HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gezelter@rlgsc.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Can DCL programs execute 'other' commands ?
Date: 25 Jan 93 16:33:30 EST
Distribution: world
Organization: Robert Gezelter Software Consultant, Flushing, NY

In article <01GTUMJYR28G8Y6FL7@JCSVAX1.BITNET>, HANY@JCSVAX1.BITNET writes:
> Hi ..
>         I am new to writing DCL programs. I tried to make a program
> execute commands other than those issued at the '$' prompt, but just
> couldn't figure out how to do it. For example .. What would be the code
> for a program that would read 2 mail messages, then return back to the
> '$' ? .. The following did NOT work :
> 
> $ mail
> $ read 1
> $ read 2
> $ exit
> 
> Thanks for any help.
> Hany.
> [ e-mail: hany@jcsvax1.bitnet
>       or: hany%jcsvax1.bitnet@pucc.princeton.edu ]
> 
> 
-- 
Hany,
 
The correct format for the input (file SYS$INPUT) to a program 
requested from a command file or batch stream is:
 
          $ mail
          read 1
          read 2
          exit
          $! This is the command following the last MAIL command.
 
The "$" will signal an End of File to the requested image in most 
cases (but not all, see the DECK command).
 
The detailed behavior of this facilily is documented in both 
documentation sets, and in the HELP facility.
 
I hope that the above information is helpful. If I have been 
unclear, or if I can be of further assistance, please feel free 
to contact me via Email or phone.
 
- Bob
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Robert "Bob" Gezelter                       E-Mail:  gezelter@rlgsc.com  |
| Robert Gezelter Software Consultant         Voice:   +1 718 463 1079     |
| 35-20 167th Street, Suite 215               Fax:       (on Request)      |
| Flushing, New York  11358-1731                                           |
| United States of America                                                 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: mike@jammin.nosc.mil (mike pawka)
Subject: RE: THERE IS TO MUCH FLAMING ON THIS LIS
Organization: NRaD
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 15:57:07 GMT

In article <9301211427.AA16169@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, don@ANZIO.GATECH.EDU writes:
|> You are all ASSHOLES all of you!!!  Nobody flames me like that
|> and gets away with it.  YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL!!!!
|> 

	Ehud! Where are you when we need you? SEE what you guys have done? :-)

								mike
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: REXX for VMS? Where?
From: robin@vax1.mankato.msus.edu
Date: 26 Jan 93 06:35:55 -0600
Organization: Mankato State University

Is REXX available in a PD version for VMS?  If so, where can it be found.

Please reply directly to Robin@vax1.mankato.msus.edu

Thanks,
Robin Holt.
From: Chris_F_Chiesa@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: need xmodem for VAX
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 10:10:15 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

I'm a bit concerned about all the raving in recent months over "the new
C-Kermit," particularly as it is increasingly touted as "replacing 
Kermit32 which is being phased out."  

Does this "new C-Kermit" provide a superset of the functionality of 
Kermit32, vis-a-vis retaining or establishing appropriate RMS attributes
on transferred files?  The last time I used C-Kermit on a VMS system, 
it knew *nothing* about RMS or "record structure" and simply treated
all files as byte-streams just like *NIX and MSDOS et al.  I could not
perform the equivalent of, say, Kermit32's "Set file type FIXED," a 
capability on which I rely quite heavily.

Lord knows there's room for improvement in Kermit32 (I have v3.3.126 I
believe), but I hated C-Kermit when I tried it and would never replace
even the crappiest version of Kermit32 with it without strong assurances
that C-Kermit has been drastically improved since I last used it...

Chris Chiesa
  Chris_F_Chiesa@cup.portal.com
From: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: VMS Version 6 - when ?
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 17:59:07 GMT

In article <2426@sousa.tay.dec.com>, anderson@funyet.enet.dec.com (Paul Anderson) writes:
> 
> This is not an official answer or a commitment from Digital, but OpenVMS V6.0
> is scheduled to ship in June.  When a particular customer gets a copy on CD is
> anyone's guess.
> 

I take it this means that 5.6 and 5.7 have/will be dumped and we will go 
from 5.5-? to 6.0?

Well at least we get the old M/M-PLUS version number confusion back. :-)

~Paul
From: tdarcos@ACCESS.DIGEX.COM (Paul Robinson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: [TDR] VAX Pascal Dispose
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:35:29 GMT
Organization: The Internet


 F>I have a question about how can I prove or disprove that the 
  >DISPOSE procedure in Vax Pascal does really return the storage 
  >space pointed to by the parameter of the dispose procedure to 
  >the system's free space so that it can be reused.
 
