House for the History of IBM Data Processing
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The Operating System Handbook Or, Fake Your Way Through Minis and Mainframes
The Operating System Handbook or, Fake Your Way Through Minis and Mainframes by Bob DuCharme MVS Table of Contents Chapter 22 MVS: An Introduction.................................................................................... 22.1 Batch Jobs..................................................................................................................1 22.2 Interacting with MVS................................................................................................3 22.2.1 TSO.........................................................................................................................3 22.2.2 ISPF........................................................................................................................3 22.2.3 CICS........................................................................................................................4 22.2.4 Other MVS Components.........................................................................................4 22.3 History........................................................................................................................5 Chapter 23 Getting Started with MVS............................................................................... 23.1 Starting Up.................................................................................................................6 23.1.1 VTAM.....................................................................................................................6 23.1.2 Logging On.............................................................................................................6 -
Data Processing with Unit Record Equipment in Iceland
Data Processing with Unit Record Equipment in Iceland Óttar Kjartansson (Retired) Manager of Data Processing Department at Skýrr, Iceland [email protected] Abstract. This paper presents an overview of the usage of unit record equipment and punched cards in Iceland and introduces some of the pioneers. The usage of punched cards as a media in file processing started 1949 and became the dominant machine readable media in Iceland until 1968. After that punched cards were still used as data entry media for a while but went completely out of use in 1982. Keywords: Data processing, unit record, punched card, Iceland. 1 Hagstofa Íslands Hagstofa Íslands (Statistical Bureau of Iceland) initiated the use of 80 column punched cards and unit record equipment in Iceland in the year 1949. The first ma- chinery consisted of tabulating machine of the type IBM 285 (handled numbers only), the associated key punch machines, verifiers, and a card sorter. See Figures 1 and 2. This equipment was primarily used to account for the import and export for Iceland. Skýrr (Skýrsluvélar ríkisins og Reykjavíkurborgar - The Icelandic State and Munici- pal Data Center) was established three years later by an initiative from Hagstofa Íslands, Rafmagnsveita Reykjavíkur (Reykjavík Electric Power Utility), and the Medical Director of Health of Iceland as was described in an earlier article [3]. Fig. 1. IBM 285 Electric Accounting Machine at Hagstofa Íslands year 1949 J. Impagliazzo, T. Järvi, and P. Paju (Eds.): HiNC 2, IFIP AICT 303, pp. 225–229, 2009. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2009 226 Ó. Kjartansson Fig. 2. Early form of the data registration using a punched card. -
Holocaust Orphans Take on Big Business Air Force Academy Sets
A PUBLICATION OF THE NEW JERSEY STATE BAR FOUNDATION SPRING 2006 • VOL. 5, NO. 3 A NEWSLETTER ABOUT LAW AND DIVERSITY Holocaust Orphans Take on Big Business by Dale Frost Stillman It is estimated that six million Jewish Fiction Award, that IBM’s motivation during the war people and millions of non-Jewish people were was not hate, but greed. killed during the horrors of the Holocaust. A “Watson didn’t hate the Jews. He didn’t hate staggering number that begs the question: how the Poles. He didn’t hate the British, nor did he hate was Hitler able to identify those he wanted to the Americans,” Black writes. “It was always about target and eliminate? the money.” According to best-selling author Edwin Black’s award-winning book, IBM and the Holocaust, Hitler How did the punch card system work? relied heavily on IBM’s Hollerith punch card technology. The next best thing to a computer at the time, Black has stated in newspaper reports that a trip to the Black contends that IBM’s punch card technology U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. inspired allowed Hitler to automate >continued on page 2 him to research IBM’s business activities with Nazi Germany during the war. In the museum, an IBM Hollerith D-11 sorting Air Force Academy machine was displayed with the explanation that the Nazi regime used the Sets Course for Tolerance by Barbara Sheehan machine in 1933 to conduct a national census, thereby identifying Germany’s Last year, stories of religious intolerance in the U.S. -
Introduction to Database Systems
