Talk:Input/Output Control System

I'm soliciting input from anyone who has IOCS documentation for IOCS other than 7070/72/74 and 7040/44/90/94, or who has links to IOCS documentation for any IBM processors. Similarly, I'd appreciate any references documenting the historical ties between IOCS and the latter BOS/360, DOS/360, OS/360 and TSS/360.

I'd also appreciate guidance on whether to provide separate links for essentially identical processors, or to simply give one link for the family as I have currently done. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 22:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 15:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

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User:Chatul/Input/Output Control System → Input/Output Control System — new article Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 03:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Level of detail?

I'm expanding the IOCS description to show sample code. Some IOCS macro-instruction calls run to dozens of lines, and my current plan is to not show everything lest it be TMI. Is that reasonable, or should I go ahead and provide the longer examples? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 23:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Be short, and examples aren't always needed. See WP:NOT--we don't want it very long. —fetch·comms 02:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:05, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Wiki formatting for code?

I was under the impression that surrounding a block of text with an HTML code tag pair would cause it to be displayed as-is. Instead, it is justified:

line 1 line 2

Should I be using pre instead for code samples? Or are there wiki templates for properly rendering code? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:01, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. —fetch·comms 02:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

<pre> also turns off Wiki formatting:

line 1 ''line 1 italic text'' line 2 ''line 2 italic text''

instead of the intended

line 1 line 1 italic text

line 2 line 2 italic text

Is there a better way to request a monopitch font and turn off justification while still being able to use Wiki formatting? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Use the <code></code> tags. The "line 1" and "line 2" above are wrapped in those tags, and wiki-formatting still works. As for justification, I don't think you can turn that off. Code on most (if not all) WP articles is justified. --ANowlin: talk 13:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The <code></code> tags were what I started with. They′re useless for languages in which white space is significant. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:26, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

This question will get a better response at the WP:REFDESK. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 13:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:05, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

Nice work getting this articles entered. I know it is a lot of hard work and you are on the right track toward following the overall Wikipedia style. There are some general formatting and layout improvements you can make. Check out WP:LAYOUT and also periodically review Wikipedia:Writing better articles for reminders of what makes a good article.

I'm not sure why you left in the strikeout text on the main page. That should be removed. Typically if you want to discuss removing text you do it on the talk page first. If you are confident you want to remove it but want to talk about it you can move the text to the talk page.

Keep up the good work. § Music Sorter § (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The strikeout was because I had moved part of the text and wasn't quite sure what to do with the rest. Depending on what reviewer suggest, I might delete it, unmark it or cannibalize the text for expansion elsewhere.

Thanks. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Self-published sources tag

I removed it -- too many clicks in Twinkle. – ukexpat (talk) 16:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I added a number of 3rd part references, which should suffice to establish notability. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Preferred style for rendering sample code?

I noticed that some other articles use a wikitable for sample code. Would that be preferable here? E.g.

Label	Opcode	Operand
GENERAL	DIOCS	general parameters
TAPE	DIOCS	D729,tape parameters
DISK	DIOCS	D1301,disk parameters
END	DIOCS

instead of

GENERAL   DIOCSgeneral parameters
TAPE      DIOCSD729,tape parameters
DISK      DIOCSD1301,disk parameters
END       DIOCS

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

DIOCS

I suspect one of the functions of the DIOCS or equivalent macros was to generate EXTERNs for the required subroutines, further assuming that IOCS was modular, including only code as required. If someone knows this would be good to add. If not I will try to research it later, but it might be a while. Peter Flass (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind that IBM used the blanket term IOCS for several very different facilities. The examples in the article are mostly for 7070 IOCS, where the defining macros generated tailored code. Any text describing modularity should distinguish among

• 705
• 1401/1440/1460
• 1410/7010
• 7040/7044
• 7070/7072/7074
• 7090/7094
• DOS/360 and successors Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:36, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Why eliminate discussion of records?

How is it not relevant that IOCS dealt with discrete record rather than undifferentiated byte streams? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:54, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion the functions would be the same in either case - provide an API for applications to control peripherals. When I made my recent edit it no longer seemed to fit, so I dropped it. If you feel it's important information, add it back. Peter Flass (talk) 21:17, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I reverted your last edit because it duplicated text that was already there.

Computers in the 1950s and 1960s often did not have operating systems in the modern sense. Application programs called IOCS routines in a resident monitor or included macro instructions that expanded to IOCS routines

If you decide you want more detail, keep in mind that 1401 and 7070 IOCS were quite common, and were not part of any monitor system. On the other end, DOS/360 was common in the late 1960s, and it was a full fledged operating system. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't notice the duplication. I think that detail is enough for now. Peter Flass (talk) 01:52, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Should sample code use code or syntaxhighlight?

I put <code></code> tags around my sample IOCS code. user:WOSlinker changed them to <syntaxhighlight></syntaxhighlight> and user:Cedar101 removed them entirely. Which tags are appropriate, and is there any justification for removing them? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I vote for "code." "syntaxhighlight" seems more appropriate for HLLs. Peter Flass (talk) 15:20, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

See MOS:CODE. <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight> doesn't support highlighting of IOCS code and |lang= is mandatory. I vote for indenting simply. -- Cedar101 (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

• surrounding a short, inline code sample in <code> tags
• surrounding a block of code in <pre> or <syntaxhighlight lang="x"> tags
• indenting each line of a block of code by one or more spaces (unlike the above method, this allows you to use basic text formatting like italic, bold, etc. in the sample)

BIOS?

How is BIOS related to IOCS? IOCS is not available when you start the system but is loaded with the application or operating system. IOCS deals with asynchronous buffering, logical records, labels and other things that BIOS knows not of. And IOCS does not provide, e.g., POST, keyboard/display control. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 03:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Obviously they’re not the same thing, but I was thinking about the BIOS routines that perform I/O functions, such as keyboard or async communications. Peter Flass (talk) 13:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

IOCS does neither keyboard nor serial communication (either async or sync); it deals with card readers and punches, disk drives, printers and tape drives. Disk access is in terms of records, not characters or sectors. I can't think of a single BIOS facility that exists in IOCS. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:52, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Correct, given the differences in I/O devices over time, but the *idea* is the same—provide the user with a simplified interface to I/O devices. BIOS also does a lot of other things with regard to booting. Maybe CP/M BIOS is an even better example, since it wasn’t ROM-resident, but was code which could be tailored and re-compiled by the user. I’d like to see others weigh in on this discussion, if there are others. Peter Flass (talk) 13:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not just differences in I/O devices

• Some PCs have tape devices, but BIOS doesn't support it
• IOCS doesn't support serial communications even on machines with the hardware.
• BIOS operates at a low level; it's more like IOEX than like IOCS
  1. IOCS does read ahead and write behind
  2. IOCS handles logical records
  3. IOCS does label checking
• IOCS doesn't handle keyboards even on machines that have them, e.g., 7070

I agree, it would be desirable for others to weigh in. There are some relevant references in the article. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:25, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

SPOOL program - reference or footnote

Currently the article treats the name and number of a program as a reference rather than as a footnote. There is a reference for the manual documenting it. Should the program identification be a footnote instead? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Notes

References