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Anyone able to identify this S/390 hardware?

F

f1lm

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I was told that this was the remnants of an old 390 (the actual system itself was donated to a charity which promptly tore it apart and sold the bits to a recycler, sadly) and I'm wondering what the rest of this is. From what I can gather, the two largest items are a network controller (left) and a tape storage system (right, rather obviously,) but I'm most interested in the identities of the terminals, and if anything in there is useful as a standalone device for display or otherwise.

Anything look worth scavenging?
 
so, a terminal is a monitor? I may have been calling a terminal or two a monitor when I asked if anyone was interested in it
 
IBM loved running their terminals through terminal controllers, like the one seen on the left.
One thing to note however is that I think you have two Telex (I think it's more a branding thing than really a Telex compatible product) terminals sitting on top of the controller. I saw one in the past and I remember they had not only a port for a light pen but they were color (!!!). They are worth finding keyboards for.
 
NeXT said:
IBM loved running their terminals through terminal controllers, like the one seen on the left.
One thing to note however is that I think you have two Telex (I think it's more a branding thing than really a Telex compatible product) terminals sitting on top of the controller. I saw one in the past and I remember they had not only a port for a light pen but they were color (!!!). They are worth finding keyboards for.
Click to expand...

If you look in the rack, the keyboards (and an additional terminal) are all there!

Would these be usable with PC compatibles or other, smaller equipment? I've been wanting to experiment with multi-user systems for quite some time, but I don't have anything like that yet.
 
I believe it is RS-232 so under Unix or Linux or whatever you pretty much set the custom terminal type and you should be good, otherwise it defaults to VT-100 and all you get is a basic monochrome terminal session.
From the image I can see what looks to be one IBM Model F keyboard for a twinax terminal or the likes. It wouldn't be at all compatible. The other ones, I can't really tell. There appears to be a lot crammed into that rack.
 
Its hard top make out whats there but it looks like you have 1x3174 screen controller (box on the floor with two screens on top), 2xCartridge tape drives and controller(bottom of the rack), 3x screens plus some kind of box I can't make out. (black box on floor between screen controller and rack. Now these could be for either an AS/400 or a 370/390/ESA class main frame.

For the 370 the screens would be IBM3270 compatable and if so they will have a co-ax socket that connects to a matching socket the screen controller (3174) but the wrinkles in the wrapping obscures the connection plate on the terminal. Don't be mislead by the D-25. Many IBM screens have one of these for attaching a printer but it can't be used to connect them to a "normal host".

They "could" be normal ASCII terminals as the 3174 and the 9370 mainframe can have an ASCII Emulation Adaptor that allows "normal" terminals to be used as 3270 devices. We really need a proper photo of the terminal connection plate on the screens and model numbers.

If the 3174 has a hard drive, and enough memory, a network interface and the correct firmware then they can be used to connect to a normal Linux box.

I have the rack mounted version but I only use this to connect to the Hercules 370 Emulator using TN3270 not normal Telnet.
 
The object on the bottom right is a tape cartridge autoloader. If you do a google image search on "IBM 3480" or "IBM 3490" you will see a number of similar but not identical tape drives. The slots allow you to queue up a pile of tapes so that your backup program could suck in and spit out one tape after another. As stated before, the system on the left is a 3270 compatible terminal controller. These are very different from regular VT100 style RS232 terminals. They are block mode -- which means that they are incapable of scrolling, and the mainframe program sends the terminal a full screen of data, including descriptions of what fields on the screen are read only and what fields can be modified. The terminal user can make any number of changes, but the data all gets sent to the mainframe at once only when you press return or a PF key. They are spectacularly incompatible with anything non-mainframe.
 
As has been alluded to, you appear to have an IBM rack mounted 3490 Tape Drive. The box above it look like the Channel attachment interface. This means that in order to connect it you need a mainframe.

The box on the floor has rightly been ID'd as an IBM 3174 Subsystem Control Unit. If it is one of the later boxes boxes it is a 3174 Establishment Controller - they had potentially more connectivity. The 3174s were "cluster controllers" for groups of 3270 Type A devices: video terminals, printers, PCs etc. Upstream they connected either locally via a S/370 type channel or via one of three remote interfaces: X.21, V.35 or V.24. If your was found with the tape unit, then it is likely to be a channel attached box as well.

Memorex-Telex were a major PCM (Plug Compatible Manufacturer) of IBM 3270 terminals when I was "in the trade". So I guess that they are 3278 clones.

BTW, you'll find my name in the 3174 Red Book because I wrote the original work in 1986 in Raleigh, NC.

BTW2, I love the way that people refer to serial ASCII terminals as "regular". At the time, I reckon that 3270 compatible devices were the "regular" ones - by sheer weight of numbers.
 
Last edited:
Beerhunter said:
As has been alluded to, you appear to have an IBM rack mounted 3490 Tape Drive. The box above it look like the Channel attachment interface. This means that in order to connect it you need a mainframe.

The box on the floor has rightly been ID'd as an IBM 3174 Subsystem Control Unit. If it is one of the later boxes boxes it is a 3174 Establishment Controller - they had potentially more connectivity. The 3174s were "cluster controllers" for groups of 3270 Type A devices: video terminals, printers, PCs etc. Upstream they connected either locally via a S/370 type channel or via one of three remote interfaces: X.21, V.35 or V.24. If your was found with the tape unit, then it is likely to be a channel attached box as well.

Memorex-Telex were a major PCM (Plug Compatible Manufacturer) of IBM 3270 terminals when I was "in the trade". So I guess that they are 3278 clones.

BTW, you'll find my name in the 3174 Red Book because I wrote the original work in 1986 in Raleigh, NC.

BTW2, I love the way that people refer to serial ASCII terminals as "regular". At the time, I reckon that 3270 compatible devices were the "regular" ones - by sheer weight of numbers.
Click to expand...

Do you have any details on the hardware in the 3174? Not much on what was inside of them ever left Raleigh, AFAIK
 
Al,
I have several 3174s , some dismantled for use as spares. I could take so photographs of the boards. I seem to remember they have some Toshiba chips of the 3174 interface.
 
Al,

There doesn't seem to be much special in the "mid range" model. It has three 805X (I think) controller chips in the top right hand side of the board, a couple of memory chips bottom right, and lots of square Toshiba chips. There are two IBM specials. Photos attached:-

IMG_20150331_224552.jpgIMG_20150331_224848.jpg
 
The floor-standing models of 3174 had a proprietary back plane into which were plugged cards. Here's a list from memory: 1 X Processor, multiple Memory (521kB), 4-port coax, several embedded 8-port cards (they were connected to the 4-port card to give, initially support for up to 32-type A devices), diskette adapter, upstream adapter. In addition there were many options announced late, for example: Token-Ring, ASCII Adapter (The latter supported upstream to an ASCII host(s) and downstream to a terminal(s) e.g. VT100, 3101.)

They were often equipped with two 5 1/4 diskette drives. The second one would contain downloadable (via the coax) microcode for devices like the IBM 3179G.

The processor was an IBM design. I don't remember what it was called.
 
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