IBM Portable Personal Computer

From: Mike Allison <mallison_at_konnections.com>
Date: Sun Jan 25 00:26:50 1998

So, basically, they just used a terminal program, and rather than run it
through a serial port, they just routd it through a little faster coax
connection. Probably the board is just as (un)sophisticated as a serial
board compared to a network board.

Still, I wouldn't really want the 3270 on a network, but rather use it
as a terminal on UNIX or a DOS machine....

A 8088 is still pretty damn smart...

-Mike

William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > 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 Sun Jan 25 1998 - 00:26:50 GMT