from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Binary Synchronous Transmission
2780
3780
bisync
<protocol> (Bisynch) An {IBM} link {protocol}, developed in
the 1960 and popular in the 1970s and 1980s.
Binary Synchronous Transmission has been largely replaced in
IBM environments with {SDLC}. Bisync was developed for
{batch} communications between a {System 360} computer and the
IBM 2780 and 3780 {Remote Job Entry} (RJE) {terminals}. It
supports RJE and on-line terminals in the {CICS}/{VSE}
environment. It operates with {EBCDIC} or {ASCII} {character
sets}. It requires that every message be acknowledged ({ACK})
or negatively acknowledged ({NACK}) so it has high
transmission overhead. It is typically character oriented and
{half-duplex}, although some of the bisync protocol flavours
or dialects support binary transmission and {full-duplex}
operation.
(1997-01-07)