19 Apr
2013
19 Apr
'13
11:55 p.m.
On 19/04/2013 23:30, Jim Stephens wrote:
On 4/19/2013 1:38 PM, Dave wrote:
I don't know why the 4331 was picked, but
made me think. The system
that was probably better was the 4361 if one could lay hands on one.
It had a storage director built in, and could run 3370's. If one had
a 3420 + 2 or 3 3370's and the 4361, it was all about the same height
and form factor and made for a deep freeze and a half to run a very
nice VM system on. VM SP5 ran fine on that system.
The issue with the direct attach drives is that they are all "fixed
block arcitecture" (FBA) drives so won't run the freely available (pre
VM/SP) VM/370 as that didn't support FBA disks. So almost all the low
end boxes that is 4331, 4361 and 9370 generally came with FBA disks as
these didn't need an expensive controller. You can use the more
expensive CKD drives but they were very expensive.
On 19/04/2013 15:16, geneb wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Apr 2013, Dave wrote:
>
>>> The hard part (at least from my standpoint) is getting your hands
>>> on the IBM mainframe to begin with.
>>
>> MP3000 come up from time to time on E-Bay and are reasonably cheap.
>> Finding an OS to run on one is harder. You can connect a real 3270
>> to Hercules.
>>>
Probably Linux is all one can run unless you have a lot of money to
run Zos. I don't know how long you could legally run the demo Zvm
download or if it runs on the MP3000, I'm guessing the chances are
high not.
Yeah.
I'm discovering that finding operating systems for IBM
hardware is problematic. Does Hercules have the OS that was running
on the 4331-K2 circa 1986?
It also had 4 3270 builtin ports (or 6, don't
recall) plus a port that
had the console crap on the bottom of the screen. The top was a 3215
(maybe??) which had 20 lines rather than 24. You had a special
keyboard with the buttons on one side to bring the power up, and IPL.
Well thats an interesting point. It was generated to VM as a 3270 model
2A but all VM consoles look like 3215's to the application programs.
They use a special instruction DIAG58 to send full screen data to the
screen. Most apps will work in full screen mode on a 2A.
Also the 3420 tape drive had the controller built in,
so you didn't
need a 3803 type box to run the drive. Basically a reel to reel with
the reels horizontal. The one we had did 6250 as well, so two tapes
would back up the system pretty much.
Dave
That box could just about run all the IBM 370
operating systems that
were current at that time. I would have thought around 1986 it would
most likely be running DOS/VSE as for example as per:-
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/1/89…
The 4331 was aimed at smaller sites most of who ran DOS. It could
also have been running VM/SP R4 or possibly MVS/SP. MVS/SP is
unlikely as its really overkill for the 4331 and it requires CKD DASD
which can be formatted with a range of sector sizes. The 4331 was
usually ordered with FBA DASD such as these :-
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3310.html
and MVS won't run on these DASD. I think the only freely available OS
that runs on FBA DASD will be from the DOS family. VM/370 and MVS
3.8J both require CKD disks.
That keyboard site is very handy, thanks to the author.
Jim
> I recently saw pictures on the VCF of a 3270
keyboard a guy had
> (or was in the process of) hacking to work on a PC.
I have a couple of Nokia 122 key keyboards that plug straight into
a PC. Like the one at the bottom of here:-
http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/scan.htm
Now THAT is a labor of love. Awesome site. Bookmarked!
g.