Hi Leonard,
I used to support VS1, but, my employer used VM/SP as the interactive
system to EDIT/SUBMIT/Test (and PROFS).
Besides batch, they used CICS.
I searched for ACEP (never heard of it before) and found very little.
(How) Did it compare to TSO-replacements like TONE etc. (or CRJE)?
Thanks and regards,
David
On 2025-03-07 08:01, Leonard D Woren wrote:
At my first shop as "Senior MVS Systems Programmer" (45 years ago!), I
once edited the JES2 proc putting in extra DDs for old and new parmlib
JES2PARM members, using the convention that the old member had an @
appended and the new member had a $ appended. Didn't test the proc,
or I would have found out that the system didn't like 9 character
member names. Then it crashed in the middle of the workday (MVS 3.8
base on a 370/165 -- that's 2 strikes against reliability.) Operator
tries to IPL. I get called into the machine room because "JES2 won't
start". Uh oh, no way to fix this one without editing the proc.
Catch-22.
I had previously requested and been denied a 3350 to build a
standalone rescue system. Cheapskates. This is not looking good.
Then I remember that they had switched from VS1 to MVS not too long
before I was hired, so I asked the operators to bring up the old VS1
system. It had been long enough that none of them could remember some
command to configure the partitions to get the system all the way up.
I had never touched VS1 so I didn't know. Tick tick, the system is
down. Finally my boss shows up after his lunch time, discovers the
terminals dead, comes into the machine room, gets a quick explanation,
types in the command to get VS1 up. We bring up ACEP, my boss tries
to remember his password from that far back, we fix the MVS JES2 proc,
and IPL.
The next day, I got my 3350 for a rescue system. Remember when a
complete MVS system including HASPACE could be squeezed onto a single
3350?
Lessons learned, all still relevant today:
1. HAVE A RESCUE SYSTEM (and regularly refresh and test it.) Although
these days multiple systems sharing DASD can minimize this need as
long as they're not all sharing the same mcat/sysres/etc.
2. Test changes to things like the JES2 proc while the system is up.
3. Either be sure to remember your old passwords, or don't change
them. Ever. Very difficult to get today's security officers to
understand this one. This one has bit many shops that had to restore
the system from backups to get things up and running.
/Leonard
P.S. A few years ago I booted up an old OS/2 machine for the first
time in years. Uh, oh, what's the password? Fortunately, I
eventually remembered how pissed I was that IBM required passwords for
OS/2 (Winblows didn't, back then), then I remembered my password.
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