IBM Distributed Office Support System, or DISOSS is a centralized document distribution and filing application for

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

s running the

MVS Multiple Virtual Storage, more commonly called MVS, is the most commonly used operating system on the System/370, System/390 and IBM Z IBM mainframe computers. IBM developed MVS, along with OS/VS1 and SVS, as a successor to OS/360. It is unr ...

and VSE operating systems. DISOSS runs under both the

CICS IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is a family of mixed-language application servers that provide online business transaction management, transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS ...

transaction processing system A transaction processing system (TPS) is a computer software, software system, or software/computer hardware, hardware combination, that supports transaction processing. History The first transaction processing system was Sabre (computer system), ...

and the IMS/DS transaction processing system, and later versions use the

SNADS SNADS or Systems Network Architecture Distribution Services is an "asynchronous distribution service that can store data for delayed delivery." SNADS uses SNA data links to allow messages and objects to be sent from system to system using the AP ...

architecture of peer to peer communication for distributed services. Heterogeneous office systems connect through DISOSS to OfficeVision/MVS series. The IBM systems are OV/MVS, “OV/VM, OV/400, PS/CICS, PS/TSO, PS/PC, PROFS, and other Mail Systems Supporting SNADS and DIA. Only a single copy of DISOSS needs to be installed somewhere in the network to accomplish the connection.” A number of other vendors such as

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

, and

Data General Data General Corporation was an early minicomputer firm formed in 1968. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer intended to ...

provided links to DISOSS.

Functions

DISOSS provides document library function with search and retrieval controlled by security based on user ID, along with document translation based on Document Interchange Architecture (DIA) and

Document Content Architecture Document Content Architecture, or DCA for short, is a standard developed by IBM for text documents in the early 1980s. DCA was used on Mainframe computer, mainframe and IBM i systems and formed the basis of DisplayWrite's file format. DCA was late ...

(DCA). The different systems that use DISOSS for document exchange and distribution vary in their implementation of DCA and thus the end results of some combinations are only final form (FFT) documents rather than revisable form text (RFT). It supports document exchange between various IBM and non-IBM office devices including the IBM Displaywriter System, the IBM 5520, the IBM 8100/DOSF, IBM Scanmaster, and

Personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s and word processors. It offers format transformation and printing services, and provides a rich

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

(API) and interfaced with other office products such as

IBM OfficeVision OfficeVision was an IBM proprietary office support application. History PROFS, DISOSS and Office/36 OfficeVision started as a product for the VM operating system named PROFS (for PRofessional OFfice System) and was initially made available in 1 ...

History

DISOSS was announced in 1980, and "was designated a strategic IBM product in 1982." It was a key part of IBM Systems Application Architecture (SAA), but suffered from a reputation as "difficult to understand" and "a resource hog." DISOSS continues to be actively marketed and supported as of 2012. Version 1 of DISOSS was introduced in June 1980;

Colgate-Palmolive The Colgate-Palmolive Company, commonly known as Colgate-Palmolive, is an American multinational corporation, multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in ...

was one of the first sites to implement DISOSS version 1, and reported dissatisfaction with the poor quality of the documentation and with software bugs. IBM released version 2 in 1982, in which IBM claimed to resolve the issues which version 1 users had experienced. DISOSS was implemented by the city government of

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

during 1983–1984.

References

IBM Corporation: Document Interchange with DISOSS Version 3 (1983)

External links

DISOSS/370 V3 CONCEPTS MVS VSE (GC30-3434-00)
DISOSS DISOSS DISOSS {{compu-soft-stub

Functions

History

See also

References

External links