New Hercules convert.

Folks,
I know this is silly, but I just wanted to share my enthusiasm.
After all these months of Watching others have fun, I just installed
Hercules 2.11a under CYGWIN on my 128Mb, 300MHz Pentium II IBM 600
laptop. The first time I IPLed MVS 3.8 successfully, I almost
dropped dead of a heart attack I was so excited. If I had died, I'm
sure my last words would have been something like, "Cool!" or "I just
don't believe I'm seeing this." I go all the way back to OS/360 MVT
R16, so MVS 3.8 even feels modern to me.
I'm sure that everyone who has tried it realizes this by now, but
but I'll still say it: In my humble opinion, Hercules is one of the
finest pieces of code ever to run on a PC or, for that matter, on any
platform. Now, I must take last year's bonus check and upgrade my
desktop machine to a fast P IV or something comparable and really
scream!
I've been dragging my laptop around at work (largish shop with
two 16Gb 9672-ZZ7s, three 16Gb 9672-Z57s and about 40 terabytes of
ESS DASD) to show Hercules to everyone who would appreciate it. At
first, no one who sees the master console believes that I'm not
connected, somehow, to one of our production LPARs. For most people,
I have to do a D A,L to prove it to them. TSO response time is
comparable to that I received when I was a Systems Programmer in the
'70s under VS/2 R2 on Rutgers University's 370/158.
I'm still not sure I believe it! The only one who isn't happy is
my wife, who can't believe that I'm staying up late fooling around
with a twenty plus year old operating system! I almost bought a used
158 with two strings of 3350s and a string of tapes for $5,000 about
ten years ago to get this. Now, I have it all, and I don't need a
motor generator, humongous air conditioner and thousand dollar a
month electric bills. Aside from the electric trains my parents got
me in 1953, this is the best toy I've ever been given, bar none.
Thanks Roger, Jan, Jay, Wolfgang et al for this incomparable gift.

Jeff Broido,
The Bomber

In accuracy, I just wanted to point out that you want money for it. Basic
difference. BIG difference.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter D. Ward [mailto:pdw@...]
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 08:19
To: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [hercules-390] New Hercules convert.

Jeff,

In Fairness, I Just wanted to point out you could have had this years ago by
using Flex-ES at http://www.funsoft.com Production quality and fast.

Regards,

Peter D. Ward
Fundamental Software
pdw@...
734-665-3520

Feb 14, 2001

Ted Rolle wrote:

> In accuracy, I just wanted to point out that you want money for it. Basic
> difference. BIG difference.

Ted,

I can't apologize for having costs to cover as we are just a small group of guys
who do Flex-ES as our "day job". Primarily we've stayed away from the hobby and
developer's market mainly because S/390 software licensing was a barrier for the
customer. Perhaps that will change in some fashion to offer greater flexibility
to the marketplace.

Peter

Different market segment, after all.
Besides, you have lights to keep on, kids to educate, retirement to plan
for...

I -- however -- owe you an apology for "shooting from the hip". Toes are
almost gone...

Ted

I can't apologize for having costs to cover as we are just a small group of
guys
who do Flex-ES as our "day job". Primarily we've stayed away from the hobby
and
developer's market mainly because S/390 software licensing was a barrier for
the
customer. Perhaps that will change in some fashion to offer greater
flexibility
to the marketplace.

On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 04:10:29PM -0000, jbroido@... wrote:
> I'm still not sure I believe it! The only one who isn't happy is
> my wife, who can't believe that I'm staying up late fooling around
> with a twenty plus year old operating system!

Thanks for the nice words...This is how I felt when MVT finally IPLed and
ran, and I still get a charge out of it when something else new runs.

--- In hercules-390@y..., Ted Rolle <trolle@u...> wrote:
> Besides, you have lights to keep on, kids to educate,
> retirement to plan for...

That's strange, so do I! Our friends at Funsoft should consider
themselves fortunate indeed that they are able to do it as a day
job. Some of us have to do a day job *as well*.

Plus, if we're going to start making comparisons, Flex was developed
by a team of developers over a 10 year period, funded by a
capitalized corporation. Hercules was capable of running VSE/ESA
after 6 months of work by a single developer with no fancy offices,
salesmen, CEO's with BMW's and share options, or funding of any
sort. 1 year further on, Hercules can run OS/390 2.10 and z/OS 1.1
in 31-bit mode, with 64-bit mode imminent, while Flex is still capped
at the 2.9 level.

I am sure Peter will correct me if I am wrong on any of these points.

Let's just remember that the amount of revenue we manage to generate
is not necessarily an accurate measure of our achievements (unfair
though that may be).

