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Date:         Tue, 18 Oct 94 22:05:29 EDT
From: "Rocklyn E. Clarke" <RCLARKE@mitvma.mit.edu>
Organization: 'MIT Operations & Systems'
Subject:      Re: x3270
To: "Mark D. Virtue" <vrt@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Roger Roach <rar@MIT.EDU>, James Repa <repa@mitvma.mit.edu>,
        "Jeffrey C. Harrington" <jeff@mitvma.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Tue, 18 Oct 1994 13:35:15 EDT

On Tue, 18 Oct 1994 13:35:15 EDT you said:
>try the following:
>setenv KEYMAP where_your_keymap_file_lives
>
>--vrt
>

This actually didn't work, but after playing around with it for a while,
what did work was:

   1.  I set the keymap environment variable to "ncd", one of the three
       acceptable keymap values (according to the man page).
   2.  I included in my .Xresources file the text from /mit/x3270/src/X3270.ad
   3.  I modified the newly included x3270 resource entries to suit my "very
       refined" taste in keyboard mappings.

I spoke with our director Roger Roach last week and mentioned how much nicer
the x3270 client was compared to tn3270 (at least on Athena).  I felt (and he
agreed) that, all other considerations being equal, it would be preferable to
scrap further development with tn3270 in favor of x3270.  "All other consi-
derations being equal" translates roughly into the following:

   1.  If kerberizing x3270 is at least as easy as kerberizing tn3270.
   2.  If compiling x3270 for Sun and other problems presents no extraordinary
       problems.
   3.  If there is no downside to x3270 that I/we are not yet aware of.

Although, as Roger pointed out, we probably don't have very many clients who
use athena to get to the IBM mainframes I am particularly interested in us
providing as clean an interface for them as possible (in this category x3270
beats tn3270 hands down).  Roger is particularly interested in providing a
kerberized interface quickly.

When I discussed the advantages of x3270 with my colleague Jeff Harrington,
he also felt that a switch was worth considering (he had some addional thoughts
about kerberizing telnet access to the IBM mainframes which he will pursue
with you).

How do you feel about this?  Would switching to x3270 be a viable approach
(i.e. would it be "working smarter")?  If so, how do we revise Athena's 3270
emulation policy?

Thanks again for all you help!
Rocklyn