• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What to run on mainframes?

Chuck(G) said:
He maintained that it transformed one's way of thinking about a problem.
Click to expand...
Perlis epigram 19: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing."
With APL you do go into it wondering whether the effects will be reversible...

RobS said:
If you are going to heat your house with electricity anyway then the computing power is effectively free.
Click to expand...
Calculating pi is a much more virtuous exercise than mining crypto, say, but heat pumps will still win by dint of pulling in heat from the outside air (even if it's quite cold). The computer is merely 100% efficient at taking electricity and giving you heat; an electric heat pump will do much better.

krebizfan said:
I always thought APL's major advantage was the very condensed source code which only lasted until systems could afford enough RAM to use more conversational syntax.
Click to expand...
Was this advantage a primary motivation for a lot of users, or just a side-effect? Iverson's Turing award lecture Notation as a Tool of Thought certainly presents the compactness as a design feature.
 
As to the question of what language was in use at IBM that changed the way things were done, I'd have to say PL/S--but strictly within IBM. CDC employed an internal language along the same line on the Cyber 70/170 systems, called Sympl.
 
wrljet said:
I worked for Scientific Time Sharing Corp (STSC) from 1979 to 1990.

View attachment 1264277
Click to expand...
You are correct, I got STSC and IPSA confused. Larry Breed: "Breed was the 1973 recipient (with Dick Lathwell and Roger Moore) of the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery "for their work in the design and implementation of APL\360, setting new standards in simplicity, efficiency, reliability and response time for interactive systems." (from Wikipedia)

Have you examined the GNU APL implementation? Do you have a current favorite APL implementation that you like? (sorry for OT)
 
What to run on old mainframes?
In the late 60s IBM offered CALL/360 on which a fairly complete Dartmouth BASIC was available
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm360oscaferenceHandbook1970_3121089
more about CALL/360 itself
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm360oscalReferenceManualSep69_2018530
(I have trouble looking at this document, seeing the 2741 just makes me sad that the only part left of the the one I had is the platen.)
The same(?) BASIC was later also available through TSO.
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm360ostsuageRefManJun70_5276642
 
stepleton said:
Calculating pi is a much more virtuous exercise than mining crypto, say, but heat pumps will still win by dint of pulling in heat from the outside air (even if it's quite cold). The computer is merely 100% efficient at taking electricity and giving you heat; an electric heat pump will do much better.
Click to expand...
Our house is at the downwind end of a whole row of houses on our road, so if they all had heat pumps we'd be getting the coldest outside air for ours to handle. I never understood economy light bulbs either. Incandescent light bulbs help to heat the house and the central heating has thermostats, so must save energy when the lights are on, which happens mostly in the winter when the heat is needed. I am always inclined to think holistically.
 
RobS said:
I am always inclined to think holistically.
Click to expand...
That is good, but your neighbours' heat pumps will have to be doing an absolutely stupendous job to reduce the outside ambient in Kent to -15C or so, which is where modern cold-climate air source heat pumps begin to have trouble finding enough heat to pump. Above that, the operating cost works in their favour. (Below that they bottom out to 100% efficiency by activating backup resistive heating or gas.)

The new machines are really are amazing, but I grant they probably won't bring anyone the joy of an operating Honeywell 200 at home. Then again, I suppose pumping heat while shuffling bits is pretty on-brand for Honeywell; more than it would be for, say, NCR. I further assume folks interested in ground source heat pumps meanwhile would turn to Burroughs.
 
MrImprovement said:
You are correct, I got STSC and IPSA confused. Larry Breed: "Breed was the 1973 recipient (with Dick Lathwell and Roger Moore) of the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery "for their work in the design and implementation of APL\360, setting new standards in simplicity, efficiency, reliability and response time for interactive systems." (from Wikipedia)

Have you examined the GNU APL implementation? Do you have a current favorite APL implementation that you like? (sorry for OT)
Click to expand...

RobS,

No, I've never looked at GNU APL. I've only been exposed to IBM APL\360 (XM6), VSAPL, and its variants from STSC and IP Sharp,
and the STSC x86 assembler based PC APL*PLUS, and the C-based Unix and 386 PC versions. I was involved in building and/or enhancing all the STSC version.

Favorite today... the only one I really ever use, and it's rarely, is a STSC (Manugistics / APL2000) APL+Win 3.6.

APL\360 is available to run on OS/360 MVT under the Hercules emulator (I'm involved in that group) via
a project called mvt4apl.

Bill
 
Forgive me if this has been asked already, but... can it run Doom?

Seriously.

Its a good way to compare computing power, graphical capabilities, and its fun. It might get you more notice than doing anything period-appropriate.
 
It can run Doom, but you need a LOT of paper taper for the output at even 320x240 at 15fps ...
 
Depending on the availability of communication modules, it could be programmed as a dial-up server for 8 bitters to have multiplayer mode games. That would also help museums cement the idea of the central computer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top