Honeywell-Bull     CII-Honeywell-Bull     Bull

Operating System GCOS-64 GCOS-7

1967-200x

 

INTERACTIVE MODES OF OPERATION
 

 

Initial deliveries of GCOS systems were for batch processing operation that was the main objective of business data processing served by Honeywell and Honeywell-Bull. Engineers by designing the above features have been objected that they were more ambitious than the market required. However the market changed progressively during the 1970s. The traditional way of planned batch processing was to be replaced by real time transaction processing. Such a change was already perceptible in the mid 1960s, but had been matched with ad-hoc solutions on systems like GE-400 or 600 and IBM S/360. The challenge was to incorporate those new requirements in a general-purpose operating system.

Interactive Operator Facility

Around 1980, there was a requirement to build limited "time-sharing" facilities within GCOS. The goal was essentially to provide interactive debugging facilities to programmers and also to port some large applications needing interactions. There were alternative solutions to the one what was chosen. TDS subsystem was already available, but the nature of TP operations was specific and too restrictive: specific programming conventions, limited working set of TP's etc. Building a new subsystem has already done with IBM TSO or GCOS III TSS. It was preferred to extent the operator facilities and the JCL to build the interactive facilities and use the standard system for the rest of the environment (programming facilities, dispatching...) So the IOF environment could flexible ad infinitum (almost).

The architectural implementation was to allocate a process group (one J) per user and spin-off J as required. The total number of J was limited to 255, that number being an architectural limit to the number of IOF users. Later slight modifications to the architecture introduced by Japanese remove somewhat that limitations. Anyway, the number of IOF users rarely exceeded 10 on a GCOS7 system.

JCL that already had some powerful capabilities was extended to be used interactively and renamed GCL (generalized control language) and facilities built-in JCL but what had been of limited use (for GCOSes compatibility reasons) were revived, giving to GCL most of capabilities of a shell language. However, the heritage of a batch language restricted the primitives to the commands already available. Instead of developing features like regular expressions and pipes, it was chosen to augment GCL by a MENU processor offering a formatted menu to the user and including default-options for most of the parameters. The Menu processor was run in a listener thread allocated to each display terminal. That thread passed a GCL stream for interpretation by the job scheduler server; if the GCL included the launching of an interpreting processor, such as the editor or BASIC, or an user interactive program, the remote terminal was allocated to that processor until its termination. IOF keeps listening for a BREAK signal that could interrupt the operation of the interactive program if the operator wished to get out from a loop or another faulty behavior.

Another layer was added to the console mode of IOF operation, initially available. It was a menu handler based on VIP display alphanumeric terminals and allowing application programmer to modify the terminal interface.  A default system menu was substituted to the command interface.

IOF was the environment for several programming languages: BASIC, APL. The environment of those languages was quite different from standard programming languages. There was an interactive editor/parser followed that spun off an execution job step (the byte code interpreter).

IOF was used also with an text editor used essentially for entering programming languages source code and the documentation (the latter during the period where PCs were not yet a common toll (in the early 1980s). The editor was complemented by a formatter named WordPro that work in a way similar to troff.

Although, Bull made an extensive usage of IOF for developing HPL programs for GCOS itself, specific languages processors were developed for IOF. Most of them featured an interpretive execution.
BASIC was the first language implemented in the late 1970s. As soon as a "line" was entered, it was parsed and translated in byte code. 
APL was also implemented under IOF in a similar environment. Special keyboards were supported. APL was used by some standard applications developed by software houses and ported from IBM VM/370 environment. Such combination was consuming much CPU resources and an attempt to microprogram an APL interpreter was undertaken, but finally cancelled. A few application programs were written in APL by a French software house.
A LISP interpreter was also written under GCOS. While the interpreter itself did not require special features, the "artificial intelligence" mood of the early 1980s cause several projects to consider LISP as a hub for many interactive applications (one of which being the famous "automatic configurator" publicized by DEC and seen as "the" solution for assembling complex systems. The configurator was written in KOOL that generated large LISP data set, regrouping in the same set "procedures" and "user data". GCOS offered a large 4MB segment for storing that text, but processing a dozen of "configurators" in parallel lead to an excessive working set in the system (in terms of paging misses as TLB flushing). GCOS had nothing to solve that challenge, as did many other systems, probably at the origin of some discredit for AI languages.

