HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Disk Low-Level Formatter
Date: 27 Sep 1992 03:04:20 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <Bv7rIA.8L@suite.com>, Mark-Tarbell@suite.com writes:
>Does anyone have access to a low-level disk formatter for
>Files-11 volumes?

This is a contradiction in terms.  Low-level disk formatters don't care about
whether a volume's Files-11 or not, and, with two exceptions, Files-11 doesn't
care about the low-level format.  Those two exceptions are:
	1)  The volume must be formatted with 512-byte blocks;
	2)  The volume must be formatted in such a way that one of disk drivers
	    you've got on your system (e.g., DRDRIVER, DUDRIVER...) can
	    recognize it.

>We got some new (3rd-party) drives in,
>unformatted, and need to format them.

You should ask your third-party vendor about formatting them.

>As I recall, in the early days of VMS, there used to be
>a low-level formatter as part of the UETP set. I believe
>it was named EVRAC.EXE. Of course, such things are no
>longer delivered  (I guess DEC wants you to buy from
>THEM... Can't understand why...).

If DEC wanted to pursue a policy to make you buy disks from them, then they'd
ship EVRAC, since it would only handle a certain subset even of DEC disks, or
disks that were identical to them at the programming interface level.

>Any help would be greatly appreciated. 1.48GB is a
>terrible thing to waste!

First, you haven't given us anywhere near enough information.  Really, what you
need to do is get in touch with your vendor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
From: leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: re: C passes options only in lowercase?
Date: 5 Oct 92 02:58:57 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


	I have this TEXT2PS program, which works fine, EXCEPT for the 
	font-initialisation in the created PostScript(tm) file. 

	INDEPENDENT of how I pass the parameters to the .EXE program (by means
	of using a foreign command), the program does put a lowercase version
	of the font I specified by means of a switch in the .PS file.

	The problem with fontnames is, that they are case sensitive in
	Postscript, and that these fontnames consist of mixed upper and lower
	case literals.  So, Times-BoldOblique will never be put correctly into
	the .PS file! :((

	My questions are: 
	- 1. Does VAX C pass all parameters in lowercase? In that case, the 
	fontname option does necessitate manual editing of the .PS file.

Yes.  (In fact, what is really happening is more complex.  DCL forces every-
thing to UPPER case.  However, since the majority of Unix switches are lower
case, VAX C flips things around, takes everything that DCL up-cased, and
down-cases it.)

	- 2. Is there a workaround, in case 1. is in effect?

Yes, there is a simple work-around:  If a parameter on the command line is
quoted, neither DCL nor VAX C will change the case of its letters.  (They
WILL strip off the quotes before delivering the result to your program.)

BTW, this is all fully documented in the VAX C documentation.

							-- Jerry
From: moeller@gwdgv1.dnet.gwdg.de ("GWDGV1::MOELLER")
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: re: Does DIFFERENCE command work on binary files also?
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:12:57 GMT
Organization: The Internet

Stephen W. Thompson <st@eniac.seas.upenn.edu> asks:
> I'm trying to compare sets of binary files with the DIFFERENCE command.
> The helpfile seems to imply that the command is only for text files.  Is
> that true?

DIFFERENCES does a bit-by-bit comparison of the files' records and has
no problem with "non-text" files. However, your terminal won't like
the way DIFF outputs the non-text files' records by default.

If you're not terribly interested in the display of non-text characters, try
	$ DIFF/PARALLEL
Depending on record length, you might wish to add
/WIDTH=156 or /WIDTH=316 or so ...

There *are* some files that can't be processed by records, and so
can't be operated upon by DIFF (no false results - DIFF will error out).
The VMS distribution traditionally includes just *one* such file:
	SYS$SYSTEM:TERMTABLE.EXE
For files like this, BACKUP/COMPARE may prove useful.

