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SCSI software manual - Electrovalue Technologies Inc

1. TAPE FILE 000 22 BLOCKS 89 277 BYTES BLOCK 1 1 934 BYTES BLOCK 22 179 BYTES 89 277 BYTES THIS TAPE TAPE FILE 001 27 BLOCKS 79 522 BYTES BLOCK 1 2 302 BYTES BLOCK 2 14 437 BYTES 168 799 BYTES THIS TAPE TAPE FILE 002 3 BLOCKS 9 564 BYTES BLOCK 1 186 BYTES BLOCK Ee 4 964 BYTES 178 363 BYTES THIS TAPE DOUBLE FILEMARKS ENCOUNTERED CONTINUE OR A BORT Note that CUBS A reports the number of blocks in each file the size of each file in bytes the size of the first block in each file the size of the last block in each file the cumulative number of bytes on the entire tape E mode The E mode completely erases a tape from beginning to end A 10 5 inch 2400 foot reel takes about 4 minutes on a Hewlett Packard 7980 There is no technical reason you would ever need to erase a 9 track tape cartridge 9 track tape is just like audio tape or a videocassette you just write on top of any old data The E mode is provided for users who want to erase old data for security secrecy purposes Using the U option will also unload the tape when done e g CUBS E U lt ENTER gt L mode L mode is a special variation of the A analyze mode which displays additional information gleaned from the LABEL files on so called LABELED tapes Mainframe operating systems commonly create labeled tapes From our point of view running
2. The following menu will be displayed D Transfer from Tape to Disk P Transfer from Tape to Printer S Transfer from Tape to Screen T Transfer from Disk to Tape Display Disk Directory Catalog M Toggle Single Multi Block Modes Tape to Disk Q U Quit FX program Unload tape then quit FX Toggle Log to Line Printer mode on off F1 Aborts any operation in progress Make your selection by hitting the appropriate single letter The mnemonic significance of the choices that transfer data is that they represent the first letter of the TO device Answering any subsequent questions is fairly straightforward The rest of the topics presented below elaborate on the features and operation of FX and should be read if you would like to take full advantage of its capabilities and stay out of trouble Block size on tape You are asked to specify the block size in bytes when writing tape The maximum block size that can be written is 65535 bytes 64K 1 When reading tape the block size need not be known but it is also limited to 65535 bytes If you select any of FX s internal features which add characters to the data being read from tape the maximum block size is 32767 bytes 32K 1 see discussion on the next page This restriction does not apply if you are using an FXED control file control files are produced by FXED see the FXED chapter for additional details Answering questions Questions that require only a single ch
3. TAPE FILE 000 003 BLOCKS 240 BYTES BLOCK 1 080 BYTES BLOCK 003 080 BYTES 240 BYTES THIS TAPE TAPE FILE 001 103 BLOCKS 415 530 BYTES BLOCK 1 4 050 BYTES BLOCK 103 2 430 BYTES 415 770 BYTES THIS TAPE TAPE FILE 002 LABEL ID EOF1 FILE ID PY PROD PEF TAPE FILE SET ID PEFOO1 FILE SECTION NUMBER 0001 SEQUENCE NUMBER 0001 GENERATION NUMBER GENERATION VERSION NUMBER CREATION DATE YYDDD 89025 EXPIRATION DATE YYDDD 89055 ACCESS 0 BLOCK COUNT 000103 SYSTEM CODE IBM OS VS 370 TAPE FILE 002 LABEL ID EOF2 RECORD FORMAT FIXED LENGTH BLOCK LENGTH 04050 RECORD LENGTH 00135 BUFFER OFFSET LENGTH TAPE FILE 002 002 BLOCKS 160 BYTES BLOCK 1 080 BYTES BLOCK 002 080 BYTES 415 930 BYTES THIS TAPE DOUBLE FILEMARKS ENCOUNTERED C ONTINUE OR A BORT A Caution This command displays the data type of the label eg TAPE RECORDED IN EBCDIC or TAPE RECORDED IN ASCII Rarely a tape has a label recorded in ASCII and the tape data in EBCDIC or the label data may be recorded in EBCDIC and the tape data in ASCII Don t be fooled Use the Keys R command to read in a data block and the A E D or N command to verify the data
4. cse00000 115 STRUCTURE OF DATA ON TAPE csssssssssssssessssscsnesnssnssnesnssnesnesnesnenns 115 CREATING MAINFRAME FRIENDLY DATA TAPES 116 CREATING DELIMITED DATA ON DISK FROM FIXED LENGTH DATA ON TAPE c ccsssssssssssssssssssscsssssesessecssssseseseseseee 120 ES EIN 123 Preface Electrovalue has been serving customers in the tape drive business since 1985 Electrovalue owes its success to many people and companies In particular I would like to thank the people whose contributions made this software possible W Gregg Stefancik The programmer who coded most of the software starting with versions for the Apple II computer Gregg wrote many programs no longer being sold by Electrovalue Webb Linzmayer who specified the features and overall layout of the programs tested the software wrote most of this manual you are reading fixed minor bugs and coded simple features Rich Fisch who designed and wrote the original version of D 2T Sylvanus Van Zimmerman V who fixed minor bugs and added features J David Dishman who added features Robert Bain who added features Ryan Johnson who added features Leo Y Yochim who wrote the section titled The History of Magnetic Tape In particular I wish to thank Webb Linzmayer for letting me carry on the Electrovalue tradition There are many others too who helped make this possible and I would like to thank them also Sincerely Joseph Minuti
5. 209 CONKLIN DR LOT 9 42754 42754 42754 42754 42754 0041645011586 0022046010176 0100152010188 0011768061070 0041347000077 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011111111111111111111111 00000000011111111112222222222333333333344444444445555555555666666666677777777778888888888999999999900000000001111111111222 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 403626900 407085077 219489830 401980743 73176 88097 73222 89038 085A101AALLEN 085A101 ALLEN 085A101AALLEN 085A101 ALLEN KD a se Ds Ee EU E Ee UT 222222233333333334444444 345678901234567890123456 032673 00411511611711811 021288 00801900000100200 062573 00401511601711811 020389 00900000100200300 JAMES MELVIN JAMES TODD JUDY THOMAS COLEMAN MWR MWR FWR MWR 406 406 406 406 BRANDENBURG BRANDENBURG BRANDENBURG BRANDENBURG RD RD RD RD 42754 42754 42754 42754 0101745101745 0021470061570 0071145060070 0082171082371 How to run ditto To run DITTO type DITTO lt ENTER gt conversational mode or DITTO OPTIONS lt ENTER gt command line mode As indicated in the above example DITTO is most easily invoked in conversational question and answer mode Altemately after you gain experience all the options may be specified on a single command line Any command line options entered will resul
6. AL AZ GA 58 SC TX etc Y our Conditional Acceptance Criteria will look like this AcceptIf 11 22 PART NO KL and 40 41 STATES KL NOTES The KEY LIST filename must be surrounded by quotes single or double just like any other string used in FXED logical expressions A KEY LIST filename may contain a disk designator and pathname Processing involving large KEY LIST files will proceed much faster if you usea RAM DISK If the KEY LIST is larger than 8K bytes aRAM DISK is strongly suggested The and operators may be used in Logical End O f File expressions as well Control files using this feature may be used with FX Tape to D isk FXED Disk to D isk and TAPE COPY Tape to T ape Taking the conditional expression from a disk file When you select D from the sub menu to define a logical expression FXED prompts Accept if or Stop if see below then pauses for input As previously shown you can proceed by typing in a logical expression Alternatively you can input the character followed by the name of a disk file e g FILENAME lt ENTER gt in which case the logical expression will be taken from the disk file FILENAME FXED will import the contents of FILENAME add parenthesis and display the result The maximum logical expression length when taken from a disk file is 2048 characters not counting lt CR gt lt LF gt characters The disk file may contain as many lt CR gt lt LF gt characters as yo
7. Introduction This software is designed to work with SCSI interface 9 track tape drives and various other SCSI 1 2 tape and cartridge drives that can use variable length blocks including 3480 3490 and 3490e drives It is NOT designed to work with QIC tape drives Although it is not necessary to read this entire manual to use the software I encourage you to take the time to go through this manual You are sure to find some work saving tips and procedures Notes and warranty notice Windows Windows 95 Windows 98 and Windows ME Millennium Edition are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Washington ASPI is a trademark of Adaptec Inc of Milpitas Califomia 4 Electrovalue Technologies Inc Electrovalue provides this manual as is without warranty of any kind either expressed or implied including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose Electrovalue Technologies Inc may make improvements or changes in the product s and or programs described in this manual at any time These changes will be incorporated in new editions of this publication The History of Magnetic Tape By Leo Y Yochim Leo Yochum is the founder of Printronic Corporation of America a leading data processing company Printronic Corporation of American was recently sold to D ynamark The mainframe computer was invented in the late 1940 s Two professors from the University of Pennsyl
8. DISK TO TAPE Enter disk file name or names e g ABC TXT LILY FILE1 XYZ BAS XYZZY DEMO TXT Do you want to truncate or expand the records you re transferring to tape Y Type input disk record length or V for variable and hit lt ENTER gt 235 Type output tape logical record length and hit lt ENTER gt 233 Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y Terminate transfer on first CTRL Z in disk file Y Enter block length 2330 5 Enter tape file 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt for End Of Data 0 Append disk file s to the END of an EXISTING tape file N 119 Creating Delimited Data On Disk From Fixed Length Data On Tape THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT is to give a cookbook example of how to accomplish a common task For example it should be suitable for the boss to follow while the normal user of the tape drive subsystem is on vacation Hopefully it will in addition provide some users with an introduction to the use of the FX program and the power of FXED control files It is not meant to teach these programs during the examples of console dialogue you ll find cameo appearances of features and syntax which aren t pertinent to this example and which are not explained here See the FX and FXED chapters in the Tape Drive User Manual if you re curious to learn more OVERVIEW You have typical fixed length record mainframe data on tape and want to transfer i
9. In most cases you should perform these cleaning procedures every eight hours of tape drive usage If software or drive error messages e g FX s Read Error Corrected by drive message begin to occur regularly you should clean the drive head and tape path more frequently If frequent cleaning does not improve reliability check your tapes Are the tapes old wom or kept in a dirty or humid area Old and or wom tapes should be copied and then discarded The definitions in this chart should help you develop an appropriate cleaning schedule Cleaning schedule Usage Cleaning Schedule Clean the tape path thoroughly after every eight hours of use if e Less than ten reels of tape are used in eight hours MINIMUM e You see no particles on the tape head after each reel of tape e You do not suspect abnormal amounts of dust in the environment from increased traffic or vacuuming Clean the tape path thoroughly after every one or two hours of continuous running if e More than ten reels of tape are used in eight hours NORMAL e You see no particles on the tape head after each reel of tape e You do not suspect abnormal amounts of dust in the environment from increased traffic or vacuuming Clean the tape path thoroughly after each reel of tape if HEAVY e Particles appear on the tape head after each reel of tape e You are reading interchange tapes from an unknown tape drive e You are using new or little used tapes new tapes often contain de
10. This software supports host adapter cards numbered 0 through 6 and drives numbered 0 through 6 Remember that cartridges in this manual refers to 3480 3490 and 3490e cartridges unless otherwise noted General Make a directory folder on your hard drive Copy the files on the disk to the directory you just created None of the programs depend on the presence of any other files Important Do not use the distribution diskettes as your working diskettes Copy the contents to your hard disk make an extra insurance copy of the original diskettes and store them in a different place Example Copy all the files from the distribution disk in the A drive to the TAPE directory MD C TAPE CD C TAPE COPY A Or you may use Windows explorer to create a folder preferably off the root directory and copy amp paste the files on your hard drive If you wish you may edit the PATH command in your AUTOEXEC BAT file to include the TAPE subdirectory Then you can access any of the tape drive software from any drive or directory Otherwise you will have to change to the tape software directory or precede the program names with the complete path to execute any of the programs Configuring The Software IMPORTANT SCSI drives must be powered on before the computer is booted This is because the computer only checks for SCSI devices at boot time This software like most other software controlling SCSI devices on a PC uses ASPI to communicate
11. s head it will cause the drive to continuously move tape forward without reading or writing We have run into this problem and so have some of our customers The good news is that any problem caused by placing equipment on the tape drive is temporary Remove the equipment from the tape drive and the problem will disappear No ham is done In summary be careful about putting other equipment on top of your tape drive We don t recommend placing any equipment on top of your tape drive SCSI termination What is termination When signals travel down a wire they will bounce back reflect down the wire cable if they are not used up at the end of the wire These reflected signals would combine with new signals traveling down the line and distort the new signals These reflected signals could be eliminated by using them up terminating them at each end of the wire How do we terminate the signals on the SCSI cable We can attach a resistor to each end of the SCSI cable that has the same resistance impedance as the SCSI cable itself This will cause the signals to be absorbed by the resistor and not reflected back This resistor is called a terminator It gets a bit complicated because the terminator may contain additional electrical components to better match the electrical properties of the SCSI cable but basically that s how it s done In summary make certain that each end and only each end of the SCSI bus is terminated T
12. 6000 bytes of data 111 FIXED LENGTH LOGICAL RECORDS BLOCKING FACTOR To facilitate processing of tape data it is expected that when you write a tape you will group an integer number of fixed length LOGICAL records into one PHYSICAL tape block The ratio of physical block length to logical record length is called the BLOCKING FACTOR ie record length x blocking factor block length Filemarks For convenience in processing and for organizational purposes physical tape blocks are grouped into tape files Tapes do not start out with a directory of files although some mainframe operating systems use extra files called labels to provide information about the data files on the tape Sticky labels or accompanying paperwork are used to tell you what file s contain what data It is customary to begin file numbering with 0 Le the first file on a tape is file zero The end of a tape file is indicated by a filemark also called a TAPE MARK or an EOF MARK which is a special record generated by and detectable by the hardware END OF FILE mark TAPE MARK FILEMARK EOF mark It is an industry standard that two adjacent filemarks indicate the end of the valid data on a reel of tape The Electrovalue software follows this convention DOUBLE EOF DOUBLE TAPE MARK DOUBLE FILEMARK end of data Labeled tapes Tapes from mainframes often contain extra small files which are useful in the mainframe environment but of little us
13. 9 10 lt ENTER gt COST LEAST SIGNIFICANT lt ENTER gt 05 017 11 15 lt ENTER gt 7 VENDOR CODE lt ENTER gt 53 3 The FXED output definitions as displayed by V or P 01 I 001 005 O 001 005 L 005 FIELD PART NUMBER 02 I 006 008 O 006 012 L 007 FIELD 7 COST MOST SIGNIFICANT 03 O 014 014 L 001 gt INSERT THE DECIMAL POINT 04 I 009 010 O 013 016 L 004 FIELD COST LEAST SIGNIFICANT 05 I 011 015 oO 017 021 L 005 FIELD 7 VENDOR CODE 54 Output definition phase discussion amp examples A lot of the power of an FXED control file stems from the features resident in the O utput D efinition Phase A clear understanding of these features will let you use your tape drive to maximum advantage Besides the commands which control the FXED editor itself the Output Phase commands can be grouped into 2 categories 1 Commands which select fields from the input stream for addition to the output lt range gt lt ENTER gt eg 25 35 lt ENTER gt 25L11 lt ENTER gt L9 lt ENTER gt The examples above will cause the run time program to take the specified range of bytes from each input record perform any translations specified for that range in the Translation Definition Phase and without any further processing add the resulting character string starting at the next available spot to the output record If the by
14. C command If the data is pure EBCDIC select EBCDIC to ASCII translation when importing the data with FX KEYS displays un printable characters as decimal points If your data contains PACKED DECIMAL or ZONED DECIMAL fields you ll see bunches of decimal points where in context they don t make any sense CAUTION KEYS can easily write on tape if you hit the wrong key WRITE PROTECT THE TAPE FIRST by REMOVING THE WRITE RING or PUSHING THE THUMBWHEEL TO THE LOCKED POSITION 108 The procedure for dealing with packed or zoned decimal is to use the FXED program to perform a mix of different types of translation as necessary on a field by field basis To do that you have to first identify the code type To identify these various codes display the data in HEX either with the KEYS program hit CTRL N then D or N or with the DITTO program Compare the bytes corresponding to the unprintable characters to the examples of various codes on the last page of the FXED chapter Then define the Packed or Zoned fields as such during the FX ED program s Translation D efinition phase 109 Basic Information Tape Data Formats PURPOSE The purpose of this document is to introduce and or review the format of data on industry standard 9 track magnetic tapes and cartridges This information should be of interest to most users of the tape drive subsystem Cartridge in this manual refers to 3480 3490 and 3490e tape cartridges No need to er
15. D BF files STRUCTURE OF DATA ON TAPE Typical mainframe tape data provided for data interchange between computers consists of fixed length data records end to end without any extra record separator characters Each fixed length record is built up from individual fixed length fields Physical blocks of data on tape contain an integer number of records i e logical records do not span physical blocks APPENDING DIRECTLY FROM TAPE TO A DBF FILE FX has an option which allows you to append fixed length record tape data as described above directly to a D BF database disk file The most popular database internal format in the MS DOS world is the D BF file DBF files are used by all versions of dBASE FoxBASE FoxPRO Clipper dBXL Quicksilver AlphaWorks and many workalikes and compatible utilities Generating the D BF file FX itself is not used to Create the DBF file You do that with your database program or optionally with the FXED program s G command see the FXED chapter FX has the ability to add tape data to any existing D BF file The D BF file may be an empty STRUCTURE or a D BF file that already contains data records FX processes fixed length tape fields into a DBF compatible format as well as doing all the necessary bookkeeping to update the modification date and other control information in the DBF file FX supports dBASE s Character Numeric Date and Logical field types However there is no direct way
16. Don t save results on disk POArA UVUMVIGHNHAAOH Selecting T selects the FXED Translation Definition phase You have to define some translation type for every character position you re going to deal with We re assuming that the data on tape is written in EBCDIC Note that your tape data might not be in EBCDIC it might be in ASCII or in a mix of codes e g EBCDIC and Packed Decimal FXED Translation Definition Commands lt range gt E Translate the bytes in lt range gt from EBCDIC to ASCII lt range gt e EBCDIC to ASCII but force lower case ASCII output lt range gt CTRL E EBCDIC to ASCII but force UPPER case ASCII output lt range gt P Translate the bytes in lt range gt from Packed decimal to ASCII lt range gt U Undefines the bytes in lt range gt lt range gt Z Translate the bytes in lt range gt from Zoned decimal to ASCII lt range gt Defines the bytes in lt range gt as needing no translation etc Here s where you specify that all 44 bytes of each input record are to get EBCDIC to ASCII translation 1 44E Now you hit lt ESC gt to return to the main FXED menu and choose O to enter the Output Definition Phase lt ESC gt o This calls up the output definition screen You ll be inputting a mix of different types of commands Tape field selections end in to remove trailing blanks or with lt ENTER gt to bring in a fixed length field Lines starting and ending with the lt IN S gt key are litera
17. In most cases when processing data on the PC you don t want control characters The most troublesome control character users run into is CTRL Z dec 26 Unless you re trying to import data containing control characters on purpose e g material destined for a typesetter or formatted printer answer Y to this question Converting control characters to SPACEs is performed after any other conversions EBCDIC to ASCII Reset 8th bit If you ve specified the use of an FXED control file the above question is skipped See FXED s Secondary Translation option for FXED s similar function Change all CR s and or LF s into the CR LF pair ASCII text files on the PC normally end each line with the character pair CARRIAGE RETURN LINE FEED However some computers end each line with just a single CR or a single LF When engaged this 21 feature of FX looks at every character coming in from tape and changes each CR or LF to the pair of characters CR LF If the data from tape e g tape to printer is overprinting itself you may want to experiment with this feature and the Add CR LF after how many char feature described below to find the one best suited to your situation Selecting this option will cause FX to skip the Add CR LF after how many characters question described below you can t have both options in effect at once See the BLOCK SIZE LIMITS paragraph below for additional information This question is skipped when CHO Ping Con
18. To insert only CR use the backspace key left pointing arrow to delete the LF i e lt INS gt lt ENTER gt lt BS gt lt INS gt 3 LITERAL TEXT can be any of the ASCII characters 000 127 and most of the non ASCII codes above the ASCII character set 129 255 Only decimal 128 hex 80 is restricted Call Electrovalue if restricting this character causes you a problem 4 To insert NUL decimal 000 use the key combination CTRL SHIFT DOS won t let you create a NUL using ALT 0 from the numeric keypad COMMENTSIN THE OUTPUT DEFINITION PHASE The ability to comment each line in the output definition phase is a big help in coordinating the control file both with the original input record s field definitions and with your desired output record format The comments become a permanent part of the control file and are shown every time the definitions are displayed or printed Comments may be up to 40 characters in length Only the first 24 characters fit a V screen display without wraparound For convenience comment lines may be terminated with several of the keys that can terminate a field entry lt ENTER gt and lt TAB gt Comments have an important second use The first word is used as an xBASE Del name whenever you use FXED s G function to automatically generate an empty D BF structure Editing Comments Comment fields can be edited by using the nC command where n is the line number at which you want to start adding or
19. nem 4 I 087 100 O 091 104 L 014 TRUN FLD Bytes 87 100 of the input become gt 0 bytes of the output 14 bytes maximum Truncated output fields are those defined with the character this causes trailing SPACE characters to be deleted This can save lots of room on disk 15 O 105 107 L 003 lt CR gt lt LF gt The lt CR gt lt LF gt was input by hitting lt INS gt lt ENTER gt lt INS gt This terminates each output record with a lt CR gt lt LF gt Output Record Length 107 bytes or less 1 or more variable length fields present CONDITIONAL CRITERIA Accept if 56 60 gt 10000 and 56 60 lt 10999 Only input records which contain 10000 10999 in positions 56 60 will be output 70 SECONDARY TRANSLATIONS Here we make sure that any double quotes that may be found on tape will be translated to single quotes so that the database program won t confuse them with character field delimiters Format Character D EC HEX 034 22 gt 039 27 NUMERIC DEFINITIONS PACKED amp ZONED DECIMAL PACKED HEX BCD EBCDIC LOWER CASE From a translation standpoint so called EBCDIC tapes aren t always 100 EBCDIC they often contain numeric fields that can not be translated on a one to one character basis from EBCDIC to ASCII Numbers on EBCDIC tapes are frequently found in PACKED DECIMAL and ZONED DECIMAL and less often in PACKED BCD PACKED HEX These special numeric codes are even infrequently
20. Disk File Input from filename records a b Disk File Output to filename Printer output X Printer output with Xtra PrtSc to document selected options S Screen output U Unload tape when done E Input file is EBCDIC Convert to ASCII A Input file is ASCII No conversion required C or H or B Output as Characters or Hex or Both Choose only one ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ERROR MESSAGES EXCEPTIONS HINTS Records per Header There are situations where the number of records displayed under a set of column numbers header is less than the number requested Less records will be displayed if DITTO s intemal buffer isn t large enough to accommodate a request Additionally if input is from tape AND the range of records requested spans tape blocks you ll see all the requested records but DITTO will generate an extra header under which will be less than the requested number of records per header If this is a problem use FX to transfer the records to a disk file and DITTO them from the disk file Note about Rewinding Tape When processing tape files DITTO rewinds the tape before spacing to the selected file The reel of tape is also rewound on exit to DOS Blocking Factor not an integer Block Length was nnn error message DITTO will abort with the above message after processing the first block when input is from tape and the block length on tape is not an integer multiple of the specified logical record length A common reason for getting
21. Name Type Width Dec 1 BLDG_DESC Character L5 2 LAND_DESC Character 20 3 ACERAGE Numeric 10 4 4 ZONING Character 4 5 NO_ONRS Character 2 6 DEED DATE Character 6 7 SALE AMT Numeric 9 8 LAND VAL Numeric 9 9 IMP_VAL Numeric 9 10 LAST_YR_TX Numeric 10 2 1 THIS _YR_TX Numeric 10 2 AK Total 105 98 Corresponds to this Record Layout Report Magnetic Tape Tape file number Logical record length Blocking factor Tape block length Number of blocks written Number of records transferred Tape written in EBCDIC Information for Number of bytes transferred 5 Deleted DEC DATE records in original disk 0 101 50 5050 21 1042 105242 file skipped BLDG_DESC 001 015 L 015 LAND_DESC 016 035 L 020 ACERAGE 036 044 L 009 ZONING 045 048 L 004 NO_ONRS 049 050 L 002 DEED_DATE 051 056 L 006 SALE_AMT 057 065 L 009 LAND_VAL 066 074 L 009 IMP_VAL 075 083 L 009 LAST_YR_TX 084 092 L 009 THIS_YR_TX 093 101 L 009 NOTESON DATA TYPES DBF Numeric Fields Intemally from left to right D BF numeric fields consist of an optional minus sign the digits to the left of the decimal point the decimal point itself and the digits to the right of the decimal point The maximum number of positive digits and the decimal point add up to the Field Width shown by your Ch Ch Nu Ch Ch Ch Nu Nu Nu Nu Nu aracter aracter meric aract
22. See pages 20 22 Using FXED to generate an FXED control file consists of several distinct phases Tell FXED what name to give to the control file the filename extension CF is assumed and need not be input and how many bytes are in each fixed length logical record from tape i e the input record length Specify what type of translation or no translation FX is to perform on each input record field 41 Output Field Definition You specify which fields from the input records are to be transferred to the output file or device and in what order and you define literal text if any to be inserted between the fields of translated data from tape The order in which you make these specifications is the order in which the input fields and any literal insertions will appear in the output Input fields that are not defined in this phase will simply not become part of the output You don t specify the output record length FXED will add up all the output field definitions and tell you what it is Comments are an optional part of each output field definition Besides their value in documenting the output field definitions the comments serve a purpose in the optional automatic generation of an empty dBASE D BF structure Record Selection You may optionally define a logical expression which will cause FX to conditionally accept or reject each input record after a comparing the contents of specified fields within the record with literal text or
23. TOTAL shown by LIST STRUCTURE See the note to the right of the sample structure on the prior page CHARACTER FIELDS are nght filled with ASCII SPACE characters to the full size shown by the LIST STRUCTURE command NUMERIC FIELDS are left filled with ZEROes or SPACES Numeric fields with decimal points are copied out including the decimal point character For example if you have a numeric fied WIDTH 10 DEC 4 you ll get data of the following format 12345 6789 00123 4567 00001 2345 DATE FIELDS are written in the form YYYYMMDD Thus a date of 11 22 88 as shown by dBA SE s EDIT command will be written to disk as 19881122 Mainframes aren t likely to want that format If you must use date fields and the SDF date format causes the mainframe grief you can used Electrovalue s FX ED program after dBASE and before FX in disk to disk mode to shuffle fields around delete the 19 etc to create the specific format you need Field Delimiters The COPY TO TYPE SDF command doesn t create any field delimiters this is good that s the way mainframes like the data COPY TO does allow you to select just the fields you want in the order you want see your dBASE manual The COPY TO command adds a carriage return and linefeed to each record You can remove the carriage retum and linefeed using FX by truncating the record by 2 bytes Filename Extension Unless you specify a filename extension the file named in the COPY TO com
24. TRUN FLD 09 O 091 093 L 003 10 I 081 100 O 094 113 L 020 TRUN FLD 11 O 114 116 L 003 lt CR gt lt LF gt NOTE Macros can not start within a comment field nor after the lt INS gt which signals a literal text insertion To use the macro feature in a comment simply start the macro definition with the character that terminates the previous field definition Output definition phase forward insertions If you want to insert literal text between 2 fields from tape you normally create a literal text insertion field e g lt INS gt this is the insertion text lt IN S gt 52 Numeric fields on so called EBCDIC tapes are often encoded as Packed Decimal Packed Decimal data is also found infrequently on so called pure ASCII tapes Packed D ecimal data is easily converted to an ASCII character string by the Electrovalue software all you have to do is identify it as such P to FXED in the translation phase When Packed D ecimal input data is translated to ASCII you get two ASCII characters two bytes from each single byte on tape See the last page of this chapter for a definition of Packed D ecimal data with examples It s fairly common to want to unpack a number and insert a decimal point for dollars and cents or slashes in a date field as the data is being transferred from tape to disk When the tape data is Packed D ecimal you re likely to find that you need to make an insertion between two bytes that
25. The Software We will use the CUBS program to create write read and compare some test data Load a scratch tape in the drive Warning This test will overwrite any data on the tape Use a blank tape or a tape with data you no longer need With the drive loaded and online go to the tape drive software directory Type in CUBS B M 250 32K This will call the CUBS program and tell it to write 250 blocks of data at a block size of up to 32K The program will then read in the data checking for positioning information and block size CUBS will The Density Program display progress and error status if any PURPOSE This program is used to change the write density FEATURES This program allows changing the write density without affecting the host adapter or SCSI ID settings in the software You could run TACO to change the write density but you would have to make sure you enter the correct values for the adapter card number and drive ID number Changing the write density Simply run DENSITY in the same directory or folder as the tape drive control programs Density will prompt you to enter the write density code from a het it displays Density does not affect the read density Problem Resolution Remember Y our drive must be powered up before the computer is booted The software must be configured with the correct host adapter card and drive numbers Some typical problems Windows 95 98 ME displays the Add New Hardware Wizard when
26. Therefore binary values from 00000000 to 11111111 plus one parity bit can be recorded across 9 tracks This data often represents ASCII or EBCDIC data For instance 001000001 A in ASCII The decimal base 10 value of 001000001 is 65 This is how data is represented on tape PHYSICAL TAPE BLOCKS and INTER BLOCK GAPS A collection of characters that the hardware writes or reads as a unit is called a physical block or simply a block Blocks are separated by sections of erased tape called Inter Block G aps IBG s which are created automatically by the tape drive hardware The length of the IBG for 1600 BPI 9 track tape is nominally 0 6 inches its maximum legal length is 25 feet under ANSI standards The design of the hardware assures that when the tape drive stops the read write head is always positioned in an inter block gap Why have inter block gaps at all The inter block gap gives the computer time to process the blocks it just read This way the tape drive can move continuously without stopping and starting This continuous movement is called streaming operation Of course this assumes that the computer is fast enough to process the data during the time the drive is in the inter block gap Most drives allow you to change the size of the inter block gap to account for computer processing time BLOCK LENGTH also known as BLOCK SIZE The length of the data blocks on a tape is not standard and varies with the applicat
27. VIEW ccsssssssssssssesscnssasensensensensensensensenes 18 FROM TAPE TO PC PAA A 19 WRITING DATA TO TAPE sssssesssseesseeseseeseseeseseesessessseessseesseeeseeeeass 19 RUNNING THIS SOFTWARE UNDER WINDOWS 95 98 ME 19 THE FX PROGRAM ccssssssssssssesesesessssssesssssessssssesesesessssesesesesesenee 20 BLOCK SIZE ON TAPE ANSWERING QUESTIONS TAPE POSITIONING RESETING 8TH BIT USING AN FXED CONTROL FILE CHANGE ALL CONTROL CHARACTERS TO SPACES CHANGE ALL CR S AND OR LF S INTO THE CR LF PAIR CONVERT EBCDIC To ASCII ADD CR amp LF AFTER HOW MANY CHARACTERS TRANSFER OF MULTIPLE TAPE FILES TO DISK s sssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeereeeeee 22 TRANSFER OF LARGE TAPE FILES TO DISK APPENDING TAPE DATA TO AN EXISTING DISK FILE TRANSFER OF BINARY FILES TO DISK TAPE READ ERROR HANDLING E READING TAPE WITHOUT AN FXED CONTROL FILE DIALOGUE WHEN WRITING TO TAPE NOTES ABOUT APPENDING PADDING LAST BLOCK WITH SPACE CHARACTERS SHORT LAST BLOCK eee ASCII TO EBCDIC CONVERSION MULTIPLE FILE TRANSFER TRUNCATION amp EXPANSION LOG TO LINE PRINTER TAPE TO SCREEN AND TAPE TO PRINTER TESTING AN FXED CONTROL FILE BLOCK POSITIONING CTRL Z in TAPE TO DBASE DBF DISK FILES CHANGING FIELD LENGTHS CHANGING THE ORDER OF FIELDS DISCARDING UNWANTED FIELDS K DBASE NUMERIC DATE AND LOGICAL DATA TYPES THE FXED PROGRAM cccsss
