Welcome To The World-Wide Caucus
For
Ecumenical Social Services
www.ecumenical-social-services.org
and
Associated with the World-Wide Caucus for Libertarian Social Democracy:
and the World-Wide Caucus to Save the Planet:
www.israel-palestine-51-52.org
The
briefly bi-national Israel-Palestine, west of the Jordan River, must become the
51st and 52nd States of the United States of America -- for at least 75-years.
Shall we tarry
while the planet burns?
***** mike-egger@libt-social-dem.org
The following web names are domain
forwarded to: www.ecumenical-social-services.org.
This list of 20
(including www.ecuss.org) will expand to include
other civic, religious, and commercial organizations. I believe there should be no copyright claims regarding my use of
these following web site names.
Please contact me
at mike-egger@libt-social-dem.org
if you wish to participate in this social services effort, sponsored by the Ecumenical Social Services
Foundation, a non-profit
organization in Bogotá, Colombia, South America.
1.
www.atheist-social-services.org
2.
www.backslider-social-services.org
3.
www.citizen-elizabeth-ii-social-services.org
4.
www.cowboy-social-services.org
6.
www.evil-twin-social-services.org
7.
www.friends-social-services.org
8.
www.german-gypsy-social-services.org
9.
www.indigenous-social-services.org
10.
www.jerry-oliver-social-services.org
11.
www.mcpe-social-services.org
12.
www.non-believer-social-services.org
13.
www.porn-one-social-services.org
14.
www.posse-comitatus-social-services.org
15.
www.psy-war-victims-social-services.org
16.
www.reilly-ii-social-services.org
17.
www.religious-social-services.org
18.
www.union-social-services.org
19.
www.united-social-services.org
20.
www.wi-fi-social-services.org
*****
mike-egger@libt-social-dem.org
*****
I have begun working on a project called a
“civic server” to help organize community services, and most importantly, to
help advance “small business incubation”
The following is a letter I wrote to the
IBM Company, recently. After that is a
short proposal for a “bidirectional” bilingual school program.
***** To the IBM Company:
The
Civic Server And Small Business Incubation
November
2003
OS/390 and VSE
Mainframe Marketing Department
IBM Colombia
Bogotá
Dear IBM:
I’m writing to
ask your help getting started with a Web to mainframe CICS/DB2/Data Dictionary
system.
In 2002 I bought
a large number of Web Site Names in the mode of www.ecumenical-social-services.org and I founded the Ecumenical Social
Services Foundation, a non-profit organization in Bogotá -- this in honor of
the good works of Catholic Social Services in the United States.
This Web Site is
not active at the moment, as I am in the process of changing ISP’s. I have Windows 2000 Professional, Word 2000,
Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, Ipswitch WS_FTP Pro (Internet File
Transfer Program), L&H Power Translator Pro, and a Basic compiler, and not
much more.
A Multi-Purpose “Civic Server”
What I have in
mind is a multi-purpose “civic server” -- that has a multitude of home and
small business “data processing support functions” -- including secondary
backup and recovery of all PC user files.
A number of
years ago, I was very impressed to learn about a “very small business” loan
project in Bangladesh. These were
mostly loans of perhaps $100 or $200 to individuals -- for things like a buying
sewing machine, or an old small tractor, or indeed to buy a mule and a month’s
supply of hay! Literally!
To Promote Small Business Incubation
This program was
reputed to be a big success, and I think that is how we go about advancing
economic growth -- one individual at a time -- with a very good computer system
to promote small business incubation.
This civic
server should promote home economics, child safety, nutrition, all kinds of
education and training, and so on. There is a big overlap of business and home
economics when someone is trying to operate a business out of their home.
If you sell soft
drinks or do laundry for your neighbors, you must plan for electricity costs,
water for the washing machine, repair, maintenance, etc. What is the measure (amount) and cost for
the laundry soap needed for each wash load?
In a practical
manner, people running businesses from their home need to control home and
personal costs -- in the same business system as their “money-making
enterprises”.
I also want to
manage a “PC Citizen’s” interaction with the local government bureaucracy --
licensing, taxes, minimum wage -- who makes these laws and regulations? -- and
including telling people how to register to vote.