Wolfgang J. Moeller, GWDG, D-3400 Goettingen, F.R.Germany | Disclaimer ...
PSI%(0262)45050352008::MOELLER      Phone: +49 551 201516 | No claim intended!
Internet: moeller@gwdgv1.dnet.gwdg.de   | This space intentionally left blank.
From: dragon@NSCVAX.PRINCETON.EDU (Mighty Firebreather)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: RE: Help:  File Header Full on system disk
Date: 28 Sep 92 20:21:16 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


	Kipp <TEAGUE@ACAVAX.LYNCHBURG.EDU> writes:
>
>I just experienced a HEADERFULL (file header full) on my RZ56 system disk
>when attempting to create a new file.  I can delete files, but can only
>create as many new ones as I delete before experiencing the error again.
>This disk has a 162396 file maximum and there are only currently 52000+
>files on the disk.  INDEXF.SYS currently has 53 extents and may be trying
>to extend itself again, however, there is a 100000+ contiguous space hole
>available.  What is causing the error?  Is an image backup and restore the
>only solution?  Is there any method of reorganizing INDEXF.SYS without
>a full backup and restore?  Note:  I run RABBIT-7 regularly.
>

	I think that you are going to have to do a backup and restore.  I
don't believe that INDEXF.SYS is allowed to have more than one file header
and it looks as if you have maxed out the extents that will fit in one 
header.

	Evidently RABBIT-7 doesn't do a thing about INDEXF.SYS.  I couldn't
say if any of the other defragmenters do or not.  In any event, backup and
restore is the quickest and easiest solution to your immediate problem.


*************************************************************************
*                                                                       *
*                        Here, there be dragons!                        *
*                      dragon@nscvax.princeton.edu                      *
*                                                                       *
*                                                Richard B. Gilbert     *
*************************************************************************
From: macallstr@V1.PH.OX.AC.UK (John Macallister)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: What to put on RAM disk?
Date: 29 Sep 92 07:44:43 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Good candidates for RAM disks are frequently-used read-only files especially
 those read in the login sequence or in the initialisation sequence of a
 package. Work files could also be located there.

I've been using a RAM disk here for several years in this way. Although it
 must save on disk I/O I have to say that I could not detect any performance
 difference between having the files on disk and on RAM disk. 

I suspect that significant performance improvements would only be seen with
 large files and heavy I/O, assuming, of course, that the disks aren't
 saturated with I/O. The best candidates, therefore, for RAM disks might
 be database files - which are usually very large.

John


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From: munroe@dmc.com (Dick Munroe)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: XMODEM from Vax/vms?
Date: 28 Sep 92 16:28:49 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Doyle, Munroe Consultants, Inc., Hudson, MA

In article <1992Sep28.033618.3412@memstvx1.memst.edu>, langston@memstvx1.memst.edu (Mark C. Langston) writes:
>   This may be a simple question, but I've spent all night combing various
> Archie's and sugested ftp's to no avail.  Does anyone know anywhere where I
> can get a copy of an .exe that will let me download from a vax/vms system
> using the XMODEM protocol?
> 
> I have rz and sz .exe's, but the term I'm using on my Mac only supports
> Kermit (which doesn't seem to want to work), and xmodem....and I'm in no
> position to spring for a new term program right now...(ah, the plight of
> a student..)
> 
> Thanks all,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> +--------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here---------+
>   Mark C. Langston   |  "Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny."                 
>   Psychology Dept.   |  "Always listen to experts.  They'll tell you what can't
>   Memphis State U.   |     be done, and why.  Then do it."                      
>       "Pftph!"       |           -From the notebooks of Lazarus Long         

From the monthly VAX software list:

XMODEM          File transfer program with checksums and error correction.
                Compatible with CP/M MODEM7.  XMODEM is program VAX-96 of
                the DECUS library.  Author: J. James Belonis II.
                Availability:   S13, E2, F27

E2      BELONIS@PHAST.PHYS.WASHINGTON.EDU               J. James Belonis II
F27     PHAST.PHYS.WASHINGTON.EDU
S13     VMSSERV@PHAST.PHYS.WASHINGTON.EDU, VMSSERV@UWAPHAST (Bitnet)
-- 
Dick Munroe				Internet: munroe@dmc.com
Doyle Munroe Consultants, Inc.		UUCP: ...uunet!thehulk!munroe
267 Cox St.				Office: (508) 568-1618
Hudson, Ma.				FAX: (508) 562-1133