28. a BEEP and the message END OF INPUT FILE Exception when TNR 0 see TNR n below COMMAND LINE OPTIONS Optional input is shown in square brackets gt DFI filename a b Get Disk File Input from filename a b is an optional range of records E g DF I E SPOOGE ABC TXT 234 567 DFO filename Disk File Output Send output to disk file filename E g DFO C SEPT29 FILE 1 DIT TFI n a b Tape File Input Get input from tape file n Note that File 0 designates the first file on the tape a b is an optional range of records e g TFI 1 200 234 LRL n Set logical Record Length The Logical Record Length is synonymous with the highest column number After n columns of data are output the column number is reset to 001 and the display continues with a fresh header TNR n Set the Total Number of records to be output If TNR 0 the entire file will be processed RPH n Set the number of Records to be displayed Per Header See the last page for additional information PW n Set the Page Width to n columns P Printer output Causes output to be sent to PRN A form feed command is sent to the printer when printing is finished X Same as P but the screen will be printed first to capture the command line options or DITTO screen dialogue S Screen output Causes output to be sent to the Screen Note that options P and S may not be used simultaneously U Unload when done Causes tape drive to rewind and unload ta
29. allows you to Input a different control file from disk or To re define the name which will be used when the control file is written to disk or To clear ALL definitions currently in effect for the control file being edited Here s the F sub menu FXED File Management Commands Editing DEMO N Get N ew control file from disk R R ename file being edited G C lear all current definitions Displays this list of commands ESC Return to Main Menu PRINT ALL DEFINITIONS IN DETAIL Select P from the main menu Use this command from the main menu to print the FXED control file name followed by all of the definitions for all phases in detail The printout you ll get is a good hardcopy record to save once you have a control file which performs as you intended If you re still fine tuning the control file it s a helpful working document to use in approaching the desired results If no data has been specified in the optional phases Conditional Record Processing and or Secondary Translation there will be no output for these phases 69 VIEW ALL DEFINITIONS Similar to the P command above but the results are output to the screen See below for examples of output from the V and P commande EXAMPLE OF V and Dr OUTPUTS With editorial comments FXED Control File DEMO CF Input record Length 100 This is the length of the input records TRANSLATION DEFINITIONS 1 50E We ve de
30. an error It also means that it is very likely that one or more bytes of the block just read is in error You ll see a message of the format Reading tape without an FXED control file When reading tape you probably don t need to know the size of each tape block but in some applications the block size may be useful information In single block mode youll see the size of each individual tape block on the screen one after another For tape to disk transfers in multiple block mode the block size displayed is the total number of bytes accumulated by each multiple block streaming read 25 DISPLAY OF FILE NUMBER AND BLOCK NUMBER For an explanation of these numbers displayed on the bottom of the screen as well as some suggestions as to their usefulness see the paragraphs entitled DISPLAY OF FILE BLOCK ETC and BLOCK POSITIONING FEATURES READ ERRORS CORRECTED BY FORMATTED TAPE DRIVES Due to redundancy in data written on tape modem formatted tape drives e g the Cipher M995 hp 88780 7980S Fujitsu 2481 etc can reliably correct certain tape read errors This is called a Corrected Error and is reported by the message READ ERROR CORRECTED BY THE DRIVE When corrected errors are reported the multiple block read is terminated early no data is lost so don t be alarmed if you see a smaller block size reported on the screen It s not unusual to get a few corrected errors when reading tapes from various sources Don t worry ab
31. asked if D FO filename or S or P or X appear on the command line Enter Filename for Disk output Enter the filename for output to be sent to Asked if disk file output has been selected Type the maximum number of columns page Page Width and hit lt ENTER gt Enter the maximum number of columns you want to be printed across a page During output whenever this many columns have been printed CR LF s are inserted so that the display continues below and in the left margin Asked only when PW n is not specified on the command line If the logical record length is less than the page width the page width is internally set to the logical record length D efaults to 80 for Screen output If your screen is wider use PW n on the command line to override this SETTING PAGE WIDTH After the number of columns specified as the Page Width are printed a carriage retum linefeed sequence is sent Often specifying one less than the maximum number of columns across a page produces better results On many printers if the actual maximum number of columns across a page is sent the printer will auto CR LF to the next line Then when the CR LF is sent by DITTO the text appears double spaced DITTO STOPS amp QUITS if a specified Total Number of Records has been output or when a specified range of records has been output whichever is less or if you ve attempted processing past the end of the input file in 92 which case you ll get
32. by paperwork containing the field definitions for fixed length record data Sometimes people will send you tapes with no documentation Occasionally the documentation will be wrong O ther times the documentation gets lost The DITTO program Mainframes don t use field separators Thus you have a puzzle on your hands if the field definition paperwork is missing Records containing undocumented adjacent numerical fields are just about hopeless but alphanumeric fields containing data such as names addresses and phone numbers are easily scoped out with help of the DITTO program Once you find out which file the data is in you can read in a few blocks with FX to your hard disk and can leisurely use DITTO to print out a report PURPOSE DITTO helps the user to analyze the contents of files comprised of fixed length records DITTO displays the contents of one or more sequential records along with column numbers which indicate the byte position of each character FEATURES DITTO contains logic to create and print up to 9999 column numbers and the associated data records without overflowing the right margin of the screen or printer Input may be from tape or disk Output may be to printer screen or disk EBCDIC to ASCII conversion is supported The data may be displayed below the column numbers as printed characters in HEX or both SAMPLE DITTO DIALOGUE AND PRINTOUT Type the Logical Record Length maximum column number and hit lt ENTER g
33. byte 11 with a length of 12 It has the same effect as specifying 11 22 Both of the above methods are valid throughout FX ED whenever you need to specify a range of bytes There is a 3rd method relative definitions valid only in the initial Translation and O utput definition phases lt IMPLIED STARTING BYTE gt L lt LENGTH gt eg L6 This specifies a field of length 6 starting at the next available byte from the input record Where it starts depends on the most recent previous field definition You ll find this to be the easiest way to enter fields when you re taking them in order from documentation that shows field lengths Note that this form of field definition is extremely powerful when it is used within a MACRO explained next Macros NOTE Macros are wonderful work savers in the right circumstances They are most useful in situations where the user is creating lengthy control files which require numerous repetitive sequences of keystrokes First time users in a hurry to get a small job done can skip to the next page if they promise to come back and learn about macros later What is a macro A macro is simply a string of characters keystrokes that is saved internally by FKED associated with a particular function key After amacro has been defined its contents will be played back just as if you had manually typed them whenever the associated function key is hit Use macros if you need to make the same keyboard entries repeatedly
34. character set W mode CUBS writes a full CUBS compatible test tape of random length blocks with filemarks at random intervals from the BOT marker to the EOT marker outputs a summary line rewinds the tape and quits NOTE The normally random block size may be fixed by the L n option The maximum number of blocks may be limited by the M n option See page 5 for a full description of these options The W mode writes a tape suitable for reading by the R mode This provides a means of extensively testing tape drive compatibility Tape blocks written by the B and W modes consist of pseudo random data plus 12 bytes of meaningful data to allow more extensive error checking when the blocks are read by the R mode The file number to which 85 each block belongs the block number and the block length are placed in 6 bytes at the beginning and at the end of each block Modern formatted drives do an automatic read after write test and can therefore detect and attempt to correct write errors Uncorrected write errors and write retries are counted Hard write errors are reported as they occur Average write retries are reported on the summary line W ERRORS REPORTED WERR Hard write error after 10 write retries I O INC I O incomplete The input output channel has not transferred all the requested bytes from a block of memory to tape Most likely indicates a speed incompatibility between the computer s data transfer abili
35. data processing criteria are defined in an FXED control file input the lt filename gt else press lt ENTER gt alone for no control file DELI lt ENTER gt Enter a disk filename DELIDATA TXT Use any name you like 122 The job runs you follow the prompts to exit FX back to DOS The delimited data is on your disk in this example it s in the current directory in a file called DELIDATA TXT You could of course have called it any filename you like and optionally preceded the filename with a drive and a path IMPORTANT These few pages are intended to be a detailed cookbook example pertinent to a common ASCII Chart task Complete user information on the FXED and FX programs is found in their chapters in this manual Character Name Char Code Decimal Beat Be ni NUL_ chi 0 woo00000 00 Acknowledge ACK car of SCHO RE Bel __ BeL_ _cuiG 7 woo __07 Back Space Bs cmn 8 0001000 08 HorzontalTab_ TAB_ cuil_ 9 oni 09 VerticalTab_ vT__ cuik 11 woo E Camiage Retum CR com Bf oomo o N egative End of Transmit File Separator FS cmn EH oomo e RER EE EE E ESCH E Record Separator Ctrl 00011110 123 EC ER E RH REECH RR REDER ERC EH REES shit REH RSC REN CEET SEH Right Parenthesis smo ooo Asterisk ge RRE REG SCHU RE REELLE SEELEN 45 00101101 2D zE JF 30 3i 32 1 0 1 0 Comma Hyphen Minus Sign Period Forward Slash Zero Digit
36. defining You ll reference the line numbers whenever you want to edit the control file to make deletions insertions replacements etc Remember the numbers you input are with respect to the layout of the INPUT RECORDS FXED will show you the resulting range of bytes and field length for the OUTPUT records They will often be different 01 001 70 80 lt ENTER gt Bytes 70 80 of each input record after any translation will occupy the first 11 bytes of the output 02 012 70 80 Same as above except that trailing SPACE characters will be deleted from the output Note that the and X commands will cause variable length output records HINT Using instead of lt ENTER gt to terminate output field definitions can save a lot of space on your disk in certain situations depending on the data youre importing If you choose to use remember to import the data into a database program as DELIMITED data not SDF 03 023 lt INS gt lt INS gt The next 3 bytes of the output 12 thru 14 will be SPACE SPACE 04 026 45 55 lt ENTER gt Bytes 45 55 of each input record after any translation will occupy the next position of the output bytes 15 thru 05 037 S S is a shorthand way of inserting a single SPACE into the output Same as entering lt INS gt lt INS gt 49 06 038 V As in the translation definition phase entering V allows you to View the contents of the output definition list at any time V is especial
37. during the 1990 s the Internet began making a tremendous impact on all industries not just the direct mail industry All of this development seemed very interesting because it laid the groundwork for where we are going right now The year 2000 Today The year 2000 brings on the PC the Internet electronic printing presses digitalization in the Post O ffice and a whole new way of doing business with the Post O ffice Hardware Installation At the computer you are going to install the SCSI controller card Tum off the power to the PC Open your PC to expose an empty expansion slot Remove an expansion slot cover from the rear panel of an empty slot Usually the expansion slot cover has a screw holding it in place Plug the controller card in the slot making sure it is seated properly Replace the screw previously removed from the expansion slot cover Plug the cable into the mating connector on the rear of the card It can go on only one way Replace the cover on the PC At the tape drive Tum off the power at the tape drive Plug the cable onto one connector on the drive Install the terminator on the other connector on the tape drive Placing peripherals on the drive The top of the tape drive can be a convenient place to put a printer monitor or other piece of equipment Sometimes this will cause problems other times it won t Some peripherals radiate electromagnetic energy If too much of this energy gets to the tape drive
38. easy way to get a small sample of data from tape for example to test an FKED control file in FX ED s disk to disk mode 7 34 The first 33 blocks of file 7 will be skipped processing will start at block 34 and proceed through the end of the file 7 1 1000 Transfer will start with the first block of file 7 and stop after block number 1000 has been transferred 7 34 1000 The first 33 blocks of file 7 will be skipped blocks 34 through and including block 1000 will be transferred After an ending block has been processed and no more blocks remain to be read the tape is spaced in reverse to the beginning of the file Appending tape data to an existing disk file During the Tape To D isk dialogue FX asks you the name of the disk file into which you want to transfer the data from tape You simply enter a disk file name If the specified disk file already exists FX will ask you to confirm your desire to overwrite it Altemately FX allows you to APPEND data from tape to the end of an existing disk file Just add A after the disk file name e g Enter a single disk lt filename gt or lt filename gt A to append to an existing disk file or lt filename gt D to or lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt for main menu ABC TXT A FX will complain if the disk file does not already exist Chop off the beginning of a block This is a rarely used option not suggested by the dialogue Inspection of some tapes e g with the KEYS and DITTO prog
39. editing comments Comment edit mode is useful in adding comments to old FXED control files and in fine tuning comments used in automatic DBF structure generation When editing comments the lt BS gt left and right arrow and lt D EL gt keys have their normal D OS functions lt INS gt toggles between the INSERT and OVERWRITE modes CTRL Y clears from the cursor to the end of the line lt ESC gt leaves comment edit mode without any changes to the current comment Hit lt ENTER gt to make permanent changes to the current line and move the editing cursor to the beginning of the next field definition s comment MACROSIN THE OUTPUT DEFINITION PHASE 51 Suppose youre going to transfer a mailing list from tape to a number of floppy diskettes You ll send the floppies to your customer who will import the data to his database Typical mailing list tapes contain from 40 to 60 SPACE characters in the form of trailing blanks that follow the actual data in each field FXED allows you to output fields from the input record less any trailing blanks You use the terminator instead of lt ENTER gt to end the field definition Using this method on each field from the mailing list tape will cut down the number of floppies you ll need to approximately half If you do choose to delete trailing blanks you ll have to delimit the data so you don t loose the field definitions The most common delimited data consists of character strings enclosed in double quo
40. eg FX P DAILYRUN lt ENTER gt NOTES You can edit the command file with your favorite pure ASCII word processor The file will contain all your keystrokes with added carriage returns for ease in reading If you ve hit the key to force line printer logging of the job it will show up in the command file as a diamond decimal 04 Tape to printer mode Part of FX s TAPE TO PRINTER routine is fast enough to keep normal laser printers busy but may not be fast enough to feed fast high speed commercial laser printers eg Xerox 9700 at their rated throughput Furthermore TAPE TO PRINTER does some special character processing to replace control characters with decimal points If you want to pass control characters through or if your application requires driving a Xerox 9700 class laser printer at maximum speed go to the main FX menu and select TAPE TO DISK mode written in assembly language Then specify PRN as the name of the output disk file PRN is DOS s reserved name for the line printer Below is a sample dialog for Tape to Disk transfer User input is shown in bold Comments in italics TAPE TO DISK lt enter gt for main menu Enter tape file number the first file on tape is file 0 0 Reset 8th bit N If Input Data processing criteria are defined in an FXED control file input lt filename gt else press lt ENTER gt alone for no control file lt ENTER gt Re
41. familiar with this information 63 PLUS and MINUS There is no difference between using or to create a NUMERIC field type other than the comment itself possibly being more meaningful to someone reading it DECIMAL POINT POSITIONS are automatically created by the G command whenever it is processing the continuation of a numeric field definition and the purpose of the line is to insert a literal decimal point This is demonstrated in the following examples lines 05 parts 2 amp 3 DBF file generation 1 The following table is the record layout information that came with a tape We re going to extract only the fields we want in the order we want and automatically generate an empty DBF file ready to receive the extracted data from tape It is implied that after we re finished with the work shown in this example we ll exit the FXED program and run the FX program to process the tape We ll tell FX to use the FXED control file EMP CF to extract and rearrange the fields and to transfer the data into the DBF file we ve created here EMP D BF FIELD CONTENTS STARTING POSITION LENGTH 1 LAST NAME T 15 2 FIRST NAME 16 10 3 MIDDLE INITIAL 26 1 4 SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER 27 9 5 DEPARTMENT 36 4 6 SALARY DDDDDDCC 40 8 7 BENEFIT CODES 48 E 8 DATE OF HIRE MMDDYY 60 6 9 AMOUNT OF LAST INCREASE DDDD 66 4 10 EMPLOYEE NUMBER 70
42. g C TAPE FX lt ENTER gt This runs the program under Windows 95 s DOS 3 Click START select PROG RAMS click on Windows Explorer find the program you want to run and run it 4 Go to the menu programs MS DOS command prompt it may be in accessories right click and drag to the desktop Release the mouse button and choose create shortcut Right click the shortcut you just created Choose rename Type in aname such as tape drive Click OK Right click again Choose the program tab Type in the tape drive directory in the working box Click OK Right click again Choose the usage tab Check the full screen checkbox Click OK Then you can double click the desktop icon to bring you to the tape drive directory 19 The FX Program PURPOSE FX transfers data FROM TAPE TO DISK SCREEN OR PRINTER FROM DISK TO TAPE FEATURES Dozens are available to make the data friendly to the target computer A basic set of features is available within FX itself a number of advanced data import features are available through use of the FX control file editor FXED Although the most common use of FX is to exchange text files between the PC and other computers there are no restrictions whatsoever conceming the type of files processed by FX Binary files may be read and written without restriction The maximum physical tape block length is 65535 USE Torun FX simply type FX lt ENTER gt
43. groups of bytes one group after the other The groups consist of 255 0 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 and 128 How many of each you get depends on the size of the write buffer as set with the S command For example 100S followed by P would set the write block size to 100 then fill the buffer with 10 bytes of 255 followed by 10 bytes of 0 followed by 10 bytes of 1 ending with 10 bytes of 128 Try it Le type 100SPN to see the buffer contents on the screen Writing and reading this pattern is useful in finding bits which are stuck on off or shorted together If you precede the P by a decimal number the write buffer will be filled with that byte Valid inputs range from OP through 255P Example 65P fills the buffer with the letter A See the ASCII chart in this manual Q Quit the KEYS program R Read ablock from tape M R reads the next block from tape into the I O buffer If a data block is read the number of bytes read are displayed If a filemark is read a message stating this is displayed If End of tape is hit you ll get message saying so anda BEEP Although R does not perform any read retries on bad blocks your drive is probably configured to do read retries That s all R does unless one or more read errors are detected In that case you ll hear a BEEP and see a list of errors Possible errors are Hard eror The tape drive could not read a data block Corrected error The tape drive used error correct
44. of the card controlling the tape drive to change depending on whether these other devices are on or off Try checking this out by running the SCANSCSI program with your tape drive on and the other SCSI devices on Then turn off the other SCSI devices eg ZIP drive and then reboot the computer Next run SCANSCSI to see whether the host adapter properties for your drive changed If so you ll have to keep the other SCSI devices either on or off or run TACO to reconfigure your software each time you use your tape drive Cleaning The Heads And The Tape Path Clean the tape path especially the head following the procedures outlined here Magnetic tape sheds oxide during normal tape operations D ebris from the tape should be removed by periodic cleaning Electrovalue recommends the use of lint free swabs or cloth and 91 ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL to periodically clean the read write heads and tape path components If you have a cartridge machine you should use a Cleaning cartridge as recommend by the manufacturer How often you should perform these cleaning procedures depends on usage operation environment and tape quality You can usually get 91 Isopropyl alcohol at your local drugstore We do not recommend the use of alcohol mixtures containing less than 91 alcohol The rest is water which extends drying time Make certain that you let the heads after cleaning them Loading a tape with wet heads will rip oxide from them immediately making the heads dirty
45. on content Import only the data you re interested in eg a range of zip codes for a mailing list Break up large tape files into multiple disk files for separate processing Translate ASCII from zoned decimal packed decimal packed hex and or packed BCD Stop processing the tape when a data record meets a condition you ve defined We call this feature logical end of file It s a big time saver when you know the order of the data on the tape Insert literal text strings anywhere in each output record Add the field delimiters required by your application program Add decimal points to currency fields Define single key macros for frequently inserted text Add extra blank fields to match a particular database structure Move input fields to different positions in the output record Match tape data fields to existing database structures Print labels 4 up directly from tape Delete trailing space characters from selected input fields to save space on your disk Condese the data being copied to floppies Delete leading spaces leading zeros and trawling spaces from selected input fields Extract the significant part of numeric fields for cleaner indexing Force a secondary translation to your custom character set Change double quotes coming in from tape to single quotes so your application program doesn t think they are character field delimiters Force upper case and or lower case
46. records you re transferring to tape Answer Y to access these powerful features which allow you to delete lt CR gt lt LF gt s block out variable length records to fixed length and create fixed length records on tape which are larger or smaller than the fixed length records on disk D etails on page FX 9 Enter starting tape fil 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt for END OF DATA Simply enter the number of the tape file you want to write to then hit lt ENTER gt Remember the first file on a tape is by convention file 0 END OF DATA It is common practice for minicomputers and mainframes to use two adjacent filemarks tape marks to indicate the end of all the data on the tape FX follows this convention If you hit lt ENTER gt alone instead of a tape file number FX will space forward past the two filemarks then backspace over the second filemark write the requested disk file s followed by anew set of two filemarks When writing to a tape for the first time Le a new or bulk erased tape the only acceptable answer to this question is file 0 If for example you answer file 3 the tape drive controller will attempt to move the tape forward counting the filemarks at the end of files 0 1 and 2 then stop ready to write file 3 This will work only 26 if files 0 2 already exist on tape If it were a virgin tape the drive would slew tape attempting to count past 3 file marks until the EOT end of tape mar
47. sense to transfer a complete D BF file to tape and send it to computer shop using a mainframe computer Some programs such as Visual FoxPro create files ending in dbf which are not truly compliant with dBASE II standards Visual FoxPro native dbf files are enhanced dbf files They contain data types not found in dBASE III compatible files Of course Visual FoxPro will also open and work with standard dbf files To create files that are dBASE II compatible for use with D2T from Visual FoxPro dt files use the Visual FoxPro command copy to lt filename gt type FOX 2X Creating Mainframe Friendly Data Tapes Again the discussion below ignores using our D 2T program to export tape data directly from D BF files The dBASE language is used to give examples We hope that these examples and the accompanying explanations will be helpful to users of non dBASE databases The actual commands used for any specific database language may of course be different If your database uses D BF files you should read the D2T chapter to see how to directly export tape data If you want all of the DBF fields transferred to tape the following discussion is obsolete D2T creates mainframe friendly tape files directly from dBASE compatible internal format D BF files STEP 1 From dBASE s dot prompt select the D BF file of interest e g USE DEMO lt ENTER gt This is a good time to create a hardcopy of the structure of your database you l
48. tape they could store 6250 characters Therefore in about 15 years we increased the capacity of storage on magnetic tape 600 times You dont get 600 times the mileage per gallon of gasoline from the late 1940 s through the middle 1960 s The early magnetic tapes had to be manually threaded onto the take up reel Sometime in the early 1960 s they invented a tape device on which you could mount the tapes and you could automatically feed the tape into position The take off reel would run the tape into position Technology changed in the 1970 s when they designed and invented the cartridge Magnetic tape was then stored in a cartridge 4 or so wide The new cartridge was half the size half the price and double the speed of the reel type magnetic tape The new cartridge could store 18 000 characters in one inch of magnetic tape So over a 30 year period you went from 100 characters per inch to over 18 000 in one inch This is a growth factor of 1800 percent Then in the early 1990 s they learned how to double the capacity of the 18 000 BPI cartridge file to 36 000 BPI So now in the 50 years computers have been around we have increased tape storage capacity 3600 times This is phenomenal growth Of course all this tape development has been followed by gigabytes of disk storage for insignificant costs as compared with the original computer storage costs The above discussion has been about the capacity of storing information on magnetic
49. the FX program to import tape data to the PC a labeled tape contains extra small files of minimal interest We just have to remember to skip around them to access the data files we re interested in If you run CUBS in L mode on an unlabeled tape you ll get exactly the same results as the A analyze mode would produce By selecting L mode you re asking CUBS to look for labels 80 byte blocks with certain ID words in certain positions If labels are found CUBS determines if the tape is written in ASCII or EBCDIC and tells you then outputs short canned label field descriptions followed by the contents of the label fields A sample follows below ANALYZING TAPE TAPE RECORED IN EBCDIC TAPE FILE 000 ABEL ID VOL1 VOLUME ID PEFOO1 ACCESSIBILITY OWNER AABEL STANDARD VERSION TAPE FILE 000 ABEL ID HDR1 84 FILE ID PY PROD PEF TAPE FILE SECTION NUMBER 0001 GENERATION NUMBER CREATION DATE YYDDD 89025 ACCESS 0 SYSTEM CODE IBM OS VS 370 ILE SET ID PEFOO1 EQUENCE NUMBER 0001 ENERATION VERSION NUMBER XPIRATION DATE YYDDD 89055 LOCK COUNT 000000 D Pi oo TAPE FILE 000 LABEL ID HDR2 RECORD FORMAT FIXED LENGTH BLOCK LENGTH 04050 RECORD LENGTH 00135 BUFFER OFFSET LENGTH
50. to write small blocks a bunch of times or if you want to follow a read signal use the M mode to write the tape first then rewind it and do a multiple R Adjusting ramp times Set the block size small and the multiple counter high and initiate a series of writes while checking and adjusting the start and stop ramp times with a scope STOPPING amp RESETTING M MODE The F1 key will abort any operation in progress and take you back to the prompt When you r at the keys prompt hitting M alone will reset multiple mode Reflective Markers Hitting end of tape EOT or beginning of tape BOT markers during a multiple operation will abort the operation in progress and take you back to the prompt Multiple mode will remain in effect xx N Display buffer in Numeric mode More economical and faster than D since you get 20 decimal numbers or 40 HEX numbers per line in this mode You select decimal or HEX with the CTRL N command If print mode is active see the command a copy of the display will be sent to the printer LPT 1 If xx is specified e g 123N KEYS will force a new display line output an actual CR LF every xx bytes If N is input only the last few lines of the buffer are displayed The and xx options should not be mixed CTRL N Toggle back and forth between DECIMAL and HEX modes Affects D N 78 xx P Fill write buffer with a Pattern P has 2 modes P alone fills the buffer with 10 different
51. track of the amount of data written to disk and will stop the transfer just short of filling the disk If this happens you will be asked to insert a new formatted disk It s a good idea to keep formatted floppies on hand in anticipation of this situation If you don t have any formatted disks on hand all is not lost You can abort the transfer by hitting lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt See the discussion of positioning by blocks and display of block numbers on page FX 12 Use of these features will allow you to continue the job later without having to re run the part already transferred At any rate after you ve inserted a new floppy you ll be asked for the filename into which the transfer is to continue The amount of data you can transfer from tape to disk is limited only by the number of diskettes you have on hand 23 B DELIBERATE READING OF ONLY PART OFA TAPE FILE Block Positioning In normal use FX transfers complete tape files to the disk screen or printer A block positioning feature discussed also on page FX 12 allows you to start and stop the transfer on particular blocks within a file Here s how this feature is called into play Instead of just entering a tape file number you enter f a z where f is the file number a is the first block to be processed and z is the last block to be processed The following examples will serve to illustrate this feature 0 1 1 Only the first block of file 0 will be transferred This is an
52. with the device ASPI was developed by Adaptec Inc of Milpitas California ASPI support is built in to Windows 95 and Windows 98 ME SCANSCSI and TACO respectively are used to detect the tape drive hardware settings and configure the Electrovalue tape software settings so the software can access the tape drive The DENSITY program is used to change the write density of the software without effecting any other software settings After powering on the tape drive and booting your computer switch to the tape drive software directory Run the program called SCANSCSI This program will scan for tape drives and display the Host adapter SCSI controller card number and the tape drive SCSI ID number Note the Host Adapter card number and the tape drive ID number displayed If the SCANSCSI program does not detect that ASPI is installed it will display a message saying this and quit ASPI must be installed for this software to work The SCANSCSI Program PURPOSE To getthe host adapter and tape drive numbers forthe tape drives installed on your PC FEATURES SCANSCSI displays information in an easy to read format about tape drives on your system SCANSCSI will search host adapter cards numbered from 0 through 6 This means that you may install up to 7 SCSI adapters in your computer In addition SCANSCSI will check ID s 0 through 6 on each card for a tape drive Your must set the ID of your tape drive ID somewhere between 0 and 6 Simply type lt
53. 0 FIELD LENGTHS amp FIELD TYPES By using certain leading characters in the control file s comment fields you can force other than default field lengths and field types in the D BF file being produced Leading SPACEs are ignored The defaults when no special leading characters are encountered are CHARACTER fields ONE per control file output field the same length as the output field Special leading characters are required if the D BF field is to be NUMERIC DATE LOGICAL or to include more than one FXED output field The special leading characters that will have an effect on how FXED processes the control file are NUMERIC NUMERIC DATE LOGICAL Include this field as an extension of the DBF field started above If you want a field in the DBF structure to consist of more than one FXED output field start the next comment s with an up arrow character Think of the up arrow as pointing up to the previous field definition It has the effect of causing the length and type of the previously started D BF field to be continued to include the current field definition FIELD LENGTH RULES Date fields must add up to being 8 characters long Logical fields must be 1 character in length FXED will refuse to generate wrong length fields MORE DBF INFORMATION Detailed information on the intemal format of D BF files and typical tape files is presented in the separate FX and D2T chapters We suggest that you become
