Despite all the years using their services I had no idea RS has a tech blog!
nabbed•Feb 7, 2026
Hey, based on the picture, I used one of those 3179 models for about 6-7 years until my company replaced it with a desktop PC running terminal emulation software.
Years later, probably around 2003, when desktop apps started getting replaced by web apps (at least at my job), I remember making that connection between web browsers and 3270s. In the 1990s, clients got very fat (think powerbuilder), but then in the late 1990s and early 2000s much of the fat went to the server-side and the web browser became the thin(ish) client. The web browser was sort of acting as a block device (like the 3270) in the sense that the end-user filled data into fields and then sent the whole thing at once by hitting some button.
With Web 2.0, the client started to put on weight again. Then with mobile apps, the fat client was back, baby! It just keeps cycling.
Aloha•Feb 7, 2026
I wonder when thin clients will come back into vogue again.
I've considered the BLIT to be the platonic ideal, a seamless environment there local or remote behaved the same, looked the same and acted the same - I guess the modern equivalent to that would be Citrix applications - but thats still not as seamless.
kev009•Feb 7, 2026
Block mode terminals are somewhat similar to the forms based UIs we later got like HTML.
The 3290 was like a 4 split tmux session, it is such a beautiful device (https://ifdesign.com/en/winner-ranking/project/ibm-3290-info...). Perfect keyboard, plasma contrast and the right text color for long sessions. My understanding is they outlived themselves with long service in air traffic control (supplementing vector/raster displays), financial markets, and software development. Once upon a time people seemed to really care about doing things well.
chiph•Feb 7, 2026
IBM terminals were the original stateless clients. :)
I had a PS/2 Portable 70 for a while. It was a luggable Microchannel PC with a orange plasma display. Going through airports with it was a hassle as it didn't have batteries - I would have to find an outlet to power it on for airport security inspection.
theodpHN•Feb 7, 2026
The IBM 3270 display family was amazing for its time - a character-oriented, block-mode terminal that supported light pens and APL keyboards in the '70s, as well as color graphics and a plasma display that supported four 80x24 logical screens in the early 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
shrubble•Feb 7, 2026
Reminder that the X11 based x3270 client can be used to communicate with mainframes, including the "Hercules" IBM mainframe emulator that you can run on Linux/Windows/MacOS .
unixhero•Feb 7, 2026
The terminal client program named "x3270 emulator"?
somat•Feb 7, 2026
Articles like this always paint a rosy picture of the 3270 but consider the limitations. Async style updates as commonly found on a VT designed program were tricky.
Now admittedly my own experience with the 3270 was through about three layers of obtuse IBM operating systems. Perhaps if I sat down with a 3270 and a bare OS I would consider them differently, but I always found them terribly limiting compared to a VT. More efficient sure, but much harder/impossible to do cool stuff on.
source: I was a night shift tape monkey for a IBM place for a few years. A fair amount of down time, access to a full set of manuals and an understanding boss meant I was doing more hacking on production mainframes than I probably should have been.
dmix•Feb 7, 2026
What sort of data were you work with back then? Bank stuff?
somat•Feb 7, 2026
It was a mid sized mail order company, they had invested early with computers, and not changed much since. It was a very strange mix of odd old computer systems. An IBM mainframe batch processing backend with sco unix on the front end using pick databases as a sort of vertically integrated database and terminal ui.
When hired I had just missed the retirement of some sort of lockheed minicomputer they had used in the call center, which I would have loved to see. It was a very odd environment.
johnohara•Feb 7, 2026
I'll give you props for studying the systems manuals and not the handmade Adventure maps drawn on green-bar paper and hidden behind the back of the last 3270 at the far end of the row of tape request consoles.
I was on the DEC side with an amber VT220 and always thought it was cool that the 3270 could scream "mount me now dammit!" in flashing red block letters while the operators weren't sure if they should drop the keys or pick up the lantern.
YZF•Feb 7, 2026
They optimized for different things. The instant responsiveness of the 3270 vs. the VT at Xbps for local editing was nice. You could do async updates and even async input (via polling) as well though there was this annoying thing where the input could clash with the output and you'd get this weird icon that you had to clear (my brain is iffy on the details) e.g. when you hit a PF key while the display is updating. I think there was some workaround. I wrote some games that ran on the 3279 in an async mode (using some utilities a friend of mine built for that).
