开云体育

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Mike Schwab wrote:

The quantum computers are suited toward simulations of reality, more along
the CDC/Cray massive parallel?processing.

They can do far more than this, even in traditional
fields.

Like linear search, in O(sqrt(n)) instead of O(n), just
to speak about data.

Or integer prime factorization in polynomial time instead
of exponential time: RSA as we know it would be gone
in seconds if we get access to quantum registers
of thousands of entangled qbits with a decent depth.

It is true they not displace classical computing
in all fields, but would any way makes the ICT
field completely different.

Simulation of reality is another topic, quantum
computing is not a simulation, quantum computing
is the "real" thing ;-)

Peppe.

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Dave Wade wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Giuseppe
Vitillaro
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 9:09 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [H390-MVS] IBM METALC curiosity.

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Greg Price wrote:

On 17/01/2024 6:38 am, Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

The word "puntglio" is when you insist on a point just because you
are not likely to admit you were wrong, even against your own
interest.

I'll suggest "bloody-minded"...

Cheers,
Greg

I believe that the English word "punctilious" is derived from this Italian
word...

Nice to know.

The english vocabulary is probably one of the largest
between the european languages ;-)

English speakers have access to latin and german
words. We, poor italians, must accomplish our
conversations with just the latin vocabulary.

Peppe.

Dave

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Dave Wade wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Giuseppe
Vitillaro
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 9:27 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [H390-MVS] IBM METALC curiosity.

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Charles Bailey wrote:

When I worked for IBM I saw how protective IBM was of the PL/S, PL/AS,
PL/X compiler. All of the manuals were marked IBM Confidential.
There were security audit police that would check a particular MVS
system where the compiler was installed to make sure it was installed
according to corporate instructions. I think it had to reside in its
own linklist load library and the compiler was marked with a RACF
attribute of "execute only", meaning that the OS could read the load
module from disk for the purpose of executing it but a user couldn't
make a copy of the load module. I don't remember for sure but it
might have been the case that anyone who wanted to use the compiler had

to

be a member of a particular RACF group.

I understad, really an hyper protective behaviour.

Just because MVS had been rewritten in this language?

I believe its used elsewhere.

By the way, from what I've seen, MVS3.8j sources are pure assembler, with
some PL/S source stored as comments, but it looks to my eyes as a pure
assembler OS.

This is the assembler output from the PL/S compiler. The comments you see
are the real PL/S source.

We have the souce of MVS3.8j on board, I've seen
them under TK4-.

All the PL/S code, as a comment, is there?

Peppe.

When MVS had been rewritten in PL/S?

Its always been PL/S. Well as far as I know, MVS has, but some earlier
products in the OS family must have been Assembler or one of the
predecessors to PL/S.
According to Wikipedia the TSO in MVT was one of the first products, but I
am a VM/CMS person and VM/CMS has always been pure assembler.

Peppe.

Dave
G4UGM

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia

Phone:+39.075.585-5518

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Charles Bailey wrote:

When I worked for IBM I saw how protective IBM was of the PL/S, PL/AS, PL/X compiler. All of the manuals were marked IBM Confidential. There were security audit police that would check a particular MVS system where the compiler was installed to make sure it was installed according to corporate instructions. I think it had to reside in its own linklist load library and the compiler was marked with a RACF attribute of "execute only", meaning that the OS could read the load module from disk for the purpose of executing it but a user couldn't make a copy of the load module. I don't remember for sure but it might have been the case that anyone who wanted to use the compiler had to be a member of a particular RACF group.

I understad, really an hyper protective behaviour.

Just because MVS had been rewritten in this language?

By the way, from what I've seen, MVS3.8j sources
are pure assembler, with some PL/S source stored
as comments, but it looks to my eyes as a pure
assembler OS.

When MVS had been rewritten in PL/S?

Peppe.

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Greg Price wrote:

On 17/01/2024 6:38 am, Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

The word "puntglio" is when you insist on a
point just because you are not likely to admit
you were wrong, even against your own interest.

I'll suggest "bloody-minded"...

By the way, going off-topic now, for what
I may understand of IBM in these days, the
corporation, "mom", may be on the border
of leaving even from the mainframe businness.

IBM defintely has the most advanced technology,
I'm aware about, for "real" quantum computing.

From the announces, a modular quantum chip,
133 qubits entangled, is almost on the line
(2025) of becoming a commercial product and
IBM seems to expect a path which will lead
to quantum processor up to thousands of
entangled qubits before 2030. Such a modular
quantum technology let to foresee some sort
of "quantum mainframe", an architecture which
will mix the classical model with a bunch
of quantum registers of growing length and depth
for advanced quantum computing.

