Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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zooterkin said:
//STEP1 EXEC PGM=PROG1
//SYSIN DD DATA,DLM='##'
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To quote our friends at Wikipedia:

OS JCL is undeniably complex and has been described as "user hostile". As one instructional book on JCL asked, "Why do even sophisticated programmers hesitate when it comes to Job Control Language?" The book stated that many programmers either copied control cards without really understanding what they did, or "believed the prevalent rumors that JCL was horrible, and only 'die-hard' computer-types ever understood it" and handed the task of figuring out the JCL statements to someone else. Such an attitude could be found in programming language textbooks, which preferred to focus on the language itself and not how programs in it were run. As one Fortran IV textbook said when listing possible error messages from the WATFOR compiler: "Have you been so foolish as to try to write your own 'DD' system control cards? Cease and desist forthwith; run, do not walk, for help."
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Those were the days! Just don't remind me of Partitioned Data Sets.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
To quote our friends at Wikipedia:



Those were the days! Just don't remind me of Partitioned Data Sets.
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I had to learn it for my first job in IT, in the industrial year of my degree, in the computer department of a County Council. Learning took the form of watching VHS tapes produced, IIRC, by a company called Deltak, and presented by two clean-living lecturers who took it in turns to speak while the other looked at the one speaking. That was forty years ago, and, to be honest, the only part I can remember was the "//SYSIN DD DATA".
 
arthwollipot said:
I'd like to be able to receive popup notifications without the annoying bong sound, but otherwise it's working really well for us, particularly since it was implemented in a rush at the beginning of the lockdown.
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MS had added some extra control over its notifications in recent builds of Win 10. Does Teams override that?

I've managed to pare down a lot of notifications I didn't care about while keeping the ones I wanted.

Well ... mostly.
 
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zooterkin said:
I had to learn it for my first job in IT, in the industrial year of my degree, in the computer department of a County Council. Learning took the form of watching VHS tapes produced, IIRC, by a company called Deltak, and presented by two clean-living lecturers who took it in turns to speak while the other looked at the one speaking. That was forty years ago, and, to be honest, the only part I can remember was the "//SYSIN DD DATA".
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I could still write JCL from scratch, LRECLs and all. I wrote a bunch of JCL generators in Rexx over the years and it stuck.
The data sets that annoyed me were VSAM KSDSs because I had to repair so many that other teams broke because they didn't understand the relation between the VTOC and the VVDS. Volume table of contents which listed all the on a disk and the VSAM Volume Data Set which described the VSAM data sets and their extents (the extra bits of file created as the files grew).
 
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Blue Bubble said:
Code: 
//S1  EXEC  PGM=IEBGENER

//S2  EXEC  PGM=IEFBR14

//S3  EXEC  PGM=IEHMOVE


Bonus point for anyone who can remember what's behind the name "IEFBR14" :)
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It looks familiar, but, as I said, I don't remember any of the details as I only used it very briefly, a lifetime ago, so it didn't stick. I didn't work on IBM mainframes in any subsequent jobs (partly due to working at rival manufacturers). I did a lot of odds and ends in that year, too, using an online console (something very new at the time), and a feasibility study into using VisiCalc on an Apple II for a particular project.
 
BR to the address stored in register 14 which is the return address so the program does nothing. Used to allocate new datasets etc. There’s a story that it initially had 3 bugs, returning on reg 15 was one Iirc, and it didn’t do a DS 0H to align the PSW on a half word.

Ex MVS sysprog.
 
Wudang said:
BR to the address stored in register 14 which is the return address so the program does nothing. Used to allocate new datasets etc. There’s a story that it initially had 3 bugs, returning on reg 15 was one Iirc, and it didn’t do a DS 0H to align the PSW on a half word.

Ex MVS sysprog.
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Yep, and yep re the bugs !


Another ex-MVS and VM/CMS sysprog (1978-1982) :boxedin:
 
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