On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 2:01 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

...

Is anyone bringing a machine which uses 3270 protocols over coax? I have an AppleLine 3270 adapter and I'd love to know if it works.

I for one would love to see one of these in action. The author of this post and a related Macworld article would apparently like to talk to you: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/1002/retro-scan-of-the-we... I can only wish I had kept more of the IBM stuff from $oldjob^2, where a we scrapped at least one controller and gateway. Anybody know anybody at Sungard (Availability, i.e. disaster recovery) in Carlstadt, NJ? The breadth and depth of IBM equipment they keep in-house is/was staggering. It'd be fantastic if their not-needed-by-customers gear saw the light of day. They did at least move an 029 punch and some model of sorter to be on display in the lobby. :) -- Jameel Akari

Does someone have a 24v AC power brick they can bring with them? That's what the appleline calls for and I don't have one. Thanks, J

Very cool. I have the AppleLine manual, but not the device. I've scanned it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/391444/Vintage/apple/lisa-peripherals/ap... as well as the packing list (not of great use I suppose): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/391444/Vintage/apple/lisa-peripherals/ap... and reference card (nice and colorful): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/391444/Vintage/apple/lisa-peripherals/ap... The manual might be a bit more helpful for using it (rather than just providing sales demos), but it does have the same information in it concerning the default passwords. (Not a problem if someone wants to host these elsewhere as well -- but I expect the Dropbox links above will be stable for a long time, and there will be some alternative and more Googlable location for them if I break them.) -Paul

On Apr 20, 2016, at 10:28 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

I got a 24v AC power brick. The AppleLine seems to work perfectly! I hooked it up to my Mac512k and it talks to MacTerm without issue.

https://picasaweb.google.com/113574813556450463594/Apple3270AppleLine

I can't wait to try it out with something at the other end!

Some information on the device is on bitsavers. The default logins are listed starting on page 35 (p 30 in the document): http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/apple/brochures/Apple_Cluster_Control...

The default Supervisor password is: APPLES The User passwords are APPLE1, APPLE2, APPLE3, and APPLE4

Thanks,

-Jason

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 5:54 PM, Jason Perkins <perkins.jason@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Does someone have a 24v AC power brick they can bring with them? That's what the appleline calls for and I don't have one.

Thanks,

J

-- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085

On 04/14/2016 02:39 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:

Just a thought: You may be able to run the Hercules​ system/390 emulator with an IRMA 3270 or similar coax terminal card and attach to that.

No.

SIMH can emulate some IBM minis as well,

3270 is a mainframe protocol, unrelated to minicomputers.

but I'm not sure that they can interact with the card.

They cannot. Here's how this works. One does not connect terminals to an IBM mainframe directly, even console terminals. Devices called "establishment controllers", usually of the 3174 family, connect to the mainframe via one of several types of interfaces. Common interfaces for this are parallel channel (a.k.a. "bus and tag") and ESCON, which are interfaces present on most such machines, both new (current) and old. The original establishment controllers were 3274s...they are pretty tough to find now, but they're similar (but much more limited) to what I'm describing here. 3174 controllers come in several models, implemented in a few different form-factors. There are floor-standing models about the size of a living room end table, tabletop models about the size of a larger PeeCee chassis, and rackmount models of similar dimensions. 3174s have from one to several terminal ports, which are BNC connectors for connection to terminals using coaxial cable. The specific type of cable used is RG-62, 93-ohm impedance. There are single-terminal and multiplexed ports; essentially one of those BNC connectors can connect to either a single terminal or a terminal multiplexer box (3299 or similar) which allows the connection of up to 32 separate terminals to each of the 3174's BNC ports. On most models of 3174, the terminal ports, the host interface(s), and any other optional accessories come in the form of plug-in modules that slide into slots in a backplane/card cage arrangement. These modules are about the size of a paperback book, but a bit longer and skinnier. They are boards with protective plastic shrouds wrapped around them. 3174 controllers boot (or "IML", for "Initial Microcode Load") from either an internal 1.2MB or 2.4MB (yes, 2.4MB) 5.25" floppy disk, or from an optional internal MFM hard drive. What the rest of us call "firmware" IBM calls "microcode". Actual "microcode" (as the rest of us use the term) is also called "microcode" in the IBM world, so IBM's use of the term is overloaded a bit. Once up and running, a 3174 is an appliance. You don't really talk to it, either from a terminal or from the mainframe, but you do talk through it. It just sits there quietly doing its job, supporting terminals. 3270 is not a peer-to-peer protocol, nor is it a networking protocol. 3270 terminals (which includes a microcomputer with a 3270 interface card plugged into it) cannot talk to other 3270 terminals. Parallel channel and ESCON ports on a mainframe have channel addresses, or blocks of such addresses, associated with them. A 3174 is configured to answer at one or more such addresses, and whatever operating system you're booting ("IPLing", in IBM parlance: "Initial Program Load") is configured to access its primary console at a specific channel address. That console I/O goes through the establishment controller and to the terminal that you've configured. On a 3174 running from a floppy, which is by far the most common configuration, there's a regular IML disk and a "utility disk". There's usually a little "pocket" inside the machine where the utility disk and spare IML disks live. 3174s have a little keypad and display on the front; one can tell the 3174 to boot the utility disk by inserting that disk and using the keypad to tell it that it's about to boot that disk. That utility disk system brings up a self-contained set of menus that can be used to configure ("customize") the regular IML disk in terms of terminal types, host attachment configuration, addressing, languages of keyboards attached to its terminals, and lots of other stuff. It's extremely elaborate, flexible, and well thought-out. There are two basic classes of 3270 terminals: CUT ("Control Unit Terminal") and DFT ("Distributed Function Terminal"). The former is very simple and older; the latter can be much more complex. Some DFT terminals are so complex that they don't have enough ROM to store all of their microcode (firmware). When they power up, they request a firmware download ("DSL", for "Down Stream Load") from the 3174 controller they're connected to. The 3174 will then check to see if it has the requested microcode file (identified by terminal model, which is embedded in the DSL request) and if so, sends the microcode to the terminal, which then initializes and becomes a functional terminal. The 3290 multi-session plasma terminal is an example of such a device. The DSL files for specific terminals are typically delivered on separate floppies. The hard drive option for some 3174 models allows one to store the normal IML code, the utility IML code, and any DSL modules you may need. The only option is a 20MB MFM disk, a Seagate ST-225. There are three main "families" of 3174 microcode: Configuration Support A, Configuration Support B, and Configuration Support C, in increasing level of complexity, capability, and demands (amount of RAM, etc) on the 3174's hardware configuration. Configuration Support C includes an IP stack. If one has a 3174 with 6MB of RAM (the maximum for the top-end models) and an Ethernet or Token Ring option module installed, and run Configuration Support C microcode, one can bring up its IP stack on a network and it will establish tn3270 connections (tn3270 encapsulates a 3270 datastream within a TCP connection) which one can then use to connect to a networked IBM mainframe, either real or emulated. If you're running the Hercules emulator and have everything configured properly, including the stuff mentioned in the paragraph immediately preceding this one, you can get real IBM 3270-family terminals, which are amazingly nice to work on, running against the mainframe emulated by Hercules. I've done this, and can provide assistance. (you'll need it) You can also see (and use) stuff like this up and running at the Large Scale Systems Museum. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA