CHAPTER VAX PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Software Reviewers Wanted . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-3 Editor's Workfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-4 Letters to the Pageswapper . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-5 DR780 Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-7 Maturity of Products vs Maturity of Engineers and Product Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-8 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-15 VAX System SIG Committee List . . . . . . . . VAX-21 INPUT/OUTPUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-24 Forms at the End INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form . . . . . . . . . VAX-27 System Improvement Request Submission Form . . VAX-29 VAX Systems SIG Spring 1986 SIR Ballot . . . . VAX-31 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 General material for publication in the Pageswapper should be sent (US mail only -- no "express" services please) to: Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 USA Preference is given to material submitted as machine-readable text (best is Runoff source). Line length should not exceed 64 characters. Please do not submit program source, as that is better distributed on the VAX SIG tape. Change of address, reports of non-receipt, and other circulation correspondence should be sent to: DECUS U.S. Chapter Attention: Publications Department 249 Northboro Road (BPO2) Marlborough, MA 01752 USA Only if discrepancies of the mailing system are reported can they be analyzed and corrected. VAX-2 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Software Reviewers Wanted Software Reviewers Wanted One of the principal benefits of being associated with DECUS is the public domain software available on the Symposia tapes and from the DECUS Software Library. Much of this software is outstanding and you can't beat the price - Symposia tapes free from your local LUG Librarian, a whole catalog of items at a nominal charge from the Library. We pay a price for this software in other ways though: 1. It is not offically supported, 2. Documentation is frequently less than adequate, 3. It may be dangerous. Here is what I am getting around to. You, as a user of a DECUS Library or Symposia tape program, can help the rest of us avoid the above expenses. If you use something and like it, let us know. We want to try it, too. If you use something and don't like it, let us know. We may still want to try it, but your comments can be valuable. I am not soliciting reviews about copying problems. If you have a copying problem you should get back to the person supplying the tape immediately and let him know that he has a problem. I am soliciting reviews about DECUS Library offerings and SIG tape programs. For widest dissemination an article for the SIG newsletter is appropriate. If you have something to say about a VAX Library or tapecopy program but not the time to write it down come to the VAX Tapecopy User's Forum at the next DECUS Symposium. If you just have a short comment you can give it to me over the telephone and I will pass it on. Joe Bingham VAX Systems SIG Librarian ManTech Services Company 2320 Mill Road Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 838-5600 VAX-3 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Editor's Workfile Editor's Workfile by Larry Kilgallen, Pageswapper Editor DBMS Documentation Update - Submitting this to the Data Management SIG Newsletter does not seem worth the effort, considering its (lack of) length, so here goes. If you are updating a DBMS documentation set to V3.0, beware of the Introduction to Data Manipulation. Although it comes in an orange cover (or did in my set) it is actually an UPDATE section, where you have to interleave the pages. If you follow the obvious visual clues and discard your old AA-Y306A-TE without taking the plastic off the new one, you will be in for a surprise. Of course the TRULY paranoid among us have a cardboard box in which we save all the pages ever removed in updating over the past 3 years for fear we made a mistake. Digital's Sales System - A coworker was moved by my plight and when attending DECworld ordered a brochure by the aforementioned title. It turns out to be about some software DEC is offering for sale, but the note my coworker sent to me with the brochure said: "I thought that I was ordering a brochure on DEC's labyrinth of sales organizations." VAX-4 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Letters to the Pageswapper Letters to the Pageswapper Ken Levitt Informed Computer Solutions, Incorporated 9 Linn Lane Wayland, MA 01778 617-237-7427 March 15, 1986 A few years back, if you were talking about a VAX, you were talking about a 780 or a 750. These were large expensive machines which almost always had a 9 track tape drive or a network connection. If you didn't have either of these things, you were in a very small minority. Then came the 730 and 725. These were strange little machines which might have had a 9 track tape drive but so few people bought them that no one gave them much thought. Now we have reached modern times and DEC has shipped thousands of MicroVAXes with TK-50's rather than 9 track tapes. If the MicroVAXes don't already outnumber all the other VAXes combined, they soon will. Most people who would be reading this letter know all this. However, the people at the DECUS Library seem to be still living in the past. A call to the folks at the library sounds like they never heard of a TK-50 tape cartridge and that they don't know that thousands of users have them as their only source of magnetic input. I ask that the VAX