🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at 8:09:21 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:



> this was in period (late 70s/early 80s) where 3270 terminals were part
> of fall budget cycle and each one required VP-level sign-off. Then there
> was a rapidly spreading rumor that some of the corporate executive
> committee members were using email ... and all of a sudden every middle
> manager in the company had to have 3270 terminal on their desk (even if
> they never actually used them, spending the day with the vm370 login
> screen or possibly PROFS menu being burned into screen) ... pre-empting
> annual 3270 terminal deliveries justified for development projects.

When PCs came out, every manager wanted one for the prestige
of it, and also wanted the better models (faster chip).  The 
people who actually did work got stuck with the lesser models.
So a manager would have a nice AT that never got touched, while
the clerk pounding away all day had the XT.

As to terminals, I think most places started off with a 
terminal room where the terminals were shared among a large
staff of programmers.  Then as the cost dropped, more and
more programmers got them.  For us, it was in 1989 that 
finally every programmer got a terminal.

One welcome terminal feature (I think provided by the controller)
was the ability to get multiple sessions and easily toggle between
them.  This way a programmer could look at his source code and
then the execution on CICS.

(Another welcome feature was software that allowed one to step
through execution of a CICS program, being able to look at results
of each line and of all the fields.  We had both the IBM product
and the one from an independent vendor.)


> other trivia: PROFS group had collecting some number of internal
> applications (including telephone books) and wrapping MENUs around
> them. They had taken very early version of VMSG for the email
> client. When the VMSG tried to offer them a much enhanced version, the
> PROFS group attempted to get him fired (since they had already claimed
> credit for everyting).  Things quieted down when VMSG author
> demonstrated that every PROFS email had his initials in non-displayed
> field (after that the VMSG author only shared source with me and one
> other person).

Our corporate phone book was also on PROFS.  Most useful.

I liked PROFS, and used it until it was unplugged.  Others liked
the PC email packages.

It's sad to read of intra-department squabbles at IBM, but it
seems from the IBM Early Computer history that this is nothing
new.  Back in the early 1950s there was rivalry between the
Endicott and Poughkeepsie labs.  The S/360 development had a
lot of sharp differences of opinion on the direction to go.

Some CEO's believe conflict in an organization is healthy and
spurs people onward.  Watson Jr said in his memoirs that he
liked to purposely shake things up in the company.  Personally,
I think a company functions better as a united team and conflicting
are best worked out at a low level when possible.