Talk about a flashback... I worked on the support desk an OEM of one of the 5250 emulation companies.
We had a network gateway card that would propagate the sessions across the network... This one customer's gateways (you could put 6 twinax cards in a PC) kept dropping the connection. Weeks were spent trying to diagnose, replacing hardware, cables etc. to no avail.
Finally, the tech mentioned that (while he was near the gateway server) he experienced a very strange sensation in his chest - almost to the point of being sick. We learned that a nearby uninterruptable power supply was malfunctioning - he was actually "feeling" the EMF it was producing.
Once removed, all of the problems disappeared.
-----Original Message-----
From: WDSCI-L [mailto:wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Hockings
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 7:33 PM
To: Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client for System i & iSeries
Subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] ot: Re: RDi 9.5 --> Keys stop working..
Wow, that's cool Jonathan. I did the major part of the board design for
the original (full-size) 5250 adapter card for the PC. The PC XT used a
8-bit 8088 processor running at 4.77 Mhz and the then-powerful PC AT used a
16-bit 80286 at 6 Mhz (IIRC). And yes to mate with the monster twinax
cable that dongle was a good size. Ahhh, that was fun times! Brings back
memories of flying first-class with a pre-announced PC-AT because those
seats were big enough for the packing box....
Mike Hockings, M.Eng., P.Eng.
IBM Rational Developer for System z and Power Systems Software Technical
Support
IBM Canada Ltd. Laboratory
hockings@xxxxxxxxxx
From: "Wilson, Jonathan" <piercing_male@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio
Client for System i & iSeries <wdsci-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 2015-11-12 11:10
Subject: [WDSCI-L] ot: Re: RDi 9.5 --> Keys stop working..
Sent by: "WDSCI-L" <wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Side note: A "PC-Help-Department" at a former company had problems with
Screen Savers. So, they blamed everything on the screen saver. Even if it
was built in Screen-saver in Windows. <Shock>
A long time ago, when first introducing PC's over 5250's (With huge
twinax cards and dongles) we had a problem where for some strange reason
the PC-5250 would keep dropping sessions. It would seem to work
flawlessly for hours on end, then just decide to drop.
Turned out some had a screen saver, Johny Castaway, that when running
would be so CPU intensive that the PC just gave up on dealing with the
twinax cards. Mind you, this was back in the day with win3.11 and I
vaguely recall either a 386 or 486.
--
This is the Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio
Client for System i & iSeries (WDSCI-L) mailing list
To post a message email: WDSCI-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit:
http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/wdsci-l
or email: WDSCI-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at
http://archive.midrange.com/wdsci-l.
midrange.com
