I.e. like SQL Server, for example. Set SERIALIZABLE parameter to TRUE and you get readers blocking writers. Dream of any Oracle DBA.

It seems that this parameter was documented in Oracle 7 documentation. Oracle 8i and 9i migration manuals say that it should not be used anymore and setting it to true is not supported. However, the parameter is still there in 9i and should still work.

10g has finally moved it to underscore parameter _serializable.