Host Connectivity News and Articles (16/28)
For years -- decades, even -- people in the IT industry have been predicting the death of the mainframe. Yet despite all the doomspeak, the mainframe's future remains bright. Enterprise-wide architecture like Business Integration and Virtualization, as well as zIIP, zAAP and IFL engines are all working to increase the potential of mainframes in a way that is just as exciting as when the mainframe first came out in the 1970s. While the old green screen terminals have been replaced with terminal emulation software, and while emerging cloud technologies continue to generate buzz, the mainframe remains the platform of choice for the majority of the world's Fortune 500 companies.
One of the features of our flagship Windows Terminal emulator TTWin 4 is the wide range of terminal coverage that it offers. With more than 80 different terminals from a variety of manufacturers supported, we believe it's the most comprehensive package available.
In our many years of producing terminal emulation software we've discovered the some terminals are, of course, more widely used than others and that certain terminals have become strongly associated with particular industries.
In order to understand what a terminal emulator is, you first need to know what the terms ‘terminal’, ‘mainframe’ and ‘GUI’ mean, because terminal emulation software was developed using GUI-based operating systems to ‘emulate’ the terminal’s role of communicating with the mainframe.
Those unfamiliar with mainframe systems associate these systems with a number of misconceptions. Price, skills and relevance are some of the top myths that surround mainframe platforms.