Probably you already know that MVS has a built-in UNIX operating system. Fortunately it is very seldom that I need to use UNIX in my daily work and I know almost nothing about this operating system. IBM has designed some products to run solely on UNIX and in order to use those products you are forced to use the UNIX part of MVS. Then the big question is how to get in contact with the UNIX part.

And the answer is: there are several ways to do it. The most UNIX like (I think) is to use the command TSO OMVS. This command starts a UNIX prompt in a fashion similar to the way that CMD starts a DOS prompt on your Windows PC. Depending on the configuration you will be routed to a directory (use the cd command to find out what the name of the directory is) and here you can perform UNIX commands (if you know what they are called and what they do). I have learned to use the ls command (which is similar to the DOS dir command). The command ls -E will give you a little more information.

When you have taken the first step into the UNIX platform it is very nice to know that the command exit will take you back to TSO/ISPF. Please notice that UNIX commands are case sensitive. If you want to or need to know more about UNIX you need to read the manual for the product that forced you into UNIX in the first place. If you are just curious you can try IBM info center z/OS UNIX.