|===>>  Is a new MAINFRAME O/S in the works at IBM ?!?!


Mail from YORKTOWN received 11-Dec-79 23:33:43-EST
Date: 11 Dec 1979 2333-EST
From: Watson at YORKTOWN  (T. J. Watson, Jr.)
Subject: new operating system

===  ======   ===      ===
 =    =    =   ===    ===
 =    =====    ====  ====
 =    =    =   ==  ==  ==
===  ======   ===      ===
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Data Processing Division                        Date: January 30, 1979

                        PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCEMENT

New Operating System

Because so many users have asked for an operating system of even greater
capability than VM, IBM announces the Virtual Universe Operating System
-
OS/VU.

Running under OS/VU, the individual user appears to have not merely a
machine of his own, but an entire universe of his own, in which he can
set up and take down his own programs, data sets, systems networks,
personnel, and planetary systems.  He need only specify the universe he
desires, and the OS/VU system generation program (IEHGOD) does the rest.
This program will reside in SYS1.GODLIB.  The minimum time for this
function is 6 days of activity and 1 day of review.  In conjunction with
OS/VU, all system utilities have been replaced by one program
(IEHPROPHET) which will reside in SYS1.MESSIAH.  This program has no
parms or control cards as it knows what you want to do when it is
executed.

Naturally, the user must have attained a certain degree of
sophistication in the data processing field if an efficient utilization
of OS/VU is to be achieved.  Frequent calls to non-resident galaxies,
for instance, can lead to unexpected delays in the execution of a job.
Although IBM, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, The United States, is
working on a program to upgrade the speed of light and thus reduce the
overhead of extraterrestrial and metadimensional paging, users must be
careful for the present to stay within the laws of physics.  IBM must
charge an additional fee for violations.  

OS/VU will run on any IBM x0xx equipped with Extended WARP Feature.
Rental is twenty million dollars per cpu/nanosecond.  

Microcode assist will be available for all odd-numbered processors
to allow the use of non-contiguous CPU clock times.  This feature will
be a prerequisite for the implementation of the Rutgers University
virtual date package.

Users should be aware that IBM plans to migrate all existing systems and
hardware to OS/VU as soon as our engineers effect one output that is
(conceptually) error-free.  This will give us a base to develop an even
more powerful operating system, target date 2001, designated "Virtual
Reality".  OS/VR is planned to enable the user to migrate to totally
unreal universes.  To aid the user in identifying the difference between
"Virtual Reality" and "Real Reality", a file containing a linear
arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now
will be established.  Its name will be SYS1.est.


For more information, contact your IBM data processing representative.
