Setup Mainframe Emulator(Hercules) on macOS

Setting up a Hercules environment on a macOS system is very simple…

1. Install TK4

1.1 download tk4-_v1.00_current from https://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/ and unzip it to your machine.

2. give permission to your tk4-_v1.00_current folder

chmod -R 755 tk4-_v1.00_current

run tk4 on your machine

cd tk4-_v1.00_current
./mvs

🍺 After a few minutes, a large tk4 will show up in the terminal.

2. Install a Terminal Emulator on Mac

We need a terminal emulator to connect to the mainframe. We have multiple choices, but here we use x3270.

More information about x3270: http://x3270.bgp.nu/.

2.1 Install brew on Mac

brew update
brew upgrade
brew -v

2.2 install x3270

brew install x3270

2.2 run c3270

c3270 localhost:3270

Press Enter, then enter the username and password to connect to your mainframe:

user: HERC01
password: CUL8TR

Press ‘Enter’ until you see the colourful screen above, 🍺 happy coding.

reference:

How to connect to Mainframe from your Mac laptop using x3270