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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (884)	1/15/1998 12:00:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

FAA - 'Now try to debug something like that!' Found on C.S.Y2K, thank to Jim Cobbs. Sample of production code containing some stuff coded without assembler. 'The problem is that the date functions are not in programming languages, like Fortran or Cobol, but in machine language -- strings of ones and zeros more basic to the computer than even the operating system' John ------ cory hamasaki wrote: > > In <34bc4b05.203797770@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>, ttoews@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) writes: > > > The extent of problems with the air traffic computers is not certain, > >but experts say that the 3083 mainframe model referred to in a letter > >from IBM to an FAA contractor, <snip> > > > I didn't know that the FAA had replaced the 360/50's with 3083's. The 3083 > is an early 1980's machine, pre-XA, pre-ESCON. I suspect that the 3083s are pre 360s and were not installed to replace any IBM 360s. I could be mistaken but I think the 3083s (or was it the 3085) was a one for one transistored version of the vacuum tube IBM 705. > > Monte Belger, the associate administrator for Air Traffic Services, > >said in an interview that the FAA should know within 90 days whether > >the computers can be de-bugged. The problem is that the date > >functions are not in programming languages, like Fortran or Cobol, but in machine language -- strings of ones and zeros more basic to the computer than even the operating system. I've got a hint here as to what may be something truely awesome. The first programming gig I did was at NSA on an IBM 705 and at that point there was NO assembler language. All that was available was a "relative address compiler" which ment you could code an OP CODE but the addresses had to be actual, but relative. BTW: (Cory, please copy) this geeks at NSA had discovered that when you wired up a computer you inadvertently, and quite accidently "created" op codes that weren't documentated anywhere. Most were useless, but the gear heads I worked with found uses for some of them: the one I'll always remember was "Side Ways Add"; it added up all the on-bits in one register and stored the answer in another register. Now try to debug something like that! -- Jim Cobbs jim9885@ibm.net Include me out.

To: John Mansfield who wrote (884)	1/15/1998 12:09:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

'There's only two folks at IBM who know the micro-code, and they're both retired' From C.S.Y2K thanks to Ron Kenyon, Tony Toews. John ----- ronkenyon@aol.com (RonKenyon) wrote: >> Others are still worried. Fanfalone of the technician's union said, >>"There's only two folks at IBM who know the micro-code, and they're both retired. >Here's a clue ... "the micro-code". These aren't vanilla 3083's anymore, >sounds like one-off emulation of whatever one-off emulation was in the >tricked-up 360/50's, infecting those M/F's below the standard >machine-instruction level. >Got specs after all these years? Or just smudges? Gotcha. In the AS/400 and it's predecessors we never saw the microcode. But I can see that a large client could indeed get it customized to their requirements. Sounds like to me they needed to eke out every possible bit of performance out of those machines. Now, however, software is much more expensive than hardware so that decision is really biting them in the @$$ now. Oh boy, oh boy. So not only does assembler code have to be renovated for date problems some of the code itself needs to be renovated. Oh man is the FAA in trouble. And the US government insists that Y2K funding has to come out of existing budgets. Tony ---- Message posted to newsgroup and emailed. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant <snip>