IOF lacks the interactive features invented in workstations and X-Windows became popular too late to have influenced GCOS operating system. GCOS never lad and would have been to be deeply modified to be a windows systems. The market of GCOS after having been in batch processing definitively moved to a role of data base / transaction processing server.-

Transaction Driven System

The basic architectural constructs of GCOS were not directly matching the requirements of transaction processing. The number of terminals (several thousands) connected to such an application were to excess the architectural dimensions. The overhead implied by the basic GCOS model (i.e. associating a job step to each transaction) had already proven unacceptable in GCOS III TP-II. 
In most transaction systems operating under a general-purpose operating system, like GCOS III, GCOS 8 or IBM OS, a transactional subsystem reimplementing most functions of the OS was implemented and originally developed by sales support (e.g. Customer Information Control System). Instead, GCOS TDS was developed by engineering and took advantage of the basic OS and of provisions reserved for that purpose from the initial design. 

The TDS Transaction Driven System model was gather a library of application specific commands that could be "called" by users (almost exclusively clerks dialoguing with their own customers by telephone or at a office window). The eventual purpose of those commands was to update databases and/optionally to deliver a printed ticket and receipt to the customer. The database was use to retrieve information, to create new information records and to update existing data. Frequently, in addition to the dialog with on-line customers, other transactions or printouts could be triggered following thresholds recorded on the database, or on timing events. The transaction commands were named TPR Transaction Processing Routines. They were stored in binary format as shared modules in a library. 
TPR were written in a special COBOL dialect. They were preprocessed, compiled and linked as "shared modules" type 2 segments -using an option of the static linker-. They were processed as re-entrant modules to be executed in a thread initiated at each "transaction". The loading time by the dynamic linker was minimal. A cache of loaded TPRs was maintained so no additional I/O was needed for most frequent transactions.

The working area of the transaction thread was the stack, but in addition some data segments (protected by their read-only status or by semaphores) could be specified by the programmer. A TPR could SEND/RECEIVE additional messages to the clerk and could accessed one or several records of one or several databases. There was no specific restriction in data base usage and several access methods could be used in a transaction. The TPR however should issue COMMITment statements when it was ready to free the databases and must TERMINATE in relinquishing all other resources not stored in the file system.

TDS uses the GCOS mechanism in mapping its own architecture concepts on the GCOS mechanisms. 
First terminals are not permanently on-line with the GCOS system. They are ignored until they log-in.
Second, terminals are not architectural entities but are only source and destination of messages. So, a transaction could involve one or several terminals. Even a logged-in terminal has just been made known to the TDS subsystem. Its user may send messages.
Third, when the terminal user sends a message specify it begins a transaction, by sending a command recognized as such by the TDS overseer, a "virtual process" is created within the file system for that transaction.
Fourth, this "virtual process" is mapped on one of the threads of the TDS threads pool. This mapping may be immediate if there are available frees entries in the pool or it might be delayed.
Fifth, the mapping remains effective until the thread had to suspend itself because long duration periods such as exchange of messages with the terminal (that impact relatively long transmission times and longer user "think time"). In those case, the virtual process is unmapped, its context is stored in the file system (TDS swap file) until the terminal answer is received. A programmable time-out may cancel the transaction.
Sixth, the transaction may just read the data base (s) and the termination (normal or caused by time-out) has no special operation to do. Alternatively it could alter the contents of the database. Modifications of the database are journalized by copying the concerned block before modification and storing a copy of the modified record (after journal).
The purpose of the before journal is to be able to cancel the modification if the transaction terminates before a COMMITment had been taken for the update. The after journal has the purpose to reconstruct the data base if a problem (hardware failure, system crash) require to back up the data base before restarting the processing of transactions.
In fact, the "before-journal" was frequently replaced (at customer wish) by the mechanism of "differed updates" where the database was not updated before the end of the transaction. That mechanism, in liaison with the control intervals buffer pool and a General Access Control (GAC) implemented simultaneously, was provided a data base cache with all coherency mechanisms needed for an efficient processing of transaction. When the Oracle server was included in TDS, this cache became distributed part in GCOS, part in the Oracle database, and possibly also in cooperative TP.
Among events that may cause the termination of transactions is the mutual interlocking of transactions in concomitant accesses to several records. The strategy applied in that case is implemented in the GAC server.
The after journal was giving a way to reconstruct the database in the event of a system malfunction. Another solution was optionally used at customer wish that consisted to keep a log of transaction request and to replay them after a crash. A logging of messages was often done in a TP system for arbitrating conflicts between end-users and clerks. However, the simultaneous processing of transactions would not guarantee the same result for on-line processing and for batched logged transactions; replaying logged transactions messages might cause problems when end-user show guaranteed output of transactions that are not identical to the definitive update of the database. So the journalized file system was the more recommended solution.
Journals and the swapping file (containing transaction context) were the object of special care against hardware failures. Header and Trailer time stamps were used to guarantee the integrity of those files.
Dual copies of databases were introduced essentially to decrease the recovery time, in case of media failures, and secondarily to improve the latency time of media accesses. Dual copy did not replace the existing mechanisms of differed updates and after journals that remained needed for a 24/7 continuous operation.


