From: Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>
To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@lemis.com>
Cc: COFF <coff@tuhs.org>
Subject: [COFF] Re: What Happened to Interdata?
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2023 12:18:19 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABH=_VQQ9HZbAK-tqBbiU6dWMH9mif50ZWZ8u-PE+mu3bc00QQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230728033818.GG92211@eureka.lemis.com>
On 7/27/23, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
>
> My guess was that binary compatibility
> wasn't a big issue in those days, since nearly all applications
> software was written only for specific installations. And of course
> licensing issues would preclude running IBM OS on the other machines.
That certainly was true for S/360 in the 1960s. IBM bundled its
software offerings with its hardware. If you leased an IBM S/360, you
got the development toolset (compilers, link editor, assembler) for
free, as well as utilities such as sort/merge. Source code for the OS
and the utilities was readily available in microfiche form. There
were very few thrid-party software offerings. One that sticks in my
mind is SyncSort, a sort/merge utility that far outperformed IBM's
sort/merge program. If you were a big S/360 data center doing really
serious, high-volume stuff, you used Storage Technology tape drives
and SyncSort.
That all changed when a 1969 antitrust complaint caused IBM to
unbundle its software from hardware. Before, you got the software for
free as part of your hardware lease. After, you had to buy a separate
license for each software product.
-Paul W.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2023-07-28 16:18 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-07-27 19:16 Noel Chiappa
2023-07-27 20:33 ` Paul Winalski
2023-07-28 3:38 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2023-07-28 16:18 ` Paul Winalski [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2023-07-25 23:23 [COFF] " segaloco via COFF
2023-07-26 14:38 ` [COFF] " Paul Winalski
2023-07-26 17:39 ` segaloco via COFF
2023-07-27 3:43 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2023-07-27 16:30 ` Paul Winalski
2023-08-05 1:17 ` scj
2023-08-05 1:46 ` segaloco via COFF
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