IBM’s MVS 3.8 on Linux for newcomers - M50

[@spaceraton]

Thanks for doing this. I got this working on my Raspberry Pi. Got the prime number COBOL job to run.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Good job !

[@risajajr]

LOL, that is cool!

[@grappydingus]

Nice! I just watched this for the heck of it and I learned that I can issue a shutdown command from TSO. New to me! Thanks!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Michael, thanks for watching! Yes the shutdown command is a program only present in TK4. But easily portable to any other MVS or z/OS.

[@DavidDHahn]

Thank you for this, it was most helpful! I recently subscribed after watching several of your videos. In college, I worked on an IBM 4381, as well as a IBM 370. As I'm in my late 40's, I was in one of the last groups who even worked with mainframes. Though during my career, I haven't worked with mainframes much, so watching your videos brought back memories. I recall enough 370 Assembler and COBOL to understand what is actually going on. My JCL is utter crap, and I'm more used to VM/CMS on the 4381, so Hercules offers a neat way for me to get back into the mainframe world. Mainframes are such unique computing devices. Though I find them rather cumbersome, I cannot help but be fascinated by them. I still remember using the SVC command in assembler for a supervisor call in Operating Systems class.

[@mieszkogulinski168]

Just followed your tutorial, everything works so far ;)

[@mieszkogulinski168]

24:16 - to everyone running this tutorial: to scroll the list, use F7/F8 keys - the same keys are used for scrolling the source code at 24:54 and the output at 26:02

[@ernietech-101]

I commented earlier in the day that the expected output was not produced. But I went back through the video and found my error. And it works like expected! Good stuff! Thanks Moshix!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Cool !!

[@salan3]

A bit late I know but just got this running. thank you. Yes had problems with x3270 as I am not using esxi but just running the lot on my laptop. But it worked! I need to learn (again) a lot more about using 3270 terminals etc.

[@sohailshaikh7454]

Able to deploy on Ubuntu 20.04 in about an hour including watching and pausing the video when needed. Able to run Sieve of Eratosthenes and verified with the video. I never worked on any mainframe and using 3270 was a bit of challenge, used IBM website to see what keys to use for example to go back up in the menu (F3). Thanks Moshix for the video. I will go back to M1 and watch them.

[@andreitudorcorduneanu886]

Thanks for this video, very well explained. It solved me hours of researches I'm probably too young, but now I get how big part of the hacker culture in movies/games is inspired by IBM programs xD That colors, and all that output verbosity.. simply too satisfying

[@moshixmainframechannel]

I agree !

[@billb6283]

Very well done. I watched...and with your clear explanations had MVS running on my Linux system in no time. Although I ran the 3270 client on Linux also because I use it exclusively and I dont't have MS-Windows. In my past life I was a VSE [and its varients] Systems Programmer and our small company didn't have the budget for MVS [VSE's big brother].

[@moshixmainframechannel]

thank you, Bill. Glad you got it to work!

[@havetacitblue]

Okay...very excited now - finally figured out how to generate x3270 from suite3270 and am now connected to my very own tiny 3033! This time, I’ll never get in trouble for getting a malformed JCL dataset hung on the intrdr. I can IPL this bad boy whenever I so desire. Thank you Moshix!!!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Fun!

[@DavidDHahn]

Really excellent video, I was able to get everything up and running with no problem. Makes it very easy to get going, the only downside is it doesn't appear one can use the Hercules Studio GUI (which just adds fluff anyway). Regardless, TK4- is self-contained and simple, which I like!

[@EdouardTavinor]

Many thanks for the wonderful introduction :) I now have a system up and running. Sorry to ask such a simple question but how do you scroll the list at 24:18? I'm on c3270 under Ubuntu. Many thanks :) --- edit --- oh, i've just found the help command :) and it says I can enter "down" or "+" which both work :) -- edit -- now I have it: f8 is scroll down and f7 is scroll up :D -- another edit -- and to see a list of what the f-keys do, you can enter KEYS

[@mieszkogulinski168]

thanks for the tip :)

[@rhbob]