Roger Bowler

I agree about the flame war cautions, but Roger, who seems generally to be
an OK guy, is really off the mark on this one. His own development
intervals and that of FSI is so similar its almost uncanny, except that when
our guy did it from his den he had his day job AND his newborn sleeping on
his lap. (Keyboard placement was tough!) Not everything in the Valley is
VC-based, and ours is about as bootstrap as you can get. To assume
otherwise, and to assume that a CPU "level-set" is the metric of production
mainframe development capabilities, unfairly characterizes who we are and
what we are about.

If you want to put a face on bad-old FSI, start off by looking in the
mirror.

Peter

Roger Bowler wrote:

> That's strange, so do I! Our friends at Funsoft should consider
> themselves fortunate indeed that they are able to do it as a day
> job. Some of us have to do a day job *as well*.
>
> Plus, if we're going to start making comparisons, Flex was developed
> by a team of developers over a 10 year period, funded by a
> capitalized corporation. Hercules was capable of running VSE/ESA
> after 6 months of work by a single developer with no fancy offices,
> salesmen, CEO's with BMW's and share options, or funding of any
> sort. 1 year further on, Hercules can run OS/390 2.10 and z/OS 1.1
> in 31-bit mode, with 64-bit mode imminent, while Flex is still capped
> at the 2.9 level.
>
> I am sure Peter will correct me if I am wrong on any of these points.
>
> Let's just remember that the amount of revenue we manage to generate
> is not necessarily an accurate measure of our achievements (unfair
> though that may be).
>
> Roger Bowler
>
>
> Community email addresses:
> Post message: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com
> Subscribe: hercules-390-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
> Unsubscribe: hercules-390-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> List owner: hercules-390-owner@yahoogroups.com
>
> Files and archives at:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hercules-390
>
> Get the latest version of Hercules from:
> http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules

Feb 14, 2001.

Peter,
Yes, of course, and thanks for pointing it out. But years ago I didn't
have a PC which was up to the task and I couldn't have justified the cost of the
software just so I could play at home with an ancestor of the operating system I
use at work. Flex-ES, as you say in a later post, wasn't intended for the
hobbyist.

Bomber

>Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:19:28 -0500
>From: "Peter D. Ward" <pdw@...>
>Subject: Re: New Hercules convert.

>In Fairness, I Just wanted to point out you could have
>had this years ago by using Flex-ES <...snip...>

This isn't so much a competition - except, maybe, a friendly one - as it is
a contrast between two different ways of developing software. FSI did it the
old-fashioned way, and has built its business on that model. I would assume
they're doing well...after all, they're still in business. I would also
assume they're not resting on their laurels.

Hercules, OTOH, started off the same way - a guy in his garage
(figuratively) - but diverged; when Roger couldn't find a way to make it a
commercial product, he went open source. In the 16 months since the founding
of the hercules-390 mailing list, the package has attracted a large number
of contributors and a lot of development, and has become a very capable
package on its own. The Hercules community has also gotten older versions of
IBM OSes and programs located and made available, which is something that
benefits the Hercules community more than the FSI users' community.

I don't think the user communities overlap at this point. Many shops don't
even trust open source software on their IBM systems - how often do you hear
folks complaining that they can't use a CBT tape program because it's not
commercial? - and those shops would be even less likely to consider running
their whole operation on an open-source emulator. For those folks, FSI fills
a definite need. On the other hand, FSI's business model doesn't seem to
allow for free or low-cost personal use licensing. Peter Ward's told us that
they never considered that due to the cost of IBM systems software, and I
have no reason to believe otherwise. For folks that can't afford a
several-kilobuck FLEX-ES license, Hercules fits the bill nicely, as those
folks generally aren't running their business on the system, but instead are
using it for their own education or development purposes; if it breaks,
nobody's losing real money.

What we really have here is a classic demonstration of open source vs.
commercial software. Each approach has its advantages and its drawbacks. I
wish I could run FLEX-ES personally, but the fact that FSI doesn't offer
terms I can afford doesn't make them evil, just businessmen. I'd love to be
able to make a nice living out of doing Hercules, but I don't mind the
current situation, either, especially since it's having a couple of nice
effects at my job with Compaq. (I must add here that Compaq is in no way
explicitly funding my involvement with Hercules; the machine I'm using at
home is under a program available to any Compaq employee, I only do Hercules
at work when I have nothing better to do, and the SHARE trip is my one
conference a year.)

Some folks think open source will eventually do away with the market for
commercial software. I don't. I think there will always be a place for both.
There will, similarly, always be a place for both FLEX-ES and Hercules.