7. Hercules Console

7.1 Hercules Hardware Console

Various aspects of Hercules can be controlled with console commands. These commands are entered
from the command line of the Hercules hardware management console (HMC).

The Hercules hardware management console window is the panel that is active by default after starting
Hercules. An alternate semi-graphical "New Panel" display showing devices, registers etc. is also avail-
able. Pressing the escape key switches between the two panels.

The main Hercules screen contains a scrollable list of messages with a command input area and a sys-
tem status line at the bottom of the screen. To scroll through the messages, use either the Page Up or
Page Down keys, the Ctrl + Up Arrow or Ctrl + Down Arrow keys, or the Home or End and/or the Ctrl +
Home or Ctrl + End keys.

Important messages are highlighted in a different color (usually red) and are prevented from being
scrolled off the screen for two minutes. If Extended Cursor handling is available then important messages
currently at the top of the screen can be removed early by moving the cursor to the line containing the
message and then pressing enter.

Use the Insert key to switch between insert and overlay mode when typing in the command input area.
Use the Home and End keys to move to the first or last character of the command you are typing, or the
use the left/right arrow keys to move to a specific character. Use the Escape key to erase the input area.
Pressing "Escape" when the command input area is already empty causes the screen to switch to the
semi-graphical "New Panel" display mode, which shows the overall status of the system and devices.

When in the semi-graphical "New Panel" display mode there is no command input area. Instead, single
character "hot keys" are used to issue some of the more common functions such as starting or stopping
the CPU. The hot-keys are those which are highlighted. Pressing the '?' key displays brief help informa-
tion on how to use the semi-graphical panel.

When a command is prefixed with a hyphen (‘-‘), the command will not be redisplayed at the console.
This can be used in scripts and is also used internally when commands are to be invoked without being
redisplayed at the console.

Prefixing a command with a hyphen (‘-‘) makes it a silent non-echoing command and prevents the com-
mand from appearing in the command recall history list (see ‘HST’ command).

Commands can be executed in the background by specifying an ampersand (‘&’) as last argument:

- “SCRIPT ABC” runs in the foreground

- “SCRIPT ABC &” runs in the background

- “SCRIPT ABC &&” runs in the foreground but passes ‘&’ as last argument

- “SCRIPT ABC & &” runs in the background and passes ‘&’as last argument

Sample screenshots of the Hercules HMC are shown in the pictures on the following pages.

Figure 3: Hercules Hardware Console

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