Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6493

Jon Templin wrote:

  {
    "Url": ",
    "Title": "ID6TUMST",
    "Author": "",
    "Subject": "",
    "Keywords": [],
    "DocumentNumber": "GA22-1030-03",
    "FirstPage": "S/390\uF6DAParallel Enterprise Server - Generation 6IBM
System Overview  Level 03a, February 8, 2001 GA22-1030-03"
  },[...]

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth (because I very much do appreciate your effort, Jon!), but I was kind of looking for something like simple HTML, such as:


<ul>
<li><a href=">GA22-1030-03 ID6TUMST</a>
<li><a href=">SA22-7832-04 Principles of Operation</a>
<li><a href=">SA22-7832-05 IBM z/Architecture Principles of Operation</a>
...etc...
</ul>


That is to say, a simple html unordered list of hyperlinks, whose name consists of your "DocumentNumber" value followed by tour "Title" value (with a space in between), which RESOLVES to your "Url" value, so that when published on a web page, allows one to simply click on the link to obtain the actual document.

To find the document they want, they can just do a simple search of the web page in question (i.e. ctrl+f in most browsers).

Maybe someone could take the data that Jon extracted and throw together a simple script to do that? And then publish the results somewhere?

But THANK YOU for doing the hard part for us, Jon!

MUCH appreciated!

Enjoy your vacation!

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

mail: fish@...

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6492

On Fri, Mar 28, 2025 at 03:19 PM, Jon Templin wrote:

I've uploaded the file ibm_pubs_pdf_metadata.zip which contains the data from the full run of all the files.

A small sample is elsewhere in this thread.

?

I wrote the code quickly today because I'm leaving town on vacation and I may or may not have access to this forum while away.

?

I forgot to add that I dropped "Keywords" from the final JSON because there was no such data in the vast majority of the files. The few that did duplicated the "DocumentNumber" data, so I didn't deem it useful.

File /ibm_pubs_pdf_metadata.zip uploaded #file-notice

Group Notification

#6491

The following items have been added to the Files area of the [email protected] group.

/ibm_pubs_pdf_metadata.zip

By: Jon Templin <jon@...>

Description:
Metadata extracted from IBM PDF publications at https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/*

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6490

I've uploaded the file ibm_pubs_pdf_metadata.zip which contains the data from the full run of all the files.

A small sample is elsewhere in this thread.

?

I wrote the code quickly today because I'm leaving town on vacation and I may or may not have access to this forum while away.

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6489

Maybe it should be saved in our wiki?

--

VM/370 CE V1R1.2, Hercules 3.13 on macOS

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6488

Hi Jon,

?

This looks very useful to me.

?

Best regards,

?

Steen

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6487

Been playing with this for the last hour or two. Something like this?

I included an excerpt of the first page because sometimes the metadata didn't include the actual title like in the first file.