The civic server
might also be a good place to coordinate Spam and Internet virus
interception. We might also set up
server/ PC systems to manage storage of an individual’s medical records, and
possibly even to help retirees manage their personal money, and other things.
The satellite
PC, like a PC3270, should be capable of operating a business and keeping
professional records without a harddisk or even a CD/DVD. DVD burners should be very inexpensive after
a few more years. Computing costs for a
very small business can be very low.
Mainframe CICS/Internet Connection
I was starting
to work on an “informal proposal” for the Catholic Church, when I read in the
Web Services Journal, June 2003, about a CICS/Internet connection. (See attachment.) It seems this is a well-established interface, operating in a
production mode.
I have many
ambitious plans, and they are such, that they could generate significant sales of
computer equipment and services. I’m
hoping to convince the church to set up a test system -- and I’m hoping to come
up with enough money to do this myself.
Previous Mainframe Systems Programmer
Experience
At one time in
the distant past, I was the responsible systems programmer for a 370/138
DOS/VSE system with VTAM/ CICS/DL-1 /Data Dictionary /3705 NCP, and prior to
that I had extensive experience on large mainframes -- like a 370/ 165 with
OS/MVS with IMS DB/DC. (Do OS and DOS
still have different JCL and different modes of operation?)
It seems what
was once called DOS/VSE is now called “VSE”.
In this usage, “DOS” means IBM’s Disk Operating System -- before virtual
memory -- or DOS/VSE -- after virtual memory -- and not to be confused with
PC-DOS or MS-DOS.
I presume OS/390
is software for large 390 mainframes.
Is VSE an operating system for “small 390 mainframes”? Can a 390/Server manage an Oracle database/
data dictionary server system? DOS/VSE
used a different JCL (Job Control Language) from the OS/MVS large systems. Is this still true for VSE systems vs.
OS/390?
(I mention
Oracle only because I have read some good references about their data
dictionary.) Can a “regular” non-IBM
Internet server (a physical server) be connected directly to a channel on an
OS/390 or on a VSE system?
What is the
difference between IBM’s mainframe SQL server vs. CICS/DB2? Can you plug in an Oracle Application Server
to a CPU Channel as if it were a CCU communications controller that might or might
not want to interact with the mainframe?
I know nothing
about servers, except some of them have database systems. In the business world, what are some of the
configurations mixing mainframes and servers?
What are the capabilities for various configurations?
OS/MVS TSO vs. DOS/VSE ICCF
Also different
was the timeshare system. OS/MVS used
TSO (TimeSharing Option). And DOS/VSE
used ICCF -- Interactive Command and Control Facility. I attended IBM’s TSO systems programming
class, and I once wrote a very involved TSO macro to submit production
jobs.
ICCF was a
“batch job” which was a control system that attached the CICS control
program. The user at a 3270 activated
the timeshare mode by issuing the CICS transaction: ICCF. This was an interactive transaction and
could last for hours.
Is this still
the timeshare system for VSE, and what are the macro capabilities? Or perhaps is the VSE timeshare system now
actually TSO?
Can you do TSO
or ICCF “sessions” over the Internet?
What do you need to do other than present CICS with a 3270 screen
image? Or similarly, other than to
present OS/390/TSO, with a 3270 screen image?
In my reading
recently, I read that “screen scraping” programs which expect a 3270 (hardware)
bit stream don’t work with new SNA (System Network Architecture).
The small
mainframes 20-years ago used DOS/VSE CICS/DL-1 with ICCF. This was comparable to the typical “large
mainframe” system with OS/MVS/TSO with IMS.
IMS was a
transaction based, teleprocessing system different from CICS, but in either
case, both systems used a DL-1 (Data Language-1) database with a -- DL-1 based
data dictionary.
Under TSO or
ICCF, the programmer at a 3270 (non-programmable) terminal could edit source
text files, submit batch jobs with “Job Control Language” or “JCL” to the
“background” OS/MVS or DOS/VSE system, receive the “sysout” reports at their
3270; and as well operate in a timesharing mode, as if a “batch job”, with
interactive reading and writing to the 3270.
This is a
“single client, single server” process with exclusive access to the
programmer’s source and test databases.
I actually want to be able to do this in a form of group collaboration
for some projects, but that is not necessary at the beginning.
