Post by ceo1944A Hercules RFC: The status of Remote Job Entry
options under Hercules.
Since Ivan Warren so kindly implemented the 2703
Bisync emulation, I've been spending some time
investigating the various RJE options we have
with Hercules under the "vintage" operating
systems DOS, OS/360, DOS/VS, VM/370, OS/VS1, and
MVS. I have very little real life experience
with mainframe bisync communications, and none
at all with RJE in any form. Nor do I have
any manuals, beyond the basic description of
the bisync protocol and the 2780 RJE terminal
available at www.bitsavers.org/ibm/datacomm.
What I know comes from reading source code and
experimenting. Things I say here could well
be wrong, although I think them to be true and
am pretty sure of my information at this point.
Please, anyone who can correct anything, or
who could provide any further information
(particularly manuals!) contact me.
Why bother with RJE at all? After all, we
already have several options for getting JCL
to the various OSes under Hercules, all
acceptably easy. But reading the output is
less pleasant, all we generally get is a
simulated printout in a disk file. That's
Why not view listings while they are on SPOOL?
If you store in a disk file, store as RECFM=VB
and truncate trailing blanks. You can also use
Hercules printer support to store as a PC file,
but the listing is converted to ASCII.
Post by ceo1944better than wasting the tons of paper we used
to waste in the real world, but it's a bit
clumsy. But the real reason for getting RJE
to work isn't practical, it's mainly to learn,
to preserve this part of computer history,
and to have geek fun. If the ultimate result
is a pleasant way to submit jobs and recieve
the results so much the better.
Background information.
RJE is a generic term for the various methods
of submitting batch jobs (generally JCL) from
remote stations, over a bisync line, to a host
operating system. RJE provides not only for
sending jobs, but for receiving the printed
(or punched) output. It's not an interactive
process like using a 3270 terminal. There are
in fact three main types of Remote Job Entry.
I'll describe each one briefly and relate it
generally to its availability to us on Hercules.
RJE - This is the "original", vanilla method.
Its first implementation was announced with the
first 360 mainframes. That implementation was
2780 Data Entry Terminal. This is the common
baseline for IBM mainframe RJE. Almost every
IBM mainframe OS provides for connecting to a
2780 or 3780 RJE station. 3780 is just a
slightly more capable elaboration or 2780
protocol and is now the most commonly used in
th real world. In fact this became a de facto
method of data exchange in the business and
financial world, and is still, in the 21th
century, used for EDI (Electronic Data
Interchange). 2780/3780 RJE is a simple
protocol that provides for half-duplex (one
Do you mean that the console wouldn't
work if the card reader or printer was
running or do you mean that Bisync RVI was
broken? If an SNA RJE workstation like a
3777, did it run full-duplex?
Post by ceo1944direction at a time) sending of "card decks"
to the host, and the reception of "printed
output" and "punched cards" from the host.
I have verified that OS/360, DOS/VS, OS/VS1,
VM/370, and MVS all have options to configure
bisync lines to act as hosts to 2780/3780 RJE
stations. DOS/360 almost certainly does also
but I haven't verified this.
MRJE - This is also referred to as "Hasp RJE".
It's more sophisticated than plain RJE, in
that it provides for interleaved streams of
data to and from up to 7 readers, printers,
and punches all at the same time. It also
provides for special control records,
messages, and commands to be exchanged
between the station and host. MRJE stands
for Multileaving Remote Job Entry. It is NOT
compatible with 2780/3780 protocol (I don't
think. Could it be?). Among our operating
systems, only VM/370, OS/VS1, and MVS support
MRJE. If we get a version of HASP running
under OS/360, we can add it to the list also.
We also have have some options on the station
end. VM/370 RSCS will act as a station, and
also under MVS there are some assembler
programs to produce standalone JES2/HASP
workstation programs for the System/360,
System/3, and 1130.
NJE - Network Job Entry. This is the modern
form of RJE, much to be preferred. However,
it requires SNA. Of our operating systems,
only DOS/VS seems to have any code that could
support NJE. However, at the moment, we don't
emulate the hardware to support it. SNA won't
work over bisync, only SDLC. So, NJE is out
as an option for our OSes until we do some
serious work. As far as I can see, even if
we had an SDLC emulation, VM/370 and MVS 3.8
(not to mention the old OS/360) don't have
any software support for NJE. I could be
wrong about MVS 3.8. I hope so. I'm sure
about VM/370 R6.
