John Titor was right? IBM 5100

[a***@hotmail.com]

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/browse_frm/thread/1cac9d290e7ff15f/21ed6c13c99c2c8e#21ed6c13c99c2c8e

It looks like some people in this newsgroup might have egg on their
faces:

http://www.cyburbiaproductions.com/Productions/Time_traveler.html
"He also stated that the IBM 5100 had capabilities that we weren't
aware of and in the last year, one of the engineers who helped create
the 5100 said in a magazine interview that the 5100 had capabilities
that no one previously knew of that allowed it to speak with other
newer IBM models. IBM did not want this knowledge made public for fear
competitors could use the 5100 to speak with larger IBM mainframes."

http://www.postbulletin.com/magazine/2004/08/index.shtml
"According to Bob Dubke, the second engineer on IBM's 5100 team in
Rochester (who now co-owns a locally-based company called eXport
Ventures Corp. and also works for Edina Realty), that secret function
was his contribution to the design of the computer. The function, which
IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use
it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the
computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it. (IBM
declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave
programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less
portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s. An imprint
of a hook on the outside of the 5100 symbolized the ability of Dubke's
interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out
any necessary operating instructions."

[Tim Shoppa]

Post by a***@hotmail.com
The function, which
IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use
it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the
computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it. (IBM
declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave
programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less
portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s.

I remember reading a review of the 5100 written in 1975 or so,
where they explicitly stated that when running APL it was running
the S/360 APL. So it's not that this was any deep secret.

Tim.

[John Savard]

Post by Tim Shoppa
I remember reading a review of the 5100 written in 1975 or so,
where they explicitly stated that when running APL it was running
the S/360 APL. So it's not that this was any deep secret.

I recall reading somewhere that the S/360 layer was not the machine's
real native code, but an emulator, used only for APL, not for BASIC. And
it was supposed to be a limited subset of the 360 as well.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by John Savard
I recall reading somewhere that the S/360 layer was not the
machine's real native code, but an emulator, used only for APL, not
for BASIC. And it was supposed to be a limited subset of the 360 as
well.

note that this came out of palo alto science center ... cambridge had
done the original apl\360 port to cms for cms\apl. palo alto science
center did a follow-on called apl\cms ... as well as the apl microcode
assist for the 370/145 (lots of apl\cms on 370/145 w/assist ran as
fast as apl\cms on 370/168 w/o assist).

HONE was across the back parking lot from PASC ... and since they
were heavy APL operation ... they were interested in most things
APL ...
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

palm reference (has pointers to lots of other references):
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/5100/

pasc reference:
http://www.svec.org/hof/1994.html#friedl

past palm (Put All Logic in Microcode) postings ....
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#69 APL on PalmOS ???
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#70 APL on PalmOS ???
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#54 VM & VSE news
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#39 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#43 IBM 5100 [Was: First DESKTOP Unix Box?]
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#60 Java, C++ (was Re: Is HTML dead?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#52 Microcode?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003b.html#5 Card Columns
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#79 IBM 5100
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#84 IBM 5100
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#8 IBM operating systems and APL

[Eric Smith]

Post by John Savard
I recall reading somewhere that the S/360 layer was not the machine's
real native code,

The "real native code" is PALM code. PALM was a board-level processor.
The acronym stands for "Put All Logic in Microcode". It's a fairly
simple processor four banks of sixteen 16-bit registers. One bank is
used for non-interrupt (foreground) processing, and there is another bank
for each of three interrupt levels. The registers are aliased to the first
64 words of memory. If you flip the "display registers" switch on the
front panel (intended as a CE diagnostic aid), the first 512 words of
memory are displayed in hexadecimal, including the registers, so you can
see several registers "spinning" as counters, etc.

Post by John Savard
but an emulator, used only for APL, not for BASIC.

For BASIC, it's my understanding that it emulates the System/3.

Post by John Savard
And
it was supposed to be a limited subset of the 360 as well.

Yes. Almost exactly what they needed for APL\360.

The earlier "SCAMP" prototype that inspired the development of the 5100
emulated an 1130 to run APL\1130. It was decided that APL\1130 didn't
support the feature set they wanted for the product, and it wasn't worth
the engineering effort to enhance it. I suspect emulating the System\360
was not too much more inefficient than emulating the 1130, and may have
actually been a net win when running the APL interpreter.

Eric

[e***@gmail.com]

Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

[Quadibloc]

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

It's too late to stop them! Even if they can't get their hands on an IBM 5100,
there's always Hercules. :)

John Savard

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

It's too late to stop them! Even if they can't get their hands on an IBM 5100,
there's always Hercules. :)

How would one hack the ones which used mercury?

/BAH

[Quadibloc]

Post by jmfbahciv

Post by Quadibloc

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

It's too late to stop them! Even if they can't get their hands on an IBM

5100,

Post by Quadibloc
there's always Hercules. :)

How would one hack the ones which used mercury?

The Univac I used mercury delay lines, but I don't recall any big *IBM*
mainframes that used them. The IBM 701 used Williams tubes.

Hercules is a software program that runs on personal computers running Linux or
Windows that emulates System/360 computers. It is configurable to emulate all
the different versions of that architecture.

John Savard

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Quadibloc
Hercules is a software program that runs on personal computers running Linux or
Windows that emulates System/360 computers. It is configurable to emulate all
the different versions of that architecture.

5100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100

had 360 in "microcode"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100#Emulator_in_microcode

somewhat the equivalent to hercules ... using (program all logic in
microcode)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PALM_processor

low-end and mid-range (real) ibm/370s emulated 370 instruction set in
vertical "microcode" (again very similar to hercules) ... tending to
avg. ten native instructions for every emulated 370 instruction ... aka
a 100KIP 370 needed a 1MIP native processor.

370/115 did about 80KIP 370 ... needing an 800kip native processor.
370/125 did about 120KIP 370 ... needing a 1.2MIP native processor.

late 70s there was an effort to move the large variety of different
native "microcode" & controller processors to (common) 801/risc
... 4331->4361, 4341->4381, S38/S36->AS/400 ... lots of other processor (in
part because unique programming skill base had to be developed for each
processor)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

however, for various reasons they floundered, and they reverted to
traditional custom ... as/400 had crash project to do a cisc
chip. However, a decade or so later, as/400 did migrate to 801/risc
(power/pc)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_i

in the early 80s, when various of these 801/risc efforts were
floundering, there were 801/risc chip engineers deaparting the company
and showing up on risc projects at other companies.

[Christian Corti]

Post by Anne & Lynn Wheeler
5100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100
had 360 in "microcode"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100#Emulator_in_microcode

This is wrong. The 5100/5110 has a normal microprogrammed processor
(called PALM) with a normal instruction set. Since IBM was too lazy to
program native interpreters for the PALM, they wrote simple machine
emulators (one for the S/360 and one for the S/3) in machine language,
not microcode. They thought that this would be easier...

These emulators are stored in ROMs (the so-called Language ROS). Since
only one ROS with machine code can be enabled at a time, the processor has
to switch between the Executable ROS (active during bring-up) and the
desired Language ROS. The emulator (executed by the PALM processor) then
executes its instruction (S/360 or S/3) from the APL or BASIC ROS; these
ROS' are not mapped into the PALM address space but instead, they are
accessed like an I/O device (with PUTB and GETB). The APL/BASIC
interpreter in turn runs the user program stored in RWS.
So that's the execution chain on the 51x0:
PALM --> machine emulator --> language interpreter --> user program

Of course, you can write your own machine programs for the 51x0. In
fact, all the utility programs delivered with the machine (either on
tape or on floppy) are machine programs. They are loaded with the LINK
(BASIC) or )LINK (APL) instruction from the interpreter at the RWS
address $0B00.

The DCP (Diagnostic Control Program) that can be accessed with HOLD
CMD-ATTN is also a PALM program residing in the Executable ROS.

Post by Anne & Lynn Wheeler
somewhat the equivalent to hercules ... using (program all logic in
microcode)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PALM_processor

PALM is an acronym for "Put All Logic in Microcode", not "Program ..."

This shows somehow that 1) Wikipedia can't be ultimatively trusted,
especially if there's no bibliography and 2) you just cite anything
without really knowing what you're writing about...

So here's an example from the S/360 emulator written in PALM assembler
(that I disassembled myself) that implements one variant of the AH
instruction:

; +------------------------------+
; | 4A | R1 | X2 | B2 | D2 |
; +----+----+----+----+----------+
; 0 8 12 16 20 31
;
; Add Halfword
;
; AH R1,D2(X2,B2)

; Get operands
06D2 0203 INC2 R2, R0
06D4 20BE JMP ($017C)

; Address of operand 2 within first 64kB?
06D6 C80B SNZ R8
06D8 A005 BRA $06E0 ; $06(R0)

; No, fetch operand 2 from ROS
06DA 0203 INC2 R2, R0
06DC 20AE JMP ($015C)
06DE A001 BRA $06E2 ; $02(R0)

; Operand 2 into R7/R8
06E0 D8D8 MOVE R8, (R13) ; Only halfword
06E2 2750 MOVE R7, $A0

; Sign extend Operand 2 to 32 bits
06E4 8180 LBI R1, #$80
06E6 C81F SNBSH R8, R1
06E8 F700 SUB R7, #$01

06EA A01F BRA $070C ; $20(R0)



And here's an example from the System/3 emulator:

; +----+----+-------+-------+
; | C8 | Q | Addr1 | Addr2 |
; +----+----+-------+-------+
; 0 8 16 32 47
;
; Jump to Addr2 if operand addressed by Addr1 is greater than Q

; Fetch operand
08FE 015E GETB R5, $1
0900 0C5D MLH R12, R5
0902 0004 NOP
0904 01CE GETB R12, $1
0906 63C8 MOVB R3, (R12) ; operand

0908 0004 NOP
090A 019E GETB R9, $1 ; Hi(Addr2)

090C C3E0 SLE R3, R14
090E A005 BRA $0916 ; greater
0910 0004 NOP
0912 01AE GETB R10, $1
0914 A009 BRA $0920 ; not greater

0916 01AE GETB R10, $1 ; Lo(Addr2)
0918 23C3 MOVE R3, $186
091A 4131 PUTB $1, (R3)++
091C 4138 PUTB $1, (R3) ; set new IP
091E 0004 NOP

0920 2082 JMP ($0104)

Post by Anne & Lynn Wheeler
370/115 did about 80KIP 370 ... needing an 800kip native processor.
370/125 did about 120KIP 370 ... needing a 1.2MIP native processor.

[... long blob of unrelated information ...]

This is the answer to what question?

Christian

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Christian Corti
This is wrong. The 5100/5110 has a normal microprogrammed processor
(called PALM) with a normal instruction set. Since IBM was too lazy to
program native interpreters for the PALM, they wrote simple machine
emulators (one for the S/360 and one for the S/3) in machine language,
not microcode. They thought that this would be easier...

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#42 John Titor was right? IBM 5100

My view is that it is semantics ... native processor programming used to
emulate another architecture tended to be called microcode. when I was
working on cp67 ... i use to refer to cp67 as the microcode of the
virtual machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS

I did some amount of work with the guy at PASC that did the 370/145 APL
assist "microcode" (and other native processor programming, especially
related to 370 emulation) ... I was at sister location on the other
coast in cambridge CSC ... some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

One such is that endicott roped me into helping with ECPS that would
come out for 138/148 (followon to 135/145). They had 6k bytes available
for ECPS (native) programming ... and wanted to choose the 6k bytes of
kernel instructions to move into native processor language (microcode)
... aka moved from 370 to native on nearly byte-for-byte basis.

Two approaches were used to select the 6k bytes of instructions. One was
instruction hotspot ... a table of counters representing 32bytes of
kernel addresses was created in the 370/145 microcode ... and
(microcode) routine was added that periodically sampled the current
(kernel) instruction address and increment the corresponding address.

there was kernel modification that created time-stamps at entry and exit
of various routines and calculate the elapsed time since the previous
time-stamp. subpaths within routine could be calculated between points
that other routines were called. Old post with results from runs that
were used to select kernel codepaths for translation into "microcode":
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

the 370 emulator "microcode" had typical avg of ten native instructions
per 370 instructions ... so the 6k bytes of 370 instructions accounting
for 79.55% of time spent in kernel execution ... when moved into 6k
bytes of native instructions ... it ran ten times faster.

the "vertical" native programming instruction of low-end & mid-range
microprocessors looked very much like machine programming. The high-end
370s were horizontal microprogramming ... which was more like lots of
bits that activated/started various hardware operations ... that could
run in parallel. Instead of being characterized as avg. number of
(vertical) native instructions per 370 instruction ... they were
characterized as avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction. The 370/165
was 2.1 machine cycles per 370 instruction ... but was improved for
370/168 to 1.6 machine cycles per 370 instruction ... and then improved
to one machine cycle per 370 instruction for 3033.

