From: "Andrew McLaren" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Lines: 41 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2436.0001 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2436.0001 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 21:57:53 +1000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.54.219.40 X-Trace: newsfeeds.bigpond.com 991568486 203.54.219.40 (Sun, 03 Jun 2001 21:41:26 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 21:41:26 EST Organization: Telstra BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.com) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!newsfeeds.bigpond.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82818 Hi all, (this continues from the earlier thread re a VM/CMS emulator for the PC; but there's enough topic-shift to justify a new thread ...) I'm wondering if anyone can confirm a claim made in CH Fergus and CR Morris, "Computer Wars: The Fall of IBM and the Future of Global Technology", Time Books, New York 1993 ISBN 0-8129-2300-6. Fergus and Morris say (pp 72-83, passim) that in the early 80s, IBM's Yorktown group wrote an operating system for the PC/3270 called "CP/88" (no relation to CP/M!). Subsequent revisions were called CP/286 and CP/386 respectively. The Yorktown group also added a GUI front-end called "Mermaid" which came from Boca Raton. The whole shebang was written in PLAS, and was thus somewhat portable across processors. It offered multitasking, a windowing GUI and was small and robust. In 1984 it supposedly had everything that Windows 3.0 would bring in 1990, and more besides. Hence it was potentially an IBM-owned OS for all IBM PCs. Fergus and Morris say that "in 1984 a three-day CP/x86/Mermaid strategy conference was held at Boca Raton, attended by more than 50 technologists and managers. CP/x86 was also very much discussed at the very top of the company in the shorthand 'VM for the PC'". Furthermore "...CP/x86 was so superior [to DOS] that it would almost certainly have become the primary design target". However IBM - for reasons unknown - decided to bypass CP/x86 and start the OS/2 project instead, and "there was a near revolt among the technologists". Possibly rightly so, given that OS/2 later proved to be the "FS Project" of PC operating systems ;-) I have never heard or seen any other references to this "CPx86" operating system from IBM; or anything regarding the machinations of its rise and fall (although, I did use a PC/3270 during the 1980s). So - can anyone confirm the story, or provide extra details? Geez ... I'd *love* to get my hands on a copy! Cheers Andrew ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? References: Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 27 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 12:27:39 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.227.158 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 991571259 199.174.227.158 (Sun, 03 Jun 2001 05:27:39 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 05:27:39 PDT X-Received-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 05:25:38 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82776 "Andrew McLaren" writes: > I have never heard or seen any other references to this "CPx86" operating > system from IBM; or anything regarding the machinations of its rise and fall > (although, I did use a PC/3270 during the 1980s). So - can anyone confirm > the story, or provide extra details? I believe work on cp88 started sometime in 82 or very early 83. It was used as the basis of xt/370 ... on the pc side, getting loaded there when xt/370 function/feature was activate ... aka CP kernel was running on the 370 card ... and cp88 was running on the PC side. Anybody with an xt/at/370 would have had copy of cp88 ... but just possibly thot it was part of the xt/at/370 package that ran on the pc side. there was some work between PM (presentation manager) and cp88 in early 84. random refs: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#23 Old IBM's http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#5 IBM XT/370 and AT/370 (was Re: Computer of the century) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#29 Operating systems, guest and actual http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#52 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#55 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#89 database (or b-tree) page sizes -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNPC Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? References: Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 28 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 15:41:58 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.230.224 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 991582918 199.174.230.224 (Sun, 03 Jun 2001 08:41:58 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 08:41:58 PDT X-Received-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 08:39:56 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82834 "Andrew McLaren" writes: > Fergus and Morris say that "in 1984 a three-day CP/x86/Mermaid strategy > conference was held at Boca Raton, attended by more than 50 technologists > and managers. CP/x86 was also very much discussed at the very top of the > company in the shorthand 'VM for the PC'". Furthermore "...CP/x86 was so > superior [to DOS] that it would almost certainly have become the primary > design target". However IBM - for reasons unknown - decided to bypass > CP/x86 and start the OS/2 project instead, and "there was a near revolt > among the technologists". Possibly rightly so, given that OS/2 later proved > to be the "FS Project" of PC operating systems ;-) there is also the joke that some number of MFT developers moved to Boca and "re-invented" MFT as RPS on the S/1 ... and then "re-invented" it again as OS/2 on the PC. FS was much more of a paper project that was documenting every blue-sky idea that anybody had ever thot of in the history of computing (OS2 might just be considered some number of people that just liked MFT). That is different than the stuff that started out as 88-side multi-tasker and services in support of vm/370 running on a (limited) 370 pc-board (needed to be able to, at least, map between cp/cms 370 IO/device operations and pc-side devices/features). things like that happen ... see related aix thread in this n.g. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#22 -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### From: "Andrew McLaren" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Lines: 33 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2436.0001 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2436.0001 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 10:07:30 +1000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.54.218.205 X-Trace: newsfeeds.bigpond.com 991612269 203.54.218.205 (Mon, 04 Jun 2001 09:51:09 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 09:51:09 EST Organization: Telstra BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.com) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news.stealth.net!