Systems SIG put pressure on the DECUS Library to offer TK-50 distributions. I also think that the symposium Tape Copy Facility should accept and distribute on TK-50. I have been trying to get a copy of the last symposium tape on TK-50, but have thus far been unsuccessful. I understand that there are plans for DECUS to distribute software over the phone lines. I strongly support such a move, but I doubt that it would work out for very large distributions. On another topic, a MicroVAX that I installed is used 99% of the time for one custom application. A few hours a month one user would like to use an accounting package and a work processor. The company is very small and has very simple needs. For the cost of the software on the VAX, I could buy a complete Rainbow and software to go with it. The problem is that I don't want to buy a Rainbow: I want access to the system printer. I want to pass some data from the custom application to the accounting system. I don't want to buy DECnet for my VAX. VAX-5 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Letters to the Pageswapper I want to be able to dial in at night and use the word processor. I like knowing that all of my data files are getting backed up every night. The MicroVAX has excess capacity. I don't want to move to another office to do word processing when I already have a terminal on my desk. In short, I hate distributed processing. In summary, why can't I buy a single user VAX license for a word processor and an accounting package at an affordable price? If anyone out there knows of software that fits these requirements and doesn't require a compiler on the VAX, please let me know. Ken Levitt VAX-6 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 DR780 Issues DR780 Issues by Mark Willie Wilson Texas Instruments, Incorporated Image Processing Lab Post Office Box 405 M/S 3407 Lewisville, Texas 75067 February 27, 1986 Now that the Fall Symposium is over, I would like to fulfill my promise to be a point-of-contact for DR780 issues. Other people have expressed interest in the DR780 besides those in the DAARC SIG, VAX Systems SIG and HMS SIG. A few working groups have been organized to address problems of "High throughput IO" or "Realtime IO on VMS". We all have had the same question at these meetings, i.e., "How do I get more IO bandwidth on my VAX". The DR780 is a general purpose data port, capable of moving up to 6 Megabyte/sec on a VAX 11/780. This product has limited documentation. The impression I have gathered from the few people that own a DR780 is that there is hidden work involved in implementing this interface. Some applications have required writing an ACP. I would welcome any comments, war stories, applications, and recommendations. Any caveats, warnings, workarounds, code, or spare parts would be welcomed and published with my own experiences as long as the need and I exist. Any other product that attaches to a DR780 could also be discussed in working group or newsletter form. VAX-7 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Maturity of Products vs Maturity of Engineers and Product Ma ... Maturity of Products vs Maturity of Engineers and Product Managers by Marian J. Kowalski Commercial Union Insurance Companies One Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 Having used Digital products for the last six years, I have seen quite a few products come and go. I have also seen some products that didn't quite get here and some that Digital shooed out the door as soon as they arrived. These have caused me some doubts about Digital's seriousness about its commitments to its products and customers...and about its understanding of what it means to be in business. The decision to call a halt to EDT enhancements in favor of TPU is the latest example of this behavior, and it leads me to recall a few similar experiences. In early 1982, Digital announced that it was selling its own C compiler-- VAX-11 C. At that time, my company was developing software to run on a variety of micro- and minicomputers for insurance agents. We went shopping for a language that would allow us to do development on the VAX, taking advantage of its many development tools, and then port the code to the various machines for agents. At the Spring 82 Symposium, I attended several session about the new C compiler and heard the promises of related tools that were soon to come--especially a C debugger. C appeared to be the answer to our prayers, and we jumped into it with both feet. In spite of a downturn in the insurance industry, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on training programmers in C, buying C compilers for the various machines that would use it, and beginning the project with another vendor's VAX C compiler, with the expectation that Digital's superior compiler and debugger were just around the corner. By the time that I attended the Fall 83 Symposium, there was still no C debugger, and we had abandoned the use of C as impractical in its absence. At the symposium, I had the pleasure of hearing a speaker from the original C compiler development group. He talked about the fun they had in dreaming up a hare- brained project like a C compiler and the many laughs they had in implementing it. And, what the heck, so what if there's no debugger and everyone on the development team has moved on to more interesting products? Isn't that what we're all in business for--a laugh? A year ago, our Digital salesman was working to sell us a new terminal server system: the LAT-11. At the time, we had other priorities, but another company in this area bought one. A few months ago, Digital told them that it had become a mature product--at Version 1.0--and that