54. 0 043 044 049 050 054 54 bytes 010 001 006 001 002 002 002 004 006 005 FIE FIE FIE FIE Ion FIE FIE FIE FIE Sflscfsfs Here you hit lt ESC gt and select G from the Main Menu 65 FIRST_NAME MI middl SALARY e initial insert dollar part a decimal pt this is the CENTS A wD HIRE DATE literal 19 the YY the MMD EMP_NUM EC_CLEAR from tape D from tape employee clearance D BF FILES Examples of G phase commands 4 This shows the screen dialogue used to GENERATE and empty D BF file After picking G from the main menu FXED Generate D BF Structure Input name of D BF file or lt ENTER gt alone for EMP D BF lt ENTER gt FXED Generate DBF Structure Commands G Generate DBF structure in file EMP DBF V View DBF structure of file EMP DBF P Print DBF structure of file EMP DBF Displays this list of commands ESC Return to Main Menu Hit G V P lt ESC gt or for HELP G Generating EMP DBF from EMP CF Done 5 This is how FKED DISPLAYS or PRINTS the file EMP D BF Note the extra information Range not provided by dBASE and friends Hit G V P lt ESC gt or for HELP V Structure for database EMP DBF Number of data records 0 view on screen or P print to LPT1 Dat
55. 120 MB 228 MB Approximate cartridge capacity Cartridge Capacity uncompressed With IDRC compression 3480 200 MB 800 MB 3490 650 MB 2 2 Gb 3490e 800 MB 2 4Gb Network Notes It is our recommendation that you install the tape drive on a client machine not on a server When the tape drive is running it makes heavy use of the hard disk to transfer data So do many servers in going about their serving business One would slow the other down 114 Installation on a client machine shouldn t be a disadvantage Anytime any of our software asks for a disk file name the name may be preceded by an optional drive and path The disk file may be anywhere on the network Note that this software will only run under Windows 95 Windows 98 and Windows ME However you may install Windows 95 98 ME on a client which runs the tape drive and have Windows 95 98 Windows NT Windows 2000 Linux or Novel as a server operating system Your data files may be on the server or a client machine You can check Windows 95 98 ME documentation to see how to map server disk drives to disk drives on your Exporting Database Disk Data To Tape machine WITH SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FOR dBASE III IMPORTANT NOTE Because dBASE and its workalikes FoxBASE FoxPro Clipper Quicksilver dBX L etc utilize the most popular intemal database file format D BF files Electrovalue s software provides the ability to export to tape directly from D BF files See the separate D 2T chapt
56. 145060070 PITTA TATA IAAI IAAT 222222233333333334444444 345678901234567890123456 100486 00600700800900000 012279 00400501600701801 090188 00800900000100200 012686 00601701811900000 040279 00401511600701801 032673 00411511611711811 021288 00801900000100200 062573 00401511601711811 Wrong density Imagine this scenario 107 a You re getting Hard Errors Unrecoverable Read Errors or HER s from each block when reading a new tape b Previously read tapes can still be read without problem Item b rules out dirty heads and other hardware problems Maybe even though you asked for a particular density they gave you a different density tape one that your drive can not read If the tape you re trying to read is the right density for your tape drive chances are almost 100 that you ll be able to read it without problem Sometimes there are problems with old tapes or tapes written out of skew but this is rarely seen with modern drives You can use the KEYS program to test for characteristics that are indicative of a wrong density tape The following scenario is strongly suggestive of wrong density a You can read known good tapes without error This rules out other problems such as dirty heads or hardware configuration problems b Using KEYS enter 5B to go forward 5 blocks skipping past any possible label file Now enter a series of R commands in an attempt to read a bunch of successive equal length data block
57. 45 and 81 85 lt 23456 57 KEY LIST disk files in CONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE expressions The and operators The and operators allow the creation of simple Conditional Acceptance Expressions which will import only those tape records which contain a field any range of bytes which can be found operator or not found operator within a disk file Each disk file called a KEY LIST file may contain up to 64K 1 65 535 keys If you need more multiple KEY LIST files may be specified using the logical AND amp OR operators It is suggested that you name KEY LIST files with a KL extension but this isn t enforced by the software Think of the operator as meaning CAN BE FOUND IN and the operator as meaning CAN NOT BE FOUND IN The rest of this section will present these features in terms of the operator please remember that is also available and it works just the opposite In some ways the FXED operator is similar in function to the dBASE operator The important difference is that the Electrovalue software doesn t look to see if it can find lt STRING1 gt within a single example of lt STRING 2 gt it looks at each and every fixed length string in the KEY LIST file until it finds one which matches lt STRING1 gt If the string from tape is found in the KEY LIST file the expression is TRUE otherwise it is FALSE The keys in the KEY LIST file consist of fixed length strings of ASCII characters terminated in an
58. 490000021953016257800004640C608200 OSGOOD ROYAL 3506 NICKELL DR SAINT JOSEPH MO amp sWOQOB CDECC4444444444CCDC4 44444 4DDC4FFF444444444444 4DCECDEEDDC44 444 4EE214DCFDC4 268350000000000755500000007620671000000000000091555266640000006566C220820 BOYCE GENE POB 671 RAVENSWOOD WV lt KBOQB DCCEC4444444444CDCCD44444 4D 4F 4CDE4FFFC44 44444 4CD4CDDCCD4EDDCDCDD674DCFDC4 259380000000000134550000009020267026010000000053046914602799574644C230820 KEITH ALDEN R 2 BOX 260A EL DORADO SPRINGMO lt KCOQB DCDCEEDD4444444CDDCDC4 444 4F FFF 4ER4FFEC44 44444 4EDDCDC4 44444444 4DE664DCFDC4 315723650000000465134000001115026010380000000036752100000000002260C250820 LANGSTON DONALD 1115 SW 10TH TOPEKA KS lt KEO0QB CDECD4444444444CCDDE4 4444 4FFF 4EDDCD4ECDDCE4 4 4 4EDCCDCCEC4 44444 4EC573DCFDC4 996950000000000819980000002920477590513358000027519692800000002478C260820 RWIN HARRY 292 UPPER VALLEY SPEARFISH SD KFOQB 93 SUMMARY OF DITTO COMMAND LINE OPTIONS This is an example of the list of options which are displayed if you type DITTO lt ENTER gt NOTE Optional input is enclosed within square brackets gt TFI n a b Tape File Input from file number n 0 999 records a b LRL n Logical Record Length is n bytes TNR n Total Number of Records to process is n RPH n number of Records displayed Per Header is n PW n set Page Width to n columns DFI filename a b DFO filename P
59. 6 11 BURDEN RATE 76 4 12 SECURITY CLEARANCE 80 5 13 MINORITY MEMBER Y N 85 3 2 This is acommented screen dump of you entering the data in the O phase After picking O from the Main Menu FXED stuff THE STUFF BELOW HERE except the semicolons IS YOUR ACTUAL INPUT COMMENTSs terminated with lt ENTER gt 01 001 1 15 lt ENTER gt LAST_NAME 02 016 110 lt ENTER gt FIRST_NAME 03 026 il lt ENTER gt MI middle initial 04 027 40 45 lt ENTER gt SALARY dollar part 05 033 lt INS gt lt INS gt insert a decimal pt 06 034 12 lt ENTER gt zs SENS as the CENTS 07 036 lt INS gt 19 lt INS gt HIRE_DATE literal 19 08 038 64 65 lt ENTER gt the YY from tape 09 040 60 63 lt ENTER gt the MMDD from tape 10 044 70L6 lt ENTER gt tEMP_NUM employee 11 050 80L5 lt ENTER gt SEC_CLEAR clearance 3 The following printout shows the above definitions as displayed by the V or P command 01 I 001 015 O 001 015 L 015 FIELD LAST_NAME 64 02 I H 2 04 I 05 s 06 I 07 08 I ORS AeIE TOs T k n i Output 016 025 026 026 040 045 046 047 064 065 060 063 070 075 080 084 Record Length oO0oo00000000 016 025 026 026 027 032 033 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 04
60. 66 Input Records Processed 3526 Output Records Created Done Press lt ESC gt to for main menu EXTRA BENEFIT Like FX FXED allows you to transfer large larger than a diskette files to multiple diskettes When a diskette is full you re asked to insert another formatted diskette input a file name and hit ZENTER or hit lt ENTER gt alone to abort The DOS COPY command doesn t provide such friendly handling of the diskette full situation You can use FXED instead of DOS s BACKUP command to move a large hard disk file to multiple diskettes define input and output record lengths of 1 and no translation 67 DISK FILE INPUT MORE NIFTY FEATURES SKIPPING INPUT RECORDS CHECKPOINTING amp SILENCE Tape to Floppy Jobs If you are running a tape to diskette job where you would use an EX ED control file and you have room on your hard disk e g as determined by running CUBS A you should consider transferring the RAW data to hard disk with FX don t invoke any options and creating the diskettes using FX ED s D isk File Input mode You can tum off the tape drive and any noise it makes after transferring the data to hard disk FKED writes checkpoint information on each output floppy The checkpoint info together with FXED s ability to start a disk to disk transfer after skipping a specified number of input records allows you to continue a disk to diskette job without starting from scratch after
61. 8 character D BF date as shown by the dBASE EDIT command 11 22 88 is represented intemally as the 8 characters 19881122 Y ear 2000 concems caused us to update our date output format Mainframe tapes commonly represented dates as MMDDYY sometimes as YY MMDD Most mainframe users changed date formats as we approached the new millennium To make our software year 2000 compliant our date format was revised to output a four digit year The default is for D 2T to write DBF date fields to tape in MMDDYYYY format Use the command line only option YMD to switch this to YYYYMMDD when necessary The Record Layout Report generated by D 2T documents the format that has been used Thus if the default date format is in force 11 22 98 becomes 11221998 on tape D BF Logical Fields are one byte long and contain either the character T for True or F for False It s not likely that you ll want to write logical fields to tape but if you do you ll get one of the above characters Packed decimal and zoned decimal numeric fields D2T can optionally write D BF numeric fields as Packed D ecimal and Zoned Decimal fields on tape The rest of the record can be either EBCDIC or ASCII To write Packed or Zoned D ecimadl the field type in the D BF file must be NUMERIC PACKED To write a numeric field in Packed Decimal format the Field Name in your D BF file must start with the two characters P_ ZONED To write a numeric field in Zoned D ecimal form
62. CDIC NR Don t rewind tape at beginning or end of run R Rewind tape at end of run U Unload tape at end of run FUC Force Upper Case when writing character fields to tape YMD Set date format to YYMMDD default is MMDDYY IDR Include Deleted Records default is to skip Deleted records PC xy Redefine Packed Decimal characters x for y for ZC xy Redefine Zoned Decimal characters x for y for P Print record layout information at end of run PO Print Only Don t transfer data to tape LF filename LFO filename V VO P Log record layout report to filename Log record layout to filename only don t write data to tape View record layout information at end of run View Only Don t transfer Print this message DOCUMENTING THE TAPE S CODE RECORD LAYOUT and FILE STRUCTURE 97 The options discussed here serve the purpose of fully documenting the contents of a magnetic tape produced by D2T In conversational mode D 2T asks P rint V iew L og or N o Record Layout Report Select P to route the report to your PC s printer Select V to see it on the screen Select L to Log the report to a disk file useful on networks where the printer isn t local to your PC or when you want to include a copy of the layout in a report In this case you ll be asked the name of the disk file to which D 2T is to write the report Select N for No report You should select P or L to create printed docu
63. DIC to ASCII Enter Y to have DITTO convert EBCDIC to ASCII for all character output This question is asked only when input is from tape and neither E nor A appears on the command line If you have EBCDIC data on your PC s disk you ll have to enter E on the command line NOTE CONCERNING EBCDIC TO ASCII CONVERSIONS If you request EBCDIC to ASCII conversion and the output type is Both HEX digits and characters the HEX digits are the original EBCDIC and the characters are converted to ASCII There are three special situations provided for in EBCD IC A SCII conversion codes are HEX EBCDIC lower case numbers DU to B9 are translated to the corresponding ASCII numbers 30 to 39 There are undefined gaps in the 256 possible 8 bit EBCDIC codes When an illegal EBCDIC code eg CB is processed an ASCII UPARROW 5E is output 91 If a legal EBCDIC code which has no reasonable ASCII equivalent eg 1A is processed an ASCII BACKSLASH 5C is output Enter range of records e g 100 150 or lt ENTER gt to start with first This question isn t asked if you specified a range within parenthesis next to the disk filename or tape file number If you didn t it s a reminder that you don t have to start with the first record Type the Total N umber of Records to Process or lt ENTER gt alone for all This question is skipped if you ve already specified a range of records If you see this question and you don t want to display the entire
64. DOS has already reserved a block of bytes for a bunch of filenames Here s the directory from the diskette in drive A from the above job 07XXX OUT 340392 1 17 96 9 51p 5071 IN O 1 17 96 9 51p 3273 OUT O 1 17 96 9 51p 68 RUNNING FXED ENTIRELY FROM THE COMMAND LINE IN DISK TO DISK MODE A number of customers use FXED s Disk File Input mode as a powerful fixed length record manipulator Some even shell out to FKED s Disk To Disk mode from running database programs The command line arguments which facilitate this are D FI D FO and RTS They let you define the Disk File for Input Disk File for Output and optional Records To Skip Remember the first command line argument must be the name of the existing control file If a control file input file and output file are specified on the command line FXED will just run the disk to disk job without stopping for any console dialogue then return to DOS Formally FXED lt controlfile CF gt DFl lt inputfile gt DFO lt outputfile gt RTS lt of input records to skip gt Example FXED CTRL DFI C A TAPED ATA ABC RAW DFO D A OUTPUT ABC OUT lt ENTER gt CHANGE INPUT RECORD LENGTH Select L from the main menu The L command allows you to redefine the input record length for the FXED control file you are editing The maximum input record length is 32 752 FILE MAINTENANCE Select F from the main menu The F command takes you to a sub menu that
65. ED O Define Output Record Layout REQUIRED C Define Conditional Record Processing OPTIONAL E Define Logical end of file OPTIONAL S Define Secondary Translation Table OPTIONAL V View all definitions OPTIONAL P Print all definitions OPTIONAL D Disk File Processing lt read this it s a powerful feature G Generate DBF File OPTIONAL L Change Input Record Length OPTIONAL F File Maintenance OPTIONAL Q Quit Saving results on disk ONE OF THESE IS A Abort Don t save results on disk REQUIRED TO EXIT FXED ESC Return to this menu from any phase REMEMBER You should select T first because you won t be allowed to operate on undefined fields by O C or E O is required eventually or you won t have any output data when you run with this control file GENERAL INFORMATION ENTERING RANGESOF BYTES 43 During the Translation D efinition phase and the Output Definition phase much of your input will be ranges of bytes field definitions specifically ranges of bytes within the input record structure FXED has several powerful features to facilitate the entry of typically required field definitions In general throughout FX ED byte ranges may be entered in 2 ways lt STARTING BYTE gt lt ENDING BYTE gt ep 11 22 This specifies bytes 11 thru 22 12 bytes from the input record lt STARTING BYTE gt L lt LENGTH gt eg ULI This specifies a field starting at
66. ELECTROVALUE Tape Drive Software 2000 Electrovalue 50 Harrison Street Suite 203B Hoboken NJ 07030 Phone 201 386 8877 Fax 201 386 8844 Table of Contents PREFACE D 4 INTRODUCTION NOTES AND WARRANTY NOTICE sscssessssesseseeseseeseseeseeeesesseseseeseeseaes 4 THE HISTORY OF MAGNETIC TAPE scsscsssssessensensensessesceneeee 5 MAILING LISTS THE 1950 s THE 1960 s THE 1970 S THE 1980 s THE 1990 s THE YEAR 2000 TODAY HARDWARE INSTALLATION PLACING PERIPHERALS ON THE DRIVE SCSI TERMINATION SOFTWARE INSTALLATION CONFIGURING THE SOFTWARE onssnsssssossossisessessotoseososresroseosesseseesensen 11 THE SCANSCSIT PROGRAM csssscsssssssscsecesscsessccessccecscsessccesscees 12 THE TACO PROGRAM SETTING THE HOST ADAPTER CARD ID NUMBER SETTING THE SCSI DRIVE ID NUMBER o ssesssesesee SETTING THE DEFAULT WRITE DENSITY FOR YOUR DRIVE USING TACO ees 13 SILKE NN IA THE DENSITY PROGRAM cccsssssssssssssssssssensensensensensenseasensensensenes 14 CHANGING THE WRITE DENSITY s sssssssstsesttessrtessrtessrttsssstssstesssteesst 14 PROBLEM RtsoL UO 14 CLEANING THE HEADS AND THE TAPE PATH cccssssseeeee 16 CLEANING SCHEDULE cscccsciscscecsercesenescerscdenacsneseccduccudeecuteccuteccuteatityeye 16 9 TRACK DRIVE CLEANING PROCEDURE CARTRIDGE DRIVE CLEANING PROCEDURE SHORT PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS QUICK START amp OVER
67. F2 F3 D4 Weg 234 NOTE The double quotes are not part of the output They are included in these examples to show the character placed at the left for positive values The number of output bytes ASCII characters for each zoned decimal field is one byte more than the number of input bytes LOOKING AT TAPE WITH THE KEYSand DITTO PROGRAMS Use KEYS R CTRL N D N and E commands to find and easily identify the various numeric types on any tape See the KEYS and DITTO chapters DITTO allows you to display records in HEX and as characters preceded by aprintout of byte position numbers 72 The KEYS Program SING LE KEY COMMAND TAPE ANALY SSUTILITY amp HARDWARE TEST PROGRAM Additional supported equipment Line printer PURPOSES ANALYSIS OF TAPE STRUCTURE AND CODE The user who is mainly interested in transferring data from another computer to the PC can use the R and D commands to easily and quickly determine the format code and structure of unknown tapes This user may also find the data display commands E A and N to be useful These 3 commands allow the optional insertion of a CR LF every xx characters that is helpful in determining the logical record length of tape data In addition the C command checks for a possible labeled tape and displays any useful information gleaned from the label HARDWARE TEST AND TROUBLESHOOTING KEYS allows step by step control of the tape drive from the keyboard KEYS is used by computer technic
68. L mode on an unlabeled tape you ll get exactly the same results as the A analyze mode would produce By selecting L mode you re asking CUBS to look for labels 80 byte blocks with certain ID words in certain positions If labels are found CUBS determines if the tape is written in ASCII or EBCDIC and tells you then outputs short canned label field descriptions followed by the contents of the label fields A sample follows The information that is most interesting is in BOLD Mount the tape put the drive online and input CUBS L options lt ENTER gt ANALYZING TAPE TAPE RECORDED IN EBCDIC TAPE FILE 000 LABEL ID VOL1 VOLUME ID PEFOO1 ACCESSIBILITY OWNER LABEL STANDARD VERSION TAPE FILE 000 LABEL ID HDR1 FILE ID PY PROD PEF TAPE FILE SET ID PEF001 FILE SECTION NUMBER 0001 SEQUENCE NUMBER 0001 GENERATION NUMBER GENERATION VERSION NUMBER CREATION DATE YYDDD 97025 EXPIRATION DATE YYDDD 98055 ACCESS 0 BLOCK COUNT 000000 SYSTEM CODE IBM OS VS 370 105 TAPE FILE 000 LABEL ID HDR2 RECORD FORMAT FIXED LENGTH BLOCK LENGTH 04050 RECORD LENGTH 00135 BUFFER OFFSET LENGTH TAPE FILE 000 003 BLOCKS 240 BYTES BLOCK 1 080 BYTES BLOCK 003 080 BYTES 240 BYTES THIS TAPE TAPE FILE 001 103 BLOCKS 415 530 BYTES BLOCK 1 4 050 BYTES BLOCK 103 2 430 BYTES 415 770 BYTES THIS TAPE 106 Figuring out the field definitions Each mainframe tape you receive for processing should be accompanied
69. LAYED BLOCK NUMBER WHEN APPENDING TO A TAPE FILE NNNNN If the user selects the APPEND feature when writing to tape the controller does a high speed search for the filemarks while ignoring data blocks Since the number of blocks passed over is not available FX can not display the actual block number of each block it appends to the file Instead the relative number of each newly written block is displayed preceded by a sign as a reminder For example if file 5 has 100 blocks and you append 15 more the display at the bottom of the screen will read FILE 5 BLOCK 15 when processing is completed Padding last block with space characters When writing a tape file FX pads the end of the last block with SPACE characters as necessary to maintain the user specified block size This feature may be circumvented by using the S option when the block size is specified see below Enter BLOCK LENGTH alone for last block padded with SPACES or BLOCK LENGTH S to allow short last block Here is where you specify the length in bytes of each physical block to be written on tape In deciding on what block length to use there are several things to be considered First if the tape is going to be read elsewhere you should ask the intended recipient what size blocks he would like If someone else has not specified the block size keep the following in mind ANSI standards specify block sizes of less than 30 bytes are to be avoided Standards al
70. LENGTH When running FX with a control file the maximum length of a block of data from tape can normally be up to 65 535 bytes 64K 1 There s a smaller 42 limit in cases where you re creating output records that are larger than the input records eg due to text insertion packed decimal expansion etc When all of the logical records in an input block are expanded for output the result must not exceed 64K INPUT EDITING Use lt BACKSPACE gt to edit the current line in any FXED definition phase Completed lines may be easily replaced by new lines TO RUN FXED Simply type FXED lt ENTER gt Or FXED filename lt ENTER gt Where filename is the name of an existing or new FXED control file If the filename you specify does not contain a period a filename extension of CF is assumed If you don t enter a filename on the command line FXED will ask for one If the control file already exists you ll see a summary of statistics about it e g Editing an existing FXED Control file DEMO CF Which includes the following Input record length 111 Output record length 63 Conditional processing criteria exist Secondary 1 Translation Table exists Press lt ESC gt for Main Menu Here you hit lt ESC gt and see the main menu less page references and notes Editing FXED control file DEMO CF Main Menu d Define Types of Translation REQUIR
71. One Digit Two Digit Three Digit Four Digit Five Digit 3 z 35 36 7 Seven Digit Eight Digit Nine Digit Colon Semicolon Less Than Sign Equals Sign Greater Than Sign Question Mark At Sign Capital A Capital B Capital C Capital D Capital E Capital F Capital G Capital H Capital I Capital J Capital K Capital L Capital M Capital N 37 38 D E aa es WEN aaa ae WR EH E EH ER EH EN WE a ae CH ee BL E KR EH H JL 9 es ee hift 2 WE LL o p Shift J 62 00111110 3 a L 6 2 L 8 L 7 H L 2 LL 2 D _ L 2 1 2 3 4 5 7 39 Shift 3A lt Shift H H 3B 3C 2 a rE 2 T T i stn ef 1001110 124 3F 40 45 4 H 47 48 LO 4 4A 41 42 43 44 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Ke 56 57 58 59 61 62 63 65 67 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 D 4E EC CR samo oom a CapitalP___ __P shit 00 01010000 00 Capital Q Capital R Capital S Capital T Capital U Capital V Capital W Capital X Capital Y Capital Z Left Bracket Backward Slash Right Bracket Caret Underscore Back Quote Lower case A Lower case B Lower case C Lower case D Lower case E Lower case F Lower case G Lower case H Lower case I Lower case J Lower case K Lower case L Lower case M Lower case N Lower case O Lower case P Lower case Q Lower case R Lower case S Lower case T Lower case U Lower case V Lower case W L
72. SCANSCSI gt at the prompt or double click the file SCANSCSILEXE in Windows 95 98 ME explorer The program will display a message indicating that it is scanning for tape drives If no tape drives are found the program reminds you to make sure your drives have been powered up before booting your computer The TACO Program PURPOSE TACO TApe COnfiguration allows the user to easily reconfigure the default hardware specific values used by the Electrovalue tape drive software FEATURES TACO lets you set the way the tape drive software uses certain hardware resources You can Setting the Host adapter card ID number If you have only one SCSI host adapter card this number will be 0 SCAN SCSI will tell you the number of your host adapter card Setting the SCSI drive ID number This is the ID of your drive It may be configured through the front panel or through switches in the drive SCANSCSI will tell you the ID number the drive Setting the default write density for your drive Set this to the write density you will use This setting does not affect the read density All drives Electrovalue sells automatically select the proper read density You can use the DENSITY program to change the density without affecting any other software parameters If you use more than one write density you may make multiple copies of the software and configure each copy for a different write density This discussion assumes that you have already copied all
73. X FXED CUBS DITTO D2T KEYS LRL U is used to read and write tape files in industry standard format so that the data may be exchanged between your PC and minicomputers mainframes FX along with the features added by FXED is the most important program is used off line to create FXED control files FXED control files enhance FX s capabilities with advanced features useful when processing fixed length mainframe data records These same powerful field processing and record selection features are also available from within FXED in DISK TO DISK mode is very useful in the analysis of labeled and unlabeled tapes of unknown content You ll want to use CUBS s L mode on each mystery tape you receive for processing is invaluable in analyzing the FIELD STRUCTURE of files containing fixed length records Input is from tape or disk The data is displayed below column numbers generated by DITTO that show the location of each character in the record creates mainframe friendly tape files and can optionally generate layout documentation directly from dBASE and dBASE compatible internal format D BF files This means you don t need any free space on your disk Without this program you d need free space the size of the D BF file is useful in quickly determining the block size code ASCII or EBCDIC and record length used on mystery tapes using the R A E D N and C commands Add
74. and would like to save on keystrokes and errors FXED allows amaximum of 8 macro definitions The keys lt F1 gt thru lt F4 gt are the macro keys Four macros may be defined in the Translation Definition phase and a different four macros may be defined in the Output Definition phase Note that this means that any particular MACRO key eg lt F1 gt will generally have two distinct meanings depending on what phase you re in when you hit it The 8 macros are saved within the control file which FXED creates thus when re editing a control file they need not be re defined To define a macro while in the Translation D efinition Phase or Output D efinition phase simply hit one of the keys lt F1 gt lt F2 gt lt F3 gt or lt F4 gt which has not previously been defined for that phase Type in any series of keystrokes you want associated with that macro then hit the same function key again Macro definitions may not be nested Le you can not include the function key associated with one macro within another To use a macro while in the Translation Definition Phase or Output Definition phase simply hit one of the keys lt F1 gt lt F2 gt lt F3 gt or lt F4 gt which has previously been defined All of the keystrokes contained in the macro will be played back just as if you had manually typed them in 44 To delete a macro while in the Translation D efinition Phase or Output D efinition phase hit the lt D EL gt key FXED will ask y
75. ange of possible blocking factors Tape data is written in physical blocks The Blocking Factor is the number of logical records per physical block on tape characters Minicomputers and mainframes generally do not welcome blocks larger than 32 767 bytes If you don t know what blocking factor to use discuss it with the technical personnel who will be processing the tape The blocking factor question is skipped if the blocking factor is specified on the command line with the BF option P rint V iew L og or N o Record Layout Report Answer See full discussion below Automatic Rewind Y Jes ON o U nload Tell D 2T what to do after the file has been transferred to tape PROCESSING As soon as the Automatic Rewind question is answered D2T starts the disk to tape process When the file has been completely transferred D 2T returns to DOS 96 DELETED RECORDS Recordsin the D BF file that are marked as DELETED are by default not written to tape The number of deleted records that were skipped is displayed on the screen and shown in the record layout report If you want to write DELETED records to tape use the command line only option IDR Include Deleted Records If the IDR option is chosen the number of included DELETED records is displayed on the screen and shown in the record layout report FORCING UPPER CASE Some older mainframes can not handle lower case characters If your D BF file contains lower case data that the mainfra
76. appear in columns the length will appear on the bottom of the display and the blocking factor will also appear on the display If the record length is greater than 80 pressing F8 will increase the displayed length and display the buffer Important The F5 and F8 keys only have an effect immediately after pressing the AT or E keys if another key is pressed the F5 and F8 keys loose their effect Issue another A or E command to reactivate the F5 and F8 keys Of xxB Space xx Blocks xx is negative for back blocks M The B command spaces the tape forward or reverse by blocks If a filemark is encountered spacing is halted immediately after the filemark and you are notified of how many blocks were spaced For example 7B spaces forward by 7 blocks 3B spaces back 3 blocks If you input 7B and a filemark is encountered after 2 blocks spacing is halted after the filemark is passed You will be notified that a filemark was encountered and spacing was halted after two blocks C Check tape for an initial label amp display information if found This command checks the tape for a label If there is an initial label the relevant information will be displayed Caution This command displays the data type of the label eg TAPE RECORDED IN EBCDIC or TAPE RECORDED IN ASCII Rarely a tape has a label recorded in ASCII and the tape data in EBCDIC or the label data may be recorded in EBCDIC and the tape data in ASCII Don
77. aracter answer do not require you to hit lt ENTER gt Hesitate after typing the character if unsure Otherwise the lt ENTER gt key could be confused as the answer to the following question Tape positioning By convention the first file on tape is called file 0 Normally see next paragraph for the exception when first executed FX rewinds the tape to load point When performing any subsequent tape operations FX keeps track of where the tape is positioned so that it can move directly to any requested file with maximum speed The user should keep this in mind and not manually position tape without exiting from FX and running it from the beginning NR No Rewind option If you specify NR on the command line eg FX NR lt ENTER gt FX will not rewind the tape on the way in nor on the way out This helps in situations where FX is called from another program Enter tape file number the first tape file is file 0 Simply enter the number of the tape file you want to read then hit lt ENTER gt Remember the first file on a tape is by convention file 0 See the next page for information on transferring multiple tape files to disk Users who want to start processing at some point other than the first block of a file may make use of FX s block positioning feature Reseting 8th bit ASCII character set consists of 128 seven bit characters Thus when reading an ASCII tape one would expect that the 8th or high order bit of every b
78. are derived from the same byte on tape In this case you need to use Forward Insertion Forward Insertion inserts the specified literal text string after the first character of the NEXT field A Forward Insertion field definition starts with lt IN S gt lt IN S gt and is terminated with a single lt IN S gt e g lt INS gt lt INS gt lt INS gt When displayed with V or P see 3 below line 3 forward insertions will show an adjusted output range and gt HERE S AN EXAMPLE According to the paperwork that came with the tape the data on tape consists of three fields BYTES DESCRIPTION NOTES E Dart Number EBCDIC 6 10 Cost of Part Packed Decimal Dollars and cents ER Vendor Code EBCDIC Analysis shows that a part costing 123 456 78 would be encoded on tape as BYTE 06 07 08 09 10 CONTENTS DI 23 45 67 8F In this example we want to insert a decimal point between the 6 and 7 ie between two bytes which will be derived from the single tape byte in position 09 THE FOLLOWING SCREEN DUMPS SHOW 1 The FXED Translation definitions 1 5E 6 10P Tt Ek 2 The FXED Output Definition phase dialogue 01 001 1 5 lt ENTER gt PART NUMBER lt ENTER gt 02 006 6 8 lt ENTER gt COST MOST SIGNIFICANT lt ENTER gt 03 013 lt INS gt lt INS gt lt INS gt INSERT THE DECIMAL POINT CENTER 04 015
79. ase nor format a 9 track tape or a cartridge before you use it Unlike disks and cassette backup devices you neither format nor erase a 9 track tape or a cartridge before you write on it 9 track tape and cartridges are like audiocassettes or videocassettes at home you just write on the virgin tape or over write the data on a previously used tape If you want to erase an entire tape quickly for security secrecy purposes see the description of the CUBS program s E command in the CUBS chapter or the KEYS program s Z command in the KEYS chapter DATA FORMAT ON TAPE 9 TRACK EXPLAINED Data is recorded on tape in 9 bit characters Each 9 bit character consists of an 8 bit byte of memory data plus a 9th parity bit that the hardware uses for error detection error correction The parity bit is automatically added by the hardware while writing tape and automatically tested and removed by the hardware when reading tape Furthermore the beginning of each data block contains a preamble The preambles for PE GCR and NRZI formats differ but they in general contain synchronization and deskewing data that allows the tape head circuitry to locate the data The data is recorded between the preamble and the postamble GCR encoded data also contains resynchronization bursts The end of each block contains a postamble After the postamble comes the inter block gap You didn t need to know that it s transparent to the user If you ever wondered whe