 F>All Comments welcome,

To do this you need to be able to "see" a pointer which you can't do
because the compiler usually won't let you look at them directly, like
this:

PROGRAM DUMPPTR(OUTPUT);
TYPE 
     ILP = ^IL;
     IL = RECORD
            DValue : Integer;
            PREV,NEXT: ILP;
          END;       
    (* 1 *)      

VAR
     V1,V2,V3: ILP;
    (* 2 *)

begin
    new(V1);
    writeln(v1);
    new(v2);
    writeln(V2);   (* 3 *)
    dispose(V2);
    new(v3);
    writeln(V3);    (* The second two output lines *)
                    (* should be identical *)
end.

This won't work because you can't write a pointer out (most Pascals won't
allow it, anyway).  So you have to fool the compiler, by inserting code at
points 1,2 and 3.  So we have the following:

PROGRAM ImprovedDump(OUTPUT);

TYPE  
     ILP = ^IL;
     IL = RECORD
            DValue : Integer;
            PREV,NEXT: ILP;
          END;
      SW = RECORD
              CASE boolean OF
                 true: (P: ILP);
                false: (I: INTEGER);
           END;

VAR
     V1,V2,V3: ILP;
     T: SW;

BEGIN
        new(V1);
        T.P := V1;
        WRITELN(T.I);
        new(v2);
        T.P := V2;
        WRITELN(T.I);
        dispose(v2);
        new(v3);
        T.P := V3;
        WRITELN(T.I);  (* The second two output lines should be *)
                       (* identical *)
 end.

The construct SW and the T variable are sometimes called "pornographic"
memory access because this is something Pascal provides that usually only
C programmers can have: access to any memory anywhere.  By simply
assigning an integer value to T.I and reading it with, say, T.P, it is
possible to examine any location in memory.  This is a "kluge" to fool the
compiler which doesn't know what we are trying to accomplish.
From: anderson@funyet.enet.dec.com (Paul Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: VMS Version 6 - when ?
Date: 22 Jan 93 17:05:31 GMT
Reply-To: anderson@funyet.enet.dec.com (Paul Anderson)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


This is not an official answer or a commitment from Digital, but OpenVMS V6.0
is scheduled to ship in June.  When a particular customer gets a copy on CD is
anyone's guess.

Paul

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
   Paul Anderson, OpenVMS Specialist     .   anderson@funyet.enet.dec.com    .
   Digital Equipment Corporation         .                                   .
   40 Old Bolton Road, Stow MA 01775     .   (508) 496-9140                  .
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: houseman@hopper.ACS.Virginia.EDU (Carl Houseman)
Subject: Print symbiont interpretation of PASTHRU
Keywords: SYMBIONT
Organization: UVA. FREE Public Access UNIX! 
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 03:13:08 GMT

[This is a re-post of an article that somehow got put in as a followup to an
unrelated topic.  I'm still learning trn :-(.  The lack of replies, flaming
or otherwise, convinced me that no one had seen it!  If you had, sorry.]

I ran into an oddball problem the other day that made me look stupid (perhaps
true) to the users and questioned DEC's CSC about it.   They claimed it 'had
always worked that way' and sure enough, it was the same in VMS 5.1 as in
5.5-1.  Funny that it never got me before.  What it is:

$ SET TERM LTAx:/PERM/NOTAB/PASTHRU
$ COPY file LTAx:
<file comes out with horizontal tab characters, not spaces>

$ INIT/QUE/START/PROC=LATSYM/ON=LTAx: MYPRINTER
$ PRINT/QUE=MYPRINTER file
<file comes out with horizontal tabs translated into spaces>

It seems it is necesssary to specify /TAB in addition to /PASTHRU in order
to get the symbiont to pass the tab characters unscathed.

When questioned further the CSC said this was because of the symbiont's ability
to create left margins and the need to make sure tabs were aligned.

I say /PASTHRU should be the same no matter what.  If I don't want /PASTHRU I
wouldn't use it.  Searching for references in the Gray Wall produced nothing
useful, except to say that TT2$M_PASTHRU caused QIO's to be treated as if
IO$M_NOFORMAT was specified.  That was enough for me.

Does anyone else agree that this is, at least, inconsistent behavior?  Worthy
of being called a bug?  Worth of an SPR?  Already SPR'd?