The status of Hercules-based RJE as I know
it at the moment.
First, it's necessary to remember that RJE
isn't a peer to peer idea. There is always
a station (the slave) and a host (the
master). Nor is it a generic file exchange
system, although it can be sometimes used
as such (particularly in VM/370 RSCS where
it can be used to simply exchange data
files between machines across the link).
Plain 2780/3780 RJE - We have a plethora
of hosts, and no stations.
Many masters (OS/360, DOS/VS, MVS, VM/370),
but no slaves. There are many commercial
products that emulate a 3780, but they all
cost money, and they are all designed to do
so over real bisync hardware.
I long thought that the DMTNPT driver in
VM/370 could be a host or a station, but
that was wishful thinking. In fact, it's
only a host. The only way we'll ever use
plain RJE with Hercules is to write our
own 3780 emulator that connects to the
TCP/IP 2703 device on a hercules mainframe.
MJRE - This is the version of RJE we can
actually play with using the tools we have.
The DMTSML driver with VM/370 RSCS can be
either a host or a station. This allows
two RSCS systems to connect to one another.
The limitation of this is that one is a
station and the other the host. Files will
flowly nicely up to the host and be routed
to whatever VM user specified by the sender,
but I don't know how to route files back in
the other direction over the same link.
Files sent back to the station side seem
to wind up on the station's system printer
or system punch. However, flexible
bidirectional file exchange CAN be set up
by using two lines between the two VM/370
systems, so each can play the host role on
one and the slave role on the other.
Acting as a station, VM/370 *should*
(I have not yet accomplished this due to
the difficulty and lack of docs on the MVS
end) be able to submit jobs to a JES2 RJE
line under MVS 3.8. It should also be
possible to submit jobs to OS/VS1 RES (its
implementation of MRJE) from RSCS. Another
option is to punch out the standalone card
deck that's generated when you assemble
HRTPS360 in SYS1.HASPSRC under MVS. I have
configured and assembled this but haven't
yet run it. You need to change the
configuration because the default is to run
on a model 20. You can change this to a
model 30 for hercules. You'll also need
to change some of the default unit record
equipment, and probably the default 2703
device address.
A sample is at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/H390-MVS/message/3412
A change to bypass a Hercules problem is at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/H390-MVS/message/3417
Post by ceo1944NJE - I won't say it can't be done. But, we'll
need an SDLC emulation similar to the 2703 we
have now, and we'll need some form of station
emulator. Since VM/370 doesn't have an SDLC/NJE
line driver, there'll be a steep climb to achieve
NJE. And so far as I know, all we'd get is the
ability to NJE to DOS/VS. Not all that attractive,
unless we find NJE code somewhere in MVS 3.8.
That would make the work necessary to get NJE up
more attractive. Another option is writing a
VM/370 RSCS line driver. Given the size and
complexity of the two current (easier than NJE)
line drivers, this is far from a weekend project.
I don't believe that there is any connection
between NJE and SDLC. Many BITNET nodes were
not IBM machines. Many other BITNET nodes were
old VM systems. I doubt that they wrote SNA
and SDLC to run NJE. There were thousands.
Post by ceo1944Bottom line.
My current plan is to write a simple Linux
command-line 3780 emulator, and test it with
DOS/VS, OS/360, MV/370, and MVS. When that's
done I'll upload it to the Hercules-390 group
files section. No timetable promised :) But
hopefully soon.
Following that, it should be possible to
write a Windows GUI 3780 emulator that could
make job submission to any Hercules based
mainframe OS really nice. You could load and
save card decks, or edit them in a window,
submit them with the click of a button, and
see the results appear in your output window
automagically without needing to sort through
output from other unrelated jobs. You could
physically print the output on your PC
printer, save it, or just throw it away.
This is the ultimate "practical" goal of all
this. There's no reason why this emulator
couldn't be expanded to support MRJE also.
Dutch
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