IBM 8100 DPPX
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Distributed Processing Programming Executive was an operating system introduced by IBM, pre-installed on selected computer models in the 80s.
[edit] Brief history
- It was first introduced on the IBM 8100 model, which was released in 1978. It is also adopted as the operating system for its successor model, the IBM 8150 in 1983.
- 1987 saw the release of Distributed Processing Programming Executive System Product Release 4, also known as DPPX/SP.
- In 1986, IBM decided to cease the IBM 8100 architecture to consolidate its hardware and software families.
- In 1988, they released DPPX/370 which ran on the ES/9370 processors (an S/370 model).
- By the end of June 1997, DPPX/370 was officially retired.
[edit] Architecture
DPPX was written in PL/DS, an PL/I-derived systems programming language, similar to the PL/S systems programming language used for MVS and VM. Part of the DPPX/370 development process was developing a PL/DS 2 language, which was based on PL/DS, but with changes necessitated by the changed instruction set. (PL/DS, like PL/S, is a high-level language which encourages significant use of inline assembly.)
The user interfaces (e.g., command line) of DPPX where very clean and easy to use, the syntax of the commands, the whole concept and ideas of DPPX looked very straightforward and consistent (command line, online help, etc.), and each and every aspect was documented online and in a rich set of well organized printed manuals. A DPPX system could be operated trouly operator-less and remote (hence the Distributed part of the Name, Distributed Programming Processing Executive). Programs could be written in modern dialects of COBOL, dialogs could be developed interactively and so on. Perhaps there where some similarities with the AS/400/OS/400-system that days. However, IMHO DPPX really was too good to drop it from the market...