It looks like a pattern we have already seen
at beginning of the sixty, when batch mainframes
was just rented, for a lot of money, to big
companies. At that time IBM was almost
the only owner of the mainframe technology.

If this even become true, mainframes would
lose economical interest for IBM in a very
short time, it may happen, as happened for PC,
that some sort of "Lenovo Company" will replace
BigBlue in the commercial field of classical
mainframes.

Wondering if what I've in mind may really happen
in the timeframe from our days to 2040.

Peppe.

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024, Greg Price wrote:

On 17/01/2024 6:38 am, Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

The word "puntglio" is when you insist on a
point just because you are not likely to admit
you were wrong, even against your own interest.

I'll suggest "bloody-minded"...

Cheers,
Greg

Just googled for this words, Greg:

"the behaviour of someone who is very determined and refuses to give up, to change their mind, or to do what others want them to do: He was losing patience with her bloody-mindedness. Our neighbour refused to chop down the tree out of sheer bloody-mindedness"

Yep, we are almost there, italian is definitely
more ambiguos than american or british (is this
british or american?) english.

It may add to the word the shadows of obstinacy
and stubborness, often about a "point of honor"
which completely disregard if something is true
or false, real or not, just because the point
had already been took for granted in the past.

For what I'm reading the same broad sum of meanings
just doesn't exist in english in a single word.

But I would think a large corporation which is
up and running from a century would be not
capable of these feelings.

When I joined IBM Italy, in 1985, the very first
thing which the company said to me was: we are
here for doing businness (I've read that as "money"
in my naive view of things) and nothing else.

How such a company, with this main goal, may
keep insisting, beside PL/S, speaking now in
a broader sense about things which are dead
from decades, even agaist what rationality
may suggest?

Peppe.

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 17/01/2024 6:38 am, Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

The word "puntglio" is when you insist on a
point just because you are not likely to admit
you were wrong, even against your own interest.

I'll suggest "bloody-minded"...

Cheers,
Greg

When I worked for IBM I saw how protective IBM was of the PL/S, PL/AS, PL/X compiler. All of the manuals were marked IBM Confidential. There were security audit police that would check a particular MVS system where the compiler was installed to make sure it was installed according to corporate instructions. I think it had to reside in its own linklist load library and the compiler was marked with a RACF attribute of "execute only", meaning that the OS could read the load module from disk for the purpose of executing it but a user couldn't make a copy of the load module. I don't remember for sure but it might have been the case that anyone who wanted to use the compiler had to be a member of a particular RACF group.

Charles Bailey

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Laird Heal via??wrote:

>>IBM made them go retrieve every?single tape and destroy it, and promise to
>>never again distribute it, in exchange for not being sued.
>This is something I can't really understand, it
>looks more like ... what the word in english? ... stubborness?
>obstinacy? ... than a real legal issue.
>Maybe IBM may have changed its mind?
I doubt if IBM could have sued RAND successfully. Back then, the arguments
were about look and feel, and trying to patent a programming language would
fail as it would be deemed a mere mathematical formula. Now,
good-cop-bad-cop, IBM could have suggested that an operation busy modifying
MVT might want to keep in good graces for the times it needed to call for
support or such. IBM has good reasons not to have PL/S or a workalike out in
the wild.

This match with what I'm reading on Wiki, it
looks like the Rand Company just didn't find any real
interest in being sued by IBM by such an
economical irrilevant thing.

Reading between the lines it seems that Rand Company
itself didn't dismiss their compiler internally, they
just didn't sell or distribute it anymore after IBM
expressed its concerns.

It looks like someone could start with PL360 and the available documentation
and if it took three programmers for RAND to bring RL/S to production, how
long would it take one programmer?
As for as Metal C as it applies to MVS, a GCC library could invoke the SVCs
seamlessly, if someone wants to do the work and if anyone would use it.

Yes, the asm inline GCC feature can do that,
on any reasonable platform from what I know.

The GCC compiler just emit assembly code
and may add assembler language source code whatever
is needed to C code, C code that at the end
born as a portable "assmbler" language ;-)

Actually, as I wrote, IBM METALC seems modeled,
even for its syntax, on GCC.

But, just for the sake of the history, it looks like
PL/S had been probably in its age (1960-1970)
among the first between languages which support
this feature.

True of false?

Peppe.

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Joe Monk wrote:

"MVT and MVS are now just toys for hobbists, not
OS for real iron."
You know how IBM insists on maintaining forward compatibility, even in z/OS?
Like, how you can take an object module from OS/360, re-link on z/OS, and
execute?
Joe

Who asked for that?

