Cobol - Single Level Store (was Re: GOBACK (was: Perform Thru/Go to vs. Perform

Author

Single Level Store (was Re: GOBACK (was: Perform Thru/Go to vs. Perform - Compile Spe

Rick Smith

2004-05-16, 6:30 am

Robert Wagner <robert.deletethis@wagner.net> wrote in message
news:40a6b384.412821264@news.optonline.net...
> riplin@Azonic.co.nz (Richard) wrote:
>
[snip]

Mr Wagner, in the earlier part of this exchange, you wrote,
"AS/400 had its genesis in a 1970 revamp of S/360 to something
called NS (New System)." To which Mr Plinston replied, "No.
AS/400 has nothing to do with 360. It comes from the S36, S38
line."
[color=darkred]
in[color=darkred]

Mr Wagner, I fail to see how the following quotes support your claims;
but will discuss that below.
[color=darkred]
> "single-level store idea, planned to succeed IBM S/370 architecture,
product
> development effort started in 1971, reputed to have cost more than $1B,
> cancelled in 1975, but the ideas developed into System/38, AS/400, and
iSeries"
>
> http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
>
> From a current IBM iseries site:
> " No other computing platform has such a powerful architecture as SLS.
It's
> patented. As simple as it sounds, it's also an immense effort to
effectively
> implement. SLS is a result of some of the most forward-thinking ideas. In
fact,
> the design, in development, was named "FS" for Future System."
>
>
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/enable...view/overview.h
tml
[snip]
>
> FWIW: my failed New Dawn operating system, written 1990-92, also used SLS
and
> OO. I was unaware SLS had been patented.

T. Kilburn, D.B.G. Edwards, M.J. Lanigan, and F.H. Sumner:
"One-Level Storage Systems," IRE Transactions, EC-11, vol 2,
April 1962, pp 223-235, reprinted in D.P. Siewiorek, C.G. Bell,
and A. Newell, "Computer Structures: Principles and Examples,"
1982, page 135, Chapter 10. "After a brief survey of the basic
Atlas machine, the paper describes an automatic system which
in principle can be applied to any combination of two storage
systems so that the combination can be regarded by the machine
user as a single level."

"Computer Structures," Chapter 32, pp 533-546, contains
reprints from "IBM System/38: Technical Developments," 1978,
copyrighted by IBM. This chapter makes no reference to
Single Level Store though it describes how object-oriented
technology is used to implement what may be understood
as Single Level Store.

It is clear from "Computer Structures" that the idea of SLS
was available in 1962. It is also reasonable to believe that
developers in both the Computer Systems Division
(mainframes) and Office Systems Division (System 3x), as
I recall the division names, would have known of SLS.

Now, consider your statements and quotes:
1. "AS/400 had its genesis in a 1970 revamp of S/360 to
something called NS (New System)."
2. "It [AS/400] came from a failed Big Iron concept that found
a home in S/36-38 land."
3. "single-level store idea, planned to succeed IBM S/370
architecture, ... cancelled in 1975, but the ideas developed
into System/38, AS/400, and iSeries".

Mr Wagner, by citing the 'clemson' reference, you appear to be
claiming that what many of us may see as merely a decision
(not a failure) by the Computer Systems Division to not
implement SLS for its mainframes, somehow led the Office
Systems Division to develop the AS/400.

Why is it not more reasonable that developers in the Office
Systems Division combined OO and SLS in the mid-1970s
to create, in 1978, the S/38 architecture as an upgrade path
for existing S/3x users and that AS/400 is merely an extension
of that path?

Robert Wagner

2004-05-16, 3:30 pm

"Rick Smith" <ricksmith@mfi.net> wrote:

>Mr Wagner, by citing the 'clemson' reference, you appear to be
>claiming that what many of us may see as merely a decision
>(not a failure) by the Computer Systems Division to not
>implement SLS for its mainframes, somehow led the Office
>Systems Division to develop the AS/400.
>
>Why is it not more reasonable that developers in the Office
>Systems Division combined OO and SLS in the mid-1970s
>to create, in 1978, the S/38 architecture as an upgrade path
>for existing S/3x users and that AS/400 is merely an extension
>of that path?

I've read that some of the Office Systems developers were formerly on the FS
project. IBM explicitly says the design project "was named FS". There was no
project named FS in Office Systems. Why would they say that? Internal politics
to sooth a few old-timers? Probably.

SLS means making two or more address spaces appear to be one address space. How
can they patent that? Stripe sets do it, without paying royalties on the idea.
Network Address Translation (NAT) does it as well. The answer is they can't
patent the idea of SLS, but they can patent a particular implementation. The
patent has 69 'claims' containing details about OS/400. The abstract reads:

"US6301582: System and method for storage of shared persistent objects
2001-10-09

The preferred embodiment of the present invention facilitates the creation,
storage and interaction of persistent objects using single level storage
semantics on commodity systems. The preferred method and apparatus utilize a
persistence mechanism to provide object persistence. In particular, the
persistence mechanism defines a Factory class, a Finder class, an
ExpandingContainer class, a Container class and a ClassLoader class which work
together to create persistent shared objects. An application can create
persistent objects by calling methods on the Factory class. The Factory class
then works in conjunction with an instance of the Container class and the
ClassLoader class to create persistent objects in a shared address space (SAS).
Shared address space is a persistent virtual address space shared by all
processes running on a computer system. The SAS allows the processes to access
data within SAS at any time, using a SAS address. "

Speaking of patents, a friend and Prolog programmer has a patent on searching a
database with an English query. His 'claims' are not very specific.

