Dave ... Great idea! Let me abuse your thread just a bit. I cannot help but think that this is a job for inverse TN3270. (Not sure what else to call it. Maybe "reverse protocol conversion"?) Making a Linux distro CMS-friendly is one thing, and is VERY useful. But making it 3270-friendly is closer to "same as a PC", which is what some customers expect. The principle of least astonishment comes into play. Let me explain.
Getting the *output* from 'yast' and other textual (but full-screen) tools to display on a 3270 is easy. It's the *input* from a 3270 which is more challenging, and that only because the text mode apps presume on byte-at-a-time keystroke interaction. But we who live in the 3270 world know full well that block-mode input is fully interactive. I know some Novell and SuSE people are on the list. I hope they hear this! Let me say it again: TUI output to a 3270 is TRIVIAL and TUI input from a 3270 is EMINENTLY DOABLE. The difference between byte-at-a-time TUI apps and bock-mode TUI apps is simple key assignment. Use the function keys along with bursts of text and there is no problem. The UTS folks (back when UTS was young and they were part of Amdahl) demonstrated that applications can be written which work equally well with either a byte-mode ASCII terminal or a block-mode 3270 tube. My point in saying that this happened a long time ago is only to note that there is no new technology required, and there's no exclusion of the expected "traditional" behaviour. You can get YaST (or any such TUI) to handle a 3270 without losing its current traits. Applications built to deal with both terminal types have two ways they can go: front-end a kind of reverse protocol converter (with a variant of ANSI X3.64 on input and *unchanged* X3.64 output) or bypass that and detect the 3270 and handle that stream directly. Yeah ... we gotta have it! CMS-friendly is great. But go ahead and also make them 3270-friendly. It's just too easy to not do. -- R; On Fri, 18 May 2007, David Boyes wrote: > A few months ago, a couple of people complained about how difficult it > is to get Linux started on the mainframe and how foreign the process is > for mostly mainframe shops. > > At that time, the people on the list discussed creating a starter system > for Linux that could be downloaded from Novell's WWW sites and installed > using more CMS-friendly tools. We (SNA) have been having conversations > with Novell and they have asked for a show of support for people who > have experienced the problem of getting started and would find the > ability to download a small starter system that would provide an > installation server for future Linux guests w/o the hassle of tape IPL, > etc useful. > > If this is a tool that you would find useful as you ramp up to your > first install, or that would have stuck out as significantly easier to > install (and thus would have helped you decide on SUSE), please send > mail to mpost at novell.com. No guarantees, but if we get a reasonable > number of responses, we'll be able to make the case to Novell that they > should make the tool available. > > All we need is a show of hands that people would find it useful. Send > Mark a short note, please. > > -- db > > David Boyes > Sine Nomine Associates > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
