Re: Dedicated console

On 5/21/21 9:59 AM, Rob Berendt wrote:

However I am sure that James has worked on machines which did have
such hardware and since he is having such a tough time getting over
the loss of twinax (20 years) how he ever managed to get over the
loss of truly dedicated console devices such as a card reader and
system attached printer.

Actually, I have had precisely one experience involving Hollerith cards, almost four decades ago, lasting a matter of weeks.

When I was in high school, all programming classes were taught using a district-wide timeshare system, running McGill MUSIC on an IBM 370/135, and accessed via ASCII terminals (mostly Lear ADMs, Datamedia Elites, and Decwriters) over multiplexed leased phone lines, typically six terminals per line at a maximum baud rate of 300.

When I was at CSU Long Beach, all programming classes, except for an experimental game writing class taught on IBM PCs, were taught on various CDC Cybers and a DEC PDP-11/70. While there was a keypunch room and a card reader, none of the classes I took used them.

For a few years, my high school had its own on-site IBM 4341 for student use, running a more advanced version of McGill MUSIC. It was during brief periods of employment there that I used the local student timeshare system for a work-related project, and since it did not have the option of submitting batch jobs from a terminal, or directing output from a terminal session to the line printer, it was then, and only then, that I punched some very thin decks of Hollerith cards (no more than 5 cards each) to run my program in batch.

I am a terminal-jock, from the beginning. My very first AS/400 experience was with a 3487-HC. And I find it extremely irritating that no emulator that has ever enjoyed official IBM support has even come close to the elegant aesthetics of a 3487, and that IBM has thrown out a connectivity technology as bulletproof as Twinax.

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JHHL