EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED! There is a New VS, a revolutionary advance beyond traditional VS hardware. It brings the VS Operating System and all VS application software to Linux on Dell PowerEdge and IBM xSeries servers with 100% binary compatibility. NO PROGRAM CONVERSION. NO DATA CONVERSION.
Read about it here:
Original writeup:
If you don’t already know what a Wang VS is, it may be because you have recently taken a position in which you are responsible for a VS system presently in operation. This is the most common reason today why people unfamiliar with the VS try to learn something about it.
The key things you need to know, whether or not you read further, are these:
- Wang is still in business and maintains VS systems (still true in 2007, though as Getronics since 1999)
- The VS is still a viable system, still manufactured
- Your VS is a small mainframe with robust capabilities
- Your VS may be an older model in need of upgrade
- All VS models delivered after 1987 can be Year 2000 upgraded
- The Year 2000 OS is free of charge to Wang Maintenance customers
- Older systems can be upgraded to newer models to be Y2K-capable
- All VS models run essentially the same software
- Upgrading the OS is usually not a big deal
The VS in a nutshell
Take a look at the VS Family Portrait.
The VS is a line of small mainframe computers designed and manufactured by Wang Laboratories, Inc. The first, the VS80, was released in 1977, and was rated to serve up to 32 users. The largest, the VS18950, was released in 1999, and can support more than 1,000 users. The latest, the smaller VS6700 line, was released in May, 2000. At the smaller end are PC-size VS models that are 100% software compatible with the large models, comfortably handle from 16 to 256 users and are very economical to operate. All VS models since 1988 use SCSI disks and tapes, and all Wang mass storage devices are industry standard.
Yes, these are proprietary systems, and yes, they still survive despite plans of many users to replace them. In fact, Wang continues to sell new VS systems in excess of its forecasts, to the amazement of everyone who isn’t intimately acquainted with the reasons for this phenomenon.
Wang is still in business
Contrary to popular rumors, Wang did not go out of business. Wang did file for bankruptcy protection in August, 1992, but emerged in 1993 as a strong, debt-free player that has built itself back to about where it was at its zenith of the 1980’s — with more than $3 billion in revenues (counting the Olivetti Olsy acquisition).
NOTE: In 1999 Wang was acquired by Getronics, N.V. of The Netherlands. The new company continues to support and maintain the VS as of 2003.
The VS is still a viable system
Although the VS is no longer Wang’s principal business product, Wang has continued to engineer and offer new products, including new VS models, for the 10,000-plus VS systems in use around the world. New VS models were introduced in 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000. Price/performance ratios of VS systems have been improving dramatically since 1992 as Wang has been selling into a tougher market and has had to deliver more computing power for the dollar even in its existing market.
NOTE: Post-Y2K the VS can no longer be said to be viable except for customers who already own them, like them, and prefer to continue to run them rather than face the costs and uncertainties of moving critical applications to new platforms.
WRONG! In 2005 a New VS gives new life to VS applications and a new lease on life to VS sites willing to upgrade.
As more systems become interconnected by “universal solvent” protocols like TCP/IP, platform differences are becoming less important, and mainframe-class platforms are finding new utility value for their comprehensive data processing and job management capabilities.
VS systems with high maintenance costs and/or problems are probably severely overdue for upgrade, not conversion. One of the strange consequences of the very long lifetime of the VS line is that more than a few customers have run old VS models and old mass storage devices long past their design and practical lifetimes. For reasons that baffle me, the ability of a VS to run for 10, 15 or 20 years and for Wang to have kept it running for that length of time are often seen as negatives, and the cost and outdated performance are seen as justifications for “getting rid of the Wang.” Frankly, that is one of the most stupid, nitwit management views I’ve run across in 38 years of working with computers. It’s like saying one has to get rid of a 15-year-old Chevrolet car and move to a Ford because the Chevy is old, slow, and expensive to run. That would only be plausible if GM had made no new cars in the last 15 years. They have, and Wang has been making new, faster, 100% compatible VS models continually since the year after the first one was introduced.
NOTE: We have probably seen the last new VS that will ever be produced — the VS6700 family, released in 2000. Price/performance and operating-cost/performance have now fallen so far behind those of other platforms that a case can no longer be made for the survival of the VS except in rare circumstances.
WRONG! 2005 bring us a New VS, from a cooperative agreement between Getronics and TransVirtual Systems. The New VS runs in Linux on Dell and IBM servers and is 100% binary compatible with previous VS models. The VS OS IPLs and runs, and applications run, all without modification. There is ZERO program conversion and ZERO data conversion. Performance ranges up to fully twice the speed of the VS18950 and continues to advance.
The VS is a small mainframe
Before you let the size of the box or the age of the model you have fool you, understand this: The VS is from the Big Iron world. If your model is too old or too slow, wheel in a larger one, unplug the disks and other peripherals and plug them into the new VS. Depending on your current model, you could get as much as a 63-fold increase in processing power. On a more modest scale, do you have 30, 50, 100 users and slow response times? That’s a piece of cake! Models now run up to and past 1,000-user capacity.
The VS is a data processing workhorse. Like the IBM 360/370/390, it was designed to efficiently run compiled COBOL. Much of a COBOL program compiles concisely into machine instructions that closely mirror the COBOL source code, because the machine was built to do almost everything in hardware that COBOL programs call upon it to do. It supports variable-length packed decimal arithmetic and string field operations at the machine level. Most of its competition consists of processors that are particularly bad at doing data processing operations.
NOTE: What has changed is that modern processors run at speeds up to and beyond 50 times the speed of the fastest VS processor, the VS18950 released in 1999. It is now easy to replace a VS with much greater processing capacity at a very low price. It is now even possible to run VS emulation at speeds greater than the fastest real VS.
AND IT HAS BEEN DONE! The New VS, released in 2005, runs VS software at up to fully twice the speed of the VS18950 with ZERO CONVERSION.
The VS is also a wonderfully efficient interactive system. Anything that can be run in “batch” mode can also be run in interactive mode, too, by the way. VS systems have been doing online interactive order entry, inventory control, accounting, insurance rating, closed-loop manufacturing control and a host of other real-world applications since the early 1980’s — since the time when unix was a toy in search of credibility, before PCs, before LANs. To this day, many unix applications flounder in a world in which there is no standard for PC F-keys, something that would make most VS users chuckle. The VS may have the strongest standard and tradition for the display and use of function keys in the world today, whether on native VS terminals or PCs. The VS probably is the most memory-efficient of all multi-user systems in use today. The first VS, the VS80, handled up to 32 users and scores of devices in 256KB or 512KB of main memory. That’s KB, not MB.
NOTE: All still mostly true, but increasingly irrelevant. Modern memory and processors are now relatively inexpensive, and the look and feel of the VS may be retained in unix in the form of COBOL ReSource.
THERE ARE NOW TWO OPTIONS: The New VS for 100% binary compatibility, and COBOL ReSource for speed.
Your VS may need an upgrade
For reasons I won’t belabor here, many VS systems have been kept running way past their prime. Why? Primarily because it could be done. The result, though, taken years forward to today, is often that the processor is underpowered and the peripheral devices, particularly mass storage, are slow, of low capacity, expensive to maintain, and far short of today’s standards of reliability. None of that is Wang’s fault, unless you wish to blame Wang for failing to high-pressure their customers to buy newer equipment during all that time. More often it is the customer’s fault for leaving well enough alone and allowing a system to become out of date. Unfortunately, this is aggravated by another common customer problem — high staff turnover and poor or nonexistent training, which cause the loss of knowledge in the organization about its computing assets. Fortunately, since the VS is not the problem, and because there are ample upgrade paths, an old VS can be levered up into present time and become a useful, reliable component of an organization’s computing repertoire. If it is the core system of the business, it can be brought up to date and function as well today as its predecessor did when it was young.
NOTE: While it may still be the most effective course for some older VS sites to simply move up to a more modern model of VS, thereby avoiding all migration issues, costs and risks associated with moving to a new platform, VS prices are still high, licenses are still non-transferrable, and it’s no longer clear that future support for the VS will last long enough for a VS upgrade to have time to pay for itself.
THERE IS NOW AN UPGRADE PATH FROM THE LEGACY VS: The New VS, running in Linux on Dell and IBM servers, offers 100% binary compatibility and ZERO CONVERSION.
The VS is Year 2000 capable
All models first delivered after 1987 are supported by the Year 2000 OS, version 7.53. This includes the VS300, delivered in 1985. Older models such as VS85 and 100, and small models such as VS5/15/25/45, 65, etc. must be upgraded to a more recent VS model, a good idea in any case, as really old models tend to cost more to maintain than newer models cost to buy.
Year 2000 support means that everything outside the applications themselves will correctly handle dates before and after Jan 1, 2000. Incremental backups will correctly compare dates across the century boundary, etc. It also means that new functions have been added to all the current programming languages and system subroutines to provide complete dates to applications upgraded to make use of them.