80. ast question FX asks during the Tape To D isk dialogue includes Enter lt filename gt D to append to an existing D BF file Type the name of your database disk file followed by the 2 characters D The DBF extension may be omitted e g DEMO DBF D lt ENTER gt demo dbf d lt ENTER gt DEMO D lt ENTER gt demo d lt ENTER gt All 4 of the above examples are equivalent and assume the prior existence of a disk file named DEMO DBF The D can be adjacent to the filename or separated by SPACE s If neither a filename extension nor a DOT is present the filename extension D BF is assumed and automatically added by FX As soon as the lt ENTER gt key is hit the Tape To D isk data transfer will commence Statistics about the D BF file are shown on the screen before and after the append operation NOTES This section mentions some of the advanced features made available to the FX file exchange program by Electrovalue s FXED program This powerful program need not be used nor understood if you don t want to take advantage of these and other advanced features which include the automatic generation of an empty D BF structure Changing field lengths Using FXED in the Output Definition Phase you can create the exact field widths you want to match an existing database structure You can truncate tape fields if necessary by not defining some of the probably rightmost bytes for output You can expand fields by using the TAB f
81. at the Field Name in your D BF file must start with the two characters Z_ How the D BF data is processed Decimal points are discarded if present but their position is noted in the record layout report Minus signs are discarded if present but properly represented in the Packed or Zoned tape field s low order byte Fields are left filled with ZEROs The resulting data is translated to Packed or Zoned format and written to tape That s all there is to it The record layout report identifies Packed and Zoned fields as such NOTESABOUT THE SIZE OF FIELDS WRITTEN The record layout report displays the length of Packed and Zoned fields on tape 100 Zoned Zoned fields on tape are the same length as the field width in the D BF file for integer fields one less than the D BF width if the D BF field has a decimal position Packed The intemal structure of DBF numeric fields is less than elegant Negative numbers must carry a minus sign but positive numbers are unsigned Thus a DBF numeric field of any given width can contain a positive value ten times greater in magnitude than the largest negative number Additionally packed fields on tape must always represent an even number of unpacked digits These rules result in the following formula for calculating the size of Packed fields on tape from the width of D BF fields as shown by the data base language s DISPLAY STRUCTURE command P INT D 2 1 Where P is the size of the Packed fi
82. atus are output to the screen then CUBS continues Don t be bothered if using this command occasionally causes an Input Output error CTRL A Abort Gives a status summary as with S then rewinds or unloads if there s a U on the command line and retums to DOS 89 The DITTO Program FIXED LENGTH RECORD DISPLAY PROGRAM ADDITIONAL HARDWARE SUPPORTED line printer PURPOSE DITTO helps the user to analyze the contents of tape or disk files comprised of fixed length records DITTO prints a user specified quantity of sequential records starting anywhere in the input file below a header of column numbers which indicate the byte position of each character The DITTO display is useful in figuring out the field boundaries and data types on mystery tapes FEATURES DITTO contains logic to create and print up to 9999 column numbers and the associated data records without overflowing the right margin of the screen or printer Input may be from tape or disk Output may be to printer screen or disk EBCDIC to ASCII conversion is supported In typical use a bunch of records are displayed below each header of column numbers The user chooses to display the records as character data in HEX or both Unprintable characters are displayed as decimal points for place keepers not as their screen or printer graphics SAMPLE DITTO RUN Type the Logical Record Length T ape or Enter range of records e g 100 150 or lt ENTER gt
83. being interrupted for any reason eg long lunch power failure or running out of formatted diskettes Here s an example of a disk to diskette job It processes a mailing list extracting only certain ZIP codes that s why we called the output files O7X XX It fills up the floppy in drive A and we continue with one in drive B Disk File Processing Hit lt CTRL C gt at any time to ABORT lt S gt for STATUS Enter source file name DATA RAW DATA RAW contains 14166 142 byte records Enter target file name A 07XXX OUT Skip how many input records lt ENTER gt alone 0 lt ENTER gt Processing DATA RAW to A 07XXX OUT with FXED Control File LIST20 CF Current disk is full 5071 input 3273 output records so far Please insert a blank formatted disk or hit lt ENTER gt alone to abort Enter disk file name B 07XXX OUT 14166 Input Records Processed 3526 Output Records Created Done CHECKPOINT INFO ON EACH DISKETTE FXED writes two zero length files on each diskette The file names are of the format nnnn IN and nnnn OUT The name of the IN file is the cumulative number of INPUT records processed so far The name of the OUT file is the number of OUTPUT records written on this diskette Checkpoint information is written to removable output media only FXED won t clog up your hard disk with useless files Checkpoint information doesn t waste any room on the floppies
84. booting your computer with the tape drive powered up Windows then wants us to install a device driver for the new hardware it found This is normal for Windows Why We don t know Cancel the dialog You do not need drivers for your tape drive The drivers are in the software The programs say Tape drive not ready or not online even though the drive is online Make sure the host adapter number and drive SCSI id are correct Run the SCANSCSI program Check that the host adapter card number and the drive ID number that SCANSCSI reports for your drive match up with what is displayed at the top of the Electrovalue programs If the numbers don t match run TACO to configure the software See the note below conceming other SCSI devices on your computer Run the SCANSCSI program to make sure the software is set for the proper host adapter card number and tape drive SCSI ID number Remember the Host adapter card and the drive ID settings on the programs must match what SCAN SCSI displays Otherwise the programs will not see the drive If the SCANSCSI program can not see your drive there is a problem Check to make sure your drive is powered on before the computer is booted CAUTION If you have other SCSI devices on your computer such as a SCSI parallel port Zip drive from Iomega or other SCSI devices they can affect the host adapter card number setting These other devices often use a SCSI host adapter and may cause the host adapter number
85. bris from the slitting process during their manufacture Clean the tape path if you suspect abnormal amounts of dust in the environment because SPECIAL of custodial activity equipment moves supply deliveries or if the drive has not been used for several days NOTE Some sources suggest that you clean the heads with FREON TF Don t bother trying to find it The EPA made it disappear Isopropyl alcohol is fine 9 track drive cleaning procedure Pour a small amount of 91 ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL into a clean container such as a small UNWAXED paper cup Alcohol dissolves wax If you use a waxed cup the wax transfers to the tape path Don t use 70 isopropyl the other 30 is water and will extend the drying time The worst thing you could do is load a tape with the heads still damp This would immediately rip oxide from the tape making the heads dirtier than before you started Dab all cloths and swabs into the container as needed Applying gentle but firm pressure in one direction use a lint free swab or cloth to clean the following surfaces Clean the read write erase head Start with aCLEAN swab or cleaning cloth Use one or more until no more dirt is removed This is the most important assembly to clean Unlike the head on a VCR the read write head is not fragile Use firm pressure and a VERTICAL motion Too much horizontal pressure could misalign the drive s skew adjustment making it less compatible in reading and writing tapes for excha
86. ch block written will be n bytes long 20 000 bytes in the example above and no random filemarks will be written Unless limited by a M n option described next a full tape will be written In any case the only filemarks will be the two adjacent filemarks written at the end of the string of fixed length data blocks Me n Limit number of blocks written to a Maximum of n blocks Like the L option above this option is valid in B and W modes It is primarily useful in W mode in wniting test tapes of specified structure Normally CUBS continues to write blocks until EOT is reached or you type CTRL A to abort then two adjacent filemarks are written The M option sets a Maximum on the number of blocks to be written Unless EOT is hit first you ll get exactly n blocks For example M 1000 sets the maximum number of blocks to 1 000 When the specified number of blocks has been written CUBS writes two adjacent filemarks and rewinds the tape F n Fill each block with the bit pattern specified by n This option is valid in W mode only It is primarily useful in W mode in writing test tapes of specified structure The decimal number n 0 255 specifies the fixed pattern to be used to fill each block written When F is in effect CUBS does not stuff the block length block and file numbers in the header and tail of the block The entire block is filled with the pattern Run time commands S Status display One or more lines of cumulative st
87. choose abort then the tape is rewound This option allows you to pre answer that question so when you can leave the computer and then come back to find the tape rewound or unloaded as you previously picked on the command line e g CUBS A H A U lt ENTER gt Repeat the entire command line Causes CUBS to go back and re run things again and again until aborted with CTRL A see below 87 For example if the command lineis CUBS B U lt ENTER gt CUBS will write a full tape read the full tape print a summary unload the tape and return to DOS If the command line is however CUBS B U lt ENTER gt the B operation will be performed over and over again this provides a simple means of life testing the hardware It will run all day until aborted with CTRL A Cumulative totals are kept for the entire run and the number of passes is output You ll get asummary at the end of each pass whenever you input the S tatus run time command and when you use CTRL A to abort the endless run Use the L og option along with D so you don t loose any intermediate results off the top of the screen Forexample CUBS B L 32K lt ENTER gt 88 Options to write test tapes with specified format L n Write fixed Length blocks of length n This option is valid in B and W modes It is primarily useful in W mode in writing test tapes of specified structure If there s an L n on the command line e g CUBS W L 20000 lt ENTER gt ea
88. cimal number N followed by lt ENTER gt the pair of characters CR amp LF will automatically be added after every N characters If for example the tape contained 80 column punched card images end to end you would enter 80 If you were transferring from tape to disk due to the addition of the two characters at the end of each line each resulting record would be 82 characters long the file size would grow by 2 5 This option can not be selected if you have already selected CHO Ping see page FX5 or the Change CRs and or LFs into CR LF option these combinations of options are mutually exclusive See block size limitations in following paragraph Enter a single disk lt filename gt or lt filename gt A to append to an existing disk file or lt filename gt D to append to an existing DBF file Or hit lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt for main menu Enter the file name precede with pathname if needed just as you would with any DOS command then hit lt ENTER gt Examples CENSUS DAT lt ENTER gt C NAMES GIRLS BLONDES TXT lt ENTER gt Transfer of multiple tape files to disk NOTE This is an advanced feature to be used only when you know you have multiple files to transfer from tape that all have the same data characteristics If you have a lot of tape files to transfer to disk it could be a tedious job to sit at the computer and answer all the tape to disk optio
89. commands are executed when the command key is hit DETAILED EXPLANATION OF INDIVIDUAL COMMANDS F1 Abort current operation F1 aborts any operation in progress If hit during multiple mode execution F1 retums to the prompt multiple mode remains in effect F1 also aborts the Z command before the tape is erased F1 will not abort the tape while the actual erase operation is in effect Toggle print mode ON or OFF Hit the to toggle the print mode on or off You ll get a print mode status message When print mode is ON the A C D E and N commands send a copy of the screen output to a text file called keys txt The file is overwritten if it exists Prints the list of the KEY S commands Prints the list of KEY S commands in reverse order so the ones that passed by the screen in the command are visible xx A Display buffer in ASCII adding CR LF each xx characters This command is normally used after an R read in a block from tape The contents of the I O buffer are displayed as ASCII characters on the screen 80 bytes per line To force a full 80 character wide screen display CR and LF if present in the buffer are translated to decimal 227 and 236 respectively On the screen CR will show up as the IT character LF as 00 If print mode is active see the command a copy of the display will be sent to the text file keys txt The printable characters decimal 33 126 hex 21 7E are displayed d
90. d to a mainframe He gets ASCII tapes from minicomputers and his goal is to move the data thru the PC to an IBM EBCDIC happy mainframe NOTESABOUT FORCING UPPER CASE amp lower case Don t worry about non alphabetic characters when using one of the translation types which force the output to either UPPER or lower case Only alpha characters A Z and a z are considered for case changes The EBCDIC character set allows lower case numbers ASCII does not Lower and UPPER case EBCDIC numbers are always translated to normal ASCII numbers ALT aand ALT e TRANSLATION TYPES In both cases the resulting output text is forced to lower case ASCII except for characters at the beginning of words The beginning of a word is defined to mean any of the following The first character of an OUTPUT FIELD or a character preceded by any of the following SPACE HYPHEN FORWARD SLASH DOUBLE QUOTE UNDERLINE lt PERIOD LEFT PARENTHESIS 98 108P Process bytes 98 thru 108 of each input record as Packed Decimal Byte 108 specifies the least significant digit and the sign of the whole packed decimal field The sign SPACE or will be copied to the output just before the digits derived from byte 98 In this example 11 98L11P bytes of input data will result in 22 bytes of output data 51 552 Process bytes 51 thru 55 of the input records as Zoned Decimal Byte 55 specifies the least significant digit and the sign of the whole zoned decimal field The s
91. ding tape data Updating index files is sometimes transparent to the user who is adding data via the PC s keyboard Tape to dbf error amp warning messages RECORD LENGTH PROBLEMS Remember the record length from tape after possible processing by an FXED produced control file must match the record length used by the D BF file Without a control file the blocking factor on tape must be an integer Le the D BF record size must divide evenly into the physical block length To prevent bizarre results whenever it has enough information to do so FX checks the reasonability of the situation before proceeding Youll see one of the following messages whenever FX detects something that seems like it would cause harm and or nonsense results Record length in DEMO DBF header is 478 but control file CF would produce records of length 500 processing can not proceed Try again Enter a disk lt filename gt or lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt for main menu The DBF record length must divide evenly into the tape block size It doesn t The current D BF record length 478 and the tape block length 5090 Hit lt ESC gt to try again DEMO D BF does not appear to be a valid D BF file Based on the data in the header DEMO D BF should be 456 bytes long DEMO DBF is actually 656 bytes long Length difference 200 If the DBF file is longer than FX thinks it should be this message is considered a warning and you ll be given the option t
92. e as an End Of File We changed it to a space and all was well Display Of Physical Tape Block Size When reading tape without the use of an FXED Control File FX displays information about the size of the tape blocks being transferred These displays deal with the physical tape block length NOT the logical record length Reading tape with an FXED Control File When using an FXED Control File FX knows the logical record length the number of records input from tape and the number of output records which may be less if Conditional Record Acceptance is in effect You ll see a constantly updated screen display of the cumulative number of bytes read from tape followed by the input and output record statistics A large number of corrected errors usually indicates either dirty heads or tape drive incompatibility Try cleaning the heads per the instructions in your tape drive manual If this doesn t reduce the frequency of corrected error messages then there s either a tape drive incompatibility problem or a hardware problem If a drive with truly clean heads pulls errors hard or corrected writing and reading its own tapes there s a hardware problem If the errors are only in reading tapes from another source there s an incompatibility problem Tape read error handling FX will try to re read a bad tape block a number of times before it gives up and outputs a tape read error message Should this occur it means that the tape drive hardware has detected
93. e contents a second field Additionally the operators and can look for a field in a disk file called a KEY LIST The comparison operators are equal lt gt not equal lt less than lt less than or equal gt greater than gt greater than or equal contains die CE does NOT contain S CAN be found in KEY LIST disk file CAN NOT be found in KEY LIST disk file Comparisons may be combined using the logical conjunctions AND and OR When you specify a range of bytes it refers to byte positions in the input record Remember this when you re comparing to zoned decimal or any of the packed numeric formats Comparisons are made after any translation s have been performed Literal text strings must be bracketed with either single or double quote characters The same type of quote must be used at both ends of any particular literal text string Literal text is NOT allowed on the left side of a comparison The expression may come from the keyboard maximum length 256 or from a disk file 2048 characters maximum Let s assume we ve purchased a tape that lists all of the computer and electronics stores in the USA We want to do amailing to RADIO SHACK stores in Wyoming and Utah The pertinent field definitions from the mailing list supplier are 9 32 NAME OF STORE 71 72 STATE ABBREVIATION 81 85 ZIPCODE To define the acceptance criteria we select D from the sub menu We are invited to enter a logical
94. e displayed logical record length by one and redisplays it After reading in a block with the R command display the block using A or E A and E default to a display width of 80 characters You can use F5 to decrease the displayed length of the data in the buffer to help find the actual record length For example if the actual record length on tape appears to be somewhere around 60 simple hold down F5 until the displayed length on the bottom of the screen goes to near 60 Obviously because the data is fixed length the data will line up when you get to the correct length If you pass the correct length simply use F8 to increase the length Y ou can toggle between F5 and F8 Caution The records will also line up when the displayed record length is a multiple of the actual record length also IE If the actual record length is 150 displaying the buffer with a command such as 300E will cause the records to line up also If you input a tape and find that you have half the records the sender says you should have you probably picked the record length to be twice the actual record length Important Note that hitting any key other than F5 or F8 will take you out of the tweaking mode You must then key in A or E to go back into tweaking mode Of course you can prefix A or E with the suspected block length Ex 130E displays data in EBCDIC with a carriage return and linefeed every 130 characters Use F5 or F8 to tweak the record length F8 Increa
95. e drive is already at load point Note Some drives do not retum BOT status to the drive when they are idle 77 xx M M ultiple Repeat M commands xx times M alone resets Some commands may be automatically repeated a multiple number of times The commands which qualify for multiple execution are identified in the menu and in the KEYS chapter The multiple counter is set by preceding the M command with a decimal number eg 999M sets the counter to 999 For example if 999M is followed by W KEYS will write 999 blocks on tape Some Typical Uses of M Write D eskew Set the buffer size to a large number e g 55555S Fill the buffer with all 1 bits i e 255P Set the multiple counter to a large number e g 44444M Then hit W to start the drive writing all 1 s Scope the appropriate point s while adjusting the write deskew pots until optimum write deskew is achieved Checking for an intermittent read or write problem in a cable or subassembly Set the write buffer to a small size e g 80S Set the multiple counter to a large number and execute the T command see below While the test proceeds abuse the suspected cable or component wiggle rap heat spray cool etc while listening for the beep that occurs each time a read error is detected When you can make the beep come or go you ve identified the perpetrator Scoping for whatever purpose Multiple mode can be used to follow a signal with an oscilloscope Set up
96. e of last update 01 06 97 Field Field Name Range Type Width Dec 1 LAST NAME 001 015 Character 15 2 FIRST_NAME 016 025 Character 10 3 MI 026 026 Character 1 4 SALARY 027 035 Numeric 9 2 5 HIRE_DATE 036 043 Date 8 6 EMP_NUM 044 049 Numeric 6 7 SEC_CLEAR 050 054 Character 5 DISK FILE INPUT Select D from the main menu OVERVIEW Normally you use FXED to produce a control file that other programs will use in processing tape files In Disk Input mode FXED itself performs the processing taking the input data from a disk file The control file you are currently editing provides the processing instructions Output is to any DOS file or device you can select the screen or printer for output and see the results immediately Note that FXED can t append a disk data file to a D BF file It s the FX program that can transfer tape data directly to a D BF file PURPO SES 66 Debug To provide a quick means of debugging your FXED control file without requiring you to leave FXED run a trial FX job retum to FXED edit return to FX etc You can use disk to disk mode to create and fully debug your control file on any PC no need for a tape drive before running the production job on the PC that has the drive Transfers to diskettes Disk to D isk mode facilitates the fast quiet processing of large Tape to Floppy jobs with the added insurance of check pointing so that jobs interrupted for any reason can be continued without restarti
97. e to us These labels are actually 80 byte long blocks of information containing such things as system codes system names volume numbers and user information They usually contain the record length and block size for each file on the tape Both the CUBS program and the KEYS program can read this information from the tape label Don t be fooled trying to import label files into your application Labeled tapes are discussed with examples in the CUBS and the KEYS chapters of this book Reflective markers BEGINNING OF TAPE LOAD POINT Near the beginning and end of each reel of tape are reflective markers that are optically sensed by the tape drive All tape before the Beginning O f Tape BOT marker is considered leader D ata recording begins just beyond the BOT marker this is the load point Replacing the BOT and EOT reflective markers 9 track tape tends to wear first at the beginning of the reel near the BOT marker This can cause hard errors when you try to write on a tape If you are getting hard errors near the beginning of the tape and you suspect tape wear is the cause you can pull off 75 to 125 or so of tape and replace the BOT reflective marker Place the new BOT marker between 14 and 25 feet from the physical beginning of the tape parallel to and approximately 1 32 from the top of the tape 112 Shiny side of tape End of Beginning of non oxide e Sie Tape 1 marker cae reflective Front marker The BOT EOT mark
98. eld in bytes and D is the width of the D BF field after any decimal point is discarded Some Examples KEEN 00 98 7D 123 00 12 3c 12345 12 34 SC 9876 09 87 6D 123456 01 23 45 6C 98765 00 98 76 5D The default HEX characters used on tape are C for and D for You can change both of them with the command line options PC xy and ZC xy if necessary where x is the substitute character for positive numbers and y is the sub stitute character for negative numbers For ex example to use A and B HEX respectively for Zoned and execute D2T as follows D2T ZC AB Other options lt ENTER gt ZONED 1234 Fl F2 F3 C4 FO F9 F8 D7 123 FO FO Fl F2 C3 12345 Fl F2 F3 F4 C5 9876 FO F9 F8 F7 D6 123456 Fl F2 F3 FA F5 C6 98765 FO F9 F8 F7 F6 DS oo um um Um ss oo mum s Wi a oo um um Um sss P WWW WwW FIELD WIDTHS CHANGE DURING TAPE TO DISK TOO Note that when translating Packed and Zoned from tape to disk the EX ED program reserves an extra byte for the sign Thus if you use D 2T to write Packed or Zoned data on tape you can not bring it back into the same D BF file without first modifying the structure to increase the D BF field width See the last page of the FKED chapter for additional information on Packed and Z oned decimal data Writing multiple files to tape To use a batch file to automatically write multiple disk files to tape you should make use of the NR and EOD command line options When D 2T is called
99. en doing tape positioning the tape drive first does a high speed search either forward or reverse to the beginning of the file requested then searches forward while counting blocks Any tape errors are ignored and hitting a filemark causes spacing by blocks to halt If you erroneously enter a block number which is larger than the number of blocks in the file you intend to read or write processing may begin in some other file Ctrl Z CTRL Z THE PC s END OF FILE CHARACTER HOW IT MIGHT CAUSE TROUBLE HOW TO FIND IT AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT DOS allows the use of the ASCII character SUB to mark the end of a text file This is not an industry standard convention it is an IBM PC convention SUB is also called CTRL Z because it can be generated from the keyboard by hitting CTRL Z SUB is a control character defined in both the ASCII 26 dec 1A hex and EBCDIC 63 dec 3F hex character sets Many PC programs e g word processors and database programs throw in one or many CTRL Z s at the end of a text file without even telling you To make matters worse you can t see the CTRL Z if you TYPE or PRINT the file since these commands automatically terminate when the CTRL Z is encountered without showing the CTRL Z on the screen or printer FX s mission is to read and write industry standard magnetic tapes and FX can transfer ALL the characters of a file between disk and tape without prejudice If you send a tape to a mainframe shop and are told it has o
100. ename is input the log file is given the name filename P LOG RESULTSTO THE PRINTER This is ashorthand equivalent to entering L PRN Examples CUBS A L lt ENTER gt CUBS L P lt ENTER gt N Report block length changes during A amp L modes Whenever the length of the block just read is different from the length of the previous block New length the file number block number within that file and block length will be reported This feature provides an easy way of detecting troublesome variable length record mainframe tapes or tapes with short blocks nnK Limits the maximum block size written by B or W to nnK bytes where nn is a decimal number from 1 to 64 K 1024 decimal For example entering 2K would limit the maximum block size to 2048 decimal NOTE You should specify 32K or less if you are not sure that your drive can handle 65535 byte blocks If this option is not used or if 64K is used the maximum block size is 64K 1 65535 bytes Example CUBS W 9K lt ENTER gt U Unload tape when finished Tells CUBS to issue an unload command to the drive before exiting to DOS This causes the drive to perform and unload function and tum off the blower Of course the drive must be capable of executing an unload command Example CUBS B U lt ENTER gt A Abort at End Of D ata two adjacent tapemarks The A and L modes halt on End Of D ata and ask you if you want to continue with the analysis or abort If you
101. ent more possibilities Usage LRL x ly lt ENTER gt The arguments x and y are optional If you forget to enter them LRL will ask for them They are the sizes of the first and last blocks of the tape file in either order If only one number is entered LRL assumes that the first and last block sizes are the same Sample run LRL 14300 11011 lt ENTER gt FIRST BLOCK IS 14300 BYTES LONG LAST BLOCK IS 11011 BYTES LONG Trying blocking factors from 1 through 1200 POSSIBLE LOGICAL RECORD SIZES GREATER THAN 12 ARE 143 13 Frequently the tapes you receive will be mainframe labeled tapes Each data file in a labeled tape is preceded and followed by small label files A typical labeled tape has labels in files 0 and 2 the data is in file 1 Most of the time but not always the RECORD LENGTH is provided in one of the fields in the first label file file 0 Repeated here for easy reference are some good words about this from the CUBS chapter CUBS L mode L mode is a special variation of the A analyze mode which displays additional information gleaned from the LABEL files on so called LABELED tapes The label files contain only a few informative fields CUBS adds the industry standard field names and outputs the information in an easy to read format Remember to skip around the label files when using FX to import the data file you re interested in If you run CUBS in
102. eo panel in the lower right hand corner of the screen shows either SBM or MBM as a reminder of the mode currently in effect CAUTION If you are reading a variable length block tape infrequently encountered you should turn off multiple block mode by hitting M at the main menu A data loss will occur if a large block preceded by a smaller block crosses the PC s DMA page boundary at the end of the buffer FX will prevent full multiple block style reads whenever it can detect a variable length block tape but the ultimate responsibility is yours when reading these non standard tapes Transfer of binary files to disk There are no restrictions on the type of data you may transfer from tape to disk By binary data we mean that each byte may assume any of the possible 256 permutations of 8 bits You may find however that some programs running on the PC will misbehave when encountering certain characters We went around in circles for a while with two different word processors both of which insisted on stopping right in the middle of a giant text file we had imported from a UNIX word processor via tape We could see that the file size was right when we did a DIR we could see all the text using DEBUG to read through the disk file but we couldn t get past a certain spot Then analyzing embedded control characters which the UNIX system used for font and format control we found the offending character to be CTRL Z which many MS DOS programs us
103. er aracter aracter meric meric meric meric meric Assume 4 decimal places Assume 2 decimal pl Assume 2 decimal pl aces aces database program s DISPLAY STRUCTURE command Here s what D 2T does to D BF numeric data Decimal points are discarded This means that numeric fields that contain a decimal point on disk occupy one less byte on tape For example if the field width for a field containing a decimal point in the dbf file is 7 D 2T will write the field with a width of 6 D 2T s Record Layout Report tells the tape recipient where to re insert the decimal point D2T left fills numeric fields with 0 s Example The Numeric Field 1234 56 Field Width 8 in a D BF file is written to tape as 0123456 Field Width 7 D 2T s layout report tells the recipient where to insert the decimal Negative numeric values are represented with a minus sign in the leftmost position The Numeric Field 123 45 Field Width 9 in a D BF file is written to tape as 0012345 Field Width 8 Again D 2T s layout report tells the recipient where to insert the decimal 99 DBF Date Fields D BF date fields are 8 characters long When displayed e g by the dBASE EDIT and BROWSE commands two slash characters are used as separators e g 11 25 89 Internally in the D BF file there are no slashes instead the most significant digits of the year are present For example the
104. er for full details The discussion below ignores using our D 2T program to export tape data directly from D BF files The dBASE language is used to give examples We hope these examples and the accompanying explanations will be helpful to users of non dBASE databases The actual commands used for any specific database language may of course be different If your database uses D BF files read the D 2T chapter to see how to directly export dbf data If you want all of the D BF fields transferred to tape the following discussion is moot Using D 2T saves time and space on your hard disk because you would not need to use one of the two step procedures discussed below D 2T creates mainframe friendly tape files directly from dBASE compatible intemal format D BF files Structure of data on tape Typical mainframe tape data as used for data interchange between computers consists of fixed length data records one after the other end to end without any extra record separator characters such as commas or quotes Thus your goal is to create a fixed field fixed record length database with no delimiters and transfer this database to tape Each record is built up from individual fixed length fields There are no field separators There are no record separators either on magnetic tape Because each record is fixed length and there are an integral number of records in each block no record delimiters are needed The software can figure out where each fie
105. ers T Ze PORR are parallel to and about 1 32 fromthe edge Placement of BOT and EOT reflective markers Caution The above procedure will destroy the existing data on the magnetic tape It should only be used when you are going to overwrite data on the tape END OF TAPE The End Of Tape reflective marker sets a status bit to wam the computer that the end of physical tape is near The tape drive normally stops automatically when rewound or backspaced to the BOT marker The tape drive does not automatically stop at EOT to allow reading or writing the last block s Electrovalue software handles EOT situations for you with informative messages as necessary WRITE RINGS Each reel of tape has a groove on the back into which a soft plastic ring may be inserted This ring is called a WRITE RING If it is not installed in the reel of tape the drive will not write on the tape and the tape is said to be write protected THUMB WHEELS Each cartridge has a thumb wheel on the back that tums When the flat area of the wheel is showing the cartridge can not be written to The cartridge is said to be write protected O ften there is a picture of a lock on the flat surface of the wheel to emphasize this The lock shows when the cartridge is write protected Re writing Blocks within a file or files within a group of files Note that tape drive procedures due to tolerance buildup do not permit one to replace a block on tape with a new block and to ex
