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From: mecej4 on 11 Jun 2010 12:11
Ron Shepard wrote:

> In article <huti13$u3t$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
> mecej4 <mecej4.nyetspam(a)operamail.com> wrote:
>
>> If the 'database' is in a VMS ISAM file, and contains VAX (non IEEE)
>> floating point variables, there is so much work to do in terms of adding
>> missing functionality that the simplest answer to give to a customer with
>> limited resources is: "it cant' be done".
>>
>> I hope that, in view of this issue, at least a few readers will see my
>> recommendation to the OP to find a VAX (or Glen H's recommendation to
>> find a VAX emulator) as less than 100 percent facetious.
>
> It might be a good idea to find a vax or a vax emulator in order to
> aid in convertng the program to standard form. However, I disagree
> with the "it can't be done" part of this reply.
>
<--- CUT: discussion of how to implement a variety of ISAM --->

Of course, it can be done! I did not say "it can't be done" as an absolute
free-standing statement. So, you and I don't disagree at all.

Ian Chivers has provided a link to a hobbyist VAX cluster site which gives
free non-commercial accounts. That may turn out to be the best solution for
this one-off (as far as I can see) task.

-- mecej4
From: Ken Fairfield on 11 Jun 2010 12:32
On Jun 11, 9:11 am, mecej4 <mecej4.nyets...(a)operamail.com> wrote:
> Ron Shepard wrote:
> > In article <huti13$u3...(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
> >  mecej4 <mecej4.nyets...(a)operamail.com> wrote:
>
> >> If the 'database' is in a VMS ISAM file, and contains VAX (non IEEE)
> >> floating point variables, there is so much work to do in terms of adding
> >> missing functionality that the simplest answer to give to a customer with
> >> limited resources is: "it cant' be done".
>
> >> I hope that, in view of this issue, at least a few readers will see my
> >> recommendation to the OP to find a VAX (or Glen H's recommendation to
> >> find a VAX emulator) as less than 100 percent facetious.
>
> > It might be a good idea to find a vax or a vax emulator in order to
> > aid in convertng the program to standard form.  However, I disagree
> > with the "it can't be done" part of this reply.
>
> <--- CUT: discussion of how to implement a variety of ISAM --->
>
> Of course, it can be done! I did not say "it can't be done" as an absolute
> free-standing statement. So, you and I don't disagree at all.

I agree. :-)

Unfortunately, since there are so many threads that the OP
started it's difficult to pull all the advice together in one
spot. But in my two followups yesterday to the thread in which
the OP posted the actual source code, I "described" how to
port this to a non-VMS system. (I haven't read Ron Shepard's
post closely, but he does have the right idea...)

Basically, the original RMS indexed file (ISAM) needs to be
converted into a "normal" sequential file. This is often
done implicitly if the file is ftp'd in ASCII mode to a
non-VMS system. Otherwise the conversion could be done easily
on the source VMS host before transfer.

Secondly, the OP *will* need to understand both the contents
of that file, and the *key* strings (in the .inc file?) that
were used to read it. As I posted, a simple sequential read
and compare to the key string will substitute for the VMS
keyed read.

But this *will* take some work from the OP to understand
the code...


> Ian Chivers has provided a link to a hobbyist VAX cluster site which gives
> free non-commercial accounts. That may turn out to be the best solution for
> this one-off (as far as I can see) task.

Indeed, there are several hobbyist VMS clusters where the
the OP could get a guest account. I suspect this would not
be a fruitful direction, however, since it involves learning
a new operating system, "shell", and some nit-picky details
of getting a proper/uncorrupted version of the indexed file
to the target VMS system. While there are a bunch of VMS
experts that would be willing to help (see comp.os.vms),
myself included, the OP has not demonstrated the needed
interest or attention span to make this approach likely
to succeed. :-(

Regards, Ken
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