Application-level Year 2000 upgrade is not within the scope of Wang or any other computer manufacturer or operating system vendor. Everyone who has applications programs on any platform whatsoever has to deal with upgrading those programs. Wang has geared up, though, to help customers do this by creating a service to assess the magnitude of the task and formulate a plan to accomplish it.
NOTE: All still true.
The Year 2000 OS is free of charge
That’s right. No charge for the Year 2000 OS as long as the VS is under Wang maintenance. Of course, it’s a good idea anyway to have at least the processor and controllers under maintenance by the people who made them. Yes, you can put your VS under Wang maintenance and then immediately order the new OS. Duhhh!
NOTE: I have heard that the Y2K OS is no longer free of charge even to maintenance customers. If you didn’t get it when the getting was good, you may have missed your chance. I know of one off-maintenance site with a VS7160 who was charged US$12,000 for OS 7.53. Later, when they expressed interest in moving down to a VS5000/6000, I was told that they would have to buy a whole new OS license for the smaller machine.
UPDATE: A birdie told me that some of this may change soon.
Older systems can be upgraded
Really old VS models that will not be supported by the new Year 2000 OS can be upgraded to models that do qualify. This is also a good idea in any case. If you really look at the true costs of keeping an old system of any brand running, it will curl your teeth. Of course, most other manufacturers would have told you a long time ago that support for your vintage, steam-powered computer would no longer be available. If your system is old, don’t blame Wang. Look in the mirror, wave at the person who should have upgraded it, and then make everything right by doing it now. If you have a very small (8-64 user) system, you may even be able to bootstrap yourself into a very nice, very cheap used system whose performance and low cost of maintenance will take your breath away.
NOTE: All still true, but the payback of upgrades to newer models is now somewhat questionable.
WRONG! Since the release of the New VS, it is now possible to upgrade to a VS based on an industry-standard server and get unlimited life out of VS applications. Never again will the VS be dependent on unique hardware that may become old, slow or unavailable.
All VS models run the same software
I’ve been surprised to occasionally run across people unfamiliar with the VS who presume that there is some software impact to moving up to a larger VS model. With some very few exceptions, there isn’t. All the VS models run the same software. If you are unfamiliar with the wide range of the VS line and didn’t take a look at the VS Family Portrait earlier, here’s another opportunity.
NOTE: All still true. Software that runs on one VS model can run on any other VS model.
AND IT’S TRUE OF THE NEW VS, TOO. The New VS runs VS software unmodified, with no conversion of any kind, subject only to exclusions of old or obsolete peripheral devices.
Upgrading the OS is not a big deal
I’ve also been surprised to run into the idea that upgrading the VS OS is complicated or fraught with danger. It isn’t. In the good old days when Wang had offices and Software Analysts in most cities, a customer OS upgrade was often done in the lunch hour. It is a little more complicated now, but if done properly should be very straightforward. Of course, if your OS hasn’t been upgraded since the signing of the Magna Carta, it might be necessary to take a close look at the possible side effects. Major OS versions of 7.21, 7.32, 7.40, 7.42 and 7.5X should all upgrade relatively painlessly.
Optional packages like WSN may need some or all of their components upgraded as well, so in general, the farther behind you are the more drudge work is involved in upgrading. The biggest downside these days, though, may be the reduced number of VS field personnel, especially the virtual disappearance of Wang Analysts. CEs do not always have the software experience to know all the things that could be affected by restoring a new OS into the system library, so it’s always a good idea to take your cues from the Wang Support Center or whatever other qualified Wang resources you have available in your part of the world. Complete backups are crucial, of course.
Hardware
The VS line is a 32-bit CPU architecture with 64- and even 128-bit system, memory and I/O busses in the larger models. Its machine language would look very familiar to IBM 360/370 BAL programmers. It goes farther, though, with hardware implementation of stacks, true virtual memory, and other features.
- 16 general registers (32-bit)
- 16 control registers (32-bit)
- Stacks and stack switching
- LIFO and FIFO linked-list instructions
- IBM mainframe data processing instruction set
- Each controller has its own DMA “channel”
- Data compression/expansion instructions
- Character string instructions
- Packed decimal and decimal floating point arithmetic
- Hardware debug support
- Microcode-loadable controllers
- Microcode-loadable peripherals
The VS is characterized by its block-screen terminal, similar in concept to the IBM 3270, dual-coax connections for terminals and many other peripherals, and by its full-featured, menu-driven operating system. It is believed by many to be the easiest of all multi-user data processing systems to operate and administer.
