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From: kirchner@uklirb.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: IBM/36 questions - (nf)
Message-ID: <28000001@uklirb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 07:25:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uklirb.28000001
Posted: Fri Sep 25 07:25:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 11:41:58 EDT
Lines: 49
Nf-ID: #N:uklirb:28000001:000:1847
Nf-From: uklirb!kirchner    Sep 25 12:25:00 1987


Hello out there,
I need some help concerning a machine I never saw mentioned here,
the IBM/36.

I was asked by a town administration to do some consulting. The want to
install EDP for administration etc., and the application software is
available on the /36, in RPGII ( which I think is at least as horrible
as BASIC ), but nothing helps. BTW: are there any converters from
RPGII to COBOL?

There are other possible machines which also have drawbacks, and on
UNIX ( which I would have prefered ) the software is not available.

So: Is there any performance data available on the /36?
How does it compare to 68020-machines, to IBM 9370 etc. ?
I already asked IBM people, they refuse to give any rating because of
the special structure of the machine, which seems to be a multiprocessor
with special procs. for application programms, operating system, disk
handling, communication etc.

This leads to a second bundle of questions:
What is actually running on these special processors?
- does the os-processor all scheduling, memory allocation, etc., or is
  something left in the appl. processor?
- does the disk processor only move the heads ( like intelligent controllers
  do, or does it the whole file system ( disk allocating, protection etc.)
- similar things for the comms.-proc.

and at last:
Does anybody know more about project SILVERLAKE than was written in
Datamation some month ago?

Please send mail to the adresses below, I hope they are sufficient to
reach me.

Thanks in advance to everybody who can clear this fog.

  Reinhard Kirchner
  University of Kaiserslautern
  Computer Science
  P.O.Box 3049
  D-6750 Kaiserslautern
  W-Germany

Arpa:   kirchner@uklirb@unido@seismo
  or:   kirchner%uklirb.uucp%germany.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET
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