Ray Mullins]

There's not what I would consider a definitive specific reference, but 
in several places (including the Initialization & Tuning Guide) note 
that the maximum LRECL for INTRDR and SYSIN data sets is 32760. 
Somewhere (but I can't find it right now) there's an explicit 
prohibition of RECFM=U, and I'd also go along with VBS not being supported.


Note that the MVS Assembler Services Guide still documents that the 
maximum of instream data is 254 and JCL records must be exactly 80. I 
haven't tried larger than 254 yet…I should add this to my little INTRDR 
toolkit program.


I just tried a VB/255 data set for a SUBMITLIB as a test and it worked 
perfectly.


If you're thinking about PROCLIBs, though, those don't work, they must 
be F(B)/80.


Cheers,
Ray

On 2023-04-25 12:43, Paul Gilmartin wrote:

On Tue, 25 Apr 2023 19:04:41 +, Mark Jacobs wrote:


Just wondering if anyone has implemented it and what use cases did you come up 
with.


Curious, I did a search and found:

 ...SUBMITLIB ... The concatenation supports any format PDS (LRECL and 
RECFM) that
 can be used to pass JCL into input processing.

That assertion is a nullity: It supports any supported attributes.  Where are 
those
explicitly listed?



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Re: "National" characters

[M. Ray Mullins (Ray)]

I think the term “national characters” has its origins in the COBOL standard. 

The “special” characters can produce some interesting output. I once had to 
deal with a Turkish customer who used Top Secret. User resources classes should 
begin with X’5B’, which in CP 1026 (Latin-5/Turkish) is İ. We would get screen 
shots and printouts that caused us to double take until we got used to it. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 11, 2023, at 06:00, Bob Bridges  wrote:
> 
> It was never clear to me why the term "national" was picked in the first
> place.  Although I worked for Volvo 14 years (jag Verkade på Volvo
> Lastvagnar fyrtio år) and on the Swedish side those keys produced characters
> in the Swedish alphabet - I don't remember which ones exactly, but probably
> something like Ä, Å and Ö.
> 
> ---
> Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
> 
> /* Vegetables aren't food.  Vegetables are what food eats.  -from Shoe,
> 1999-10-08 */
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of
> Peter Relson
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 08:05
> 
> The ID (now CDD) folks had years ago made us refer to @,$,# as "special
> characters" rather than as "national characters".
> 
> It is disappointing that they did not change the publications to be
> consistent with that directive. By all means point out the discrepancies
> that you spot.
> 
> I'll bet that any change would be from "national" to "special" (not the
> other way around).  I have no idea what term they will decide to use for the
> JCL characters that they currently call special.
> 
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Re: Ray Mullins on Assembler demand.

[M. Ray Mullins (Ray)]

That’s the name in SAMPLIB, interestingly. The source is IEEACTRT, but it’s 
used to create IEFACTRT. Maybe it was written by console staff decades ago? 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 5, 2023, at 11:08, David Spiegel 
> <0468385049d1-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Ray,
> You said: "... SAMPLIB(IEEACTRT) ..."
> Don't you mean SAMPLIB(SMFEXITS) //IEFACTRT?
> (IEEx is Console-related; IEFx is SMF-related)
> 
> Regards,
> David
> 
>> On 2023-09-05 13:23, M. Ray Mullins wrote:
>> There's a bit of context that is lost here. I purposely said "invisible 
>> hand", playing on the imagery. But just because that's what the owner of the 
>> "invisible hand" wants doesn't necessarily mean that's happening.
>> 
>> Metal C in a JES2 environment is extremely difficult to implement, which is 
>> why you're now seeing the JES2 policy direction. IMHO if IBM had provided 
>> Metal C PROLOG/EPILOG for JES2 and z/OS exits, as well as APIs covering the 
>> common macros*, I think would have seen more Metal C take-up. I presented a 
>> few times at SHARE about converting SAMPLIB(IEEACTRT) to Metal C. I 
>> originally envisioned it as a "how-to", but it became instead a user 
>> experience, as my experience was mixed.
>> 
>>> On 2023-09-05 09:39, Bill Johnson wrote:
>>> Metal C, exactly what Mullins said is replacing assembler. In the end, my 
>>> contention in the beginning is proving truer by the day. And you’re right, 
>>> assembler isn’t that hard to learn and not hard to replace,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, 12:36 PM, Matt Hogstrom  
>>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> My take is that Assembler is just a language and honestly I don’t think its
>>> all that hard to learn.  What it does require is more understanding of the
>>> OS and the ability to setup for calls to other services.
>>> 
>>> The higher languages simply obscure, or encapsulate, those low level
>>> services.
>>> 
>>> I use Metal C for new code as it is more easily understood by developers.
>>> That said, there are times for pure assembler code and I enjoy it.  I
>>> started out as a batch assembler programmer but I was drawn to understand
>>> the OS and its structure.  Assembler was the way to interface and now there
>>> are other options.
>>> 
>>> As an ISV we want Assembler programmers.  In a business, I’d focus on the
>>> languages that the market understands.  The important thing is to not be
>>> religious about a language.  Its just a tool.
>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 08:22 David Elliot  wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Very little from what I see. What little
>>>>there is is stupid stuff like reverse engineering code so that the 
>>>> client
>>>> can rewrite it in JAVA or whatever the language of the day is.
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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Re: Call by value, final

[M. Ray Mullins (Ray)]

PDSEs allow mixed case alias names up to 1023 bytes long. They can only be seen 
through DESERV, so a utility not named ISPF can look at them (I think PDS 8.6 
supports them). 

If you look at some of the CICS PDSE program object libraries, you can see them 
in the member list (again, not under ISPF, sounds like a good IBM Idea™). 

Cheers,
Ray

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 8, 2023, at 09:03, Jeremy Nicoll  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 8 Apr 2023, at 15:54, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>>> On Sat, 8 Apr 2023 04:27:04 +, Frank Swarbrick wrote:
>>> 
>>>   ...  The assembler seems OK with it, but the linker is converted to upper 
>>> case, even though I've specified CASE(MIXED).  
>>> 
>> I'm surprised.  In an experiment long ago I was able to create a member
>> in an (old-fashioned) PDS simply with CASE(MIXED); NAME lower.
> 
> I'm sure I recall that some of the SMP/E work PDSes had member names that
> not only were mixed case but also included characters that you'd not see in
> PDSs processed via standard ispf utilities.  I can't quite remember if they 
> used
> every single byte value in each of the 8 character positions, but I think 
> they 
> might have done, thus allowing 256 ** 8 different member names.
> 
> -- 
> Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.
> 
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