CO-560-A Databases and Web Services Instructors: Peter Baumann email: [email protected] office: room 88, Research 1 Databases & Web Services (P. Baumann) 1 Where It All Started Source: Wikipedia . 1890 census on 62,947,714 US population “Big Data” • was announced after only six weeks of processing . Hollerith „tabulating machine and sorter“ . Tabulating Machine Company International Business Machines Corporation Herman Hollerith in 1888 Hollerith card puncher, used by the United States Census Bureau Hollerith punched card Databases & Web Services (P. Baumann) 2 Databases & Web Services (P. Baumann) [image: Intel] 3 What Is „Big Data“? . Internet: the unprecedented . Typical Big Data: information collector • Business Intelligence • 2012: 200m Web servers [Yahoo] • Social networks - Facebook, • estd 50+b static pages [Yahoo] Twitter, GPS, ... • 40 b photos [Facebook] • Life Science: patient data, imagery • 2012: 31b searches/m [Google] • Geo: Satellite imagery, weather . 2025: 463 Exabytes / day data, crowdsourcing, ... Data = the „new gold“, „new oil“ Petrol industry: „more bytes than barrels“ Databases & Web Services (P. Baumann) 4 Today: „Data Deluge“ . „It is estimated that a week„s work at the New York Times contains more information than a person in the 18th Century would encounter in their entire lifetime and the thought is that within 10 years the rate of information doubling will occur every 72 hours.“ -- P. „Bud“ Peterson, U Colorado . “global mobile data traffic 597 petabytes per month in 2011 (8x the size of the entire global Internet in 2000) estimated to grow to 6,254 petabytes per month by 2015” -- Forbes, June 2012 . a typical new car has about 100 million lines of code • -- http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/12/automotive-os-war/ Databases & Web Services (P. -
Oct. 5Th IBM 1401
episode “Whither Canada?” The IBM 1403 series would run for forty-five Oct. 5th Oct. 5, 1959 episodes over four series. It was conceived, written, and The IBM 1403 line printer was performed Graham Chapman, IBM 1401 introduced at the same time as John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric the IBM 1401 [previous entry]. Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Oct. 5, 1959 The original could print 600 Palin. lines per minute, but the Model The term “spam” in reference to The IBM 1401 was the first 3 could manage a blazingly fast bulk, unsolicited email [March machine in the highly successful 1400 lines per minute. IBM 1400 series. IBM was 31] is derived from the show’s pleasantly surprised (perhaps It was the first printer to offer a “Spam” sketch which premiered even shocked) to receive 5,200 width of 132 columns, which on Dec. 15, 1970. “Spam” is orders in just five weeks after its was subsequently adapted by uttered at least 132 times. announcement – more than had many others devices, such as the The Python language [Feb 20] is been predicted for the entire Centronics 101 (1970), the named after the troupe, and lifetime of the device. Indeed, DECwriter II ([Sept 24]1975), Monty Python references are the number of installed and the Epson MX-80 ([Oct 00] often found in sample code. For machines peaked at over 10,000 1980). One historian believes instance, many Python coders in the mid-1960s, and accounted this unusual number of columns like to use spam, ham, and eggs for nearly half of all the derives from the spacing used by as variables, instead of the more computer systems in the world IBM’s pre-1928 punch cards traditional foo [March 10], bar, at the time. -
Big Blue in the Bottomless Pit: the Early Years of IBM Chile
Big Blue in the Bottomless Pit: The Early Years of IBM Chile Eden Medina Indiana University In examining the history of IBM in Chile, this article asks how IBM came to dominate Chile’s computer market and, to address this question, emphasizes the importance of studying both IBM corporate strategy and Chilean national history. The article also examines how IBM reproduced its corporate culture in Latin America and used it to accommodate the region’s political and economic changes. Thomas J. Watson Jr. was skeptical when he The history of IBM has been documented first heard his father’s plan to create an from a number of perspectives. Former em- international subsidiary. ‘‘We had endless ployees, management experts, journalists, and opportunityandlittleriskintheUS,’’he historians of business, technology, and com- wrote, ‘‘while it was hard to imagine us getting puting have all made important contributions anywhere abroad. Latin America, for example to our understanding of IBM’s past.3 Some seemed like a bottomless pit.’’1 However, the works have explored company operations senior Watson had a different sense of the outside the US in detail.4 However, most of potential for profit within the world market these studies do not address company activi- and believed that one day IBM’s sales abroad ties in regions of the developing world, such as would surpass its growing domestic business. Latin America.5 Chile, a slender South Amer- In 1949, he created the IBM World Trade ican country bordered by the Pacific Ocean on Corporation to coordinate the company’s one side and the Andean cordillera on the activities outside the US and appointed his other, offers a rich site for studying IBM younger son, Arthur K. -
The Advent of Recursion in Programming, 1950S-1960S
