Teleprocessing

 Teleprocessing refers to a large variety of

data processing applications in which data is
received from or sent to a central data
processing system over communication lines,
including ordinary telephone lines.
 Usually the source or destination of the data is
remote from the central processing system,
although it can be in the same building.
 In any event, the source or destination points
of the data are often called terminals or (for
some applications) work stations.
General Types of
Applications
 DATA COLLECTION
 MESSAGE SWITCHING
 REMOTE JOB PROCESSING
 TIME SHARING
 ONLINE PROBLEM SOLVING
 INQUIRY AND TRANSACTION
PROCESSING
 DATA COLLECTION
 Data Collection is a teleprocessing application in which data is
received by a central processing system from one or more
remote terminals and is stored for later processing. Depending
on the specific application, the transfer of data may be initiated
either at the terminal or by the central processing system.
 MESSAGE SWITCHING
 Message switching is a type of teleprocessing application in
which a message received by the central computing system
from one remote terminal is sent to one or more other remote
terminals
 REMOTE JOB PROCESSING
 Remote job processing is a type of application in which data
processing jobs, like those that are entered into the system
locally, are received from one or more remote terminals and
processed by the operating system.
 TIME SHARING
Time sharing is a teleprocessing application in which
a number of users at remote terminals can
concurrently use a central computing system.
 ONLINE PROBLEM SOLVING
Online problem solving is a form of time sharing that
has a great many potential applications in the fields of
education, engineering, and research.
 INQUIRY AND TRANSACTION PROCESSING
Inquiry and transaction processing is a teleprocessing
application in which inquiries and records of
transactions are receive from a number of remote
terminals and are used to interrogate o update one or
more master files maintained by the central computing
system
Message Control and Message
Processing Programs
 Message
The traditional name for unit information.
May consist of one or more segments.

 Two parts of a single-segment message:

Message header; followed by,
Message text.
 Message Header – contains control
information concerning the message, such
as the source or destination code of the
message, message priority, and the type of
message.
 Message Text – consists of the actual
information that is routed to a user at a
terminal or to a program in the central
computing system that is to process it.
 MESSAGE CONTROL PROGRAMS
The main function of a message control
program is to control the transmission of
information between an application program
in the central computing system and I/O
devices at remote terminals.
Access method routines – routines
provided by the IBM for use in creating a
message control program.
Three sets of access method routines:
Queued Telecommunication Access Method
(QTAM)
Telecommunications Access Method (TCAM)
Basic Telecommunication Access Method
(BTAM)
Queued Telecommunications
Access Method
 can be used to create message control program for a
variety of teleprocessing applications ranging from
message switching or data collection to high volume
inquiry and transaction processing.
 The message control program serves as an
intermediary between the I/O devices at remote
terminals and the application programs that process
messages (Fig. 3). It enables the terminals to be
referred to indirectly, in much the same way as local
I/O devices are referred to, using such standard
macro instructions as GET, PUT, OPEN, and
CLOSE. It automatically performs detailed functions,
such as sending or receiving messages, allocating
buffers, translating message codes, formatting
messages, and checking for errors.
 The message control program serves as an
intermediary between the I/O devices at remote
terminals and the application programs that process
messages (Fig. 3). It enables the terminals to be
referred to indirectly, in much the same way as local
I/O devices are referred to, using such standard
macro instructions as GET, PUT, OPEN, and
CLOSE. It automatically performs detailed
functions, such as sending or receiving messages,
allocating buffers, translating message codes,
formatting messages, and checking for errors.
Telecommunications Access
Method
The telecommunications access method
(TCAM) is similar to QTAM, but offers a wider
range of device and program support. For
remote terminals, TCAM supports both start-
stop and binary synchronous methods of data
transmission; binary synchronous support
permits the use of faster terminals than are
available with QTAM. In fact, in TCAM, a
terminal may be an independent computing
system.
To take advantage of TCAM facilities, QTAM
application programs can easily be
converted to TCAM. TCAM facilities include:
Online testing of teleprocessing terminals and
control units.
Input/output error recording.
Program debugging aids.
Network reconfiguration facilities.
Basic Telecommunications Access
Method
The basic telecommunications access
method (BTAM) is designed for limited
applications that do not require the
extensive message control facilities or
QTAM or TCAM, or for applications that
require special facilities not normally found
in most applications.
The BTAM facilities provide tools that would be
required to design and construct almost nay
teleprocessing application. These include facilities
for creating terminal lists and performing the
following operations:
Polling terminals.
Answering.
Receiving messages.
Allocating buffers dynamically.
Addressing terminals.
Dialing.
Creating buffer chains.
Changing the status of terminal lists.
 MESSAGE PROCESSING PROGRAMS
A message processing program is an application
program that processes or otherwise responds
to messages received from remote terminals.
In designing the program, all of the facilities of
the operating system are available including the
language translators, service programs, and the
data, program, and task management facilities
can be performed sequentially as a series of
single tasks or more than one message can be
processed concurrently.