A number of changes today. An accumulation from a couple of days.

1. Updated the Operations Manual. It now includes change bars from the prior update. https://www.mantissa.com/dotcom2020/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/z86VM-Concepts.Beta3_.v061814.pdf

2. New problem found – not yet fixed – Under DEMODSL, when you have the desktop running and open a window, if you resize the window, there is a good chance that your system will appear to freeze. It actually goes in a loop. The problem is known, but it will take a bit to get the fix out.

3. A new hardware restriction was identified. The z86MNT 191 cms disk must be large enough to contain the downloaded VMARC file and some workspace. We’ve learned that a 3390-3 is too small to meet that need. The storage device can be reconfigured to grow the space. Some technical solutions may be possible, but may not be ready until General Availability or later. This is a good reason for running the Beta…to find this kind of problems.

4. If you want to use multiple 3390-3 devices to meet the IO server needs, the documentation describing the set up is now included in the Ops Manual.

5. Several new troubleshooting guides were provided, including VNC usage and z/VM paging set up recommendations.

6. We do not have a Software License agreement or NDA in place for Beta participants. We have found all to be mainframe enthusiasts, much like ourselves. There is a trust inherent in this beta. To that end, the Beta description now includes a comment about the spirit of this beta. We hope that each of our participants will maintain that spirit. The text added is as follows:

We’ve released the beta because we wanted to learn from you, the customer, what is good and bad and also to check our documentation, identify any restrictions in the code and capture new product requirements. We have found it is capable of doing some very interesting demos as to possibilities for how it can be used in the future.  We are concerned about expectations for our product. We know we have performance and quality work to do before it becomes generally available. We ask that you understand that.

We would like to make the beta a good experience for you. We may ship additional beta’s with new functions, fixes and performance enhancements. If you want to show someone a demo because you think it is “cool”, “exciting”, “the future”, or any other kind words, that would be wonderful.   We ask that you not show nor publish any performance data associated with your experience in the beta, without permission from Mantissa. We are not done developing the product yet and we hope to further improve the experience. That’s also why we have no published nor target general availability date yet. We will not release the code until it meets our own expectations.

All of us at Mantissa appreciate the time being spent by each of you participating in the beta. We have one customer that has completed all the pre-defined exercises and is looking for more. We have several other customers in a variety of spots within the operations manual testing their install. Thank you all for your interest.

And we continue to be interested in your feedback. Don’t hesitate to comment here or send an email to z86vm@mantissa.com