All but two of the older processor generations have automatic error correcting memory. All peripheral controllers have direct memory access. System, memory and I/O bus capacities were designed for far higher data throughput and connectivity than anything in the PC world.
The very first model, the VS80, had a maximum of 512K of memory, yet could easily support several dozen users, more printers than you probably would care to have around, multiple tape and disk drives, communication links, remote terminals, etc., and be operated by the bookkeeper. Try that with a PC. And that was 1977.
A larger system today might have 256-512 MB of RAM, 20-100 GB of SCSI disk, scores of printers, and serve several hundred local and remote users. A typical development machine for use by a group of half a dozen programmers might be in a box the size of a PC, have 16mb of RAM, a few GB of SCSI disk, and be Wang networked to the production systems it supports. Remote logon and file transfer across networked systems are common, everyday stuff.
VS processors and virtually all I/O controllers and peripherals are microcode-loadable. Some models have internal subsystems such as bus adapters that are also microcode-loadable. Since the first model, Z80 microprocessors were embedded in many components of the system, for the purpose of allowing functional modification without hardware revision and to provide an open-ended behavioral model. Later equipment has used embedded 80×86 processors. By updating the microcode Wang was able to provide new functionality in controllers and peripherals, and resolve engineering issues that would otherwise have required hardware revisions.
In Wang VS word processing, for example, WP microcode loads into the workstation, completely changing its behavior and capabilities from the default DP mode. In WP mode the terminal stores multiple screens of information and uses the VS as a document server. Formatting, search and replace and numerous other features are implemented in workstation microcode, not in an application on the VS.
For some reason this flexibility was not carried forward to provide robust offloading of application workload to terminals as must have originally been planned. Rather, microcode-loadability remained Wang’s foundation for enhancing device features and performance through strictly proprietary control of microcode. It also played heavily in Wang’s closed-system approach to keeping third parties out of the Wang hardware market. Time has shown that the market ultimately preferred open specs and third-party connectivity. All mass storage devices, however, have been industry standard since the beginning of the VS line, and thus are not directly microcode-loadable.
Native peripheral devices are connected to the VS by a dual-coax technology that Wang calls Base Band. This is a serial link that runs at about 4.5 mHz and employs two coax cables for differential bidirectional data transfer and error detection. This type of link is also called a 928, and is rock-solid in dependability. I’ve never seen a Wang terminal display anything incorrectly unless it was actually broken. Baluns and twisted-pair can replace the coax cable in actual practice. 928-connected devices also include high-performance peripherals such as 2000-lpm printers, 1600-bpi reel-to-reel tape, and outboard telecommunications controllers.
A truly bewildering array of I/O devices can be configured on a VS, from DP and DP/WP workstations and printers of all types, including imaging terminals, to things like cash drawers, plotters, 802.3 LAN’s, terminal clusters, and amazing devices like radio frequency modems to make use of a broadband (400 mHz) CATV that can be piped around a building and have all manner of peripheral clusters tapped into it and also carry multiple video and datacomm channels as well. Dual-port disks, caching disk controllers, multi-chain SCSI controllers — these and much, much more form the repertoire of a system design that anticipated realms of application that many other systems never approached.
Larger VS systems can be locally clustered together to share resources, and through FDDI fibre-optic links can actually be separated by significant physical distance. Remote system administration has long been a feature of larger VS models, and includes the ability to remotely IPL a system — even power it on and off in the case of VS5000/6000 models.
NOTE: All true, but increasingly irrelevant as the VS disappears from the landscape.
WRONG! The VS is no longer on a declining track. The New VS brings up to twice the performance of the VS18950 in a standard server package, running Linux, but with zero conversion of any kind. IT’S WHAT THE VS COMMUNITY HAS LONG WANTED.
Operating System
The VS Operating System is an integrated multitasking, multiuser OS with a robust file system that offers integral support for consecutive, print, relative, WP and multi-indexed files and rollback recovery.
Indexed files may have up to 16 alternate indexes in which records may be selectively included. Automatic record compression is standardly used for most application files and is completely transparent to users and application programs. Record compression is supported at the hardware level by machine instructions that perform run-length encoding and decoding.
Print files default to being spooled through disk files and a print queue, and are automatically routed to eligible printers according to a user- and application-related Print Class. The Print Queue also provides the facility to control the number of copies to be printed, the form on which to print, and post-print disposition of the printfile. Operators may interrupt and reschedule printing, and may restart printing at any desired page or line of a printfile.
