Terminal device support

Hardware and access method sensitivity is one of the major distinctions between using BMS and using terminal control commands to communicate with a terminal. BMS shields an application from hardware dependencies at the expense of some loss of function, whereas terminal control provides all the function.

The result of providing full function is that not all terminal control commands apply to all devices. Some commands require that you know the type of terminal, to determine the options that apply and the exception conditions that can occur. For some commands, you also need to know what access method is in use. The following tables show which commands apply to which terminal and access method combinations. If you need to support several types of terminals, you can find out which type your task has as its principal facility using the commands described in Finding out about your terminal.

To use the tables, look up the terminal type that your program must support in the first column of Table 1. Use the value in the second column to find the corresponding command group in the first column of Table 2. The second column of this table shows the access method, and the third shows the commands you can use. The commands themselves are described in full in CICS command summary. Where there is more than one version of a command, the table shows which one to use. This information appears in parentheses after the command.