OS/MVS IMS DB/DC
I’m not at all
familiar with the application side, but I did attend the full complement of
IBM’s (OS/MVS) IMS DB/DC systems programmer classes -- this is Information
Management System /Data Base /Data Communications on an OS/MVS system --
Multiple Virtual Systems -- for large mainframes.
In the systems I
was familiar with, the CICS control program executed along with all its TP
functions and user transactions -- in one mainframe “region” or “address
space”.
IMS was intended
for very large systems, and it had a TP and database manager and transaction
scheduling control program in one address space, and any number of independent
regions to actually execute application transactions.
The actual (IBM
software) code to manage the database functions was shared between IMS and its
transaction regions in a very large “Inter-Region Communication area”. Is this what it’s actually called --
IRC? As I remember SVA -- Shared
Virtual Area -- was for DOS/VSE.
NCCF and NPDA
On the VSE system,
I installed NCCF and NPDA -- Network Communication and Control Facility and
Network Problem Determination Aid. This
will be very important for my distributed server system.
It may be in
this area that I need to be able to write 390 Assembler Language programs along
with a Virtual Private Network interface.
TPNS -- Teleprocessing Network Simulator
I also took
IBM’s class for TPNS -- Teleprocessing Network Simulator, and taught
applications programmers how to set up TPNS “scripts” to test their applications.
One of the first
things that I learned was that many applications programmers don’t know their
transactions very well! It’s a huge job
to set up automated testing of update transaction and system errors. Mostly we tried to overload inquiry transactions
to test system capacity.
We ran the TPNS
control program on one mainframe, with a dedicated 3705 (CCU) for TPNS -- to
present simulated terminal activity, and with a “null modem” connection to
another 3705 with a test NCP, and test CICS or IMS systems on the 2nd
mainframe.
I have a
Master’s degree in mathematical statistics from UCLA, the University of
California at Los Angeles, and about 1979, I took the UCLA Extension course
called Probability, Statistics and Queueing Theory for Computer Science
Applications.
This course was
taught by the author of the book of the same name, who also taught the same
course at IBM’s Los Angeles Education Center.
Need An Informal Cost Estimate For A Small
Mainframe
My immediate
purpose is to give an informal cost estimate to the Church for an installation
with a small mainframe, a CCU (Communications Control Unit) and also with a few
“regular servers”, and at least one Windows PC, a Linux PC, a Mac, and maybe a
few more PC’s that I don’t know about.
All this is for
configuration and test purposes. We
won’t necessarily have all of these machines at any particular “production”
location.
What would be
the cost for a 3-year lease for a small mainframe and a CCU, and all the
software I will need? Or perhaps a VM
(Virtual Machine) VSE and CCU software functions with only one 390 CPU --
assuming you actually have that kind of configuration.
Perhaps we could
have that VM system operate two 390 CPU’s -- one for the control program and
the other for managing the network -- or perhaps with programmable microcode to
emulate Intel or Apple or other PC and Server processors.
This gives you a
potentially huge base for future equipment and software services sales.
Small Business Incubation
One of my most
important objectives is to advance small business incubation. I’m thinking about how to do this, “Player
Piano” style.
Player Piano is
a very famous book by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., which explores the social problems of
taking human workers and programming machines to perform automatically the work
previously performed by those skilled workers.
The best skilled
workers are used to “imprint” the software of this “manufacturing machine” with
their motions -- in a numerical control system” -- using the machines to
replace human workers. What we really
want to do is replace human work with machine work.
To do this in
today’s world, we need to advance all kinds of training. We provide an Internet computer system --
available to almost everyone in the world -- to do this training. And in an important adjunct fashion, our
civic server alerts interested users to the location, fees and curriculum for
the trade schools in their hometown.
I want to
develop a “piece of paper” input system -- to scan, organize new paperwork, and
question the analyst regarding any new data elements -- and incorporate this
into an “Online Secretary School”.
We need to
establish a “business activity log” and incorporate this into our dynamic
“business activity model”. We need to
do this whether we are “mechanizing” an existing business, or whether we are
starting a new business over pizza and beer with some friends.
We will also
want an “Online Treasurer’s School” to encourage people to practice long-term
financial planning -- most especially
-- how to avoid unexpected “cash flow” problems that can cause sudden failure
and bankruptcy.
