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The P/370 Environment
Personal Computing and the 370 Instruction Set
The personal computer (PC) was originally
introduced to provide a single user computer
resource on the desktop.
Since its introduction, its speed has increased
and its hardware cost has dropped dramatically.
It is now at the point that it makes sense to run
multiple users concurrently on a single PC.
The software to support multiple users on a single
computer has reached a highly
developed state on the mainframe platform.
Such systems as
MUSIC/SP,
VM and VSE
have been in use for years providing such support.
These systems use preemptive multi-tasking, virtual storage,
32 bit instruction
sets and storage protection to enable the efficient use of a
shared computer.
The IBM System/370 instruction set is used by these systems
to perform its tasks.
Over the years many applications have been
developed for this environment and they
too use the 370 instruction set.
This 370 instruction set is not supported by
the standard processors that run on personal computers.
However, a P/370 card
can be added to the personal computer to give it this capability.
This addition gives you a second powerful
processor and additional 16 MB of storage
on your personal computer.
Personal/370 Option
The IBM Personal/370 (P/370) is an option card that can be
added to a PS/2 personal
computer to enable the running operating systems such as
MUSIC/SP,
VM and VSE at
the same time as running personal computer software
running under OS/2, DOS and
Windows.
This same card can be added to an IBM RS/6000
computer to enable the running operating systems such as
MUSIC/SP,
VM, and VSE at
the same time as running operating systems such as IBM's AIX
system.
The P/370 is a complete implementation of the IBM S/370
Processor including a floating
point co-processor on a single adapter card.
It supports 4K page frames used by
MUSIC/SP,
VM, MVS, and VSE.
It also contains 16 million
bytes of storage to be used by programs using the 370 instructions.
This is in
addition to the storage that is used by applications running under
the PS/2 or RS/6000 processor.
This P/370 card enables the personal
computer to support applications that would
normally only run in a host computing
environment such as on an ES/9000 mainframe.
In addition it allows multiple concurrent
users to run simultaneously on the computer.
These users can be connected to the personal computer via dial-in,
local area network or world-wide connections to
networks such as the Internet.
370 Channel Option
The IBM 370 Channel card is another card that can be
added to provide direct connectivity
of many I/O devices that would normally only
connect to a mainframe channel.
Examples include tape drives such as the IBM 3400
and 3480 series, IBM 3270 local control
units such as the IBM 3x74 and the IBM 7171 protocol converter.
These devices are
connected to this adapter card using the standard bus and
tag cables used to connect
the control units to mainframe systems.
This channel card will not support mainframe disks devices.
This is not a problem
as normally you would want to use the
hard disk drives available on a personal
computer platform instead of these devices.
This channel adapter features a built-in 64K buffer.
Benefits of Running a P/370 Environment
Key benefits of running in a P/370 environment on an IBM PS/2 are:
- Takes advantage of the lower cost of personal computer
hardware such as the costs of RAM and disk storage.
- Supports many users on a hardware configuration
that does not require special computer
room temperature controls or special power requirements.
- Can use a small uninterruptible power
supply (UPS) to protect from the effects of
power outages, power glitches, etc.
This can be done at a small fraction of the
costs of a UPS for a mainframe computer.
- Can distribute the computing power closer
to the users to reduce communications costs.
- Can run systems such as
MUSIC/SP,
VM, VSE and the applications that run under them
that would normally require mainframe configurations.
This makes it an ideal
platform for "right-sizing" without the headaches of
conversion that would normally
be involved in porting to other architectures.
- Can use personal computer backup programs and hardware
devices to backup the information on the disks.
Can attach many mainframe I/O devices to the PC
platform with the addition of the 370 channel card.
- Can work with RAID disk technology to provide
data redundancy and reliability.
This enables your system to continue to operate
if a single disk drive fails and
allows a replacement to be installed without a system outage.
- Runs in an IBM PS/2 configuration that IBM
includes 3-year on-site warranty service
included in the purchase price.
- The single hardware configuration supports most
of the commonly used PC and mainframe
software, and can run them concurrently.
This includes OS/2, DOS, and Microsoft
Windows applications as well as many
mainframe applications and systems.
P/370 Card Availability
The IBM P/370 card is available through IBM's OEM channel only.
This means that sites cannot directly purchase the card from IBM.
There are several companies that will supply the card as part
of an application solution.
For example, McGill Systems offers the card as part of a
MUSIC/SP
package.
Here is a
list
of some of the companies that offer packaged
solutions using the P/370 card.
Return to McGill Systems Inc. Home Page
This page last updated October 29, 1995.