"Jay Maynard" wrote in message
...
On 2008-03-07, WingFlaps wrote:
You had disks? Paper tape and punch cards were an advance - I remember
having to load the boot loader in machine code via the front panel
switches...
PDP11 or IBM360 perhaps?

PDP-11, maybe. A 360 doesn't need a machine code boot loader; it's capable
of loading itself from any mass sotrage device it can read from without
having to resort to that. It does so by issuing a specially formatted I/O
command to the device that causes it to read the first bit of code needed
to
load everything else. It's actually pretty elegant: all the operator needs
to do is enter the device address and push the IPL button.

(The Hercules to which my .signature refers is an open-source emulator for
IBM mainframes, including the 360. I'm the project manager.)
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!)
Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390

Hey! Another assembler geek! I was a TPF/Assembler programmer up until a
few years ago!