Re: 5250 choices -- MIDRANGE-L

Jeff:
There are many ways to solve this problem, however here is the solution I
like the best.  You don't indicate if the AS400 has an ethernet card, or how
may people are likely to need concurrent access.  However....
I like using a hardware based Remote Access Server attached to the AS400 by
the ethernet card.  The unit we have installed many times is the Quick
Stream Pro.  It costs about $900, and can be configured remotely or locally
via a Web browser interface.  It supports 3 ports and you can add as many
units on the ethernet as you need, so the solution is scalable.  You config
it to do TCP/IP, config TCP/IP on the AS400 and the users use the WIN95/98
dialer to connect and then use a TN5250 client program to start emulation.
There are many great TN5250 clients out there, I like the PCOM emulator, but
also sometimes use Mochasoft TN5250.  It works well, can be downloaded from
www.mochasoft.dk and is $25/client, $250 company license.

If you only need one user to dial at a time, you could also config a AS400
V24 port (ie ECS line) to allow PPP or SLIP dial up.  However, the RAS
solution is cheaper for multiple ports.

These are just my opinions based on solutions we have installed for clients,
and do not encompass all the various ways to do this.  I do not represent or
have any relationship with any of the products mentioned above.  I am just a
lowly consultant who does not like surprises when I recommend/install
solutions for clients.  The RAS server should take about an hour or two to
config, set up and test, the client side config is a piece of cake.

BTW, the solution above replaced an ASCII WSC based solution, we were
implementing until IBM decided not to carry the ASCII controller over to the
6xx model line.  (yeah I know with an SPD bus you can put a 6141 card in,
however the cost of the SPD bus is pretty high).  We did evaluate some
protocol converters as a possible replacement solution, but the RAS, TCP/IP
solution was much slicker and MUCH faster.

Carl

Carl Galgano
EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
http://cgalgano.home.mindspring.com
mailto://cgalgano@ediconsulting.com
(770) 422-2995

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Teff <jteff19@idt.net>
To: 'MidrangeDotCom' <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Date: Thursday, July 09, 1998 6:34 AM
Subject: 5250 choices


|We need to allow many customers to dial up to an AS/400 (V4R2). We will be
giving them
|a menu with a few options. They will be controlled by the program, so they
can only run
|the options on the screen. I need to give these people 5250 emulation, but
no extras like file
|transfer, etc. I have heard of TN5250, but have never used it so I do not
know if this is my
|answer. Does anyone have any recommendations or solutions? This will be
dial up and not
|internet. Thanks.
|
|Joe Teff
|Information Technology Consultant
|IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 RPG Programmer
|Quality Data Systems
|Minneapolis, MN
|
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