For all these
online schools, we need to incorporate information about business training that
is available in the community, including music or art classes for individuals
-- children or adults.
I want to put a
core project into this business support system, which is to have the ability
for a person at a PC, or perhaps a small team, to have program access to both
the “growing” Enterprise Data Base, and a reference data base for “your
particular type of business” -- at field definition time -- in an aggregation
process to complete your database definition and structure.
This system will
need to update the Enterprise Data Base structure if the field description
process indicates a logical connection to another field in the growing
database.
The reference
database will be a “business model”: one for each of the many different kinds
of small businesses that there are.
A second
function will be to “mention” to the PC “new enterprise” owner: other “items”
in the “logical neighborhood” of the data element that just got added -- in the
growing Enterprise Data Base -- as well as -- in the corresponding
“neighborhood” in the reference data base.
How to do this
for the purpose of small business incubation, probably requires some artificial
intelligence methods that I don’t know about.
Is not a “fuzzy
logic” operation an analysis of “planes” or subspaces of information -- with
the idea of coming up with some kind of operational measure between elements --
of its related planes or subspaces?
How does it put
things together? How does it know when
something is related? Can this tell us
how we know when database elements are logically related?
I don’t know
anything about fuzzy logic, but I wonder if there is a mathematical structure
there that could infer or even specify logical relations or field parameters.
All TV’s Will Soon Be Computers
In a few years,
all TV’s will be computers. I think
this will have a revolutionary social impact, and I want poor people in their
neighborhoods to be able to plan and manage possibly a very small business.
The part of my
social services plan that is most important to me is an “interactive business
discussion” between business planners and their growing data dictionary.
The idea is to
discover new data relationships by having the social services “business
prototype” program investigate the existing data dictionary items and
descriptions for some business application -- and referencing a prototype small
business model -- searching for these new relationships each time a new data
dictionary item is added.
I would think we
would need some kind of hierarchical algebra.
We will need to extract as much information as possible from the data
definition process -- from an existing procedure and “work database” for the
incubation application -- and interact meaningfully with the database designer
-- at the keyboard -- or the voice board -- as it will soon become.
I would like to
interpret that according to some standard artificial intelligence results. I think we do separated hyper-planes. It’s mainly a comprehensive -- and orderly -- word search with algorithms to determine
the importance -- and what kind of category -- are the associations.
The associations
give us hyper-planes -- or isolated subspaces of hyper-planes. Our model or prototype identifies these
associations and directs the process toward action to fulfill the business
requirement identified with that local subspace -- or “logical neighborhood” of
the new business item for the data dictionary!
These “logical
neighborhoods” can be very complicated of course, and I might imagine the world
of artificial intelligence could tell us something, but I don’t know about
that.
Small Business Incubation As A Game
I’ve been
thinking about setting this up as a game -- which I don’t know how to do -- but
we could do caves and demons and stuff on the way to City Hall to get business
permits! You have to visit all the
caves and defeat all the dragons -- but the database designer chooses what to
do when -- and in the process we give a good introduction to business
practices.
I hope this
“game involvement” promotes the active -- and interested -- involvement of the
“incubation entrepreneur” in learning their business.
Business Pattern Recognition
I’m also quite
interested in business pattern recognition, to set up automated business
services. Think about very poor people
who have a TV-computer -- and who think they want to try to start a business.
I’m hoping to
pay for this kind of research and development project, myself, one of these
days, but at the moment I don’t have enough money.
More specifically,
I want to establish an on-line interface to read a standard Data Dictionary
database -- looking at all data dictionary definitions and descriptions for the
indicated application -- at the time of adding or changing a field definition
for that application.
This can be an
iterative process, and I want to be able to perform this function on a mature
data base definition -- or to begin accumulating fields for a new application.
In the
aggregation process, once the data base designer believes there is enough
information to define a new relationship, I want to be able to do that on-line
-- with the approval of the database designer.
Discovering New Data Relationships
Mostly I’m
thinking about discovering a logical relationship between the new field and a
preexisting field -- which might indicate the need for an alternate index or to
create a dependent segment -- of one or the other.
Or perhaps
something from the new element will indicate new parameters for some
preexisting field.
