Re: VTOCs vs. catalogs

2024-05-25 Thread billogden
> What you described about VSAM is what I heard too, a replacement of the then dominant access methods. > Wow -- I distinctly remember that goal. It really scared many of us (customers and IBMers) and made some of us aware of the gaps between "developers" and "users". KSDS worked well to replace

Re: VTOCs vs. catalogs

2024-05-24 Thread billogden
Subject: Re: VTOCs vs. catalogs > I'm curious whether any of you old-timers can explain why we have both VTOCs and catalogs. Please note that you can have datasets with exactly the same name on different volumes, but only one can be cataloged. This was (and might still be) a common practice for

Subject: Re: RACF, external password management

2024-03-01 Thread billogden
A simple suggestion: Do not let this project create an even worse situation! More recent z/OS setups (with RACF) can "disable" a userid after "n" password failures. ("n" is often 3.) If your userids are easily found/duplicated, a really bad guy could, with relatively minor Linux/Windows scripts,

Re: Insecure security - was SDSF PS Command column

2024-02-15 Thread billogden
My trivial comments: 1. Using a password manager seems to be putting all our eggs in one basket. What if that basket fails? Is it secure? Can I always access it? If we need to make a particular password available to a "trusted" friend (at some indefinite time), how should we manage that. 2. I

Subject: Re: Kinda fun

2023-11-10 Thread billogden
I used 026, 029, and 129 machines. (And the 010 machines; remember those!) Never bothered me, but I agree with the comment that their use (and punched cards in general) encouraged me to be much more careful with my "on paper" programming before starting to punch cards. Dunno how to translate this

Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: Cloud may be overpriced compared to on-premises systems

2023-08-09 Thread billogden
>Concerning the comments on trucks, driving, and the rest of the world. I lived for years in various parts of the world, including Germany (for one year). Driving can be more complex there (such as when driving 100MPH and being "blinked" from behind asking me to get out of the way!) Knew a few

Re: Channelized I/O WAS

2023-08-05 Thread billogden
> From Parwez: My mistake, the 370/195 had 2 MB, this customer's 360/75 had 1 MB In those ancient days an MB of memory was $$expensive$$ and fairly rare. In the very early 70s I worked in an installation that had two 360/75s, each with 3 MB (1 MB normal memory and 2 MB LCS). The second 75 was

Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives

2023-07-29 Thread billogden
>From:Seymour J Metz >Yep, "Model 1 displays 480 characters (12 rows of 40 characters)." >Did you have keyboard issues? My memory of those ancient history days (early 70s) simply fails too much. I seem to remember "something" simple we did with the keyboard, but the details have vanished.

Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives

2023-07-28 Thread billogden
Comment for Seymour: > By the time the 370/148 came out 3270s were old hat. Not in all parts of the world! >3270-1? Did you mean 3277-1? I never saw one in the flesh, and it was way too small. Sorry, I used the "generic" 3270 instead of the specific "3277". Yes, the model 1 had a very small

Subject: Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives

2023-07-27 Thread billogden
Long ago and far away I helped an IBM customer set up his new 148 VS1 machine to use CICS. At that time it had the macro interface, but as an assembly programmer that was good for me. 3270s were very new at the time and controlling the screen appearance was important. The customer was an Electric

Re: z/OSMF

2023-07-04 Thread billogden
Interesting discussion on screen sizes, keyboards, etc. Many of us have various different opinions. My opinions have changed since the early days when some of us (the "older" ones) used 2260s instead of 3270s. I am using a 21" screen at the moment, with three "windows" open on it. I would not

Re: IBM-MAIN

2023-05-04 Thread billogden
Thank you for trying to stop the runaway politics. I do spend time looking at a fair amount of history. I have some memories of comments from the 1500s, the 1700s, the 1800s, and the early 1900s all saying (using various terms) that "changes" (aka "progress") should be stopped because "things are

Re: AI wipes out humanity?

2023-04-13 Thread billogden
>I have frequently caught him citing news sources that got the details wrong >- so frequently that I am now in the habit of looking up (for example) >Supreme-Court rulings to see what they actually say rather than what he >said they say. AMEN. News reports SHOULD be valuable, but this has become

Re: AI wipes out humanity?

2023-04-13 Thread billogden
>If humans ever get so dependent on AI that they blindly follow the >"advice" of an AI assistant, all it takes is for AI to feed humans a >mis-analysis of a life-threatening situation or potential extinction >event and let the humans do the damage.   Sorry, but I cannot resist an obvious

Re: Stop the ragging on COBOL please [was: RE: ASM call by value]

2023-03-29 Thread billogden
>The source was unreadable because of the amount and size of copybooks. >When compiled, the listing was so big that it was near impossible to follow. >Needless to say, the variable and paragraph names didn't help too much. >Have you ever tried reading a DMS for CICS (again, 40 years ago)

Re: Stop the ragging on COBOL please [was: RE: ASM call by value]

2023-03-28 Thread billogden
>I myself dislike COBOL for the very simple and personal reason that it's so >WORDY. *** I am not a COBOL programmer, except for some very minor attempts a long time ago. However, I very much respect the proper use of the WORDY aspect. It seems to help with maintenance and updating of large,

Subject: Re: How long for an experiened z/OS sysprog to come up to speed on a new environment?

2023-02-28 Thread billogden
I agree with Shumel and some others. It would be very nice if many panels would somehow display the actual commands they will use or, if that is not workable, perhaps a very short outline of the actions that will be taken. Being rather elderly now (and with failing memory at times) this would be