The behavior of a transaction system depends upon a right planning of the transactions programs. Whereas, batch applications and IOF applications may accept runaway programs, it is not the case for a normal operational transaction system. However, more protection is offered by GCOS than in competition systems where all running transactions operate in the same address space. All accesses to the databases and all modifications of the work files of the subsystem are monitored by TDS procedures. The execution of a runaway program inside a transaction is not likely to alter the integrity of the database by other transactions and even may not be noticeable to other transaction users. For instance, using a transaction program recursively is likely to cause a stack overflow in the private thread space of the transaction or to be subject to a transaction time-out. The multi-threading of the TDS is pre-emptive and a transaction program cannot monopolize a processor.

Although, the initial specifications called for a single TDS subsystem in a GCOS system, there was no barrier to operate several systems with the same or different databases with the same or different access rights in the same system.

When DSA was introduced in the early 1980s, the following options were taken for transaction processing. Terminals not attended by clerks were not connected to the network. Attended terminals had an open session to the TDS server after the clerk had logged-in and was recognized by its terminal-id and its password. The network processor had no knowledge of the transaction concept and was totally transparent to the transaction protocols and commitments.
When cooperative TP was considered, an issue was raised about opening "communications sessions" for each distributed transaction, as the "connection" network architecture would have required. The overhead penalty was high enough to justify the establishment of permanent sessions between distributed Transaction systems and to use them as a pool of data pipes on top of each CTP protocols would apply, realizing an "emulation" of "connection-less" protocols. TDS did not support directly "very long transactions" that would require that the context of the end-user be transported to another terminal or have to be maintained over days. Specific protocols to insure the cancellation of commitments in the database have to established at application level (for instance to separating the concept of reservation and buying or by programming cancellation TPR, knowing how to undo commitments). The model where the end-user would directly perform transaction from its own PC (using cookies) had not yet taken place in the 1980s and in the era of mobile computing, that model had itself its limits.

In the mid 1980s, transactions that could be distributed between different TP systems were introduced using CTP -cooperative transaction processing- protocol closely mapped on IBM SNA LU-6.2 (using DSA or DSA mapped SNA networks). Distributed TP between GCOS TDS and IBM CICS was becoming a reality. 

A common characteristic of the TP model exemplified by TDS was that the transaction system kept the state of the whole transaction on behalf of the users. This was an heritage of the era of dumb terminals (Teletypes and display terminals without programming capability). When PCs were substituted to those dumb terminals, it subsisted a lack of confidence to store enterprise level important data in the memory of PCs. There were many customers that jeopardize the integrity of their databases by moving unconsciously to the client-server model where the state of the transactions was distributed, partly in the user workstations partly in the server (s). The centralized state model (in conjunction with CTP protocols) was rugged and robust, however, it presented a bottleneck when a transaction processing application became open to millions of Internet users. It also had problems to accommodate very long duration transactions or hierarchies of transactions.