I simply want to
construct the data dictionary input control statement -- to be in the standard
form to add or change the data element definition, then to perform the data
dictionary change -- upon approval from the data base designer.
This is my “small
business incubation process” -- to start up a new business by talking to your
computer.
I will want to
be able to access an independent database at the same time I’m reading the data
dictionary database.
Or, I might want
to extend the data dictionary itself -- IBM’s Data Dictionary -- with new
segments and new relationships -- and new procedures extending the
functionality of the Data Dictionary.
This is the most
important part of my application, and I need to learn how the data dictionary
is structured.
Need Dial-In Or Internet Connection To A
Time-Share 390
Initially, I
only need only an Internet connection or a (telephone) dial-in modem to connect
to a CPU channel on a mainframe “timesharing” system, to write a few OS/390 or
VSE Assembler Language programs.
Are there
production systems with a time-share interface over the regular Internet -- to
be able to write and test simple VSE or 390 Assembler Language programs? I assume VSE systems use the 390 instruction
set -- or perhaps a slightly restricted version.
You could have a
PC program to simulate the display like a simulated 3270-display device or a
PC3270. I need to learn about these
things for long term planning, but I would like to start writing test 390
programs -- in a timeshare mode -- as
soon as possible.
I want to teach
some of my friends how to be systems programmers. This is something I can do to help advance my friends, as well as
to start advancing my social services project -- without spending very much
money at the beginning.
Does IBM, or
perhaps does another private company in Bogotá, offer or provide limited
timeshare usage of a VSE or 390 mainframe?
This can be a traditional dial-in system -- or from the Internet.
This mainframe
doesn’t have to be in Colombia of course.
If someone has an Internet connection to their S/390 timeshare system --
it can be almost anywhere.
Need A Mainframe Systems Programmer
Library
I was a
mainframe systems programmer for many years on the IBM 360 and 370 mainframes
(and the 3705 CCU with NCP -- Communications Control Unit with Network Control
Program.)
This was many
years ago, and my knowledge is long out of date. I’ve started to learn about the PC and Internet World, but mostly
I’m only an interested observer.
What technical manuals
do you have for planning and starting up an informal systems programmer’s
library?
I will need
copies in English and Spanish whenever both are available.
I will need a
390 Systems Guide, a 390 Principles of Operation (machine instructions), a 390
Assembler Language Programmers Guide, a 390 Assembler Language Macro Guide --
how to write macros. I’ll also need C++
reference and training guides, and Java, and various other things that I don’t
know about yet.
I’ll need a
Computer Master Operator’s Guide, IMS and CICS operations guides, NCP and SNA
guides (Network Control Program and System Network Architecture), TPNS guides
and operations manuals, NCCF and NPDA guides and operations manuals.
I would like
very much to have a queueing theory primer that starts with basic calculus and
develops some of the important queueing theory formulas for computer networks
Does TSO/BTS-II
still exist? This was for large
mainframes to simulate and examine IMS transactions. I can’t remember, but I think TSO/BTS-II was available for CICS
transactions as well -- to a database or to some other kind of VSAM file --
though I think I never actually used it this way.
Data Dictionary References
I will need DB2
and Data Dictionary systems manuals, the Internet Data Base Administrator’s
Guide -- and of course many more. In
particular, I need to know how the how the “Data Dictionary database” is
constructed and configured.
If you are
planning an application and you are developing or “constructing” a database for
it, I want to be able to access and read other elements of this application’s
data dictionary items -- especially the data element descriptions -- to try to
identify patterns.
This is to be
done in an interactive manner with the database designer referencing a small
business prototype or “model” database -- including local licensing, tax and
labor law requirements.
I’ll need to
know the exact construction of your data dictionary database. This is for my small business incubation
project.
Managing A Virtual Private Network
I’m also
interested in possibly coding some VPN -- Virtual Private Network -- routines
in 390 Assembler Language -- as a teaching example. I think a good project for this teaching promotion would be to
keep a multi-copy distributed database up to date at every location.
I would think
this kind of example could be used to begin to familiarize “informal PC users”
with ideas of enterprise data integrity as well as systems and network capacity
-- vs. transaction response time. The
local user gets good response time at their point-of-sale -- but there is a
communications network cost to maintain data integrity.
