At 1:58 PM +1000 6/1/10, Nigel Williams wrote: We had something similar that let us use them as terminals on a Honeywell DPS-8 Mainframe. Though instead of a HD we had dual Iomega (I think that was the brand) cartridge drives). They were much nicer to use than the *ANCIENT* Honeywell Terminals we had. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On May 31, 2010, at 8:59 PM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: The PC 3270 is a little more than that. It uses a lot of hardware and a little software to give you a multitasking XT that can be used as a multiple-session 3270 terminal. It has a special display adapter taking up to three slots and offering an incomplete CGA emulation (with the optional APA card), a special keyboard interface card which contains the necessary ROM code for the display adapter and 3270 communications, and the 3270 communications card. I think part of the reason for this was the small memory size on the XT, combined with the unsuitable display adapter options. Eventually the hardware got good enough that all the emulation could be done in software, with just a coax card providing the 3270 interface. But that happened later. The PC 3270 ROM will not work with (all? most?) 3270 cards intended for use with the later, software-only emulations. This one on eBay appears complete, with just the base video adapter (no APA or PSA options) and a short 3270 card I didn't know it would work with. The hard drive has been removed, obviously, which means you would need to find a copy of the IBM PC 3270 control program before you could put any of it to use. I think I probably have a copy of it somewhere. ok bear

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote: And we threw out a couple dozen (at least) of those at work last year. Ugh. They were Model M keyboards with the extended row of function keys (or was it an extra row?) AFAIK, they could not be used with PCs. -- j

On May 31, 2010, at 9:58 PM, Eric Smith wrote: Dang, I've been looking for one of those to use with an XT I got in a load of other nonsense, which had a CGA card with the APL ROM, and IBM APL2 on the drive. ok bear

I think teh keybaord was a bit more than that. It had the extra function keys - twenty-four instead of twelve. I don't think it had the cursor pad as well as the number pad, though; but it did have the 3270 terminal PA keys, PA1 PA2 and PA3. And at the left hand end of the keybaord, where the function keys would have been on a PC, there were some keys specific to the multi-session hardware: one was called WSCTRL, for workstation control; another was JUMP, which switched sessions. They keubaord plugged into the back of the 3270 card _as well as_ the keybaord port of the XT. I think the 3270 card intercepted keystrokes and stopped sending them to the PC when you were in a terminal session. The display, called 5272, was (I think) 720*350 pixels, 8 colour. The optional APA card (All Points Addressable) gave you most of the CGA graphics modes, but in only 8 colours, in a little 640*200 window at the top left of the screen. The optional PS card (Programmed Symbols) gave you the 3279 graphics modes. When I had my first job as a pre-university student in 1985, I spent a year in an IBM office where we had these (one for every two desks. Revolutionary!) Among my tasks was writing some demo software for file transfer between PC and mainframe... I also had more mundane jobs such as backing the 20M hard drive onto a lot of 360k floppies... ISTR the display had the same DE9 connector as a PC monochrome monitor, but with different pin assignments. Fortunately I only once plugged a 5272 into a monochrome card, and never plugged a mono monitor into a 3270 card (which I understand could have killed the monitor). The PS/2 was just coming in when I left IBM, and I think the "3270 Workstation Program" used the standard type M on those. So we lost the jump key, a fact I regret every time I press alt-tab... Philip.