minshall@OPAL.BERKELEY.EDU (08/17/87)
A beta test version of release 3 of tn3270 is now available.
Tn3270 is a program which allows users to login from Unix machines or (with
this release) MSDOS machines to an IBM mainframe (running VM/CMS or MVS)
and interact with the IBM machine in full-screen mode.
The beta test version may be acquired via anonymous ftp to host
arpa.berkeley.edu (10.0.0.78). The file is in directory pub. This
distribution is very large. The file tn3270.tar is a bit over 700Kbytes;
there is a compress(1) file tn3270.tar.Z which is a bit over 300Kbytes.
For people who cannot access arpa.berkeley.edu via the arpanet, I will
be willing to produce a limited number of copies of the distribution
on an AT style, 1.2MByte, High Capacity diskette. Send me the diskette,
along with what you would like, and I will attempt to create a diskette
to send you back. Please note that possibly the result of your sending
me a diskette MAY be our sending you a form to fill out (this will happen
if our software distribution group takes over the filling of orders; this
will also likely involve a small, $50 or $100, distribution fee).
Following is a short blurb on what is neat about the new version. However,
I should mention who might be interested: 1) Vendors implementing tn3270
(since this version has more features and should be easier to port), 2)
People who want a free (and more-or-less unsupported) tn3270 for MSDOS,
3) People who need Yale-style graphics to work correctly. There is
follow-on work planned to implement a native X version and, within that
version, to do IBM 3179G-style graphics. Because of this follow-on work,
I'm not sure (at the moment) whether we will polish up this beta release,
or go directly to an enhanced-function release.
If you are a beta test site, please let me know of both good and bad
experiences.
Greg Minshall
CFC
275 Evans Hall
UC Berkeley, CA 94720
(415)642-0530
minshall@berkeley.edu
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ps - the telnet.c distributed with this release has some bug fixes for
binary mode, and allows the user to decide whether <CR><NUL> or
<CR><LF> should be sent over a non-3270 connection when the
user types carriage-return.
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New versions of the tn3270 and mset commands, used to logon to CMS from
unix, are now available.
New features are:
o Error messages, in English, overlay a portion of the
screen when the user types an erroneous entry (invalid
control sequence, attempt to enter data in an "input
disallowed" field, etc.).
o Ability to "escape to shell". This, by itself, is
mostly useful in an MS-DOS (or non-BSD) system.
o An Application Programming Interface (API). This allows
programs, running under Unix or MS-DOS, to read and
write the 3270 screen, and to send keystrokes (3270)
to tn3270. This makes use of the "escape to shell"
feature. Included in the (beta) distribution is a
program which uses the API to receive files sent from
the IBM host (we don't supply the IBM side at this point,
and the rather stupid protocol is likely to change in
the future).
o Yale ASCII/7171/4994 "transparent" mode should now
be fully implemented. SAS-Graph, for example,
supports doing graphics to TEK terminals over
this interface. Locally, we use the X windowing
system terminal emulator (xterm), which provides
some TEK emulation, to display SAS-Graph graphics
on our workstations.
o Mset now prints out program function (PF) keys in
numerical order.
o Various bugs have been fixed.