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