Systems Strategies Inc, a Boston, Massachusetts company owned by Nynex Corp, the New York and New England phone company, has come out with a high level language application programme interface or HLLAPI – that enables an application program running under Unix to communicate with another application running on an IBM mainframe. HLLAPI was originally developed by IBM as a mainframe communications software standard, specifying the programming interface to IBM 3270 terminal emulator software, enabling a program running on a personal computer or workstation to automate the user’s mainframe interaction. However, System Strategies says it has developed its own version specifically for Unix environments rather than MS-DOS. It conforms to IBM’s latest 3.1 release of the software, and in addition supports direct session data, external emulation and 3270 printer integration. Source code costs $40,000, and object code costs between $1,000 and $2,000, depending on the configuration on which it is to run.
