17 Mar
2006
17 Mar
'06
10:31 a.m.
That brings back memories. My first consulting gig almost 20 years ago was
with Delta Air Lines working on a system that would tie airline reservation
terminals to Unix machines.
If those terminals are indeed airline terminals, then they likely use ALC
(Airline Link Control). It's a 6-bit, bisync, polled serial protocol
derived from some older IBM protocol. The terminals talked to a
concentrator, which then talked to the IBM mainframes running applications
on top of TPF. My project was to replace the concentrators with Unix
machines (which could talk to more than just IBM mainframes), with Stallion
Technologies providing custom serial cards that could grok ALC.
Good times...
Ken