there would be no enhancements to it. Is that the way that your company expects you to operate your department--just abandon programs when you've had enough? VAX-8 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Maturity of Products vs Maturity of Engineers and Product Ma ... Although its lifetime was a few years longer, EDT has been declared a mature product, too. Its replacement is inadequate, although I've heard of plans to improve that. But why should we have to go through the same agonies with TPU to get the features that we worked to get into EDT? I've heard that EDT's performance is Digital's reason for moving on to TPU. What are the odds that TPU's performance will be any better when it has the same features as EDT? When I hear reasons like that from a department in my own company, it usually means that the group's manager has no business sense or is being blackmailed by a bored hot-shot (what my father called a Bright Young Engineer) who wants a new toy. There may very well be legitimate reasons for some of the cases that I have described. As a businesswoman, however, I suspect that some of them were also cases of a bored product manager or a group of engineers who declined to perform maintenance/enhancement work. It's tough work--much more demanding than development, since it requires an understanding of a system rather than just a program, as well as the ability to read another programmer's code and mind; also, maintenance work is expected to be perfect the first time, while developers are given more leeway. Perversely, it has never had the prestige of development work. In fact, many foolish managers consider maintenance fit only for trainees' time and effort. So I wouldn't blame any of Digital's engineers for wanting to move on to a nice, fresh development project. But I would blame their managers for allowing them to do so at the expense of customers who are using existing products. Maturity for engineers and product managers means recognizing that maintenance work is implied in Digital's commitment to a product. VAX-9 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive by Larry Kilgallen, Software Consultant Box 81, MIT Station, Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 Although others might find something in this article of passing interest, it is written with a view toward VAX shops which are used mainly for timesharing purposes (be it in-house or service bureau) rather than shops where one central piece of software consumes the whole machine or cluster. Likewise the presumption below is that the shop has operators on duty, or someone who performs that function, rather than a situation of "everyone for himself" when it comes to backups. Do You Really Care? If your volume backup habits are to use the /IMAGE qualifier once a year, whether you need it or not, then this article is not for you. Likewise, if you feel no desire to get a "static" snapshot of your disk which can be restored in the event of catastrophe, then a noontime Backup with all the files still open may meet your goals. If you are looking for guidance on basic use of the Backup command, then this is also not the article for you. The Historical Method - SHUTDOWN With a single-disk system, Stand-alone Backup is all that one can hope for. (If you EVER have bad feelings about Stand-alone Backup, have someone who has been around for a while recount to you the stories of its predecessor, Stand-alone DSC). A single-disk system leads to a great deal of simplification of the volume backup planning process. Once you have committed to doing your volume backups "cleanly", with the volume in question dismounted, it is obvious that the whole system is going to be shut down, because the disk in question IS the whole system. With a multi-disk system, you may yearn for the standardization provided by DCL command procedures, and elect to boot a minimal VMS system from the "other" disk in order to back up a disk. (Use VMSKITBLD.COM to put a minimal copy of VMS on this "other" VAX-10 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive disk for use backing up your normal system disk.) In case there are any beginners still reading, make sure you use the ANALYZE/DISK/REPAIR command before doing a volume backup, as it reduces the chance of getting error messages from Backup which are unconnected with the Backup process itself. In the case of single-disk systems, this means using the ANALYZE/DISK/REPAIR command before shutting the system down. The Large System Problem If your VAX has 8 disks, however, bringing the whole system down for backups can lead to much grumbling about availability from the user community. The prime reason is that you probably don't have 8 tape drives. So you end up backing up the disks one-by-one. (If you DO happen to have 8 tape drives you better have an 8600 to be able to run 8 simultaneous copies of Backup at reasonable speed.) So if backing up your RP07 takes x microfortnights, backing up all 8 of them will usually take 8x microfortnights of wall-clock time. Dismounting Just One User Disk Well, users realize that their disk has to be down SOME part of the time in order for you to get a good backup copy (I know the users weren't born with that knowledge, I presume you have beat it into them). The trick is to let users on disk 3 continue to run while disk 2 is down for volume backups. This certainly involves some custom software on your part, because there is no DEC code to shoo just certain users off the machine. In some environments knowing the usernames gives you information about what disks they use, but more often you will have to automate the process. Parsing the output of the SHOW DISK/FILES command