RUMBA Evaluation 3.1 (w/ TCP/IP Option) CJS 1/31/92 AUTHOR C. J. Sacksteder Center for Academic Computing cjs@psu.edu THE Pennnsylvania State University | (Additional notes w/ Graphics Option 3/03/92) SUMMARY This is a very nice 3270 emulator and "session automation" system (my term) for MS Windows. It is roughly comparable to IBM's Personal Communications/3270 2.0; it implements some of the same features in a better way (hot spots, macros, multiple sessions), but is not as good with others (file transfer, color mapping, keyboard mapping). But, if you must use a TCP/IP connection, as most people at Penn State do, you can't use PCOM2 at all. You can easily do many things to customize and automate your 3270 sessions; the product generally has a good "windows feel" to it. There are a variety of related products and tools that I did not evaluate; for example, there is a "Rumba Tools for DDE" to allow other Windows applications to interact with Rumba. Details follow. VENDOR Wall Data Incorporated 17769 NE 78th Place, Redmond, WA 98052-4992 Ph: 206-883-4777; Fax: 206-885-9250 |COST | | Call the vendor (prices change; there are different options). | Annual end-user support: $150 | WHY? I am interested in TCP/IP applications and in IBM 3270 emulation programs that run under MS Windows 3.0. I have a personal need to log onto VM and AS/400 for systems support and development, and I help support end users who log onto these systems. Most users access these and other systems using TCP/IP based software such as FTP Software's PC/TCP. WHAT IS IT? Rumba is a package of Windows 3.0 applications providing easy mainframe (IBM 3270) access. A wide variety of connections are supported, including DFT coax and (as a separate option, TCP/IP). For the later, a packet driver, such as one from FTP Software, is needed. The basic component is 3270 terminal emulation with some advanced features. The special features are "Hotlinks", "QuickStep" and "Hotspots". I was sent an evaluation version, which is limited to 1000 "transactions", and had no manual. Watch out! "Transactions" includes every 3270 AID key and you'll use them up quickly. | Later, I received the full version for further evaluation. The | Graphics Feature was also received. THIS EVALUATION Equipment used was an IBM PS/2 95 XP 486 (25mhz), with 8Mb memory, XGA Display Adapter (1Mb memory), IBM 8515 display, IBM 4/16 TokenRing card, and IBM 3270 emulation card. Pertinent software: IBM DOS 5.0, MS Windows 3.0a, FTP Software PC/TCP 2.05. Windows display driver was IBM XGA version 1.2, installed with 8515 fonts (resolution 1024x768x256). Host systems tried were VM and AS/400 (there is a special AS/400 feature which I did not have). It is somewhat comparable to the Windows mode of IBM's Personal Communications/3270 Version 2.0, which I'll reference as "PCOM2" and use to contrast overlapping features, even though PCOM2 can't connect via TCP/IP. I had a number of questions on how to do things, and they were very helpful. INSTALLATION Quite simple. This limited evaluation copy puts a hidden directory in your root, which I don't care for, but they need to limit the free | evaluation, which (I believe) is otherwise the full package. There | seems to be no hidden directories or other nasties in the full | version. | | It kindly asks if you want your SET PATH in your AUTOEXEC.BAT modified | (no, thank you). | I couldn't install from the diskette a second time because I removed the files manually from the hard drive; I should have UNINSTALLed the product. Had to get new diskette. Should only be a problem with the evaluation version. About 4 megabytes of disk space was used. For use with FTP Software's packet driver, another TSR has to be loaded; this takes 23k of memory. DOCUMENTATION | The evaluation package does not come with manuals. The *real* thing | doesn't seem to have any manuals either (?). A separate System | Administrator's Guide seems complete; I'm not sure if that is an | extra-cost item or not. | The on-line help is fairly extensive and easy to use. I was very frustrated at first because I didn't notice the feature of using Ctrl-H to turn on context-sensitive help. This causes the cursor to change to a hand-pointer, and double-clicking on most controls brings up the appropriate help. To me, the natural "windows thing" is to to select the HELP menu item, but the dialog windows don't have HELP on the menu bar, and you can't go back to the session window without closing the dialog. I think every window should have a HELP menu, with an item to do the same thing as CTRL-H. TERMINAL EMULATION It emulates an IBM 3270 models 2, 3, 4, or 5 with extended highlighting and extended colors. An optional feature provides 3179G and 3472G graphics features. Mulitple sessions are supported; can use different interfaces at