tn3270 in AIX

[Stephen E. Bacher]

>>I've just upgraded AIX/370 & AIX PS/2 from 1.2.0 to 1.2.1.  One very
>>noticeable change is the EBCDIC/ASCII translate table used in tn3270.
>>AIX 1.2.0 tn3270 had problems (mapping of the EBCDIC PL/I "not" to a
>>tilde instead of to a caret).  AIX 1.2.1 tn3270 fixes that, but messes
>>up the exclamation, vertical bar, and square brackets.  This seems to
>>be the ANSI X3.26 1980 Standard that's so unpopular in the linemode
>>(TTY) support that comes with VM.  It makes REXX & C programming
>>really frustrating.

With help from IBM support, I have found the solution:

(1) Copy the following tables into the directory(ies) of your choice.
    (The examples herein use the names where I put mine locally.)

  cp /usr/lib/nls/nlin/US.in_src  /usr/local/nlin/DRAPER.in_src
  cp /usr/lib/nls/nlout/US.out_src /usr/local/nlout/DRAPER.out_src

 (The defaults you are using now are probably the universal table,
  UNI.* - you should be using the US.* settings to get the correct
  exclamation mark, etc.)

  This table even lets you display EBCDIC-looking equivalents for the
  cent sign, broken vertical bar, and "hat" (logical not).  But these
  don't show up on all fonts, and there's no reason (IMHO) to display
  a circumflex as a hat - especially since you can type in a circumflex
  on the ASCII keyboard but not the hat.   So...

(2) Make the following changes:

  In the in_src file...

Change...  0x5F  0xAA   Circumflex
to...      0x5F  0x5E   Circumflex

Change...  0xAD  0xED   Left Bracket
to...      0xAD  0x5B   Left Bracket

Change...  0xBD  0xF9   Right Bracket
to...      0xBD  0x5D   Right Bracket

  In the out_src file...

Change...  0x5B  0xBA   Left Bracket
to...      0x5B  0xAD   Left Bracket

Change...  0x5D  0xBB   Right Bracket
to...      0x5D  0xBD   Right Bracket

Change...  0x5E  0xB0   Circumflex
to...      0x5E  0x5F   Circumflex

(3) Create compiled translation tables from these as follows:

  genxlt < /usr/local/nlin/DRAPER.in_src   > /usr/local/nlin/DRAPER.in
  genxlt < /usr/local/nlout/DRAPER.out_src > /usr/local/nlout/DRAPER.out

(4) Add the following lines to your .profile (C shell users should make
    the analogous changes (using setenv, presumably) to .login):

  NLIN=/usr/local/nlin/DRAPER.in
  NLOUT=/usr/local/nlout/DRAPER.out
  export NLIN NLOUT

And you're ready to go.

  MVS users:  You also need a zap to VTAM and the addition of an
  ISPF terminal type translate table in order to make use of the
  square brackets.  If you're on a 7171, you need to modify that
  as well.  Contact me if you need any of these.


                               - Steve Bacher <seb at draper.com>
                                 Draper Lab