Re:Fun things to do with your VM/370 CE machine – Fun with b...
by rbanffy on Monday November 09, 2026 @04:30PM
(#50432472)
> and you may be unsurprised to learn this took me three days of searching to find.
I am not surprised at all. This page is more or less the total achievement of a couple years of playing with the system.
> If there is a way to get ascii files or binary files in or out that would be helpful.
There is $INDFILE, which, IIRC, is something from the PC/370 era. The x3278 terminal uses it for its send/receive file facility. $INDFILE doesn't come with plain VM/370 R6, but is part of CE.
Re:Fun things to do with your VM/370 CE machine – Fun with b...
by RossPatterson on Monday November 09, 2026 @06:41PM
(#50433984)
There is as an APL system for VM/370, but IBM's licensing restrictions prevent the VM/370 Community Edition from pre-installing it.
1. Press Return before logging in. Simple to remember, but if you don't, you get...nothing after typing LOGON CMSUSER.
2. Use model 3278-4 (which is 80 columns by 43 rows) otherwise you get mystery blank screens.
3. There is no autoscroll. After 60 seconds it will timeout and scroll another screenful. Otherwise press PA2 for the next screenful (useful for lengthy LIST commands.) To interrupt very long output, type HT to halt text. NOTE: PA2 not PF2. See "MORE..." at bottom right indicating there is more text to scroll.
4. The CLI is an overlay mount of CP and CMS. If CMS doesn't recognize a command, it gives it to CP to process. Compare Q DISK and Q DASD, the Q DISK result it from CMS, the Q DASD result is from CP.
5. Use LIST (ISODATE) for more details and modify dates. Abbreviate as L (ISO.
6. Redirect Fortran unit 6 to the terminal with FILEDEF 6 TERMINAL (BLKSIZE 133) and you may be unsurprised to learn this took me three days of searching to find. Now your LOAD HELLO (START will produce output on your screen, not a file.
7. There is GCC with two available runtimes; BISON, DIFF, DIFF3, as well as PL/I, PL/360, Pascal and WATFIV for those old enough to remember the Waterloo Fortran compiler which had actual usable error messages. MINIZIP is there too. No APL, unfortunately.
8. I never did manage to get Hercules to exchange files via the Punch or Printer logical units. So, no file exchange at all. If there is a way to get ascii files or binary files in or out that would be helpful.
9. The 3270 terminal display is programmed with special character pairs indicating fixed text, text fields changeable, double-wide text, etc. So far I haven't found a way for a C or Fortran program to send and receive text from the terminal that can completely control the screen and read back the contents. (A program running under CMS of course.)