The Terminal Characteristics portion of the ISPF Settings panel allows you to specify values for the screen format and terminal type. Each of these characteristics is described here.

Screen format

Specification of screen format applies only to 327x and 3290 terminals (or a terminal emulator set to a mode that emulates a 327x or 3290 terminal). ISPF ignores screen format for other types of terminal.

Data

Format is based on data width.

Std

Format is always the primary screen size.

Max

Format is always the alternate screen size.

Part

Format uses hardware partitions (3279 only)

Note:

1. Primary and alternate screen dimensions are determined by the VTAM® logmode and the capabilities of the terminal or terminal emulator. These values can be displayed by the ISPF ENVIRON settings panel and issuing the QUERY request.
2. ISPF supports a minimum screen size of 24 rows and 80 columns. The maximum screen width is 160 columns.
3. If you are in an Edit session or you are using the Edit service, ISPF does not allow you to change the screen format.

Terminal type

Specify a valid terminal type. If you are using a terminal emulator, select the type of terminal that is being emulated (usually a 3278 or 3278x).

You can select one of the standard terminal types from the list on the ISPF Settings panel (see Figure 1). If the selected terminal type seems to be incompatible with the current ISPF language setting, a 'Terminal Type Warning' Message will be displayed, but the terminal type will be accepted nevertheless.

If you want to use a custom terminal translation table that has been created for your site, select OTHER to specify the name of the translation table. If the load of the new translation tables fails, ISPF reverts to the previous terminal type setting.

You can also select a terminal type by using the ISPTTDEF program, as described in z/OS ISPF Dialog Developer's Guide and Reference.

Specification of a terminal type allows ISPF to recognize valid (displayable) characters. Keep in mind that the terminal type value that you specify to ISPF might not be the actual terminal type. For example, if your terminal is a 3279, you specify 3278 because a 3279 terminal has the same character set as a 3278. The keyboard character sets for the specified terminal and the actual terminal are always compatible.

The terminal type designations in the text of this document are often the value to be specified to ISPF rather than the actual terminal type.

This panel can also include one or more installation-dependent options for terminal type, for example:

3277KN

3277 Katakana terminals

3278CF

3278 Canadian French terminals

3278KN

3278 Katakana terminals

A 5550-3270 Kanji emulation Version 3 terminal has the same character set as a 3278 Katakana terminal, so you should specify 3278KN as the terminal type. Also, because the 5550 running with the Japanese 3270PC/G Version 3 or 3270 PC Version 5 has the same character set as a 3278 Katakana terminal, in either case you should specify 3278KN as the terminal type.

The 5550 is run with the Japanese 3270PC V5 or 3270PC/G V3 emulation program. The terminal type, set by the ISPF Settings panel, is set to 3278KN.