OS/3 4.2 information needed

[lordkelvin441]

There's already aplenty - thanks to Charlie and The Curator - of Series 90 and System 80 documentation. However when it comes to OS/3 documentation it relates primarily to versions 8.0 and higher. Could anyone list things that aren't present in OS/3 4.2 ? Tried to generate global ICAM symbiont C3 in vain hopes it would put ML$$GI (GUST) into $Y$LOD and enable Interactive Services, but no such luck. Neither CCA TYPE=(GBL,...) nor LOCAP constructs are supported. I'm in a mood for coding something crudely resembling IS as IMS application, a bare minimum that would be required as an ability to issue console commands. IMS action programming manual for COBOL and BAL lists relevant facility (sadly with no capacity of capturing related output messages), but so I guess some experimentation is possible. Also surprisingly Supervisor manuals (incl. latest revision) don't list any macro that would enable the same from batch program. Is this some well-known limitation ?

Rgds.

[sboy...@gmail.com]

What you are trying to had not been invented when Rel042 was current. Most of that stuff did not come into existence until the System 80 was released several years later. Rel042 was current in 1977 but the System 80 wasn't released until 1980 IIRC. It is possible to write programs for the emulator by coding them in your favourite Windows editor and using the emulated card reader to the get the source code into the system. This is what I do.  It is also possible to write IMS action programs for the emulator. IMS has been testing and even UNIQUE works. I can post some sample source and job control if you are interested.

I realize that the documentation doesn't match the release of software that we have for the emulator but it's what we have. Unless someone can find a newer OS/3 release tape or a BEM release tape we are limited in what we can do.

Steve Boyd

[lordkelvin441]

Many thanks. Being an indirect answer, at least it confirms few educated guesses regarding software we have and BEM - IS relation. I'm not particularly after editor - Mark Hessling's one (THE) is shining wonder, but some kind of interactive librarian interface would be nice to have. Regenned C3 as DDI now, so there's plenty of possibilities to play with. with BEM User's Manual serving a surprisingly good substitute re ICAM "macros" for 4.2-appropriate ICAM Operations Guide.

[sboy...@gmail.com]

Interactive librarian interface. As it happens I have been playing with an assembler program that works with source libraries. It is only a crude beginning and very much a work in progress but I have attached the source for it if you are interested. It works at the console but could be easily adapted to run as a communications user program (CUP).

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-01-25 10:34 a.m., sboy...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 1:26:15 PM UTC-5 vtoc...@o2.pl wrote:
>
>> Many thanks. Being an indirect answer, at least it confirms few
>> educated guesses regarding software we have and BEM - IS relation.
>> I'm not particularly after editor - Mark Hessling's one (THE) is
>> shining wonder, but some kind of interactive librarian interface
>> would be nice to have. Regenned C3 as DDI now, so there's plenty of
>> possibilities to play with. with BEM User's Manual serving a
>> surprisingly good substitute re ICAM "macros" for 4.2-appropriate
>> ICAM Operations Guide.
>
> Interactive librarian interface. As it happens I have been playing
> with an assembler program that works with source libraries. It is
> only a crude beginning and very much a work in progress but I have
> attached the source for it if you are interested. It works at the
> console but could be easily adapted to run as a communications user
> program (CUP).

I once wrote a single-user IMS emulator which used the DDI interface.
That way I could run tests during the day without taking down the IMS
network, just the programmers' network. I should have a listing around
somewhere, if anyone is interested...

--
cgi...@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs)

[sboy...@gmail.com]

I'd love to see it.

[lordkelvin441]

Impressive feat, but unless my understanding is seriously flawed or you had dedicated 'testing' terminal, that would still mean global network - which we don't have - so you can establish dynamic terminal session with your DDI IMS-emulating CUP. Just trying here to understand why IS required global network specifically despite System 80 ICAM supported both global and dedicated configuration.

Rgds,

JK

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-01-26 12:57 p.m., lordkelvin441 wrote:

> Impressive feat, but unless my understanding is seriously flawed or you
> had dedicated 'testing' terminal, that would still mean global network -
> which we don't have - so you can establish dynamic terminal session with
> your DDI IMS-emulating CUP. Just trying here to understand why IS
> required global network specifically despite System 80 ICAM supported
> both global and dedicated configuration.

It's been a long time so I don't remember many details, but I wrote it
on a 90/30 long before the System 80 (and dynamic sessions) existed.
In fact, the lack of dynamic sessions is one of the reasons I wrote it;
I wanted to be able to test IMS action programs without taking down the
entire company's live IMS network. Taking down the BEM terminals was
much less disruptive.

--
cgi...@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs)

[sboydlns]

IS required a global network because it was baked into the OS and was designed that way. BEM did not because it ran as a regular user job, just like IMS. So, BEM connected to the DDI network and IMS  connected to the TCI network. Each network had its own set of dedicated Lines and terminals, so terminals on the BEM line could only be accessed by BEM or some other job that would connect to the DDI network while BEM was not running.

So Charley would shut down BEM and run his IMS substitue instead, test his program and then restart BEM. 

Sent from Samsung tablet

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[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-01-26 5:50 p.m., sboydlns wrote:

> IS required a global network because it was baked into the OS and was
> designed that way. BEM did not because it ran as a regular user job,
> just like IMS. So, BEM connected to the DDI network and IMS  connected
> to the TCI network. Each network had its own set of dedicated Lines and
> terminals, so terminals on the BEM line could only be accessed by BEM or
> some other job that would connect to the DDI network while BEM was not
> running.
>
> So Charley would shut down BEM and run his IMS substitue instead, test
> his program and then restart BEM.

Exactly!

--
cgi...@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs)

[lordkelvin441]

Thanks you both for explanation, that perfectly explains the environment I was unsure of, with a set of BEM terminals constituting 'programmer network'. Having peek at U200's Delphi code to understand current emulation limitations now, so I can have a go at converting LibTest to DDI CUP.

Rgds,

JK