It wasn’t that long ago when AS/400 programmers were patting each other on the back for discovering new ways to highlight a piece of data on a 5250 display screen. I remember the first dumb terminal I worked on that supported color: the IBM 3487 Info Window II. One of the first applications I designed for a client, an electronic data interchange (EDI) interface, had so many colors, it looked like a circus had come to town.

It’s not just that there’s too much color on a Web page, although sometimes this happens. The real problem is that so much output of so many different types is being spit out over networks and the Internet, that it’s nearly impossible for any one type of device to be able to interpret or use the information given to it. The vastly increasing use of so many new wireless devices such as personal digital assistants and cell phones to access data over the Internet has pushed the industry way beyond the simple problem of whether or not color on a 5250 display will be viewed in a given shop. Now, programmers have to decide if the information they are producing is in a form that can be interpreted and used by more varied pervasive wireless computing devices.

An Example

Assume that you have defined an item lookup screen in DDS to present on a 5250 display device. Beyond simply displaying this information on a 5250 screen, you could also design your legacy application to generate HTML via CGI and RPG or perhaps through Java or even one of the many screen-scraper products out there and then display that item lookup data in a browser. If you do that, you can add some cool graphics and maybe some sound as well for the Web browser. Taking this a step further, say that you want to present the item lookup screen on a Palm device. Now you have to go back and redesign your screen to fit in the smaller display window. You’ll also have to write to another data format, Wireless Access Protocol (WAP), rather than HTML. You’ll need to think about your redesign to make everything work on the Palm.

What if you also want cell phone users to be able to view your item lookup screen? Now you have to design the screen to fit in an even smaller window, and you’ll also have to write to a different markup language, wireless markup language (WML), than the one you used for the Web browser or the Palm device.

And you’re not done yet. There is a whole new generation of wireless pervasive networking devices coming that will also need to have access to your data. For example, there is the wearable pervasive jewelry from IBM’s Almaden Research Center (www.

almaden.ibm.com) in Palo Alto, California, being tested now that you may see in the next few years. Imagine your salespeople wearing a wristwatch with a flip-up display monitor they can use to view AS/400 item master information. This means yet another view you’ll have to format your data for. And there are even more pervasive devices out there that will soon be talking to your network. Everything from body sensors that can tell your mood (IBM’s calling this your Personal Area Network [PAN]) to devices that enable you take your electronic desktop anywhere in the world by allowing the proximity of your body to a telephone to keep you connected to your own, unique network.

Webby Is Ready

The point is that with all these new devices coming at you all the time, there’s no way you could ever keep up with the requirements for programming to each unique format. That’s why IBM Almaden Research Center has spearheaded a new technology called Web Based Intermediaries, or WBI (pronounced Webby), which allows you to somewhat readily develop intermediaries and transcoders on the fly for a variety of wireless pervasive computing devices.

Intermediaries are “computational entities” positioned along a data stream, perhaps between your AS/400 Web server and the user’s browser, that let you tailor or enhance data content. For example, you might have a server send your item lookup screen as HTML to your user’s browser, but the cached intermediary will intercept and enhance the display by mapping some dynamic content designed to help you “sell” the item to the user, based on stored user preferences.

Transcoding is the process of transforming data from one format into another. A simple example of this is when you open a Word Perfect document in Microsoft Word and Word transforms the file into something it can understand. Transcoding in a pervasive computing world means that you could transcode a 5250 data stream into an XML format, or an HTML data stream into an HDML data stream. Transcoding is the process that will allow you to generate one data format, say your 5250 item lookup screen, and then rapidly, with anywhere from none to minimal effort, cause data to display correctly on any wireless pervasive device.

IBM has developed a tool, the WBI Development Kit, which will let you begin experimenting with the Webby interface and start learning now how to integrate intermediaries into your wireless devices. For a tool that lets you transcode your legacy data into a variety of formats that can be understood by most wireless pervasive devices, check out IBM’s Websphere Transcoding Publisher software at www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/wbi.

In this colorful, wireless world, the ability to get your data to every device that needs it could very well be what it takes to make your business successful in the coming pervasive generation.

Shannon O'Donnell has held a variety of positions, most of them as a consultant, in dozens of industries. This breadth of experience gives him insight into multiple aspects of how the AS/400 is used in the real world. Shannon continues to work as a consultant. He is an IBM Certified Professional--AS/400 RPG Programmer and the author of an industry-leading certification test for RPG IV programmers available from ReviewNet.net.