alt.hn

4/4/2026 at 5:20:39 PM

IBM 3270 Information Display System: Color and Programmed Symbols (1979) [pdf]

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/3278/GA33-3056-0_3270_Information_Display_System_Color_and_Programmed_Symbols_3278_3279_3287_Sep1979.pdf

by hggh

4/4/2026 at 10:05:00 PM

quite a collection of documents. I was looking for CICS related manuals but I could not find them.

Thank you for keeping this

by aflores57

4/4/2026 at 10:33:06 PM

if you mean you couldn't find them on bitsavers, look under ibm/370/CICS

by bitsavers

4/4/2026 at 5:34:27 PM

Very nice, thank you.

by roscas

4/4/2026 at 10:06:40 PM

Great! Still in use today at some retailers like Costco and Best Buy!

by lokinorkle

4/4/2026 at 10:19:46 PM

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

3270 is a very efficient form of distributed computing where terminals and their controllers control a lot of state and the mainframe is in charge of the more important things. It was a browser from the 60’s, mostly 70’s.

by rbanffy

4/4/2026 at 10:29:49 PM

There are packages available that screen scrape 3270 streams and reformat them to export as html.

by bitsavers

4/4/2026 at 10:49:00 PM

It’s really a quite simple transformation. All the core ideas are the same, just the presentation is different.

by rbanffy

4/4/2026 at 10:54:35 PM

Close! Costco is 5250, which has many similarities.

They are a very famous AS/400 shop.

by bigfatkitten

4/5/2026 at 1:25:52 AM

Heh, up until a few years ago our inventory system ran on an AS/400, and we had to use 5250 emulators to log in. Don't miss it.

by Finnucane

4/5/2026 at 3:21:03 AM

The problem wasn't the AS/400 (IBM i) it was the 5250 interface. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water.

by _JamesA_

4/5/2026 at 11:37:30 PM

And even then, as with any other UI model, application design plays a massive role.

by bigfatkitten

4/5/2026 at 2:10:13 AM

A lot of gas companies are too, especially on the distribution side. Actually AS/400, and VMS. And very recently.

by FireBeyond

4/5/2026 at 3:20:17 AM

VMS is very good for high-availability systems.

by SoftTalker