90:(CSC), asked Hendricks to find a way for the CSC machine to communicate with machines at IBM’s other Scientific Centers. CPREMOTE had taught Hendricks so much about how a communications facility would be used and what function was needed in such a facility, that he decided to discard it and begin again with a new design. After additional iterations, based on feedback from real users and contributed suggestions and code from around the company, Hendricks and Tim Hartmann, of the IBM Technology Data Center in Poughkeepsie, NY, produced RSCS, which went into operation within IBM in 1973.
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Remote
Spooling and Communications Subsystem (RSCS). Together they form a general purpose tool for the delivery of the computing resources of the IBM System/ 370 machines to a wide variety of people and computers. ...RSCS is the operating system used to provide information transfer among machines linked with communications facilities." Details of the design of RSCS as a virtual machine subsystem are described in the IBM Systems Journal.
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described RSCS as an operating system and considered it an essential component of the VM/370 Time-Sharing System. "The
Virtual Machine Facility/370, VM/370 for short, is a convenient name for three different operating systems: the Control Program (CP), the Conversational Monitor System (CMS), and the
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XLVI, in
February, 1976, Hendricks and Hartmann reported that the network, which was now beginning to be called VNET, spanned the continent and connected 50 systems. By SHARE 52, in March, 1979, they reported that VNET connected 239 systems, in 38 U.S. cities and 10 other countries. “VNET passed 1000
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VNET was the first large-scale connectionless network, making it possible for a computer to join the network using dial-up lines, making connection inexpensive while ARPANET required dedicated 50kb lines at first (later raised to 230KB. Most leased lines at the time typically operated at a maximum
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states (as GulfNet). BITNET was also very popular in other parts of the world, especially in South
America, where about 200 nodes were implemented and heavily used in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over time, BITNET was eventually merged into the Internet. Newer versions of RSCS, as well as Jnet
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Due to the key role RSCS played in building networks, the line drivers became known as the "RSCS Protocols". The supported protocols were drawn from other programs. The CPREMOTE protocol may have been the very first symmetrical protocol (sometimes called a "balanced" protocol). To expand the RSCS
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The history of this program, and its influence on IBM and the IBM user community, is described in contemporaneous accounts and interviews by
Melinda Varian. Technical goals and innovations are described by Creasy and by Hendricks and Hartmann in seminal papers. Among academic users, the same
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and the various UNIX NJE stacks, provided support for TCPNJE line drivers. Since most sites that were on BITNET also had access to the
Internet, the BITNET links that were once ran over leased lines and dialup modems were tunneled over the Internet. It was also not uncommon to run NJE over
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or continuous network connections. Messages and files were transmitted in their entirety from one server to the next until reaching their destination. In case of a broken network connection RSCS would retain the message and retry transmission when the remote system became available.
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The first version of RSCS distributed outside of IBM (1975) was not a complete networking package. It included uncalled subroutines for functions such as store-and-forward that were included in the IBM internal version. The store-and-forward function was added in the
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in addition to DECnet (The VAX/VMS NJE protocol stack was known as Jnet). At its zenith around 1991, BITNET extended to almost 500 organizations and 3,000 nodes, all educational institutions. It spanned North
America (in Canada it was known as NetNorth), Europe (as
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nodes in 1983 and 3000 nodes in 1989. It currently (1990s) connects somewhat more than 4000 nodes, about two-thirds of which are VM systems.” In comparison, by 1981 the ARPANET consisted of 213 host computers. Both ARPANET and VNET continued to grow rapidly.
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which accepts files transmitted to it from local or remote system and users and transmits them to destination local or remote users and systems. RSCS also transmits commands and messages among users and systems.
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Once those capabilities were added, “the network began to grow like crazy.” Although at first the IBM network depended on people going to their computer room and dialing a phone, it soon began to acquire
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79:, which he completed by mid-1969. CPREMOTE was the first example of a “service virtual machine” and was motivated partly by the desire to prove the usefulness of that concept.
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A PRPQ (Programming
Request for Price Quotation), was an IBM administrative term for software that was available but not fully supported as an IBM product
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and directly influenced both internet development and user acceptance of networking between independently managed organizations. RSCS was developed by
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Network Job
Interface protocol, which enabled the network to grow rapidly. He later added the JES2 Network Job Entry as an RSCS/VNET line driver.
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By 1986, IBM’s Think magazine estimated that VNET was saving the company $ 150,000,000 per year as the result of increased productivity.
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51:. The network interfaces continued to be called the RSCS compatible protocols and were used to interconnect with IBM systems other than
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VNET was a true "distributed control" while ARPANET required a "control" center operated at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman in
Cambridge, MA.
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Virtual Machine/ System Product Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem Networking Program Reference and Operations Manual
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RSCS arose because people throughout IBM recognized a need to exchange files. Hendricks’s solution was
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VNET employed a vastly simplified routing and path finding approach, later adopted for the Internet.
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RSCS is the software that powered the world’s largest network (or network of networks) prior to the
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which was based on VNET. The first network link was between CUNY and Yale. The BITNET (RSCS)
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were eventually ported to non-IBM computer systems, and became widely implemented under
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was a cooperative United States university network founded in 1981 by
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product and as an IBM internal network, it later became known as
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is a subsystem ("virtual machine" in VM terminology) of IBM's
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196:From a technical point of view, RSCS differed from
407:VM and the VM community, past present, and future
208:. Unlike ARPANET, it did not require dedicated
367:"The origin of the VM/370 time-sharing system"
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413:. SHARE 89. Atlanta, GA. Sessions 9059-9061
374:IBM Journal of Research & Development
17:Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem
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124:Other RSCS Protocol Compatible Networks
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204:" network, as such it was more like
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200:in that it was a point-to-point "
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404:Varian, Melinda (August 1997).
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210:Interface Message Processor
149:City University of New York
88:Cambridge Scientific Center
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172:), India (TIFR) and some
63:software was employed by
59:) and non-IBM computers.
317:IBM Corporation (1982).
491:History of the Internet
25:VM/370 operating system
496:IBM mainframe software
267:Hendricks and Hartmann
501:VM (operating system)
481:Computer networking
447:10.1147/sj.181.0111
431:IBM Systems Journal
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129:network to include
86:, Manager of IBM’s
84:Norman L. Rasmussen
55:systems (typically
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486:Computer printing
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384:: 483–490.
151:(CUNY) and
470:Categories
417:October 9,
356:References
71:Background
161:protocols
145:Ira Fuchs
82:In 1971,
455:See also
77:CPREMOTE
33:Internet
461:NETDATA
441:: 122.
198:ARPANET
165:VAX/VMS
147:at the
255:Creasy
246:Varian
141:BITNET
65:BITNET
437:(1).
411:(PDF)
380:(5).
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324:(PDF)
234:Notes
114:SHARE
419:2013
397:2011
206:UUCP
170:EARN
135:HASP
99:PRPQ
96:VNET
49:VNET
39:and
21:RSCS
443:doi
439:IBM
386:doi
382:IBM
181:.
179:SNA
155:at
131:MVS
112:At
57:MVS
45:IBM
19:or
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260:^
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53:VM
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