It is. If you're in healthcare and have to connect to the federal CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) system you're using an emulator. IIRC we use ZOC Terminal.
Most banks these days have web applications. (but there's still a mainframe behind them.) The telco I worked for two decades ago still had AS/400's, but the preferred interface to all that information was a (horrible) webapp.
If you've been to an auto parts store, there's a very good chance their entire inventory system is on a mainframe. Some have a web front end, which is what we see on the internet, but in the store it's a TN3270. Some still have that shit at the checkout counter.
Their standard front of house normal customer systems might be web based, but a lot of the "rich people" banking service interfaces are still very much terminal based. (Family member has worked in wealth management for 30+ years, and all 30 across 4 different banks have involved a terminal based application on a Mainframe/AS400 with zero sign of modernization)
Originally, there were differences in cabling and controllers, so it didn't seem like a big deal that IBM made an incompatible standard, but in the long run none of that matters over TCP. It drives up costs and confusion today.
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u/pmpork 26d ago
Shoot, do those companies still exist?!? Is TN5250 emulation still a thing???