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Questions tagged [ibm360]

Questions regarding the IBM System/360 computers and their descendants.

5 votes
0 answers
130 views

IBM 360 tool or utility to create custom IPL cards/tape/DASD?

If, on a System/360, I ran source code for a program intended to run on the "bare metal" through the assembler (probably Assembler D, F, or H on DOS/360 or OS/360), and then linked it, and ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

What was the purpose of the System/360 unnormalized floating point add/subtract instructions?

Floating point was optional on System/360, but if it was present, it included separate addition and subtraction instructions that performed postnormalization of the result, or not. Operands to all ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
112 views

IBM System/360 channel interrupt priorities

IBM's System/360 Principles of Operation (A22-6821-7) says of channel interrupt priorities (page 112): "The assignment of priority among requests for interruption from channels is based on the ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
66 views

IBM documents giving System/360 device address assignment defaults/suggestions/recommendations?

Was there any IBM documentation giving specific device address defaults/suggestions/recommendations? It appears that all, or nearly all, device control units allowed selecting arbitrary device ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
160 views

Books on IBM DOS/360

Were there any good books on IBM DOS/360 programming? Or, for that matter, BPS, BOS,or TOS? I know that many of the IBM manuals are on Bitsavers, but I'm looking for more introductory/tutorial level ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
381 views

IBM DASD CKD records per track planning documentation

IBM's DASD (disk, drum) for the System/360 used a variable number of variable-sized Count-Key-Data (CKD) records on each track, rather than modern fixed-size sectors. The manuals for e.g. the 2311 and ...
Eric Smith's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
282 views

What is the full name of IBM CP-67/CMS' DUMPD command?

I am reading the User Guide of CP-67. Under the command DUMPD (page 373), it describes its Purpose as: The DUMPD command prints the contents of one direct-access record, specified by a CCHHRR address,...
George Jonathan Williams's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
4k views

Was bootloading from punch cards possible on System/370 machines?

I have been idly looking into how System 370 works, though mostly at software and VM/370 OS. As a part of the system generation process, one needs to use DMKDDR utility and others. So I was curious ...
Saphire's user avatar
  • 173
9 votes
1 answer
743 views

Did the Soviets need industrial espionage to get IBM software pre-1970?

Due to lack of the OS-level file system on the BESM-6, and to deficiencies of data visualization tools which could help people decide which blocks of a system disk could be reused (the line of ...
Leo B.'s user avatar
  • 22.2k
11 votes
1 answer
2k views

Did the IBM 1401 have much better code density than the 360?

Reading an old thread https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/53C2adEQ5jE I see a surprising claim: I told an IBM salesman once that IBM had so bollixed up the architecture that our ...
rwallace's user avatar
  • 65.2k
10 votes
2 answers
1k views

How did the IBM 360 detect memory errors?

What logic did the IBM 360 use to detect, and perhaps correct, memory bit errors?
Will.Octagon.Gibson's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
566 views

How did the OS/360 link editor achieve overlay structuring at linkage time without annotations in the source code?

The OS/360 link editor was, according to Brooks (OS/360 project manager): "one of the finest overlay facilities ever built." "It allows overlay structuring to be done externally, at ...
davidbak's user avatar
  • 6,824
4 votes
2 answers
404 views

How can the current date be accessed from DOS/VS assembler?

In assembler on an old /370-125 running DOS/VS I can access the TOD (Time of day) with GETIME, i.e. the time since midnight. But I want to be able to print the date.
monok's user avatar
  • 150
13 votes
2 answers
873 views

The MAC-360 programming language developed in the mid 1960s

On SE Space Exploration, one of the answers to this question, Fortran and the Apollo 11 mission states that the MAC-360 language, developed around 1967 by Hal Laning, was used to do develop ...
Fred's user avatar
  • 870
13 votes
5 answers
928 views

Does anyone have any information on GUTS (Gothenburg University Timesharing System)?

Gothenburg Universities Computer Centre (in Sweden) developed a timesharing system for IBM mainframes, known as GUTS (variously expanded either as ''Gothenburg University Timesharing System'', or as ''...
Simon Kissane's user avatar

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