Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
IBM mainframes are batch processing machines, where jobs are submitted to be run in batches. The MVS operating system has a component called JES (Job Entry Subsystem), and JCL (Job Control Language) that you use to control it. All mainframe batch jobs are run from "procs" -- sets of JCL statements that define the job, what programs will be run as part of it, what data those programs will process and where it resides, and where to send the output.
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Dennis
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Everything operated on a different time scale then. I'd submit a job at a remote terminal and then purposely take the long way to the building where the printer was located (buy a soda, shave, maybe make a little chalk drawing on the sidewalk outside, my own little Turner or Constable . . .) to give time for my program to get through the queue, run, and output.
I remember wondering why the printer and its handler had to be inside a cage. It was like a floor to ceiling chain link cage with a little slot to slide the big green and white fanfold zebra paper through. Were they worried someone would steal a five hundred pound printer?
Then one day, after the use of a poor choice of text separator, an expected one page output ended up using around 150 pages of paper with just one number printed on each. Apparently, the cage was there to protect us students from the ire (and spittle) of the printer technician. Candy bars slipped through the slot seemed to appease him, though.