Milton Thrasher's "Green Card Genesis"

I am sure you will remember the "Green Card". That was the pocket reference card for the S/360 instruction set and other things that programmers needed to know. It was one of my inventions which was perhaps the most significant thing I did at IBM in my 36.5 years considering the overall effect it had. It was later changed to a buff color but was always referred to as the "Green Card".

Here is how it came about.

I was working in the Eastern Region as Manager of Systems Engineering Techniques Development. That was an organization set up to reduce the number of systems engineers needed in the field by providing them with tools and techniques to make them more efficient and effective. The DPD Headquarters management of SETD was headed by Alvin Gayle. It was set up under Jerald Haddad with about 15 people in Kingston and probably 8 or 10 people in each of 3 Regions.

I was in the Eastern Region with close access to the Time Life Data Center. One of my projects was the development of PAT/360, a reprograming of a Procedure for Automatic Testing that was available for the 1401/1405/1410 family. It allowed a person in the customers office to put on one magnetic tape a series of programs to be tested along with control cards to generate data tapes. The one tape would be sent to the data center for remote operation. The application program would be compiled and the data tapes generated from the control cards. An attempt to run the application program would be made and output tapes created. When the program failed, an automatic member dump would be written back on the original tape along with the collection from the output tapes if any. The resultant tape would be returned to the customer who could then find the errors and resubmit.

The impact of this program was very significant in that it saved the travel time and expense to come to the NY Time/Life Data Center. The downside was that the Systems Engineers would then not be able to have the joys of coming to New York as a reward for their hard work with their customers.

To do the PAT/360 project, I hired a former IBM systems programmer, David Goldstein, who had worked for the Poughkeepsie Programming Center Manager but was based at Time Life. He had left IBM because he was not happy with their approach to doing things. He was a very bright and competent programmer that saw a bigger future in doing contract programming. Because the people I had been assigned to work for me in SETD had no similar programming experiences, I got permission from Jerald Haddad's staff to use the money saved by not hiring a person on my staff so that I could hire an outside consultant/programmer.

Dave and I planned how to convert the PAT Systems from the PAT/1401 which was the simplist of those available. We took our scheme to the Endicott Programming Center where Earl Wheeler was the director. He assigned some of his people including Charles Schultz, the S.360 Assembler Development manager to work with us. He had a collection of programming aids that were being used to develop the Basic Tape Operatiing System and Basic Disk Operating System which were preliminary to the Disk Operating Sytem/360.

We were surprised how cooperative this group was because they were developing a comparable but much more complex system called AutoTest/360 for DOS users. This system was overdesigned and top-heavy with many more control cards and set up procedures which we perceived would doom it to failure if it ever got produced. There in was a political problem that was destined to work against PAT/360 later. The collection of aids they provided included an early version compiler, disk dumps, tape dumps and a set of diagnostic programs. We were given with very minimal documentation along with a copy of their very early version of the Basic Tape Operating Sytem. Dave Goldstein and I took that to the Time/Life Data Center and were the sensation of the time. We were able to get their first System/360 units to actually do productive work in S/360 mode. Up until then, they were operating strictly in 1401/1410 or 7070 compatibility mode.

While we were developing PAT/360, I adopted the role of a customer trying to develop a S/360 DOS program and learned to program in S/360 Assembler Programming Language which was very complex because of the huge instruction set with many options. The SRLs, System Reference Library manuals, were very large and not easy to work with initially. I had a stack of about 24 inches high manuals. From these I copied the Appendicies which had most of what was needed to have on hand when coding. It was these Appendicies that I used to create the pocket reference card initially. Knowing that it would not be finallized until a lot of people used it and pointed out things they needed, I printed the first five versions on light weight paper that would self-destruct. They were also in larger size fonts than the final would be so that they could be read more easily.

Dave and I worked many days and nights at the T/L Data Center to get the first TOS/360 to run. Dave got excellent coorperation from the Endicott Center because he was finding a lot of bugs for them. He was also very helpful to them as he had many good suggestions on how to solve some of their most difficult problems. Soon, the Endicott Programmers realized that they could get a lot of machine time at the T/L Data Center. They sent a small group of their programmers to NY to work along with us. Having close proximity to the developers, Dave and I were able to get PAT/360 running almost as soon as the Endicott Programming Center made their first release of TOS/360. We were well ahead of their first release of BOS/360. But, we were shot down before DOS/360 was supported by PAT/360.

The S/360 product administrators at DPD Headquarters thought we were counterproductive. DOS/360 AutoTest was announced that specified functions that included ours. It was to be a fully supported program while ours was in the Type III unsupported library. That was very unfortunate because AutoTest was scarcely used due to its combersome control cards and obscure instructions. It introduced more problems than the customers' own programs had! It was like a very complicated Job Control Language. Our PAT/360 only required a minimum of 3 cards to run a series of jobs. It was very stable and did not require much maintenance. The SETD Headquarters group would not allow us to spend any resources on it once it was released!

I challenged the DPD Headquarters product administrators to try using Autotest and PAT/360 and decide which they would use if they were the Systems Engineers on a customer account. They refused to try either system. This was a very disappointing encounter with the headquarters bureacracy which shaded my thinking and approach to handling future encounters.

The customers took PAT/360 as a main tool for their program development. Time Magazine was housed in the same building as the T/L Data Center and were our first user. They claimed that even with their close proximity, they were able to get more programs tested and running sooner than they would have otherwize. They gave us a strong testimonia. This gained PAT/360 a lot of new users very quickly. I would watch the users work with their memory dumps and find out what features were needed in addition to what was on the preliminary cards. Then, I would talk to the Poughkeepsie publication manager who would consider adding something more to the SRLs or to clarify what was written. We had a very symbiotic relationship, particularly with David Ulrich who took a big interest in the helping with the pocket reference card development.

After about five iterations of the card, I took it to the DPD Headquarters Technical Publications Department to have it form numbered, type set and printed. Alice Gnad, a first level manager, assigned Al Reynolds to work with me to finalize it and select the color. We settled on green as being easier on the eyes for the fine print. The first printing was done in about 10 panels, 5 per side. Not long after we were up to the final 16 panel card which was about as large as could be handled easily. We found that programmers had glass desk top covers and put the two sides of the card under glass. That helped account for the huge volume of cards that were needed very quickly. Each S/360 class was started by handing out the "Green Card" with my phone number on it. This produced a lot of good suggestions.

Knowing that no good deed goes unpunished, I expect things to start happening badly. And they did. First, Al Gayle's headquarters group objected because the Green Card was not a sanctioned project on their list. Then, Roger Bury, the head of DPD Publications sent a complaint letter to Y. P. Dawkins, Eastern Region Manager stating that a person in his region was producing "bumb publications". He meant that they were not authorized and did not go through his product test cycle like other publications from DPD Hdqtrs had to. This resulted in his number two man, a former Western Region manager coming to visit me to learn about my "bumb publication". I showed him the card and the steps I had gone through to produce it. I also showed him the list of esoteric projects that I was being asked to staff and fund from my budget which I had refused. After listening to my story, that manager said, "Keep up what you are doing. You are right on track!"

Later, David Kearns who eventually became President of Xerox, checked up on me at times. About this time, OS/360 was being tried out in the T/L Data Center and found to have significant problems. One thing led to another and I was soon offered a job in DPD Headquarters to work on the usability problems for OS/360.