Hercules
  MVS 3.8 'binary' Distribution

What is it?

It's an MVS 3.8 system with VTAM and TSO (and - as a 'bonus' FSE Full Screen Edit -) ready to run (almost) - only a few preparation steps are needed.

It's a base system build from the ground with SMP install from the zdlib.aws archive - the original MVS tapes, that I downloaded from ftp://source.rfc822.org/pub/mirror/hercules/mvs38j/mvsdlibs.tar. I did not apply any maintenance, but it is working (so far). Also to keep the download small, the DLIB volume is not included. If you want to do your own sysgen, consider downloading JimMorrison's mvsdlib volume from ftp://source.rfc822.org/pub/mirror/hercules/jim.morrison/ (or consider a mirror closer to you, source.rfc822.org is located in Germany).

Why is it?

Well, I thought that there might be some Herculeans that would like to focus on playing with the system instead of installing it (on my Celeron 400 CPU this took several days ...) - so if your focus is learning how to use and program MVS, this might be the right choice. The 'no maint' was my personal choice, because I have put my focus on playing with MVS, not with installing it :-)

Where is it?

Yes, it is here. Thanks to Michael "Kraehe" of http://www.copyleft.de, who gave me an account for his system, I'm no longer limited to my monthly traffic limit of 1 GB .

The current version can be found at http://open360.copyleft.de/mvs38/mvsbin/mvsbin-v100.zip

Located outside of Germany ? Probably one of the mirror sites may me much faster for you:

	ftp://ftp.qrc.com/pub/outbound/hercules/ - provided by Dennis Opfermann, located in the USA
	Ath the home of CBT Tape: http://www.cbttape.org/ftp/schaefernet/mvsbin-v100.zip or ftp://ftp.cbttape.org/pub/cbttape/schaefernet/mvsbin-v100.zip - provided by Sam Knutson (The CBT Editor)

What else do you need?

You need to download and install Hercules (I would recommend Version 2.1 and above, but it should work with Release 1.7 as well) - look at 'Links' to find it (if not already done).

What's next ?

I considered a number of packages from the CBT tape to be 'very interesting' (sometimes parts of packages ...) and I'll continue to provide them on this website look at the 'MVS Add-Ons' section of this website.

Documentation?

The installation documentation (steps to do, instructions for IPLing the system) are in the download archive. Since I think that is a waste of time to upload the whole 8.8 MB installation file for only small changes, the latest version of the document can always be found here. It's self contained HTML, so you can just click and save it with your browser's save function. Last updated: 2001-07-01 - Note that the latest version is currently not in the download archives!

PTFs?

Oh yes, there are corrections ...they are listed here - please review them! (And download as needed.)

Known Bugs?

Yes, of course ...

• FSE SUB(mit) command is not working ... probably it never was(?) Device type and volume are ok ... any ideas welcome ...

Credits

Credit to the countless number question answering and discussing Herculeans at the Yahoo group! A very special Credit to Roger Bowler and Jay Maynard - the author and maintainer of Hercules - a year ago I never even would have dreamed of having MVS on my desktop/notebook. Out of the many helpers in the group I also want to say a special 'Thank you' to Volker Bandke, Jay Moseley, Jim Morrison, Sam Bass, Sam Golob & (again) countless others ...

And a very special credit to Michael "Kraehe" to provide the space and bandwidth for this large download!

Contributions? Welcome!

If you would like to contribute to this distribution (or the 'add ons'): drop me a line - also suggestions on interesting free MVS software on the internet that could fit into the Hercules MVS 3.8 System are welcome.

Finally: A Note ...

I'm using Hercules under Windows (98) ... at least 98 % of the time ... that's the reason why you see zip file and .txt files (yes, and they all have CRLF at the line end, but I found that Hercules doesn't care ...)