How Planet MVT became Planet MVS

Once upon a time. . .

Once upon a time in the vast galaxy of legacy computing fandom, there thrived a website called Planet MVT, a humble digital haven dedicated to IBM's OS/360 MVT (Multiprogramming with a Variable number of Tasks). It was built by a ragtag crew of enthusiasts who lived for punch cards, JCL rituals, and the thrill of IPL'ing a 370 like it was 1971.

The Planet was a bustling digital forum - echoing with debates over dataset naming conventions and the moral implications of overwriting SYS1.LINKLIB. But as time passed, a schism began to form. . .

The Great SYSGEN Schism of 82

A new generation of mainframers, armed with IPL boot logs and coffee-fueled nostalgia, began whispering heretical thoughts: "MVS was better." They claimed that MVS (Multiple Virtual Storage) - IBM's more advanced operating system - was the true heir to the throne.

Planet MVT's elders resisted change. "We don't need virtual storage! Real programmers overlay segments manually!" they cried. But the tide was turning.

The Day the SPOOL Froze

The turning point came during a SHARE conference in Long Beach, when the Planet MVT servers - running an emulated 370 under VM/370 on Hercules - catastrophically failed due to a misplaced // EXEC PGM=IEBUPDTE.

The outage became known as "The Day the SPOOL Froze."

With no backups (just 9-track tapes that were lost offsite somewhere), a small team of rebels rebuilt the site, using restored SYS1.SVCLIB routines and... MVS 3.8J.

Thus, Planet MVS was born. The name change was presented as a "necessary modernization" - though some say it was simply because someone misread an old punch card header.

Resistance and Assimilation

The purists still meet in secret, logging into a shadowy FTP server known only as DarkMVT, where they plot the return of OSRDR and the downfall of TSO.

But for the mainstream, Planet MVS thrives. Forums now discuss SMP/E incantations, JES2 wizardry, and whether anyone really understands APF libraries.

To this day, if you listen closely during an IPL, you can hear the ghosts of MVT yelling:

"Real storage! Real values! Virtual is a lie!"

Hail Hail Planet MVS!

Return to the Mainframe humor page.