Overview Passing parameters to a program is a common practice when using and/or developing subroutines. The parameter communications protocol (API) can take different forms depending on established APIs or newly defined APIs. This post will focus on two types of parameter layouts encountered in a TSO / ISPF environment when invoking a program or command: Parameter layout used by TSO…
ISPF in MVS38J
Developer Productivity Developing computing systems require tools such as editors, compilers, data and test environments before distributing a beta and/or production product. On my MVS 38J system, I use two user-written editing facilities, RPF (Rob’s Programming Facility by Rob Prince) and RFE (Review Front End by Greg Price), which run under TSO. Both facilities are installed in the TK3 and…
Data Processing and TRS-80
During the 1978 year-end holiday season, the term DATA PROCESSING, COMPUTER SCIENCE and TRS-80 computers were highlights of this time frame as the personal computer era was at a growing and demanding stage with 8-bit processors (8080 and Z-80 processors) with CPU speeds of 2 MHz! As a computer science major college student, I worked at Radio Shack (remember those…
Calendar on ISPF Panel w MVS 3.8J – Part II
Overview In the previous post, the December 2018 calendar is displayed using one color, green, including an asterisk to indicate today’s date. As a hobbyist, you always want to spruce up displays – apply new features of a tool, ISPF. ___DECEMBER 2018____ S M T W T F S . . . . . . 1 2 3 4 5…
Calendar on ISPF Panel w MVS 3.8J
Overview Adding a calendar display field to a ISPF panel without a built-in function on your MVS 3.8J hobbyist system is a simple implementation using the AREA tag to define a dynamic area in ISPF 2.x! It is assumed the reader has basic working knowledge of TSO CLISTs and ISPF services. Let’s walk through a simple design brainstorm of a…
WRLDWTCH in MVS38J
Overview WRLDWTCH – World WATCH for MVS38J / Hercules(current version 0.9.00 2018-09-22) ** WRLDWTCH and ISPF Limitation ** Due to a DISPLAY element limitation in ISPF v2.2 when using a model 2 (24×80) terminal session, the display will fail and not display correctly. Other 3270 terminal modes display correctly.Due to the fixed display content of WRLDWTCH, no temporarily correction is…
Submitting JCL to MVS 3.8J
Preface (updated 2020-01-22) JCL (Job Control Language) decks are used to submit JOBs via a reader device or an online edit session for batch processing on the public domain OS, MVS 3.8J (MVS will be used to mean MVS 3.8J in this post). As a MVS 3.8J hobbyist / enthusiast, the previous statement is elementary and unequivocal. The purpose of…
Using ISPF Table Services in MVS 3.8J
Overview ISPF tables store organized data in virtual storage for temporary residency or DASD for permanent residency as a PDS member in the ISPTABL library. Table services are categorized as 1) table level – action impacting a table, 2) table row level – action impacting a table row, and 3) display level – impacting display of table rows. ISPF tables…
Enhance Printable Character Set for DOS/VS R34 PDUMP, DUMP, JDUMP Macros
Overview In DOS/VS R34, all printable characters were limited to upper-case, numbers, and select special characters as exercised by the DUMP service macros. The DOS/VS Assembler macros PDUMP, DUMP and JDUMP invoke various $$B transient phases to perform the work of printing register values, storage content and other partition/system information. Specifically, hex-to-character translation, a LOW-HIGH range table is searched to…
Calculating Test Scores
Since the inception of spreadsheet applications for the PC desktop computer, tabular reports are easy and quick to create including dynamic calculations (calculation performed in real-time). In my opinion, spreadsheets serve as the best “calculators” alternative when several data items and computations are a necessity. A spreadsheet cannot only perform simple dynamic calculator-type functions, but can incorporate formatting of cells…