Subject: 5250 Telnet Enhancements Draft

From: Jack Porter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 14:21:19 -0500

A couple of questions/observations:

1. There seems to be some confusion about whether "DEVNAME" is a VAR or a USERVAR.  Page 8 does not include it in the list of six standard VAR's, and page 9 does include it in a list of four USERVAR's.  But, the telnet sequence on page 7, and the corresponding hex dump on page 8, indicate that "DEVNAME" is a VAR.  The telnet server that I am working with (AS/400 V3R7) accepts either 0x00 (VAR) or 0x03 (USERVAR) before "DEVNAME" in the "NEW-ENVIRON IS" string.  Could someone clarify ?

2. Page 7 indicates that the server first queries NEW-ENVIRON support, then terminal type; the client negotiaties terminal type, then NEW-ENVIRON support.
  a.  This sequence seems odd to me; why defer responding to the DO NEW-ENVIRON ?
  b.  The telnet server that I am working with (AS/400 V3R7) queries terminal type first; then, only if the client responds twice with "IBM-3487-NC", it queries NEW-ENVIRON support.  Does anyone know whether this will be changed to comply with the new draft, or whether I may be missing a PTF ?

3. On page 11, I believe the tenth byte in the "NEW-ENVIRON IS" hex dump should be 0x01 (VALUE), not 0x03 (USERVAR).

Thanks very much,
Jack Porter