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New England IBM 3278 mainframe terminal Emulation boards 8 Bit ISA 3 boards total

Covers: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine.
VERAULT

VERAULT

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I have 3 IRMA PC/3278 Decision Support Interface cards.

The IRMA Decision Support Interface allows a standard IBM PC to fully emulate an IBM 3278 mainframe terminal. The on-board microprocessor and RAM allow the terminal screen to be maintained independently of the PC's normal display.

I have 3 of these full length cards take up space and I dont have a need for them: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/40314/IRMA-PC-3278-Decision-Support-Interface/

product-93261.jpg

Ic's on the card range from 1983 to 1986 to date the boards.


Any reasonable offer gets them. Im not looking for much just cleaning house.

Contact me if you have an interest in these boards. Thanks!
 
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These are 8 bit ISA boards which were made for the IBM 5150, 5160, and 5170 computer systems and anything with an 8 bit ISA Bus.
 
Well terminals are pretty sought after and expensive. These cards turn your PC into an IBM 3270 Terminal. Im sure with this card what you can do with it is impressive. IT has its own RAM and CPU so you can use the Computer and terminal card independantly. That seems pretty impressive.

As the original 3270 terminals are really hardto come by:
1920px-IBM_3277_Model_2_terminal.jpg




These cards would be wasted on me.. Another project in limbo. I am glad it went to someone who will use it.

These are 3rd party cards. Apparently IBM offered a modified PC with additional cards, a different monitor and keyboard but it cost a fortune: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270_PC



I really need to purge more stuff. I think maybe I need to start selling at the swap meets.
 
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I was surprised too. I also have one of these cards and have no idea how I would make use of it. It would be cool if there were a way to drive it with Hercules running on a single-board computer or something. Hmm... looks like it may be possible after all!

The processor is a Signetics 8X305, or at least it is on my IRMA II board. Somewhat unusual, quick chip.
 
I have several myself in ISA and MCA flavors, plus the PC/3270 boardset. I assumed that by now they were slot fillers because I know more people running Twinax these days for terminals than coax.
 
NeXT said:
I have several myself in ISA and MCA flavors, plus the PC/3270 boardset. I assumed that by now they were slot fillers because I know more people running Twinax these days for terminals than coax.
Click to expand...
Sure but cant they all be adapted? Even with devices that do just that which can be had for next to nothing on ebay?

I threw away (at work) so much various Coaxial equipment about 25 years ago.... Im sure some places still have tons of that stuff taking up space.
 
I bet there's a number of businesses that are still actively using this stuff, whether it be for line-of-business systems or other and need to keep it up and running... Over the years, I've seen more than a few companies pay exorbitant prices for various pieces of equipment that were just thrown in the trash not that long ago... This happens often in the CNC world, especially when dealing with older FANUC controllers/systems.

Look at the prices of terminals these days, whether RS-232 or TwinAX... how about SGI and SUN machines? I've literally thrown away/recycled $100k of the stuff back in the early 2000's (when SUN and SGI was completely worthless) and long before the "keyboard pirates" were born.

My bet is whoever bought this is going to be using it in some sort of "production" environment rather than sitting on the shelf as part of collection.

-Chris
 
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NeXT said:
I have several myself in ISA and MCA flavors, plus the PC/3270 boardset. I assumed that by now they were slot fillers because I know more people running Twinax these days for terminals than coax.
Click to expand...
Well TwinAx and Coax are not interchangeable. If you have a mid-range box, so AS/400 follow on you need twinax. If you have a 360/370/390/z box you need coax. I think few people have mainframes...
 
cchhrriiss11 said:
I bet there's a number of businesses that are still actively using this stuff, whether it be for line-of-business systems or other and need to keep it up and running... Over the years, I've seen more than a few companies pay exorbitant prices for various pieces of equipment that were just thrown in the trash not that long ago... This happens often in the CNC world, especially when dealing with older FANUC controllers/systems.

Look at the prices of terminals these days, whether RS-232 or TwinAX... how about SGI and SUN machines? I've literally thrown away/recycled $100k of the stuff back in the early 2000's (when SUN and SGI was completely worthless) and long before the "keyboard pirates" were born.

My bet is whoever bought this is going to be using it in some sort of "production" environment rather than sitting on the shelf as part of collection.

-Chris
Click to expand...
I don't think any one is using PCs with ISA slots into a real mainframe these days. There are a wide selection of similar cards on e-bay. I wonder if some one with real terminals took them for the interface chips which can be used to interface a real screen to USB via an arduino...
 
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