And this leads
us to ideas such as the cost to the business enterprise -- of slow response time
in the businesses’ operations centers and offices vs. spending some money on
additional computer and network capabilities.
Need Online Contributions In Various
Currencies
I want to get
this web site started and be able to accept contributions online. I’m going to try to expand this project to
many countries, and I need to be able to accept contributions in US Dollars,
Euros, Colombian Pesos, etc.
I’m worried
about currency conversion problems. I
don’t know how the system works. Is
this an easy thing to do -- just converting everything into dollars as the
contributions come in?
You also have to
pay someone to convert the currency, and I’m afraid these systems can get
complicated.
The complicated
thing would be to have a whole mix of bank accounts in a local currency for
local contributions -- with projects in mind for those countries where the
contributions came from -- without currency conversion fees.
I want to do
this with Colombian Pesos, at least, and I don’t see any way to do this other that
to have two different Internet Merchant Accounts, one in dollars and the other
in pesos.
I may have to
travel physically to Puerto Rico or Miami to open a US Dollar “Internet
Merchant Account”, and I’d like to avoid that if I can. (I am a U.S. Citizen.)
Need Solution For Internet Merchant
Account
Do you all at
IBM, have some easier solution -- for an Internet Merchant Account -- a
multi-currency bank account and integrated web contribution service? I would appreciate any advice you can give
me about this.
I promise no
goods and no services -- only a report each year for the Colombian
Government. Mostly at least, refunds
should not be a problem.
I think it will
cost about USD-$300 to get the Internet setup done with about $30/month
continuing fees, and about $200 to set up the Internet Merchant Account at a
bank, with perhaps $20 or $30 /month continuing bank fees.
This is for a
minimal system that can handle recurring (monthly) credit card
contributions. I can’t afford much more
than this at the beginning, but I’d like to know about alternate possibilities.
Property Insurance For A Non-Profit Civic
Organization
Another thing
IBM might be able to help me with is finding an insurance company to insure my laptop
computer if it is stolen or damaged outside my home. I have not been able to find this kind of insurance, and I need
to carry my computer around with me for some of the projects I have in mind.
This kind of
policy is called “Inland Marine” in the United States. Perhaps with my non-profit foundation I can
obtain this insurance -- and hopefully also for my friends who will work with
me on my social services project. This
will include computers, cameras, web cams and many other such things.
I intend to ask
the Catholic Church for advice about this as well, but I thought IBM might also
have information about this. I have
insurance for items inside my home, but if I carry anything outside, the
insurance is no longer valid.
I’m hoping I can
accommodate this somehow being a “non-profit” civic organization -- my civic
organization might be able to buy insurance that an individual cannot.
Various Software Licenses For Non-Profit
Organizations
I’m hoping to do
something similar with software. I can imagine
this to be very complicated. I don’t
especially know how to go about finding information. I wrote a letter to Microsoft about some of this, but they never
answered.
A friend of mine
who has a PC wants to help me with this Internet project. What I want to do is upgrade my Windows 2000
Professional to XP, and add Office XP with Front Page -- to my existing laptop
-- but use the allowed 2nd computer for XP licenses to be on my friend’s
computer.
Perhaps as a
non-profit civic organization, I might get some special consideration, but it’s
difficult to learn the rules about all of this.
Linux And Other Hardware And Software
Systems
I was very happy
to hear that IBM was advancing Linux strongly.
I want to add a Linux system to my personal laptop, and eventually, I
want to buy a second computer for myself and develop a 2nd PC with a Linux
system as its primary operating system.
I want to
install Windows XP and Office XP on this system as a backup. This is allowed under Microsoft rules for a
backup computer -- and not have to pay for a 2nd license.
I also want to
have Apple products, and others, over time of course. I don’t even know who the other major computer companies are in
the world. I’m imagining a world-wide
system and I want to be as inclusive as possible.
Consider The Value Of Open-Source Freeware
For whatever I
can control for the Ecumenical Social Services Foundation, I want open source
freeware as much as possible -- for the full range of software to be employed.
I know it is a complicated
business and legal matter, but I think IBM should consider the value of
open-source freeware with service contracts for the various services --
primarily with advance problem reporting and resolution -- and emergency error
corrections in a production environment.