KICKS is not CICS

KICKS is an enhancement for CMS & TSO that lets you run your CICS applications directly instead of having to 'install' those apps in CICS. You don't even need CICS itself installed on your mainframe system.

KICKS is free, and is a close copy of the IBM CICS transaction processing system. See this link,  but the usage is like an very old CICS system. For those in the know, no CEDA or CEMT, all is done by tables and compiled versions of them.

KICKS runs as any application under TSO, but can be used as multiuser!

KICKS provides a high level of source code compatibility with CICS so you can move an application either way between CICS and KICKS simply by recompiling. Whether for ease of testing, fast deployment to small groups of your users, or simple "guerrilla marketing", join your colleagues using KICKS to speed up their development.

Being TSO/CMS based, KICKS can't support the many thousands of users a multi-user system like CICS can. But if KICKS can't support thousands of users, it can certainly support a few hundred of your users, and if having separate address spaces means it can't run as many users it also means your users aren't so tied to each other's fates - one crash does not kill all. This reduced consequence of failure often means your new application's "Time to Market" can be dramatically shortened.

Like CICS, KICKS supports file sharing among its users. Hundreds of TSO or CMS users share db2 tables or VSAM files with no more concern about doing so than CICS users - and since KICKS VSAM support is also available in batch there's usually no need to "close" KICKS VSAM files just so such batch jobs can access them.

Unlike CICS, KICKS requires no special systems or security services and can be easily installed and used by a single applications programmer with a TSO or CMS account.

You can find KICKS here to download, user guide here,  and installing is in this video:

Installing is not difficult, but needs some knowledge of MVS system, what you can find on the Moshix channel on youtube. Of course you can google yourself, but the videos are highly recommended to start learning the system. We will take a look later on this, but for now we study KICKS, the free CICS replacement.

The emulated mainframe software

According to the website of the maintainer of the software is MVS 3.8j Tur(n)key 4- ("TK4-") a ready to use OS/VS2 MVS 3.8j system built specifically to run under the Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator. It is an extension of the original MVS Tur(n)key Version 3 System ("TK3") created by Volker Bandke in 2002.

There is also a TK3 available, but of course better is to use the newest iteration of it, TK4.

You can find it here, and it runs under Windows or Linux.

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­                           **   **   **    **   **           ||||               ­

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­        |l      _,,,---,,_      **         ** **           ||  ||               ­

­ ZZZzz /,'.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,    **         ****           ||   ||               ­

­      |,4-  ) )-,_. ,( (  ''-'  **         *****         ||    ||               ­

­     '---''(_/--'  `-')_)       **         **  **       ||     ||    |||||||||| ­

­                                **         **   **      |||||||||||             ­

­       The MVS 3.8j             **         **    **            ||               ­

­     Tur(n)key System           **         **     **           ||               ­

­                              ******      ****     ***       ||||||             ­

­                                                                                ­

­            TK3 created by Volker Bandke       vbandke@bsp-gmbh.com             ­

­            TK4- update by Juergen Winkelmann  winkelmann@id.ethz.ch            ­

­                     see TK4-.CREDITS for complete credits     

After download, unzip it in a directory of choice, read the manual, and start the system. You will have now a mainframe running!

You need to connect and login by the use of a terminal emulator, there are several, most payware. For Linux you can use C3270, and for Windows the free CryptoTerm is available.

On how to operate the system its best to see it doing, and the best teacher in this is Moshix. He has over a hundred movies available.

I am not going to give you a crash course here on that, you can do it easily by yourself if you really want to figure things out. Just make a regular backup!

See about above on this channel purpose.

Welcome to the 'emulated' world of IBM mainframes

On this blog I will take you with me thru the adventures on a mainframe, how to operate it and do some programming. This will of course be a bumpy ride, but don't be afraid. At this writing I already found a lot of pitfalls, and guide you around them.

What can you expect here ?

KICKS, meaning a free CICS. This was the maingoal to learn about IBM mainframes. In my quest to find a secure (no php and mysql shit) multiuser, classic, retro, terminal looking system, I stumbled upon MUSIC/SP, and used it for a few years. However, the emulator ran on Windows, and I wanted to get to a Linux remote server. Music/sp on Linux/Hercules emulator didnt allow ftp anymore, so it was litteraly disconnected from the outside world. MVS, the turnkey version, didn't, and I dived in the deep and almost drowned. More on this later, much more.

We will also take a look to the storage side of KICKS, namely VSAM. How to define them, use them, and  copy those to tape. Yes, mainframes uses tapes.

A bit of JCL, system programming, and all what come by on our path and worthy of a post you will be able to find here.

Of course it will not only be KICKS, I will take a look in everything what is of interrest or help.

Why 'emulated' in the title you ask ? Well, besides its emulated on often x86 hardware, the system doesnt know it, and all actions you do, are like at the real system. We can just forget after starting the system its emulated.

If you miss anything, let me know.