IBM Portable Personal Computer

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Sat Jan 24 23:57:30 1998

> The REAL question is, if IBM used these as terminals which could run
> software, what did they have in them allowing them to use the network
> ports? I mean that was 1984, DOS might have had some hooks, but they
> would have sold it.

Somewhere, back at the homestead, I still have a bunch of xt3270 stuff
(software, manuals, etc.). I suppose I ought to go fetch it.

These really did not have to support "real" networking. In fact, they fit
somewhere between a network and a dumb terminal. Most mainframes talk to
terminals on a block basis, unlike minis that talk character by character.
The mainframe's terminals (in this case, a 3270 like device) acted as a
smart terminal, taking over a lot of the text inputting/formatting tasks.
The XT3270 does this - it just uses the XT as a brain.

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Sat Jan 24 1998 - 23:57:30 GMT