I've mentioned before that during FS period, internal 370 efforts were
being killed off and the lack of 370 products during this period allowed
clone processors to gain market foothold
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

when FS imploded ... there was mad rush to get products back into the
370 pipeline and 3033 and 3081 were kicked off in paralle. 3033 started
out Q&D remap of 168 logic to 20% faster chips ... however tweaks done
along the way (like reducing avg. machine cycles per 370 instruction)
got 3033 up to 1.5 times 168. this has discussion of FS and how poorly
the 3033 & 3081 compared to clone competition:
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm

The 3033 started doing minor microcode feature tweaks with the kernel
software not running unless those features were available (by
comparison, the ECPS kernel code dynamically determined whether ECPS was
available or not and adapt accordingly, running on machines with or w/o
the microcode tweaks). The 3033 wanted to offer something similar to
ECPS on their machine ... but since the 3033 was already running at one
machine cycler per 370 instruction ... it was difficult to show any
performance improvement using that approach (and because of various
reasons could even run slower).

The high-end clone processor competition reacted to this frequent
microcode feature changes/tweaks with "macro-code" ... approximately a
special state for 370-like instructions ... which was much easier to
change/program than native horizontal microcode. Later this was then
used to implement a special hardware hypervisor (basically a subset of
virtual machine functions). It took significant time & effort for 3090
to react to this competition with PR/SM ... since it all had to be done
(in the much more difficult) native horizontal "microcode".

disclaimer: I had transferred from CSC to SJR in san jose and was
regular at monthly baybunch meetings. I did a series of presentations at
baybunch on how ECPS was done. the people in the audience that were
working on hypervisor with macrocode in the audience were asking loads
of questions (hypervisor hadn't been announced yet).

some past posts mentioning PR/SM and/or macrocode
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#3 Is Microsoft becoming folklore?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#58 Was MVS/SE designed to confound Amdahl?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#69 What is a Mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#68 Linear search vs. Binary search
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013i.html#36 The Subroutine Call
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013l.html#27 World's worst programming environment?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#46 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013n.html#62 'Free Unix!': The world-changing proclamation made30yearsagotoday
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#80 CPU time
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014b.html#82 CPU time
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#17 Write Inhibit
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#20 Write Inhibit
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014e.html#39 Before the Internet: The golden age of online services
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#78 Over in the Mainframe Experts Network LinkedIn group
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014i.html#90 IBM Programmer Aptitude Test
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#10 R.I.P. PDP-10?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#19 DG Nova 1200 as console
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014j.html#100 No Internet. No Microsoft Windows. No iPods. This Is What Tech Was Like In 1984
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#161 Slushware
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#85 a bit of hope? What was old is new again

[Quadibloc]

Ah, yes; I found an earlier post of yours in a thread talking about the 5100 ROMs.

Since the 5100 had a copy of APLSV there - and IBM only recently consented to the
publication of the APL/360 source as part of the release of MTS - I'd suspect
that they still regard at least *that* piece of 5100 code as still of commercial
value.

This is a pity, of course; I'd love to be able to download a 5100 emulator, but I think it unavoidable.

John Savard

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Quadibloc
Ah, yes; I found an earlier post of yours in a thread talking about the 5100 ROMs.
Since the 5100 had a copy of APLSV there - and IBM only recently
consented to the publication of the APL/360 source as part of the
release of MTS - I'd suspect that they still regard at least *that*
piece of 5100 code as still of commercial value.
This is a pity, of course; I'd love to be able to download a 5100
emulator, but I think it unavoidable.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#42 John Titor was right? IBM 5100
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015c.html#44 John Titor was right? IBM 5100

note that CSC had done a port of apl\360 to cp67/cms as cms\apl. csc
took a lot of heat over it because it provided straight-forward API to
system services ... like doing file i/o.

since cms\apl was single user (relying on cp67 for multitasking) all the
apl\360 multitasking & swapping could be removed. However there was a
major issue with apl\360 storage management & garbage
collection. apl\360 would allocated new piece of (unallocated) storage
for every assignment ... and then when storage was exhausted it would
garbage collect all in-use storage into contiguous locations. For
apl\360 with 16kbyte (or 32kbyte) workspace swapped as integral unit
... it wasn't bad ... but cms\apl opened workspace size to full virtual
memory area in cp67 demand paged environment. The standard apl\360
storage management guarenteed that any apl application would page thrash
in cp67/cms environment ... repeatedly touching every location/changing
in virtual memory. This had to be reworked for cms\apl to be much more
virtual memory demand paged friendly.