same time (e.g., DFT coax and TCP/IP). This is particularly important for me because I have a TCP/IP connection and a coax connection, and previously have not been able to use both at the same time under Windows. Doesn't have any "Entry assist" features, such as word tab or word wrap. Doesn't have "Yale nulll processing", which is important for using VM (Xedit in particular) with Telnet. Colors: The default blue was totally illegible on my screen; colors can be remapped, but I could not get exactly the desired shade of blue. Fonts: are auto-scalable; you can also select fixed-aspect ratio. Larger sizes are really ugly. Perhaps an XGA only problem; for some other drivers, they use different fonts rather than scale-up a small font. Problem: underscore is in middle of letters on the larger sizes. (Vendor says this is fixed.) For the blinking attribute, an italic version of the font is shown. A Windows limitation. Alternate cursor (block) provided, but cursor must blink. A Windows limitation. |GRAPHICS OPTION | | Emulates an IBM 3179G. There seems to be a problem with scaling; a | SAS/Graph image that is full-screen on a real 3179G shows up very | small. Demos via ADMCHART were sized correctly but the aspect ratio | was off. Resizing the window didn't help. Oh; SAS 6.06 showed images | in correct size. | | You can print the screen; it knew to reverse the colors (screen had | black background; paper came out black on white). Except for the | size, the image was good. | CUSTOMIZATION It is fairly easy to customize any number of sessions. Settings are saved in one file which can be placed in a program group for easy access. KEYBOARD MAPPING It is not easy to find out what the keyboard map is. It is fairly easy to remap the keyboard, but I prefer the interface provided by PCOM2. There is a predefined "Quick Step" pad (see below) with all the special 3270 keys assigned to buttons -- this is great for the beginner and for people who use many terminal emulators and have difficulty remembering every mapping. MACROS There is a small macro language; macros are defined with the help of a small macro editor. There are 9 types of statements that allow the macro to send text or 3270 keys to the session, wait for specified text to be displayed, initiate a file transfer, and run other applications. There are labels and a GOTO and EXIT to provide some logical branching. Particularly valuable is the RECEIVE command, which waits for a certain period, or forever, for certain text to appear on the host screen. You would use this to know when a host function is finished so the macro can continue with the next step. Macros can also be created by recording keystrokes. It is easy to specify a macro for automatic logon. There is even a check box to indicate that text, such as a logon password, is to be hidden; it then becomes encrypted in the macro file, and you can no longer see it via the macro editor either. Macros can be assigned to "hot spots" or to buttons on a "quick step" pad. More about these later. Type command -- can not enter more than 23 characters; this is a odd limitation. I have several strings I wish to send to a terminal session that are far longer than this. Answer: put string in multiple TYPE commands. MACRO EDITOR This is a bit difficult to use. For example, you can't see *all* of each statement at once, and it isn't immediately apparent that you double-click on a line to edit it. It would be nice to be able to manually edit lines right in the window. If there is an error, you get "Macro playback failure" with no indication of where failure is. It would be nice to be able to edit a macro without starting Terminal (e.g., testing an Automacro). It would be better if it wasn't an exclusive window, so you could go back to the terminal session to try something. It prompts to save changes when no changes were made. QUICK STEP A session may have 1 to 8 "quick step pads", which are variable-sized button pads with buttons assigned to macros. These may be set to automatically open with a session, and are similar to PCOM2's popup keypad but more extensive and more powerful. It would be nice if key labels could be more than 4 characters (and if keys could be made bigger for a 1024x768 display). Configuring Quick Step pads is a bit awkward; you must define the macros first, but it isn't clear how to create a macro when editing a Quick Step file. (Part answer: use right-mouse button to edit existing macro already assigned to a key, this brings up the macro editor. I'd prefer a menu item to start the macro editor.) HOT SPOTS A hot spot is a character string on the host session screen that has been assigned a macro. When you click on that screen location with the right mouse button, the macro is executed. This is similar to PCOM2's hotspots, but are more powerful. There