Re: Green-screen versus browser

Is there a "native" text based interface?

Rob Berendt
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Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
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6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





"Trevor Perry" <tperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
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04/25/2005 08:56 AM
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Subject
Re: Green-screen versus browser






This whole approach seems rather negative to me. Maybe a different 
approach 
with a positive slant may be a better marketing/PR tool? I suggest 
this....



Trevor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The iSeries user interface design included the 5250 telnet green screen 
interface. While this green screen method is still a leading interface on 
iSeries, the acceptance of modern graphical user interfaces has caused the 

green screen to become outdated.



There is no native iSeries graphical user interface, however, the 
available 
solutions are many and include thin client browser solutions to fat client 

windows solutions.



The browser interface is gaining acceptance as a zero footprint, zero 
installation interface for modern applications. It has an advantage in 
that 
a browser is shipped with every Windows operating system, and the ongoing 
competition between browser manufacturers keeps this interface improving.



On the other side, the browser is primarily bloat-ware, requiring lots of 
PC 
resources, and producing mostly a very thin client interface lacking in 
function and functionality. HTML is a TEXT language, designed to access 
the 
world wide web as opposed to being a graphical interface to modern 
applications. From a traditional application perspective, migrating to a 
browser generally involves a loss of functionality for the user.



IBM has offered various graphical user interfaces - most of which use 
Websphere Application Server to deliver the user experience. Websphere 
Application Server on the iSeries is in its infancy stages, and generally 
iSeries customers find it requires heavy iSeries resource usage for a 
significantly slower user response time.



There have been many successful third party applications to provide 
graphical user interfaces for the iSeries to replace the green screen 
interface, enhance the user experience and improve user productivity. The 
best of these range from thin HTML clients with zero deployment to full 
function Windows clients that can be automatically deployed with a smart 
client to produce rich function and no iSeries performance impact.



The iSeries has the scalability, performance, robustness and reliability 
to 
allow a company to trust running their business with no downtime and 
little 
effort to maintain and backup their application server. With the correct 
combination of graphical user interface front end tool to the iSeries as 
the 
back end server, companies can deliver their solid business applications 
to 
users in a timely manner, with increased functionality without impacting 
the 
performance of the users undertaking their business tasks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







----- Original Message ----- 
Subject: Green-screen versus browser


> I'm writing a management paper for a customer (in support of the
> iSeries but trashing the WebSphere "solution" and the lack of native
> browser support) and working on a concise description of the
> green-screen vs. browser question.  The context is to explain why the
> iSeries, in spite of all its greatness (performance, low TCO,
> reliability), isn't known to and/or accepted by a large portion of the
> IT community.  One factor is IBM's previous marketing failures (no
> other word for it, sorry; well, maybe "absence"); another reason is
> the preponderance of the green-screen UI, my current topic.
>
> Here's what I have so far:
>
> "The problem with green-screen is that the programmer is limited to a
> fixed font size, a limited color palette, essentially no support for
> graphics, only 132 columns (across), only 27 lines (down), and the
> requirement to use a non-standard, usually non-free terminal emulation
> program (Client Access, etc.), which means you can't talk directly to
> many new communications devices like PDA's.
>
> "There is nothing innately good about browsers; except for Firefox,
> they're bloated with generally useless features, each has its own
> unique characteristics (meaning it doesn't work exactly the same as
> other browsers), and many continue to be a gateway ("Gates way"?) for
> viruses and spyware.
>
> "The benefit of browsers is that the programmer has much greater
> control over what the user sees and how the screen works...but it
> takes a lot more programming effort to deliver a browser-based
> application.  The basic tradeoff is balancing time-to-deliver (low for
> green-screen, high for browser), function (low for green screen, high
> for browser), and performance (relatively high for green-screen,
> relatively low for browser).
>
> Am I missing any points meaningful to senior management?
>
> Thanks,
> Reeve

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