will let you know which users are currently USING disk 2, but not a word about which users might reasonably EXPECT TO USE disk 2. One technique is to have the system login command procedure mount each user's SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE for them /SHARE (in addition to the /SYSTEM mount it already has) and then use the mount count to see if any users based on that disk are still logged on when the backup is about to start. This requires that users who VAX-11 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive are using disks other than their SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE mount those disks /SHARE as well. There is no VMS software short of SDA to tell you WHO has those outstanding mounts, so a little "local knowledge" comes in handy. Another method of learning which users have disk 2 as their SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE is to scan SYSUAF, but again users who expect to access disks other than their SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE must mount the disks /SHARE (on top of the /SYSTEM mount) to stake their claim. As for shooing the errant users away, if the system manager does not write a command procedure, then the operator will, so you might as well accept the need from the beginning and take a look at SHUTDOWN.COM as an example. If you have a protective attitude toward users, your site-specific shutdown command procedure probably already takes precautions to not blow batch and print jobs out of the water on shutdown without operator involvement; remember to carry those techniques over to the command procedure you create to clear a disk for backup. Beyond interactive and batch users, there is another "use" of the disk which must be run down -- installed images (known files). Here is where you get a chance to parse the output of SHOW DEVICE/FILE, unless you can be SURE that no image is installed without being entered in some table you can read to find out what to de-install. Once you have dismounted the disk and mounted it privately, users cannot submit any batch or print jobs which reference it, but what about jobs they might have submitted earlier which had not yet started or had a /AFTER qualifier? A Role for Queue Characteristics I have always wondered what these were for, and why there were 128 of them. I know that sometimes people have special print jobs and special printers, but I couldn't face up to the fact that there was anything in VMS of which there were 128 and I hadn't figured out how to use up more than a handful. Well, here it is: Assign a characteristic to each disk volume used on your machine/cluster (including dismountables). There is no requirement that you assign names to characteristics, but I use DISK_GREECE as the name for the characteristic associated with DISK$GREECE (using DISK$GREECE does not produce the desired result because VMS attempts logical name translation on characteristics). This characteristic on a queue means that the queue currently has access to that volume. This characteristic VAX-12 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive on a job means that to run successfully the job must have access to that volume. At system boot, you give all the execution queues for your node the characteristics for all the disk volumes presently mounted. (DCL syntax of the SET QUEUE command requires that you give the whole list in one command rather than "adding" them on. Characteristics don't "add".) At backup time, you TAKE AWAY from all execution queues the characteristic for the disk volume to be backed up. This will prevent new jobs which have the characteristic from starting. Note that to clear a single characteristic from the set associated with a queue requires learning the full list and setting the full list again, minus the one you want to take away. I certainly do not recommend attempting this in DCL (even if you get a copy of DCL with an F$GETQUI lexical function). So pick a compiled language, bite the bullet, and call SYS$SNDJBC (note that the binary format it uses for expressing characteristics is entirely different from that returned by SYS$GETQUI). The politically astute reader has realized that users will not stand for requirements that they specify that extra /CHARACTERISTICS qualifier on every little SUBMIT or PRINT command. For MOST jobs you can relieve users of the burden of adding /CHARACTERISTICS by adding certain characteristics to the jobs algorithmically. (Your program was going to scan the queues with SYS$GETQUI anyway). For EVERY job in EVERY queue (execution or generic) ensure that at LEAST the following characteristics are set: o Device for each file in the job (the job controller in its befuddlement makes you reason backward from physical device names) o For batch jobs - SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE for the username o For batch jobs - disk specified for any explicit /LOG qualifier Having taken care of those algorithmic chores, you leave the users to specify SUBMIT/CHARACTERISTICS for any OTHER disks referenced by their batch jobs (remember that you must perform a logical OR of what you find already specified for a job with what you decide based on your queue scan). It turns out that you cannot modify the characteristics of a running job, but that is all right, because if you really need to change a running job (because it uses the disk you are about to back up) you cannot proceed with the backup until that job finishes anyway. So make a distinction between those VAX-13 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Making Timesharing Volume Backups Less Intrusive alterations absolutely required for this backup and those