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Why I like the IBM 3090:
First, there's the wonderful operating system, VM/SP which has SO many
advantages! Here are some of my favorites!
1. All of your files are in the same directory, you don't have to
worry about subdirctories and other nonsense,
2. For file names, not only do you get a file name, but you also get a
file type AND a file mode, with the name and type each being an
astounding 8 characters, plus a 2 character file mode, way more than
I ever had on my Apple II,
3. If you create a small file, it automatically makes sure it takes up
one 4K block on your disk, so you can add up to 4K of data to the
same file and not take any more disk space!!! WOW!!!!!
4. When you get an account you get an ENTIRE cylinder to yourself, an
amazing 465K, which is more than my 5 1/4 inch, single sided,
low density PC disk,
5. If a FORTRAN file is too long (250 lines) to compile on your disk
because the temp files fill up your cylinder, all you have to do is
unlink your A disk, create a big temporary disk, attach that as your
A disk, attach your old A disk as another disk, copy the source file
to the new A disk, then compile it,
6. You never have to worry about background processes, redirection, or
piping because the 3090 doesn't have any! Or command histories!
7. Or here (WSU) we are privaleged to have RESLIM, which makes sure that
you don't use any more CPU time than you want to or have to,
8. We also have system administrators who also make sure we don't use
more CPU than we have to, not to mention they tell us what we can
and can not do, and what they think they legally can and can not do,
such as maintenance on our accounts to make sure there is nothing
wrong with any of our personal files,
9. If any files have sat in your reader/mailbox too long, they will
automatically be discarded for you,
10. And finally, all of the USEFUL on-line help! All you have to know
is the name of the command and whether it is in CP or CMS or SOFTWARE
or one of the other help menus, and you can get a GREAT description
of that command AND some examples how to use it like you would want
to every day!
Not only is the operationg system fantastic, they have an AWESOME full
screen editor, XEDIT. Boy, it's quite a step up from EDLINE on my PC!
Just look how powerful it is:
1. If you want to move your cursor to the middle of the screen, all you
do is hold down the arrow keys until you get there,
2. If you wanna delete a whole bunch of characters in the middle of the
line all you have to do is hold down the DELETE key until they all
magically dissappear,
3. If you wanna insert something, all you do is hit the INSERT key and
type in what you want, unless it's too long for that line, then all
you gotta do is split the line where you want by using the PF11 key,
which if you are on a VT100 is just an ESC minus sign,
4. After you do any commands in that neat prefix area, your cursor
almost always goes back to the command line at the bottom of the
screen,
5. You never have to worry about anything nasty like tab keys, there are
no tab stops by default (unless you wanna set them)
6. And, unless you tell it otherwise, XEDIT always creates fixed length
lines of 80 characters, so if you ever want to put more stuff on the
same line sometime later, there is room for it!!
Add to all of this such things as COBOL, disk linking, EBCDIC
character set (I mean who says J should follow I?), and even
some AWESOME graphics capabilities, and you'll have to agree that the
IBM 3090 is the system for me!!!!
(** Thanx to those people who sent me some of the ideas used herein **)