Remote personal computer communication with IBM mainframes is often confined to low throughput (less than 19,200 baud), asynchronous serial lines managed by the mainframe through 3270 protocol converters. The capabilities of the personal computer are under utilized and limited to terminal emulation and file transfer. For such an environment, a software solution is presented to improve the computing platform between IBM mainframes and personal computers without modifying any existing, intervening communication equipment. Transparent communication support for distributed, interactive applications is provided through the operation of a data link control protocol. The communication services are applied to the development of a distributed WYSIWYG page previewer for SCRIPT/VS.