performed gratuitously so the job will be fully qualified with respect to other disks when the time comes for THEIR backup. If the change your program would make to an executing job does not set the same characteristic you are removing from queues, they you can just bypass the executing job. If the change your program would make to an executing job DOES add the characteristic you are removing from queues, you cannot complete your action until that job finishes executing. You may, however, choose to continue scanning the rest of the queues and before exiting your program catch up with all the jobs which were executing. You DO have to attempt to change their characteristics then, since the job might still exist in a queue (not necessarily the same queue) through operator action or the /RETAIN qualifier on a queue, and thus be subject to re-release. After the Backup When the backup is complete, mount the disk and set its characteristics back into the execution queues. About Clusters On clusters shooing the users off is more complicated since it must be accomplished on a distributed basis. There are two possible avenues (for those of us without the SCS programmers handbook): DECnet and Batch. Everything you did on a single node, do it on all cluster members and synchronize. One consideration I failed to recognize from the beginning is that the DCL command DISMOUNT completes asynchronously. Once the disk has been dismounted on all nodes, it may still show up on various nodes as still being mounted on other nodes. So far, a WAIT 0:5 command seems to solve the problem for me. VAX-14 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) The Fall VAX tape was sent to the DECUS Program Library and to the National LUG Organization (NLO) in February. The tape is available form the Library (order number V-SP-49), will be on sale at the DECUS Store at the Dallas Symposium (April 28-May02, I know, history by the time you get this.) and from your local LUG Librarian through the NLO distribution. This tape consists of the VAX submissions to the Tapecopy project at the Fall 1985 DECUS Symposium in Anaheim, CA. As usual there is a large quantity of valuable material. A very brief description follows. For a more complete description of the contents of each submission see the AAAREADME.TXT files in each submission or the concatenated version of the AAAREADME's in [VAX000]; for documentation check for pointers in the AAAREADME.TXT'S, for files containing the string READ and for files with .DOC, .TXT, .MEM, .RNO and .1ST extensions in the submissions. NOTES: 1. Many of the submissions were submitted with VMS version 4 filenames. These files were renamed to names compatible with VMS version 3 and command procedures were constructed to restore the version 4 filenames. Therefore, version 3 sites will have no trouble loading the tape but some filenames will be inconsistent with documentation and command procedures. Version 4 sites will want to follow the instructions in [VAX000]LOADING.TXT to rename the affected files back to their original names. 2. This tape does not contain the [VAX000.INDEX] directory. We expect to provide index files for this tape and a composite index file with the Spring 1986 tape. 3. If you get your tape through the NLO I presume the format of the tape will be as I submitted it to them, i. e. three save sets, VAX000, VAX85C and VAX85D which will fit on two 2400 foot tapes at 1600 bpi (VAX000 and VAX85C on one and VAX85D on the other) or on one tape at 6250 bpi. If you get your tape from the Library everything will be in one save set with the three directory trees as subdirectories to a top level directroy added by the Library. This should present no problems - directory tree depth is not a problem with this tape and the command procedures to rename files use relative path names. VAX-15 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) This tape was put together by: Joe Bingham Glenn Everhart ManTech Services Company and RCA A&D Engineering 2320 Mill Road Rt 38, Bldg 206-1 Alexandria, VA 22314 Cherry Hill (703) 838-5600 New Jersey 08358 Fall 1985 Tapes VAX85C and VAX85D Submissions Overview VAX85C Tape ------ ---- [.AMS] DEPROC - Header for formatting DECUS proceedings article usinbg TEX. Barbara Beeton, Am. Math. Soc. [.BATTELLE] FILES - find files by size or owner. ZDEC Zero Device Error Count for VMS V4. BYDISK proc to do a DCL proc for all disks on a system. KRON - proc to do things at scheduled times. PERMIT - easy ACL editing. PTY - Pseudo terminal driver and session logger (PHOTO) for VMS V4. By Gary Grebus and Mark Oakley, Battelle. [.BELONIS] HOST and MODEM7 - micro compatible file transfer utils. XMODEM - ditto. ACCOUNT - V4.x accounting system. QPOST - Talaris printer support for TEX. MOVE - another SET DEFAULT program. SIX - simple extractor showing selected lines from files. TERMS - LOGIN.COM compiler. VVCODE - translates VMS files/headers to/from printable text for comm. transmission. Jim Belonis, Univ. of Washington. [.BONNER] Bonner Lab RUNOFF (in NATIVE MODE!) large superset of DSR with MANY extensions. John Clement, Rice Univ. [.BRIDGE] DOCUMENT - extract material from src files with delimiters. WHO - who's on the system. LIMS - programs and report writers. Adam Bridge, Multiware. [.BULLETIN] VMS Bulletin Board from ARPAnet. Mark London, MIT. [.COSTELLO] TPC format independent tape-disk-tape copy routine in native mode for VMS. FAT - Pixel douibler for dumping ReGIS images on LN03. Dennis Costello and Larry Muray, Cornell Univ. VAX-16 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) [.CWAX] PVT - print VT1xx or VT2xx terminal screen images on printer. Andrew Wax, Chemical