Talk:RSCS

Move?

User:George.McQuilken/RSCS → RSCS –

• New Item prepared in my user space George.McQuilken (talk) 13:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Request Removed. Thank you for your contributions. Unfortunately, creating new articles is beyond the scope of the Requested moves process. Please submit your request to Articles for Creation. You can do so by adding {{subst:AFC submission/submit}} to the top of the article. Feel free to contact me on my talk page with any questions. Happy editing. Cliff (talk) 20:14, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Connectionless

The statement "VNET was the first large-scale connectionless network" is rather strange, given that VNET did not use a datagram protocol as described in Connectionless communication. The use of dial access rather than just leased lines still entails a connection. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Not just between users

RSCS was the vehicle for submitting files from remote card readers, sending files to remote printers and sending files to remote card punches. I don't know the relevant dates. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

You're right, of course. I edited the paragraph, but it seems a bit unwieldly now. I was looking for a way to convey the information in a few words. It's a bit like trying to talk about the Unix file system when you have to include files and devices on local or remote systems. If you want to have a try at it, swing away. Peter Flass (talk) 23:44, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Questions for discussion

While we're having a discussion, what do you (all) think of something like this?

RSCS was designed to transfer spooled "punch" files (card images of 80 characters), and "print" files (print lines up to 255[?-- is this correct?] characters). It was extended to transmit arbitrary files through a format called netdata that transmitted the file as a stream of 255 byte records together with control information that allowed it to be reconstructed.

Of course the 3800 expanded the record size allowed.

When was RSCS introduced? Was it a part of VM/370 from the beginning? Probably should also say something about RSCS's use of static routes.Peter Flass (talk) 00:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Melinda's VM and the VM Community says (pp. 61) that the RSCS Component of VM/370 was first released in VM/370 Release 2 PLC 05, in January of 1975. But that's not the RSCS most of us knew and loved, and which this article is about. That RSCS is the RSCS Networking Program Product, which started it's public life as the VM/370 Networking PRPQ, not-so-coincidentally abbreviated "VNET". Melinda covers it nicely (pp. 75-79). RossPatterson (talk) 10:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If the free RSCS is out of scope then the introduction and history should reflect that, and the title should be changed as well. Something like

Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem or RSCS is a subsystem ("virtual machine" in VM terminology) of IBM's VM/370 operating system, which accepts files transmitted to it from local or remote systems, terminals and users and transmits them to destination local or remote terminals, users and systems. RSCS also transmits commands and messages among users and systems. This article does not refer to the original RSCS, but rather to the versions based on the VM/370 Networking PRPQ

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

protocol?

What is the underlying protocol for RSCS? Is it, for example, Binary_Synchronous_Communications or HDLC or something else? Gah4 (talk) 05:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Bisync, HASP multileaving, although IBM may have added SDLC later. It obviously supports other flavors of BISYNC for communication with, e.g. a 2780.Peter Flass (talk) 12:55, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The free version in Virtual Machine Facility supported BSC, including HASP Multileaving. IBM added support for Channel-to-channel adapters (CTCAs), SNA and eventually TCP/IP. Although IBM still supports older protocols, communication between RSCS and workstations on current systems normally uses SNA or TCP/IP, as does NJE. between z/VM systems and between z/VM and other systems. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Notes

References

ARPANET?

I'm confused by the presence of a comparison with ARPANET. ARPANET is more analogous to BSC or SNA than it is to RSCS. There might be some point to comparing RSCS to applications using ARPANET, e.g., e-mail, network news, FTP. RSCS is oriented towards transferring complete files, including jobs, rather than individual records or packets. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)