ErroneousBosh•Feb 7, 2026
I used to use 3270-based stuff at IBM back in the mid-2000s, when I did tech support for their EPOS systems.
They had some hyper janky Windows XP Citrix client that ran 3270 terminals that kind of half-worked on some server somewhere, that then talked to the Big Iron. When it didn't work (it frequently didn't) it meant we got a lot of coffee breaks, so not the worst in the world.
emmelaich•Feb 7, 2026
We were the envy of the mainframe folks, since we used x3270 under X/Windows and got to adjust the size, rows and colours. While they were stuck with the desktop consuming old massive terminals. Of course this was only after the mainframe sprouted tcp/ip connections.
sizzzzlerz•Feb 8, 2026
The year was 1978. A young engineer, just out of school with a still-warm BSEE degree, is working at his new job where programming was performed using punch cards or over the phone line with a acoustically coupled modem. After 3 or so months, the company has purchased these 3270 displays with keyboards and installed them in offices. Our junior engineer is assigned one of these. After just a few moments of use, it becomes exceedingly apparent that these are of a new class of technology, indeed, making life at work ever so much more pleasant and productive. Now retired, our engineer still remembers these quite fondly. Even more so, he remembers the keyboard. How solid it felt and the wonderful tactile feedback when pressing the keys. He might even say that it was the best keyboard that he ever used.
kens•Feb 8, 2026
The 80×24 display of the IBM 3270 is the reason that terminal windows nowadays are typically 80×24 (or 25 lines because the IBM PC added an extra line). IBM dominated the CRT terminal market in the mid-1970s, so other manufacturers were mostly forced to 80×24 in order to be compatible. (And of course the IBM 3270 had 80 columns for compatibility with punch cards.)
10 Comments
Years later, probably around 2003, when desktop apps started getting replaced by web apps (at least at my job), I remember making that connection between web browsers and 3270s. In the 1990s, clients got very fat (think powerbuilder), but then in the late 1990s and early 2000s much of the fat went to the server-side and the web browser became the thin(ish) client. The web browser was sort of acting as a block device (like the 3270) in the sense that the end-user filled data into fields and then sent the whole thing at once by hitting some button.
With Web 2.0, the client started to put on weight again. Then with mobile apps, the fat client was back, baby! It just keeps cycling.
I've considered the BLIT to be the platonic ideal, a seamless environment there local or remote behaved the same, looked the same and acted the same - I guess the modern equivalent to that would be Citrix applications - but thats still not as seamless.
The 3290 was like a 4 split tmux session, it is such a beautiful device (https://ifdesign.com/en/winner-ranking/project/ibm-3290-info...). Perfect keyboard, plasma contrast and the right text color for long sessions. My understanding is they outlived themselves with long service in air traffic control (supplementing vector/raster displays), financial markets, and software development. Once upon a time people seemed to really care about doing things well.
I had a PS/2 Portable 70 for a while. It was a luggable Microchannel PC with a orange plasma display. Going through airports with it was a hassle as it didn't have batteries - I would have to find an outlet to power it on for airport security inspection.
Now admittedly my own experience with the 3270 was through about three layers of obtuse IBM operating systems. Perhaps if I sat down with a 3270 and a bare OS I would consider them differently, but I always found them terribly limiting compared to a VT. More efficient sure, but much harder/impossible to do cool stuff on.
source: I was a night shift tape monkey for a IBM place for a few years. A fair amount of down time, access to a full set of manuals and an understanding boss meant I was doing more hacking on production mainframes than I probably should have been.
When hired I had just missed the retirement of some sort of lockheed minicomputer they had used in the call center, which I would have loved to see. It was a very odd environment.
I was on the DEC side with an amber VT220 and always thought it was cool that the 3270 could scream "mount me now dammit!" in flashing red block letters while the operators weren't sure if they should drop the keys or pick up the lantern.
They had some hyper janky Windows XP Citrix client that ran 3270 terminals that kind of half-worked on some server somewhere, that then talked to the Big Iron. When it didn't work (it frequently didn't) it meant we got a lot of coffee breaks, so not the worst in the world.