About hundred years ago, I worked on a mainframe. I those days, the mainframe was basically the mainstream computer that many people used. In those days, financial institutions started automating their business processes.
In the nowadays world, these mainframes are still the workhorses of these financial institutions. But how did we access them?
Now, I am back in a finncial institute where getting access to such an environment is very handy as the real work is done there. The PC is only used for Email purposes and minor Word editing. Unix is only used in the marketing department but the real stuff is in a mainframe.
So I had to refresh my mainframe knowledge.
But how?
I first got a free access to a mainframe. I found a possibility with http://www.efglobe.com/cgi-bin/mainframe/mainuser .
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Within two days a clear message was given – I asked access Friday night and got replay Sunday afternoon. Good work. The message gave a clear indication on how to access the mainframe.
But to access a mainframe, you need a terminal application. This can be downloaded from http://x3270.bgp.nu/download.html . This is an open source application that emulates a 3270 terminal.
I recovered the knowledge with an old book Doug Lowe, “MVS TSO”. These three items (a book, a client terminal app and a TSO account) will help to renew my mainframe knowledge. Back in time.