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From: "Stephen Fuld" <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ancient OS history, ARM is sort of channeling the IBM 360
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2024 04:33:11 -0000 (UTC)
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Sat, 29 Jun 2024 18:22:04 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
> 
> > ... more often than not locate I/O is faster and easier.
> 
> Given all the caveats and restrictions, “easier” is not how I would 
> describe it.

Again, it depends.  For COBOL, you didn't have to specify anything.
The compiler set up everything for you for you, and it "just worked".


> 
> But perhaps we’re talking at cross-purposes. If Mitch did his TSS and
> PL/I stuff in the 1970s, while you’re talking about the 1960s, then
> that could explain it. By the 1970s, CPU/RAM speeds had improved to
> the point where copying records a few hundred bytes at a time between
> buffers was not the performance bottleneck; disk I/O was.


Yes, but given multiprogramming, even in the 1970s, you would typically
have several batch programs running at the same time, so during waits
for I/O, another program could use the CPU.  But using the CPU to move
records meant it couldn't be doing anything else at the same time.



-- 
 - Stephen Fuld 
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)