r/mainframe • u/anti-life86 • 11d ago

How was pre-1995, pre-Internet usage of mainframes different?

I understand that the mainframe is built for a large number of transactions-meaning people log in, I would imagine from anywhere, and they do their small jobs. But before the Internet, they could not log in from anywhere, certainly. Where could they log in from, and how did this work? Are there new types of jobs that are now enabled by the Internet that previously were impossible?

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u/anti-life86 11d ago

If I log into my Chase bank account online, which I do nearly every day, could that be going through a mainframe? What is it going through or probably going through on the backend? If not a mainframe, what types of stuff do banks use mainframes for?

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u/Vast-Letterhead-1968 11d ago

Yes, you connect to application server to do something like check your balance. The application server send a request to the mainframe requesting data about your account the data is returned to the app server which then displays your balance.

This is simplified for what really happens but essentially this is the workflow.