David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 05:31:24PM -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:On Oct 31, 2008, at 16:58, David Cantrell <dcantrell redhat com> wrote:IBM filed a feature request against RHEL 6.0 to include a sample punch card reader script on the install media for s390x. Since it's a rhel6 request, we should get those in to Fedora earlier rather than later, so here's the patWow. If only I thought you were making it up. In any case, looks okayIf only I were. As far as "what about the past" requests go, the mainframe certainly leads the pack.
Why, do you suppose, that PCs begin with a display that's 80 characters wide, and not 90 or 120 (120 matches a lot of old impact printers, it's a logical size)?
The card reader is a very simple thing to program (at least, while it's working), and historically could be found in any mainframe configuration.
The hardware (and I don't mean necessarily firmware) could issue a simple read from a device, read a few bytes and jump into the code just loaded.
The code just loaded is responsible for reading the rest of the loader.The same loader that loads from the card reader can also load from tape, so a deck of cards could be copied to tape and IPLed in the same way.
-- Cheers John -- spambait 1aaaaaaa coco merseine nu Z1aaaaaaa coco merseine nu -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-)