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From: rbowman <bowman@montana.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM 5120 (was: Re: Find "py.exe" & copy it to "Python" (flat, no
 extension).)
Date: 27 Jun 2024 07:05:16 GMT
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On 27 Jun 2024 05:56:43 GMT, vallor wrote:

> I think this is the system I first has a paying job programming.  The
> system I remember had 3 "partitions" that could run 3 different programs
> simultaneously, and came with a DE/RPG II compiler, which I used to
> write software for a Farmers Insurance agent.

Definitely not the 5120. It had two languages available, BASIC and APL 
with a toggle to select one or the other. The keyboard had the necessary 
APL squiggles if you went that route. There was a debugger that you could 
use to dig around. IBM did offer 'BRADS', which was sort of a dumbed down 
report generator. The BRADS software itself supposedly couldn't be 
accessed but the 'protection' consisted of one byte at the beginning of 
the floppy. The degugger could read and write to disk so it didn't take 
long to figure out the difference between the user created programs that 
could be accessed and the BRADS code that couldn't and zero out the byte. 

It used a PALM processor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PALM_processor

I don't know for sure but that may have been the beginning of the end for 
that sort of architecture. The follow on System/23 had a similar form as 
the 5120 but used an 8085. It was also in the 20k range with all the bells 
and whistles and afaik only had the BASIC ROM and not APL. 

The PC was a 5150. I don't know why they didn't retire the 51xx series 
since it had nothing to do with the 5100/5110/5120. The System/23 series 
was 53xx and has a lot more PC DNA. There were other factors at the time 
but the familiarity with the 8085 was a plus for using the 8088. I don't 
know why they licensed Microsoft BASIC rather than going with their own. 
The midrange System/34 was primarily set up for RPG II but did offer 
BASIC.