Mac and BNSF emulator

[LG1966]

I'm buying a new iMac desktop running leopard. Is there anyway to get the BNSF emulator to work on this? On our old iMac, I could access it through OS 9 classic and IE, but I don't think classic is supported on the intel processors. I've read the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and newer are supported browsers, but not sure if it works on the Mac. Thanks.

[Mike Honcho]

Originally Posted by LG1966

I'm buying a new iMac desktop running leopard. Is there anyway to get the BNSF emulator to work on this? On our old iMac, I could access it through OS 9 classic and IE, but I don't think classic is supported on the intel processors. I've read the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and newer are supported browsers, but not sure if it works on the Mac. Thanks.

I believe as long as you can use java it will work.

[LG1966]

Just to let BNSF folks know, Firefox did work on the new iMac, running the Leopard operating system, to open the emulator. Thanks.

[mjg]

I cannot get it to work on my new macbook.Any suggestions? I have mozilla and after I supply my b number and password it just stops. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Anyone have any suggestions or know someone who could help?

[Mike Honcho]

Make sure to use this link for the emulator: BNSF Emulator

[mjg]

Hey Mike,
We got it to work with this last link you gave us! Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

MJG

[Mike Honcho]

I'm glad I could help.

[lncsbrn]

I am running snow leopard (OSX 10.6) and the only browser that will load it is the beta 3 of opera. Once i had upgraded firefox and opera 9 would no longer load it. It's pretty sad that the bnsf IT department keeps their emulator site so out of date. 98% of all computers purchased over $1k were macs and 60% of all notebooks at any price were macs in the first quarter of 2009. it's not apple's fault either that this won't work. 90% of what makes a site work in a browser is the site itself, not the browser. A site needs to be designed for a browser, not the other way around. Whoever is in charge of making this work at BNSF needs to retake a website/java programming class and get their s**t together. If the trend continues as it has for the last 5 years, windows based pc's will be a very small minority within a few years. anyone tried the emulator on windows 7 under iE8 yet?

[Hobo]

Originally Posted by lncsbrn

I am running snow leopard (OSX 10.6) and the only browser that will load it is the beta 3 of opera. Once i had upgraded firefox and opera 9 would no longer load it. It's pretty sad that the bnsf IT department keeps their emulator site so out of date. 98% of all computers purchased over $1k were macs and 60% of all notebooks at any price were macs in the first quarter of 2009. it's not apple's fault either that this won't work. 90% of what makes a site work in a browser is the site itself, not the browser. A site needs to be designed for a browser, not the other way around. Whoever is in charge of making this work at BNSF needs to retake a website/java programming class and get their s**t together. If the trend continues as it has for the last 5 years, windows based pc's will be a very small minority within a few years. anyone tried the emulator on windows 7 under iE8 yet?

We're all probably lucky that the emulator exists at all!

Granted, the IT department may have been lacking in their effort to update the emulator but the ability to access the emulator at all may well have been only intended for use on the BNSF intranet, not the internet.

When BNSF and the other Class I's get around to spending a few more bucks we may see another approach to the "Emulator" but I wouldn't count on that for quite a while.

What's needed to encourage development is for all of us to push our Unions through our Local and General Chairs demanding an upgrade from the carriers to improve this technology and keep up with emerging PC platforms, PDA's, and Cell phones.

The current Emulator is simply a Java Based emulation provided by Webconnect to run an IBM 3270 terminal and ISPF on our PC's in a window. Born in the early eighties, IBM developed VM for OS/370 and OS/390 with CP/CMS and ISPF. ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility) are the panels you see when you run the emulation, a clunky 80 card column interactive display. Developed by IBM's z/OS systems, ISPF remained stuck in the punch card era though other GUI's may have been in existance. These mainframes were not for pretty pictures but for processing large volumes of data. The GUI interface came about because users preferred an intuitively clean display, not a fill in the blank, page through countless options interface with stiff interaction.

Because ISPF was part of the IBM development of hardware/software and their OS's the ability to interact with the machine is limited to their structure and design effort. Anything that would translate between ISPF and HTTP would be a major software development effort. There are probably other avenues availible through IBM or other developers that would give us a cleaner interface but would cost a great deal of money, something I think the carriers are not willing to do right now.

I would rather see a major rewrite along with new hardware that speaks HTTP for a cleaner quicker interface for direct access through our browsers such as IE, Mozilla, etc. But then, that's just wishful thinkin'.

..

[jonnyseeandoh]

How, I pray you say did you get Snow Leopard?