Shrinking the World and Compressing Time

Yesterday I wrote about the VM Community. The backbone of that community has been electronic communication. Now, the fortunate folks out there who never knew a world before the internet, blogs, RSS, etc. may be thinking 'boooring'. I'd ask them to think about how long this has been around and the ground breaking that was involved.

The first electronic conferencing or forums that I was aware of was VMSHARE. David N. Smith of TYMSHARE introduced it at a SHARE conference in 1976. VMSHARE was one of the earliest electronic conferences. Dave wrote the software for this and convinced his management to supply the system and network. One of the driving forces behind it was the desire for greater community and discussing ideas in between conferences. Later that decade, in 1979, VMSHARE was extended to Europe. You can still view the archives.

Here is my first entry to the VMSAHRE world, the NEWGUY FORUM:

 I just got lost for 20 minutes reading some of the old appends. :-) The SHARE community would give me a few new nicknames.

Over time, various electronic conferences and bulletin boards would become available as networks increased and expanded. Internally at IBM, conferencing or "forums" would become common place and was based on powerful software running on VM. This would be used for all sorts of topics and communication within IBM. One of the forums that I recall with a heavy heart, was one that was spontaneously created on January 28, 1986 to share information on the space shuttle Challenger disaster. At that time, IBM Federal Systems was still part of IBM and had a role in the space shuttle program.

Another software product that would appear was LISTSERV from L-Soft. Under Eric Thomas' leadership and vision, it would become a formal product in 1994. While today it runs on a variety of platforms, it started and continues to run on VM. The mailing lists managed by LISTSERV would replace VMSHARE with various lists supporting TCP/IP, Pipelines, VM, and of course Linux on System z. VMESA-L was a popular list during the hay days of VM/ESA. To avoid future name changes, the list changed to IBMVM after z/VM came along. If you aren't on these lists, check out the VM Home Page for information on them.

Perhaps I'm not objective enough, but one of the things I've noticed, and others confirm, is that the VM related discussion groups tend to be friendlier than your typical newsgroups. Flaming appends are very rare, as is trolling. The group as a whole does a great job of policing itself. Newcomers are made to feel welcome and encouraged to join the discussions. The few times I can recall that a moderator got involved in the past few years was to remind us the discussion was getting a bit silly and off topic.

The IBMVM list is like a lifeline for novices and veterans alike. VM is used around the world. So there is always someone awake who can help me or you.

.BB