I may take out subject and keyword if none appear when I run the entire set of files.

```

[
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2210303.pdf",
? ? "Title": "ID6TUMST",
? ? "Author": "",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA22-1030-03",
? ? "FirstPage": "S/390\uF6DAParallel Enterprise Server - Generation 6IBM System Overview ?Level 03a, February 8, 2001 GA22-1030-03"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2278324.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Principles of Operation",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA22-7832-04",
? ? "FirstPage": "z/Architecture\u0001\u0002\u0003\u00AEPrinciples of OperationSA22-7832-04"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2278325.pdf",
? ? "Title": "IBM z/Architecture Principles of Operation",
? ? "Author": "IBM Corporation",
? ? "Subject": "This publication provides, for reference purposes, a detailed description of z/Architecture.\u2122",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA22-7832-05",
? ? "FirstPage": "z/Architecture\u0002\u0003\u0004\u00AEPrinciples of OperationSA22-7832-05"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2278712.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Reference Summary",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA22-7871-02",
? ? "FirstPage": "SA22-7871-02z/ArchitectureIBMrReference Summary"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2314520.pdf",
? ? "Title": "GPFS: Administration and Programming Reference",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA23-1452-00",
? ? "FirstPage": "GeneralParallelFileSystemVersion4Release1AdministrationandProgrammingReferenceSA23-1452-00\u0001\u0002\u0003"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2322320.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Preliminary Decimal-Floating-Point Architecture",
? ? "Author": "Lundvall",
? ? "Subject": "Preliminary Decimal-Floating-Point Architecture",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA23-2232-00",
? ? "FirstPage": "SA23-2232-00z/Architecture\u0002\u0003\u0004\u00AEPreliminary Decimal-Floating-Point ArchitectureNovember, 2006"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a2322738.pdf",
? ? "Title": "IBM PE for Linux: PAMI Prog. Guide",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "SA23-2273-08",
? ? "FirstPage": "ParallelEnvironmentRuntimeEditionforLinuxVersion1Release3PAMIProgrammingGuideSA23-2273-08\u0001\u0002\u0003"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a7604060.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Word Pro - A7604060.lwp",
? ? "Author": "jacarson",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA76-0406-00",
? ? "FirstPage": "Installation ProcedureStep 1. Plan for Installation1.First-level Installation requirements: - Exclusive access to ?your "
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a7604061.pdf",
? ? "Title": "z/VM V5R3.0 Summary for Automated Installation and Service (DVD Installation)",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA76-0406-00",
? ? "FirstPage": "\u00A9 Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 1991, 2007. ?All rights reserved. This edition replaces GA76-040"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a7604062.pdf",
? ? "Title": "z/VM V5R4.0 Summary for Automated Installation and Service (DVD Installation)",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA76-0406-01",
? ? "FirstPage": "\u00A9 Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 1991, 2008. ?All rights reserved. This edition replaces GA76-040"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a7604070.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Word Pro - A7604070.lwp",
? ? "Author": "jacarson",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA76-0407-00",
? ? "FirstPage": "Installation ProcedureStep 1. Plan for Installation1.Second-level installation- The installation userid on ?your first-l"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/a7604072.pdf",
? ? "Title": "z/VM V5R4.0 Summary for Automated Installation and Service (Tape Installation)",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GA76-0407-01",
? ? "FirstPage": "Installation Procedure Important: This document contains summarized steps for installing and servicing version 5 release"
? },
? {
? ? "Url": "https://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/ab0in022.pdf",
? ? "Title": "Installing, Managing, and Using the Online Library",
? ? "Author": "IBM",
? ? "Subject": "",
? ? "Keywords": [],
? ? "DocumentNumber": "GC31-8311-47",
? ? "FirstPage": "IBMOnlineLibraryInstalling,Managing,andUsingtheOnlineLibraryGC31-8311-47\u0001\u0002\u0003"
? }
]
```

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6486

On Thu, 27 Mar 2025 at 11:03, Berry van Sleeuwen via groups.io
<berry.vansleeuwen@...> wrote:

You might want to look at the boo2pdf program by Kevin Bowling at .Well that was exciting for a few moments. But it's really just a front
end that invokes the IBM machine code (SOs/DLLs) that actually
implements the .BOO (BookManager) file processing.

If *that* was in Java then it could be trivially decompiled and
understood. But to my knowledge IBM has never released code or even
documentation for any part of this format.

Tony H.

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6485

Just to test, I have downloaded them all. But I only have 1214 files, > so I think there about 540 missing.

Hmm, I was expecting under 2000, and inadvertently truncated the list.
Untruncated version follows.  I haven't tried to de-dupe the http vs
https here, though I did filter out some other dupes.

De

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6484

Just to test, I have downloaded them all. But I only have 1214 files, so I think there about 540 missing.

Interestingly, there are about 196 duplicates in this list. It looks like archive.org thinks https is a different link and therefore a different file. So after IBM switched to https a number of links have been listed again.

Regards, Berry.

Op 27-03-2025 om 20:30 schreef Dennis Boone via groups.io:

Show quoted text

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6483

开云体育

Here's a question, how about a link to IBM itself? I expect that wouldn't cause any problems either. However, I don't know if all publications are still available at IBM. I guess they are for sure available at archive.org.

Just for a quick test I listed the content at the wayback machine (copy/paste of the records). The page shows the original url-name but internally it links to a location in archive.org. Unfortunately that includes a random number in the url so I can't just prefix the url with the archive.org because the folder at archive.org is unique for each file. I did store the pages but I have to see ho to extract the archive.org url from there. (BTW, it's 1754 files.)

And for the confusing name, do you mean the filename? Actually the confusing name, either at IBM or archive.org is just the actual filename given by IBM. Granted, I have renamed all my local documentation to include the publication number and the name of the manual (something like GC24-5838-01 VMESA V2R4 Service Guide.pdf) so I can easily search my directory for a manual.