"US6269356: Computer system program for creating new ideas and solving problems

A computerized idea generator and problem solver that can receive English
language sentences describing a problem to be solved and generate solutions by
analogy. The computer uses words in the problem description sentences to obtain
information from a database that relates to the type of problem to be solved,
for example, animal, plant or human. The computer then uses this information to
access analogous information from a second database. The information used can
include (1) where a noun in the problem description is categorized in a
hierarchy of information within the database, and (2) what purpose or what
function is provided by that noun. This information is used to obtain a noun
from a second database and a description of how to solve an analogous problem
with respect to that noun. The original noun is substituted in the sentence for
the second noun to arrive at a solution. "

-- history follows --
>Robert Wagner <robert.deletethis@wagner.net> wrote in message
>news:40a6b384.412821264@news.optonline.net...

[color=darkred]
>
>Mr Wagner, I fail to see how the following quotes support your claims;
>but will discuss that below.
>
iSeries"[color=darkred]
>http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/enable...w/overview.html

>T. Kilburn, D.B.G. Edwards, M.J. Lanigan, and F.H. Sumner:
>"One-Level Storage Systems," IRE Transactions, EC-11, vol 2,
>April 1962, pp 223-235, reprinted in D.P. Siewiorek, C.G. Bell,
>and A. Newell, "Computer Structures: Principles and Examples,"
>1982, page 135, Chapter 10. "After a brief survey of the basic
>Atlas machine, the paper describes an automatic system which
>in principle can be applied to any combination of two storage
>systems so that the combination can be regarded by the machine
>user as a single level."
>
>"Computer Structures," Chapter 32, pp 533-546, contains
>reprints from "IBM System/38: Technical Developments," 1978,
>copyrighted by IBM. This chapter makes no reference to
>Single Level Store though it describes how object-oriented
>technology is used to implement what may be understood
>as Single Level Store.
>
>It is clear from "Computer Structures" that the idea of SLS
>was available in 1962. It is also reasonable to believe that
>developers in both the Computer Systems Division
>(mainframes) and Office Systems Division (System 3x), as
>I recall the division names, would have known of SLS.
>
>Now, consider your statements and quotes:
>1. "AS/400 had its genesis in a 1970 revamp of S/360 to
>something called NS (New System)." [should have been FS]
>2. "It [AS/400] came from a failed Big Iron concept that found
>a home in S/36-38 land."
>3. "single-level store idea, planned to succeed IBM S/370
>architecture, ... cancelled in 1975, but the ideas developed
>into System/38, AS/400, and iSeries".
>

Rick Smith

2004-05-17, 6:30 am

Robert Wagner <robert.deletethis@wagner.net> wrote in message
news:40a78e09.468771435@news.optonline.net...
> "Rick Smith" <ricksmith@mfi.net> wrote:
>
>
> I've read that some of the Office Systems developers were formerly on the
FS
> project. IBM explicitly says the design project "was named FS". There was
no
> project named FS in Office Systems. Why would they say that? Internal
politics
> to sooth a few old-timers? Probably.

'Internal Politics' ? 'Probably'? There is no need for such assumptions!

What the quotes support is that FS was intended as a replacement for
the S/360 and S/370 line, that the FS architecture was based on SLS,
and that the FS project was cancelled in 1975.

Based on my knowledge of the time, I can speculate that the project
may have been cancelled due to marketing and anti-trust concerns.
That is, customers would have been offended by having to rewrite
their applications, particularly assembler applications, and regulators
would have been offended by what may have been seen as an
attempt to block competion from PCMs and systems software
developers. But these concerns apply to the Computer Systems
Division (CSD), not the Office Systems Division (OSD).

Furthermore, I can speculate that, upon cancellation of CSD's FS
project, OSD picked up the remnants, added an OO layer to hide
the SLS architecture ("IBM System/38: Technical Developments"),
and rolled out the S/38 a few years later. Then, several years after,
the AS/400 replaced the S/38.

> SLS means making two or more address spaces appear to be one address
space. How
> can they patent that? Stripe sets do it, without paying royalties on the
idea.
> Network Address Translation (NAT) does it as well.

OODB is another. It hides the storage of persistent objects from the
user.

> The answer is they can't
> patent the idea of SLS, but they can patent a particular implementation.
The
> patent has 69 'claims' containing details about OS/400. The abstract
reads:
>
> "US6301582: System and method for storage of shared persistent objects
> 2001-10-09
>
> The preferred embodiment of the present invention facilitates the
creation,
> storage and interaction of persistent objects using single level storage
> semantics on commodity systems. The preferred method and apparatus utilize
a
> persistence mechanism to provide object persistence. In particular, the
> persistence mechanism defines a Factory class, a Finder class, an
> ExpandingContainer class, a Container class and a ClassLoader class which
work
> together to create persistent shared objects. An application can create
> persistent objects by calling methods on the Factory class. The Factory
class
> then works in conjunction with an instance of the Container class and the
> ClassLoader class to create persistent objects in a shared address space
(SAS).
> Shared address space is a persistent virtual address space shared by all
> processes running on a computer system. The SAS allows the processes to
access
> data within SAS at any time, using a SAS address. "
[snip]
>
> -- history follows --
>
>
product[color=darkred]
> iSeries"
It's[color=darkred]
effectively[color=darkred]
System."[color=darkred]
>
>http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/enable...rview/overview.
html[color=darkred]
>

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