[H390-MVS] Mitrol DBMS Manufacturing Database project

[[e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

Hercules manufacturing database project for MVS and VM/cms
Sorry, Not so much a complete product, but more a project to recreate one
My P390500 recently announced for disposal will shortly depart to new home
My complete bank of floppy disks and CDs relating to the P390500 and its OS2-warp have been captured as DSK and ISO
They are available here http://www.villiers.info/P390/
There are some stragglers to add but it is 95% complete

My P390500 was the support machine for the database product named MITROL
This product ceased in 2002 and I now have acquired the right to make it open source, and therefore available to anyone who is interested. It was an MVS and VM/cms product that was used by some substantial companies between 1976 and 2002. The code is PL/I and BAL and is a network database (as opposed to hierarchical) with its own TP monitor and DDL/DML languages (think CICS/DLI but as a 4GL).
Read all about it
here http://www.mitrol.info
this URL includes a copy of the MITROL web site from the 1998 era.

The source code is currently in ASCII for evaluation and inspection, I did manage to make a full copy of the P390500 virtual dasd before it died, and this IPLs fine under Hercules, so I hope to make a 3350 or 3380 "Mitrol product" volume available before Easter, and probably a HET tape too, for direct use by Hercules/MVS.
I am not so good with VM/cms, so anyone interested in this side will need to mentor me though the best way to supply the material. The product runs very happily under MVS/XA and MVS/ESA with PLIv23 (my dumped P390500 environment) but of course that is copyright, the code needs to be brought back down to the PLI_F level and under the control of an older VTAM or whatever existed around 1982. All immediately available documentation and notes are included in the URL above.

I am very happy to receive help or direction towards making this project better organised or more accessible, via the group or offline via john at lortim dot demon dot co dot uk with words P390 or MITROL in the subject line

The complete P390 material is 3GB and the Mitrol material is 7GB, to be available as ISO images but I need to organised some more online space first. Regards

John Wood

[Michael Short [e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

I was looking to see what might with the code in relation to PL1F and
possibly MUSIC. Looking at the MITROL
website it appears the code base MIT300 is the way to go. I have pulled the
MIT300 source which does look not to bad.
The problem comes from the include files. The only ones are for MIT115
which has constructs not available in PL1F.

Does anyone know if the MIT300 include files exists and where they can be
found?

Post by ***@lortim.demon.co.uk [H390-MVS]
Hercules manufacturing database project for MVS and VM/cms
Sorry, Not so much a complete product, but more a project to recreate one
My P390500 recently announced for disposal will shortly depart to new home
My complete bank of floppy disks and CDs relating to the P390500 and its
OS2-warp have been captured as DSK and ISO
They are available here http://www.villiers.info/P390/
There are some stragglers to add but it is 95% complete
My P390500 was the support machine for the database product named MITROL
This product ceased in 2002 and I now have acquired the right to make it
open source, and therefore available to anyone who is interested. It was an
MVS and VM/cms product that was used by some substantial companies between
1976 and 2002. The code is PL/I and BAL and is a network database (as
opposed to hierarchical) with its own TP monitor and DDL/DML languages
(think CICS/DLI but as a 4GL).
Read all about it
here http://www.mitrol.info
this URL includes a copy of the MITROL web site from the 1998 era.
The source code is currently in ASCII for evaluation and inspection, I did
manage to make a full copy of the P390500 virtual dasd before it died, and
this IPLs fine under Hercules, so I hope to make a 3350 or 3380 "Mitrol
product" volume available before Easter, and probably a HET tape too, for
direct use by Hercules/MVS.
I am not so good with VM/cms, so anyone interested in this side will need
to mentor me though the best way to supply the material. The product runs
very happily under MVS/XA and MVS/ESA with PLIv23 (my dumped P390500
environment) but of course that is copyright, the code needs to be brought
back down to the PLI_F level and under the control of an older VTAM or
whatever existed around 1982. All immediately available documentation and
notes are included in the URL above.
I am very happy to receive help or direction towards making this project
better organised or more accessible, via the group or offline via john at
lortim dot demon dot co dot uk with words P390 or MITROL in the subject line
The complete P390 material is 3GB and the Mitrol material is 7GB, to be
available as ISO images but I need to organised some more online space
first.
Regards
John Wood

[[e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

Any News/Updates on this? Planning to make EBCDIC source available?

