On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 09:21:18PM -0400, Phil Smith III wrote: > The 3277-1 was 12x40. How did people use that? Did editors wrap lines, thus > making it effectively 6x80? I've wondered this for literally decades but > never remembered to ask!
I heard that UCLA supported the 3277-1 on their locally written interactive edit/submit/output system "URSA". The 3277-1 was before my time there. URSA was a single region, non-swapping (all real memory) multi-user edit/submit/output system (and a lot more like job status and operator interfaces). This was running on a 360/91 with a highly modified MVT without HASP. By the time I arrived in the early 1970s there were only the later CCI terminals. These were modified TV sets connected to a large (guess 10"x10"x25" inch) box containing core memory for the screen image and fans. Each had (at least) a 50Kbit serial link back to a control units in the computer room. There were 30+ of these scattered over the campus (and some on remote control units). The CCI displays were limited (likely by the TV bandwidth) to twenty 40 character lines. The KEYPUNCH full screen (well 5 card images plus some command and information lines) folded the lines (each card took two lines) and the files were restricted to LRECL 80 BLKSIZE 400. Later with the introduction of 3270s, URSA was modified to drive them but ran them as still 20x40 screens. MVT TSO was the first instance of 80 character lines and I wrote a local full screen editor as well fixed up TCAM enough to make full screen work. (See cbttape cbt149). I don't know when the last CCI was disconnected, but URSA didn't make it to MVS.
