Lesson plan
Basic telecommunications access method
Basic Telecommunications Access Method (BTAM) is a low-level programming interface specified by IBM for use on the IBM System/360 for start-stop and binary synchronous telecommunications terminals. Later, IBM specified higher-level interfaces QTAM and TCAM. BTAM was superseded by VTAM for Systems Network Architecture (SNA) devices. BTAM continued to be supported in later iterations of the system architecture, and IBM finally withdrew support in 2000. BTAM requires the application program or transaction processing system to handle almost every detail of the protocol. This is harder than using a higher-layer protocol, but it permits interfacing to non-standard devices in non-standard ways.
Article summary
Basic Telecommunications Access Method (BTAM) is a low-level programming interface specified by IBM for use on the IBM System/360 for start-stop and binary synchronous telecommunications terminals. Later, IBM specified higher-level interfaces QTAM and TCAM. BTAM was superseded by VTAM for Systems Network Architecture (SNA) devices. BTAM continued to be supported in later iterations of the system architecture, and IBM finally withdrew support in 2000. BTAM requires the application program or transaction processing system to handle almost every detail of the protocol. This is harder than using a higher-layer protocol, but it permits interfacing to non-standard devices in non-standard ways.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.