As an ex MVS chap (I managed VSAM (DL/1) based SAP R/2 systems on IMS DB/DC at the start of my career) I was amazed some months back to find Hercules, the open source S/370 emulator.

So imagine my delight when I revisited Hercules the other day, to find a chap called Volker Bandke had put together an MVS 3.8J Turnkey system that you can install and run on your emulated mainframe.

Using the ISPF-alike RPF, and QUEUE, a facility similar to SDSF, I am in oldtimer-heaven.

And of course, the first thing I tried (after a bit of jiggery pokery setting things up) had to be the inevitable:

//HWORLD JOB CLASS=A,MSGCLASS=A,MSGLEVEL=(1,1),REGION=256K
//STEP1 EXEC PGM=IEBGENER
//SYSUT1 DD * HELLO WORLD!
//SYSUT2 DD SYSOUT=A
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=A
//SYSIN DD DUMMY

Welcome back JCL, my long lost friend.

Update

I found some great pictures of real vintage terminals connected up to contemporary emulators (of vintage hardware) at Corestore Collection. This is what the site’s owner calls “technological hooliganism” :-) Seeing this picture of a 3278 takes me back – I spent a good part of the start of my IT career in front of one of these…