PUBVM Intro (User Pages)

Getting Started

Point your 3270 emulator at PUBVM.ORG port 23, and select PUBVM (Opt 1). If you prefer a secure connection, use port 623 instead. If you're not sure what a 3270 emulator is, try this link for ours!

Requesting an account is as easy as reaching out to the SysProg Team from a GUEST logon or via email.


MonaLisa VM

This webpage is running under PUBVM using WEBSHARE, which was written in REXX


PUBVM VM/CMS Introduction

Welcome to PUBVM!

This webpage is hosted on an IBM mainframe (specifically, an IBM 4381 with 16 megabytes of storage/RAM). It is running under an operating system called VM/CMS, specifically VM/SP Release 5 with the VM/IS additions. This OS family still exists and is still updated today; the latest versions bare the name "z/VM" and are quite similar even now!

VM (as it is almost universially known) is a multiuser OS, but it is singletasking: when you log in, you will be given a virtual machine that virtualizes the host CPU (in this case, an IBM System/370 CPU) and some devices. You can run any S/370-compatible OS under your VM, but, on this OS, we run a single-user/single-tasking OS called the Conversational Monitor System (or, CMS for short). CMS was an inspiration for CP/M and MS-DOS, but there are quite a number of major differences. Nonetheless, let's take a look at what this system has...


Installed Features

  • "EDGAR", a very early "graphical" editor for VM predating XEDIT
  • "XEDIT", the editor
  • "CMS Pipes", a program that adds shell pipelines to CMS that surpass UNIX
  • "C for VM", an early (circa 1988) C compiler
  • "PL/I Optimizer", a compiler for the PL/I language popular before C won out
  • "OS/VS COBOL", The precursor to VS COBOL II. This does not support COBOL-85.
  • "VS COBOL II", This compiler is from 1993, and is version 1.3.2. It supports the COBOL-85 language.
  • "HASM", an extended (relative to ASSEMBLE) assembler
  • "VS FORTRAN II", a FORTRAN 77 compiler
  • "SCRIPT/VS", a text formatter similar to troff on UNIX systems
  • "DisplayWrite/370", an early word processor application
  • "GDDM", a graphics API and application framework for mainframes
  • "SQL/DS", the second SQL database ever
  • "TOOLS", a file server storage/retrieval system that IBM used heavily
  • "RSCS", a network package for VM that speaks a protocol many other OSes speak
  • "VM Passthrough (PVM)", a service that lets you log into remote VM systems
  • "TCP/IP for VM", an IPv4 stack for VM (this system is on the Internet!)
  • "PROFS", a mainframe-based email/calendar/word-processing system
  • "GOPHER", a browser for GOPHER holes written with GOPWIN
  • "DISCORD", an interface to our Discord

More documentation

You can find more documentation for PUBVM using our TOOLS disks.

Remote systems can request to peer with PUBVM to mirror TOOLS disks.