Only 1 coax cable and physical controller port:
"The 3290 Information Panel attaches to a 3274 Control unit utilizing
one physical port and up to five addresses, depending on the
application. Up to 31 3290's can be attached to a 3274 depending on the
application and 3274 model being used. The 3290 Information Panel
attaches with the same coax cable that is used with other Category A
terminals to attach to a 3274 Control Unit."
Obviously that should require some special configuration at the Control
Unit level since for ordinary 3270 terminals there was only one address
associated with each physical port on the controller. I believe the
reason for the max of five addresses was so you could select to run the
device as if it were four regular-sized independent 3270 devices, or one
huge screen display (on the 5th device address). My vague recollection
is that when running as a single large display ISPF supported doing both
vertical and horizontal splits to split the display into four logical
parts driven by a single ISPF session.
Joel C. Ewing
On 04/28/2017 11:40 PM, Tom Brennan wrote:
> I worked with a 3290 that had 4 mod-2 displays all visible at once. I
> always thought it had 4 coax cables, but now I can't remember ever
> looking at the back. It was in a tape room and had an MVS console for
> each of 3 systems, with the 4th display available as a TSO terminal.
> This was probably a couple of years before TN3270 emulators with
> multiple windows became popular, and I used it myself a bit (I was the
> tape sysprog at the time). I remember underlines instead if
> highlighted text, probably because the plasma pixels just had two
> settings - on or off. I also remember it being rather slow displaying
> text - you could basically watch the text "paint" itself from
> top-to-bottom when a new screen came in from the host. But hey, you
> got to type on a 3270 keyboard with real Clear and Reset and Erase-EOF
> keys. Now I feel bad because the one I worked on probably ended up in
> the trash.
>
> I never heard of the museum, so I googled for the address and there's
> a street-view picture of a guy in a black t-shirt unloading various
> boxes that must be for the museum.
>
> It's less than an hour from a datacenter I worked at last month, so if
> I need to go to Pittsburgh again I'd sure like to see the museum. And
> yes, please post anything about it here! Disclaimer: I have
> absolutely no authority whatsoever :)
>
> Dave McGuire wrote:
>> On 04/28/2017 10:35 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Wow. You really want to operate a 3290 in this age?
>>
>>
>> Yes I do. This is in a museum. But honestly, as a professional
>> developer by day, I'd happily type on that thing all day long. It's
>> gorgeous!
>>
>>> It must be 30 years old; but then I guess they were built to last.
>>
>>
>> About 35 years old, yes. And yes, built like tanks. And quite
>> hard to find nowadays; they cost a small fortune if you can even find
>> one.
>>
>>> ISTR mine weighed in around 75 lbs.
>>
>>
>> I'd guess around 60lbs. I don't like to move it very often. ;)
>>
>>> (some people thought it was bolted down),
>>
>>
>> Yup, I can certainly see that. :)
>>
>>> and that maybe a newer
>>> and somewhat lighter model came out later. Must have been the
>>> mid-'90s.
>>
>>
>> Yes, the 3290-2. It didn't have the big "humpback" protrusion that
>> contained most of the logic; it was integrated into the panel. We
>> have one of those too, here at the Large Scale Systems Museum in the
>> Pittsburgh area.
>>
>>> Anyway, my gut says you could buy a couple 24" displays for what that
>>> monster will cost you in power & cooling for a year. It got pretty
>>> hot.
>>
>>
>> Yup. I haven't measured its power consumption, but it does crank
>> out the heat. The Museum can sometimes make it clear until
>> mid-January before starting the building's main boiler. :-)
>>
>> Speaking of the Large Scale Systems Museum...We're actually about
>> to have our grand re-opening shindig after a big expansion and many
>> months of renovations; would it be compatible with the charter of
>> this list to post an announcement here? We do have quite a bit of
>> IBM iron.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>
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Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected]
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