DEBE?

[gareth evans]

Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?

There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

[Peter Flass]

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

Of course, it “Does Everything but Eat.”

[Peter Flass]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

Of course, it “Does Everything but Eat.”

DEBE was a “do everything” program, like DITTO. one was for OS and one for
DOS, but I can’t recall which was which. They were both invaluable
programs for things like media conversion - tape to print, etc., but, as I
recall, they did a lot more. Every shop probably had a copy.

[gareth evans]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

Of course, it “Does Everything but Eat.”

DEBE was a “do everything” program, like DITTO. one was for OS and one for
DOS, but I can’t recall which was which. They were both invaluable
programs for things like media conversion - tape to print, etc., but, as I
recall, they did a lot more. Every shop probably had a copy.

A bit like DEC's PIP then?

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Peter Flass
DEBE was a “do everything” program, like DITTO. one was for OS and one for
DOS, but I can’t recall which was which. They were both invaluable
programs for things like media conversion - tape to print, etc., but, as I
recall, they did a lot more. Every shop probably had a copy.

similar was LLMPS from lincoln labs ... had a small (stand-alone)
multi-task monitor that could concurrently do a number of different
things ... was in the SHARE contribution library ... along with
documentation (originally done for 360/40)

folklore is that Univ of Michigan started out scaffolded MTS off of
LLMPS (i.e. michigan terminal system, virtual memory implementation
originally done for 360/67).

8. Did anything of LLMPS remain as part of UMMPS?
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/discussions/anecdotes-comments-observations/8didanythingofllmpsremainaspartofummps
8.1: Some information about LLMPS
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/discussions/anecdotes-comments-observations/8-1someinformationaboutllmps

some old archived posts mentionin LLMPS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#15 unit record & other controllers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#23 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#25 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#26 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#15 S/360 operating systems geneaology

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Anne & Lynn Wheeler
8. Did anything of LLMPS remain as part of UMMPS?
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/discussions/anecdotes-comments-observations/8didanythingofllmpsremainaspartofummps
8.1: Some information about LLMPS
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/discussions/anecdotes-comments-observations/8-1someinformationaboutllmps

this has reference to (later?) LLMPS documentation at bitsavers, dtic,
and & mts archive
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/documentation

topic drift warning ...

lots of installations were sold 360/67 for tss/360 ... but got early
360s to work with pending availability of 360/67 with virtual memory.
... however tss/360 never really came to production fruition and lots of
360/67s ran as 360/65 with os/360 ... but some places like UofM and
Stanford wrote their own virtual memory operating systems for 360/67.

Cambridge Science Center got a 360/40 and added hardware modifications
to support virtual memory and developed (virtual machine) CP40/CMS
... when 360/67 became available, CP40/CMS morphs into CP67/CMS
(precursor to VM370/CMS).

MIT Lincoln Labs got a duplex (two processor) 360/67 for tss/360 ... but
became the 1st place (after cambridge) to install cp67.

I had taken two semester hr intro to computers/fortran, the univ was
running 709 tape->tape with 1401 front end for unit record. At the end
of the semester the got a 360/30 replacing the 1401 as part of
transition to 360/67 replacing the 709/1401 and I got a job to
reimplement 1401 MPIO (somewhat like DEBE) in 360 assembler (although
360/30 could directly run MPIO in 1401 emulation) ... I got to design
and implement my own monitor, device drivers, interrupt handlers, error
recovery, storage management etc. ... eventually 2000 cards with
assembler option for generating stand-alone (w/BPS loader) or under
os/360 (DCB macros). Trivia: stand alone version took 30mins to
assemble, os/360 version took an hr with each DCB macros taking 5mins
each.

I was then hired fulltime to be responsible of OS/360 and the 360/67
spent all its time as 360/65 ... univ. shutdown datacenter from 8am sat
to 8am mon & I had the place dedicated to myself for 48hrs
straight. Last week Jan1968, three people came out from cambridge to
install cp67 (1st place after lincoln labs) ... but it was mostly
restricted to my playing with it on weekends.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

This is one of the most a.f.c-worthy threads in a while.
DEBE is a utility you'd run from a mainframe console to
do all sorts of handy things like copy files, position
tapes, etc. It stands for "Does Everything But Eat".

I got hold of source code for a similar utility that
someone wrote for the Univac 9400, and made some enhancements.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

This is one of the most a.f.c-worthy threads in a while.
DEBE is a utility you'd run from a mainframe console to
do all sorts of handy things like copy files, position
tapes, etc. It stands for "Does Everything But Eat".
I got hold of source code for a similar utility that
someone wrote for the Univac 9400, and made some enhancements.

It would be nice to have the documentation for DEBE (and Ditto) I think
they were both Type-3 (contributed) programs, and there doesn’t seem to be
doc for most Type-3s. Does anyone have the source?

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by Peter Flass
It would be nice to have the documentation for DEBE (and Ditto) I think
they were both Type-3 (contributed) programs, and there doesn’t seem to be
doc for most Type-3s. Does anyone have the source?

I don't have the source, but Bitsavers at least has a catalog
entry for it (three, actually).

DEBE - UTILITIES PROGRAM

Author: Mr. L. G. DeFrance

DIRECT TECHNICAL INQUIRIES TO:
Mr. L. G. DeFrance
IBM Corporation
109 S. Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60606

...

PROGRAMMING SYSTEMS - Written as a single module in IBM
BPS Asserbler language (8K tape). Up to 10,000 byte record
lengths are accepted by the tape utilities excepting the
card to tape and tape to card which are limited to 80 byte
records. Tape to tape, tape to printer (Hexadecimal or
BCD), card to card, card to printer, write tapemark, and
four tape positioning routines are the remaining functions.

[...]

It also says

DOCUMENTATION - None.

There are also two other systems for TOS/DOS and DOS (only).

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

This is one of the most a.f.c-worthy threads in a while.
DEBE is a utility you'd run from a mainframe console to
do all sorts of handy things like copy files, position
tapes, etc. It stands for "Does Everything But Eat".
I got hold of source code for a similar utility that
someone wrote for the Univac 9400, and made some enhancements.

It would be nice to have the documentation for DEBE (and Ditto) I think
they were both Type-3 (contributed) programs, and there doesn’t seem to
be doc for most Type-3s. Does anyone have the source?

Being the pack rat that I am, I probably have an assembly listing
of my version (based on a version of Ditto, I believe). It would
probably be faster for me to type it in than look for a 9-track
tape and a drive to read it on...

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by gareth evans
Sorry to be obtuse, but what is DEBE and what does it do?
There's some discussion about it's origin upon googling
but nothing to satisfy one's curiosity!

This is one of the most a.f.c-worthy threads in a while.
DEBE is a utility you'd run from a mainframe console to
do all sorts of handy things like copy files, position
tapes, etc. It stands for "Does Everything But Eat".
I got hold of source code for a similar utility that
someone wrote for the Univac 9400, and made some enhancements.

It would be nice to have the documentation for DEBE (and Ditto) I think
they were both Type-3 (contributed) programs, and there doesn’t seem to
be doc for most Type-3s. Does anyone have the source?

Being the pack rat that I am, I probably have an assembly listing
of my version (based on a version of Ditto, I believe). It would
probably be faster for me to type it in than look for a 9-track
tape and a drive to read it on...

Or scan it in.