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 Post subject: Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems
PostPosted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 1:53 pm 
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Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2010 5:50 am
Posts: 19
Location: Pittsburg, California
Real Name: Chris Richardson
Began Programming in MUMPS: 07 Sep 1977
Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems

current version: 7.3
website: http://mtechnology.intersys.com/mproduc ... index.html
platforms:

OpenVMS VAX 7.3-1 and 7.3-2
OpenVMS Alpha 7.3-1 and 7.3-2

DSM was the workhorse of the VA and DoD during the 80s and 90s and into the 2000s. They had a very powerful routine editor. It has been replaced with InterSystems Cache.


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 Post subject: Re: Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems
PostPosted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:10 am 
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Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:58 pm
Posts: 205
Location: Seattle, Washington
Real Name: Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall
Began Programming in MUMPS: 15 Jun 1984
After the original MUMPS standard was passed by the MUMPS Development Committee in 1975, it took two years to guide it through the American National Standards Institute's process for becoming an ANS language. The first standard MUMPS was approved in 1977.

I've been told by Mumpsters who were there that there was a great deal of skepticism and resistance among MUMPS implementors about this new standard MUMPS. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) swept that all away when they became the first major company to implement standard MUMPS; others rapidly followed. Because DEC went first, most of the implementors who followed imitated them down to the details of the implementation, including how to interpret ambiguities in the standard, what to name system utilities, and so on. Later MUMPS implementations can all be categorized as the many that are close to DSM or the few that are different.

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Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall, VISTA Expertise Network, 819 North 49th Street, Suite 203, Seattle, Washington 98103, (206) 465-5765, rick dot marshall at vistaexpertise dot net
"The hidden harmony is best." - Heraclitus of Ephesus


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 Post subject: Re: Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems
PostPosted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:16 am 
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Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:58 pm
Posts: 205
Location: Seattle, Washington
Real Name: Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall
Began Programming in MUMPS: 15 Jun 1984
DSM also holds a high reputation among Mumpsters as a bullet-proof database that was highly resistant to database corruption. When the VA was shopping around for MUMPS implementations to use when they rolled out their first VA-approved version of VISTA (DHCP, the Decentralized Hospital Computer Program) in the early 1980s, Hans von Blanckensee and Wally Fort stress-tested the systems by starting complex transactions and then switching off the computer in the middle (or did they unplug them? I can't remember). Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) impressed Hans and Wally by how consistently it could deal with such abuse, so DSM was used for the three largest categories of VA sites, and M/11 (another early standard MUMPS, based strongly on DSM, from Intersystems, and the great great grand daddy of Cache) was used for the two smallest categories.

When I first began learning MUMPS and VISTA, it was at Walla Walla VA Medical Center in June 1984, using either M/11 or M/11+ (I forget which now, alas) on a Plessey desktop computer. When I later ran into DSM, it was easy to make the transition, given how close the two implementations were. This has been most people's experience in moving between DSM and the DSM-like MUMPS implementations over the years.

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Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall, VISTA Expertise Network, 819 North 49th Street, Suite 203, Seattle, Washington 98103, (206) 465-5765, rick dot marshall at vistaexpertise dot net
"The hidden harmony is best." - Heraclitus of Ephesus


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 Post subject: Re: Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems
PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:21 pm 
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Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 12:35 pm
Posts: 2
Location: Bern, Switzerland
Real Name: Marcus M. Werners
Began Programming in MUMPS: 02 Feb 1984
I remember vaguely, that DSM 11, the MUMPS implementation and operating System for PDP 11 Minicomputers (have fond memories of those), was not part of the deal with InterSystems. Can somebody verify or falsify this?


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 Post subject: Re: Digital Standard MUMPS (DSM) from Intersystems
PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 6:28 pm 
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Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 1:58 pm
Posts: 205
Location: Seattle, Washington
Real Name: Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall
Began Programming in MUMPS: 15 Jun 1984
Marcus, that's interesting. I hadn't heard that, but maybe someone closer to the purchase could tell us more.

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Frederick D. S. "Rick" Marshall, VISTA Expertise Network, 819 North 49th Street, Suite 203, Seattle, Washington 98103, (206) 465-5765, rick dot marshall at vistaexpertise dot net
"The hidden harmony is best." - Heraclitus of Ephesus


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