Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 23:25:37 -0500 From: Bob Willcox <bob@immure.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: chat list <freebsd-chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: OFR (Was: How did the MSFT monopoly start?) Message-ID: <20010807232537.A65486@luke.immure.com> In-Reply-To: <15216.39229.89700.679362@guru.mired.org>; from mwm@mired.org on Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 08:43:25PM -0500 References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15214.52633.581653.632317@guru.mired.org> <20010807145112.C39962@luke.immure.com> <15216.25797.153039.786261@guru.mired.org> <20010807183116.D53464@luke.immure.com> <15216.33324.9869.833842@guru.mired.org> <20010807191721.A62228@luke.immure.com> <15216.39229.89700.679362@guru.mired.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 08:43:25PM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:
>
> That's actually amusing. The IBM box was running MVS with TSO for
> timesharing, and only had a few 3270 attached to it. I don't think I
> ever used a fullscreen editor on it. On the other hand, I had a
> commercial ersatz emacs - MINCE - for the CP/M-80 system. It came with
> full source in C so I could customize it to my own tastes.
We had several 370s and many 3270s. Some of the 370s ran MVS, some
VM/370. In fact, prior to the start of the AIX project, all we had
were 370s here in Austin. The full screen editors the we used (SPF and
xedit) were quite tailored to the 3270 hardware, which was half-duplex
block transfer. Not interactive in the sense of today's editors. You'd
type in up to a screen full of data then hit (usually enter) to send
it to the system. Pretty pathetic compared to what we use now days,
but still a lot better than what was initially available on the PC, and
it did reduce the interrupt load on the system.
Of course, quickly following the introduction of the PC, a number of
internally developed full screen editors popped up within IBM. Some
of them were pretty good and were eventually marketed (or bundled with
PC-DOS and/or OS/2). There was one called "v" that I still occasionally
use when forced to edit something on MS-DOS. Its small size makes it
easy to fit on a diskette and it is a bit like vi (hence its name).
>
> Only Unix had better tools for C software development - at least
> initially. VMS later added a reasonable C compiler, and I still prefer
> the VMS "run" facility to make, at least for small projects. I managed
> to install a C compiler on the IBM, but it was pretty pitiful.
I never had to use a C compiler on an IBM mainframe (we were using PLS
and 370 assembler then), thankfully. It (the C compiler) was rather
awful as I recall.
Bob
--
Bob Willcox All men profess honesty as long as they can.
bob@vieo.com To believe all men honest would be folly.
Austin, TX To believe none so is something worse.
-- John Quincy Adams
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010807232537.A65486>