for a bit of CICS History

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:37 pm

see
web.archive.org/web/20080123061613/http://www.yelavich.com/history/toc.htm

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:08 pm

thx Enrico

Ed Goodman · Active Member Joined: 08 Jun 2011 Posts: 556 Location: USA

That's fun stuff right there. You forget that these essential products were at one time non-essential. To think that CICS was one of 25 products on a list that was being used to find things to get rid of...

I especially liked the "what's in a name?" article. I had a co-worker that would go ballistic any time anyone used "kicks" to refer to C-I-C-S. Even when we were trying out a product called SideCICS (sidekicks), he INSISTED that we call it Side-C-I-C-S.

One thing this didn't cover was the roots of the actual product. The crazy guy from my previous paragraph told me that he used the precursor to CICS to do missile control systems in Europe in the 60's and 70's. As in, he would be sitting on the back of a truck with a missile, and the control system interface for it was a terminal/keyboard like a 3270.

Bill Woodger · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:50 pm

On this side of the water we don't get what this pronunciation of C-I-C-S is about. We say CICS, as you say Ed, kicks. We're finished with it before you're half-way through. I remember a training video (they were all American at the time), the guy didn't even say the letters quickly, but with a distinct gap between each.

Hey, don't get me wrong. It wasn't just CICS. Training videos on DOS JCL were similarly made into stodginess, with D-L-B-L and T-L-B-L (spoken by a guy in a suit, with a triangular haircut who moved his head to left or right with each letter, he was of a distincly green hue also, but that was probably the tape quality, not real...). Which we said as dullable and tulable, but with the first two vowels being extremely short (only really there if you need to spell out how they were said and don't know how to do it properly like a dictionary would).

To further not get the DLBL and TLBL being said the American way, I have no idea what the LBL stands for. Mmmm.... there's always google...

EDIT: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Or Disk Lable/Tape Lable