The Advent of Recursion in Programming, 1950s-1960s Edgar G. Daylight?? Institute of Logic, Language, and Computation, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands [email protected] Abstract. The term `recursive' has had different meanings during the past two centuries among various communities of scholars. Its historical epistemology has already been described by Soare (1996) with respect to the mathematicians, logicians, and recursive-function theorists. The computer practitioners, on the other hand, are discussed in this paper by focusing on the definition and implementation of the ALGOL60 program- ming language. Recursion entered ALGOL60 in two novel ways: (i) syn- tactically with what we now call BNF notation, and (ii) dynamically by means of the recursive procedure. As is shown, both (i) and (ii) were in- troduced by linguistically-inclined programmers who were not versed in logic and who, rather unconventionally, abstracted away from the down- to-earth practicalities of their computing machines. By the end of the 1960s, some computer practitioners had become aware of the theoreti- cal insignificance of the recursive procedure in terms of computability, though without relying on recursive-function theory. The presented re- sults help us to better understand the technological ancestry of modern- day computer science, in the hope that contemporary researchers can more easily build upon its past. Keywords: recursion, recursive procedure, computability, syntax, BNF, ALGOL, logic, recursive-function theory 1 Introduction In his paper, Computability and Recursion [41], Soare explained the origin of computability, the origin of recursion, and how both concepts were brought to- gether in the 1930s by G¨odel, Church, Kleene, Turing, and others. -
IBM Global Services: a Brief History
IBM Global Services: A Brief History IBM Corporate Archives May 2002 2405SH01 2 OVERVIEW Background In 1991 IBM was a $64.8 billion company, of which less than $6 billion was derived from non-maintenance services. Ten short years later, the business of information technology (IT) services alone generated more than 40 percent of IBM’s $86 billion in sales and had become the single largest source of revenue in IBM’s portfolio. How did that happen? It was partly the result of old-fashioned hard work and serious commitment: growing customer by customer; building disciplined management and financial systems; and investing to hire and train experts in everything from IT consulting to systems architecture and Web services. IBM used its financial strength to fund the expensive push into outsourcing, and the company placed informed bets on the future in areas such as IT utility services (“e-business on demand”) and hosted storage. But most important, the success of IBM Global Services came from something very simple: a clear understanding of customers’ needs. IBM saw that technology and business were converging to create something new and challenging for every kind of enterprise. And IBM had the deep experience in both areas to help its customers bring them together most effectively. The following pages offer a brief look at the history and growth of the organization that is today IBM’s top revenue generator. Definitions What are “services?” In the IT world, that broad term has encompassed dozens of offerings and meanings, including consulting, custom programming, systems integration (designing, building and installing complex information systems), systems operations (in which a vendor runs part or all of a company’s information systems), business innovation services (such as supply chain management), strategic outsourcing, application management services, integrated technology services (such as business recovery), networking services, learning services, security services, storage services and wireless services. -
Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110 [email protected]
IBM-ACS: Reminiscences and Lessons Learned From a 1960’s Supercomputer Project * Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110 [email protected] Abstract. This paper contains reminiscences of my work as a young engineer at IBM- Advanced Computing Systems. I met my colleague Brian Randell during a particularly exciting time there – a time that shaped our later careers in very interesting ways. This paper reflects on those long-ago experiences and the many lessons learned back then. I’m hoping that other ACS veterans will share their memories with us too, and that together we can build ever-clearer images of those heady days. Keywords: IBM, Advanced Computing Systems, supercomputer, computer architecture, system design, project dynamics, design process design, multi-level simulation, superscalar, instruction level parallelism, multiple out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, VLSI design. 1 Introduction I was hired by IBM Research right out of graduate school, and soon joined what would become the IBM Advanced Computing Systems project just as it was forming in 1965. In these reflections, I’d like to share glimpses of that amazing project from my perspective as a young impressionable engineer at the time. It was a golden era in computer research, a time when fundamental breakthroughs were being made across a wide front. The well-distilled and highly codified results of that and subsequent work, as contained in today’s modern textbooks, give no clue as to how they came to be. Lost in those texts is all the excitement, the challenge, the confusion, the camaraderie, the chaos and the fun – the feeling of what it was really like to be there – at that frontier, at that time. -
