My next project once I finish my IBM 1410 FPGA implementation (so, a
couple of years out, probably) would be to write an emulator for the
boat anchor known as the IBM 8100. I had exposure to these things back
in the 1980s. The project was not really a success: the DPPX operating
system was way overkill for the underpowered machine, and wasn't
reliable enough or capable enough to run them at remote locations with
central administration.
The machine had some fairly sophisticated features:
Two groups of 64 sets of registers with 8 32 bit registers each
Auto increment and auto decrement indexed addressing
Address translation - but not paging
A primitive form of I/O channel
I have a set of install floppies for the DPPX operating system and some
of the associated software (but, sadly, not COBOL or Assembler), imaged,
and verified to contain what the labels say (via dd conv=ascii), but am
short on information.
(Of course, if someone else has floppies, all the better. I can image
them - they are 8" DSDD, with the first track single density, kinda like
an RX02).
I do have the Principles of Operation GA23-0031 and
the DASD devices (including floppy) Description GA23-0053
But in order to manage an emulator and actually install DPPX I would
need just a bit more hardware info - or I would be flying blind to some
degree as far as the operator panel I/O interaction.)
Hardware Manuals:
8130 Processor Description GA27-3196 and/or
8140 Processor Description GA27-2880
(There was also an 8150, but I doubt the releases I have would run on it.)
8140 Processor Operators Guide GA27-3197 and GA27-2879 (Expanded front
panel)
8101/8102 Storage / I/O Unit GA27-2882
Communications: Loop, Display, Printer: GA27-2883
(The "Loop" was a LAN like thing - kind of akin to the Apollo Domain
ring, off of which one hung local terminals, such as the IBM 8775).
Distributed Processing Programming Executive (DPPX) Manuals
Installation Primer: G320-6048
Installation Guide: SC27-0401
IPO Planning Guide: GC20-1883
Assembler: SC27-0412
Assembler Messages: SC27-0416
(The machine also supported APL, PL/I, COBOL (which we used), FORTRAN...
But I don't have floppies for those - heck, if the assembler wasn't
standard (I doubt it was), I don't even have that, even though we had it
at our installation, along with COBOL)
DTMS (database, transaction mgmt.)
Messages: SC26-3918
Customization Guide (SC26-3937)
Application Development Guide (SC26-3938)
Administration Guide (SC26-3939)
Operation Guide (SC26-3940)
Reference (SC26-3941)
True story: The early releases of DPPX were just awful buggy. We ended
up dedicating 3 conference rooms (with the dividers open) for a "warm
room" for something like 3 months, housing our personnel and IBM
personnel up from Texas. At one point one of the IBM'ers was overheard
on a public phone in the hallway of our public building telling someone
he was there "to help the hicks from Wisconsin". That got reported to
our management and to IBM's management, and he was on the next flight
back to Texas. ;)
On the flip side, I was testing database recovery (it was my thing, back
in the day - though we did not end up using the database / transaction
manager). I found some bugs in the database log journal recovery
process. I mentioned it to one of the IBM'ers in passing, also pointing
out it wasn't urgent since we were not going to use DTMS anyway, at
least not soon. He pretty much begged me to report it - and anything
else I found wrong. Completely polar opposite attitude of the guy in
the previous paragraph.
JRJ