PASC then did apl\cms for vm370/cms with the aplsv shared variable
semantics for accessing system services (like file i/o) ... as well
as doing the 370/145 apl microcode assist.

by this time the internal hone US datacenters had consolidated in bldg
across the back parking lot from PASC (trivia, the bldg has another
resident now, but when facebook 1st moved to the area, it was a new 1601
bldg right next door to the old HONE datacenter 1501 bldg).

The internal HONE originated ... some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

after the 23jun69 unbundling announcement ... some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#unbundling

to provide "hands-on" operating system practice for branch office SEs
... running in CP67 virtual machines. However, HONE also started
delivering APL-based sales&marketing support applications (originally on
cms\apl and then later apl\cms) which came to quickly dominate all HONE
activity. In the late 70s, the consolidate US HONE datacenter (across
the back parking lot from PASC) was the largest single-system-image
cluster of loosely-coupled, 168 SMP multiprocessors (and also the
largest user of APL ... especially as HONE-clones started to proliferate
around the world).

the (PASC) 370/145 APL microcode assist tended to make pure APL code run
as fast on 370/145 as (non-assist) APL code ran on 370/168. The HONE
issue was that the online sales&marketing workload, while APL-based was
also large virtual memory & heavy I/O ... workload needing the rest of
the 370/168 capability (not available from 370/145). As a result there
were various other kinds of efforts worked on to try and speed up the
HONE APL applications.

disclaimer: one of my hobbies was providing enhanced operating systems
for internal datacenters ... and HONE was one of my first & long time
customers. as relatively new-hire out of school ... my first overseas
business trips was being asked to go along for HONE-clone overseas
installations.

[Quadibloc]

I've visited your fascinating web site at

http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/ibm_5110/technik/en/

and I find some of my earlier comments are out of date.

John Savard

[t***@gmail.com]

WRONG!

[Peter Flass]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by jmfbahciv

Post by Quadibloc

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

It's too late to stop them! Even if they can't get their hands on an IBM

5100,

Post by Quadibloc
there's always Hercules. :)

How would one hack the ones which used mercury?

The Univac I used mercury delay lines, but I don't recall any big *IBM*
mainframes that used them. The IBM 701 used Williams tubes.
Hercules is a software program that runs on personal computers running Linux or
Windows that emulates System/360 computers. It is configurable to emulate all
the different versions of that architecture.

all->most. It doesn't do the /20 or the /44, and I'm not sure about, e.g.
the vector instructions.

Post by Quadibloc
John Savard

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

In
<829078131449628608.584049peter_flass-***@news.eternal-september.org>,
on 04/02/2015

Post by Peter Flass
all->most. It doesn't do the /20 or the /44,

Those deviate from the S/360 architecture.

[Bob Martin]

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

IBM 5100 wasn't a mainframe - far from it.

[Useless trash]

Post by e***@gmail.com
Oh my god now hackers are going to hack big IBM mainframes !!!!!!,,

el psy congroo

[a***@gmail.com]

Post by a***@hotmail.com
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/browse_frm/thread/1cac9d290e7ff15f/21ed6c13c99c2c8e#21ed6c13c99c2c8e
It looks like some people in this newsgroup might have egg on their
http://www.cyburbiaproductions.com/Productions/Time_traveler.html
"He also stated that the IBM 5100 had capabilities that we weren't
aware of and in the last year, one of the engineers who helped create
the 5100 said in a magazine interview that the 5100 had capabilities
that no one previously knew of that allowed it to speak with other
newer IBM models. IBM did not want this knowledge made public for fear
competitors could use the 5100 to speak with larger IBM mainframes."
http://www.postbulletin.com/magazine/2004/08/index.shtml
"According to Bob Dubke, the second engineer on IBM's 5100 team in
Rochester (who now co-owns a locally-based company called eXport
Ventures Corp. and also works for Edina Realty), that secret function
was his contribution to the design of the computer. The function, which
IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use
it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the
computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it. (IBM
declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave
programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less
portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s. An imprint
of a hook on the outside of the 5100 symbolized the ability of Dubke's
interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out
any necessary operating instructions."

