A terminal window showing white text on a black background. An ASCII art logo reads MUSIC/SP and is captioned below as Multi User System for Interactive Computing / System Product.
A TN3270 client running on Windows

A 3270 Emulator is a terminal emulator that duplicates the functions of an IBM 3270 mainframe computer terminal on a computer, usually a PC or similar microcomputer.

As the original 3270 series terminals were connected to the host computer through a display controller (cluster controller) using coaxial cable, emulators originally required channel (rare), coax or synchronous communication adapter cards to be installed in the PC. Today, many emulators communicate with the mainframe computer through a TN3270 server using the TN3270 (RFC ) variant of the Telnet (RFC ) protocol common on TCP/IP networks including the Internet, so special hardware is no longer required on machines with Internet access. Several vendors offered both coax and communications attached 3270 emulators and TN3270 clients as part of the same product.

Connectivity

One way of categorizing a 3270 simulator is by how it connects to the host.

Some 3270 simulators use a channel adapter to connect directly to the host. This is common in protocol converters or other situations where performance justifies the higher cost.

Some 3270 simulators use a coax adapter such as the Irma board to connect to a cluster controller.

Some 3270 simulators use a synchronous serial link to connect to a communications controller. Using BSC requires less code, but SDLC with SNA allows more functionality.

Some 3270 simulators use a LAN interface to a cluster controller.

Contemporary 3270 simulators typically use TN3270 to connect to a TN3270 server on the host.

Products

An interface card for running the 3270 emulator on an IBM PC.
DCA IRMA II ISA for PCs.

In 1983, IBM marketed the IBM 3270 PC, a bundled package including a PC, a graphics adapter, 3270 emulation software and coax interface card. 3270 emulators and TN3270 clients are also available from many third-party vendors like Attachmate and Ericom. Some solutions permitted a coax interface to be shared by workstations in a LAN.

See also

Notes

External links

  • : Open source, multi-platform TN3270 client
  • : Open source, GTK TN3270 client
  • : emulator for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X
  • : terminal thin-client emulation for 3270 mainframe screens
  • , a TN3270 client by Jolly Giant Software
  • , a TN3270E client by Jolly Giant Software
  • , a TN3270 emulator by Tom Brennan Software
  • : a 3270 terminal emulator by Rocket Software
  • , a TN3270/TN5250, SSH, SFTP/FTPS and printer client by Nexus Integration
  • , a TN3270 client by FlexSoftware Inc
  • , a TN3270 client by Mochasoft
  • , a TN3270 client by Attachmate
  • , a TN3270 client by OpenText (formerly Hummingbird)
  • , PCOMM: a 3270 emulator and TN3270 client by IBM
  • , a TN3270 emulator for Mac OS from Brown University
  • , a web-based client by Flynet
  • , a highly available, cloud deployed, web-based client by Micro Focus
  • , Fastest, Most Functional Web Terminal Emulator by Inventu
  • , a Python 3.6+ library / emulator may interest you if you write software that automates 3270 terminal interactions or if you just use a 3270 terminal emulator.