mfarber@udel-relay.arpa (10/22/83)
From: Manny Farber (Farber CC) <mfarber@udel-relay.arpa> At the IEEE personal computer conference, I saw an IBM 3270-PC. The IBM 3270 was good. Originally, the IBM person there booted the system without a diskette in the drive, so it started up in cassette BASIC. The screen quality was at least as good as that of the monochrome display, but in color. From BASIC, however, it doesn't do graphics. It acts like a monochrome, except, that instead of underlining, etc. it has the colors used on the color card. The keyboard was a superset of the IBM PC keyboard. Even so, the layout was a world better. There were nice big return and shift keys, and the keys were easier to press. There are legends all over the place on the keys; blue legends are for IBM PC specific usages. There are twenty extra function keys in two rows across the top. IBM sells this keyboard seperately for $295. However, I looked in the back, and the keyboard was plugged into a card in a feature slot; a cable came from the card and plugged into the normal place for the keyboard. The 3270 can have 7 windows; 4 for terminals, 2 for local scratchpads, and 1 for an IBM PC. The one for the IBM PC only works with programs that only use the ROM-BIOS and PC-DOS for screen addressing. This is necessary, but severely limits the usage. According to IBM literature, the 3270 has "advanced screen management" which allows the user to move windows, change the sizes of windows, select background colors, define combinations of windows in up to ten logical screens, define user-controlled display area to view a presentation space (which logically represents a host [upto 3440 characters] or a local session [2000 characters]). Copy between presentation spaces, transfer binary, EBCDIC, ASCII files, etc. If anyone has any questions, I have the product announcement; address mail to MFARBER@UDEL-RELAY. IBM has several models from $4290 through $7180. The IBM person said that a PC can NOT be upgraded to a 3270. They didn't have it there an XT/370 there, but they had the product announcement for it. (Delivery is 1Q '84). I will quote from the beginning of the product announcement: "IBM announces the IBM Personal Computer XT/370, an extended version of the IBM XT. The IBM PC is a System/370 workstation which can interact with a System/370 host. When the new IBM Virtual Machine/Personal Computer licensed program is installed, many unaltered CMS Sys/370 programs can run on the workstation. System/370 functions have been achieved while mainting IBM PC compatibility." An XT can be upgraded to an XT/370. IBM has a special Expansion Unit for the XT/370. I have the product announcement for that, too if anyone has any questions. -Manny
PATTERMANN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (10/22/83)
From: Ed Pattermann <PATTERMANN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> [Adapted from Oct. 18 annoucement by IBM] The IBM 3270 Personal Computer (3270-PC) combines the interactive functions of the 3270 display and the compute power of the IBM personal computer. The 3270-PC can display 7 separate windows simultaneously -- 4 with data from host computer applications, 2 electronic note pads, 1 window running IBM PC DOS 2.0. The unit connects by coax cable to a 3274 controller at the host mainframe. Three models are scheduled for 1Q/84: Prices do not include control software ($300) or monitor ($995) MODEL 2 -- 256K RAM, 1 floppy, PC controller, 3270 system adaptor and BASIC 2.0 , keyboard $4,290 MODEL 4 -- All of the above but with 320 K RAM, 2 floppies, printer adaptor for graphics printer - $5,319 MODEL 6 -- All of the above but with 320 K RAM, 1 floppy, 10- MB rigid disk, printer adaptor for graphics printer - $7,180. The color monitor is 14-inch Matsushita, displaying upto 8 colors; resolution 350 by 720. Will only display 2K characters per screen, regardless of window sizes. Uses a different interface from other PC monitors. A black and white monitor is available, which is the same as the PC, but with a different controller. Keyboard is a 3278 and PC layout combination, different serial interface. No mouse, not even light pen. Cursor control is through the standard 4 key compass arrangement. The 3270-PC can emulate a 3178, 3278, 3279 terminal Screen management includes: o-User defined windows up to 2,000 characters per screen o-Move windows to any location on the display o-Alter size of windows o-Define foreground and background color for host sesions Data can be copied from any window to another *except* the PC DOS window. One or two local notepad windows can copy or save data from other sessions, notes, etc An expansion module allows up a 20 MB disk to be attached plus additional expansion slots. The PC 3270 is a strong candidate to replace the aged (8-years) 3270 workstation family. This gives IBM the advantage of enormous economies of scale, with state-of-the-art hardware and maintainance procedures. ********** IBM PC XT 370 adds hardware and software to give the IBM PC XT the ability to function as a System/370 workstations which can also download and run many System/370 programs. This is accomplished by adding: o-A Processor card with 3 micro processors, and a page table. The first micro executes most fixed point System/370 instructions; the second emulates the remaining non-floating point System/370 instructions and general housekeeping; the third micro executes floating point instructions o-512 Kbytes of RAM. This memory is separate from the PC memory in the base system. The PC.370 only uses this add-on memory; the PC can access both memory systems. o-3277 Mod 2 device emulation card handles communications via coax cable to a local or remote 3274 control unit. The unit can also function as a remote 3101 terminal. Many other VM/CMS functions are supported including virtual memory up to 4-Mbytes. Base price is $8995 with 10 MB disk includes monitor. The package can be considered a combination personal computer and desktop 370 with some limitations This is a complex announcement with many fine points, but the product clearly brings enormous power to the desktop user with its local processor and links to the IBM data processing hardware. This is a combination that IBM clone vendors may find impossible to match. ********** Other announcements include the ability to use the PC as a workstation on the Systems 34/36/38 and 8100 products. IBM also is filling in the gaps in its overall office integration strategy with the following: o-New programs exchange memos, letters docs between 8100 and 5520 and Displaywriter, o-Document distribution and related functions between host and for 3270 terminals.