Wow, Moshix! Just stumbled across this video and the first I have seen of your channel. I worked on MVS mainframe in the mid to late 80's and what a trippy flashback this is for me. These days, I'm a Linux OS engineer (professionally) and all around computer history enthusiast, so you can imagine how exited I am to try this out! But I have a question. In the video, you unzip the TK4 and run it with Hercules as root user on the Linux box. My question is: do you need to do this as root or could you also do it as any non-root user? Thank you for taking the time to make this and so many more videos. I have subscribed to your channel and look forward to watching the Mnn series from the beginning. With kind regards! -Bob

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hello and thanks for reaching out. Yes computer history is fascinating ! You don’t need to be root but you need to run it with root privileges to enable things like tcpip etc. so, just run it with sudo

[@ronaldhudson169]

I have downloaded and extracted TK5 and installed the hercules emulator and c3270 but when I run the MVS shell script I get: hercules: symbol lookup error: hercules: undefined symbol: panel_display_r - what do I need to do next?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Follow my videos or go to our discord to get help there

[@stonent]

SVP at Redhat. All this work with Linux you've done over the years, what keeps bringing you back to MVS?

[@gregs2424]

stonent There is a video of moshix explaining it.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

because it’s fun. And because back then they didn’t let me learn MVS the way I wanted to learn it: exploring it from all angles. And that’s exactly what I am doing with this channel.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Greg, right you are. Here is why: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5C2mY2XptaHjaM

[@moshixmainframechannel]

No, Juergen just called libraries differently. Plus he uses NCP on an emulated 3705. I will do a video on how to change the logon screen

[@adailyllama4786]

This has been the most helpful guide on setting up Hercules. I am fascinated by mainframes, and during my younger tech years spent many hours coding COBOL on the likes of 390 and 400. Is there any simple way to remotely connect to the emulator with something like TN3270?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

It’s real simple to connect to Hercules remotely. If you are asking if there is such a publicly accessible Hercules and MVS instance, there was but not anymore

[@adailyllama4786]

​​@@moshixmainframechannel unfortunately am unable to connect to my emulator, from another computer on my local network. The terminal states no 3270 devices available. I assume there is some type of configuration missed? By the way, am huge fan of the channel!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

@@adailyllama4786 hmmmm you know the IP address of your computer running Hercules?

[@adailyllama4786]

@@moshixmainframechannel Yes. When I attempt to login to MVS on port 3270 from another machine on the network, I receive the following: Hercules version 3.13 built on Dec 6 2020 14:37:47 running on cygnus (Linux-6.1.21-v8+.#1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr 3 17:24:16 BST 2 Connection rejected, no available 3270 device

[@moshixmainframechannel]

So you are connected to Hercules ! Good. It’s just that you have run out of available terminal addresses. Follow my instructions step by step and it will work just fine

[@robertlaw8510]

How do you logoff a user after their 3270 disconnects? I got stuck and cancelled my 3270 emulator. I then restarted the 3270 but could not sign on. It said my user was already logged on.

[@MeriaDuck]

at about 21:42 where we connect to port 3270, why do I always get "No available 3270 device" message?

[@MeriaDuck]

apparently I when running on localhost, I have to go to 127.0.1.1:3270 without specifying a username

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Depends on your Windows set up

[@moshixmainframechannel]

User name you specify after connecting

[@PanDownTiltLeft]

Excellent video. Got everything running and am running Brown U's Mac 3270 tn3270 - I still get input not recognized in the 3270 after attempting to use herc01 or herc02 or prefacing them with logon. Any suggestions perchance?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Just try hitting enter first and then just herc01

[@PanDownTiltLeft]

@@moshixmainframechannel Yeah - I did that. It behaved as yours did, clearing the screen and saying input not recognized. I type herc01 and it clears the screen and says input not recognized yet again. - Wonder if it's a config issue on the 3270 emulator side? The console showed the active connection like yours did.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

@@PanDownTiltLeft strange. What kind and size of terminal do you use

[@PanDownTiltLeft]

@@moshixmainframechannel It's called tn3270 for MacOS. It's from Brown University. It's running it's default of 24x80.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

What port are you connecting to ? Try a different terminal

[@daol03]

i'm trying out mvs tk4 and watched your video, but when i change to HERC01 first line in the primcob3 file. And i want to save the file it says it can't be saved in view mode and i don't know how to get out of view mode?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Pls open it in edit mode

