I have the username tdarcos. I am trying to learn CICS and how to create a screen map. I've been programming for many years and it's one thing I'm not familiar with (where I learned way back in college we had VM, OS/VS1 and MUSIC, I actually did systems programming in college years ago on MUSIC on a 4331 using Fortran, if you can believe it) and before that I wasn't using an IBM, I was using a Univac 90/60 (a 360/370 clone) with VS9, and their operating system is radically different and from what I've seen of ISPF, probably superior to anything IBM released). Well, apparently the standard CICS macros for creating a screen panel are not in SYS1.MACLIB and so through a lot of work I found out that they're somewhere in CICSTS23, then I found what file it was, I think from this, it's CICSTS23.CICS.SDFHMAC,
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocente ... fhp3nl.htm
This one I think then tells where to find the standard IBM assembler cataloged procedure (which the reference rules here don't mention)
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/v ... 021163.htm
(IBM has lots of documentation and lots of files. Finding anything is a lot of work. It's not like finding a needle in a haystack. It's like finding a particular colored hay stalk in 50 square miles of haystacks. To paraphrase Original Adventure, "You are in a twisty maze of IBM documentation. 30 million files, all alike.")
My account is locked out of TSO so clearly I did something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I was not trying to look at anyone else's files or violate anyone's privacy), I was just trying to find where some of the macros like DFHMSD / DFHMDF are located (and possibly the copy libraries for COBOL) reading the directory of that PDS file CICSTS23.CICS.SDFHMAC confirmed these members were there so I think I was in the right place. But reading some of the messages here I get the impression I should copy the macro library and not reference it in a job stream?
I'm curious what I did wrong, if for no other reason than to keep from doing it again.
I want to try running some of the programs from the CBT tapes, of which I have the complete library of all 1200 tapes and I've been reading through a lot of the assembler files. I was looking at one on tape 159, and in 5 seconds I noticed a minor error, nothing serious [ he loads a register with a value, never uses that register, then goes back and retrieves the value off of index in register 13 from the registers saved in STM 14,12,12(13) ] but the fact I could spot an error in assembly code that fast told me I should go back to working on Mainframes. Looking at the same file, within less than a minute I spotted a second error. I knew I was pretty good; this amazed even me.
I tried e-mailing someone here, but the messages bounced so I'm just curious what I did wrong. I have mainframe experience, I just don't have it on TSO and CICS and I can't find anywhere else that's even teaching classes in it, or I'd take one. (I'm legally disabled so I can take college classes for free.) This was the first place I've found that offers anything at all. I even offered to work for free for Arlington County, Virginia, to get some practice - I was not asking for any help, I can learn any system - and their remarks were that they had no people available or time to train anyone. I didn't ask for any training, i can learn anything. I learned PHP in a week, self-taught and in six months I was really good at it. And I still know IBM mainframe Assembler and Cobol (you just don't see a lot of call for it these days.)
It burns me that I offered them the equivalent of probably several thousand dollars of free labor and I was turned down.
And we wonder why nobody can find mainframe programmers. They're eating the seed corn and refusing to plant anything, then complain when there's no harvest.
Any help anyone wants to offer to tell me what I did wrong would be appreciated.