joyco@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Joy Correa) (01/29/91)
One of our prospective clients is interested in the uniPath product and I just wanted to get some feedback from people who have used it. I really know very little about the IBM mainframe world (fortunately, the client has a good staff that will handle the details on that side of things) and any opinions, comments, or anecdotes about problems related to the SCO product or similar products used to tie-in 80x86 UNIX systems to IBM mainframes would be useful. The client will be running the uniPath board and software on an EISA bus '486 (Micronics motherboard) so any specific comments about trying to run this stuff on a '486 or EISA bus would also be very welcome. I understand that the board emulates a 3274 cluster controller with attached terminals and printers and that it talks directly to an IBM communications controller. One question I have is whether or not I will have to run a cable to the communications controller for every emulated terminal. I had assumed that the controller would multiplex the signals but I have heard otherwise. Does this mean that I will have to run 5 lines to the communications controller if the customer goes with the 1-5 user option and 32 lines if they choose the 1-32 user option (or at least as many lines as they have terminals on the '486)? If so, is there any other hardware solution out there to simplify this? Thank you for your time and info.