minshall@UCBOPAL.CC (Greg Minshall) (10/07/85)
Hi. We've been running the Wisconsin code for a couple of years. Installing it (especially for the DACU) is somewhat of a pain, but actually it runs fairly well. It is not clear to me whether you are better off trying to get the code from U of Wisconsin or from IBM. Each piece of code has things that the other does not have. In terms of performance (which you didn't ask about, but still...), a single Vax <-> 370 connection can run from 12 to 20 kBytes/second. This isn't too swift, given that a Vax <-> Vax connection can run about 50-80 kBytes/second. However, in the Vax <-> 370 case, the numbers appear to be additive; thus two Vax <-> 370 connections (two Vaxen, one 370 = 3081) seems to run about twice as fast as one, three connections run three times as fast, etc. The Spartacus people DO support 3270 emulation. They do the protocol conversion in the 370, which allows you to run from, say, an IBM PC or TOPS20, or whatever. This is a plus. The downsides are two: 1) every character is echoed from the 370; and 2) the 370 needs to know "/etc/termcap" information about every terminal that will connect to it. (please note: I've never used the Spartacus boxes or software, so I am commenting based on what I remember from reading and discussing. The Spartacus people do have tn3270, and may be trying to support that interface as well. Hope this helps. Greg Minshall