An open replacement for the IBM 3174 Establishment Controller

github.com

42 points·bri3d··9 comments

I really know next to nothing about the IBM mainframe world--I'm more of a retro-DEC guy. But that seeing that beautiful 3278 terminal pegs my retro-envy needle every time. God I would love to own one!

As an aside, the author's original project webpage is a delightful example of semantic HTML, cleanly and aesthetically rendered.

https://ajk.me/building-an-ibm-3270-terminal-controller

It is a work in progress and is far from providing all the features you might expect from a later model 3174, but it does provide basic TN3270 and VT100 emulation.
+ TN3270
+ Extended Data Stream
+ Basic TN3270E
+ Device name (LU) negotiation

o SSL/TLS

I think that last one is a joke but I really don’t know enough about this sort of thing to be sure…

Telnet supports SSL, even if it's rare to see, just like there's an SSL enabled version of FTP.

Both are used by IBM Mainframes (z/OS) and medium scale systems (AS/400)

I wonder how hard it would be to write an emulator to run the actual 3174 software?

The ibm 3174 was just a controller to then link the terminals to an AS400 mini / mainframe

The 3174 support async hosts among other conversions so it would be interesting.

I forget if this was one of the products that used the 801/AMERICA CPU, I don't think it's a COTS microprocessor.

I bought a 3174-1L from my university because it was $20 and I didn't know that 1) it was a boat anchor without the rest of the system and 2) it wouldn't actually fit in the back seat of a Hyundai Sonata and 3) it was wired for 208v so doubly useless in mu 110v country.

I'm pretty sure there was some sort of local processing power, since it had a floppy drive to load "firmware" discs. I await the Doom port.

Can sell this to Costco and best buy

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