On 02/10/2016 11:21 AM, Ed Jaffe wrote:
> On 2/10/2016 9:05 AM, R.S. wrote:
>> W dniu 2016-02-10 o 17:03, Mike Schwab pisze:
>>> On a z14, you won't be able to run OS 2.9 or earlier, or 31 bit Linux.
>>> Not even under z/VM.
>> Well, I wouldn't call it big problem, especially when compared to
>> bunch of 31-bit COBOL programs in use. ;-)
>> BTW: LPAR profile in HMC still offers "ESA/390" Mode. No, there is no
>> "z/Arch" mode. ESA/390 is the choice for z/OS.
>> (details are more complcated, but IMHO not relevant here).
>
> You bring up a good point, Radoslaw. This future hardware change has
> nothing whatsoever to do with addressing mode.
>
> Today, a machine always IPLs in ESA/390 mode (ARCHLVL=1). Operating
> systems that prefer to run in z/Architecture mode (ARCHLVL=2) will
> switch to that mode as part of early IPL.
>
> On the new machines (after z13), ESA/390 mode is no longer supported.
> IPL will *always* occur in z/Architecture mode so modern operating
> systems won't need to explicitly switch modes to function properly. Of
> course, IPLs for older operating systems that still require ESA/390
> mode will fail.
>
> As we know, z/Architecture machines can run 24, 31, and 64-bit
> programs. That's not going to change.
>
Now I see the light --  had forgotten about the whole ARCHLVL-mode
switch thing going on under the covers. This effectively also rules out
the possibility of any z/VM on a z14 or later being able to provide
ESA/390 support to any Virtual Machine as well, since there many
significant differences (register sizes, prefix area, privileged
instructions behavior, etc) when running z/Architecture mode, and with
CP's in that mode the only way to achieve ESA/390 behavior when the
hardware no longer supports it would be grossly inefficient emulation.
The change in addressing mode at IPL is a minor issue compared to all
the other hardware semantic differences from the ARCHLVL mode change. 
Any 31-bit operating system must of necessity be written for ESA/390
semantics and is not going to run in z-architecture mode, which expects
64-bit addressing and has different hardware instruction semantics!

-- 
Joel C. Ewing,    Bentonville, AR       [email protected] 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

Reply via email to