DOCS (Display Operator Console Support) was a software package for IBM mainframes by CFS Inc., enabling access to the system console using 3270-compatible terminals. [1]
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Computer operators communicated with IBM mainframe computers using an electro-mechanical typewriter-like console that came standard on most IBM 360 and 370 computer, except a few upper end models that offered video consoles and the Model 20 which came standard without a console.
Mainframe computers or mainframes are computers used primarily by large organizations for critical applications; bulk data processing, such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning; and transaction processing. They are larger and have more processing power than some other classes of computers: minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers.
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for writing characters similar to those produced by printer's movable type. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and pressing one causes a different single character to be produced on the paper, by causing a ribbon with dried ink to be struck against the paper by a type element similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. Commonly, a separate type element corresponds to each key, but the mechanism may also use a single type element with a different portion of it used for each possible character. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term typewriter was also applied to a person who used a typing machine.
The majority of smaller and less expensive IBM 360s and 370s came equipped with these ruggedized Selectric keyboard devices. The Selectric was a major step up from the teletypes (TTY) associated with Unix and smaller systems, but still clunky. The video consoles provided with certain models were not considered particularly user friendly, and they ignored two thirds of IBM's mainframe market, DOS and its VSE descendants.
Unix is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, development starting in the 1970s at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.
DOCS replaced or supplanted the typewriter interface with a video screen. In practice, it worked a little like present-day instant messenger programs (ICQ, QQ, AIM, Adium, iChat, etc.), with a data entry line at the bottom and messages scrolling in real time up the screen. The commands were otherwise identical.
The user interface (UI), in the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, whilst the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls, and process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to or involve such disciplines as ergonomics and psychology.
ICQ is a cross-platform instant messaging and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You". Originally developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996, the client was bought by AOL in 1998, and then by Mail.Ru Group in 2010.
Tencent QQ, also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service developed by the Chinese tech giant Tencent. QQ also offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. The logo of the software is a winking penguin wearing a red scarf. It is the world's 7th most visited website, according to Alexa.
DOCS was available for DOS, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, and came packaged with third party operating systems, such as EDOS from The Computer Software Company, later acquired by Nixdorf.
Wincor Nixdorf was a German corporation that provided retail and retail banking hardware, software, and services. Wincor Nixdorf was engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems, retail banking equipment, lottery terminals, postal terminals, software and services for global financial and commercial markets. In October 2015, Wincor Nixdorf’s cashless Payments unit was carved out of the group and started trading independently under the name of AEVI. On August 15, 2016, through the merger of Wincor Nixdorf and Diebold Inc., Diebold Nixdorf was formed as an international technology and services company.