Data Base server

While Data Management has been handled as a service operating in the thread environment of its caller (the TDS threads for transaction processing), the port of Oracle by Bull engineers in the early 1980s mark a change in the architecture. Essentially, to minimize changes in Oracle source code, Oracle port was implemented as a separate J server (a specialized process group) receiving SQL request from other client process groups (batch, IOF or TDS).

Those implementations were helping the introduction of a large number of processors. The Auriga hardware architecture was characterized by sharing a L2 cache within a group of 4 processors. While that feature was masked to programmers and to the users, it has a significant performances impact introducing a degradation due to the address space migration between L2 caches. In the mid-1990s, GCOS systems were sold in attributing a different price to the processors, decreasing the price for more computation incentive applications such as Oracle and Buffer management servers, keeping them high for standard GCOS applications.

Open 7 System Facility (UNIX environment)

From 1975 to 1982, GCOS was THE operating system of CII-Honeywell-Bull and its responsible had a tendency to ignore two important factors that will change the world of software: the advent of the Personal Computer and the penetration of UNIX an operating system developed essentially outside the industry in non-profit organizations. The new Bull management was not at all biased in favor of CII-HB product lines and attempted to convert the companies to the world of Open Systems. It became obvious that opening the world of GCOS software would allow to integrate new applications at a low cost, specially those developed for a direct interaction of the user and his (or her) program. The IOF environment required a high porting cost for applications developers who had develop them in mini-computer environment or other incompatible systems.

Several solutions to offer a UNIX compatible environment were considered: a software solution and a hardware solution where a UNIX supported processor such as Motorola 68000 would have been attached to the GCOS system, as the DPS-6 Front-end processor has already been. The hardware solution raises the issue of providing scalability across the whole range of DPS-7000. Its implementation was initiated in the early 1990s on GCOS-8 systems and was adopted only in the late 1990s on GCOS7 (Diane project).
The software solution consisting to build a UNIX environment the way emulators were integrated inside GCOS was the first initiated. It received few attention because Bull management wanted to orient customers towards genuine UNIX systems. Its perception was limited to the port of UNIX typical application, the most important being the TCP/IP stack.

In fact it was a port of UNIX to the DPS-7000 instruction set. This was done using the GNU C compiler with the DPS-7000 assembler, generating native code. The UNIX supervisor ported to the native decor was linked to service function that were calls to the GCOS services providing an access to the UNIX resources files AND to the GCOS resources. This port of UNIX was multi-threaded using the micro-kernel support and could take advantage from the DPS-7000 multi-processor, not only to have UNIX and GCOS coexist, but even to run simultaneously several UNIX processes.

Open 7, as the UNIX port was called, used the services of GCOS operating system as emulators did, sharing devices and system resources (timer, input and output). GCOS allocated to Unix a large GCOS file that was mounted as a UNIX file system. All devices I/O were handled by GCOS. UNIX benefited from the shared buffer pool of GCOS and did not need its own peripheral. 
But, it was able to controls its own front-end processor (a real UNIX system) through a port on the Ethernet (or FDDI) local network and to perform TCP/IP networking on the same hardware resources as the GCOS system. Reversibly, Open 7 implemented a TCP/IP server for the account of GCOS7 programs.

When it was planned -around 1995-to discontinue the manufacturing of more performing DPS-7000 processor, this software solution lost its interest and a return to the hardware solution was re-envisioned, using the Intel platform instead of the IBM/Motorola's one. The TCP/IP stack was moved to the native GCOS and was the base of the interconnection of the two worlds (by RPC instead of direct calls a sit was the case in Open 7). 

Finally a DPS-7000 emulator (Diane 2) was developed on IA-32 and IA-64 hardware architectures. Windows NT was used as a loader and a supervisor for the GCOS applications that finally stayed with most of GCOS code on top of the most popular architecture.

 

© 2001-2003 Jean Bellec