On 04/29/2017 12:40 AM, Tom Brennan wrote:
I worked with a 3290 that had 4 mod-2 displays all visible at once. I
always thought it had 4 coax cables, but now I can't remember ever
looking at the back. It was in a tape room and had an MVS console for
each of 3 systems, with the 4th display available as a TSO terminal.
This was probably a couple of years before TN3270 emulators with
multiple windows became popular, and I used it myself a bit (I was the
tape sysprog at the time). I remember underlines instead if highlighted
text, probably because the plasma pixels just had two settings - on or
off. I also remember it being rather slow displaying text - you could
basically watch the text "paint" itself from top-to-bottom when a new
screen came in from the host. But hey, you got to type on a 3270
keyboard with real Clear and Reset and Erase-EOF keys.
Neat. Yes, the 3290 isn't the fastest of terminals. Later releases
of the 3174 microcode has some nice 3290-specific performance
optimization options that help, though, so they're not too bad.
Now I feel bad because the one I worked on probably ended up in the trash.
That's very sad to hear. That fate befell far too much good,
historically-important hardware.
I never heard of the museum, so I googled for the address and there's a
street-view picture of a guy in a black t-shirt unloading various boxes
that must be for the museum.
Ah yes, that'd either be me, or more likely Chris, who is one of our
volunteers. We both wear black T-shirts pretty much perpetually. ;) So
now one of us is "Google Street View Famous". ;)
It's less than an hour from a datacenter I worked at last month, so if I
need to go to Pittsburgh again I'd sure like to see the museum. And
yes, please post anything about it here! Disclaimer: I have absolutely
no authority whatsoever :)
Understood. :) A few people have asked about it, so I will send a
copy of my announcement email to the list shortly. It's pretty short
notice for the big opening event itself (it's Saturday, May 6th) but
hopefully some folks from here will be able to make it.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
President/Curator, Large Scale Systems Museum
New Kensington, PA
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