Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

From the Rochester Magazine, August 2004:

According to Bob Dubke, the second engineer on IBM's 5100 team in Rochester, that secret function was his contribution to the design of the computer. The function, which IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it . (IBM declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s. An imprint of a hook on the outside of the 5100 symbolized the ability of Dubke's interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out any necessary operating instructions.

 

[RainmanTime]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

You haven’t yet addressed this statement.

Well now just hang on a second, pardner. Look how long, and excruciatingly painful it has been just to get you to admit that your statement about s/360 emulators was incorrect. And yet, I still don't think you have ADMITTED that fact. So for the record, you agree that your analysis & conclusion were incorrect when you stated:

Hercules: But it was impossible to make an s/360 emulator before 1998.

And in admitting that this was incorrect, then you must also admit that it WAS POSSIBLE to make an s/360 emulator prior to 1998, and that includes the possibility of a HW or a SW emulator.
But now you are further clarifying what you were saying with the following, yet there are plenty of questions that need to be asked about this:

That is the reason why no Third Party OTHER than IBM can make a software emulator LIKE Hercules before 1998. Please note that I am talking about a Third Party software emulator that can RUN on ANY PC, NOT the ones released by IBM.

First, there could be MANY reasons why a third party did not make such an emulator before 1998. Second, before we can analyze your statements further, I would like you to explain "that is the reason why...". WHAT is the reason you are claiming no 3rd party could (did) make a s/360 SW emulator? We need to go very slowly, and deliberately here, because as you can see, you can be very loose with your claims... look how long it took just to convince you that your initial statement was wrong!

You might have ripped something from a ROM that’s specifically NOT an IBM product.

I don't understand the revelance of this, because I guess you are claiming that there were none that were not IBM products. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/confused.gif

IBM used their methods to prevent anyone from accessing the source code.

Indeed, that makes very good business sense! Why do you think Bill Gates is telling the European Commission "no way am I giving out Windows source code"? I think you would agree that a businessman who is worth his salt wants to protect his intellectual property through as many means as they can, right? So it is not IBM's job to make it EASY for other people to reverse-engineer their products! In fact, I can tell you that we in the US aerospace community incorporated all sorts of tricks into our products specifically to prevent people from reverse engineering them.

If it is possible to rip it, that comes back to my question: Why weren’t there any THIRD PARTY s/360 emulators BEFORE 1998?

There can be, and are, many reasons. Whatever link you are trying to make to Titor's story, I do not see it. Since there ARE many reasons why there MAY not have been THIRD PARTY s/360 software emulators prior to 1998, it has no bearing on whether Titor's story is proveable or not. The fact is, as we have established, that it WAS possible to build a s/360 SW emulator prior to 1998, and even a third party could have done it if they were successful in cracking IBM's "locks".

As always, I am just holding you to standards of scientific clarity as we move forward here. I can't just let you go off making claims that are either incorrect, or not relevant.
RMT

 

[RainmanTime]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

From the Rochester Magazine, August 2004:

Got a link, or something about this periodical? I'd like to know whether this is a technical computer periodical, or whether it is an unscientific "conispiracy theory" periodical... because the writer of the article is very vague, and there can be MANY questions required about the following in order to get to the truth of what they are claiming:

According to Bob Dubke, the second engineer on IBM's 5100 team in Rochester, that secret function was his contribution to the design of the computer. The function, which IBM suppressed because of worries about how their competition might use it, was an interface between the assembly code surrounding the computer's ROM exterior, and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it . (IBM declined to comment for this story.) The 5100's emulator gave programmers access to the functions of the monstrous, and much less portable machines, that IBM had produced during the 1960s. An imprint of a hook on the outside of the 5100 symbolized the ability of Dubke's interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out any necessary operating instructions.

