Multiple Virtual Storage, more commonly called MVS, was the most commonly used operating system on the System/370 and System/390 IBM mainframe computers. IBM developed MVS, along with OS/VS1 and SVS, as a successor to OS/360. It is unrelated to IBM's other mainframe operating system lines, e.g., VSE, VM, TPF.
The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970 as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path for customers; this, plus improved performance, were the dominant themes of the product announcement. In September 1990, the System/370 line was replaced with the System/390.
MUSIC/SP was developed at McGill University in the 1970s from an early IBM time-sharing system called RAX. The system ran on IBM S/360, S/370, and 4300-series mainframe hardware, and offered novel features such as file access control and data compression. It was designed to allow academics and students to create and run their programs interactively on terminals, in an era when most mainframe computing was still being done from punched cards. Over the years, development continued and the system evolved to embrace email, the Internet and eventually the World Wide Web. At its peak in the late 1980s, there were over 250 universities, colleges and high school districts that used the system in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
In computing, channel I/O is a high-performance input/output (I/O) architecture that is implemented in various forms on a number of computer architectures, especially on mainframe computers. In the past, channels were generally implemented with custom devices, variously named channel, I/O processor, I/O controller, I/O synchronizer, or DMA controller.
The Task Control Block (TCB) is an instance of a Process control block in an IBM System/360 architecture and successors operating system environment.
In IBM mainframe operating systems from the OS/360 and successors line, a Unit Control Block (UCB) is a memory structure, or a control block, that describes any single input/output peripheral device (unit), or an exposure (alias), to the operating system. Certain data within the UCB also instructs the Input/Output Supervisor (IOS) to use certain closed subroutines in addition to normal IOS processing for additional physical device control.
An access method is a function of a mainframe operating system that enables access to data on disk, tape or other external devices. Access methods were present in several mainframe operating systems since the late 1950s, under a variety of names; the name access method was introduced in 1963 in the IBM OS/360 operating system. Access methods provide an application programming interface (API) for programmers to transfer data to or from device, and could be compared to device drivers in non-mainframe operating systems, but typically provide a greater level of functionality.
In IBM mainframe operating systems, basic partitioned access method (BPAM) is an access method for libraries, called partitioned datasets (PDSes) in IBM terminology. BPAM is used in OS/360, OS/VS2, MVS, z/OS, and others.
A Supervisor Call instruction (SVC) is a hardware instruction in the System/360 family of IBM mainframe computers up to contemporary zSeries used to cause an interrupt to request a service from the operating system. The system routine providing the service is called an SVC routine. SVC is a specific implementation of a system call.
In IBM mainframe operating systems, Execute Channel Program (EXCP) is a macro generating a system call, implemented as a Supervisor Call instruction, for low-level device access, where the programmer is responsible for providing a channel program—a list of device-specific commands (CCWs)—to be executed by I/O channels, control units and devices. EXCP for OS/360 and successors is more specifically described in the OS System Programmer's Guide.; EXCP for DOS/360 and successors is more specifically described in DOS Supervisor and I/O Macros. This article mostly reflects OS/360 through z/OS; some details are different for TOS/360 and DOS/360 through z/VSE.
OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, is a discontinued batch processing operating system developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964; it was influenced by the earlier IBSYS/IBJOB and Input/Output Control System (IOCS) packages for the IBM 7090/7094 and even more so by the PR155 Operating System for the IBM 1410/7010 processors. It was one of the earliest operating systems to require the computer hardware to include at least one direct access storage device.
A process is a program in execution. An integral part of any modern-day operating system (OS). The OS must allocate resources to processes, enable processes to share and exchange information, protect the resources of each process from other processes and enable synchronization among processes. To meet these requirements, the OS must maintain a data structure for each process, which describes the state and resource ownership of that process, and which enables the OS to exert control over each process.
In computing, input/output is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to perform an input or output operation.
In the original S/360 and S/370 architectures, each processor had its own set of I/O channels and addressed I/O devices with a 12-bit cuu address, containing a 4-bit channel number and an 8-bit unit (device) number to be sent on the channel bus in order to select the device; the operating system had to be configured to reflect the processor and cuu address for each device. The operating system had logic to queue pending I/O on each channel and to handle selection of alternate channels. Initiating an I/O to a channel on a different processor required causing a shoulder tap interrupt on the other processor so that it could initiate the I/O.
Input/Output Control System (IOCS) is any of several packages on early IBM entry-level and mainframe computers that provided low level access to records on peripheral equipment. IOCS provides functionality similar to File Control Processor (FCP) in RCA 3301 Realcom Operating System, GEFRC in GECOS and Record Management Services (RMS) in DEC VAX/VMS.
In MVS/370 and successor versions of IBM mainframe operating systems, Start Input/Output (STARTIO) is a macro instruction and a "branch entry" for low-level device access, where the programmer is responsible for providing a list of device-specific CCWs, that is, a channel program, to be executed by I/O channels, control units and devices and a number of "exits", several of which may be immediate returns to the Input/Output Supervisor (IOS). Invokers of STARTIO must be in supervisor mode and key 0. STARTIO interfaces directly with the IOS component of MVS.
In IBM mainframe operating systems, Execute Channel Program in Real Storage (EXCPVR) is a macro generating a system call, implemented as a Supervisor Call instruction, for low-level device access, where the programmer is responsible for providing a list of device-specific CCWs, that is, a channel program, to be executed by I/O channels, control units and devices. Additionally, the programmer is expected and required to ensure that the input/output data areas are in real storage and are "fixed", either prior to invoking EXCPVR or via the page fix appendage. EXCPVR can in some situations provide improved performance compared to EXCP.
The Input/Output Supervisor (IOS) is that portion of the control program in the IBM mainframe OS/360 and successors operating systems which issues the privileged I/O instructions and supervises the resulting I/O interruptions for any program which requests I/O device operations until the normal or abnormal conclusion of those operations.
A Service Request Block (SRB) is a data structure of MVS/370 and successor versions of IBM mainframe operating systems employed mainly, but not exclusively, by the Start Input/Output interface.
Attached Support Processor (ASP) was an implementation of loosely coupled multiprocessing for IBM's OS/360 operating system. IBM later changed the name to Asymmetrical multiProcessor but retained the acronym ASP.
