MVSintosh
MVS and Macintosh

Back to the Mac

I got tired of all of the Windows adware, spyware, viruses and worms so I converted back to the Macintosh a few years ago. Here are some notes for fellow mainframers I took along the way along with some tips to help you.

Sections

TN3270 to MVS
FTP to MVS
Rexx on the Macintosh
Run MVS on the Macintosh
Run Tritus (SPF editor) on the Macintosh

Note: I use the term MVS generically to mean MVS, OS/390 and z/OS. Some of the information on this page can be used for VM and VSE but I have no access to those systems to verify. Use at your own risk regardless.

TN3270 to MVS

TN3270 is the terminal application that talks to IBM mainframes.

Freeware products:

x3270 is a "straight forward" Unix install. You do Unix installs when you want to go mano a mano with the machine. Here is my x3270 install page.
Brown tn3270 is a standard Macintosh OS x installation. It works as expected out of the box.

Tip: Jay Maynard offered this suggestion for Brown tn3270: Turn off "treat blanks as nulls" in the connection settings to get it to work properly with MVS 3.8's NETSOL.".

Commercial products:

Celview
See my tn3270 page

Using Microsoft Windows on the Intel Mac for 3270 emulation:

Now that the Macintosh uses the same CPU as does Windows, running Windows on the Mac Desktop is very easy and runs at almost 100% native speed. A couple of products that allow you to do this is:

Parallels Desktop - This is the one I use because it was the first one available.

To the right is a picture of IBM's PCOMM 3270 product running in Windows/XP on the Mac Desktop using Parallels Desktop:
VMware Fusion - Now another product that is similar product which you might consider.

(click picture for larger desktop picture)

Some ~~reasons~~ excuses to run Windows on the Mac Desktop:

Enter Key - Since I've been unlucky to get the right control key to be the Enter key in these Mac 3270 applications and too lazy to try go get them to work, I'm currently running Windows 3270 applications on my Mac Desktop.
VPN - The company I work for provides us with a VPN client for Windows (for free) but not one for the Mac. There is VPN client that works with our corporate VPN server (Nortel) but I'd have to buy it.

Tip: Exposé

The first time I used tn3270 on my Mac, I ran up against the Mac OS X Exposé use of function keys which conflict with mainframe applications like TN3270. Jay suggested changing the Exposé key sequence using System Preferences (off the Apple in the upper right hand part of the screen). Change the Exposé keys to require a modifier key like the command key and tn3270 will work as expected and Exposé will be available also.

FTP to MVS

Mac OS X includes a line mode FTP command which at Mac OS X 10.3 is a port of lukemftp. To use it you need to open the Terminal application. The syntax is:

ftp mvshost
--prompt for MVS userid--
--prompt for MVS password--
cd 'IBMUSER'
get my.doc(resume) resume.txt
quit

Problems

If you find that your FTP session hangs when you do use the "dir" or "ls" commands like:

ftp> dir
200 EPRT request OK

Enter these two commands right after your password at the "ftp>" prompt:

epsv4
passive

Hopefully you will find that the directory commands work as expected now. These commands are needed because the mainframe FTP server doesn't currently recognize EPRT and PASV commands so we tell the Mac FTP client to use the old PORT command.

MVS aware FTP programs:

Also there is a commercial Macintosh application called Fetch which is MVS-aware.

Rexx on the Macintosh

If you are a programmer, you may be using Rexx on MVS and of course want it on your Macintosh. Rexx runs on just about every platform and that now includes the Macintosh in Mac OS X.

To install, go to the Regina Rexx web site -> Regina -> Downloads and download the ppc version of "Regina". Currently this is a StuffIt file that contains a dmg file. Once the Regina folder is mounted on your desktop you can install it like any standard Macintosh OS X application. Sweet!

In the past I have installed Patrick McPhee's RegUtil on the Macintosh and used it successfully with Regina Rexx. RegUtil enables a lot of operating system functions you have have used on OS/2 like getting directory listings.

Run MVS on the Macintosh

Check out Hercules which is an open source software implementation of a mainframe capable of running many mainframe operating systems.

Run Tritus (SPF editor) on the Macintosh

Read my Tritus Mac Installation page.

Disclaimers

The advice on this page is presented asis and without warranty. Please research any advice given here and ensure that it will work in your environment. As stated at the beginning of this page, these are my experiences that I'm sharing to help you. I will probably not have time to respond to problem emails. Please feel free to let me know about corrections.

Copyrights, Trademarks and other lawyer stuff:

MVS, OS/390, and z/OS (and possibly other words on this page) are owned by IBM.
Macintosh (and probably other words on this page) are trademarked by Apple.
Other terms are owned by their respective copyright/trademark owners.

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