106. etic tape could store just 100 characters in one inch of tape By the way the tape on the first steel rolls was just 3 4 wide and it was not a satisfactory answer In the early 1950 s a tape was made with a Mylar backing and an iron oxide that had the same properties of steel but weighed only two to three pounds So magnetic tape became much more useful It was smaller and had a 2500 not 1000 therefore you could store over twice the data in a substantially less space Remember The key word here was 100 characters per inch In the early 50 s they learned how to double the capacity of the data in one inch of magnetic tape and they could store 200 characters in one inch of magnetic tape As time went by better inventions came along and they increased the capacity to 556 numbers Remember these are not upper and lower case characters but either an alpha character or a number We could only store 48 characters in one frame and we could have as we said 100 frames 200 frames and 556 frames into the mid 1950 s Toward the end of the 1950 s we got all the way up to 800 characters per inch That is an eight times growth factor in less than ten years 5 In the beginning of the 1960 s they leamed how to store double the 800 or 1600 characters per inch but they referred to it as bits per inch So 1600 characters per inch became 1600 BPI The next growth jumped over the 3200 standard and went all the way up to 6250 So in one inch of magnetic
107. expression by the phrase Accept if We input the line below Be careful that the comparison text is entered in the right case we re assuming that this tape is all in UPPER CASE or that we ve forced UPPER CASE output in the Translation Phase Accept if 9L11 RADIO SHACK AND 71 72 WY OR 71 72 UT lt ENTER gt Parentheses may be used to specify or clarify logical groupings the above could be entered as 56 Accept if 9L11 RADIO SHACK and 71 72 WY OR 71 72 UT lt ENTER gt The two entries above are equivalent Use parentheses if you want to be sure how FXED will evaluate your conditional expression Whether or not you have used parentheses during input of the expression when you use the V command to view your conditional expression FXED will display it with parentheses to show how it s been evaluated Another example We want to do a mailing to all stores in ZIP codes 07900 thru 07999 except RADIO SHACK stores The expression we enter is Accept if 9L11 lt gt RADIO SHACK AND 81 85 gt 07900 AND 81 85 lt 07999 MORE EXAMPLES WHICH ILLUSTRATE THE and IT operators We want to send catalogs to all beachfront and coastal stores The expression we enter is Accept if 9 32 BEACHFRONT or 9 32 COASTAL We want to do a mailing to all stores in ZIP codes 12345 thru 23456 except stores with SHACK as any part of their names The expression we enter is Accept if 9 32 SHACK and 81 85 gt 123
108. file enter the desired number of records here Just hit lt ENTER gt to process the whole file If TNR n appears on the command line DITTO will not ask for the total number of records to process Output as C haracters H ex digits or B oth Tells DITTO how you want the output to appear This question is skipped if C or H or B is specified on the command line NOTES ABOUT THE DISPLAY OF CHARACTER DATA Carriage Return and Line Feed are displayed as the lower case letters c and l respectively The printable characters decimal 33 126 HEX 21 7E are displayed directly All other characters are displayed as decimal points NOT as their screen or printer graphics How many records should be displayed per header The number entered here will set the number of records displayed under each set of column numbers If you want more than one record be displayed under each header the usual case this is where you specify that number Hit lt ENTER gt alone to just display one record under each header The above question is asked only when TNR n does not appear on the command line See the last page for information on exceptions Output to S creen P rinter Printer with e X tra PrtSc or D isk File Enter S to send output to the screen P to send output to the printer PRN X to first print the screen to document the selected options then send DITTO output to the printer or D to send the DITTO output to a disk file Not
109. fined some bytes that won t be used 51 55P in the output this isn t necessary but it 56 70E doesn t hurt Note the Packed and Zoned decimal 71 742 translations and see comments on them below in 75 100E lines 08 and 10 OUTPUT DEFINITIONS Ol O 001 001 L 001 ni Insert a double quote before first character field 02 I 001 012 O 002 013 L 012 FIELD The word FIELD means a field from tape 03 O 014 016 L 003 Insert a double quote after first character field then a comma as field separator then a double quote before the next char field 04 I 013 030 O 017 034 L 018 FIELD 05 O 035 037 Le 003 JTN TI 06 I 075 086 O 038 049 L 012 FIELD O7 O 050 051 L 002 np Insert a double quote to terminate previous character field then a comma to delimit the following numeric field 08 I 051 055 O 052 061 L 010 FIELD Bytes 51 55 of the input which are Packed Decimal become bytes 52 61 of the output Note that 5 bytes of input become 10 bytes of the output be sure to leave room in your database program s field definitions 09 O 062 062 L 001 Insert a comma to separate 2 numeric fields 0 I 071 074 O 063 067 L 005 FIELD Bytes 71 74 of the input which are Zoned decimal will become bytes 63 67 of the output be sure to leave room for this in your database program s field definitions e O 068 069 L 002 2 I 033 050 O 070 087 L 018 FIELD 3 O 088 090 L 003
110. firm the changes TACO doesn t require that the programs it modifies have any particular names If no filename is specified on the command line all the EXE files in the current subdirectory are inspected for a valid Electrovalue Tape Software parameter block Normally you should run TACO without specifying any optional filenames so as to configure all the software in the subdirectory Because the software checks each EXE file for a configuration block the configuration will run faster if you don t have a bunch of non Electrovalue EXE files in the subdirectory If you do reconfigure the software you of course have to make corresponding physical changes on the controller card and or the tape drive unit Reconfiguration simply changes the default values the program will use Reconfiguring does not of course change the values on the drive or controller card Although TACO actually re writes all modified disk files the original dates and times are preserved as an aid in revision control Taco can optionally configure only selected files You can do this if you wish to change only selected programs TACO optional list of filenames lt ENTER gt E g TACO CUBSFX lt ENTER gt If one or more filenames has been specified on the command line as in the example above TACO will process only the named file s If no filenames are given TACO will process all the valid tape drive programs it can find in the current directory Testing
111. for FX to fill Memo fields and their associated D BT files Successful transfers depend on a perfect match between the order of the fields and the field lengths coming in from tape after any optional processing by an FXED produced control file and the fields defined for your database When using FX to transfer data directly into a DBF file DO NOT add CR LF at the end of each record The 2 steps used in importing data from tape into dBASE D BF files Importing mainframe tape data directly to a D BF database disk file consists of 2 steps STEP 1 Define the database structure using your database software 33 Use the CREATE command and fill in the Field Names Field Types and Field Widths To keep things simple define all the fields as Character type fields Let s call our example database DEMO DBF See below for information on Numeric D ate and Logical field types To keep things simple the Field Widths you select in dBA SE must be exactly the same as the field lengths in the corresponding fields on tape The field lengths on tape should have been provided to you on paper along with the tape See below for hints in dealing with tape field lengths that are different than the dBASE Field Widths To keep things simple the order of the fields you create in dBASE must be the same order that they are on tape See below for pointers on how to re order the fields as they are transferred in from tape To keep things simple you must defi
112. found on otherwise pure ASCII tapes generated by CO BOL programs The purpose of this section is to define the numeric codes which FXED can translate to ASCII STANDARD EBCIDC NUMBERS LOWER CASE EBCDIC NUMBERS ZONED DECIMAL PACKED DECIMAL and PACKED BCD PACKED HEX and to teach you to recognize them in case they have not been clearly identified as such in the documentation which came with your tape Remember if need be you can import fields with NO TRANSLATION using the TERMINOLOGY BYTE 8bits NIBBLE 4 bits HIGH ORDER leftmost most significant LOW O RD ER rightmost least significant STANDARD EBCDIC NUMBERS The values 0 1 2 9 are represented one byte per digit by the hex values F0 F1 F2 F9 respectively This makes them easy to recognize in a hex dump and their value is apparent upon inspection LOWER CASE EBCDIC NUMBERS The values 0 1 2 9 are represented one byte per digit by the hex values BO B1 B2 B9 respectively This makes them easy to recognize in a hex dump and their value is apparent upon inspection PACKED DECIMAL In packed decimal each byte except the low order byte represents 2 decimal numbers one in the high order nibble and the other in the low order nibble The sign of the packed decimal string is contained in the low order nibble of the low order byte Packed Decimal is sometimes called COMPUTATIONAL 3 or COMP 3 in the mainframe world Positive values have a hex C or F a
113. hase is trivial to fill out This is the case with input records that are all EBCDIC oral ASCII Well start with an example of this Macros are of no help in the first example For the duration of these examples we ll assume an input record length of 600 bytes If all 600 bytes are EBCDIC the following three keystrokes take care of the translation definition phase starting at the main menu T to get into the translation definition phase 1 600E to say that all 600 bytes get EBCDIC to ASCII translation lt ESC gt to go back to the main menu If the input records were all ASCII line 3 would be 1 600 Sometimes tapes will contain records where the type of translation needed alternates in a regular pattern between EBCDIC to ASCII and PACKED DECIMAL to ASCII You might see this for example in a price list tape where the fields are 01 20 description of item in EBCDIC 21 25 vendor s part number in PACKED DECIMAL 26 30 our intemal part number in PACKED DECIMAL 47 31 50 same as 01 20 51 55 same as 21 25 56 60 same as 26 30 etc etc the pattem repeats over and over The translation definitions to handle this would be entered as follows the SPACEs are not to be entered they are shown for clarity only 1 20E L5P L5P L20E L5P L5P L20E L5P L5P L20E L5P L5P L20E LSP LSP etc etc Note the repeating pattern after the first line Here s where a macro would be a big help You define a macro by hitting the keystro
114. he drive can be terminated by using an extemal terminator or sometimes by enabling termination inside the drive through jumper settings or front panel settings The host adapter card may be terminated by enabling termination in a configuration menu or by setting jumpers on the card If the drive is sharing the SCSI bus with another device make certain they do not share the same SCSI ID number If the tape drive is the only SCSI device connected to the card there is no need to worry Software Installation Note This software runs only under Windows 95 Windows 98 or Windows ME Millennium Edition Support for A SPI is built into these versions of Windows This software can be installed on a computer running a Windows 95 98 ME that is used as a workstation attached to a network running another operating system such as Windows NT Windows 2000 or Windows Advanced Server In this manner one can access files on the server and on other machines running other operating systems In general a tape drive should be installed on a workstation rather than a server This is because the drive reads and writes large amounts of data to the hard disk This would have a tendency to slow down a server This software does NOT support long file names This software will NOT run under MS DOS Windows for Workgroups Windows NT or Windows 2000 There is a minor bug in ASPI for MS DOS that does not allow this software to run properly under MSDOS
115. he translation will be performed This has the effect of subtracting 128 from the value of the Extended ASCII character before translation to EBCDIC If you need the ability to define your own custom translation table to handle these codes see FX ED s D Disk To D isk and S Secondary Translation modes Tape to screen and tape to printer Special CHARACTER PROCESSING To create friendly displays Tape To Screen and Tape To Printer pre process the data The printable characters decimal 33 126 hex 21 7E are displayed directly Carriage Return and Line Feed are passed through All other characters are displayed as decimal points NOT as their screen or printer graphics If you want to pass tape data through to a printer without this character processing see LASER PRINTERS HIGH SPEED on the index page Testing an fxed control file You can use one of these modes to help fine tune an EX ED control file but don t overlook FX ED s Disk To Disk mode which does a more efficient job Just import a small sample of raw tape data with FX don t select 31 any options which would change the tape data Use the FX option to read only part of a tape file to keep your sample small e g answer the tape file question with 0 1 10 lt ENTER gt Block positioning DISPLAY OF FILE BLOCK ETC The block positioning features of FX described below allow transfers to or from tape to start at any block within a file Whenever reading from or wri
116. hoices are P ause R ewind and U nload If two adjacent filemarks are hit and you ve selected P you ll be informed of the situation and be given the option to C ontinue or A bort WHAT ABOUT DISK FILE NAMES THISISHOW YOU CREATE EITHER ONE OR MANY DISK FILES If you have specified more than one tape file to be transferred to disk FX will ask for the disk file name in a special way Enter a single disk lt filename gt to append all tape files into that one disk file or a disk lt filename gt extension alone leg TXT to generate individual disk files one per tape file with that extension Or hit lt Fl gt lt ENTER gt for main menu D TEMP lt ENTER gt If you enter a single disk file name all the tape files specified will be appended into this one disk file If you enter only a filename extension a dot followed by 1 3 characters each tape file will be transferred into a separate disk file They will all have the specified filename extension with the left part of the filename consisting of the letters TF stands for Tape File followed by the tape file number If for example you select tape files 1 3 5 8 and 11 for transfer and enter ABC as a file name you ll get disk files named TF1 ABC TF3 ABC TF5 ABC TFOABC TF7 ABC TF8 ABC and TF11 ABC Transfer of large tape files to disk A DISK FULL SITUATION When a tape to disk operation is started FX takes note of the amount of free storage remaining on the disk FX keeps
117. ians for test and diagnostic purposes KEYS may also be used by an Electrovalue customer as instructed e g on the telephone to help diagnose operational problems CAUTION KEYS CAN EASILY WRITE ON TAPE IF YOU HIT THE WRONG KEY WRITE PROTECT THE TAPE FIRST BY REMOVING THE WRITE RING OR PUSHING THE THUMBWHEEL TO THE LOCKED POSITION Asummary of keys commands Type the command letter at the keys prompt the Y en sign The effect is immediate i e the lt ENTER gt key is not needed H Print this list of commands in reverse order F1 Abort current operation x Toggle output to the printer ON or OFF A D E N and C xx A Display buffer in ASCII adding CR LF each xx characters xx B Space by xx Blocks xx is negative for back blocks M C Check tape for an initial label amp display information if found D Display buffer in NUMERIC DECIMAL or HEX ASCII EBCDIC D Same as D but displays end of buffer xx E Display buffer in EBCDIC IBM code adding CR LF each xx chars xx F Space by xx Files xx is negative for back files M xCTRL F Fast forward x Files while checking for end of data G Writ rase Gap M H Display Hardware Status M I Write a Filemark M J Jam the buffer of size set by S full of copies of the BIOS xxK Kick out the buffer with block lengths of xx M L Rewind tape to L
118. ic and date fields are automatically converted to common mainframe friendly formats Experienced users may run D 2T entirely from the command line Alternately D 2T will ask questions in a user dialogue or any mixture of command line control and dialogue may be chosen While running D2T displays job statistics see the example below SAMPLE D2T RUN conversational example CONSOLE DIALOGUE D2T lt ENTER gt Name of DBF File to Transfer to Tape E VH VH Enter tape file number or EOD for End Of Data first tape file is 0 0 Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y N Y Logical Record Length on Tape Will Be 38 Enter Tape Blocking Factor 1 1680 125 P rint V iew L og or N o Record Layout Report P Automatic Rewind Y es N o U nload U SAMPLE D2T RUN command line example The following example shows how with a single command line to perform the exact same job as in the conversational mode example above The order of the command line options doesn t matter COMMAND LINE ENTRY D2T DFI E VH VH TFO 0 E BF 125 P U lt ENTER gt SUBSEQUENT SCREEN DISPLAY WHILE D2T IS RUNNING File E VH VH DBF Tape file number 0 Record Length 34 Blocking Factor 125 Block Size 4250 Writing Blocks 15 28 block length 4250 bytes Blocks Written 28 119000 total bytes Records Processed 3500 of 57573 0 skipped 6 complete TO RUN D2T TYPE D2T lt ENTER gt c
119. ign SPACE or will be copied to the output just before the digit derived from byte 51 Thus the 5 bytes 51L52 of input data will create 6 bytes of output data 46 NOTESABOUT P and Z INVALID SIGN Only certain codes see the final page of this chapter are valid in specifying the sign in the least significant byte of Packed D ecimal and Zoned Decimal fields If an invalid code is found for the sign the character will be placed in the sign position of the output ADJACENT PACKED DECIMAL or ZONED DECIMAL FIELDS The software needs to know where each Packed D ecimal or Zoned D ecimal field ends so it can look for and extract the sign information If you have 2 or more adjacent Zoned or Packed fields you have to define each field separately in the Translation phase 1 7H Translate bytes 1 thru 7 from Packed HEX BCD to ASCII Each 8 bit byte will be translated to 2 ASCII characters 0 9 or A F V Enter V at any time to View what s been defined so far You see a sorted list of the fields you ve defined and their translation type Mixed in you ll be shown all fields which are currently undefined Enter a question mark if you d like to see a list of the valid EX ED commands for this phase lt ESC gt Hit lt ESC gt to return to the main menu at any time You may re enter the translation definition phase from the main menu as often as you like MACROSIN THE TRANSLATION DEFINITION PHASE Frequently the translation definition p
120. iles In this case D2T will tell you which tape file number it is writing End Of Data a standard convention is indicated by two adjacent filemarks at the end of the last good file on a tape All of Electrovalue s programs that write tape terminate the tape with a double filemark The tape file number question is skipped if the command line option TFO Tape File O utput is used Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y N Enter Y to have D2T convert the DBF data to EBCDIC This question is not asked if A ASCII or E EBCDIC is specified as a command line option NOTE There are several ASCII characters that have no EBCDIC equivalent They are not likely to be found in your DBF file If encountered they are translated into an EBCDIC BACKSLASH 224 E0 These characters are ENQ 5 05 DC3 19 13 GS 29 1D US 31 1F 96 60 124 7C Logical Record Length on Tape Will Be nnnn Enter Tape Blocking Factor number of logical records per block 1 bbb D2T analyzes the D BF file and displays the logical record length it will use when writing to tape The logical record length will be the same as the sum of the field widths in your DBF file unless it contains NUMERIC fields with decimal points or you are writing Packed Decimal fields At any rate the record layout report that is produced will fully document each field Further information on field lengths and the record layout report is presented on the following pages D2T then displays a r
121. imary translation before it is used in a comparison within a conditional logical expression Secondary translation is NOT performed on literal data you have defined with FXED eg in the output field definitions and in logical comparisons To get to the secondary translation menu select S from the main menu HERE S WHAT YOU LL SEE FXED Secondary Translation Commands T Enter Translation Data C Change all control characters 00 31 dec to SPACEs V View active Translations Displays this list of commands ESC Return to Main Menu To enter one or more translations hit T Youll see e g Enter from character then to character Characters may be entered in 3 ways By hitting the corresponding keyboard key s In HEX Press lt F6 gt 1 2 HEX digits lt F6 gt In DECIMAL Press lt F10 gt 1 3 DECIMAL digits lt F10 gt Hit lt END gt to retum to Secondary Translation Menu SAMPLE DIALOGUE Translate from to A 61 Translate from to Translate from lt END gt To DELETE secondary translation definitions simply re define the character to translate to itself To view the existing translations hit V you ll see e g Format Character D EC HEX 036 24 gt 035 23 064 40 gt 042 2A Converting all control characters to spaces Selecting C from the Secondary Translation menu lets you re define all control characters 0 31 decimal to SPACEs in one fell swoop Thi
122. ion Block lengths from 1 byte up to 65535 bytes 64K less 1 may be read and written by most Electrovalue tape systems Most minicomputers and mainframes are limited to a block size of 32 767 bytes Whenever you write tapes for export to another computer you should ask the intended recipient of the tape to specify the block size or maximum block size to be written If there is no opportunity for such a discussion write blocks close to 32 000 bytes no larger and make sure that that the logical records are not split across blocks For example if your logical record length is 100 a block size of 30 000 would be a good choice Small block sizes are wasteful of tape and for this reason are contraindicated A simplified example of how block size helps to increase capacity is as follows Imagine a record size of 120 bytes and a block size of 120 bytes The data block when written at 1600 BPI takes up 120 1600 0 075 of an inch of space on the tape Each block is separated by an InterBlock Gap In this case it is probably 6 In approximately six inches of tape you will have 10 times 120 1200 bytes of data Now imagine a record size of 120 bytes and a block size of 1200 bytes The data block when written at 1600 BPI takes up 1200 1600 0 75 of an inch of space on the tape Each block is separated by an inter block gap In this case it is probably 6 of an inch Therefore in approximately six inches of tape you will have perhaps 5 times 1200
123. ion in reading in data D ata is good Input output error There was a problem transferring data from the tape drive Hard error and Corrected errors can be due to a bad tape e g wrong density or poorly written a dirty read head clean it or a hardware problem Input output error usually indicates a hardware or configuration problem Note that not all drives return a corrected error status After R you can display the contents of the buffer using any of the display commands eg A E D N The amount of displayed data is set by the length of the block that was just read You can use F1 to interrupt the display xx S Set size of block to be used by W K amp J S alone displays size 79 The default write block size is 120 bytes when K EY S is first executed Entering S alone will display the current block size To change the block size precede the S with a decimal number KEYS will accept entries in the range of 0 65535 minimum is 1 byte These minimums are well below the ANSI standard minimum block sizes Of course you should check with your drive specifications before attempting to write blocks less than 30 bytes or greater than 32767 bytes T Triple D oes W 1B R M T is essentially a combination of three other KEYS commands W 1B and R with one additional test that the length of the block read back is the same as that of the block written The data written is not compared to the data read bac
124. irectly All other characters are displayed as decimal points NOT as their screen graphics If n is specified e g 123U KEYS will start a new display line output an actual CR LF every n characters This is helpful in determining the logical record length of tape data 74 The displayed record length and the blocking factor are displayed at the bottom of the display Using A to find the logical record length of ASCII data Read in a data block with the R command Press lt A gt Judging from the displayed record you can guess a length and type in xxA where xx is the guessed length and hope the data comes close to lining up Caution The records will also line up when the displayed record length is a multiple of the actual record length also IE If the actual record length is 150 displaying the buffer with a command such as 300E will cause the records to line up also If you input a tape and find that you have half the records the sender says you should have you probably picked the record length to be twice the actual record length If the record length looks smaller in this case we will assume a possible length of 55 you can press the F5 key to decrease the displayed length and display the buffer with the new length again Repeatedly pressing F5 will decrease and display the length again As the displayed length approaches the actual length the data will appear to line up When the correct data length is hit the data will
125. it will rewind the tape if the tape drive is online If you are writing multiple files to tape this behavior can be unwanted The NR No Rewind option should be used in this case For example a batch file containing d2t DFI Al BF 100 E V d2t DFI Bl BF 100 E V NR there is an implied TFO EOD here d2t DFI Cl BF 100 E V NR there is an implied TFO EOD here d2t DFI D1l BF 100 E V NR there is an implied TFO EOD here d2t DFI El BF 100 E V NR U there is an implied TFO EOD here will write out 5 tape files You can not use file numbers after the first line if you are using NR D2T doesn t know where the tape is positioned if you tell it not to rewind However D2T does know how to successfully find the End Of D ata location 2 adjacent file marks at the end of all the recently written data Note that the last line uses both NR and H Because the R in on the command line it overrides the NR so as to rewind the tape to the beginning at the end of the job You could have used U to unload the tape instead If you send 101 someone a stacked tape such as this it would be a good idea to have D 2T print file layout reports for each file and have CUBS A print a log report for the entire tape The NR option is to be used only to position a data file at the end of data It should not be used on a blank tape If it is used on a blank tape D 2T will search forward looking for 2 filemarks It will not find them beca
126. itional KEYS features are useful in hardware testing erasing tapes and general tape analysis does not access tape directly LRL generates possible record lengths from block sizes you input LRL is helpful in determining unknown logical record lengths See the chapter Dealing With Mystery Tapes does nothing more than send an unload command to the tape drive If the tape is not at the load point BOT U sends a rewind command prior to the unload command SCAN SCSI Scans each SCSI host adapter looking for tape drives If it finds a tape drive it displays the host adapter card number that the card is attached to and the SCSI ID number of the drive DENSITY Sets the write density without affecting the host adapter card number or SCSI ID of the drive Quick Start amp Overview This note is only meant to summarize what we are trying to accomplish From tape to PC Our objective is to read in the data from the tape or cartridge to process it on the PC We will use the FX program to transfer data from tape to the PC If we have a simple file transfer we can simply start FX and follow the prompts If we want to select out fields do record level manipulation selectively import records or other record level conversion we will use the FXED program to create an additional control file that tells FX what we want to do Read the chapter on FX to leam about transferring files from tape to disk Writing data to tape The data sho
127. itional expression You may define a translation type for bytes you won t be using but by skipping them you will save a small amount of processing time when the job is run Another thing you don t have to do in this phase is hit the lt ENTER gt key The character that defines the type of translation also terminates the line 3 10 Process bytes 3 thru 10 of each input record without change 45 3L8 Starting with byte 3 process 8 bytes of each input record without modification This is the same as entering 3 10 45 50E Translate bytes 45 thru 50 from EBCDIC to ASCII UPPER case EBCDIC to UPPER case ASCII lower case EBCDIC to lower case ASCII 45E Translate byte 45 from EBCDIC to ASCII UPPER case EBCDIC to UPPER case ASCII lower case EBCDIC to lower case ASCII 45 E Translate byte 45 from EBCDIC to ASCII Force UPPER case ASCII 46 50e Translate bytes 46 thru 50 from EBCDIC to ASCII Force lower case ASCII output 45A Don t change byte 45 at all unless it is a valid A SCII lower case alphabetic character then change it to the equivalent upper case A SCII character 45a Dont change byte 45 at all unless it is a valid ASCII UPPER case alphabetic character then change it to the equivalent lower case ASCII character 1 108A Translate bytes 1 108 from ASCII to EBCDIC Translate ASCII to EBCDIC when transferring data to the PC Why would you want to do that The customer who requested this feature is using his PC as a front en
128. k T writes a block backs up and reads the block It s a quick check of the tape hardware s basic functions and is useful in multiple mode during service procedures Any read errors detectable by the hardware or a block length mismatch will cause a BEEP and a display of the error details on the screen U Duplicate last command again M This command lets you send the past command again to the drive For example you enter 50B to space forward by 50 blocks Enter U to space forward again by 50 blocks W Write a block to tape Size is set by S command M W simply attempts to write the I O buffer to the tape The block size is that which was previously set by the S command and is shown on the screen after each W Possible errors Hard error The tape drive could not write a block Input ouput error There was a problem transferring data to the tape drive Z Zap tape Erase entire tape for security purposes By pressing Z you ll encounter a dialog telling you to press F9 if to erase the entire tape or to press F1 or any other command key to cancel While there is no technical reason to erase tapes before use this command is included for those who want to erase a tape for security secrecy purposes or for those whose customers require that the tape be erased prior to use F5 Decrease CR LF N by 1 and redisplay buffer A amp E only 80 Most useful when dealing with mystery tapes this command decreases th
129. ker was hit Astute users who want to start writing at some point other than the first block of a file may make use of FX s block positioning feature Use of this feature is fully explained in the section entitled BLOCK POSITIONING FEATURES on page FX 12 Append disk file s to an EXISTING tape file Y N FX allows the user to merge any number of disk files into a single tape file The answer to this question determines whether FX will create a new tape file or append the disk data to the end of an existing file To create a new tape file answer with N To append to the end of an existing tape file answer with Y In this case FX will position the tape just past the last data block of the file ready to overwrite the old filemark with one or more new data blocks followed by a new filemark Notes about appending When you write the first part of the tape file to which you will append more disk files later you must answer N to the APPEND TO FILE question Then answer Y for each subsequent transfer to the end of the same tape file As described below FX normally pads the last block with spaces as necessary to fill it out to size Keep in mind that if you allow these pads they will become internal parts of your file during an append operation The pad characters can be avoided by use of the S option when the block size is specified or of course by planning ahead and judiciously specifying the block size FORMAT OF DISP
130. kes shown below the SPACES are not part of the macro they are inserted in the example for clarity lt F1 gt L20E L5P L5P lt F1 gt The macro consists of all the characters you type in between the 2 lt F1 gt s Once a macro is defined hitting the associated key lt F1 gt in this example plays it back just as if you had entered all the keystrokes it represents This will greatly simplify entering the rest of the translation definitions Note that if you had repeated the pattern two times within the MACRO it would cut your work in half again THE OUTPUT DEFINITION PHASE Select O from the main menu THIS PHASE MUST BE USED Here s where you specify which fields from the input records will go to the output file or device and in what order Fields that aren t specified aren t written to the output that s how you delete fields This is also where you get to insert literal text Literal text is constant unchanging text you want to add to each and every output record It doesn t come from the input records you specify it here You use the INSERT key shown as lt IN S gt to define the start and end of a literal text string The order in which you specify the output fields is important it s the order in which they ll be written That s how you move fields around to positions in the output that are different from their positions in the input You don t specify the output record length FX ED will add up all the output field definitio
131. l need the field definitions eventually e g LIST STRUCTURE TO PRINTER lt ENTER gt An example of some of what you might see is Field Field Name Type Width 1 FNAME Character AES 2 LNAME Character 20 3 CNAME Character 32 PLEASE READ THE NOTE BELOW 4 STREET Character 36 CITY Character 25 DON T BE FOOLED BY Total 6 STATE Character 2 116 7 8 9 10 11 12 ZIP PHONE DATE NOTES SAW_AD_IN CUST_NMBR we LT Ota dl Tt Character Character Character Character Character Character 16 50 15 234 Note The Total displayed by dBASE is 1 more than the sum of the number of characters in all the fields The record lengths we ll deal with are either 1 less than this number i e the logical record length on tape or 1 more than this number i e record length plus the lt CR LF gt in SDF files 117 STEP 2 Next we use a dBASE command to create a disk file which is a generic ASCII SD F type file An SDF file is almost in mainframe friendly format It consists of fixed length data records built up from fixed length fields with a CR LF the pair of ASCII characters carriage return line feed at the end of each record e g from the dot prompt type COPY TO DEMO TYPE SDF lt ENTER gt Record Length The record length on disk will be the sum of the field lengths plus 2 characters for the CR LF If you re copying out all the fields as in the above example this is one character more than the
132. l text insertions the literal characters between the lt IN S gt keystrokes are mixed with the data from tape when the job is run To input the literal characters lt CR gt lt LF gt hit the lt ENTER gt key while inserting line 11 below FXED Output Record Layout Commands lt range gt lt ENTER gt Add the input bytes specified by lt range gt to the output lt range gt Same as lt ENTER gt except that trailing SPACEs are deleted lt range gt X Same as but also removes leading SPACEs and 0 s S Adds a SPACE to the output Shorthand to insert a SPACE 121 lt INS gt text lt INS gt Adds the text specified to output at current position xN Adds x digits of the input record number to the output xU Undefine delete output definition line x etc 01 001 lt INS gt lt INS gt Start with 02 002 16 25 First Name 03 012 lt INS gt lt INS gt Add 04 015 26 lt ENTER gt Middle Initial 05 016 lt INS gt lt INS gt Add 06 019 1 15 Last Name 07 034 lt INS gt lt INS gt Add 08 036 27 35 lt ENTER gt SSN a numeric field doesn t get quotes 09 045 lt INS gt lt INS gt Add 10 047 44 44 lt ENTER gt Sex 11 048 lt INS gt lt ENTER gt lt INS gt End with lt CR gt lt LF gt Now let s hit lt V gt to View the results so far V For each line FXED shows the line number referenced when editing the range of tape input bytes if any the range
133. ld and each record start and end In most PC type databases not dbase there exist record delimiters in addition to field delimiters As an example an ASCII comma delimited database usually has double quotes surrounding each field with commas as field separators and a carriage return and a line feed delimiting each record Each field usually has leading and trailing spaces removed 115 When transferring this ASCII comma delimited file to tape you want to make each field a fixed length thus causing each record to be fixed length You also want to remove the quotes and commas delimiting each field Lastly you will want to remove the carriage return and line feed from each record You can import ASCII comma delimited data into a matching dBASE file structure and output it as an SD F file You could use FX to transfer the SD F file to tape truncating the carriage return amp linefeed as you export the data The data on tape may be in the ASCII code or more frequently in EBCDIC an IBM mainframe code The tape itself doesn t contain the field names lengths etc It s your job to send that information on paper with the tape Internal Structure of data in a database D BF disk file In addition to the data that you should send to the mainframe a D BF file contains a lot of extra information for use only by dBASE and its workalikes in the form of a variable length header and flag characters mixed with the data records It would make no
134. lt CR gt lt LF gt delete the lt CR gt lt LF gt then pad out the record with SPACE s or NUL s you choose which to whatever output record size you have specified TRUNCATION If you ve told FX that the records on disk are variable in length and FX finds lt CR gt lt LF gt at a byte position greater than the output record size you ve specified you ll loose on tape all the bytes in the disk record after the output record size up through and including the lt CR gt lt LF gt We don t have a suggested use for this mode of operation but that s how it works and it s documented here for the sake of completeness If at some point in the disk file there are characters NEVER followed by lt CR gt lt LF gt they won t be written to tape If it should happen that there are no lt CR gt lt LF gt s at all in the disk file you ll get an empty file on tape Le just a filemark SAMPLE DIALOGUE Do you want to TRUNCATE or EXPAND the records you re transferring to tape Y Type input disk record length or Vi for variable hit lt ENTER gt V Records from disk are variable length ending in lt CR gt lt LF gt Type output tape logical record length and hit lt ENTER gt 130 Pad with S paces or Z eros S Z S Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y N N Treat CTRL Z in a disk file as End Of File Y N Y Enter block length 1300 8 Enter starting tape file 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt for end of data 0 NOTES The blocking factor must be an in
135. ly useful as the first step if you re re editing an existing control file Here s what V would display for the entries on the previous page Line Range of Range of Output Type of Ref Input Output Field Output Bytes Bytes Length Field Optional Comment 01 I 070 080 O 001 011 L 011 FIELD Output bytes 70 thru 80 02 I 070 080 O 012 022 L 011 TRUN FLD Now delete trailing SPACEs 03 O 023 025 L 003 z Insert SPACE SPACE 04 I 045 055 O 026 036 L 011 FIELD Next bytes 45 55 go out 05 O 037 037 L 001 Insert a single SPACE Output Record Length 37 bytes or less 1 or more variable length fields present 06 038 5N At run time the Input Record Number starting with 0 will be added to the output as a 5 digit number left filled with 0 s If the input record number is wider than 5 digits only the 5 least significant digits will be added to the output The N feature is useful when by multiple passes using different conditional acceptance criteria the input file is separated into a number of different disk files It allows unequivocal determination of the original order of the input records 07 043 50 lt TAB gt TAB to output column 50 In effect at run time before input data and literal data are moved to the output the output buffer is pre filled with ASCII SPACEs The lt TAB gt command lets you select any arbitrary position as the position where the NEXT outp
136. m Zoned decimal to ASCII lt range gt Defines the bytes in lt range gt as needing no translation lt range gt A Translate the bytes in lt range gt from ASCII to EBCDIC lt range gt a No translation but force lower case ASCII output lt range gt CTRL A No translation but force UPPER case ASCII output lt range gt ALT a Same as a but not forcing LOWER case at beginning of words lt range gt H Translate each byte in lt range gt from packed HEX to 2 ASCII chars lt F1 gt lt F4 gt Define Invoke lt F1 gt lt F4 gt macro M Show macros lt F1 gt lt F4 gt lt DEL gt Delete a macro FXED will ask which one V View the translation definitions Displays this list of commands lt ESC gt Return to Main Menu THE TRANSLATION DEFINITION COMMANDS BY EXAMPLE Examples of the translation definition commands with explanations follow Although there some logical flow as one example follows another the collection of examples as a whole does NOT represent a typical translation definition session it contains a mixture of commands useful with EBCDIC input data e g E and Z and others which pertain to ASCII and BINARY data e g WHAT YOU DONT HAVE TO DO In the translation definition phase you don t have to make entries in any particular order You don t have to specify a translation type for every byte in your input record only for those bytes which will either become part of the output or which will be evaluated in a cond
137. magnetic tape Most companies chose in the 1960 s to join the computers and use magnetic tape for the maintenance of their mailing lists In 1963 Printronic was started and the first computer generated letters appeared on the scene They increased the response by over 400 from just a label on an envelope 6 The 1970 s These were the years when magnetic tape became affordable for mailing lists Mailing lists were maintained on mainframes that cost millions of dollars Small companies with mailing lists of 1 000 to 5 000 names could generally not afford a computer and if anything they would go to a service bureau to have the work done The 1980 s High speed printers were introduced in the 1980 s so that labels were printed very rapidly Computer letters could contain all types of personalization It was the beginning of a new wave of direct mail as we begin to know it today What really made the 1980 s was that computer hard disks were now able to store gigabytes of data and it wasn t necessary to have magnetic tape in tens of thousands of reels You could store most information on disks and use magnetic tape only to back up the disk not to do the work from The 1990 s The PC became the forefront of most processing for direct mail Mailing lists became available to everybody The PC economics were available to everybody and most files were now being transformed to the PC which now talked had gigabytes of storage on a hard disk Of course
138. mand will be given the extension TXT The file resulting from the above command will be called DEMO TXT Control Z Character dBASE places a mainframe offensive CTRL Z IBM PC End of File character at the end of the disk file we ll see how to get rid of the CTRL Z with Electrovalue s FX program in a minute You can read more about CTRL Z in the FX chapter of the Electrovalue tape drive manual if interested Copy Options Note that dBASE s COPY TO command allows you to use the lt scope gt FOR WHILE and FIELDS options to export just those records and fields you choose STEP 3 Use the FX program to write the SDF disk file to tape Besides just transferring the disk data to tape the necessary features FX will provide are Stripping off the CR LF characters at the end of each record Do you want to truncate 2 in the example below Discarding the CTRL Z character at the end of the disk file Terminate CTRL Z in the example below Other features which you ll have to pick properly ask the intended recipient of the tape are Writing the tape in EBCDIC or not What physical block size to use FX will force this to be an integer multiple of the logical record size 118 Writing the last tape block as a short block recommended To do this use the S option after the block size during the FX dialogue Sample Console Dialogue Here s the pertinent part of the FX program s console dialogue dealing with our DEMO file
139. mately 3 8 minutes For example CUBS L P A H lt ENTER gt will analyze a full tape displaying Label info if any output the results to the Printer Automatically end the analysis and rewind when two adjacent filemarks conventionally used to indicate End Of D ata are encountered In this example we ve also told CUBS to Halt on any unrecoverable read error Finding the logical record length Mainframe tapes usually consist of fixed length logical records end to end within each block of data on tape without delimiters One of the things you usually want to do to make such data PC FRIEND LY is to import the data record for record into a database program or add CR LF Carriage Return Line Feed at the end of each fixed length record You can import data directly into a D BF file or add the CR LF don t do both with the FX program during the tape to disk transfer but in either case you need to know the length of each fixed length logical record in the tape file you re importing The LRL program The LRL program suggests possible logical record sizes based on the assumption that the physical block lengths used within a tape file are integer multiples of the logical record length That is to say that each physical block of data consists of one or more logical records and that no logical records span from the end of one physical block to the beginning of the next This is generally the case with mainframe tapes In the interests of ta
140. me finds offensive use the command line only option FUC Force Upper Case Any lower case data in the D BF file will be written to tape as upper case ABORTING To abort a transfer in progress hit CTRL A D 2T will write two adjacent filemarks and return to DOS The amount of data transferred to tape before the abort is shown on the screen and in the record layout report PHYSICAL PARAMETERS The default physical parameters Host adapter card Tape drive SCSI ID and Write density used by D 2T are displayed on the top line of the screen when the program is first run They may be changed by using the TACO program See the INSTALLATION chapter of this manual END OF TAPE Large disk files may be transferred to any number of tapes If the end of tape reflective marker is hit D 2T closes the current tape by writing two adjacent filemarks then rewinds and unloads the tape and outputs the following message End of Tape Encountered Do you wish to mount another tape and continue the transfer Y N Mount another tape and input Y for yes to continue SUMMARY OF D2T COMMAND LINE OPTIONS This is an example of the list of options which are displayed if you type D2T lt ENTER gt DFI filename Name of DBF file to write to tape TFO n EOD Tape file n 0 is first file or EOD for End Of Data BF n Blocking factor is n logical records per physical block A Write tape in ASCII No conversion E Write tape in EB
141. mentation to accompany any transmittal of the tape If you select L you may import the log file into your word processor and add or modify it in any way you like Note that the field lengths on tape will differ from those in the DBF structure for numeric fields with decimal points and all Packed D ecimal fields Command Line Equivalents You can select the destination of the report using command line options Note that to suppress the report and prevent D 2T from asking you if you want one you can use LF NUL to route it to DOS s NUL NON device D Print causes D 2T to print a record layout after completing the disk to tape transfer PO Print Only causes D 2T to print a record layout without performing an actual data transfer to tape V View causes D 2T to display a record layout on the screen after completing the disk to tape transfer VO View Only causes D 2T to display a record layout without performing an actual data transfer to tape LF filename causes D 2T to Log the report to disk file filename LFO filename causes D 2T to Log the report to disk file filename without writing to tape EXAMPLE D2T DFI DECDATE TFO 0 BF 50 E P U lt ENTER gt NOTE THE DBF FILE CONTAINS5 DELETED RECORDS This D BF Structure as listed by dBA SE s LIST STRUCTURE command Structure for database DECDATE DBF Number of data records 1047 Date of last update 04 28 99 Field Field
142. mples above Terminate keyboard input with the lt ENTER gt key Let the screen display wrap around if your expression is larger than 80 characters hit lt ENTER gt only to terminate the input U Undefine an existing conditional expression U deletes the current conditional If you exit without creating a new one you wont have any conditionals V View the current conditional expression FXED shows you the current conditional expression with parentheses inserted to show how logical expression evaluation has been grouped List the commands which may be used in this phase lt ESC gt Retur to main menu 60 The secondary translation definition phase This phase in the creation of an FXED control file is optional SECONDARY TRANSLATION allows you to specify that input data after any translation specified in the FXED Translation Definition Phase is to be run through one more CHARACTER TO CHARACTER translation process If need be you can use secondary translation to define a complete custom translation for each of the 256 possible characters which can be represented in 8 bits A typical use of this feature is to redefine troublesome characters that would cause problems with your application software if they were passed thru without change Secondary translation is performed e On all input data after any primary translation e g EBCDIC to ASCII before being transferred to the output record and e On input data after pr
143. n questions over and over again FX provides a way around this Do not use this feature unless and you are sure that the data in each tape file has the same characteristics e g same code EBCDIC or ASCII same record length for CR LF insertion etc If this is the case and you re willing to accept one of the 22 disk file name choices described below you can have FX transfer a large number of tape files to disk for you automatically CALLING THIS FEATURE INTO PLAY NOTE To avoid confusing the inexperienced user by suggesting a seldom selected feature the following question DOES NOT invite him to answer with more than one file number BUT YOU CAN Enter tape file number the first tape file is file 0 Simply answering with more than one tape file number will put FX in multi file mode File numbers are either separated by a SPACE to indicate individual files or by a DASH to indicate ranges of files The following examples will serve to illustrate how you can specify tape file numbers 0 Only tape file 0 will be transferred Single file mode 1 3 5 8 14 Files 13 5 6 7 8 and 11 will be transferred Multi file mode 0 15 22 109 Files 0 thru 15 and 22 and 109 will be transferred Multi file mode WHAT IF I SPECIFY A FILE NUMBER THAT ISTOO LARGE When multiple files are specified FX asks you what to do if a Double filemark is encountered Two adjacent filemarks are the standard way of indicating End of D ata on tape The c
144. n spacing in reverse by file marks the requested number of filemarks 1 are passed in the reverse direction then the tape is spaced forward over one filemark This assures that the tape drive read write head is never left behind a filemark and provides a logical compatibility between spacing in the forward and reverse directions For example if the tape is sitting just past a filemark and you space forward N files then backwards N files the tape will end up positioned just where it started xxCTRL F Fast forward x files while checking for End of D ata The tape moves forward at high speed until xx files have been passed or until End O f D ata 2 filemarks in a row is encountered EOD detection in not a function of the hardware G Write erase Gap M G writes 3 or 4 inches of blank tape Some tape drives write 3 inches others write 4 inches This command could be used to erase a section of tape For instance you have one or more files on tape and you want to erase all data after this file You could the KEYS Fast forward files spacing commands to get to the end of data This will put you between the last two filemarks Then space forward one block or file You will hit the last filemark and stop just past it Next hit 500M Hit U to duplicate the command again if you havn t hit EOT Keep hitting U until the drive hits EOT 76 H Display H ardware Status M H displays a snapshot of the tape drive status F means the co
145. ndition is false T means it is true Note that not all drives return BOT status to the controlling program This means that H is not always able to detect BOT status at BOT I Write a filemark M Each time T is pressed a filemark is written to the tape J Jam the buffer of size set by S full of copies of the BIOS A quick way to fill the I O buffer with something known Otherwise after a fresh boot the buffer is likely to be filled with zeroes The buffer size should be set using the S command before this command is issued IxxK Kick out buffer contents in block lengths of xx in streaming mode M The buffer is written out in streaming mode in blocks of length xx This command allows you to divide up the buffer into parts of length xx and wnite the blocks out to tape If the buffer size is not evenly divisible by xx the remainder is dropped The optional sign allows the remainder to be added on as a short block Example The buffer size is set to 450 Giving the command 100K will write out 4 blocks of 100 bytes The command 100K will cause 4 blocks of 100 bytes and 1 short block of 50 bytes to be written L Rewind tape to Load point L sends a rewind command to the drive causing the drive to rewind to the load point BOT reflective marker This command tells you that the rewind command has been sent to the drive or if the drive retums BOT status to the software and the drive is at BOT that th
146. ne a field in your database structure for each field in a tape record whether you want all the tape fields in your database or not See below to learn how to import only those fields of interest After you have created a dBASE structure you can list it by hitting lt F5 gt in dBASE or using either the DISPLAY STRUCTURE or LIST STRUCTURE commands An example of some of what you ll see is Field Field Name Type Width 1 FNAME Character 15 2 LNAME Character 20 3 CNAME Character 32 4 STREET Character 36 5 CITY Character 25 6 STATE Character 2 7 ZIP Character 8 8 PHONE Character 16 9 DATE Character 8 10 NOTES Character 50 11 SAW_AD_IN Character 15 12 CUST_NMBR Character 6 eA Total 4 234 Important N ote The Total count displayed by dBASE 234 above is one more than the sum of the number of characters in all of the fields This is because the internal delete flag in the dbase file adds one byte to the dbase record length The record lengths we will deal with the logical record length on tape are one less than this number 34 STEP 2 Use the FX program to append the data from tape to your D BF disk file Select Tape To D isk mode from the main menu Answer all the questions but the last disk file name in the normal fashion Select EBCDIC to ASCII translation or invoke an FXED produced control file etc when appropriate DO NOT choose to add a CR LF after every record The l
147. ne or more garbage characters at the end of the tape file they are likely to be CTRL Z s SUGGESTION CHOOSE TO STOP ON CTRL Z WHENEVER TRANSFERRING TEXT FILES TO TAPE 32 Normally when exchanging data with other computers you ll be sending ASCII or EBCDIC text files In this case it s usually the best choice to stop on any CTRL Z that FX finds It s true that lots of files on your disk contain CTRL Z characters or binary characters which are the same code which are not intended to be interpreted as end of file These include most program files and most graphics files But it s unlikely that you ll want to send binary data to another computer using FX The question is asked Treat CTRL Z in a disk file as END OF FILE If you select this option by hitting Y for Yes any CTRL Z in the disk file will be interpreted as End Of File neither it nor any subsequent characters in the disk file will be written to tape Yes is usually the best choice when writing TEXT files to tape Don t answer Y es if you are writing binary files to tape The DOSCOPY command provides an option that allows you to see CTRL Z s on the screen Well leave it to you to read your DOS Reference Manual to understand the COPY options The following example shows how to see CTRL Z characters on the screen displayed as a right pointing arrow COPY SOURCE TXT B CON lt ENTER gt Tape to dBASE DBF disk files Using FX to directly import tape data into dBASE
148. ng from the beginning Output records are never split between diskettes i e partial output records are never written CREATING AN INPUT DISK FILE FOR USE IN DEBUGGING YOURCONTROL FILE Use FX to transfer several blocks of raw data from tape to disk The data in the disk file must be an exact unmodified copy of the tape data Answer N for No to all the questions FX asks which would otherwise cause FX to perform processing of the input data FX allows you to easily transfer only part of a tape file to disk in case you ve missed this feature in the FX chapter here s an example To transfer only the first 12 physical blocks of tape file 0 to disk when FX asks you to input the tape file number respond 0 1 12 lt ENTER gt RUNNING THE JOB Select D from the main menu Y ou re asked to input the source file name then the target file name The target file may be Any valid disk 8 3 filename with drive and pathname if you like or CON for screen output or PRN for printer output Then FXED says Processing and eventually Done Press lt ESC gt for main menu SAMPLE DISK TO DISK JOB Disk File Processing Hit lt CTRL C gt at any time to ABORT lt S gt for STATUS Enter source file name DATA RAW DATA RAW contains 14166 142 byte records Enter target file name 079XX OUT Skip how many input records lt ENTER gt alone 0 lt ENTER gt Processing DATA RAW to 079XX OUT with FXED Control File LIST20 CF 141
149. nge with other drives Facing the drive from the front to the right of the read write head locate the tape cleaner block usually made of clear plastic set in metal Use a vertical motion to clean the scraping surfaces and debris trap The job of the tape cleaner block is to remove tape debris before it reaches the read write heads It will normally be the dirtiest surface you clean Periodically check and wipe off the rubber gripping fingers on the supply reel hub Do NOT use alcohol on the supply reel hub gripping fingers Brush out the entire tape drive bed with a lint free cloth to remove any remaining debris Let the tape drive dry for several minutes before loading a tape Remember loading a tape with any of the surfaces still damp will defeat the purpose of cleaning and may remove oxide from the tape making the tape unreadable Cartridge drive cleaning procedure Some drives have a cleaning required light or an error code which makes the operator aware when it requires cleaning Most drives do not tell you when they need to be cleaned If the manufacturer recommends a cleaning schedule it would be best to follow that schedule If the manufacturer does not recommend a cleaning schedule use the schedule shown in the above table In general cleaning cartridges are only good for a set number of uses Replace the cleaning cartridge after it has been used the number of times stated by the manufacturer Short Program Descriptions F
150. ns and tell you what it is 48 If you change your mind or make a mistake in the order you can make deletions insertions or replacements at any time FORMAL PRESENTATION OF OUTPUT PHASE COMMANDS lt range gt lt ENTER gt Add the input bytes specified by lt range gt to the output lt range gt Same as lt ENTER gt except that trailing SPACEs are deleted lt range gt X Same as but also removes leading SPACEs and 0 s S Adds a SPACE to the output lt INS gt text lt INS gt Adds the text specified to output at current position lt INS gt lt INS gt text lt INS gt Adds the text specified to output at current position 1 xN Add x digits of the Input Record Number to the output x lt TAB gt Tab to column x of the output xU Undefine delete output definition line x XI Start Inserting output definition lines after line x xR Start Replacing output definition lines at line x xC Start editing Comments at line x lt F1 gt lt F4 gt Define Invoke F1 F4 macro M Show macros F1 F4 lt DEL gt Undefine macro a b V View lines a b of the output definitions Displays this list of commands lt ESC gt Return to Main Menu THE OUTPUT COMMAND S BY EXAMPLE Each pair of numbers below in parentheses is created by FXED The first number is a line number for editing purposes the second is the next available character position in the output record you re
151. o append to an existing disk file or lt filename gt D to append to an existing DBF file bp OO mb tim Di or hit lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt for main menu TEMP Transferring tape file 0 to disk file TEMP Sabie Appending tape file 1 to disk file TEMP SEN re eEG Appending tape file 5 to disk file TEMP File Transfer s Complete ASCII EBCDIC and EBCDIC ASCII CODE CONVERSION A When transfer is from tape and you have not picked the Reset 8th bit option the following question will be asked Convert EBCDIC to ASCII Y N 30 If the data on tape is written in pure EBCDIC doesnt contain PACKED DECIMAL nor ZONED DECIMAL see 4 below you will surely want to answer with Y for Yes This will cause the EBCDIC data to be translated to ASCII on a character to character basis before it continues on its way to the PC s screen printer or disk Otherwise answer N NOTES In the following discussion codes are shown as decimal hex FX handles three special situations in EBCD IC ASCII conversion EBCDIC lower case numbers 176 B0 to 185 B9 are translated to the corresponding ASCII numbers 48 30 to 57 39 There are undefined gaps in the 256 possible 8 bit EBCDIC codes If an illegal EBCDIC code e g 203 CB is read from tape an ASCII UPARROW 94 5E is substituted If a legal EBCDIC code which has n
152. o continue anyway Some dBASE workalikes produce D BF files with an extra wob of garbage at the end FX will add records at the logical end of the DBF file overlaying any garbage If the DBF file is shorter than it ought be there s no hope you ll get the following message 36 Try again Enter a disk lt filename gt or lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt alone for main menu If you are running without a control file in tape to DBF mode and pick one of the FX options which adds CR LF or changes single CR s or LF s into CR LF you ll get the following error message records in D BF files aren t supposed to end in CR LF Above requested CR LF option not valid when transferring to a D BF file Press any key to continue OTHER FX ERROR MESSAGES WHICH NEED EXPLAINING FX is written in Microsoft QuickBasic and assembly language For unknown reasons QuickBasic takes over some of the already cryptic D O S error messages and obfuscates them even more You could see the following messages here s what they mean If you try to write to an open file on a network or an open shared file on a computer or if you try to write to a disk file which DOS or Windows can not allow you ll get Permission D enied in line nnnn of module FX at address ABCD EG FF Hit any key to return to system This can result when you attempt to transfer from tape to 1 A Write Protected diskette 2 A Read Only disk file 3 A file which is in use open already
153. o reasonable ASCII equivalent e g 26 1A CC is read an ASCII BACK SLASH 92 5C is substituted FX itself makes no special provision for this 4th case but Electrovalue s FX ED program allows you to handle it effectively EBCDIC tapes and sometimes ASCII tapes may contain numerical data encoded as Packed Decimal Zoned Decimal and or Packed HEX BCD FX can translate these to ASCII after you identify them field by field using the FXED program See the Translation Definition Phase of the FXED chapter of this book for full details B When transferring data to tape the following question will be asked Convert ASCII to EBCDIC If you answer N the disk data will be written to tape without any changes i e bit for bit byte for byte this is called a BINARY transfer Answer Y to produce an EBCDIC tape 1 There are six ASCII characters that have no EBCDIC equivalent These are translated into an EBCDIC BACKSLASH 224 E0 They are ENQ 5 05 DC3 19 13 GS 29 1D US 31 1F 96 60 124 7C 2 ASCII is a 7 bit code defined by an official standards group ASCII characters can assume decimal values from 0 127 The PC allows what some call Extended ASCII where the 8th bit is set creating characters with values from 128 255 decimal There are no standards with respect to these characters neither do they have EBCDIC equivalents If you ask FX to convert them from ASCII to EBCDIC the eighth bit will first be masked off then t
154. oad point xx M Multiple Repeat M commands xx times M alone resets xx N Numeric DECIMAL or HEX buffer display CR LF each xx bytes N Same as N but displays the end of buffer CTRL N Toggle Numeric display mode between DECIMAL and HEX D N O unload tape xx P Fill the write buffer with a Pattern where xx is 0 255 Q Quit the keys program R Read a block from the tape M xx Set size of block to be used by W K amp J S alone displays size Triple Does W 1B R M Duplicate last command again M Write a block to tape Block size is set by S command M Zap tape Eras ntire tape for security purposes F5 Decrease CR LF N by 1 and redisplay buffer A amp E F8 Increase CR LF N by 1 and redisplay buffer A amp E 2 Print this list of commands D SO o wv Overview of keys operation When KEYS is first executed it calls DOS to allocate a 64K I O buffer All read write and buffer fill P command operations take place with respect to this same buffer Commands which display the contents of the buffer are terminated at the length of the last block read in from tape or by an S set write buffer size command if an S command has followed the last Read Each KEYS command consists of a single character Some commands may be preceded by a decimal argument sometimes this number is optional It is never necessary to hit the lt ENTER gt key KEYS
155. of output bytes resulting from this line the length of the output string information on the format of the output string and a semicolon followed by an optional user generated comment Ol O 001 001 L 001 ni Start with 02 I 016 025 O 002 011 L 010 TRUN FLD First Name 03 Oo 012 014 L 003 p Addi HH 04 I 026 026 O 015 015 L 001 FIELD Middle Initial 05 oO 016 018 L 003 TM TI Add 06 I 001 015 O 019 033 L 015 TRUN FLD Last Name Di O 034 035 L 002 Add 08 I 027 035 O 036 044 L 009 FIELD 7 SSN 09 O 045 046 L 002 Add 10 I 044 044 O 047 047 L 001 FIELD Sex 11 O 048 050 L 003 lt CR gt lt LF gt End with lt CR gt lt LF gt now hit lt ESC gt to return to main menu Then most importantly hit Q to save the control file to disk FXED retums control to DOS RUNNING THE TAPE TO DISK TRANSFER From here assuming that you have not made any mistakes it s time to run the actual tape to disk transfer with FX FX lt ENTER gt From the main menu select D for Tape to D isk FX asks what tape file contains the data if you don t know find out see the MY STERY TAPE chapter in the User Manual if you don t know how The first file on tape is known as file 0 Try that if you like If you get hardly any output or none at all it s probably a labeled tape re run the job with file 1 as input Reset 8th bit N If input
156. on a network 4 A lt filename gt which is a directory name off the current or specified directory FX requires a good deal of free memory If you have much less than 640 Kb of ram or if you have many tsr s running or if you are shelling out from another program you may get this message If there s enough memory for the tape I O buffers but not enough memory for internal QuickBasic buffers you ll see Out of string space in line nnnn of module FX at address ABCD E F00 Hit any key to return to system If you try to transfer a bad disk file disk directory or file is unreadable by D O S to tape you ll get Device I O Error in line nnnn of module FX at address ABCD E F00 Hit any key to return to system Batch mode recording and playback of FX user input Would you like to easily run the same FX job again and again Would you like to set up FX jobs to be run from beginning to end by inexperienced personnel with a single command line entry You can automatically record all the keystrokes you enter during an FX session and play them back at any time Here s how it works To record all your input in a file simply enter at the command line FX Refllename lt ENTER gt eg FX R DAILYRUN lt ENTER gt 37 The job will actually be run and all the keystrokes you enter will be recorded in the file you have specified on the command line To playback run the same job again simply enter at the command line FX P filename lt ENTER gt
157. ontains the record layout information that came with the tape FIELD CONTENTS START END LENGTH 1 LAST NAME ih 15 15 2 FIRST NAME 16 25 10 3 MIDDLE INITIAL 26 26 1 4 SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER 27 35 9 5 SALARY DDDDDDCC 36 43 8 6 MALE M or FEMALE F 44 44 1 In the example which is unfolding we re going to show how to import just some of these fields and in a different order into industry standard delimited data format User input is shown in bold From the DOS command line we invoke the FXED program Then we answer 2 questions to pick a name for the control file and tell FXED the logical record length When the first menu is displayed we choose T to enter the Translation D efinition Phase FXED lt ENTER gt FX EDITOR Rev 96 31 02 08 94 Type the name of the FXED Control file DELI lt ENTER gt Use any name you like Editing a new FXED Control file DELI CF How many bytes are in each fixed length input record 44 lt ENTER gt Editing FXED Control file DELI CF Main Menu Define Types of Translation Define Output Record Layout Define Conditional Record Processing Define Logical End of File EOF Define Secondary Translation Table View all definitions Print all definitions Disk File Processing Generate DBF file Change Input Record Length File Maintenance Quit Saving results on disk Abort
158. onversational mode or D2T J OPTIONS lt ENTER gt command line mode As indicated in the above example D2T is most easily invoked in conversational question and answer mode Altemately after you gain experience all the options may be specified on a single command line Any command line options entered will result in the corresponding questions not being asked in the console dialogue Conversely if you forget to enter one or more required command line options D 2T will ask you one or more questions before processing the input file Typing on the command line causes D 2T to display a list of all valid command line options CONVERSATIONAL MODE CONSOLE DIALOGUE 95 Name of DBF File to Transfer to Tape Simply input the name of the DBF file and hit lt ENTER gt The filename extension D BF is assumed and may be omitted The name of the DBF file may be preceded by a pathname as required This question is skipped if the filename is specified on the command line with the D FI D isk File Input option Enter tape file number or EO D for End Of D ata first file on tape is 0 Simply input the tape file number and hit lt ENTER gt If you specify any number greater than 0 D 2T will space past that many file marks before wniting the disk file to tape If this is a virgin tape you must answer 0 Enter the characters EOD End Of Data to cause D2T to add the tape file at the end of a string of one or more previously written f
