Approved-By:  Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.pacs-l
Date:         Fri, 16 Oct 1992 09:37:22 CDT
From:         Huijie <CHENH@ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject:      Summary for Windows 3270 Emulators

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hi, There,

I should have posted this summary much earlier.  Since my question was
posted here one month earlier, I have received several replies and
requests.  More people requested for an answer then providing an answer.
Well, that's normal.  And that's why I would like to post my summary here.

Then, I would like to thank all those who kindly provided me information
and clues.  One netter even sent me some materials via regular mail.
However, I decided not to repost their replies here.

The intial question I had was to find a Windows support 3270 Emulator that
can run on ethernet cards.  After reviewing those answers and doing some
research, I found out my question was too broad.  Thus, for that quesiton,
there are serveral answers, while none of them are the best for all kinds
of situation.

For instance, I didn't realized at the very beginning that ethernet card
support is not enough.  In our campus, we are moving to complete TCP/IP
internet connection.  That is, when we are using ethernet cards for our
local area networks, we need to talk to the mainframe at TCP/IP layer, not
IPX/SPX layer.  The later actually need some sort of gateway setup, such as
a Novell Gateway.

Before I go on, I would like to refer you to the PC Week's *Buyer's Guide*
on Augest 31 issue.  There are 6 pages dealing the Window 3270 Emulators,
including a two page long product list.  Is it neat?  If you decide to go
to read PC Week, you may not need to read my following messages.  :-)!

The first Product mentioned by a reply is Wall Data's Rumba 3.1.  This
product is also regarded by PC Week as one of good products in this
catagory. It fits perfectly to our requirement.  The problem is, since I
talked to them for more information two weeks ago, we still haven't receive
anything from them.  Here is their address and phone number:  Wall Data
Inc., 17769 N.E. 78th Place, Redmond Wash 98052-4777 (206)883-4777,
(800)487-8622 Fax: (206)885-9250.  (Price? $495.)

The second product I investigated is called NET3270 from McGrill University
at Canada.  The good thing for this product is that it support ALA
characters set.  Generally speaking, this is a nice product too according
to the documents.  It only costs $1390 for up to 16 users.  However, we
don't like its connection part.  The topology looks like this, you need to
assign one PC in your LAN as a delicated gateway (they called it as Net3270
Server), from which a 3270 coax cable would be wired to attach the IBM
mainframe.  We know that our unversity's network people would not let us to
run another one or two miles long cable for us for this connection.  Plus,
we have about 100 LANs in this campus.  So, we have to say bye to this
before they can provide a TCP/IP implementation.

Here is the contact information for NET3270: McGill University Systems Inc.
550 Sherbrooke Street West, Suite 1650, West Tower, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada, H3A 3C5, (514)398-4477, Fax: (514)398-4488, Internet:
net3@musicm.mcgill.ca.  Or, you may direct contact Pierre Goyette at
(514)398-7354, pierre@vm1.mcgill.ca.

The third products we investigated is called Extra! for Windows from
AttachMate.  This company is making a great effort to promote this product
so you will find its ad at many computer magazines.  Actually, we were
doing our research on this product much earlier.  It is said that this is a
very user-friendly package.  Finally, it turns out that it requires an
Novell Gateway in order to talked to the Mainframe.  Otherwise, you need to
use Token-Ring network adoptor or Attachmate IBM/IRMA coax adoptors.  Those
hardware requirements force us to give up further exploration.

The contact information is: Attachmat Corporatin, 13231 SE 36th Street,
Bellevue, WA 98006.  800-426-6283, 206-644-4010, Fax: 206-747-9924.  Don't
forget to ask for the demo disk when you call.  The price?  $425.

Irmalan/EP and Irmalan Client for Windows were brought up to our attention
by netter's replies too.  We talked to the DCE to get the details for both
products.  It turned out that this Irmalan/EP is a software Gateway and
Irmalan Client for Windows is the emulator software.  The costs are
$3995-7450.  Actually, currently we do have some sort of IRMALAN gateway at
this campus with limit access.  On the consideratio of development
strategy, we are not going to complicate the issues with more gateways.

Fortunately, we are told by the DCA people that they are working on a new
version of Ermalan Workstation for Windows.  The release date could be late
November to Early January.  This version is said to have TCP/IP support.
Hence, we would be glad to wait for this one if it is a good one.  BTW, the
current version of WorkStation for Windows 2.0, without TCP/IP support,
costs $495 each.  The contact information is: Digital Communications
Associates Inc., 1000 Alderman Drive, Alpharetta, GA 30202, (404)442-4000,
800-348-3221, fax: 404-442-4366.

The last product in our waiting list could be called PC/TCP for Windows,
from a company called FTP Software Inc.  I don't have contact information
for this one because it is a university support package.  :-)!  As my
understand, currently we only put part of their DOS version together with
something else and come out a package called IUMAIL, a pc-based mail
system.  FTP will have their new version come out in one month, with Window
support and TCP/IP support.  However, we are told that the new version,
2.1, will still *not* support 3270 emulation.  They said that they are
working on this part, but there is no firm date when 3270 emulation would
be.  Since we would like to have a product supported at the University
level, we will also wait for this one.

One netter suggested to wait until M.S. Windows NT, which may include an
IBM 3270 Emulator.

Some other products are also mentioned in the replies, such as IBM Personal
Communications/3270, with requirement a IBM Token Ring card, or something
similar; B&W NFS 3.0, a windows application, not sure about 3270 support;
VisataCom, another windows application, not sure about 3270 support too.
Due to the limited resource, we could not extend our research to all of
them.

Again, thank you for your interest.

Huijie Chen
Music Library
Indiana University
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