t.p. monitors for UNIX

[Jeffrey%office-6 at BRL.ARPA]

Dear Wizards and other Unixites:

I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to gather information about
t.p. monitors which run in conjunction with (i.e., under, above,
along side, or whatever) UNIX.  So far, I have received information
about a number of Bell Labs systems which are used internally to support
operations.  That's all I've heard.

Would anyone having any input on the subject of
t.p. monitors for UNIX please send me some information?

Thanks,

Jeffrey Stone
Menlo Park, CA

arpa:   jeffrey at office-2

p.s. t.p. monitors are also sometimes known as "transaction
monitors".  CICS on IBM mainframes is an example of this type of
system.  Typically, a t.p. monitor is a framework for an online
multi-user application which almost always uses a database in
conjunction with application specific code and the t.p.
monitor.  T.p. monitors usually offer support a number of
functions:

  - user identification (like LOGON)
  - multi-terminal handling (for systems handling a large number of
    users, a t.p. monitor can handle the load (probably)
    better than the OS task mechanism since OS tasks typically
    involve more overhead (tasks are much more general than
    transaction oriented processing).

  - form generation and form input/output services

  - sychronization between user transactions and the database

  - more ...

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