WANCHO@SIMTEL20.arpa (04/13/87)
There is a new version of NCRC (10) in PD:<MISC.TOPS-20>. This version has two new switches: /FORCE and /WRITE. The /WRITE switch (which implies /FORCE) causes the computed CRC value to be stored in the .FBUSW of the FDB. Of course, the user must have write access to the file for this switch to have effect. The /FORCE switch will cause NCRC to compute the value for the file. If the value of that word is non-zero, NCRC will skip the computation and display the value found in the .FBUSW word. All publically readable files on our PD: structure now have that word set with the computed CRC value for that file. If you FTP any of these files directly to another TOPS-20 system, and your FTP program provides the option to retain all FDB information, be sure to turn that option on. The primary motivation for adding this feature was to decrease the amount of time the Archive Server spends processing requests for files which include a CRC listing. In the past few hours this feature has been available, the performance improvement has been rather dramatic. It may, once again, be possible to start seeing a much improved response time instead of the 5-7-day turnaround of the past few weeks. --Frank -------