Jags

Probably we should have the name of the list changed from IBM-MAIN to JAGS-
MAIN!

> instead is it possible to just have a blinking Message....

Indeed, arranging to have a field of characters or individual characters blink 
is 
a possibility offered by the extension of the basic 3270 data stream 
capabilities introduced in the latter end of the '70s - at about the same time 
that the 3279 and colour brightened our 3270 lives.

Back in the early days of the Network Logical Data Manager (NLDM) product - 
which, because the task of installing independent components over the 
programming environment supplied by the Network Communications Control 
Facility (NCCF) product together with the Network Problem Determination Aid 
(NPDA) product was just too complicated for the poor lambs of system 
programmers at the time, later became integrated into NetView - some bright 
spark of a developer came up with the wizard wheeze of an idea to have 
blinking messages - what fun!!!

The trouble is - to the accompaniment of many words coloured according to 
the IBM colour - nobody could <many expletives deleted> actually manage to 
read the messages unless they were prepared to rest their eyes in a dark 
room afterwards and probably book an ophthalmologist's appointment.

I believe an APAR swiftly followed to get rid of this quite ridiculous 
technique 
to highlight messages!

However, there was the germ of a good idea here and I decided to try out a 
massively more practical version in a little transaction program I wrote - for 
managing the 3270 printer authorisation matrix interactively - initially for 
CICS 
and then NCCF when the necessary programming became available.

Rather than have the *text* of the error messages blink, the cause of the 
hullabaloo or brouhaha - whichever you prefer - with the NLDM messages, I 
replaced the blanks between the words, X'40', with X'3F' and had these 
individual characters, in some 3270 display implementations having the 
appearance of a football as used when following the rules of Rugby School or 
that barbaric full body armour American derivation, blink.

Thus I achieved the objective of drawing attention to the error messages 
while maintaining readability, the best of both worlds, as it were!

Chris Mason

On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:43:53 +0530, jagadishan perumal 
<jagadish...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Thanks then the constant moving could prove a tedious time... instead is it
>possible to just have a blinking Message....

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html

Reply via email to