11 Jul
2007
11 Jul
'07
10:08 a.m.
On 11/07/07, Alan Perry <alanp at snowmoose.com> wrote:
It was a block mode terminal where the
mainframe application would send
down the form (a mix of text and formatting codes) in one chunk and the
terminal would display it, then the use would fill in the fields and send
it back to the application in a block when the user hit the transmit key.
The protocol used to communicate with the terminals was called Poll/Select.
It was half duplex. The terminal processor (can't remember what those were
called in Burroughs-speak) would go through the terminals attached to it
and query them to see if they had anything to send and, if a terminal did,
it would.
Hmm.. I remember using something very similar on terminals connected
to Ferranti Mini's. (It's probable that the terminals were somebody
else's re-badged.) It felt very strange when I was used to a more
interactive terminal background, but would probably be familier to
people today used to entering web forms & hitting Submit...
Rob
>Being
Burroughs, it may be VERY WEIRD. Sort of somewhere between smart
> (IBM) and dumb (DEC). It will probably only want to talk to a
> Burroughs.