1) "Assembly code surrounding the computer's ROM exterior" is very vague and borders on not making sense. A computer's ROM is not its exterior, it is its interior. The ROM is the deepest "guts" of the machine (you know, like boot ROM, and OS ROM).
2) More vagueness: What is meant by "assembly code surrounding the ROM"? I'd like more details because that could mean just about anything, and it could also be wrong.
3) "and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it" - Another vague statement that is possibly wrong. The emulator would not be hiding beneath the ROM (because there is nothing lower than ROM), it would be embedded WITHIN the ROM.
4) It is true that the 5100 provided s/360 emulation. That means an executable which was compiled within s/360 could execute on the 5100. But it does NOT imply that you somehow will now have magical access to the source code that created it! All you will know is that the binary executable compiled on the old machine will faithfully execute on the 5100 as if it were still running on a s/360 machine.
5) And now for the grandest piece of vagueness in the above - "the ability of Dubke's interface to drop into what Titor called "legacy code," and scoop out any necessary operating instructions". Do you interpret ANY of this to mean you can access the original, non-complied, SOURCE code? I don't. And precisely WHAT "operating instructions" are we talking about here? I hope they are not inferring high-level source code operating instructions, because that would be wrong. At BEST what you could get was to see and compare the binary, machine level opcodes between the IBM 5100's Arightmetic Logic Unit and that of the S/360 line of mainframes. You could only figure out how the emulator turned one Turing Machine into another Turing Machine...right?

RMT

 

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

Hercules: But it was impossible to make an s/360 emulator before 1998.

YES I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, I DID, make that statement.

But you don’t get my point or you haven’t got it AT ALL. That was the statement I made, ACTUALLY IT was INCOMPLETE. WHAT I meant was IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A THIRD PARTY OTHER THAN IBM TO MAKE an s/360 emulator before 1998. Still you’d point out the same statement.

Why do you try to find mistake in typing and make it a big issue? You don’t actually discuss about the facts, RATHER YOU waste time by POINTING out incomplete statements.

First, there could be MANY reasons why a third party did not make such an emulator before 1998. Second, before we can analyze your statements further, I would like you to explain "that is the reason why...". WHAT is the reason you are claiming no 3rd party could (did) make a s/360 SW emulator? We need to go very slowly, and deliberately here, because as you can see, you can be very loose with your claims... look how long it took just to convince you that your initial statement was wrong!

See, I am tired of this. This is what you expected me to do: To give up. Actually, I am not convinced about the fact that ANY 3rd PARTY could make a software emulator to run on any PC and disassemblers could be developed from it, if not, they ripped the s/360 emulator from a “tweaked” IBM 5100. Read the thread once again.

I don’t have time for repeating the same thing again and again. Go ON and post away cuz you have plenty of TIME. I don’t have time to address your statements and waste space on this forum.

Any IBM Engineer reading this thread would realize HOW much “non-scientific” efforts you made in disproving my statements. Go on, take your own time to address each and every statement I made and make sure YOU PROVED Titor is a Hoax. Actually, I don’t care about it or even if you agree with me, it won’t do any good to me.

 

[RainmanTime]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

Herc,

It seems you always get real emotional whenever I am trying to understand the real claims you are making, and dispense with the claims you make that are not true. Try taking deep breaths before you reply, and understand I am engaging you to try to scientifically analyze the points and/or claims you are trying to make. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

But you don’t get my point or you haven’t got it AT ALL.

Initially, this was a true statement. But I think we are getting CLOSER to me understanding your point, and I hope you would agree that by clearing up the inaccurate statement that you DID make, that this got me a little closer to understanding your point. Right? Correcting your initial, incorrect statement to a newer, more specific statement HELPS me to get to your "real" point, right?

That was the statement I made, ACTUALLY IT was INCOMPLETE.

But taken at its face value, it WAS a complete sentence which could stand on its own. MY point (and MadIce's point) was that this complete statement you made was untrue. You have since added quite a few more words to better describe your "real" claim. But all we have to go by are your words. So if you made that original statement, how were we to know you meant something else, something more specific than what that statement actually said? The only way we could understand that you meant something different than what you wrote is to challenge you on your statement, which we did, and now we understand what you REALLY meant.

Hercules: WHAT I meant was IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A THIRD PARTY OTHER THAN IBM TO MAKE an s/360 emulator before 1998.

Great. Excellent. All right, I now fully understand that this is your claim. I'd still suggest that using the word "impossible" is sketchy, because you cannot demonstrate how and why it was impossible. It may have been VERY difficult, but it was certainly not impossible, so far as we know.

Why do you try to find mistake in typing and make it a big issue?

I found no mistake in your typing. Perhaps YOU forgot to add more descriptive words, but there is no mistaking what your original statement said and meant. How am I supposed to find out what you REALLY meant unless I am allowed to challege you on what you DID type?

You don’t actually discuss about the facts, RATHER YOU waste time by POINTING out incomplete statements.

Stop right there, please. I am discussing nothing but facts in my discussion with you, Herc. And again, I have not pointed out INCOMPLETE statements, I have pointed out INCORRECT statements (as has MadIce). To YOU they were incomplete, but no one else could know that unless they questioned you on that incomplete and incorrect statement. This is where you are getting emotional by throwing accusations that I am not talking about facts... when clearly I am.

