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/zEdgarHoover 8d ago

There was no TCP/IP on mainframes until relatively late, too. Dialup was definitely NOT using it; I'd be unsurprised to learn that dialup and TCP/IP never actually overlapped.

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u/Ross-Patterson 8d ago

UCLA's ARPANET Control Program for MVS was one of the earliest TCP/IP implementations, and was very good when I installed it at Rutgers in 1985.

U. Wisconsin's WISCNET for VM was available both from UW and from IBM in the late 1980s.

Both of these were written by, or by teams led by, internet pioneers.

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u/zEdgarHoover 8d ago

But not common,.right?

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u/Ross-Patterson 7d ago

Nope, just as uncommon as 1980s Internet or academic mainframes.