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!newsfeeds.bigpond.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82853 "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" wrote > I believe work on cp88 started sometime in 82 or very early 83. It was > used as the basis of xt/370 ... on the pc side, getting loaded there .... > with an xt/at/370 would have had copy of cp88 ... but just possibly thot it > was part of the xt/at/370 package that ran on the pc side. Excellent info, as usual! Many thanks. So, it was the [X|A]T/370 which had the CP88 bits, *not*, qua Fergus & Morris, the PC(AT)/3270. That explains why I didn't see it. The machine I had was merely an AT, with 3270 card coax-attached to a 3174, and IBM's "Personal Services for the PC", so that you could alt-esc (I think) between PC and 3270 sessions; thus, a much lesser thing than the AT/370. I was always faintly amused at IBM's product name "Personal Services for the PC" - it sounded a bit, um, smutty to me. But maybe that's just how my brain works ;-). In the organisation in which I was then working, we had one such PC, and then we bought an extra 50 or so *terminals*. This gave me yet another opportunity to be a know-it-all smart-arse. After the new terminals were purchased and installed, the general manager saw me toggling between CICS sessions and Lotus 123. How the hell did you do that? he asked. I explained about the PC and he said, great, so I can do that on one of the new terminals? Alas no, I said, they are just *terminals* you get the CICS but no PC. So, he asked, who made such a lousy purchasing decision? Ah, that would have been the IT Manager from Head Office ... Cheers, Andrew ###### From: "Andrew McLaren" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Lines: 34 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2436.0001 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2436.0001 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 09:55:36 +1000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.54.218.228 X-Trace: newsfeeds.bigpond.com 991697937 203.54.218.228 (Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:38:57 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:38:57 EST Organization: Telstra BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.com) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!newsfeeds.bigpond.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82979 "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" wrote > there is also the joke that some number of MFT developers moved to > Boca and "re-invented" MFT as RPS on the S/1 ... and then > "re-invented" it again as OS/2 on the PC. Was MFT a different group of developers to MVT? Without knowing the inner workings of that period, I'd have thought the same OS team would have developed MFT and then thought, Fine, now all we need is to add more flexible multiprogramming (...VT)??? > FS was much more of a paper > project that was documenting every blue-sky idea that anybody had ever > thot of in the history of computing In their book (op cit) Fergus and Morris also advance the claim that IBM got burnt so badly by FS that it took them a generation to recover. They discuss this over some 20-30 pages, so I won't repro their full argument here ;-) Basically they say that so much energy went into FS that s370 was neglected, hence Japanese plug-compatibles got a good foothold in the market; after FS's collapse a tribe of technical folks left IBM or when into corporate seclusion; and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and Jr of free and vigourous debate was replaced with sycophancy and "make no waves" under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the shadow of defeat (by the FS failure), hence, while still agressive in business practices, IBM faltered at being aggressive in technology. Hence the languishing of 801, RISC, failure to exploit S/1 ... nothing would be allowed to rock the 370 boat again. Until of course the majot changes of the early 90s. Any thoughts? ###### From: "Jim Mehl" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 20:38:01 -0700 Organization: The Diamond Lane Lines: 43 Message-ID: <3b1c5419@news.ihot.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: news9.ihot.com X-Trace: news.tdl.com 991712274 25384 63.169.216.10 (5 Jun 2001 03:37:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@tdl.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 03:37:54 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 65-160-185-145-modem.o1.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.he.net!news.tdl.com!news.ihot.com!65-160-185-145-modem.o1.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82993 I agree with Andrew. OS/2 was much more like MVT than MFT. Also there some people that think that FS actually was realized in the System/38 operating system (led I think by Glenn Henry). Jim Mehl > Was MFT a different group of developers to MVT? Without knowing the inner > workings of that period, I'd have thought the same OS team would have > developed MFT and then thought, Fine, now all we need is to add more > flexible multiprogramming (...VT)??? > > > FS was much more of a paper > > project that was documenting every blue-sky idea that anybody had ever > > thot of in the history of computing > > In their book (op cit) Fergus and Morris also advance the claim that IBM got > burnt so badly by FS that it took them a generation to recover. They discuss > this over some 20-30 pages, so I won't repro their full argument here ;-) > Basically they say that so much energy went into FS that s370 was neglected, > hence Japanese plug-compatibles got a good foothold in the market; after > FS's collapse a tribe of technical folks left IBM or when into corporate > seclusion; and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and > Jr of free and vigourous debate was replaced with sycophancy and "make no > waves" under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the > shadow of defeat (by the FS failure), hence, while still agressive in > business practices, IBM faltered at being aggressive in technology. Hence > the languishing of 801, RISC, failure to exploit S/1 ... nothing would be > allowed to rock the 370 boat again. Until of course the majot changes of the > early 90s. > > Any thoughts? > > > ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNLT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? References: Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 63 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 15:08:25 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 165.121.117.139 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 991753705 165.121.117.139 (Tue, 05 Jun 2001 08:08:25 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 08:08:25 PDT X-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 08:06:29 PDT (newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82938 "Andrew McLaren" writes: > In their book (op cit) Fergus and Morris also advance the claim that IBM got > burnt so badly by FS that it took them a generation to recover. They discuss > this over some 20-30 pages, so I won't repro their full argument here ;-) > Basically they say that so much energy went into FS that s370 was neglected, > hence Japanese plug-compatibles got a good foothold in the market; after > FS's collapse a tribe of technical folks left IBM or when into corporate > seclusion; and perhaps most damaging, the old culture under Watson Snr and > Jr of free and vigourous debate was replaced with sycophancy and "make no > waves" under Opel and Akers. It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the > shadow of defeat (by the FS failure), hence, while still agressive in > business practices, IBM faltered at being aggressive in technology. Hence > the languishing of 801, RISC, failure to exploit S/1 ... nothing would be > allowed to rock the 370 boat again. Until of course the majot changes of the > early 90s. i was rather caustic at the time ... claiming that it was a case of the immates in charge of the institution ... few if any of the people working on it seemed to ever have supported real-live production system (i.e. like being on call for 24hrs/day ... there was a strong lack of reality finger-feel to it). there was a cult film playing at the time down in central sq at the time ... having played continuuously for 10+ years ... "queen of hearts"(?) ... american soldiers entering a french town where all the people had fled except the inmates from local asylum who were wandering around the town. and of course ... one of the projects I did as an undergraduate is credited with originating the plug-compatible market. as to OS/2 ... i remember getting calls from boca about all the new things/rewrite that they wanted to do between release 1 and release 2 ... including looking for advice specifically about dispatching and scheduling. i don't remember any specific MFT names that had gone south to boca ... just a number of people joking about the MFT->RPS->OS2 geneology. pcm/oem refs: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#360pcm random FS refs: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#24 old manuals http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#100 Why won't the AS/400 die? Or, It's 1999 why do I have to learn how to use http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#237 I can't believe this newsgroup still exists. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#3 Computer of the century http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#16 [OT] FS - IBM Future System http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#17 [OT] FS - IBM Future System http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#18 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#21 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#27 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#28 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#30 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#37 OT? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#40 Famous Machines and Software that didn't http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#56 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#18 360/370 instruction cycle time http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#44 IBM was/is: Imitation... http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#4 Block oriented I/O over IP -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com, http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: jsaum@world.std.com (Jim Saum) Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 03:46:22 GMT References: NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp0b004.std.com Organization: Software Tool & Die X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.4.4 Lines: 35 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.umass.edu!world!jsaum Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:82880 In article , Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote: >there was a cult film playing at the time down in central sq at the >time ... having played continuuously for 10+ years ... "queen of >hearts"(?) ... american soldiers entering a french town where all the >people had fled except the inmates from local asylum who were >wandering around the town. "King of Hearts". The small Central Square Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which showed that one film for years, is long gone. Speaking of changing Cambridge landscapes, the Technology Square cluster of buildings that was the birthplace of CP/67, Multics, Emacs, GCC, etc., is now being transformed significantly by new construction. Polaroid's low-rise has been torn down and is being replaced by a much bigger building, eliminating most of the courtyard. The whole area is a big construction site, and more new buildings are planned. The building formerly numbered 545, which across the years housed the Multics project, IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center, MIT's Project MAC (now called the Lab for Computer Sciences), the MIT AI Lab, and Richard Stallman, has been renamed 200. Tom Van Vleck's nostalgic look at the old Tech Square and surroundings: http://www.multicians.org/tech-square.html The new Tech Square: http://tech-square.com/html/cambridge.htm http://tech-square.com/html/buildings.htm MIT is acquiring most of the Tech Square buildings: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2001/jan24/techsquare.html - Jim Saum ###### From: michael.wojcik@merant.com (Michael Wojcik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: IBM's "VM for the PC" c.1984?? Date: 6 Jun 2001 19:02:54 GMT Organization: MERANT Inc. Lines: 24 Message-ID: <9fluou02ssk@enews1.newsguy.com> References: Reply-To: michael.wojcik@merant.com NNTP-Posting-Host: p-137.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: xrn 9.00 Originator: mww@lorelei Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!mww Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:83021 In article , "Andrew McLaren" writes: > It's claimed that thereafter, IBM lived in the > shadow of defeat (by the FS failure), hence, while still agressive in > business practices, IBM faltered at being aggressive in technology. Hence > the languishing of 801, RISC, failure to exploit S/1 ... nothing would be > allowed to rock the 370 boat again. Until of course the majot changes of the > early 90s. F&M may be right that fallout from FS hindered things for a while, but not until "the early 90s". The AS/400 and RS/6000 were both developed in the late 1980s. And OS/400 is, after all, in many ways the successful child of the FS family - the parts of FS that could be achieved in a marketable system. -- Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@merant.com Comms Development, MERANT (block capitals are a company mandate) Department of English, Miami University I am not saying that ALL wife beaters are evil, just that a lot of them are not of the best character. -- Shelley Smith