5250 adapter in an ISA/AT bus machine


PROBLEM - What process should be followed when installing the 5250 card P/N 82G7060 in an ISA/AT bus machine in order to solve the problem of the system dropping Windows sessions?

Machines AFFECTED - All Valuepoint systems.

SOLUTION - Timings in the PC support AS/400 window that allows DOS, cannot be supported by Windows timing management.

Remove the DOS facility within the AS/400 window, and force any DOS box requirement to use Windows DOS box.

Options: any requirement for the organizer can be added with the /d parameter; this allows DOS in the AS/400 window once only.

Setup: Use the latest BIOS for the machine. Use the recommended DOS and Windows with recommended setup.

AS/400 setup -

1. Follow all the tips listed on APAR II06590 including the setting of the emulator card driver to interrupt 3 or 7.

2. You can modified the pcswwsf.pif file to always bring the WFS session up as a full screen session. This will eliminate you having to always select (alt+enter) to change WSF to a full screen session.

3. Install the latest PTF SF13912 on the AS/400. This PTF will allow you to run WSF in what Rochester calls restricted mode. In this mode the DOS window that is used to start WFS in not available and will not appear when hotkeying between AS/400 sessions (alt+esc). To terminate emulation you select (ctrl+alt+end) which will return you to the DOS window that started wsf, where you can type exit to return to Windows. While in emulation session you can hotkey to other window applications including ms DOS window by using (alt+tab) or (ctrl+esc).
To take advantage of this restricted mode feature, which appears to be the biggest help to this problem, you must modify the pcswwsf.bat file to add the /NODOS parameter to the WSF call line in this bat file. For example: WSF.EXE /Z becomes WSF.EXE /NODOS /Z. This call should be located in 2 places in the bat file. There is also a utility called WFXWSF that is available from PC support that automatically allows you to modify this bat file.

Add the /D parameter if organizer is required.


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