If I even would find a PL/S compiler I would
use it under MVS3.8j and only under MVS3.8j.

Even if created for MVT it should run
under MVS3.8j beside OS dependencies
I wouldn't expect from a compiler.

Why I should need to relink it on Z/OS?

Peppe.

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Fish Fish wrote:

Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

[...]

This is something I can't really understand,
it looks more like ... what the word in english?
... stubborness? obstinacy? ... please suggest
to an italian speaker the correct translation
for "puntiglio" in english ...

pique?

Thank you, but not really, from what I can read the nearest
italian word to "pique" seems "dispetto".

The word "puntglio" is when you insist on a
point just because you are not likely to admit
you were wrong, even against your own interest.

A "dispetto" is different, it may be done
just for the pleasure of doing it.

Peppe.

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>IBM made them go retrieve every?single tape and destroy it, and promise to
>>never again distribute it, in exchange for not being sued.

>This is something I can't really understand, it
>looks more like ... what the word in english? ... stubborness?
>obstinacy? ... than a real legal issue.

>Maybe IBM may have changed its mind?

I doubt if IBM could have sued RAND successfully. Back then, the arguments were about look and feel, and trying to patent a programming language would fail as it would be deemed a mere mathematical formula. Now, good-cop-bad-cop, IBM could have suggested that an operation busy modifying MVT might want to keep in good graces for the times it needed to call for support or such. IBM has good reasons not to have PL/S or a workalike out in the wild.

It looks like someone could start with PL360 and the available documentation and if it took three programmers for RAND to bring RL/S to production, how long would it take one programmer?

As for as Metal C as it applies to MVS, a GCC library could invoke the SVCs seamlessly, if someone wants to do the work and if anyone would use it.

Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:

[...]

This is something I can't really understand,
it looks more like ... what the word in english?
... stubborness? obstinacy? ... please suggest
to an italian speaker the correct translation
for "puntiglio" in english ...

pique?




--
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
Software Development Laboratories

mail: fish@...

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Joe Monk wrote:

Yes, Rand released it. It wasnt?even an IBM product, Rand?reverse engineered
the compiler from available docs, and sold it for $100.
IBM made them go retrieve every?single tape and destroy it, and promise to
never again distribute it, in exchange for not being sued.
Joe

Yep, understood.

Buf half a century ticked over the clock, isn't it?

Impossible to think may be different in our days,
at the beginning of XXI century?

MVT and MVS are now just toys for hobbists, not
OS for real iron.

This is something I can't really understand, it
looks more like ... what the word in english? ... stubborness?
obstinacy? ... please suggest to an italian speaker the
correct translation for "puntiglio" in english ... than
a real legal issue.

Maybe IBM may have changed its mind?

Peppe.

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 9:55?PM Charles Bailey <txlogicguy@...> wrote:
I found this post quite interesting.? I wrote lots of PL/AS code
in the
1980's and 90's when I worked for IBM.? I still have a lot of
the code
but have no way to compile it with TK4-.? I had never heard of
Rand's
RL/S until today.? Did Rand ever release their RL/S compiler to
the
public?? It would be fun to see my PL/AS code could be adapted
to
compile with RL/S.

Charles Bailey

On 2024-01-15 05:24, Giuseppe Vitillaro wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Jan 2024, Joe Monk wrote:
>
>> Peppe,
>> "Still curious about how this game is played, being METALC,
GCC or
>> even PL/S, if even such compiler would be available, would
>> make any difference?"
>> PL/S hasnt?been used in decades. The modern version is
PL/X-390. :)
>
> Apologies, I'm not "updated" on PL languages ;-)
> I'm more a C/UNIX guy as you know.
>
> Any way, I would be glad anyway to have access to the Rand's
PL/S
> compiler under MVS3.8j, if there is a way to use it on
> an ancient platform.
>
> For what I've seen, it would be a nice way to gain a better
> understanding of this game, although I'm a little bit aged
> to become as proficient as I'm in C using PL/I like languages.
>
> But for what I'm reading here
>
>? ?
>
> this compiler may be defined ... a "chimera"?
>
> Weird IBM in the XXI century is still so jelaous
> about this compiler when IBM itself seems moving in the C
direction
> with METALC.
>
> Or I misunderstand and PL/X-390 is still the main road
> under Z/OS?
>
> Peppe.
>
> ---
>
> Giuseppe Vitillaro? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |? E-Mail :
giuseppe@...
> ex-IBM, ex-CNR? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |? 06123 Perugia
> Phone:+39.075.585-5518
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

---

Giuseppe Vitillaro | E-Mail : giuseppe@...
ex-IBM, ex-CNR | 06123 Perugia Phone:+39.075.585-5518
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------