Key Themes in Histories of IBM
James W. Cortada Change and Continuity at IBM: Key Themes in Histories of IBM IBM has been the subject of considerable study by historians, economists, business management professors, and journalists. This essay surveys the various writings on the company, placing their contributions in a roughly chronological account of the company’s history, from its early days in tabulating through to its dominance of global markets in computing. The essay includes well-known studies of IBM in addition to more obscure accounts. It emphasizes the need to consider the com- pany’s culture along with its technological and managerial changes in order to grasp the reasons for its longevity. Keywords: IBM, Thomas J. Watson Sr., Thomas J. Watson Jr., Arthur K. (Dick) Watson, Herman Hollerith, IBM World Trade Corporation his essay provides a guide to the voluminous writings on IBM by Thistorians and by others whose work is useful to historians, including IBM employees and management and technology experts. This is a global history and looks at sources in English and in other lan- guages. To do so, it also traces briefly the continuities and discontinuities in IBM’s strategy and culture over time, and highlights key events in its history.1 1 For general works on IBM, see Robert Sobel, I.B.M., Colossus in Transition (New York, 1981); Saul Engelbourg, International Business Machines: A Business History (New York, 1976); James W. Cortada, Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865–1956 (Princeton, N.J., 1993); Emerson W. Pugh, Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1995). -
Herman Hollerith and Early Mechanical/Electrical Tabulator/Sorters
Herman Hollerith and early mechanical/electrical tabulator/sorters The US Constitution requires that the people of the U.S. be counted every ten years and that the members of the House of Representatives “be apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers”1. (The other house of Congress, the Senate, has two members from each state.) Accordingly, every ten years, a census is taken. By 1880, the census was becoming harder and harder to accomplish. Everything was done on paper. Marks were placed in squares on paper, the marked squares were counted, and of course people made many mistakes. Further, the census was used more and more not just to count people but to get useful data on age, gender, marital status, working status, and so on. There were more and more marks to make and count! Herman Hollerith: the inventor of mechanical/electrical data processing systems Herman Hollerith graduated from the Columbia University School of Mines (in New York City) in 1879 at the age of 19. He knew about the problems with the census and be- gan research into mechanizing part of the counting of the census. In 1882, he taught me- chanical engineering at MIT and conducted his first experiments with punched cards. He was extremely successful, and he soon moved to Washington D.C. and set up a company, The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System. By the middle of the 1880’s, his first punched-card system was working. His company provided the Census Office with the equipment used in processing the 1890 census —62 million punched cards were processed by his machines, cutting two years off the time to complete the census. -
Punched Card - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Page 1 of 11
.... _ ALL COMMUNICATIONS IN REFERENCE TO FORESTRY TO BE ADDRESSED TO THE CHIEF FORESTER VICTORIA. B.C. TIlE GO'IEIltDIEIIT Of THE P/IOVJII!;E DfBRItISH CIIJIIIIA DEPARTMENT OF LANDS FOREST BRANCH Yay 16th, 1928. H. J. Coles, Esq., Port Alberni, B.C. Please refer to File No. Management 081406 Dear Sirl- This is to advise that you passed the Licensed Scaler's Examina- tion held by Mr. A. L. Bryant a.t Vancouver, B.C., on May 2nd and 3rd, 1928. Your ~cence No. 811 is enclosed herewith. Xours truly, JM/pb • 1 Enc.l• N° 811 lHE 60VERNMIJIT OF '(f£ PROVINCe OF BRlnsH CIl.UIBIA FOREST ACT AND AMENDMENTS. ~raliug mirturt. FOREST BRANCH, LANDS DEPARTtvt~_NT. r)//) -4 ««e/<i;««<<<</tJ<<<<< < «««<<<<<<<<<<<<<<.<<. 192.K. .. W41n 1n tn (!1rrtify thatC~. /~~J.(~ff/~ -z::.~l::k~ -r1J->·r /7' £I P' . ;j residing at./!&~ L.1~~~-t.- Yi...-£" ~ ~ . ", in the Province of British Columbia, ;;.«~ ~ d-1~ ed ;22 2. / q "'r 8::. b has been examin /07 .••• =Zf'7;m .m.' mm.. .... ... m.................... /~ ..... .... ......... y •••• ««««<<<<<... - «««««< <(.,"F«<· < «. «<.««< of the Board of Examiners for Licensing alers, as provided in the "Forest Act" and amendments, and having creditably passed the said examination is hereby appointed a Licensed Scaler, and ·is duly authorized to perform the duties of a Licensed Scaler, as specified under Part VIII. of the "Forest <~:<~,.(_2.,_,;,::c,.(. «c.,"G~~< .. .. < ••• «« ••• «<•• CHAIRMAN OF BOARD OF EXAMINERS. Punched card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1 of 11 Punched card From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A punched card (or punch card or Hollerith card or IBM card) is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions.