Using Your Personal Computer for OCLC Dial Access —: What Do You Press after You Press RETURN?

Abstract

An increasing number of OCLC dial‐access users are abandoning their old “dumb” terminals and turning to personal computers (PCs for short) for connection with the OCLC Online System. There are software packages available for all PCs that allow them to “emulate” (imitate) those old dumb terminals, but that's just the beginning. With a PC, users can not only issue commands to the system and observe (or print) the results, they can store those results on a disk for later viewing or use. What's more, special communications software is available from OCLC and other sources that allows the PC to automatically perform various types of processing that now consume precious staff time. The PC can even be set up to start processing at 6:00 a.m. and be all finished when the staff arrives at 8:00 (or some other set of hours that's convenient for you). Try that one with the old dumb terminal!

Citation

Bendig, M. (1985), "Using Your Personal Computer for OCLC Dial Access —: What Do You Press after You Press RETURN?", OCLC Micro, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 10-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055712