I don’t have time for repeating the same thing again and again.

Cop out? But you see, you are NOT repeating the same thing again and again. If you were you would have continually repeated the line that it was impossible to make an S/360 emulator prior to 1998. Since you typed that you have changed those original words, first to correct for your INCOMPLETE expression that you only meant Software emulators. Then, you went on to again say something different, and say that you really meant THIRD PARTY (non-IBM HW or SW) emulators. In fact, you are always saying something just a bit different, so I don't see how you can whine about "repeating the same thing again and again." /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif In fact, if you are now done making changes to your original claim about s/360 emulators, then maybe we can continue, and you can explain the details of THAT statement, and how it relates to something you think is key to the Titor story.

Go ON and post away cuz you have plenty of TIME. I don’t have time to address your statements and waste space on this forum.

So you don't have time to answer my questions and clarify what you are saying? If so, then you should not complain so much when people do not understand that the statements you make are INCOMPLETE, and often incorrect. If you don't answer my questions and help me understand what you really mean when something you write is incomplete, then don't reply to me... but if you do NOT reply then we will have to assume that the incomplete statement was really incorrect.

Any IBM Engineer reading this thread would realize HOW much “non-scientific” efforts you made in disproving my statements.

That's a laugh. Please point out where I used non-scientific efforts if you are going to make that accusation. In reality, I would be hoping that Larry Moss (a former IBM systems engineer who invented emulation) MIGHT be secretly reading what I am doing here, and I would hope he would be proud of me for explaining and correcting people when it comes to misunderstandings about emulation, and what it can and cannot do. Larry? Are you out there? If so, I've admired your work and I would love to talk to you, if not get your autograph! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Actually, I don’t care about it or even if you agree with me, it won’t do any good to me.

If your goal is to be SCIENTIFIC in your analysis about Titor's story, I do believe I can help you there, which is what I have been trying to do. If you want to abandon science, and just make claims that are either technically incorrect, or that cannot be verified, then you go right ahead and dream the little fantasy dreams. When you want scientific thoughts and considerations, you can come back here for help. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I'd like to spend a whole thread with you just discussing what you think SCIENTIFIC means with respect to talking about FACTS. I bet you might have some incomplete statements in such a dicussion that I would like to find out what you REALLY mean behind them.

RMT

 

[RainmanTime]

Why is anyone discussing emulators as it relates to the titor story? TITOR WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT AN EMULATOR! Go back and read his posts.

Would you like to take a number here, MEM? /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif I can get back to your issue once we convince Herc that how or whether s/360 was emulated is not relevant. It seems you and Herc disagree on this, so maybe you can help get beyond the emulation stalemate by reasoning with Herc. I see you've tried. I'm still trying.

Don't read between the lines. READ THE LINES.

OK then, if you do agree that there is nothing special about IBM S/360 emulation as it relates to the Titor story, whether or not it was an IBM emulator or a 3rd party emulator, then I will try to also address your issue while "helping" Herc and his misunderstandings. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

RMT

 

[MEM]

OK then, if you do agree that there is nothing special about IBM S/360 emulation as it relates to the Titor story, whether or not it was an IBM emulator or a 3rd party emulator, then I will try to also address your issue .....

I'm not sure I'm worthy. But go ahead.

 

[creedo299]

Anyone, please clean up this thread for the reader?

This done by stating the who what and where of what is going on here, as far as when and if the emulator, could or could not be produced before a certain date and what data you have, in order to verify this, (please)!______Make it blocky, grade school level??

To the reader, this looks like hermaphroditic bovines trying to mate, to where you cant tell what is going into what or how that's supposed to deduce a conclusion.

 

[RainmanTime]

Now let's see what you are saying here in this response:

My point is, all these disassemblers are derivatives of Hercules, which Roger Bowler gave it for free. Without the IBM 5100’s s/360 emulator in 1998, it wouldn’t have been possible to make Hercules and then these disassemlers which are developed later.

So again you are saying something is impossible (or not possible). And the condition you place on the fact that it was impossible to do before 1998 is that you needed the IBM 5100's specific s/360 emulator.

I hate to tell you, but it certainly WAS possible before 1998, and you did not exclusively need an IBM 5100 to do it. Any piece of hardware or software that emulates s/360 could be reverse engineered. It is a matter of the effort to do the job, and whether there are benefits to all of that effort, in addition to the legal considerations.

