7 Apr
2006
7 Apr
'06
3:03 p.m.
Richard wrote:
Speaking of 3270 style terminals, I picked up a 3180 terminal. I like
the spring-loaded rising pedestal on it! However, I see that it
doesn't talk normal RS-232 like most terminals, it has a coax style
connector on the back.
Does this mean I need to get a token ring setup as you describe above
in order to get it to talk?
If yes, what would I need to get? Assume I know nothing... because
that's accurate :).
a 3180 looks to be a standard 3270. It can be used with a controller on
an IBM mainframe,
System 36, or various other ibm systems. IBM used a high speed serial
protocol that continuously
circulates information from the controller to the display / keyboard /
lightpen, mouse unit, and
put a lot of functionality of what an ascii terminal would do in the
controller. the box you get
as a 327x terminal, which this one probably can be made to look like has
a lot less potential
for use than what we on Classic computing is used to, as the logic and
smarts was in a
single box, shared by lots of tubes.
This approach allowed larger installations to be lower cost to fit out,
because all the terminals
did not have to be "smart" even by ADM 3 dumb terminal standards. The
3270 electronics
and its sibling, the Twinax 525x type interface also allowed something
that RS232 did not,
that is installations that were not of a star type topology. with
ascii, you have to do a home
run back to the host with rs232 for every terminal, and with 3270, you
can do multiple
drops on a single hose, or daisy chain with 525x. Also you can run thru
a remote controller
thru a bisync port, and put a controller similar to what Jay showed, but
instead of token
ring on the host side, a 3780 type modem and com interface, and put the
terminal cluster
anywhere in the world.
Also there are 327x type printers available which attach as well as a
whole host of other
gizmos, such as one would expect from IBM's terminal manufacturing division.
The Hercules emulator is an emulator which allows one to run an emulated
IBM mainframe. The
software is limited to public domain or Linux, without special IBM
license which is not available
at the moment for current mainframe software OS's. It is much more
appropriate for you to
seek information on the yahoo groups support groups for much more on
that. See below for a
link to the hercules emulator home page.
Jim
hercules home page.
http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules
The above has links to where to get information and software to run on
your emulated
mainframe. The mainframe software may be hosted on linux, mac, or
windows, and in some
cases on sparc. It is purely a software implementation. Only in the
case Jay mentions
is it possible to hook to actual IBM gear, directly, though there are
emulated connetions
to go between more than one Hercules emulation instance.