Regards, Berry.

Op 27-03-2025 om 19:36 schreef Fish Fish via groups.io:

Show quoted text

Fish wrote:

Mark A. Stevens wrote:

This is a copy from Wayback of IBM PDFs, with their confusing
filenames.


Maybe someone could write a program that could download each one, extract
the manual name and number, and compile a list manual names and numbers
with a link pointing to the URL of that manual?

And by link, I want to be clear that I'm referring a link to the ARCHIVE.ORG url, *not* a link to your own downloaded copy on your own or someone else's web site! I'm sure IBM would scream Copyright violation if someone did that! But as long as the link was the *archive.org* url, I can't see how they could object to that. After all, they're all freely available and publicly accessible from there. We'd just be publishing sensibly NAMED urls for each of them, and not their confusing names. That's legal, yes?

I'm too busy to do it myself right now, but it sounds like a
fun/interesting project for someone, and I'm sure the community would be
eternally grateful to that person!

Just a thought. :)

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6482

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6481

Fish wrote:
Mark A. Stevens wrote:

This is a copy from Wayback of IBM PDFs, with their confusing
filenames.



Maybe someone could write a program that could download each one, extract
the manual name and number, and compile a list manual names and numbers
with a link pointing to the URL of that manual?And by link, I want to be clear that I'm referring a link to the ARCHIVE.ORG url, *not* a link to your own downloaded copy on your own or someone else's web site! I'm sure IBM would scream Copyright violation if someone did that! But as long as the link was the *archive.org* url, I can't see how they could object to that. After all, they're all freely available and publicly accessible from there. We'd just be publishing sensibly NAMED urls for each of them, and not their confusing names. That's legal, yes?


I'm too busy to do it myself right now, but it sounds like a
fun/interesting project for someone, and I'm sure the community would be
eternally grateful to that person!

Just a thought. :)-- 
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
Software Development Laboratories

mail: fish@...

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6480

Mark A. Stevens wrote:

This is a copy from Wayback of IBM PDFs, with their confusing
filenames.

Maybe someone could write a program that could download each one, extract the manual name and number, and compile a list manual names and numbers with a link pointing to the URL of that manual?

I'm too busy to do it myself right now, but it sounds like a fun/interesting project for someone, and I'm sure the community would be eternally grateful to that person!

Just a thought. :)

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

mail: fish@...

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6479

开云体育

You might want to look at the boo2pdf program by Kevin Bowling at .

I tried to get it working in my Linux machine but for now it failed. Probably because I have a 64-bit system, it looks like boo2pdf requires a 32 bit environment. I do plan to install an older system to try it again.

Regards, Berry.

Op 27-03-2025 om 04:48 schreef Zachary Kline via groups.io:

Show quoted text

As a somewhat frustrated follow-up, I've discovered that my screen reader does not handle the IBM Softcopy utility at all, at least not without use of OCR, which is the very problem I was trying to avoid. :) So I'm either stuck using books in PDF or figuring out how to convert BOO files to another format, which appears to be non-trivial.

Thanks for the tip concernning versions of ZVM. The core concepts appear to be similar even if the details differ. I will continue the journey despite setbacks :)

Best,

Zack.

--?

? Zachary Kline

??zkline@...

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025, at 4:24 PM, Zachary Kline via groups.io wrote:

Hi?René and all,

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses. I am, as it happens, without sight of any kind, hence why I prefer documents in original electronic format whenever possible to spare me from having to figure out what the sometimes badly mangled OCR results are saying.

I've so far found the provided redbook invaluable. I'm at the point of running MVS/ESA under VM using pre-provided directory entries, which is a decent step :)

I particularly appreciate the block-oriented nature of the 3270, as the screen reader program handles it in some ways far better than more typical character-by-character UI on, say, Linx.

I will reach out off-list regarding the larger manual collections, as I don't want to clutter up the traffic :)

Best,

Zack.

--?

? Zachary Kline

??zkline@...

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025, at 9:08 AM, René Ferland via groups.io wrote:

On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 09:32 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:

The latter is particularly helpful for me as a totally blind user.

I am not sure what you mean here, no previous knowledge or no sight? :-/

?

Anyway, if it is the first, I would recommend reading this:

?

?

