How to communicate with IMS from an NTO device

The Network Terminal Option (NTO) handles the device characteristics associated with line control and communication protocols, and translates them into SNA-SLU 1 communication protocols handled by VTAM® and IMS.

You can communicate with IMS from a network terminal option (NTO) device using control characters, single-segment messages, and multi-segment messages.

Control characters

IMS uses the following control characters to delineate messages and message segments:

. (period): End-of-message. This character signifies the end of a multisegment message when you do not use MFS.
CR: Carriage return (X'0D').
LF: Line feed (X'25').

Single-segment messages

To send data to IMS, use the following format:

Begin the message with a transaction code.
End the message with the CR and LF characters.

Example:

transaction_code  text   CR,LF

Multi-segment messages

To send data to IMS, use the following format:

Begin the message with a transaction code.
End each segment with the CR and LF characters.
End the message with a period (.), followed by the CR and LF characters.

Example:

transaction_code  segment_1  CR,LF
                  segment_2  CR,LF
                   . . .
                  segment_n  CR,LF
                             .,CR,LF

You can reverse the order of the CR and LF characters.

Operation of the NTO device is the same as for those devices without NTO and VTAM. For additional information on entering messages, receiving messages, using response mode, using MFS, and using IMS commands from the terminal, see the other topics in this section on each type of physical device.