Carl Houseman
houseman@hopper.acs.virginia.edu  (this address is so new, it may not work)
GENICOM Engineering, Waynesboro, VA
703-949-1323
From: jody@lib.haifa.ac.il (Yosef Branse)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: VT220 and VT320 Key codes
Date: 28 Jan 93 11:18:44 GMT
Organization: Haifa University Library

In article <1993Jan18.214243.5943@ais.com>, bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
writes:

> As I recall the big differences between the VT220 and the VT320 are that
> the VT320 added support for ISO Latin-1 (the VT220 only had the DEC
> Multinational character set) and for a 25th status line.  There are
> also differences in the format of the downloaded (soft) character sets,

One practical difference between the VT220 and 320 that I am aware of is the
ability of the 320 (and 420) to load soft fonts, at least as they are used by
Aleph, the standard  system for online catalogs in Israeli university libraries
(and some others). Thus, we can display bibliographic information for Arabic
books in legible  Arabic characters only  on VT320 and VT420 terminals (and
compatibles) but not VT220 and below. In addition, the soft fonts are used for
Hebrew characters in cases where the terminal does not have the Hebrew chip
standard on terminals in Israel. 

The terminals we have can display Cyrillic as well, though we don't use it.

Of course, if you don't need to work with more than one character set, this
will not be relevant for you, but it does point out the difference between the
two classes of terminals.

-- 

****************************************************************************
* Yosef (Jody) Branse       University of Haifa Library                    *
*                           Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel                *
*                           Tel.: 972 4-240288  / FAX:  972 4-257753       *
* Internet/ILAN:     JODY@LIB.HAIFA.AC.IL                                  *
****************************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: larry@eco.twg.com (Lawrence B. Henry III)
Subject: Re: Ehud
Keywords: EHUD warning
Reply-To: larry@eco.twg.com
Organization: The Wollongong Group (East Coast Operations)
Distribution: world,local
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 20:19:45 GMT


In article <1993Jan27.144111.26390@bony1.bony.com>, billg@bony1.bony.com (Bill Gripp) writes:
|>Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
|>Path: eco.twg.com!psinntp!bony1!billg
|>From: billg@bony1.bony.com (Bill Gripp)
|>Subject: Re: Ehud
|>Message-ID: <1993Jan27.144111.26390@bony1.bony.com>
|>Keywords: EHUD warning
|>Organization: LA&W RR
|>References: <25JAN199319222768@bpavms.bpa.arizona.edu>
|>Distribution: world,local
|>Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 14:41:11 GMT
|>
|>>Meanwhile, I'm left to sorting out the likes of:
|>>
|>>	(67GE)        norvaG duhE
|>>	 reganaM krowteN tseuqnuS
|>>	      moc.tseuqnus@norvag
|>
|>?drawkcab daer enoyreve t'naC
|>
|>lliB
|>
|>

I suppose you mean backwards ? ;-)

-Larry.
From: rdj@bass.world (Rajesh Jathar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Window manager???
Date: 25 Jan 93 03:54:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: bass.RDJ.93Jan24225439
Distribution: comp.os.vms
Organization: /usr2/graduate/rdj/.organization

Hi!  At the outset itself let me say that I am not a systems person,
but a biomed engineer struggling with this thankless task.  Having
got that of my chest, let me dive into the problem:

We are a small lab using a VAX 11/780 running VMS 4.7.  We are in the
process of moving onto a VAXstation 3100 running VMS 5.4-1.
Currently, I am the only person who logs on/uses that machine.  There
is something particularly disturbing about this machine.  I leave it
idle overnight, and when I go into work the next morning I find
thatthe window manager has crashed!  (I attribute it to the window
manager because I can log in from another terminal and everything
works fine).  The message I see on the console is that it is verifying
the mounting of the system disk (dka300) and sometimes another
(dka200) as well.  The only remedy I have at the moment is to reboot
the system.  I'm sure you can tell that is extremely inconvenient and
will be more so, when we will have upto 10 people logged on at one
time.  I'm sure you must have guessed by now that I am looking for a
way to restart the window manager (if that is what is ailing) without
rebooting the system.  Also how can I prevent this from happening?  Am
I doing something wrong like keeping too many windows open, even if
they are idle ( I never have more than 6 windows open at any given
time)?  Could it be a bad disk?  Are there any diagnostics I can run?

Other clues:
On rebooting I found that the time was off by 12 hours (failing
battery back-up?)
I was backing some stuff up to a 1.3Gb 4mm SCSI tape drive and crashed
the manager because I had absent-mindedly forgotten to insert the
cassette (same sort of error message - verifying mount of the tape
drive mka500)

I would appreciate any comments/suggestions/fixes on the topic.  Many
thanks in advance...

