RE: Re: GCIC Fullscreen applications - is NOT KICKS or CICS

Mike
 
Not trying to replace KICKS -- Which from what I can tell from the site is a
very complete user interface. or in any way compare what I am doing with
that.
BUT to be fair - KICKS is not CICS and what I am doing is not even close to
either of them.
 
This is VM not MVS - 
However there are similarities of functionality.
 
This application is real MULTI-USER Muli tasking -  not 15 cms machines
sharing a file - So if I loosely used the words "CICS LIKE" - I really think
it is "CICS LIKE" with no disrespect to the other programs.
 
Of course there no real documentention or API. And I doubt that there ever
will be.
 
But it is "CICS LIKE" in that I do have MACROS which do all the screen IO
and all the MAPPING and which are probably simpler to use than BMS - (for an
assembler programmer) 
For years I have used them in REAL CICS production environments in place of
BMS
There are  a whole slew of macros to do WAITS and ENQUES storage control
routines subtask starting etc etc. teminal IO - RUN CMS commands and many
more functions liike
iinter task communication etc.etc. I also have the base for a batch program
or other cms user to connect to this paltform to perform tasks Like VSAM IO
etc. 
 
If I didn't have all these tools  How do you think I could have written the
editor in under 4 weeks.
And half of that time was rmembering  what these tools do. (non documented)
 
I haven't played for more than a few hours with any Version of VM for more
than 15 years up until last month,
 
I have stated many times that the actual code of the Editor/Browser
application is maybe 10% of the environment.Probably less - 
I wanted to develop the Environment and the editor just happend to be an
available needed application,
 
The multitasking was a challenge for this version of VM, and it is real
multitasking with SIO and WAIT, enqueing of resources, complete wait states
and interrupt handling for all of the terminal devices. an Internal storage
control mechanism ( internal getmains and free mains) and lots of other
goodies that are part of a multitasking environment. all under a vanilla CMS
umbrella.
 
The idea of writing it was a challenge 
This is actually much more than I needed for the editor browser which could
just as as easily, or even much more easily have been written as a single
user single thread application.
 
I can see that KICKS has place as a Real application platform - as does CICS
of course.
 
And I  am definitely not planning to take this application to Nth level. I
will not live that long even with modern medicine.
But both KICKS and CICS  need an OS  - MVS DOS etc. 
 
Both are complicated Operating systems and really need a System programmer
that understands them.
This is CMS which means VM only - anyboody can learn that - that was the
challenge I set for myself. 
 
Hecules has been around a long time and it strikes me as incomprehensable
that no one ever decided to wrtie a FULL SCREEN EDITOR  for the VM/370.
I have been following Hercules for several years and I never attempted to
work with VM/370 because it was just to much trouble to be worth it.
(because of no editor).
There are  plenty of other OS's availble
 
Even if only the system programmers use it - and a smattering of new users
who just find Hercules  for the frst time and dont get discouraged because
there is no editor, I will have accomplihed the goal I set.
And if somebody wants to use the platform  and tecnology to develop a
multi-tasking multi user interface that would be fine with me and I'd love
to help,but that is not my goal.
Just the feasibility of doing it.
 
In the old days these Os's actually cost money if you could get the same
result for an application without buying the OS/MVS/DOS etc  that would make
sense
No disresepect intended to either KICKS or CICS by saying "CICS LIKE"
 
Roc

  _____  

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
mfnoel
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 09:37 
To: [email protected]
Subject: [H390-VM] Re: GCIC Fullscreen applications


  

Rocky,

I applaud your efforts to get full screen applications working in the 6pk
environment, but I have to wonder about some of your 'CICS' ideas.

CICS isn't just vsam file access. Much more important is it's very well
documented, widely used and understood API for writing code ( including
screen management and vsam file access code ). I think very few CICS
programmers would say something had CICS functionality if it lacked the API.
It certainly wouldn't allow any portablity with other CICS systems.

KICKS is TSO based, so it's single user like CMS is single user. That
doesn't mean that KICKS users can't share resources - like vsam files. They
absolutely can. I've demonstrated over 250 KICKS users, running on the mvs
turnkey under hercules, simultaneously accessing shared vsam files with sub
second response time; and I've posted instructions ( see
http://home.gci.net/~mike-noel/KICKS/KooKbooK/KooKbooK.htm ) to enable
anyone to replicate my results. 

My point is that a so called 'single user' application can do absolutely
everything that a 'multi user' application does. Often far more reliably.

I hope you continue your focus on GCIC as full screen support. I think
you'll find no shortage of good signle user apps for it. How about a full
screen source level debugger?

Mike

--- In [email protected] <mailto:H390-VM%40yahoogroups.com> , "Rocky"
<rocsystems@...> wrote:
...

> You can put vsam files in this applicaton and you will have the basis for
a real multitasking machine under CMS. Sort of a Mini-CICS environement with
real mult-tasking as opposed to other alternatives which look like CICS but
are single user.
> 
> The editor was just a good starting point for me - Nice transactinon and
lots of user participaton because we all need it. But I also have the
framework now for a complete multi-tasking environment under VM-6. We can
write any application we want in full screen - put a vsam file behind it,
and connect form the WEB - Hey is that CICS functionality or not?
...