I can give you two technical reasons why there were only IBM HW and SW emulators (and no 3rd party ones) for S/360 before 1998. Those reasons, in their order of importance, are:

1) No compelling technical need or motivation that would permit a legal and profitable business case. (You could just buy the IBM product to get whatever emulation capability you needed.)
2) Maturation of desktop computer's processing speeds in the 90s.

These two technical reasons are intimately related. But let us focus on #2, because it is the technical reason central to computing platforms. Remember that back in the late 80s and early 90s, PC processing speeds were still pretty darned slow compared to what they are today. In the early 90s corporations could not yet get rid of their big IBM mainframe systems, because PCs were not yet fast enough to run the bigger mainframe applications as efficiently as the mainframes. And Windows 3.1 and 3.11 operating systems were still very clunky and not very net-centric. It would have been a LOT of work for very little processing benefit to try and move a bunch of mainframe apps out of individual desktop PCs!

But two things came together in the mid-to-late 90s that made the eventuality of a product like Hercules a necessity:

1- Processing speeds increased by orders of magnitude and true Windows multitasking emerged. There was now an ability to run one, or more, IBM s/360 mainframe applications in a single PC's multitasking environment.
2- As companies began to address their Y2k compliance issues (most didn't really get started analyzing and changing code until the 94-95 timeframe), they saw that they could kill two birds with one stone: They could port their existing S/360 apps running on the old mainframes over to PCs, AND at the same time, clean them up for Y2K. From this business case is where Roger Bowler obviously saw that it would be a good thing to spend the time and effort to reverse engineer S/360 and develop his Hercules emulator.

I don't see any NEED for there to be an IBM 5100 to make this happen. This is where I do not see, nor agree, with your assertion that:

Without the IBM 5100’s s/360 emulator in 1998, it wouldn’t have been possible to make Hercules

RMT

 

[RainmanTime]

I'm not sure I'm worthy.

Well, I can tell you that you are indeed not worthy if all you are going to do is insult people who question you, and then squirm away from your point when someone proves you wrong. As always, I will be waiting for this move from here on out.

But go ahead.

Very well, we could start out very easily. While I am wrapping up the emulator issue with Herc, you could start by replying to the points about not needing an IBM 5110 that MadIce made...you remember those points, because you responded with the following insult and non-answer:

MEM: As usual, you miss the point. Maybe if you re-read the posts you will see how your logic is flawed. I don't have time to spoon-feed you information. Try reading and thinking AT THE SAME TIME!

As far as I can tell, you are claiming that Titor was correct in saying he HAD to have an IBM 5110 to either emulate or correct S/360 code. Educate me as to why you think this is necessary, when you can do it with any later IBM PC that emulated S/360, along with a debugger.

RMT

 

[MEM]

As far as I can tell, you are claiming that Titor was correct in saying he HAD to have an IBM 5110

I'm not claiming anything. I'm looking to validate or debunk titor's claim. If one can read and change binary code with an emulator and a debugger then that would debunk titor's story.

when you can do it with any later IBM PC that emulated S/360, along with a debugger.

Please explain how one uses an emulator along with a debugger to read and change binary code. And that means read and change S/360 binary code.

 

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

So again you are saying something is impossible (or not possible). And the condition you place on the fact that it was impossible to do before 1998 is that you needed the IBM 5100's specific s/360 emulator.

I hate to tell you, but it certainly WAS possible before 1998, and you did not exclusively need an IBM 5100 to do it. Any piece of hardware or software that emulates s/360 could be reverse engineered. It is a matter of the effort to do the job, and whether there are benefits to all of that effort, in addition to the legal considerations.

So here we go. I showed you Hercules emulator. The developer of that emulator has FIXED Y2K in OS/ 360.

YOU CLAIM it is POSSIBLE to reverse engineer the IBM 5100 to get the s/360 emulator. Lets get to the facts STAIGHT. I searched for a Third Party s/360 emulaor or disassemblers before 1998. Unfortunately I could not find one. Even the date which Roger Bowler claimed to start working on the emulator was after April 1998(relating to Titor).

So if YOU CAN FIND ONE THIRD PARTY s/360 EMULATOR DEVELOPED BEFORE 1998, (OR ANY DISASSEMBLER FOR THAT MATTER)I WIILL NEVER POST ON THIS SUBJECT AGAIN.