Bank, NYC. [.DFWLUG] ALLIEDELEC - SMG utility library. WHERE - shows where one is. Utility to get current system uptime into a symbol. Simple snapshot to see how much free space ther is on all disks, plus SNAPSHOT for V4. Dallas/Fort Worth LUG. [.DMREV] DM - Directory Management for VMS V4. Rich Gregory, Pharmaceutical Research Assoc. [.ERI] HALFTONE - convert gray scales for print on LA50. MACSNVAX - Macintosh file transfer utility and several Macintosh applications. Bob Goldstein, Daniel Smith, Eye Research Institute. [.EVEPLUS] Extensions to EVE interface of TPU. [.EYE] DISKMON - watches disk usage, warns of impending running out of room. Eric Richards, Gould OSD. [.FERMILAB] ALLOCWATCH - watches allocation of devices so other cluster members can wait for them. EDTX - expanded EDT with file mem, wildcard files, spawn, etc. EXPAND - allow conditionalizable FORTRAN programs. LA100SMB - flag pages at dense modes for LA100. NODEIDS - get node names as identifiers for ACLs to use. SETUSER - eliminate need to explicitly provide UIC associated with a username. STARTUP - system startup command file examples. TECO macros for mass changes in UAF records. TELLSELF - allow detached or batch jobs to BROadcast messages to parent process. More. Frank Nagy, Fermilab. [.GARMAN] DFRAG - Disk Fragmentation reporter. Charles Garman, RCA MSRD. [.INQUIRE] INQUIRE and PROTO - DTR update and program generators. Florence Bowden, UCC. [.LEVINE] INDEX - super FORTRAN indexer, cross referencer, and static analysis tool. Also some VT200 utilities including FONT to create/edit VT200 fonts. Directory tree painter, disk fragmentation utilities, inactive terminal process killer, more. Michael Levine, Naval Weapons Ctr. VAX-17 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) [.LJK] Pageswapper articles since Spring 1985 tape. Larry Kilgallen, Cambridge, Mass. [.MANTECH] OBSERVE - allows you to watch another (TT or TX) terminal on your machine. No extra hardware required. DEFAULT - Set defualt program. Mark Crego and Joe Bingham, Mantech. [.NSWC] SCHEDULER - run processes on future dates based on logic (for periodic, longterm repeated needs; able to run procedure on day before holidays that are on weekdays, other unusual needs). REMINDER - improved calendar and tickler. Fixed for better cluster work. SUBMITIF conditional submission. Notify message sender. Alan Zirkle, NSWC. [.PFILE] Kernel mode no delete protection for files. Good for synonym files and directories. Ken Coar, Gen. Dynamics. [.RAINIER] Ada tools and support environment. Stephen Rainier, MITRE. [.RAWIO] Unix style raw and cbreak i/o. Forrest Kenney, DEC. [.SAOSTOIC] STOIC - stack oriented language like FORTH. RED - screen editor/WP. CALC - RPN calculator. Updates for VMS V4. Jonathan Mark and Roger Hauck, Smithsonian Instutute. [.SKUNK] SETDEF program. EDT with spawn. SEND messages to users.' Skunk LUG. (Ames, Iowa) [.SMGLIB] SMG screen library. Ken Messier, Allied Electronics. (may be same as DFWLUG one). [.TIMELINE] A number of VMS utilities, notabiby VERB to extract verb definitions from DCLTABLES. Joe Meadows, Timeline/Why Systems. [.TPUEDT] Documentation on TPU EDT simulator and customizer. Richard Piccard, Kalamazoo College. [.TSUME] C program to solve mating problems in Japanese chess. Nigel Haslock, AGS Computers. [.UAB] LIST - TPU template for file lister. GRADE - class grader system. SMAUG - CPU hog priority adjuster. Mark Vevle, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham. VAX-18 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) [.UWRF] ACCESS - system for easy add/delete user account information. CALENDAR - print calendar of any month with text in blocks. EBS - Emergency broadcast utility (also with /SELF qualifier). FRAGMENTATION - show disk fragmentation. LISTER - source lister with titles on each page. PEN - Pascal Environment. PRIV - get privs in a subprocess if parent is authorized but not enabled. PROSE - Runoff-like processor. QUOTA - gets acct quotas in V3 format (for VMS V4). RESERVE - terminal reservation system. SCRUNCH - remove comments from DCL. SETFEEDER - set up Diablo 1630 sheet feeder. SGO - GO game. VAX users' guide. More. Marlys Nelson, Univ. of Wisconsin, River Falls. [.VFE] Block oriented, type insensitive file editor. Ward Condit, Maricopa Community Colleges [.WATCHDOG] V4 update of WATCHDOG, idle process killer. George Walrod III, American Satellite Company. VAX85D Tape ------ ---- [.BNELSON] Kermit-11 (and .EXE for VMS Kermit) communication program. VT100 emulating IBM PC Kermit. TED - good full screen editor/WP for VAX, PDP11, micros... [.CI] DROIDS game and SYSTATUS4 system status, from Ken Richardson. [.DENNISON] Grammar correction system and spelling checker for VMS V4. Dennison University. [.FORTH] FIG Forth for VMS (native mode). Roderick Eldridge, Central Iowa Forth Interest Group. [.HALL] Game manager (and large collection of games). GETWS - show work set stats. NEWS program. REMINDER update (patched to eliminate time bomb) [n.b. - this version NOT tested by librarian to verify time bomb is reset.] SB - limited login time enforcer. Rand Hall, Northeastern University. [.KMSKIT] Vax Professional Workstation (i.e., most all of All-in-1 free!) with various additions since Spring '85. Many MANY other utilities included (including NOTEBOOK, which is handy for doing short procedures that DTR startup overhead makes VAX-19 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 Fall 1985 VAX Systems SIG Symposium Tape (Disneyland) impractical with DTR.) Complete window and graphics subsystem for VMS. Jim Downward, KMS Fusion. [.RCAF85] ANALYTICALC - spreadsheet/database system for VAX (native mode) and PDP11, 32000 by 32000 cells, DTR-32 