I got tired of all of the Windows adware, spyware, viruses and worms so I converted back to the
Macintosh a few years ago. Here are some notes for fellow mainframers I took along the way
along with some tips to help you.
Note: I use the term MVS generically to mean MVS, OS/390 and z/OS. Some of
the information on this page can be used for VM and VSE but I have no
access to those systems to verify. Use at your own risk regardless.
TN3270 is the terminal application that talks to IBM mainframes.
Freeware products:
x3270 is a
"straight forward" Unix install. You do Unix installs when you want to go mano a mano
with the machine. Here is my x3270 install page.
Brown tn3270 is a
standard Macintosh OS x installation. It works as expected out of the box.
Tip: Jay Maynard
offered this suggestion for Brown tn3270: Turn off "treat blanks as nulls" in the
connection settings to get it to work
properly with MVS 3.8's NETSOL.".
3270 products running in Windows on the Mac Desktop
(click picture for larger desktop picture)
Windows runs nicely on top of the Mac desktop using the
Parallels Desktop
product. Since I bought it, there is now another product that is similar called
VMware Fusion which you
might consider. Some reasons excuses to run Windows on the Mac Desktop:
Enter Key - Since I've been unlucky to get the right control key to be the Enter key in
these Mac 3270 applications and too lazy to try go get them to work, I'm currently running
Windows 3270 applications on my Mac Desktop.
VPN - The company I work for provides us with a VPN client for Windows (for free) but
not one for the Mac. There is VPN client that works with our corporate VPN server (Nortel) but
I'd have to buy it.
Tip: Exposé
The first time I used tn3270 on my Mac, I ran up against the Mac OS X
Exposé use of function keys
which conflict with mainframe applications like TN3270.
Jay suggested changing the Exposé key sequence using System Preferences (off the Apple
in the upper right hand part of the screen). Change the Exposé keys to require a modifier key
like the command key and tn3270 will work as expected and Exposé will be available also.
Mac OS X includes a line mode FTP command which at Mac OS X 10.3 is a port of lukemftp.
To use it you need to open the Terminal application. The syntax is:
ftp mvshost
--prompt for MVS userid--
--prompt for MVS password--
cd 'IBMUSER'
get my.doc(resume) resume.txt
quit
Problems
If you find that your FTP session hangs when you do use the "dir" or "ls" commands like:
ftp> dir
200 EPRT request OK
Enter these two commands right after your password at the "ftp>" prompt:
epsv4
passive
Hopefully you will find that the directory commands work as expected now. These commands are
needed because the mainframe FTP server doesn't currently recognize EPRT and PASV commands so
we tell the Mac FTP client to use the old PORT command.
MVS aware FTP programs:
Also there is a commercial Macintosh application called
Fetch which is MVS-aware.
If you are a programmer, you may be using Rexx on MVS and of course
want it on your Macintosh. Rexx runs on
just about every platform and that now includes the Macintosh in Mac OS X.
To install, go to the Regina Rexx
web site -> Regina -> Downloads and download the ppc version of "Regina". Currently this is a StuffIt file
that contains a dmg file. Once the Regina folder is mounted on your desktop you can
install it like any standard Macintosh OS X application. Sweet!
The advice on this page is presented asis and without
warranty. Please research any advice given here and ensure that it
will work in your environment. As stated at the beginning of this
page, these are my experiences that I'm sharing to help you. I
will probably not have time to respond to problem emails. Please
feel free to let me know about corrections.
Copyrights, Trademarks and other lawyer stuff:
MVS, OS/390, and z/OS (and possibly other words on this page) are owned
by IBM.
Macintosh (and probably other words on this page) are trademarked
by Apple.
Other terms are owned by their respective copyright/trademark owners.