Please try to discuss the FACTS and NOT post too much STUFF not very interesting.Its really boring to read it.

 

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

I am an OS/390 system engineer and the creator of the Hercules ESA/390 emulator, which in 1999 caused a minor revolution in the mainframe computing world by enabling private individuals for the first time to run mainframe computer software on their own PC's. And what's more, I gave it away for free. I must be nuts!

Patents are Evil

Originally designed to encourage invention, the patent system has been abused by large companies who build up patent portfolios so that they can use them as a tool to crush smaller competitors.

To discover how patents have become a disincentive to software invention, read Richard Stallman's speech at

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rbowler/

 

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

But two things came together in the mid-to-late 90s that made the eventuality of a product like Hercules a necessity.

Ever since I saw my first IBM mainframe (a 360/30 at Charter Consolidated in Ashford, Kent in about 1970), it has been my dream to own and operate a “real” computer.

Thirty years later, I still don't have my own mainframe, so I created Hercules instead. It's a little toy which will turn your Pentium PC into an IBM mainframe. Well, almost!

Although the germ of Hercules dates back to 1994, most of the work was done during a nine month period in 1999 while I was between contracts. By the autumn of that year I had implemented enough of the S/360 and ESA/390 architecture to be able to IPL and run OS/360 (MFT) and Jan Jaeger's ZZSA standalone program in ESA mode. Following this, I gradually filled in the missing parts of the architecture, so that at the start of the year 2000, Hercules was (according to reports from IBMers) quite capable of running VSE/ESA, and could even IPL OS/390 (albeit somewhat slowly!)

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rbowler/hercules.htm

 

[Hercules]

3) "and the 360 emulator hidden beneath it" - Another vague statement that is possibly wrong. The emulator would not be hiding beneath the ROM (because there is nothing lower than ROM), it would be embedded WITHIN the ROM.
4) It is true that the 5100 provided s/360 emulation. That means an executable which was compiled within s/360 could execute on the 5100. But it does NOT imply that you somehow will now have magical access to the source code that created it! All you will know is that the binary executable compiled on the old machine will faithfully execute on the 5100 as if it were still running on a s/360 machine.

Read this:

An important decision taken then, which would influence the progress of APL in ways that even now are not completely understood, was to hold back the source code and release only object code to customers.

I am NOT an IBM Engineer. I hope that you are also not an IBM engineer. So WHATEVER METHOD they used to prevent any customer from accessing the source code is NOT known to me OR YOU. From the above quote it is clear THAT IBM USED “SOMETHING” to protect the SOURCE CODE. I don’t know WHAT method it is cuz I am not an IBM expert.

The same thing IMPLIES to the s/360 emulator. Through the interface, the customer can avail the use of the s/360 emulator. But he is RESTRICTED from accessing the source. “HIDDEN” in the ROM means the same thing: The customer CANNOT access the s/360 emulator, he can only AVAIL its USE.

If you have to DISPROVE it, you can ONLY get an old IBM 5100 today, and try extracting the s/360 emulator from it. From my perspective, I don’t find anything wrong in what Dubke said.

 

[Hercules]

“HIDDEN” in the ROM means the same thing: The customer CANNOT access the s/360 emulator, he can only AVAIL its USE.

According to the Titor story, Titor travels back to 1975 and gets his Grandfather “TWEAK” the IBM 5100. This tweaking would RELEASE the LOCK, whatever it is, so that the source can be accessed.

The point I would like to make is, If you think the Titor story is constructed, though vague it may seem, there are a lot of co-incidences relating to it. Whoever has done it has taken all these issues into consideration (including Roger Bowler and the emulator, Y2K,etc.). Thats PRECISELY what I find very interesting.

 

[Hercules]

As companies began to address their Y2k compliance issues (most didn't really get started analyzing and changing code until the 94-95 timeframe), they saw that they could kill two birds with one stone: They could port their existing S/360 apps running on the old mainframes over to PCs, AND at the same time, clean them up for Y2K. From this business case is where Roger Bowler obviously saw that it would be a good thing to spend the time and effort to reverse engineer S/360 and develop his Hercules emulator.

Roger Bowler:I call Hercules the programmers toy of the Y2K.This toy offers a completely open source mainframe at home, it enabled me to patch OS/360 Y2K, and it's rapidly becoming good enough to run a wide range of software without problems.

http://open360.copyleft.de/Open360/Hercules.html

Please NOTE the POINT that it is Hercules which enabled him to PATCH OS/360, he DID NOT MAKE Hercules to Patch OS/360.

 

[Hercules]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

It is a matter of the effort to do the job, and whether there are benefits to all of that effort.

Roger Bowler had one GREAT piece of software in his HAND! A third party IBM emulator that can run on any PC. It is he who gave it for FREE.

Moreover, disassemblers can be made out of it. You can find disassemblers on the internet today which are not freewares.

Can you tell it is WORTH NOTHING in the 80s and 90s? Or can you say CONFIDENTLY that no third party software “wizard” or has tried to make an IBM emulator or rip the data from the ROMs before 1998? If it is that easy as Roger Bowler claims(nine months when he was working between contracts), at least there should be ONE such emulator or disassemblers in all these years.

 

[RainmanTime]

Re: Y2K, 2038 Unix timeout, IBM5100

You asked for it Herc...

Lets get to the facts STAIGHT.

Yes, let's please do. Now that you have asked to stick to BOTH science and FACTS, I will never (ever) let you slip in things that are NOT FACTS into you weak little arguments. Are you really prepared for this, or would you rather give up now? You have the choice. But remember, I warned you that when you introduce NON-FACTS I am going to call you on it and not let you proceed. Ready?

Even the date which Roger Bowler claimed to start working on the emulator was after April 1998(relating to Titor).

And what fact would that be? You cannot bring Titor into this picture as Titor as a time traveler has not been verified as FACT. So if you want to stick to the FACTS, then you cannot connect Titor to Hercules because the Titor story is not factual (i.e. it has not been verified as true)

So if YOU CAN FIND ONE THIRD PARTY s/360 EMULATOR DEVELOPED BEFORE 1998, (OR ANY DISASSEMBLER FOR THAT MATTER)I WIILL NEVER POST ON THIS SUBJECT AGAIN.

IF YOU LIKE BIG, BOLD LETTERS THEN MAYBE THAT IS HOW I SHOULD SPEAK TO GET YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I AM SAYING! I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE AND I GUESS I NEED TO SAY IT AGAIN: WHEN YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS TRYING TO SHOW SOMETHING IS VALID (a statement you may have made, for instance) THEN IT DOES NOT, EVER, FALL ON ANOTHER PERSON TO PROVE SOMETHING DID OR DID NOT HAPPEN. THE BURDEN FALLS ON YOU!!!! DO YOU GET THAT? Now back to our normal type font.

Please try to discuss the FACTS

I am, little buddy, I am. It is you who likes to stray from the facts. And since you have asked to stick to facts, you'd better not complain to me when I call out your non-FACTS. Allrighty then? /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

and NOT post too much STUFF not very interesting.Its really boring to read it.

Not very interesting to you, perhaps. Boring to you, perhaps. But are you speaking for everyone? I know at least 3 other people out there who are having fun reading this thread. Maybe more would like to chime in?

BTW, there are some NON-FACTS in the posts you made after this one. But rest assured, I will point them out to you and allow you the opportunity to admit they are not facts. Seeing as how you like to stick to SCIENCE and FACTS so much (hah). /ttiforum/images/graemlins/devil.gif

RMT

 

[RainmanTime]

Please explain how one uses an emulator along with a debugger to read and change binary code. And that means read and change S/360 binary code.

I take it that means that you do not know how this stuff works. Well, I had thought from the tone that you post with that you really understood computers. But I guess I was wrong, especially since I did respond to you earlier in this thread and explained how binary code can be disassembled and all you need to know is the target processor's instruction set. Care to look that one up?

So... I do know how to use an emulator and debugger to reverse engineer code. But now, if your interpretation of the Titor story hinges on the fact that this cannot be done, then perhaps YOU should be the one who tells me why it cannot be done? Again, just like Hercules, you are attempting to shift the burden to me, and that's not copacetic. But I will let you know that, in this case, I CAN explain how to do what you asked above. But before I give you the whole story, it might be good for you to see if you can figure it out. Here is a clue and the first part of the process:

A machine-level debugger has the capability to convert the raw, binary 1s and 0s back into the assembly statements that the binary is executing. (It has to when you think about it, because it needs to know which bits are instructions and which are data).
A machine-level debugger can also watch and inspect any memory address that is written to (or read from). This comes in VERY handy when reverse engineering code!

There you are, my friend, I have given you two big clues to get you started. A little digging and research on your part and you should be able to satisfy yourself that it can be done. But you would only do that research if you are really interested in giving up your Titor fantasy.

RMT