159. or rejected whether to stop processing based on encountering specific data from tape and whether special secondary translation is to take place It is assumed that you have on paper a description of the logical record layout of your tape data You figure out before running FXED the starting and ending byte numbers or starting byte and length of each field in an input record and what type of translation if any you will want FX to perform on each field from tape You plan the order in which input fields are to appear in the output records any literal text you want to insert between fields any conditional record acceptance criteria and whether you want to process to the end of the input file or stop when the data meets a particular criterion FXED WAS DESIGNED TO BE AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO USE If you have a clear understanding of the data format on your tape and what you want to see for output you ll love FXED for its straightforward clear and quick approach to letting you define the job to be done D isk To D isk Mode If things don t work just right the first time you ll enjoy the ease with which you can use FXED s INPUT DATA FROM DISK mode to view the results on the screen or printer without leaving FXED go back and make changes to the existing control file and try again until you re satisfied Independent of its use in the magnetic tape environment disk to disk mode makes FX ED a powerful general purpose data formatting program
160. ore the two filemarks that mark the end of data When reading the tape CUBS will read in one less file or block and not give an error Ex You tell CUBS to write 250 blocks Every so often CUBS reads in 249 and reports no error This is to be expected We recommend specifying M xxx when using CUBS to write a test tape If a valid mode is not specified CUBS will remind the user that he can input CUBS lt ENTER gt to see a help screen containing a list of the valid CUBS command line arguments EXAMPLE COMMAND LINE To Analyze a mystery tape type CUBS L P A U lt ENTER gt CUBS will analyze the entire tape checking for Labels Print the results Abort when End Ort Das is hit Unload the tape and quit OPERATION WHEN NO OPTIONSARE SPECIFIED Normally CUBS performs one pass on the tape at high speed prints a summary line rewinds and quits See the and U command line options and the CTRL A run time command No messages are output between BOT and EOT while CUBS is writing W or reading A L and R unless a hard error is encountered For hard errors appropriate error messages are displayed Corrected read errors are reported on a file by file basis only unless the C option is in effect then you ll see CER on a block by block basis for each read error that the tape drive was able to detect and correct Also see the L command line option and the S run time command The analyze modes A amp L display tape statis
161. ou which macro you want to delete Then it may be re defined if you like To display your macros while in the Translation Definition Phase or Output Definition phase use the M command The contents of all 4 macros associated with that particular phase will be displayed on the screen THE TRANSLATION DEFINITION PHASE Select T from the main menu THIS PHASE MUST BE USED You must define a translation type for each input byte which a will become part of the output or b will be evaluated in a logical expression i e conditional acceptance or logical End of File Even if the input data is an ASCII file If the data is already in ASCII and you don t want to change translate it in any way simply define the entire record length for no translation with the command FORMAL PRESENTATION OF TRANSLATION COMMANDS lt range gt E Translate the bytes in lt range gt from EBCDIC to ASCII lt range gt e EBCDIC to ASCII but force lower case ASCII output lt range gt CTRL E EBCDIC to ASCII but force UPPER case ASCII output lt range gt ALT e Same as e but not forcing LOWER case at beginning of words lt range gt P Translate the bytes in lt range gt from Packed decimal to ASCII lt range gt U Undefines the bytes in lt range gt UNDEFINE PREVIOUS DEFINITIONS TO SAVE PROCESSING TIME lt range gt Z Translate the bytes in lt range gt fro
162. out receiving this message occasionally However note that not all drives return corrected error status to the calling program Unrecoverable Read Error s in block 150 Bad block s length 2587 C ontinue S kip or A bort It s up to you to decide based on the type of data you re reading and the use it is to be put to what you want to do If you pick Continue and the bad block has a bad length it will mess up the alignment of any following fixed length records Picking Skip skip the bad block then continue might make more sense in this situation If you continue the possibly corrupted data will become part of the file If you abort then the good data already read will be processed e g saved to disk if you re doing a tape to disk transfer but the rest of the tape file will be ignored and the tape positioned back to the beginning of the file Dialogue when writing to tape Enter disk lt filename gt ornames eg ABC TXT LILY BAS XYZ To trensfer a single file from disk to tape enter the file name with or without drive and directory specifiers just as you would with any DOS command then hit CENTER For Example CENSUS DAT lt ENTER gt C NAMES GIRLS BLONDES TXT lt ENTER gt FX allows you to transfer more than one file to tape without going through the D isk To Tape dialogue for each file See MULTIPLE FILE TRANSFERS on the next page Do you want to TRUNCATE or EXPAND the
163. output from selected input fields Force lower case output except for the first character of each word Tab back fill with spaces to particular output byte positions FXED is not needed for tape to disk transfers where the features you need to process your input data are record oriented rather than field oriented You don t need FXED if you job is limited to straight EBCDIC to ASCII translation adding lt CR gt lt LF gt at the end of each logical record converting all control characters to spaces etc These and other record oriented and file oriented features are invoked by answering questions in the dialogue when you run the FX tape disk file exchange program INTRODUCTION Whenever you run FX if you specify that you are transferring data from tape to disk screen or printer you ll be asked if the input data processing criteria are defined in an FXED control file You either input the name of the control file which you produced with FXED previously or hit the lt ENTER gt key alone to continue with the FX console dialogue which will let you select FX s built in less powerful input data processing features The control file which PX ED produces tells FX how to process translate each byte in each fixed length record on tape which input data fields will become part of the output records and in which order where to insert optional literal text in each output record whether entire records from tape are to be conditionally accepted
164. ower case X Lower case Y Lower case Z RS CSR E U a Rk RECH mJ olin RES CR RECHERCHES RES RR RECHERCHES EN CH RER EECHER e X SR SSES BRECH E RER e IS RER BRECH RI RE SR SR EECH RENE CR SECHS SSC RENE gt RSC _ 10010 CH RE EL CS RSC L e RSR EES oo SS RSC E RREOD CSS SSC ES RRE A SR RSR ERSETZE RE a SSC tof EE RE CR SCH mf __ oon 6 gt 12 SEIT REN CSS RSC ES RSC RH SS RSC EES E Z 7 74 E 7 ERR RSR shim RE RUE RE 125 SET RER RRE ECH REH RE SSES RER ER 7 ommun 126
165. pe upon program termination Normally tape is only rewound Works only with tape drives which support this feature E Convert input data from EBCDIC to ASCII See note under CONSOLE DIALOGUE about EBCDIC to ASCII conversions A Do NOT convert from EBCDIC to ASCII Use when TFI input has been specified to discourage DITTO from explicitly asking if you want to convert EBCDIC to ASCII C or H or B Output as Characters or Hex or Both Choose only one Example of B Both HEX amp Character output NOTE Tape data is EBCDIC field 65 67 is Packed D ecimal 0000000001111111111222222222233333333334444444444555555555566666666667777 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123 DCECD4444444444DCCD444444 4FFF 4F 6F 4ECDC4EE4 444 4DDDCCDCD4 44444 44CC55 7ECFDCE 292590000000000151500000002120112059550230000046541495000000009115C620818 KISER JEAN 212 1 2 VINE ST MONDAMIN TA WBOQAY CDDDCDE4 444444 4ECDDCE4 444 4FFFF4FEC4EE4FF 444 44 4CDCCDCE4 4444444 4CD8 61DFDCE4 363395200000000386412000001803093802301400000079553580000000003603C508190 COLLINS THOMAS 1803 9TH ST 14 GREELEY CO NOQAZ ECDDCCDE4 44444 4DCCCCCD44 4 4FFFF 4D4DCDD4 4444444 4CDCCEEDDC4444444DD618DCFDCE 693391420000000493815300007117050719200000000073142365500000004641C210819 WILLIAMS MICHAEL 7117 N PARK GLADSTONE MO KAOQAZ DECDDC444444444DDECD44 444 4FFFFA4ADCCDCDD4CD44 4 4 4ECCDE4DDECDC4 44 4DD656EFDC44 627664000000000968130000003506059325330
166. pe use efficiency the programmer writing a mainframe tape normally appends an integer number of logical records into each tape block The number of records per physical block is called the BLOCKING FACTOR For example if the logical record length is 131 bytes the physical tape blocks might be written as 1310 bytes 10 1 blocking factor or 13 100 bytes 100 1 blocking factor All the blocks in a tape file are usually the same length with the frequent exception that the last block contains only the last N records from the disk file Usually the last block is written as such a short block less frequently it is padded out to full size with SPACE NUL or characters When you tell the LRL program the size of the first and last blocks of a tape file it presents you with a list of all possible logical record lengths Use the CUBS program s A or L modes to quickly determine the size of the first and last blocks in each file on any tape For example CUBS A lt ENTER gt See the CUBS chapter for further information The numbers LRL outputs are those numbers which divide evenly no fractional result into both the first and the last physical block lengths All possible blocking factors from 1 1 through 10 000 1 are considered When 104 the last block of a tape file is smaller than the first the number of choices will be small LRL has more information on which to base its guesses if the first and last blocks are the same size LRL will pres
167. pect that the following block or file to remain intact For example if you have ten files on tape you can not replace file 5 even with a file of the same size and expect file 6 to remain intact TAPE ERRORS 113 Tape read errors are rare if the tape is not old and the tape drive read write head is kept clean Most errors that are detected are due to a fleck of dust or dirt on the tape or dirty heads and are recoverable READ RETRIES If after a read operation the status indicates a read error the Electrovalue software will backspace and attempt to re read the block several times before posting any error conditions on the screen for operator action Most tape drives contain a tape cleaning head that is designed to remove flecks of dust and dirt as the tape passes over it Tape capacity The approximate capacity of various reels of tape is presented here for reference The actual capacity of a reel of tape falls off quickly for small block sizes Each block written to tape is followed by a 0 3 to 0 6 inch inter block gap IBG of blank tape The figures below are for blocks of 3200 bytes At a block size of 32K the capacity increases by approximately 13 Approximate 9 track tape capacity REEL FEET Ob CAPACITY CAPACITY CAPACITY CAPACITY DIAMETE TAPE 800 BPI 1600 BPI 3200 BPI 6250 BPI da 600 5 MB 10 MB 20 MB 38 MB 8 5 1200 10 MB 20 MB 40 MB 76 MB LONS 2400 20 MB 40 MB 80 MB 152 MB 10 5 3600 30 MB 60 MB
168. place all control characters 00 31 dec with SPACEs 32 dec Y N Y Change all CR s and or LF s into the CR LF pair Y N N Convert EBCDIC to ASCII Y N Y Add CR LF after how many char lt ENTER gt alone none 80 lt ENTER gt Enter a single disk lt filename gt or lt filename gt A to append to an existing disk file or lt filename gt D to append to an existing DBF file or hit lt F1 gt lt ENTER gt for main menu ABC TXT lt ENTER gt Transferring tape fil D to disk file ABC TXT 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 19680 320 File Transfer s Complete Press any key to continue Below is a sample dialog for D isk to Tape transfer User input is shown in bold Comments in italics DISK TO TAPE lt ENTER gt for Main Manu Enter disk lt filename gt or names e g ABC TXT LILY BAS XYZ GAMES BAS Use a separate tape file for each disk file Y N Y Do you want to TRUNCATE or EXPAND the records you re transferring to tape Y N N Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y N N Append disk file s to the END of an EXISTING tape file Y N N Treat CTRL Z in a disk file as END OF FILE Y N Y Enter BLOCK LENGTH alone for last block padded with SPACES or BLOCK LENGTH S to allow short last block 9999 S Enter starting tape fil 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt alone for END OF DATA 11 lt ENTER gt Transferring disk file GAMES ART BAS to tape file 11 1879 bytes in disk file 1879 Transfer
169. question with more than one file name put a space between each file name and hit lt ENTER gt at the end of the list and you can specify wildcard characters or or a combination of both Any answer except a single file name results in the following question Use a separate tape file for each disk file If you answer N all the disk files will be appended into one tape file Answering Y will put each disk file in a separate tape file As the transfers take place you ll see the details file names tape file numbers etc on the screen Here s a sample session Enter disk lt filename gt or names e g ABC TXT LILY BAS XYZ TXT Use a separate tape file for each disk file Y Enter starting tape file 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt for END OF DATA 0 Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Enter BLOCK LENGTH alone for last block padded with SPACEs or BLOCK LENGTH S to allow short last block 65535 S K Transferring disk file FXPN TXT to tape file 0 34374 bytes in disk file Transferring disk file SUPN TXT to tape file 1 28395 bytes in disk file File Transfer s Complete 2 File s transferred from disk to tape Press any key to continue Truncation amp expansion DISK TO TAPE TRUNCATION AND OREXPANSION FEATURES These features provide you with a helpful means of creating mainframe friendly fixed length logical records on tape from certain types of data As mentioned previously during the disk to tape dialogue you ll be asked the que
170. r B oth Both W and R CUBS writes a full CUBS compatible tape from the BOT marker to the EOT marker outputs a summary line and rewinds the tape Then CUBS reads the full CUBS compatible tape just written from the BOT marker to the EOT marker outputs a summary line rewinds the tape and quits The B mode provides a quick method of writing and reading a full tape with extensive checking 86 If the repeat option is used at the end of the command line the B mode will run forever until aborted with CTRL A This provides a means of life testing the tape drive subsystem over an extended period of time while accumulating statistics over a number of passes Command line options H HALT ON ERROR Causes CUBS to halt on any error Hit lt ESC gt to continue Examples CUBS A H lt ENTER gt CUBS R H lt ENTER gt CUBS W H lt ENTER gt C REPORT CORRECTED READ ERRORS ON A BLOCK BY BLOCK BASIS Modern tape drives can detect a dead Track and using the redundancy provided by the parity bit reconstruct the missing bit The drive reports this to the computer as a CORRECTED ERROR CUBS reports these to the user during A L or R modes in the file summary as CERs If you want to have CERs reported as they occur on a block by block basis use the C option Note that not all drives report these corrected errors to the host L LOG RESULTS TO A DISK FILE When L alone is input the log file is named CUBS LOG If L fil
171. rams shows that the first n bytes of each physical tape block contain superfluous characters An example of this is with vestigial variable length block data each block starts with an extra 4 bytes even when the following data is fixed length To facilitate processing this type of data FX provides a CHOP option to discard the first n bytes of each physical tape block Just add C after the tape file number then FX will ask an extra question e g Enter tape file number the first tape file is 0 2 C lt ENTER gt Chop the first how many characters of each block 4 lt ENTER gt NOTE The CHOP feature is incompatible with the Expand single CR or LF into CR LF and Add CR LF every n characters features The console dialogue doesn t invite the user to select them when CHO Ping is in effect FAST MULTIPLE BLOCK MODE the default mode when reading tape 24 FX can read from tape in single block mode and multiple block mode Multiple block mode the default is usually significantly faster especially if you are reading small tape blocks The data is read from tape at full tape speed in streaming mode without stopping the tape between blocks until a large memory buffer is filled then the entire buffer is processed For tape to disk reads the total number of bytes in the aggregate multi block read is displayed on the screen Whenever you are at the main menu or reading from tape a reverse vid
172. re the 9 in 9 track comes from now you know 18 and 36 track Simply put data is recorded across 18 or 36 tracks on tape frames with check bytes It s not as simple as 9 track tape Give us a call or check the ECMA standards below if you are interested in this Check the ECMA standard 120 for a detailed analysis of 18 track tape formats You may check the ECMA standard 196 for a detailed analysis of 36 track tape formats DATA CHARACTER SETS EBCDIC amp ASCII Back in the early days of 2 computer tape data was often stored as Binary Coded Decimal BCD This six bit data corresponded to the keypunch code of early IBM keypunch machines Other computer manufactures used similar if not identical six bit representations IBM expanded the BCD code to include upper and lower case characters and some other control characters IBM called this the Extended Binary Coded D ecimal Interchange Code EBCDIC In the Telegraph and Teletype industry a seven bit code called ASCII was beginning to replace a five bit baudot code Because ASCII could represent letters and upper and lowercase characters it was also used in computer systems Today we know the first 128 characters as the ASCII character set As an 8 bit representation the most significant bit is zero When the most significant bit is one we have what is sometimes called the extended ASCII code Data is stored on all magnetic tapes as magnetized areas recorded in one of two ways
173. ring disk file GAMES BALL BAS to tape fil 12 1966 bytes in disk file 1966 38 Transferring disk file GAMES MUSICA BAS to tap file 9999 3432 file 2184 file 6945 File Transfer s Complete Transferring disk file GAMES PYRAMID BAS to tap 15 File s transferred from disk to tape Press any key to continue 39 fil fil 19 Transferring disk file GAMES PIECHART BAS to tape file 20 25 13431 2184 6945 bytes in disk bytes in disk bytes in disk The FXED Program PURPOSE The FX Editor FXED is used to create and modify FXED control files FKED control files provide field oriented runtime instructions to any of several Electrovalue programs to facilitate advanced extensive processing of fixed length mainframe data records The powerful FXED control file features may be invoked during transfers from Tape to D isk FX Program D isk to Disk intemal to FX ED and Tape to Tape optional Tape Copy Program LESS ADVANCED IMPORTING OF TAPE DATA WITH FX DOES NOT REQUIRE THE USE OF FXED Use FXED to take advantage of one or more of the following features Delete unwanted fields from each input record to save space on your disk Print mailing labels without phone numbers etc Conditionally accept or reject entire input records based
174. ring lt INS gt n lt TAB gt Four different commands are shown on the above line The lt INS gt command by far the most common lets you insert any string of characters into the output record starting at the next available spot Use it to add field delimiters to add lt CR gt lt LF gt at the end of each record to insert characters in date fields to insert characters in telephone numbers etc The S command is simply a shorthand way of inserting a single SPACE character The lt INS gt lt INS gt text string lt INS gt Forward Insertion command is explained with examples on the previous page 55 The n lt TAB gt command inserts multiple SPACE characters up to but not including output record position n The lt TAB gt feature is of particular use following one or more or X commands which have been used to extract and combine the significant characters of several fields Examples are in creating mailing labels and in creating lookup fields in real estate data from lot and block numbers The conditional processing definition phase This phase in the creation of an FXED control file is optional Conditional record processing provides the means by which each input record may be accepted or rejected based on the contents of one or more of its fields Records that meet all of the criteria are accepted the others are rejected Comparison operators are used in comparing the contents of a field with a literal text or b th
175. s If it s a wrong density tape you ll get Hard Error HER on each block and the block lengths displayed will vary by 10 or 20 but sort of hover around some value If you try to display the data using D neither the ASCII nor EBCDIC will make any sense Another scenario suggestive of a wrong density tape or a backup tape is as follows You can read in the label information fine but you get hard errors every time you try to read in a data block This can happen when you are sent a tape in a backup data format from a mainframe system The data in the label can be read but the blocks may be too large or may be compressed with a software program What code EBCDIC packed or Zoned Decimal You probably want all the data you re importing to end up as ASCII on your PC Use the KEYS program s R command to read the first block of the data file on tape if it is a labeled tape first type 1F to skip past the label file Then display that data side by side in DECIMAL ASCII and EBCDIC converted to ASCII by hitting D or D The data type can be identified by the heading under the section of data that you can read You can fit more data on the screen by re displaying the data with the E command if EBCDIC or with the A command if ASCII The numbers and the other code will not be displayed with the E and A commands Other ways to determine code if the tape is a labeled tape is to use the CUBS program s L mode or KEYS
176. s are listed below along with the names of the Electrovalue utility programs you can use to determine them 1 WHICH TAPE FILE IS THE DATA IN CUBS A and L modes KEYS R amp C commands 2 THE LENGTH OF EACH DATA FILE IN BYTES CUBS A and L modes 3 LOGICAL RECORD LENGTH KEYS R C A ET PaT and F8 LRL after running CUBS A or L modes CUBS L mode 4 FIELD DEFINITIONS WITHIN EACH LOGICAL RECORD DITTO amp KEYS 5 DENSITY KEYS R command C command 6 CODE eg ASCII EBCDIC PACKED ZONED DECIMAL KEYS R D A E N C and CTRL N commands CUBS L mode see pg M2a NOTE KEYS CUBS and DITTO can do alot more than the few features that are described below Each is fully documented in its own chapter read about them in detail sometime CAUTION CUBSAND KEYSCAN EASILY WRITE ON TAPE IF YOU HIT THE WRONG KEY WRITE PROTECT THE TAPE FIRST BY REMOVING THE WRITE RING OR PUSHING THE THUMBWHEEL TO THE LOCKED POSITION Which tape file is the data in Unlike disk files tape files aren t listed in a directory A tape file is a physical thing it s 0 or more bytes of data followed by a hardware detectable thing called either an End Of File mark EOF mark filemark Electrovalue s term of choice or a tape mark term sometimes used by mainframe programmers By convention the first file on tape is file 0 Subsequent files are just counted sequentiall
177. s is for convenience you could make these re definitions one at a time but that takes lots of individual swoops 62 Generate a dbf file OVERVIEW FXED can automatically create an empty dBASE compatible DBF structure from the information found in an FXED control file The D BF structure is ready to receive data directly from tape via FX s fast unique Tape to D BF feature You re guaranteed a perfect match because the same output field definitions which will process the tape data are used to define the D BF structure Note that FX ED s Disk to Disk mode can not append a disk data file to a D BF file ADDITIONAL FEATURES Secondary commands in the G phase can also be used to View and or Print the structure of any D BF file whether created by FXED or not FXED displays more information about a D BF structure than dBASE and workalikes the range of bytes in each field is also shown HOW DBF FIELDSARE NAMED The D BF fields are named whenever possible from the first word in the FXED control file s output definition comment field Only the first ten characters of the first word of each comment are considered in creating the D BF field names If a valid field name can not be constructed from the first word in the comment field e g no comment first word invalid as a DBF field name field name already used FXED constructs a name consisting of a single alpha character plus the control file s output definition line number eg A01
178. s the low order nibble Negative values have a D as the low order nibble Any other value in the sign nibble is illegal The character 3 is output for an illegal sign specification VALUE ON TAPE HEX FX FXED ASCII OUTPUT 1234 01 23 4C 01234 1234 01 23 4F 01234 1234 01 23 4D Wl RE 71 PACKED BCD PACKED HEX looks like packed decimal but the least significant nibble is NOT treated as an indication of the sign of the data Use FXED s H translation type to have it converted to ASCII Each byte will yield 2 characters The relationship between the number of bytes input and the number of ASCII characters output for each packed decimal field is NUMBER OF PACKED DECIMAL INPUT BYTES x2 NUMBER OF ASCII OUTPUT BYTES ZONED DECIMAL Zoned decimal numbers are similar to standard EBCDIC numbers in that every digit occupies one byte The sign of a zoned decimal field however replaces the high order nibble of the least significant byte If the high order nibble of the last byte is A C E or F the value is positive If the high order nibble is B or D the value is negative Anything else 0 9 is illegal Electrovalue software outputs the substitute sign character when an illegal sign specification is detected VALUE ON TAPE HEX FX FXED ASCII OUTPUT 1234 Fl F2 F3 A4 m 1234 1234 Fl F2 F3 C4 We 1234 41234 F1 F2 F3 E4 1234 1234 F1 F2 F3 F4 Ww 1234 1234 F1 F2 F3 B4 N 1234 1234 F1
179. se CR LF N by 1 and redisplay buffer A amp E only See the description of F5 for this command 81 The CUBS Program TAPE ANALYSIS HARD WARE TEST PROGRAM FORFORMATIED TAPE DRIVES PURPOSES CUBS provides high speed streaming tape analysis capabilities If you ve received a tape to be transferred to disk by the FX file exchange program and would like to quickly determine the size of each tape file CUBS Analyze mode is the tool you ll use The Analyze mode quickly displays the size of each tape file in bytes as well as the file and block structure of the entire tape Any hard read errors and or corrected read errors are reported on a file by file basis and accumulated for the entire tape The additional information present in Labeled Tapes may optionally be displayed CUBS provides a means of life testing tape drives while accumulating performance statistics Finally CUBS provides the means of writing tapes of known structure for use in testing situations We recommend running CUBS in the L mode to analyze unknown tapes The L mode will analyze any label information if found If the tape is not labeled the L mode will give you the same information as CUBS A mode CUBS HELP SCREEN Usage CUBS mode options lt ENTER gt Modes A Analyze any tape W Write CUBS compatible tape A Analyze any tape min output L Analyze Tape and Display Labels R Read CUBS compatible tape E Erase Entire Tape B Both Wri
180. so specify that the maximum size block for interchange is 2048 bytes unless larger by mutual agreement and larger blocks are a common exception to the rule The Electrovalue software can read and write blocks up to 65535 bytes 64K 1 If you request a block size larger than 64K 1 FX will remind you of the maximum size Of course your hardware may limit your block size too 27 Short last block Normally FX will write each tape block of a file the same length filling out the last block with ASCII or EBCDIC SPACE characters as necessary to maintain the specified block size This feature can be disabled by following the block size with S in which case the last block will contain only the last characters with no padding characters EXAMPLES OF BLOCK LENGTH ENTRY Enter BLOCK LENGTH 12345 lt ENTER gt Enter BLOCK LENGTH 56789 S lt ENTER gt ASCII to EBCDIC conversion Convert ASCII to EBCDIC H If you answer N the disk data will be written to tape EXACTLY as itis on disk bit for bit byte for byte i e what is called a BINARY transfer of data END OF TAPE MARKER Tape Full The end of the physical tape is indicated by a reflective marker called End Of Tape or EOT for short FX allows the transfer of large disk files to multiple reels of tape If EOT is hit you ll be prompted to mount a new tape so the disk to tape file transfer can continue Multiple file transfer You can answer the Enter disk lt filename gt
181. ssssssssssssssesssssesessssesesesesesssseseseseseves 40 MACROS OUTPUT DEFINITION PHASE FORWARD INSERTIONS OUTPUT DEFINITION PHASE DISCUSSION amp EXAMPLES THE CONDITIONAL PROCESSING DEFINITION PHASE TAKING THE CONDITIONAL EXPRESSION FROM A DISK FILE THE SECONDARY TRANSLATION DEFINITION PHASE CONVERTING ALL CONTROL CHARACTERS TO SPACES GENERATE A DBF FILE DBF FILE GENERATION THE KEYS PROGRAM ccssssssssssssssssssesssesesessssesesesessssssessesesevee 73 A SUMMARY OF KEYS COMMANDS OVERVIEW OF KEYS OPERATION COMMAND LINE OPTIONS RUN TIME COMMANDS THE DITTO PROGRAM ccscssssssssssessessessenscasensensenseasensensensenseneenes 90 HOWTO RUN DITTO EE 91 THE D2T PROGRAM csscssssssssssssssssesscssenscnsensensenseasensensensensensencenes 94 PACKED DECIMAL AND ZONED DECIMAL NUMERIC FIELDS 100 WRITING MULTIPLE FILES TO TAPE ssssssssssseessstessrttssstessssessrtesnst 101 DEALING WITH MYSTERY TAPEG cccsscsscsssscsessessessenseseees 103 WHICH TAPE FILE IS THE DATA IN HOW MANY BYTES IN A TAPE FILE NEE 104 FINDING THE LOGICAL RECORD LENGTH 104 THE LRL PROGRAM 104 FIGURING OUT THE FIELD DEFINITIONS 107 WRONG DENSITY ou eeeeceeseeeeeseeeeeseeeeseeeeaseeeaeeesseseeeeee 107 WHAT CODE EBCDIC PACKED OR ZONED DECIMAL 108 BASIC INFORMATION TAPE DATA FORMATG cscss000 110 EXPORTING DATABASE DISK DATA TO TAPE
182. st 4 digits a decimal point literally inserted then the last 2 digits D BF Date Fields are 8 characters long When displayed e g by the EDIT command the extra two characters are slash characters used as separators Date fields stored internally in the DBF file are still 8 characters long but the slashes are absent instead the most significant digits of the year are present For example the 8 character D BF date as shown by the EDIT command 11 22 88 is represented internally as the 8 characters 19881122 Usually mainframe tapes represent dates aa MMDDYY Use the Electrovalue KEYS program to make a quick inspection if the paperwork that came with the tape doesn t make it clear You can use the Output Definition Phase of EX ED along with its ability to define literal text insertions e g the missing 19 to instruct FX to change the order of things and insert the 19 when the Tape to D isk job is run D BF Logical Fields are one byte long and contain either the character T for True or F for False It s not likely that you ll find T s and F s on mainframe data tapes but you can easily add them as place holders using the INSERT function during FX ED s Output D efinition Phase Index files associated with a DBF file Appending tape data to a DBF file has no effect on any INDEX NDX IDX etc files which may be associated with the D BF file If your application requires index files be sure to rebuild them after ad
183. stion Do you want to TRUNCATE or EXPAND the records youre transferring to tape If you answer Y for yes FX will ask additional questions that will let you define exactly what you want to do Before the sample dialogue is presented we ll discuss the four possible combinations of features and explain how each operates 1 FIXED LENGTH Logical Records on Disk If your disk file contains FIXED LENGTH LOGICAL RECORDS you can change the length as the records are being written to tape 28 TRUNCATION You can chop the end off of each disk record e g to delete trailing lt CR gt lt LF gt s It s likely that your PC database program creates FLAT ASCII SD F data as records ending in lt CR gt lt LF gt It s just as likely that the mainframe does not want to see records ending in lt CR gt lt LF gt Suppose your records on disk are 82 bytes long the last 2 characters being lt CR gt lt LF gt You can specify an input record size of 82 and an output record size of 80 to chop off the lt CR gt lt LF gt s EXPANSION You can add SPACE s or NUL s ZERO s to the end of each fixed length disk record if you want to pad each record out to a larger size 2 VARIABLE LENGTH Records on Disk If your disk file contains VARIABLE LENGTH RECORDS ending in lt CR gt lt LF gt you can change them to fixed length logical records as they are being written to tape EXPANSION FX will search through the text from the disk file until it finds
184. t 146 T ape or D isk input T Enter tape file number 0 Convert EBCDIC to ASCII Y Enter range of records e g 100 150 or lt ENTER gt to start with first 1 9 Output as C haracters H ex digits or B oth C How many records should be displayed per header 9 Output to S creen P rinter Printer with e X tra PrtSc or D isk File P Type the Maximum number of columns page Page Width and hit lt ENTER gt 122 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011111111111111111111111 00000000011111111112222222222333333333344444444445555555555666666666677777777778888888888999999999900000000001111111111222 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 401608949 86279 085A101 ADKINS GEORGE ALTON MWR SUNBEAM TRAILER PARK LOT 9 42754 0041645011586 401669562 86279 085A101 ADKINS MARY E FWD SUNBEAM TRAILER CT LOT 9 42754 0022046010176 394589230 88284 085A101 ALEXANDER MARGIE HELENA FWR 685 JOHNSON ST 42754 0100152010188 401981017 86087 085A101 ALLEN DANIEL BRYANT MWR 406 BRANDENBURG RD 42754 0011768061070 403625119 79124 085A101 ALLEN FRANCES E FWR 209 CONKLIN DR 42754 0041347000077 403626900 73176 085A101AALLEN JAMES MELVIN MWR 406 BRANDENBURG RD 42754 0101745101745 407085077 88097 085A101 ALLEN JAMES TODD MWR 406 BRANDENBURG RD 42754 0021470061570 219489830 73222 085A101AALLEN JUDY FWR 406 BRANDENBURG RD 42754 0071
185. t be fooled Use the Keys R command to read in a data block and the A E D or N command to verify the data character set Note This command only checks the first file on tape It does not analyze the complete tape If you want to analyze the whole tape you should use the CUBS program in the L mode to check labeled tapes 75 D Display buffer in NUMERIC ASCII EBCDIC The contents of the I O buffer are displayed on the screen 12 bytes per line side by side in NUMERIC ASCII and EBCDIC converted to ASCII CR LF and SPACE are all displayed as SPACE The printable characters decimal 33 126 hex 21 7E are displayed directly All other characters are displayed as decimal points NOT as their screen graphics If print mode is active command a copy of the display will be sent to the text file keys txt This command is useful in checking out whether the data is in ASCII or EBCDIC Itis also helpful if you need a decimal or hex dump The numeric mode is DECIMAL or HEX as set by the CTRL N command If D is input only the last few lines of the buffer are displayed xx E Display buffer in EBCDIC IBM code adding CR LF each xx chars Same as A but displays datain EBCDIC See the A command xxF Space xx by Files xx is negative for back files M The F command spaces the tape forward or reverse by file marks For example 7F spaces forward by 7 file marks 3F spaces back 3 file marks NOTE Whe
