Feeling young

Hearing old timers talk about TSO edit makes me feel young. (A rare pleasure that is getting rarer).

I was one of the first generation of programmers to have the privilege of using SPF right at the start of my career. During my entry level training, the topic of TSO was glossed over; I never even had to learn TSO Edit.

This was back in 1981, when it was called SPF (Structured Programming Facility). A few years later it was re-branded as ISPF (Interactive Structured Programming Facility...."Interactive" being the buzzword of the day).

Then, sometime in the late 1980s ISPF became "Integrated Systems Productivity Facility". "Integrated" was a fashionable buzzword at the time, and IBM decided that ISPF wasn't just for "Programming" any more.

Nowadays the official name of the product is "Interactive System Productivity Facility". Whatever happened to "Integrated"? Perhaps I have my chronology wrong.

Your memories may vary.  (Mine vary from day to day).

I think I first saw option 3.4 in 1986 +- 1 year or so. I didn't like it very much...real programmers knew all of their data set names, so who needs 3.4? (Twenty years later, I am hooked on SimpList, a product which is like 3.4 on steroids).

I remember when you had to hit RETURN rather than ENTER in order to use a Jump function. I also remember complaining when they changed that, but I soon got used to it.