How to get started?

First of all - one of the main interfaces to an IBM i for programmers still is the "green screen", aka a so called 5250 telnet terminal emulation. Ask your seach engine for "TN5250" for free or commercial products, or give the following products a try: TN5250 at sourceforge (freeware) TN5250J java based (freeware) Mochasoft TN5250 (commercial but worth the money) You can also try IBM i Access Client Solutions if you have access to IBM ESS software at: IBM web site (sorry we may not publish a direct download link)

Advanced programmers may use the free eclipse based package to be found here, but for all features you might heed the IBM Rational developer for i which is some costy but offers a lot of modern features for programmers. You might want to use pure eclipse with these (or other) plugins: Sourceforge - iserieslegacy We also highly recommend MIWorkplace by Mihael Schmidt

After you got your 5250 emulator package, please proceed to SIGNUP here for your free IBM i account and start within some minutes!