186. t in the corresponding questions not being asked in the console dialogue Conversely if you forget to enter one or more command line options DITTO will ask you one or more questions before starting processing Typing on the command line causes DITTO to display a short help list of all valid command line options CONVERSATIONAL MODE CONSOLE DIALOGUE Type the Logical Record Length maximum column number and hit lt ENTER gt Enter the logical record length This is the highest column number DITTO will print The column number will be reset to 001 every n characters where n is the logical record length entered here If LRL n appears on the command line DITTO will not ask for the logical record length T ape or D isk input Enter T or D to tell DITTO where to get input data This question is not asked if D Fl filename or TFI n appears on the command line Enter input filename This question is asked if the answer to the T ape or D isk input question was D Answer with a disk filename optionally preceded with a drive letter and or path and optionally followed by a range of records within parenthesis eg SAM TXT or SAM TXT 333 444 or D DATA SAM TXT Enter tape file number This question is asked if the answer to the T ape or D isk input question was T Answer with a tape file number the first file on tape is file 0 optionally followed by a range of records within parenthesis e g 0 or 0 345 567 Convert EBC
187. t to disk in DELIMITED format to import it into Paradox or to be processed by a program written in BASIC Tape to disk transfers are always handled by Electrovalue s FX File eX change program Before you run the transfer with FX you ll use the FXED program to generate a small disk file called a control file The control file will contain the code conversion and data manipulation definitions that will be followed by FX during the actual tape to disk transfer Control files can be used over and over and may be easily edited by FXED to create similar but new control files DEFINITION A DELIMITED DATA database consists of a collection of data records Each record has the same number of fields and each ends in the following 2 characters carriage retum and line feed shown as lt CR gt and lt LF gt in the following examples From one record to the next corresponding fields may vary in length and they usually will since one can save disk space by deleting trailing blanks rightmost SPACE characters from each fixed length tape field Fields are separated by commas lt gt Additionally each field which is not a pure numeric field i e it contains character data is preceded with and followed by a double quote lt gt character EXAMPLE A delimited record containing four fields first name age middle initial and last name might look like the following JEREMIAH 7 X BULLFROG lt CR gt lt LF gt The following table c
188. tape I have not discussed the speed of reading information off of magnetic tape that again got faster and faster as the information was being read off the magnetic tape faster and faster I can t even guess what the next growth in magnetic tape will be It s just phenomenal what has happened and what will happen with these tape devices It all started on the mainframe computer and is now available on the PC Mailing lists The 1950 s Fifty years ago almost all mailing lists were on what were called Addressograph plates or Speedomac plates These were one inch by three inch steel or tin plates where the name and address of the recipient was embossed There was insignificant flexibility You could mail to that address and that is about all you could have done Few if any mailing lists were available for rent Nobody would give out his or her mailing list for rent for someone else to use The 1960 s Even in the 1960 s the computer was probably too expensive to use for maintaining a mailing list There were some punch cards around and the Social Security Administration had their 130 million Social Security payees on punch cards They could not afford magnetic tape or mainframe computers They used punch cards However in 1963 the Post O ffice announced the requirement for a site a two position zone on all mailing addresses That meant that the industry had to recreate all the addressograph plates to add azone Or was it time to go to
189. te characters Commas separate individual fields Each logical record ends in lt CR gt lt LF gt Here s a sample ABC DEFGHI JKLMNOPQ RSTUV lt CR gt lt LF gt When you choose to delete trailing blanks from each input field and delimit the output fields you ll find yourself hitting the following keystrokes at the end of each field definition except the first and last lt INS gt lt INS gt lt ENTER gt NOTE None of the spaces in these examples above and below belong there they were inserted for Clarity Note that the double and the lt INS gt lt ENTER gt imply that youre not going to enter any comments in the optional comment area The example above including shifting up and down for the doublequote characters contains 12 keystrokes D efine it as amacro and you cut that down to ONE keystroke The definition is lt F1 gt lt INS gt lt INS gt lt ENTER gt lt F1 gt Here s a sample listing of a typical output definition the creation of which would be facilitated by the above macro Line Range of Range of Output Type of Ref Input Output Field Output Bytes Bytes Length Field Optional Comment Ol O 001 001 L 001 ni 02 I 001 020 O 002 021 L 020 TRUN FLD 03 O 022 024 L 003 CuM p M 04 I 021 040 O 025 044 L 020 TRUN FLD 05 O 045 047 L 003 06 I 041 060 O 048 067 L 020 TRUN FLD O7 Q 068 070 L 003 TM m 08 I 061 080 O 071 090 L 020
190. te and Read Options H Halt on any Hard Error U Unload upon termination L Log to disk file CUBS LOG L lt filename gt log to lt filename gt Repeat specified operation s P Log to Printer N Display block length changes A amp L Modes ONLY nnn No output if lt nnn bytes nnn No output if gt nnn bytes C Allow Corrected Error Display A Auto Abort at End Of Data nnK Maximum block size nnK nn 1 64 M n Maximum Number of blocks to write in W or B modes L n All blocks in W or B modes are fixed Length n no random filemarks F n Fill Write buffer with n 0 255 Use with Wi only don t R Run time commands S Display cumulative status and continue CTRL A Display cumulative status and Abort HOW TO RUN CUBS CUBS is controlled from the command line When CUBS is run the screen is cleared and the program revision level and a copy of the command line are displayed Then CUBS starts reading and or writing tape depending on the mode specified on the command line Command line arguments consist of one mode required and zero or more options separated by blanks Only one mode may be specified but the mode may be followed by as many options as you like in any order Note M the number of blocks specified counts filemarks too CUBS searches for 2 filemarks together to mark the end of data Therefore when in random mode it is possible for CUBS to write a filemark directly bef
191. teger That means that the block length on tape must be the output logical record length times an integer FX will not accept a non integral blocking factor The output logical record length must not exceed 32 000 DISPLAY OF PHYSICAL TAPE BLOCK SIZE WHEN WRITING TAPE FX increases the throughput of formatted tape drives during disk to tape transfers by filling up to 64K of RAM with one disk read and then writing the individual tape blocks in one streaming burst In this case the screen display shows the INDIVIDUAL BLOCK SIZE times THE NUMBER OF BLOCKS once per I O buffer written to tape e g 7980 x 8 7980 x 8 7980 x 8 1596 Log to line printer TAPE to DISK and DISK to TAPE ONLY 29 This feature is turned ONT OFF by hitting the key lt shift gt lt 8 gt while you re in the main menu or during the initial dialogue of Tape to Disk or Disk to Tape While log mode is active you ll see a highlighted L in the lower right hand corner of the screen Don t enable the log mode if you don t have a printer or if the printer is tumed off This will cause FX to hang up the PC and eventually do a timeout abort when it s time to print If you log to the printer you ll get a printout containing all the important details of the job Store it with the resulting disk or tape to avoid making sticky labels Partial sample logs follow preceded by the console dialogue that caused them DISK TO TAPE En
192. ter disk lt filename gt or names e g ABC TXT LILY BAS XYZ Z ETXT Do you want to TRUNCATE or EXPAND the records you re transferring to tape N Use a separate tape file for each disk file Y Enter starting tape file 0 9999 or lt ENTER gt for END OF DATA 0 Convert ASCII to EBCDIC Y Treat CTRL Z in a disk file as End Of File Y Enter BLOCK LENGTH alone for last block padded with SPACES or BLOCK LENGTH S to allow short last block 44444 5S Transferring disk file FXPN TXT to tape file 0 36138 bytes in disk file Transferring disk file XYZ TXT DK rea eEG Transferring disk file INSTPN TXT to tape file 5 12299 bytes in disk file File Transfer s Complete 6 File s transferred from disk to tape TAPE TO DISK Note that the user asks for multiple tape files to be transferred into a single disk file This causes FX to append all the tape files into the disk file TEMP nter tape file number the first file on tape is file 0 0 5 eset 8th bit N f Input Data processing criteria are defined in an FXED control file nput lt filename gt else press lt ENTER gt for no control file lt ENTER gt eplace all control characters 00 31 dec with SPACEs 32 dec N hange all CR s and or LF s into the CR LF pair N onvert EBCDIC to ASCII Y dd CR LF after how many char lt ENTER gt alone none lt ENTER gt nter a single disk lt filename gt or lt filename gt A t
193. tes are derived from either a Packed Decimal Zoned Decimal or Packed HEX input field the output string will be longer than the input string Otherwise the input and output strings will be the same length lt range gt eg 25 35 25L11 LA Think of the backslash as pushing away the trailing right hand SPACE s The examples above will cause the run time program to take the specified range of bytes from each input record perform any translations specified in the Translation Definition Phase then strip all trailing SPACE s from the character string and add the resulting character string starting at the next available spot to the output record The resulting string can be as small as 0 characters lt range gt X eg 25 35X 25L11X LO Think of the X as standing for eX tract The examples above will cause the run time program to take the specified range of bytes from each input record perform any translations specified in the Translation D efinition Phase then strip all leading left hand ZERO s and SPACE s and all trailing SPACE s from the character string and add the resulting character string starting at the next available spot to the output record The resulting string can be as small as 0 characters For example 00012345 becomes 12345 The quotes aren t part of the string they re to show SPACE s 2 Commands which add literal constant text to the output lt INS gt any text sting lt INS gt S lt INS gt lt INS gt textst
194. the tape drive programs into a single subdirectory on your hard drive Note that TACO will process only the programs that actually access the tape Thus FXED LRL DENSITY and SCANSCSI need not be present although there s no harm if they are TACO looks for tape drive control programs exe files in the current directory After using the SCANSCSI program to get the drive parameters run the TACO program to set the default Host adapter number the tape drive number and the default write density You choose the default write density based on your needs Using TACO Go to your tape drive subdirectory or folder Typein lt TACO gt Answer the questions TACO asks giving the host adapter card and tape drive numbers that SCANSCSI displayed and choosing a default write density The default write density does not affect the read density Hitting lt ENTER gt alone will result in using the displayed default parameter TACO will inspect each selected EXE file to see if it contains a valid parameter configuration block The parameters of each qualifying program will be updated and the name of the program will be listed on the screen When all selected EXE files have been exhausted TACO will return to the operating system Whenever any tape drive program FX KEYS DITTO D2T CUBS is executed it displays the hardware dependent parameters on the top line of the screen Thus if you like you can simply execute one of these programs to con
195. therwise offend the application program that will be processing the imported data GENERAL FIELDS As you define the processing which FX is to perform you ll be entering numbers that specify fields For example in the translation definition phase a field is a range of bytes all of which are to receive the same type of translation Whenever you get a tape from one of your sources it should be accompanied by paperwork that specifies the contents of the various fields which make up each logical record Some sources specify that a field begins on a particular byte and ends on another byte Another way you ll see fields specified is by starting byte number and length For your convenience FXED allows you to specify fields as either a range of byte numbers e g 10 20 as a starting byte and a length eg 23L6 or as a length starting at the next available byte eg L8 Use whichever method you prefer or mix all three Intemally EX ED maintains field definitions as ranges of bytes this is the format you ll see if you ask for a display of currently defined fields THE BLOCKING FACTOR on tape ratio of physical tape block length to logical record length must be an integer i e logical records must not span tape blocks If they do you can transfer the tape data to disk and write it back out with a proper blocking factor or process the disk file directly with FXED s Disk to D isk mode without restriction PHYSICAL TAPE BLOCK LENGTH OUTPUT
196. this error message is that you have a labeled tape the data is in file 1 not file 0 and you erroneously tell DITTO to take input from file 0 Run DITTO again and specify that the data in is tape file 1 If that doesn t help and you really have a tape where records span blocks use the FX program to transfer the data to disk and run DITTO with the disk file as input This is a very unusual situation it s more likely that the record length is different than what you think it is See the chapter DEALING WITH MYSTERY TAPES for hints on figuring out the logical record length The D2T Program TRANSFER DBF COMPATABLE FILESTO TAPE IN MAINFRAME FRIENDLY FORMAT PURPOSE D2T creates MAINFRAME FRIENDLY fixed length record tape files directly from the data contained in D BF files DBF files are the internal working format used all versions of by dBASE FoxBASE FoxPro Clipper workalikes and compatibles This means you don t need any free space on your disk Without this program you d need free space the size of the D BF file FEATURES Tape data may be written in ASCII or EBCDIC Numeric fields may be written in ASCII EBCDIC Packed Decimal and or Zoned Decimal D2T prints detailed Record Layout and File Structure documentation for you to send with the tape You may specify any blocking factor that results in blocks smaller 94 than 64K Large DBF files may be transferred to any number of tapes D2T writes industry standard unlabeled tapes Numer
197. tics on a file by file basis and halts when End Of D ata is encountered two adjacent filemarks with an option to continue See the A and L command line options and the S run time command The default is not to halt on error See the H option The minimum block size written is 12 bytes the maximum is 65 536 64K 1 bytes See the K and L options END OF DATA Mainframe tapes and tapes produced by all Electrovalue programs write two filemarks at the end of all the data on the tape This provides a convenient End Of D ata mark CUBS asks the user C ontinue or A bort when End Of D ata is detected during a tape analysis The A option may be used to avoid the question and automatically abort at End Of D ata END OF TAPE The End Of Tape reflective marker is ignored during A mode Industry standard tapes and tapes created by Electrovalue programs will have an End Of D ata double filemark written shortly after the EOT marker A mode The A mode Analyze is used as a quick means of determining the block sizes number of bytes file structure and integrity of ANY tape As the tape is read in high speed streaming mode if your tape drive supports this any hard read errors corrected read errors and read retries are detected Statistics are output to the screen on a file by file basis 83 Here s a sample CUBS A screen output Use CUBS A P lt ENTER gt to get a printed output at the same time
198. ting to tape FX displays a file number and block number in a protected area at the bottom of the screen File numbers on tape start with 0 block numbers within a file start with 1 The block number is incremented after the block has been successfully read or written BLOCK POSITIONING FEATURES IMPORT ONLY A RANGE OF BLOCKS FROM TAPE The block positioning feature may be used whenever FX requests a tape file number The normal response to a file number request is for the user to enter a file number and hit lt ENTER gt The block positioning feature is automatically invoked if the file number entry is in the format f a z where f is the file number a is the block with which to start the transfer and z is the block with which to stop the transfer For example entering the file number 0 22 33 would transfer file 0 blocks 22 through 33 inclusive This is a nice way to capture a small sample of data for test purposes before running a large job When transferring from tape to disk you may input multiple file numbers on one line For example 0 2 4 6 9 11 12 123 456 13 333 444 is a valid input Block positioning file specifications may not be immediately preceded or followed by a e g 0 11 22 6 7 11 and 2 4 5 12 23 34 are not valid inputs Specify 0 11 22 1 5 6 7 11 and 2 4 5 11 12 23 34 respectively to work around the invalid examples respectively ENTERING A LARGER NUMBER OF BLOCKSTHEN A FILE CONTAINS Wh
199. to start with first H ex digits or B oth C Output as D isk input T Enter tape file number 0 Convert EBCDIC to ASCII Y C haracters How many records should be displayed per header 5 Output to S creen Type the Maximum number of columns page P rinter Printer with e X tra PrtSe or Page Width and hit lt ENTER gt maximum column number and hit lt ENTER gt 146 201 209 D isk File P 122 NOTE generated by DITTO The first 3 lines below are the column numbers Read them VERTICALLY 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011111111111111111111111 00000000011111111112222222222333333333344444444445555555555666666666677777777778888888888999999999900000000001111111111222 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 401608949 401669562 394589230 401981017 403625119 86279 86279 88284 86087 79124 085A101 ADKINS 085A101 ADKINS 085A101 ALEXANDER 085A101 ALLEN 085A101 ALLEN es a i ts Dia it eB aE Ui 222222233333333334444444 345678901234567890123456 100486 00600700800900000 012279 00400501600701801 090188 00800900000100200 012686 00601701811900000 040279 00401511600701801 GEORGE ALTON MARY E MARGIE HELENA DANIEL BRYANT FRANCES E MWR FWD FWR MWR FWR SUNBEAM TRAILER PARK LOT 9 SUNBEAM TRAILER CT 685 JOHNSON ST 406 BRANDENBURG RD
200. ty and the need to keep feeding the tape drive at its required rate You may sometimes get this error when you enter S or CTRL A while the tape is running at high speed in these cases the keyboard interrupt servicing routine delayed the computer s input output channel too much AVG WRR Average write retries Total write retries total blocks written R mode CUBS reads a full tape from the BOT marker to the EOT marker outputs a summary line rewinds the tape and quits For this test to be meaningful the tape must be a CUBS compatible test tape Use A mode see next page or L mode to read and analyze normal tapes R ERRORS REPORTED BLER Block Length E Dro the length reported by the hardware differs from that embedded in the header of the block BLOCK NUMBER FILE NUMBER the block number and or file number embedded in the header differs from that expected by the program CUBS keeps count of blocks and files filemarks it reads from tape DER Data ERron the first 6 bytes of each block are supposed to be the same as the last 6 bytes DER if not HER Hard ERor when the hardware reports an uncorrectable read error that s a Hard ERror CER Corrected E Ror Total single bit read errors dead track errors corrected by the tape drive electronics AVG RDR Average read retries Total read retries total number of blocks read B mode The B mode is simply an automatic combination of aW followed by an H B stands fo
201. u like in the interests of clarity or none at all FXED strips them away when importing the contents of the disk file e g 1 5 ABCDE or 11 15 gt 70000 and 99 100 NJ THE LOGICAL END OF FILE DEFINITION PHASE Select E from the main menu This phase in the creation of an FXED control file is optional The Logical End Of File EOF feature allows processing to stop based on encountering data that meets a condition you have defined before the entire input file has been read The instant the Logical End of File condition becomes TRUE processing of the input file stops just as if the record that matched the condition were actually an End of File The data from the record that satisfies the End of File criteria does not become part of the output file 59 This can be a tremendous time saver in situations where you know something about the order of the data on the tape e g it s in ZIP code order The rules conceming creation of the Logical End of file conditional statement are the same as those for Conditional Record Processing fully described in the previous section When you select D from the Logical End of File EOF sub menu you are prompted with Stop if A sample line showing the prompt and a response might be Stop if 81 85 gt 19999 or 1 99 KYZZY The valid commands in either of the conditional definition phases are D Define the conditional expression Input your conditional expression as in the exa
202. uld usually be in a mainframe friendly format This means having each data field length fixed and having each record contain the same number of records Thus you will have a fixed length fixed field file D2T will put dBASE compatible files in a fixed length mainframe friendly format and write the file to tape in one step In addition D 2T can optionally print a file layout and information report to accompany the tape FX can transfer other types of files to tape You can use your database program to put the data in a mainframe friendly fixed length format and then use FX to transfer the file to tape truncating the carriage return and line feed ending each record if the carriage retum and linefeed exist In summary it s easy to use FX to transfer files from tape to disk or from disk to tape Read the chapters on FX and D 2T to leam about transferring files from disk to tape Running this software under Windows 9598 ME This software will run under a DOS window under Windows 95 98 ME This software will not run under MS DOS There are more than just a few ways to run aD OS based program on a Windows 95 machine Here are some 1 Click START Select Programs click MS DOS PROMPT This runs Windows 95 s DOS ina Windows 95 window Pressing the lt ENTER gt key while holding down the lt ALT gt key toggles the window to full screen mode 2 Click START Click RUN hit lt D EL gt to clear the box and type in the Disk drive path etc e
203. unction or by inserting SPACES or other characters of your choice as filler characters Changing the order of fields Using PX ED in the Output Definition Phase you can scramble the fields into any order you like to match an existing database structure They will end up in your D BF file in whatever order you define them for output Discarding unwanted fields Using PX ED during the Output Definition Phase you define the tape fields that at run time FX will transfer to the disk Any and all fields not defined for output will be ignored by FX Thus you can import only those fields that interest you and not clog up your dat abase and hard disk with extraneous data dBASE numeric date and logical data types DBF Numeric Fields Internally from left to right D BF numeric fields consist of an optional minus sign the digits to the left of the decimal point the decimal point itself and the digits to the right of the decimal point The maximum number of positive digits and the decimal point add up to the Field Width shown by your database program s DISPLAY STRUCTURE command The Numeric Field 1234 56 Field Width 7 in a DBF file is normally stored on tape as 123456 with the tape field definition paperwork telling you where the mainframe assumes the decimal point To import this string properly use FX ED s Output Definition Phase 35 literal text insertion feature to change the number on tape into 3 adjacent fields the fir
204. use the tape is blank NR can be used from command line mode as when D 2T is called from another program or a batch file NR can also be used in conversational mode You must start D2T by typing in D2T NR from the command prompt if you are using NR in conversational mode If you don t type in NR at the same time as D2T is invoked D 2T will automatically rewind the tape The NR option is used to automatically put the file you are writing out at the end of data You can not specify a file number when you use NR If you specify a file number at the same time you use NR the file number is ignored Using this command allows you to put multiple files on tape without rewinding after each file is written However you may use R or U to automatically rewind the tape or unload it after your file is written If you answer R or U these commands will override the NR at the end of the job 102 Dealing With Mystery Tapes It shouldn t happen but it s common that you ll receive mystery tapes A mystery tape is one for which the paperwork is missing or worse one with erroneous paperwork You have to accurately know a number of parameters before you can successfully import typical mainframe data Most of this chapter assumes you are dealing with data in a fixed record length format Before you run your tape to disk job spend a few minutes determining or confirming these important parameters with Electrovalue s programs Six important parameter
205. ut character will go Tabbing in any direction backwards or forwards is allowed Positions that are never overwritten stay as SPACEs The lt TAB gt key on some PC s does not say TAB it has arrows pointing left and right 08 050 5U Undefine line 5 D eletes line 5 of the output definitions What was line 6 now becomes line 5 line 7 becomes line 6 etc If you want to U several lines work from the highest numbered line to the lowest numbered line because each U causes the following lines to move up in the list changing their line numbers as things progress 07 050 A Start inserting lines after line 4 Enter aline It will become line 5 Hit lt ESC gt to exit from inserting 1 05 037 1 5 lt ENTER gt We enter the new line 5 The I reminds us we re inserting 1 06 042 3R Start replacing lines at line 3 Equivalent to the 2 steps 3U followed by 2I Hit lt ESC gt to stop replacing 50 R 03 023 45 56 lt ENTER gt Here s the new line 3 We decided to change the range Y ou enter a question mark if you d like to see a list of the valid PX ED commands for this phase lt ESC gt Hit lt ESC gt to retum to the main menu at any time You may re enter the output definition phase from the main menu as often as you like to continue and or modify your definitions NOTESABOUT LITERAL TEXT INSERTION 1 To insert lt CR gt lt LF gt USE THE ZENTER key e g lt INS gt lt ENTER gt lt INS gt 2
206. vania who then started their own company called UNIVAC invented it Therefore the first computer that was used scientifically was called UNIVAC and came out of Philadelphia In those early days the first storage devices were electronic radio tubes Each tube which took up a space about six inches by three inches could store one character In those days they also stored data in mercury delay lines These were tubes of mercury about ten feet long into which you electrically induced the waves that represented the numerical data which would travel down the tube of mercury and recycle until you needed that data D ata was also stored on the face of CRT tubes Instead of pictures the CRT tube would have data The data was stored in binary code in the face of tubes and would be reusable Also magnetic drums 6 inches in diameter and one to two feet long could also store data Of course data was also stored on punch cards paper rolls and probably a few other kinds of media in those days There was no easy way when the computer was first build to store data economically until magnetic tape was designed The first magnetic tape was probably designed in the late 1940 s by UNIVAC It was a roll of steel about 1 60 of an inch thick and about 1 000 feet long It was wound on a roll and it weighed approximately 35 pounds This was not very acceptable for developing data on magnetic tape and selling it around the country This particular roll of steel magn
207. vert EBCDIC to ASCII If you want to convert from EBCDIC answer Y otherwise the data will not be translated Add CR amp LF after how many characters For convenience in processing tape files containing records that do not end in CARRIAGE RETURN FX contains a feature that can automatically add a CARRIAGE RETURN and a LINE FEED after every N characters This facilitates the orderly printing of files containing logical records of a constant size importing files for processing with database programs etc If you answer the question with just the lt ENTER gt key the automatic CR amp LF feature will be turned off Block size limits when CR amp LF options are in effect When either CR amp LF option has been selected FX cuts the input buffer size in half to provide a block of memory into which the text coming from tape can be copied while the selected characters are being added This limits the physical size of the tape block that can be processed to 32 767 bytes 32K 1 Reading a larger block will result in an error message and the transfer will be aborted To work around this limit you can re block the data by first reading the file to disk without any options then write it back out in smaller blocks be sure the block size is an integer multiple of your record length Altematively you can use an FXED control file to add the needed character s See the FXED index page INSERTING CR LF and INSERTING LITERAL TEXT If you enter a de
208. with each other or b looking for the field in a KEY LIST disk file You specify that one or more fields after translation must meet your criteria or the entire input record is skipped The comparison operators are equal lt gt not equal gt greater than or equal lt less than or equal gt greater than lt less than contains does not contain can be found in and can not be found in The and operators allow you to ask whether a literal text string can or can not be found ANYWHERE within a field range of bytes in each input record a great feature to compensate for sloppy keypunching Multiple comparisons may be joined by the logical conjunctions AND and OR Records that do not meet the acceptance criteria are ignored and thus do not become part of the output Le records not accepted are rejected Logical End O f File Y ou may optionally define a logical expression that will cause processing of the input file to stop simulate hitting the end ot Die if the specified condition becomes true The syntax of the logical expression is the same as in paragraph 2 above Secondary Translation You may optionally define secondary translation to be performed on data read from tape after it has been processed by the primary translation phase This feature allows you to define an entire character set translation if you like A more common use is to re define one or two characters that would o
209. y 2 characters The terminating characters usually lt CR gt lt LF gt but any 2 characters may be used are not considered to be part of the string being matched The length of a key is from 1 to 510 characters plus the 2 terminating characters IMPORTANT THE KEY LIST FILE MUST BE SORTED IN ASCENDING ORDER You can use your database program D base Foxpro Access to create and sort the key list file AN EXAMPLE Suppose youre in the business of selling government surplus airplane parts From time to time you receive a tape listing hundreds of thousands of parts that are going to be auctioned off at various sites around the USA Each record contains fields for QUANTITY PART NUMBER CITY OF AUCTION STATE OF AUCTION CONDITION and DATE OF AUCTION The PART NUMBER field is bytes 11 22 of each record and the STATE is bytes 40 41 Your firm is only interested in 5 000 particular helicopter parts and you can only participate in auctions in southem states You d like to make one pass on the tape and transfer to disk only those records which meet these two criteria You create and maintain a KEY LIST containing only the part numbers which interest you Terminate each part number with lt CR gt lt LF gt You create another KEY LIST file with a list of states you can attend auctions in The file PART NO KL will have entries like this 134 2222 99 134 3434 65 1244 4566 32 te The file STATES KL will have entries like this
210. y as filemarks are encountered Before you process the tape data in any way you need to know which tape file contains the data Its about a 50 50 bet whether it s going to be in file 0 or file 1 Sometimes you will encounter circumstances where there are multiple data files on a tape These are sometimes called stacked files In this circumstance you ll find CUBS to be an invaluable tool You can use the KEYS program s R command several times in a row to read the first 4 or 5 blocks and display their sizes Several usually only three 80 byte records in file 0 are the hallmark of a labeled tape This means that the data is in file 1 You can use KEYS C command to do a brief check on the tape label and display whatever relevant information there exists However it s likely you ll also want to leam how many bytes of data are in each file and you ll want help determining the logical record length you ll be dealing with so instead of KEYS you can use the CUBS program as described below to kill 3 birds with one stone How many bytes in a tape file When youre going to import data it s good to be sure you have sufficient space on your hard disk You can use the CUBS program to quickly determine the number of bytes in each tape file On a typical 9 track drive running at 125 inches per second CUBS can analyze a full 2400 foot 1600 BPI reel of tape in less than 4 minutes The hp 88780 7980 drives can analyze a reel in approxi
211. yte would be 0 Sometimes ASCII tape data has this bit set The PC s interpretation of these characters would be bizarre Answering Y to the above question forces an immediate reset of the 8th bit of every character from tape before any further processing e g by an FXED control file If you re not having problems you should answer this question with N Note that EBCDIC is an 8 bit code If you answer Y to this question FX will skip the C onvat EBCDIC to A SCH question It s up to you to avoid selecting this incompatible option when processing an EBCDIC tape with an FXED control file If your data is in EBCDIC you must answer N to this question Using an FXED control file If input data processing criteria are defined in an FXED control file input the lt filename gt or press ZENTER alone for no control file FXED control files produced by the FXED program allow FX to perform additional advanced features while transferring fixed length data records from tape to disk If you specify a control file name the following questions except for Enter disk file name will be skipped See the EX E D chapter for full information Change all control characters to spaces Some tape data contains control characters The FX option Change all control characters 00 31 dec to Spaces 32 dec 2 Y N lets you change troublesome control characters to harmless spaces Control characters are characters with a decimal value from 0 to 31 inclusive

SCSI software manual - Electrovalue Technologies Inc

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