SOFPJF@VM.UOGUELPH.CA (Peter Jaspers-Fayer) (10/02/90)
My opinion only: SGI really should look into providing a tool for (at least) reading VMS tapes. This could allow SGI to sell more irises to DEC shops. (Besides, I keep getting bugged by people who want their FORTRAN source moved to our new 380 ;-) Solutions: `vmsbakup` (usually distributed as read_vmsbackup.tar.Z) is old, and buggy (it "snarks" on many block types), and unsupported. It can be picked up from various sites (uunet, for instance). SGI already supplies `ansitape`. ansitape does the file I/O ok, but most VMS tapes are in VMS BACKUP format (their answer to tar). VMS BACKUP save-sets are just files-11 files. This means that all we REALLY need is a method to read/write savesets on disk. This should simplify the program a lot. It should be usable as a filter, thus read: ansitape -read_options | vmsbackup -extract_options write: vmsbackup -gather_options | ansitape -write_options This could also get around media incompatabilities, if you move the VMS saveset (disk) to/from an iris via FTP (or even kermit!). Does anyone else think this is reasonable? Has anyone done it? /PJ SofPJF@VM.UoGuelph.Ca (Probably also reachable (until ?) at SOFPJF@UOGUELPH.BITNET) It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.