On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 16:07:29 -0700, Charles Mills wrote: >My "console" experience is with SDSF LOG, not a real console, so my perception >of where messages hang is a little skewed I guess.
That is not a console at all, and doesn't behave like one. Messages that are not deletable (if the console is in RD mode), including WTOR messages, roll up to the top but do not roll off the top when other messages are issued. In SDSF outstanding reply messages are displayed at the bottom of the the LOG display, in addition to their original location. If I remember correctly non-deletable messages are flagged, IIRC with an "*". before the message. As Dave alluded to, a console lines are a very limited finite resource that has not significantly increased in capacity over the years. Even back in the early 80's many shops ran their consoles in roll mode rather than roll-deletable mode because too many programs issued either WTOR messages or non-deletable messages. Even way back then, when running a console in RD mode could cause the console to fill up with non-deletable messages and no new messages could be issued to that terminal, whether or not the new message is deletable. Indeed, when I started in this business in 1970 as a Cobol application programmer running on MVT with three active regions, the rule that DISPLAY UPON CONSOLE was not to be used unless it was for an explicitly approved purpose, so as not to clutter the console I never worked as an operator, but in the late 70's to the mid 80's I worked as an Amdahl Field SE and would sometimes be at a console. Sometimes I would set the console in RD mode just to see what the message traffic looked like, and was occasionally surprised with how quickly the console would fill up with non-deletable messages. In those days it was unusual to have much more than 100 address spaces active. On the quite small LPAR that I am working at right now, there are 3 25 started tasks active and 512 total address spaces. At the moment, there are 11 WTOR messages outstanding. That in itself is half of a 24 x 80 3270 display (there are two lines for command input). Add s ome products that think that it is important to issue messages that stick on the console, and the console quickly becomes unusable in RD mode unless messages are explicitly deleted. In my opinion, the use of console messages, especially non-deletable messages, should be kept at a minimum. -- Tom Marchant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