Buy better Electronics MS 1504

[a***@gmail.com]

Post by a***@hotmail.com
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/browse_frm/thread/1cac9d290e7ff15f/21ed6c13c99c2c8e#21ed6c13c99c2c8e
one of the engineers who helped create
the 5100 said in a magazine interview that the 5100 had capabilities
that no one previously knew of that allowed it to speak with other
newer IBM models. IBM did not want this knowledge made public for fear
competitors could use the 5100 to speak with larger IBM mainframes."

Heard in a computer fair in 1971 or so:

"Two computers can talk to each other if and only if they have the same language, for instance FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC..." :-D

[n***@gmail.com]

Could I Hack into CERN and become a admin with an IBM 5100? I need their data and PDF files and pictures for my science projects before I get my Nobel prize. This could all be tied into the Mandela Effect and the Toto effect. I was smoking OG kush Back in 08. Before anyone knew the the names of their own strains. I showed them the ins and outs before you knew your ins and outs. I've never been caught in a drought. Police officers is something I don't give a shit about. So many reasons to hate them don't need a reason to pick one out. Stick them and we skipping town.

[n***@gmail.com]

Hit me up @ ***@gmail.com sandpeoplemusic.com therealonlyone.com only&ill2 in stores now onlyone bandcamp

[Christian Corti]

***@gmail.com wrote:
[...]

No, not again a trolling idiot with no name...

Christian

[s***@gmail.com]

I'm not any expert on coding or microcomputer architecture.

What does this all mean?

Does this mean the IBM 5100 was capable of hacking into IBM mainframes, to gather information? States' secrets? To expose the powers that be of their crimes against humanity?

Can someone hack into CERN and see what tampering to our timeline that they've done so far? Could someone hack into FBI/CIA and release Nikola Tesla's inventions? U.S. black ops UFO technologies?

What's the jist or main purpose of the IBM 5100, if someone wanted to use it, could it do anything else other than the above mentioned?

(of course don't incriminate yourself, but can anyone explain what they can in layman terms for those that don't understand coding/computers?)

[Andy Burns]

Post by s***@gmail.com
Could someone hack into FBI/CIA and release Nikola Tesla's inventions?

Rebuild the Wardenclyffe Tower, but don't go there wearing your tinfoil
hat, you might get a scorched forehead ...

[Johann Klammer]

Post by s***@gmail.com
I'm not any expert on coding or microcomputer architecture.
What does this all mean?
Does this mean the IBM 5100 was capable of hacking into IBM
mainframes, to gather information? States' secrets? To expose the
powers that be of their crimes against humanity?
Can someone hack into CERN and see what tampering to our timeline
that they've done so far? Could someone hack into FBI/CIA and
release Nikola Tesla's inventions? U.S. black ops UFO technologies?
What's the jist or main purpose of the IBM 5100, if someone wanted to
use it, could it do anything else other than the above mentioned?
(of course don't incriminate yourself, but can anyone explain what
they can in layman terms for those that don't understand
coding/computers?)

It's called an emulator. (wot people nowadays use to play
DOS(not the sex thing) games etc). look it up. (not the sex thing, but emulators).

[Dan Espen]

Post by s***@gmail.com
I'm not any expert on coding or microcomputer architecture.
What does this all mean?
Does this mean the IBM 5100 was capable of hacking into IBM
mainframes, to gather information? States' secrets? To expose the
powers that be of their crimes against humanity?
Can someone hack into CERN and see what tampering to our timeline that
they've done so far? Could someone hack into FBI/CIA and release
Nikola Tesla's inventions? U.S. black ops UFO technologies?
What's the jist or main purpose of the IBM 5100, if someone wanted to
use it, could it do anything else other than the above mentioned?
(of course don't incriminate yourself, but can anyone explain what
they can in layman terms for those that don't understand
coding/computers?)

For those of us not familiar with nutcases:

John Titor is a name used on several bulletin boards during 2000 and
2001 by a poster claiming to be an American military time traveler
from 2036. Titor made numerous vague and specific predictions
regarding calamitous events in 2004 and beyond, including a nuclear
war, none of which came true.

The IBM 5100, being a general purpose computing device had no
special hacking capabilities. It worked using the same principles
as any other computer.

A while back I read "Ball Lightning" by Cixin Liu.
This involved time travel, but only a few milliseconds back.
The author makes an interesting case for how this could be
useful.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Dan Espen
A while back I read "Ball Lightning" by Cixin Liu.
This involved time travel, but only a few milliseconds back.
The author makes an interesting case for how this could be
useful.

