sanlorenzo59/mecaff

Fullscreen programs for VM/370-R6 SixPack

MECAFF - Multiline External Console And Fullscreen Facility

MECAFF is a set of programs for VM/370-R6 mainframe operating system running under the Hercules emulator, providing fullscreen applications for 3270 terminal emulators.

The MECAFF tools for CMS (the standard OS for users of VM/370) mainly consist of:

• EE : fullscreen editor

• FSLIST, XLIST, XXLIST : various fullscreen file lister

• FSVIEW : fullscreen file viewer

• FSHELP : fullscreen help viewer

• IND$FILE : file transfer utility

The files in this repository will probably be interesting only for users of VM/370-R6 SixPack 1.2 (or older), as this version originally did not provide fullscreen support for the console terminal of a VM. These users will however probably already know the MECAFF tools, as they were published first in the files area of the Yahoo H390-VM discussion group, the main exchange platform for VM/370 users.

This repository is an alternative location for the tools, providing all releases of MECAFF (the group has only the newest version).

History overview

The first steps in development of the MECAFF tool suite started in January 2011. At this time the control program (CP) of VM/370-R6 did not allow to share the access to the 3270 terminal connected to the VM of a logged on user. This effectively prevented a CMS program to take control over the 3270 screen and provide a fullscreen interaction e.g. for an editor. (for insiders: the DIAG-X'58' interface of the original VM/370-R6 did not support the necessary fullscreen subfunctions as they were added in later versions of the OS)

To circumvent this restriction, an external console program was written in Java, which acts as a kind of proxy between the the 3270 terminal and the user VM and allows a CMS program to provide fullscreen functionality through the specialized MECAFF API. Up to version 1.0.0 of MECAFF, this Java program was required to use the MECAFF fullscreen tools.

In 2013 Bob Polmanter published his modifications to the CP kernel which added the fullscreen functionality to DIAG-X'58', providing the standard interface of the more modern versions of VM/xx.

This allowed to develop fullscreen programs without the intermediary proxy program. The external Java program can however still be used, as it provides a more comfortable user console compared to the original CP console, with scrolling through the output history, extended function key support etc.

The latest release notes document lists the evolution of the MECAFF suite in more detail.

Status

The current version is 1.2.5 (see below). The versions before 1.0.0 were considered beta-level and were therefore published as binary only package with the programs, documentation and the public API, but without source code. Starting with version 1.0.0, the packages also contain the source code both for the C programs under CMS and the external Java console extension program. The sources for version 1.2.5 are directly available in this repository as well as in the ZIP-file for version 1.2.5, the sources for the older versions down to 1.0.0 are contained only in the respective delivery ZIP-file.

Rebuilding the fullscreen tools for CMS requires working with VM/370-R6 SixPack 1.2, as this version has the GCC compiler and the native C-runtime library necessary to compile and link the programs. For the optional Java console extension program, any contemporary Eclipse version should be sufficient for rebuilding.

License

The MECAFF binaries and sources are released to the public domain.

Repository subdirectories

The directories cms and java contain the sources for the current version 1.2.5 of MECAFF:

• the directory cms contains the files to build the MECAFF tools for the mainframe side, besides the H and C files these are the EXEC scripts for building and running the MODULE files as well as some support files.

• the directory java contains the Eclipse project for the Java console extension program.

The directory publications has a subdirectory for each release of MECAFF uploaded to the files area of the Yahoo H390-VM discussion group.
These are the following versions published at the specified date:

• 0.9.0 : 2011-07-29

• 0.9.1 : 2011-08-21

• 0.9.3 : 2011-10-15

• 0.9.4 : 2011-11-29

• 0.9.5 : 2011-12-05

• 0.9.6 : 2012-01-21

• 0.9.7 : 2012-03-10

• 0.9.8 : 2012-04-21

• 1.0.0 : 2012-05-25

• 1.1.0 : 2013-02-21

• 1.2.0 : 2013-04-25

• 1.2.5 : 2013-07-18

Each subdirectory contains the original ZIP-files published for the corresponding release, as well as the documentation PDF file(s) contained in this ZIP-file.
The files to be installed on the emulated mainframe are delivered as AWS tape files, which can be mounted by the Hercules emulator, the tapes were written with the CMS TAPE command.