- Raj
  rdj@neuro.tch.harvard.edu
  rdj@acs.bu.edu
From: fwj@reg.triumf.ca (JONES,FRED_W.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Mixed Fortran/C porting Unix -> VMS headache
Date: 26 Jan 1993 11:17 PST
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: reg.triumf.ca
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

[cross-posted to comp.sys.dec]

I have a large mixed Fortran/C application that has to run on
both Unix systems and VMS.  On all the Unix systems I have used,
the Fortran compiler adds an underscore (_) to the end of all
global symbol names.  Thus the declarations look like, e.g.:

      COMMON/EDGR_MX/MX,XDIG,YDIG,CODE
      LOGICAL MX
      REAL XDIG,YDIG
      BYTE CODE
          ...
      CALL MXSHELL(I,A)
          ...

struct {Bool mx; float xdig, ydig; char code;} edgr_mx_;
          ...
void mxshell_(i, a)
   int *i;
   float *a;
{
   [...etc.]


Unfortunately, VMS does not add the underscore suffix to the references,
rendering this type of application fundamentally non-source-code-portable
to VMS systems.

Thus the programmer is forced to use abominations like:

#ifdef VMS
struct {Bool mx; float xdig, ydig; char code;} edgr_mx;
#else
struct {Bool mx; float xdig, ydig; char code;} edgr_mx_;
#endif
          ...
#ifdef VMS
void mxshell(i, a)
#else
void mxshell_(i, a)
#endif
   int *i;
   float *a;
{
   [...etc.]

One could make jackets for all the C routines, but that still leaves
the common blocks.

Any DEC/VMS gurus know of a more elegant solution?


Thanks

Frederick Jones
fwj@reg.triumf.ca
From: rdj@bass.bu.edu (Rajesh Jathar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Window manager???
Date: 25 Jan 93 04:02:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: bass.RDJ.93Jan24230200
Distribution: comp.os.vms
Organization: /usr2/graduate/rdj/.organization

Hi!  At the outset itself let me say that I am not a systems person,
but a biomed engineer struggling with this thankless task.  Having
got that of my chest, let me dive into the problem:

We are a small lab using a VAX 11/780 running VMS 4.7.  We are in the
process of moving onto a VAXstation 3100 running VMS 5.4-1.
Currently, I am the only person who logs on/uses that machine.  There
is something particularly disturbing about this machine.  I leave it
idle overnight, and when I go into work the next morning I find
thatthe window manager has crashed!  (I attribute it to the window
manager because I can log in from another terminal and everything
works fine).  The message I see on the console is that it is verifying
the mounting of the system disk (dka300) and sometimes another
(dka200) as well.  The only remedy I have at the moment is to reboot
the system.  I'm sure you can tell that is extremely inconvenient and
will be more so, when we will have upto 10 people logged on at one
time.  I'm sure you must have guessed by now that I am looking for a
way to restart the window manager (if that is what is ailing) without
rebooting the system.  Also how can I prevent this from happening?  Am
I doing something wrong like keeping too many windows open, even if
they are idle ( I never have more than 6 windows open at any given
time)?  Could it be a bad disk?  Are there any diagnostics I can run?

Other clues:
On rebooting I found that the time was off by 12 hours (failing
battery back-up?)
I was backing some stuff up to a 1.3Gb 4mm SCSI tape drive and crashed
the manager because I had absent-mindedly forgotten to insert the
cassette (same sort of error message - verifying mount of the tape
drive mka500)

I would appreciate any comments/suggestions/fixes on the topic.  Many
thanks in advance...

- Raj
  rdj@neuro.tch.harvard.edu
  rdj@acs.bu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: pawlak@vxdesy.desy.de
Subject: MAIL problems (not NEWMAIL count this time :-)
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 11:30:47 GMT

Environment:
VAX-VMS 5.5-1
Motif 1.1
Hardware: 
uVAX II (plase, don't laugh) displaying on a VAXStation (via DECNET).

Problem: usign DECWindows MAIL I composed a message and tried to send it out
(with a copy to myself). What I saw in the Message window was:

Sending mail...
Message sent to user ... at ....
Error sending to user PAWLAK.
Error writing DUA1:[PAWLAK.MAIL]MAIL.MAI;1.
Duplicate key detected (DUP not set).
Send completed with errors.
                 
There is no Facility/Ident in these messages, but the text sounds like 
RMS DUP message (Duplicate key in indexed file and no DUPLICATES ALLOWED
attribute set). The questions is how does MAIL construct the key then? I
tried to send the message again (to myself only), changing the Subject
field - nothing, I still can't put this one specific message into my
MAIL.MAI. So it seems that neither send time nor header contents have
anything to do with it. I checked that I can send myself other messages
and that others can send messages to me - so the MAIL.MAI file structure
seems OK. Any ideas how to get the message stored in my mail file?

