On 5/23/2012 10:17 AM, Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) wrote:
You also used this to reply to password requests for system data
sets having all hex-zero passwords.
I don't recall[1] having done so. If you can explain How I forgot, I'd
like to try the same technique on some other, equally undesirable,
memories.
You used the PASSWORD facility to protect critical data sets. In
order to update them, it was necessary to respond to a WTOR with
the password. The password was all hex zeroes, and could not be
entered from a conventional console. You switched to the 00C/00E
alternate console, and feed in a Reply nn card with the hex
zeroes multi-punched [1]. That was inconvenient enough so that I
wrote SETPASS [2].
[1] These days the method may be less safe, with some tn3270
clients offering keyboard customization including hex values.
[2] That was a great learning experience. I had hard-coded the
number of block per track in the PASSWORD data set, and at some
point (OS/360 15/16, or 18?), IBM decided to change the device
related constants and the PASSWORD data set wound up with one
block less per track.
Gerhard Postpischil
Bradford, VT
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