IMHW400@INDYVAX.BITNET (05/06/88)
I know that this has been discussed before, but I can't find it in my archives, so here goes: I am looking for one or more *good* utilities that will read tapes written in EBCDIC and other odd dialects. Both public-domain and commercial products would be interesting. I'd appreciate any leads you could provide. I know that the DECUS SIG tapes have tape utilities on them, but the catalog says *nothing* about what they actually do for you. I'd appreciate hearing from those who have used these programs, in order to find out whether any of them would be useful to me. Thank you all. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Mark H. Wood IMHW400@INDYVAX.BITNET (317)274-0749 III U U PPPP U U III Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis I U U P P U U I 799 West Michigan Street, ET 1023 I U U PPPP U U I Indianapolis, IN 46202 USA I U U P U U I [@disclaimer@] III UUU P UUU III
"Bruce_G._Kahler.rochX2"@Xerox.COM (05/13/88)
We have used the MTExchange (MTEXCH) from DECUS with pretty good results, for tapes between VAX and IBM environments. We also use it to generate report output on the VAX to be read into the Xerox 9700 printer. To quote from the documentation: "MTEXCH is a Battelle-written VAX utility for copying files to and from magnetic tape. It provides tha ability to read and write tapes in formats suitable for exchange with non-VAX computers. It provides parameters to control record length, record format, character set (EBCDIC/ASCII conversion), carriage control and other attributes of the files being copied." Since the tape can potentially be for any environment, you have to "manually" create/read each part of the tape as a separate data file, including labels. This is part of the price of flexibility, I guess. It only becomes a major pain when creating a tape on the VAX to be read in, say, an IBM system and you have to generate labels. On the other hand, it isn't a real big deal to set up a template label file and a procedure to modify it and copy it to tape. This inconvenience aside, the program does perform its function very well. It can be run either interactively or batch and has a good users' guide. I give it a thmbs-up. Bruce Kahler Xerox Corp. Rochester, NY 14644