Back in the 1980s, the closest thing to free software you could find for System/38 or AS/400 were the sample tools and utilities found in trade publications. Today, things are a bit different; individuals are developing tools and utilities and offering them for little or no cost to the AS/400 programming community.

One of the most interesting shareware tools out there today is TN5250, a Telnet-based 5250 emulation program from MochaSoft (www.mochasoft.dk or www.mochasoft.net). TN5250 has a long-time trial period that allows you to connect to your AS/400 or iSeries system via TCP/IP. One cool thing about TN5250 is that it is available for just about every platform, including Windows, Linux, Mac, and Palm. It even has a Java version for those oddball platforms. There is also a version for Nokia communication devices. Use the following links to download the specific version you need for your device.

At the Fall 2001 COMMON Conference (www.common.org) in Minneapolis, I used my OmniSky wireless modem attached to my Palm Vx to sign onto my iSeries 270 back in Chicago. I did this with MochaSoft' s Pocket TN5250 emulator for Palm. It was very cool. Obviously, you would not use the Palm version for PDM (although you could use the TN5250 emulator), but for some applications, such as checking an order's status, Pocket TN5250 comes in very useful.

MochaSoft TN5250 is a very tight piece of code that for a very small license fee allows you to connect any device to your AS/400 or iSeries without having to install Client Access. I highly recommend it!

By the way, Client Access Express has been renamed iSeries Access, although most people still refer to it as Client Access. I suspect its name will change at some point to eServer Access. So for now, I will continue to refer to it as Client Access.