[@daol03]

@@moshixmainframechannel Thanks that worked :)

[@vmisev]

Thanks for the video! Your guides made possible for me to install and run TK4- MVS 3.8j on FreeBSD 12! :D I'm running Hercules 3.13 from official FreeBSD pkg repo and x3270 pkg (3.3.15). I made some trivial changes to mvs script (#!/usr/bin/env bash, added 'freebsd)' case etc.) mvs started Hercules and loaded some scripts, but then spew few errors about scripts not found - x3270 connected, but after first enter - nothing. Not even '/d t' worked in Hercules. So, after lot of wasted time (and of course I didn’t RTFM ;) ) I entered (in Hercules console) single '/' and lot of stuff started to load and initialize; I started x3270 again, and now after enter I got login!!! proof: imgur.com/gwgsLHE Next step: I have to figure out why scripts are not working properly, and try to compile Hercules v4, but that's for another day. Thanks one more time! :D

[@vmisev]

OK, no more weird syntax errors in Hercules console. Problem was in version, TK4- ships with v4 and I was running v3 from pkg repo. Thanks to you moshix, I went with hercules-390 git repo. Lot of instructions and warnings for Unix builds there, but since I already have a lot of build tools installed (they are needed for FreeBSD ports building) I did only 'git clone ... ' and then './1stop'. Everything worked like a charm! :) I uninstalled Hercules 3 pkg (to avoid lib conflicts), added $PATH to freshly made bins/libs to 'mvs' bash script and everything just works: imgur.com/HpUz2Oa :D Now, hardest part - to actually learn something about MVS ;) Thanks one more time moshix, this will be impossible for me without your guidance and explanations!

[@lanealucy]

how i scroll down like on 24:20 min?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Function key 8

[@thelonegunmanpb5273]

Awsome video. Just curious. If i would like to have it running in the backgroud. So that i can still access my linux terminal. How would i do this? Also, if this is possible, how would i get back into the hercules terminal

[@moshixmainframechannel]

This is a Linux question not a mainframe question. You would use the “screen” command to start a virtual terminal and then disconnect.

[@thelonegunmanpb5273]

@@moshixmainframechannel Awsome. ill look into it. Thanks alot for the fast reply :)

[@deltakid0]

This video is interesting, and also hard to watch since the resolution is extremely high for a smartphone or a laptop screen, please take into account not everybody has a big display. Thank you.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks. A channel that is about mainframes necessarily has a lot of text based stuff going on. I have said it in my videos many times that if it’s important to follow what I am doing then a larger screen is assumed by me. Furthermore if you need to type what I am typing in a terminal then you wouldn’t do that on a phone anyway. Thanks a lot !

[@deltakid0]

@@moshixmainframechannel you're right, I'm not gonna write commands on my smartphone, but 80x25 VGA Text Mode is 720x400 max, you have like 4 or 5 times that, an 800x600 VM is just enough and a very common resolution back in the Win2k days, most 14" laptops these days are 1366x768, I really appreciate if you do some tweak or get used to smaller resolutions for audience comfortability. At that laptop resolution a Putty window takes a quarter the space of the whole screen, I really don't see the need to have such a hugh resolution, may be that's because I'm used to Emacs (don't get me wrong, I also use Vi very well because it's a lot more faster for quick changes and is built-in in almost every *NIX and so on), or may be is because I assume the poorest case when I have to work for a company, which is almost the case.

[@louismoench3554]

gonna try this on gentoo

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Try TK5 on Linux. Not the one showed in this video. That’s an older version

[@louismoench3554]

@@moshixmainframechannel I managed to do just that, thanks moshix!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

@@louismoench3554 nice !

[@jorgediazlandaeta3283]

Excellent video, thanks. I would like to know how to install zlinux in hercules, can I add a disk in the dasd of this mvs38 section and then invoke the installation program?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Watch this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4Wlf6dpZ6qFjac

[@eugrus]

Now, I am that guy who has to ask: what's the song/album?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Satellite one

[@eugrus]

@@moshixmainframechannel Thanks! Love your videos!

[@gabrielenten]

Show yourself, we wanna give you a kiss

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Haha