RE: how to have AS/400 console at home

Dean,

I'm not an expert on IBM's production decisions, but I think that their
decision to cease manufacturing 5250 devices has been overblown.
Without serious changes in the 5250 standards, a twinax display is a
commodity device and not something that IBM does particularly well.  And
yes, as many customers move to personal computers, the market for these
devices is declining.  I don't know many of my customers who bought IBM
brand 5250 displays after the 3196 era, most of them went with
third-party hardware anyway.  I would imagine some of those third-party
manufacturers will continue production and that anyone who wants to
purchase them will be able to find them at reasonable prices.  A quick
glance at the terminal page of 3Xwarehouse.com shows five or six vendors
offering the product.

It seems hard to agree that "IBM has always discouraged utilization of a
PC as console." since that is now their preferred choice and the default
on a new configuration.  The new LAN console option, while a little raw
at V5R1, does show their intent to continue in this direction.  It's my
understanding that they have moved some TCP/IP functions to a lower
level so that a LAN attach will function without the OS being loaded.

PC Anywhere (and related products) has always been a viable choice.  As
others have pointed out on this thread, it can be configured with some
fairly robust security on its own.  The PC referred to in the thread for
use with PC Anywhere has twinax emulation, so it appears to the system
as a twinax device and would not be affected in anyway by the presence
or lack of TCP/IP.

Sorry I didn't catch the joke, am I understanding you here?

Regards,
Andy


> Well, I guess that my intended joke did not translate well.  What I
really
> wanted to know was how we're going to handle the console now that IBM
has
> ceased production of twinax terminals.  If you have no console, how is
> that
> supposed to work?  Others have indicated PC Anywhere usage against a
PC
> console, yet IBM has always discouraged utilization of a PC as
console.
> Again, (and seriously) ending TCP/IP would stop any device without a
> direct
> attach.  Any ideas?