interface, graphics, data file read, WP integration features, spawn DCL, MUCH more. (Also faster than most commercial spreadsheets...), with new micro-like command mode option, batch support, etc. DTCVAX - Desk Top Calendar update from Charles Garman that works from 1 AD to 9999 AD, many enhancements and speedups. VPW mods (as illustrations) showing how VPW from this tape can be customized for YOUR site's software. Database mgr. More. Glenn Everhart, Charles Garman, RCA. [.UALR] BBS - VAX Bulletin Board system. POSTERS - biggest collection of ([fortunately!] squeezed) posters ever. Menu driven operator system. University of Arkansas at Little Rock. [.VASSAR] Full screen spelling corrector update (uses SMG now). BB - VMS Bulletin Board system. RESERVE - terminal reservation system. Mark Resmer, Vassar College. VAX-20 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 VAX System SIG Committee List VAX System SIG Committee List As of January 8, 1985 Osman K. Ahmad - Large Systems Integration Working Group Association of American Railroads Technical Center, Research and Test Department 3140 South Federal Street Chicago, IL 60616 Joe Angelico - Assistant Symposium Coordinator US Coast Guard CCGD8(DT) Hale Boggs Federal Building 500 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 Elizabeth Bailey - Volunteer Coordinator 222 CEB Tennessee Valley Authority Muscle Shoals, AL 35660 June Baker - Advisor Computer Sciences Corporation 6565 Arlington Boulevard Falls Church, VA 22046 Joe L. Bingham - Librarian Mantech International 2320 Mill Road Alexandria, VA 22314 Bob Boyd - Commercial Working Group GE Microelectronics Center MS 2P-04 Post Office Box 13409 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 C. Douglas Brown - Security Sandia Labs Division 2644 P.O. Box 5800 Albuquerque, NM 87185 Jim Caddick - VAXcluster General Datacom Strait Turnpike Middlebury, CT 06762-1299 Jack Cundiff - Symposium Coordinator Horry-Georgetown Post Office Box 1966 Conway, SC 29526 VAX-21 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 VAX System SIG Committee List Tom Danforth - Handout Editor Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Woods Hole, MA 02543 Jim Downward - Migration and Host Development, VAXintosh Working Group KMS Fusion Incorporated 3941 Research Park Drive Ann Arbor MI 48106 Jane Furze - Campground 3830 West Cochise Phoenix, AZ 85064 Dennis Frayne - Real Time/Process Control Working Group McDonnell Douglas 5301 Bolsa Avenue Huntington Beach, CA 92646 Carl E. Friedberg - Internals Working Group In House Systems 165 William Street New York, NY 10038 Don Golden - Communications Committee Representative c/o Shell Oil Company Westhollow Research Center Post Office Box 1380, Room D2132 Houston, TX 77001 Gary Grebus - System Improvement Request Battelle Columbis Labs Room 11-6011 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2693 B. Hancock - Network Working Group Dimension Data Systems, Incorporated 2510 Limestone Lane Garland, TX 75040 (214) 495-7353 Jeffrey S. Jalbert - Historian J C C Post Office Box 381 Granville, OH 43023 614-587-0157 Ray Kaplan - MicroVAX Working Group Pivotal Incorporated 6892 East Dorado Court Tucson, AZ 85715 VAX-22 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 VAX System SIG Committee List Lawrence J. Kilgallen - Newsletter Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 Margaret Knox - Chair Computation Center University of Texas Austin, Texas 78712 Art McClinton - Advisor MITRE 1820 Dolley Madison Boulevard McLean, VA 22102 Ross W. Miller - Vice Chair and Working Group Coordinator Online Data Processing, Inc. N 637 Hamilton Spokane, WA 99202 Eugene Pal - Multiprocessor Working Group US Army CAORA (ATOR-CAT-C) Fort Leavenworth, KA Susan Rehse - System Management Working Group Lockheed Missiles 3251 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94301-1187 Bob Robbins - Advisor Array Computer Consultants 5364 Woodvale Drive Sarasota, FL 33582 Larry Robertson - Real Time/Process Control Working Group Bear Computer Systems Inc. 5651 Case Avenue North Hollywood, CA David Schmidt - LUG Coordinator, Hardware Working Group Management Sciences Associates 5100 Centre Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15232 Al Siegel - Advisor Battelle Memorial Institute 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2693 D. Slater - Artificial Intelligence Working Group Institute for Defense Analysis 1801 North Beavregard Street Alexandria, VA 22314 VAX-23 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT INPUT/OUTPUT A SIG Information Interchange A form for INPUT/OUTPUT submissions is available at the back of the issue. INPUT/OUTPUT 487 Caption: RX02 Drive Errors Message: We run a VAX-11/780 shop that includes the RX02 dual diskette drive. The drive should read eight-inch single and double density diskettes, and we use it for reading information that has been written onto diskettes by microcomputers or other main frame computers. We have a program which uses the SYS$QIOW system service that can even read IBM diskettes in EBCDIC. Obviously this is a great convenience. The problem is that occasionally for no reason that I can determine the diskette controller, when attempting to initialize or mount a diskette that is identical in physical characteristics to diskettes that we have successfully read, will fail with a "FATAL CONTROLLER ERROR" message. And that is that; we can do nothing with that particular diskette. The problem appears to be related to software rather than hardware for the following reason: I own a Radio-Shack Model-16 micro and purchased some diskettes for it. If I take a new Radio-Shack diskette, fresh from the wrapping paper, it can