It introduces to the basics of z/VM (actually z/VM 5.3) but most of the material there applies to VM/ESA as well (since it covers the basics).

?

Cheers,

?

Rene FERLAND, Montreal

?

P.S. -- I have a fairly complete documentation of z/VM 5.3 in PDF format (81 books for 288M). If you are interested, just tell me, I will send it to you.

?

Re: IBM Documentation Hidden At IBM

#6478

On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 03:18 AM, Stefan A. Haubenthal wrote:

Maybe Bitsavers is a better place than Wayback Machine?

Maybe both? This is a copy from Wayback of IBM PDFs, with their confusing filenames.

?

?... Mark S.

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6477

As a somewhat frustrated follow-up, I've discovered that my screen reader does not handle the IBM Softcopy utility at all, at least not without use of OCR, which is the very problem I was trying to avoid. :) So I'm either stuck using books in PDF or figuring out how to convert BOO files to another format, which appears to be non-trivial.

Thanks for the tip concernning versions of ZVM. The core concepts appear to be similar even if the details differ. I will continue the journey despite setbacks :)

Best,

Zack.

--?

? Zachary Kline

??zkline@...

Show quoted text

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025, at 4:24 PM, Zachary Kline via groups.io wrote:

Hi?René and all,

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses. I am, as it happens, without sight of any kind, hence why I prefer documents in original electronic format whenever possible to spare me from having to figure out what the sometimes badly mangled OCR results are saying.

I've so far found the provided redbook invaluable. I'm at the point of running MVS/ESA under VM using pre-provided directory entries, which is a decent step :)

I particularly appreciate the block-oriented nature of the 3270, as the screen reader program handles it in some ways far better than more typical character-by-character UI on, say, Linx.

I will reach out off-list regarding the larger manual collections, as I don't want to clutter up the traffic :)
Best,
Zack.

--?
? Zachary Kline
??zkline@...

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025, at 9:08 AM, René Ferland via groups.io wrote:
On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 09:32 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:
The latter is particularly helpful for me as a totally blind user.
I am not sure what you mean here, no previous knowledge or no sight? :-/
?
Anyway, if it is the first, I would recommend reading this:
?

?
It introduces to the basics of z/VM (actually z/VM 5.3) but most of the material there applies to VM/ESA as well (since it covers the basics).
?
Cheers,
?
Rene FERLAND, Montreal
?
P.S. -- I have a fairly complete documentation of z/VM 5.3 in PDF format (81 books for 288M). If you are interested, just tell me, I will send it to you.
?

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6476

Hi?René and all,

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses. I am, as it happens, without sight of any kind, hence why I prefer documents in original electronic format whenever possible to spare me from having to figure out what the sometimes badly mangled OCR results are saying.

I've so far found the provided redbook invaluable. I'm at the point of running MVS/ESA under VM using pre-provided directory entries, which is a decent step :)

I particularly appreciate the block-oriented nature of the 3270, as the screen reader program handles it in some ways far better than more typical character-by-character UI on, say, Linx.

I will reach out off-list regarding the larger manual collections, as I don't want to clutter up the traffic :)

Best,

Zack.

--?

? Zachary Kline

??zkline@...

Show quoted text

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025, at 9:08 AM, René Ferland via groups.io wrote:

On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 09:32 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:
The latter is particularly helpful for me as a totally blind user.
I am not sure what you mean here, no previous knowledge or no sight? :-/
?
Anyway, if it is the first, I would recommend reading this:
?

?
It introduces to the basics of z/VM (actually z/VM 5.3) but most of the material there applies to VM/ESA as well (since it covers the basics).
?
Cheers,
?
Rene FERLAND, Montreal
?
P.S. -- I have a fairly complete documentation of z/VM 5.3 in PDF format (81 books for 288M). If you are interested, just tell me, I will send it to you.
?

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6475

On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 11:32 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:

I wondered if anyone had a good source for VM/ESA era manuals they could point me to? I've looked on Bitsavers but there doesn't seem to be much.

I've stumbled on this collection, in BookManager format.

?

?... Mark S.

Re: Current source for VM/ESA Manuals?

#6474

Before IBM took down a very handy publication website, I was able to get some of VM/ESA 2.4 documentation.? I use SoftCopy Reader to access my manuals and the folder for VM/ESA 2.4 pubs is about 263mb consisting of 125 files that are PDF and BOO.

?

Let me know if you are interested.