The OS manages user foreground tasks (run from workstations), background tasks, a robust file system supporting multiply-indexed files and rollback recovery, the print queue, file transfer queues to and from other systems, network connections to other VS systems and IBM mainframes, inter-system mail and file transfers, remote logons between systems, and all attached peripheral devices. System operators have extensive control over the resources managed by the OS.
The OS file system also manages rollback recovery and associated Before Image Journals. Any indexed file may be designated as a soft recovery file, which automatically invokes journalling and rollback recovery. Programs using such files may optionally define transaction boundaries to take full advantage of the feature, but are not required to do so. Roll forward recovery using After Image Journalling is also available.
The OS has supported Shared Subroutine Libraries (SSL) since the mid-1980’s. Functionally, these are pretty much like Windows DLL’s, and allow commonly used object modules to be made available system-wide instead of being linked statically into each program that requires them.
NOTE: All true.
Networking
Networking of VS systems has been one of Wang’s strong points. It is easy to link VS systems into complex-topology networks that provide remote logon, file transfer, and integrated system-wide e-mail. Wang’s networking establishes reliable pipelines through which any and all network-aware traffic may flow, and can use point-to-point and multipoint transports including bisync, broadband [analog] cable channels and X.25.
Networks of 30-50 VS systems administered from a single site have been common. Wang itself operated an integrated network of about 900 (yes, that’s a nine with two zeros) VS systems seamlessly routing and delivering Wang Office ™ e-mail, handling remote logons, and performing file transfers for its then 35,000 employees and other connected sites.
Wang has also done a reasonable job of providing gateway facilities that enable VS terminals to connect to SNA and other IBM-based networks. In recent years Wang and third-party TCP/IP has allowed VS users to log onto unix and other systems, and users of other systems to log onto the VS. Some enterprises have even used VS systems for the sole purpose of providing desktop terminals with gateways to corporate mainframes.
In terms of what is today considered networking — LAN’s — the VS can be configured to have a direct presence on a LAN, and has several alternative options (including some third-party solutions) that allow garden-variety LAN-based PC’s to log onto the VS and otherwise use its resources. TCP/IP gateway products can allow logon by telnet from local and remote network terminals.
Standard VS printfiles may be directed to any printer on any VS in a local, regional, or global network of VS systems. This is most often employed to cause printfiles to be transparently routed to print on the local systems of users logged across a network to a remote VS, without any user intervention whatsoever.
NOTE: All true, but Wang never fully brought its technologies forward into the age of digital and packet networking. The ability of VS systems to communicate with non-VS systems was always a double-edged sword: Usability required it but migration to other platforms would have been facilitated by it.
UPDATE: The New VS opens the door to new forms of connectivity and bandwidth never possible in the legacy VS. The New VS brings direct support for Lightspeed NVS desktop clients via Gigabit Ethernet and now supports WSN over TCP/IP. ODBC is planned for the future.
Software
Native VS languages include:
- Assembler
- Procedure (a powerful scripting language)
- Glossary (for writing terminal microcode extensions)
- COBOL 74
- COBOL 85
- BASIC
- FORTRAN
- RPG II
- PL/I
- C
- (and more, such as MABASIC and PASCAL)
The standard VS source code Editor integrates syntax checking, compiling and executing the compiled program for all supported languages. Of course interpreted languages, like Procedure, don’t compile. An OS- and hardware-supported Debug facility allows viewing source code, setting program and data breakpoints and viewing and altering variables while controlling program execution. Code and modifiable memory are accessible for all program sections, as well as general machine registers, stack frames, etc.
Significant application subsystems have traditionally come from third-party vendors, sometimes in some alliance or cooperation with Wang. Wang itself has provided the platform, the OS, numerous languages and tools, inter-system networking, and a serious database and application development package called PACE, but has itself generally not tried to provide end-user application solutions.
Backward compatibility of processors with older software and peripheral devices has been extraordinary. Customers moving up to new VS models and OS versions have usually been able to bring with them all their peripheral devices and all their application programs. For instance, I have personal productivity tools written in 1986 that are object-code compatible with today’s processors.
Applications written for any generation of VS can generally be run on all subsequent VS’s. Transition to a new model or new OS version has generally not required recompilation of applications and has only rarely required relinking of selected programs. In all cases where applications might be affected by a new OS, details have been spelled out in the OS release notes.
NOTE: True.