date: Mon Dec 11 19:36:51 UTC 2023
subj: sdf validated user
auth: bbsing
Well now I'm a validated user, so what to do on this large system.
At home and work I have so much computing capability, what to do in a new
space like this, it will be difficult to play in the restrictions.
What should I do next?
If you have any suggestions please email me: bbsing at sdf.org
I think there is a TOPS system here. Like the living computer museum,
there is also a TOPS system as well (if its still online), but TOPS so
foreign to me. I'm a dos/windows/Linux/Unix user.
At work we used to have some mainframe systems, and we had a single person
who maintained our piece of that system, Marvin was his name.
He was a nice white haired fellow, and he knew the mainframe system very
well. I think the software he updated was all FORTRAN. The company we
worked for was trying to get rid of the mainframe systems, even though they
were very very reliable. The company want as companies do, to modernize,
so the company set out to virtualise the mainframes. The horizon shown
the sunset of those systems, specifically in our unit, was to get rid of
the need for the mainframe, and when that happens Marvin is also gone.
Marvin's sole purpose and role was to maintain the space our work unit
used on those systems.
Marvin having been in the computing mainframe space nearly has long as I
had been alive at that time, decided he had enough, and he wanted to enjoy
the sunshine growing cilantro on his rooftop garden in southern
California, so he set his sights on leaving, and since I was the last
admin standing, I was going to be getting his workload. Marvin a
wonderful guy, tried to show me about the system, but I also had obtained
responsibility of all systems for our unit, and so my time was limited.
Whatever that mainframe system was (I can't remember) I was certainly
intrigued by it, but my sense of the internal space while I was using it
didn't exist. It had no simple commands that I could understand how to get
a layout of the memory. It reminded me a bit of some scenes in the movie
Tron, where Flyn describes setting up his own memory space. I remember
Marvin showing me how to request a memory space to use as a backup of the
code we had to modify, it was a unique task I've never done in computing.
There was no touch, ls, dir, or anything like that in the system for which
I could have used to browse the system. Although as I watched over virtual
meetings seeing Marvin using the system at lightening speed to me, but a
snails pace to him, he demonstrated a command of the system that mortified
me. I thought there is no way I can figure this system out with the time I
have. Watching I saw most feed back was about job status, it was the
oddest computer I've ever interacted with. I had to let the exploration of
that system go, due to the demands of the 60 other systems I had to
maintain.
Not long after my training began with Marvin on the mainframe, my wife
found the Living Computer Museum in Seattle. Seattle was not far from
where we lived. She knows how much I enjoy computing and thought it would
be a cool place for us to go visit, and it certainly was, and we became
members, and we frequented the place before they shutdown after Paul Allen
pasted away. During our first trip to the museum I found out they were
offering access to their older systems. I eventually obtained a set of
accounts one of which was to a TOPS system. Figuring how to get into it
wasn't super easy like an ssh, or telnet session, like some of the old
stories true crime novels about hackers. I eventually accessed one of the
TOPS system, .. sheesh, it was so much like the mainframe I experienced
at work, which equals daunting. I never could create the time to get into
it, and would it have been anything of relevance for me and what I do? ...
probably not. Although it would be a dream to work for the Living
Computer Museum, fixing, admining, and keeping older systems up and
running, and connected for use, just for the joy of seeing people
experience the foundations of our modern computing environments and
capabilities.
Maybe I'll make some time to checkout the TOPS system here.