TIA Alex

[Michael Short [e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

I looked at the code but the best that I could for PL1 was a follow on the
Optimizing compiler. As such, there is syntax/structures that can't handled
by the PL1/F compiler. I gave up the project because of the
incompatibilities.

Post by ***@yahoo.com [H390-MVS]
Any News/Updates on this? Planning to make EBCDIC source available?
TIA Alex

['John @ Gmail' [e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

Short answer is YES.

Longer answer is I was not sure that anybody was that interested and I
have not yet got to compile all source on old legal PL/I compiler, so
did not know if all needed components were there. I was waiting to some
concrete progress before publishing again.

I have TOO much source, and that is the problem, several different
copies of most routines. Do all go with all? Who knows. Something must
fit as I have an executable that runs on MVS522 and later. I personally
have never built the product from source even though I was European
internal support for a period. My executable is a MVS/VTAM application,
similar in scope and power to CICS/DLI. Did VTAM exist back then? I dont
know. Have I got that source code? Maybe it is in the BAL Assembler code
I have, I struggle with BAL so I do not really know. If VTAM was not
available then it does not matter how much VTAM code I have, it is not
legal in the way the Hercules community requires. What came before VTAM.
TCAM comes to mind but I am no systems programmer, so maybe.

I do have the licence and permission to make the source code freely
available by the owner, my former employer. That much I have achieved.

I will make sure that all is available online for download with (at
least) minimal writeup/caveats about the code. Manuals from later
versions are in PDF. Lecture course notes are (I think) in WordPerfect,
which I can convert to PDF. A lot of work need to be done to make it a
complete project that a "Mitrol novice" can understand, for anyone who
cares to try, I will do my best. I'll answer questions and seek
requested additional material. You need additional BAL or manual
clarification? I'll find it.

I have worked hard in recent months/years on a number of problems, most
are resolved. These I will writeup in the coming months and add to
online web pages.. But for anyone who wants to start then just compiling
some base set of code will have its own challenges. Changes in compiler
allowed syntax and later extensions to syntax that need to be reverted
are of concern. For those interested in the final product, to see what
you are aiming at, then my executable runs fine but you need to turn a
blind eye "for research purposes only" to binding in the proprietary
later PLI23 runtime environment. A 3350 or 3380 containing all files for
running the application is in preparation.

Everything collated so far is at http://www.mitrol.info/



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['John @ Gmail' [e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

I am fully aware that the project has problems, and I have been quiet
for a while as I progress and was planning to repost once I had got
myself on a better footing. Obviously it is taking me a lot longer that
I hoped. My aim is to enable a CICS/DLI substitute for the Hercules
community in this calendar year.

Post by Michael Short ***@gmail.com [H390-MVS]
I looked at the code but the best that I could for PL1 was a follow on the
Optimizing compiler. As such, there is syntax/structures that can't
handled
by the PL1/F compiler. I gave up the project because of the
incompatibilities.

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[[e-mail] [H390-MVS]]

Post by 'John @ Gmail' ***@gmail.com [H390-MVS]
I am fully aware that the project has problems, and I have been quiet
for a while as I progress and was planning to repost once I had got
myself on a better footing. Obviously it is taking me a lot longer that
I hoped. My aim is to enable a CICS/DLI substitute for the Hercules
community in this calendar year.

I'm not really familiar with this, but is
your CICS substitute going to be a
competitor to Mike Noel's "KICKS"
product?

BFN. Paul.