Re: [Bulk] Dumb Terminal or Emulator

Hi, Jerry:

Real twinax terminals (5250 family) are assigned a device name by the operating system when they are first recognized and "auto-configured." Those device descriptions could also be renamed by an administrator.

With most PC-based 5250 emulators, including IBM's Client Access, you are using a "virtual device" like "QPADEV0001" or let Client Access generate a device name based on the user name or PC name, or the user can choose to manually assign the device name.

Assuming your shop has some device naming standards or "naming conventions" you should be able to discriminate by device name.

The device name is easy to obtain -- for interactive sessions, RTVJOBA JOB(&JOBNAME) should give you what you want.

See also the QDCRDEVD API. This can return the IP address for a device that is coming in via "telnet" (many PC emulators connect this way, vs. real twinax terminals that usually do not have an IP address associated with them.)

Hope that helps,

Mark S. Waterbury

> On 9/23/2011 9:43 AM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:

We still have a couple of dumb terminals sitting around and currently being
used, though most work is done with PCs running 5250 emulation.

I was wondering if there is any way to tell if a program is running on a
dumb terminal or an a PC. The reason for asking is that I may want to
provide the ability for users to invoke a web search or validate fields,
such as zip code, through a web service. Obviously, these functions would
crash and burn if run from a dumb terminal so I want to be able to check
before I allow such things.

I read the recent discussion on Interactive vs Non-Interactive but did not
see anything that addressed this specific condition (though I may have
scanned the entries too rapidly or casually).

Thanks.
Jerry C. Adams