"Activate the Omega 13!"
-- Galaxy Quest

[Quadibloc]

Post by s***@gmail.com
Does this mean the IBM 5100 was capable of hacking into IBM mainframes, to gather information?

No. No more so than another IBM mainframe.

IBM wanted to offer BASIC and APL on the IBM 5100. It was a personal computer,
so it didn't have to run as fast as a big mainframe, and they were trying to
make something that they could sell at a reasonable price. They didn't quite
meet that goal.

So when they built their prototype, it had a very tiny hardware computer in it,
with two layers of microcode instead of just one required to make it run either
like a System/3 to run System/3 BASIC, or an IBM 1130 to run IBM 1130 APL.

The IBM 1130 was a smaller computer by IBM, and its APL was limited in features.
So they decided to take the risk of using a version of APL for the IBM 360
instead, but they kept that a secret to avoid people hacking the 5100 to get a
mainframe on the cheap - not because it could really facilitate hacking
mainframes.

John Savard

[John Levine]

Post by Quadibloc
So they decided to take the risk of using a version of APL for the IBM 360
instead, but they kept that a secret to avoid people hacking the 5100 to get a
mainframe on the cheap - not because it could really facilitate hacking
mainframes.

Not much chance of that -- the 360 simulator on the 5100 was just
barely enough to run the APL interpreter and didn't simulate the
supervisor or I/O system. It wasn't a secret at the time.

A decade later IBM came out with the XT/370, AT/370, and 7437, which
were 370 add-in cards for the PC XT, PC AT, and PS/2. They gave you
what looked like a single user VM/CMS that could run normal 370
applications. They were expensive and memory limited and sold poorly.

[Andrew Swallow]

On 07/04/2019 16:52, Quadibloc wrote:
{snip}

Post by Quadibloc
The IBM 1130 was a smaller computer by IBM, and its APL was limited in features.
So they decided to take the risk of using a version of APL for the IBM 360
instead, but they kept that a secret to avoid people hacking the 5100 to get a
mainframe on the cheap - not because it could really facilitate hacking
mainframes.

That was being too cleaver by half. Many tiny companies may wish to
calculate their pay roll on a cheap 360. IBM just ended up with the most
expensive personal computer running the slowest BASIC on the market.

[Quadibloc]

Post by Andrew Swallow
{snip}

Post by Quadibloc
The IBM 1130 was a smaller computer by IBM, and its APL was limited in features.
So they decided to take the risk of using a version of APL for the IBM 360
instead, but they kept that a secret to avoid people hacking the 5100 to get a
mainframe on the cheap - not because it could really facilitate hacking
mainframes.

That was being too cleaver by half. Many tiny companies may wish to
calculate their pay roll on a cheap 360. IBM just ended up with the most
expensive personal computer running the slowest BASIC on the market.

By the time they came out with the 5110, with a more subdued color scheme, and
marketed towards offices instead of the academic market... without making it a
"cheap 360" in the sense of adding more features to the emulation and porting an
OS to it, they could have gone in the direction you suggest in a tamer way...
just by porting RPG to it, say.

John Savard

[Christian Corti]

Post by Quadibloc
So they decided to take the risk of using a version of APL for the IBM 360
instead, but they kept that a secret to avoid people hacking the 5100 to get a
mainframe on the cheap - not because it could really facilitate hacking
mainframes.

On the 5110 you can run custom 360 programs from RWS (and custom /3
programs when in BASIC mode). The 5100 firmware is missing the switch
routines.

Christian

[Quadibloc]

Post by Christian Corti
On the 5110 you can run custom 360 programs from RWS (and custom /3
programs when in BASIC mode). The 5100 firmware is missing the switch
routines.

In that case, John Titor is looking for the wrong machine. If he needs a computer capable of running or translating old software, clearly he needs a
5110 and not a 5100!

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Christian Corti
On the 5110 you can run custom 360 programs from RWS (and custom /3
programs when in BASIC mode). The 5100 firmware is missing the switch
routines.

In that case, John Titor is looking for the wrong machine. If he needs a computer capable of running or translating old software, clearly he needs a
5110 and not a 5100!

I see I am behind the times. According to Wikipedia, John Titor claims to have succeeded in his quest - but the machine he brought Back to the
Future was an IBM 5120 rather than the original 5100 or even the 5110.

John Savard