And, when I'm already at this: in the above configuration I sometimes
experience veeery long delays when writing message in the MAIL create
window (by very long I mean up to 10 minutes). Watching the process
shows that it is CPU bound during that time and does only very little
I/O or paging. This feature forces me often to change editor when
composing longer messages. Maybe somebody knows what is my uVAX so
busily computing? Not that it's very important (DECWindows EVE uses
CPU as and editor should, and I can always switch to it) - call it 
curiosity...  

Michal (pawlak@vxdesy.desy.de)
From: levy@levy.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: computers, automobiles (and bignums)
Date: 26 Jan 93 16:33:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: levy.1993Jan26.103342.1
Organization: Fermilab Computing Division

[stuff deleted]

> If your computer crashes more often than about 3 times a year, you're probably
> running a UNIX system.

Or MS-DOS.
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: vli@mpr.ca (Vincent Li)
Subject: Re: Set Host command file
Organization: MPR Teltech Ltd., Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 23:39:00 GMT

In article <17JAN199319441116@nereid.sunquest.com> spg@nereid.sunquest.com (Steve Gibbons) writes:
>In article <01GTLB3KG9ZU8WW0YW@kopc.hhs.dk>, ARNE@KOPC.HHS.DK (Arne Vajhxj) writes...
>#>     1   get my USERNAME using f$getjpi
>#>     2   issue "SET HOST" to the node whose name I pass into the com file
>#>     3   Accept my username as input at the username prompt on the machine to
>#>         which I am setting host to
>#> 
>#I am not an expert in RTPAD.EXE/LOGINOUT.EXE, but it sounds impossible to me.
>
>It's not (at least under V5.4 and V5.5-2.)  I'm told that this "functionality"
>may dissappear in a future release.  I've already emailed a similar response to
>the original poster.
>
>$ user = f$getjpi(0,"username")
>$ open/write t sys$scratch:t.com
>$ write t "$ set host ''p1'"
>$ write t "''user'"
>$ close t
>$ @sys$scratch:t
>
This bit will also work:
$ host_name = .... (eg. 'p1)
$ user_name = f$getjpi(0,"username")
$ open/write data sys$scratch:user.dat
$write data "''user_name'"
$close data
$ define sys$input sys$scratch:user.dat
$   SET HOST 'host_name'
$!
$! we are now off at the remote host
$!
$ say "Logging off"
$ LOGOFF
$ set on
$ exit

>This won't work when connecting to an ULTRIX box running DECnet, since buffered
>I/O is handled differently by UNIX.
>
>Now for the reason for the disclaimer:  Don't even _think_ about adding a line
>that includes the password.  Yes, it works.
..And I've seen that done too! I took the password out. 8-)

-- Vince

---------------------------------------
vli@mprgate.mpr.ca        |-) It works well under pressure: Another thing
                          |-] you can say about your pillow. -- Mr Boffo
From: jeh@cmkrnl.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: need xmodem for VAX
Date: 24 Jan 93 01:31:54 PST
Distribution: world
Organization: Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego, CA

In article <74218@cup.portal.com>, Chris_F_Chiesa@cup.portal.com writes:
> [...]
> Lord knows there's room for improvement in Kermit32 (I have v3.3.126 I
> believe), but I hated C-Kermit when I tried it and would never replace
> even the crappiest version of Kermit32 with it without strong assurances
> that C-Kermit has been drastically improved since I last used it...
> 
> Chris Chiesa
>   Chris_F_Chiesa@cup.portal.com

I don't know when you last used it but it *has* been drastically improved.  

If you have C-Kermit at both ends it will preserve VMS file attributes 
with little or no extra effort on your part.  If you don't have C-Kermit at
both ends you can indeed SET FILE TYPE FIXED and SET FILE BLOCK n (those
may not be the exact commands but they're close).

In addition it supports large packets and sliding windows.  

Terry Kennedy, who is sometimes seen around this newsgroup, is the person who's
been doing the VMS-specific stuff in C-Kermit.  He knows what he's doing and
deserves a LOT of credit for this effort.  

(My one remaining beef with it is that it still does TOPS-20-style command
"peekahead", with no command recall; I wish there was a way to make it more
VMS-ish in that one respect.  (For all I know there is, and I haven't looked in
the right place in the HELP...)) 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
drivers, internals, networks, applications, and training for VMS and Windows NT
uucp 'g' protocol guru and release coordinator, VMSnet (DECUS uucp) W.G., and 
Chair, Programming and Internals Working Group, U.S. DECUS VMS Systems SIG 
Internet:  jeh@cmkrnl.com, or hanrahan@eisner.decus.org  Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh
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