be initialized with no problem on the VAX. But if I first initialize it on the micro and they try to initialize or mount it on the RX02, then the fatal controller error message appears. So the problem can't be hardware. The problem is very irritating because sometimes a user comes with a diskette with information that he wants to read on the VAX, and when we try to read it the error message occurs. It is hard to explain to the disgruntled user why we usually can read diskette information, but for him we can't. Has anyone an idea what might be the origin of this strange problem? Has anyone encountered a similar problem? VAX-24 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT Contact: Dr. Richard Branham Servicio Centralizado de Computacion Centro Regional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnologicas Mendoza, Argentina Date: February 4, 1986 INPUT/OUTPUT 488 Caption: Using incoming modems as outgoing modems - Reply to I/O # 477 Message: Use SET HOST/DTE ddcu:. This V4.x command does not require that DECnet be running on the processor. The optional /LOG=filename qualifier logs the session to a file. If a DF03 autodial modem is used, the SET HOST command allows the phone number to be specified via /DIAL=. The user MUST have RW access to the modem port or the necessary privileges. The command SET PROTECTION=(W:RW)/DEVICE ddcu: will allow users to allocate the modem for dial-out purposes. Note that this opens security problems via password grabbers. The use of device ACLs may be more appropriate, i.e., SET ACL/ACL=(IDENT=identifier,ACCESS=READ+WRITE)/OBJECT=DEVICE ddcu:. If the dial-out modem port is not set at the dial-out modem's speed (i.e., if it's AUTOBAUD), then you MUST change the speed of the modem's port. The following will suffice: $ ALLOCATE ddcu: $ SET TERMINAL /SPEED=1200 ddcu: The port will automatically reset to the original /PERMANENT speed when it is DEALLOCATED. Programs on the VAX SIG DECUS tapes, such as KERMIT and HOST, can be used instead of the SET HOST command. Contact: Mark A. Holomany JCPDS-International Centre for Diffraction Data 1601 Park Lane Swarthmore, PA 19081 Telephone (215) 328-9403 Date: March 9, 1986 VAX-25 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT INPUT/OUTPUT 489 Caption: Real Estate Software? Message: We are a large real estate company in Hawaii, running two 750 systems. We are looking for real estate oriented accounting/sales-tracking software. If anyone knows of programs of this type for the VAX, I would appreciate any information you can provide. Contact: Jack Willey 1339 Hunakai Street Honolulu, Hawaii 96816 Telephone (808) 735-4200 Date: March 13, 1986 INPUT/OUTPUT 490 Caption: BUSUSE modified for Unibus Message: Barbara Dow-Pleines offered source for the above (Pageswapper February 1985). We've been unable to get an answer at the given phone. We're interested in getting the Unibus mods. Contact: June Templin Goshen College 1700 South Main Goshen, IN 46526 Telephone (219) 533-3161 Ext. 551 Date: March 13, 1986 INPUT/OUTPUT 491 Caption: I/O redirection and STR$MATCH_WILD Message: I too thought * wasn't working when I first used STR$MATCH_WILD. My problem, maybe yours, was due to gratuitous trailing spaces in FORTRAN's fixed-length CHARACTER variables, e.g. if PATT is CHARACTER*4, then PATT='*' actually sets PATT to '*bbb' (where b signifies a space), which only matches 'ABCbbb', NOT 'ABC'. Use STR$TRIM on the pattern string to get its real length, as: PATT='*' CALL STR$TRIM(PATT,PATT,LP) ! LP = trimmed length VAX-26 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT IF (STR$MATCH(CAND,PATT(1:LP)) ... Contact: C J Doran Sira Limited Souht Hill, Chislehurst, Kent, BR7 5EH, England Telephone +44 1 467 2636 x 325 Date: March 11, 1986 VAX-27 PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form A SIG Information Interchange Please reprint in the next issue of the Pageswapper If this is a reply to a previous I/O, which number? ________ Caption: ______________________________________________________ Message: ______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Contact: Name _______________________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Telephone ____________________________ Signature _____________________________ Date ________________ Mail this form to: Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station, Cambridge, MA 02139-0901, USA PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form Tear out or photocopy reverse to submit an I/O item Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 USA PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 System Improvement Request Submission Form System Improvement Request Submission Form Page 1 of _____ ________________________________________________________________ Submittor: Firm: Address: Phone: ________________________________________________________________ How to write an SIR: Describe the capability you would like to see available on VAX systems. Be as specific as possible. Please don't assume we know how it's done on the XYZ system. Justify why the capability would be useful and give an example of its use. If you wish, suggest a possible implementation of your request. ________________________________________________________________ Abstract (Please limit to four lines): ________________________________________________________________ Description and examples (use additional pages if required) PAGESWAPPER - May 1986 - Volume 7 Number 10 System Improvement Request Submission Form Tear out or photocopy reverse to submit an SIR Gary L. Grebus Battelle Columbus Division Room 11-6011 505 King Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43201-2693 USA