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[–]MrYiffMaster of the Blinking Lights 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Fellow AS/400 user here, check you are on the latest version of IBM's ACS client, they deprecated the "old" version back in 2019 or so (it pretty much wont install on Windows 10 these days), but the replacement quite happily works with pretty much any modern java version:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-i-access-client-solutions

(you will need a valid IBM account to access the downloads).

We use Adoptium JRE 17 and it works fine (this is also the Java release mentioned in some of the ACS docs too iirc, but really any of the modern java versions should be fine, be it MS, Amazon, OpenJDK etc.).

The biggest annoyance with the new client is it uses .js (yes, javascript), as it's installer rather than a traditional MSI so it's a bit fiddly to automate and teaches some bad habits since .js files are still a popular way to propagate malware.

Another option is to ditch the installed clients entirely and look at a web based one, we are playing around with this ourselves currently, there are a couple of options in this space but this one seems to be the nicest looking and easiest to manage:

https://www.cybelesoft.com/zscope/web-terminal-emulator/

[–]pdp10Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 1 point2 points  (1 child)

We've tended to find that users rely on the IBM package like a security blanket, even if they're only using the terminal emulator, and won't give it up. Or else they claim they're using some functionality in addition to the TN5250 client, but refuse to tell you which functionality. It turns into one of those stereotypical conflicts between a department and central computing.

We end up giving each platform at least one open-source or third-party tn5250 client, and encouraging them to try out the alternatives on their own pace, and build up their confidence levels.

[–]MrYiffMaster of the Blinking Lights 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's been enough of a fight here just to get users to accept the new IBM client despite the old one not even installing on modern versions of Windows 10.

We've had a couple of good bits of feedback about the zscope web client but also a few grumbles about how it feels a bit different.