is an option to have these spots displayed (reverse video), which is very helpful. Rumba comes with default hot spots, such as "PF1", "PF2", assigned to macros that send the appropriate PF key. These aren't quite right for VM, because the "hot spot text" is "1", "2", "3", etc., and you don't really want, for example, line numbers in XEDIT to be "hot". PF key labels in our VM applications are usually like "1=", so I redefine all 24, which was tedious. It might be nice to be able to define a row and column range a hot spot is active in. It is a little tedious to configure many hot spots. For example, on an AS/400, the PF key labels are like "F1=", and a separate definition has to be made for all 24 possibilities (fortunately, it can use the existing PF key macros). It would be nice if somehow a macro could reference the hot spot text, so that only one macro would be needed for PF keys or menus that had numbered items. That is, hot spots "F1=", "F2=", "F3=", etc., are assigned to 24 different macros. There could be some kind of link or dynamic substitution, so that only one macro was needed. For some reason, I could not make "More" do PF8 on the AS/400. They suggested trying the trace utility to see what was happening; I didn, but it was no help. Tried a few more things, and finally checked "Override Lightpen" box in hotspot definition, and it worked. Wonder why. FILE TRANSFER It can be configured for VM, TSO, or CICS. It uses IND$FILE on VM. I would prefer that it had an FTP server because we have a host-based interface that uses FTP (which still works if you start an FTP server). File transfer is its weakest feature for several reasons: -- for copy to host, you must manually enter host fileid -- would be better if it defaulted to a derived name; -- it is easy to send file to host with wrong name; host id for last copy stays set (nice for a failure, bad if transfer was ok). If you double-click on a different PC fileid you will quickly overwrite the host file; -- you cannot specify multiple files for transfer. This is a severe limitation. -- when the transfer is initiated, the window disappears; there is no indication of progress; when done, the window was underneath everything else. -- if host file is not found, an empty local file is created anyway. -- transfer menu uses terms "Send" and "Receive", which might be familiar to some, but could be confusing to many. Terms like "To Host" or "To PC" would be clearer. One relatively unique feature is that it can read and present a list of host files in the transfer dialog window. But on VM, it appears that it will only show those on the "A" disk. It would be nice if it allowed you to specify the minidisk mode (or even gave a menu of accessed modes). Otherwise, I much prefer the file transfer features and dialogs provided by PCOM2. HOT LINKS Oops, my 1000 transactions have been used up. Not sure what you can do with this feature. Apparently it "automatically" gets data from host and inserts it into Excel. QUESTIONS I had various questions that the vendor answered quickly and thoroughly: Macros: Type more than 23 characters? (Hmm, they haven't had that complaint before; you can string multiple TYPE commands together) End session with macro? Control other windows and macros? No; vendor says they aren't trying to make the macro facility do everything. The RUN command can start a different product to manipulate Win apps. Problem making "More..." and "Bottom" send PF keys. Will try DSA.EXE. Unload driver? (Yes, use /u) Is DDE supported? Yes; "Rumba Tools for Visual Basic" sounds very nice. Any way to do file transfer to/from an AS/400? They are working on it. |SUPPORT | | Customer support is free for 90 days; they charge $150/year from then | on. This is rather frightening! However, I called, and they did not | immediately demand a serial number. Their technical person was very | good -- both knowledgeable and courteous. Although their literature | mentions updates via an electronic method, the update I needed was | large (fix for the font problem mentioned above) and they sent a | diskette. | PROBLEMS There were surprisingly few problems. I'm usually able to make a 3270 emulator fail somewhere. Once when trying to change the keyboard and the screen froze. Had to reboot. Was not repeatable. | |WISH LIST | | Macros -- invoke from a menu rather than a QuickStep key. | Macros -- would like to do "if cursor is on protected field, then..." | QuickStep pads -- adjustable button sizes | QuickStep Configuration -- allow access to Macro Editor while open | 3270 emulation -- "Yale null processing" | -- "Entry assist" features: Word tab, word delete, word | wrap | Chris Sacksteder, Lead System Developer Center for Academic Computing, Pennsylvania State University 105 Computer Building University Park, PA 16802