Mike_G_Newman@cup.portal.com (03/11/88)
My government agency (the social security administration) runs a small social security system here on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Currently, we use a now-ancient IBM System/23 (8085 processor, 64K RAM, 30 MB fixed disk) to do all of our data processing, including maintaining earnings and benefit records, printing monthly benefit checks, etc. As we have a rather yM/#d5-"|`Rur}D large investment in code development and data input, we do not want to abandon our system. However, we are being eased in to using AT type machines> Question: does anyone know how we can port our code and data from the S/23 environment to the MS-DOS environment? Several years ago there were some vendors who offered both hardware and software solutions to our problem. However, they no longer seem to be in business. (Note, all our code is written in S/23 BASIC.) Any and all replies would be greatfully appreciated. Michael G Newman c/o SSA BX 489 Saipan MP 96950 -or- reply here via E-Mail -or- MCI mail: MGNEWMAN Thank you from Paradise.
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (03/16/88)
In article <3818@cup.portal.com> Mike_G_Newman@cup.portal.com writes: >Question: does anyone know how we can port our code and data from the >S/23 environment to the MS-DOS environment? Several years ago there were >some vendors who offered both hardware and software solutions to our >problem. However, they no longer seem to be in business. (Note, all >our code is written in S/23 BASIC.) Getting the data is pretty easy -- the 8" drives are standard IBM format and any 8" drive for PC's will work. We used a controller and software obtained from Flagstaff Engineering; it worked fine. The programs are more difficult. The BASIC language used on the /23 is substantially more advanced than that available on PC's and is also different from the ground up in areas. Porting them may be quite tough, especially in the IO area since BASIC on the PC doesn't have such things as indexed files. If you really, really want to port the programs, save them with REPLACE program//1,SOURCE (or whatever drive you like). This will make sure that the program is recorded on disk in text format. Just about any 8" disk reading utility should be able to pull it out since it just looks like a standard IBM format sequential file. As a past user of the /23, I feel sorry for you. Slowest machine I've ever seen, and the total lack of reasonable error messages drove me crazy. Good luck. Any other questions about the /23 should be emailed to me. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu