If you know mainframes, this book will help you extend your expertise to UNIX environments.This book is a quick, complete reference guide - and a powerful tutorial - for any mainframe professional who wants to understand UNIX and TCP/IP. It provides an overview comparing and contrasting mainframe and UNIX environments from the standpoint of the mainframe professional. It introduces mainframers to UNIX data and file handling methods; shows how UNIX provides for the commands and utilities mainframe programmers are familiar with; and discusses UNIX alternatives to mainframe JCL. It covers advanced UNIX shell scripts; UNIX editors; UNIX account configuration; and third-party tools that may make mainframe developers more comfortable in the UNIX environment. The book includes detailed lists of error messages, codes, UNIX signals, hints and techniques; conversion tables for ASCII and EBCDIC; an overview of the UNIX C Shell and TCP/IP, and much more.All mainframe programmers, analysts, system analysts and consultants who need to learn UNIX. This including the rapidly increasing number of programmers in IBM environments working with mainframes as network hubs, or with IBM RS/6000 workstations.

Preface You have just picked upYAUB(Yet Another UNIX Book). And you may be asking yourself why you should read this one instead of any of the other ones. The answer is simple: If you are a mainframe professional (programmer, analyst, project leader, DBA, etc.) and find yourself having to use the operating system generically known as UNIX, this book is for you. The idea for this book came when I was working on a conversion project from the IBM mainframe to a UNIX machine. In addition to moving the code, we were supposed to help the staff learn the UNIX system. There were other departments in the same organization that were making similar transitions. Their mainframe professionals were very competent using the mainframe to get their job done, but were having trouble with the new operating system. Because I am comfortable in both the mainframe and UNIX environments, I was called to help these people out. After they took training courses from outside vendors, they returned to their desks and were immediately hit with questions like "How do I do this?" They wanted to do something under UNIX that they were very quick and familiar with on the mainframe but had difficulty figuring out what to do in the new environment. While helping them solve their problems, one person remarked that he wished there was a book written for what he was going through. I recommended several books that I had read and others that were on the market, such asUNIX for Dummiesfor example. The people with whom I was working, however, were no dummies and felt insulted at the idea of buying a book by that title. The introductory books were too simple, assuming little or no computer knowledge. But the more advanced books assumed that the reader knew certain things about UNIX already. Besides these problems, the books simply did not answer the question these people were asking: "I do X on the mainframe this way, how do I do it under UNIX?" At about the same time, a new staff member joined the project, a person who was familiar with UNIX and another interactive operating system known as VMS, but did not know the mainframe. Fortunately, I gave a seminar a few years prior for VMS professionals on how to use the mainframe, so I made a copy of the handouts for the mainframe novice. The mainframe professionals remarked that they wished they could find a book that explained the UNIX operating system in terms with which they were familiar--much as the seminar materials did. That was the beginning of the idea to write this book. What you hold in your hands is the final result. If you have questions about this book, you can contact me at UNIX_MF@COBS.COM. My Web page is at http://www.cobs.com/~dhorvath