Re: Systems software versus applications software definitions

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler (lynn_at_garlic.com)
Date: 12/10/04 

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 13:35:28 -0700

Joona I Palaste <palaste@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:
> You're much more learned than I am, then. The only thing almost a
> decade of writing toy machine language programs to see what the
> Commodore 64 can do has taught me in this regard is being able to
> convert any integer from 0 to 255 from decimal to hexadecimal or
> back in my head in a couple of seconds. Well, it amazed my little
> brother for a couple of minutes.

besides learning to read hex from mainframe dumps ... i also learned
to read it from the front console lights as well as the punch holes in
cards (output of assembler and compiler binary/txt decks) ... both
hex->instructions/addresses and hex->character (or in the case of
hex punch cards, holes->hex->instructions/addresses and
holes->hex->ebcdic).

In the past I had made (the mistake of?) posts about the TSM lineage
from a file backup/archive program
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#backup

that I had written for internal use that then went thru 3-4 (internal)
releases, eventually packaged as customer product called workstation
datasave facility, and then its morphing into ADSM and now TSM (tivoli
storage manager).

so a couple days ago ... i get email from somebody trying to decode a
TSM tape; included was hex dump of the first 1536 bytes off the tape
... asking me to tell them what TSM had on the tape.

well way back in the dark ages ... you could choose your physical tape
block size ... and the "standard label" tape convention started with
three 80-byte records; vol1, hdr1, hdr2.

so the first 1536 bytes was three 512byte records ... and i recognize
the first 80 bytes of each (512byte) record as starting vol1, hdr1,
hdr2.

the hex dump had included the hex->character translation ... but for
ascii ... and of course the tsm heritage is from ebcdic mainframe
... not ascii (aka it was the ebcdic hex for vol1, hdr1, hdr2) It
didn't even get to the TSM part of the tape data ... it was still all
the os standard label convention. 

-- 
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Relevant Pages

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