Early 360 machines (Was: Front panel switches - what did they do?)
Paul Berger
phb.hfx at gmail.com
Wed May 25 12:19:31 CDT 2016
On 2016-05-25 2:06 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
> On 05/25/2016 12:01 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>> > From: Jon Elson
>>
>> > the /20 was intended for very specific uses in 360 shops, and
>> maybe as
>> > an entry-level "foot in the door" to move totally tab card
>> shops into
>> > the 360 family. The only /20s I ever saw were used as offline
>> spool
>> > printers and card readers in large 360 shops.
>>
>> I interned at IBM Bermuda, and they had a 360/20 as their main
>> service bureau
>> machine; it had (IIRC) a card reader/punch, 4 tape drives, and a 4301
>> printer. When I got there, they had just gotten in a System 3 (two
>> single-platter hard drives, a 4301 printer, and I'm not sure what
>> else) to
>> replace it.
>>
>>
> I'm guessing, maybe, that would be a 1403 printer? There were 1403
> and 1443 printers.
>
> The only language supported on the 360/20 was RPG. For a mostly tab
> card type of operation, you could actually do a lot in RPG. Otherwise,
> you had to write in machine language and get it assembled on another
> system.
>
> Jon
RPG was also a very popular language on S/3, S/32, S/34, S/36, S/38 and
AS/400 however as time went by it changed a lot and I am told the RPG on
the AS/400 bears little resemblance to the original. The closest I even
got to RPG was when writing code for S/36 we needed a test file and
looked at DFU as a means of creating one, we scrapped that idea when we
found we needed to use RPG specs to describe the file, and modified a
COBOL program one of my coworkers had to create the file.
Paul.
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