[Info-vax] VSI roadmap

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2023-08-24 kl. 13:23, skrev David Jones:
> On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 5:59:38 AM UTC-4, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> "Punched cards"... I get the feeling you have never worked with punched
>> cards...
>>
> 
> I don't know about Simon, but I used punch cards for my PL/1 class on a
> mainframe. VMS seems to have dropped INPSMB.EXE somewhere along
> the way, so I don't think it can start jobs from a card reader any more.
> 
> Into the early 2000s, however, I did write tools to process a file, distributed on
> CD-ROM, that was literally 80 column card images (distribution on cards stopped
> in 1986).  Look up National Bureau of Standards AIDS83 format.

It was (maybe still is) interesting on the IBM MVS systems. They once 
started as a "punched card input/line printer output" only systems.

Today (or at least 15 years ago), when you "submitted" a batch job from the 
TSP/ISPF editor, it sent the file to a device called INTRDR, spelled out as 
the "internal card reader". So, for the core OS, the batch job was still 
running from a stack of punched cards, but simulated, so to speak...

And b.t.w, this is also partly so in DCL with the way inline data can be 
coded in a DCL batch job with the $DECK and $EOD commands. And why not:

$ help job

JOB

      Identifies the beginning of a batch job submitted through a card
      reader. Each batch job submitted through the system card reader
      must be preceded by a JOB card.

$ help eoj

EOJ

      Marks the end of a batch job submitted through a card reader.

No idea what happens if you try these with the SUBMIT command... :-)