GET CONNECTED!!! Send mail to info@dmc.com to find out about DMConnection.
From: CASEY@SOL.YORKU.CA ("Acacio  A.F. de Carvalho", Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: UCX 2.0
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:54:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Greetings,

stevem@ms.uky.edu (Stephen McNatton) writes:

> I seem to recall some mentioning of problems with UCX 2.0 in the last
> month or so. We just got the release yesterday and would like to use
> some of the options (lpd for example). Unfortunately, I can't seem to
> find any of the old postings.  If in fact, anyone is using it, could
> you please let me know of any problems you may have had.

Some recent observations with UCX 2.0.

FTP has some bugs:

(1) DIR/FULL does not always report correct block sizes for very large files.
    For example:
FTP>dir/ful HYDRA$DKB200:[000000]dub0.bck

Directory   HYDRA$DKB200:[000000]

DUB0.BCK;1      22161/22162     29-SEP-1992    [DIGITAL,SYSTEM]   (RWED,RWED,,RE)

Total of 1 files.

If you are not careful and blindly ftp large files, you could end up filling
the target disk because the actual file size is over 349000 blocks, as indicated
by a VMS 

$ DIR/SIZ=ALL HYDRA$DKB200:[000000]dub0.bck

Directory HYDRA$DKB200:[000000]

DUB0.BCK;1           349840/349842

Total of 1 file, 349840/349842 blocks.

I have not investigated this problem further, but I have reported it to CSC.

(2) UCX supports ASCII and IMAGE (binary) files only.  VMS backup savesets are 
    not directly supported and if you wish to ftp these savesets you
    need to create a FDL file for the save set, transfer it in IMAGE mode and
    then convert the ftp'd file back to it's original backup saveset format 
    using the FDL file.  This means that you will also need extra disk space
    during the conversion process, too.

Regards,

Acacio (Casey) Carvalho                 | Internet: CASEY@CCS.YORKU.CA
VMS Technical Support                   | 
IT, Computing & Communications Services |
York University,  T103 Steacie          | 
North York, Ontario                     | 
Canada     M3J 1P3                      | 

Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: ORAKEL@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Framstag)
Subject: Problems with SORTing integers
Organization: University of Ulm, Germany
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 11:50:21 GMT
X-Copyright1: Fuer Veroeffentlichungen AUSSERHALB des Newssystemes gelten MEINE Geschaeftsbedingungen.
X-Copyright2: Nichtbeachtung wird in der Regel zivil- und strafrechtliche Folgen nach sich ziehen.
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

After hacking a hour with SORT, I give up.

I have 2 columns of integers and want to sort them in descending order with
the first column as the sorting key.

I have the following data:

 -3  8979
 -2  9860
 -11 90670
  0  90707
  2  9707
  1  9078

and I want this output:

 -11 90670
 -3  8979
 -2  9860
  0  90707
  1  9078
  2  9707


After reading  HELP SORT  I thought this should work:

    sort/key=(pos:2,size:3,decimal,leading,des)

But I get:

%SORT-E-ROPRAND, utility converted a reserved operand to a valid value
%SORT-E-ROPRAND, utility converted a reserved operand to a valid value
%SORT-E-ROPRAND, utility converted a reserved operand to a valid value
%SORT-E-ROPRAND, utility converted a reserved operand to a valid value
%SORT-E-ROPRAND, utility converted a reserved operand to a valid value
 -3  8979
  2  9707
 -2  9860
 -11 90670
  1  9078
  0  90707


What are the correct qualifiers for my problem??


\  Ulli 'Framstag' Horlacher    \    psi%0262450502601::rzmain::orakel  \
 \  Student consultant VAX/VMS and networks   \  orakel@dulruu51.bitnet  \
  \  Rechenzentrum  Universitaet Ulm  Germany  \    orakel@rz.uni-ulm.de  \
   \  "With mainframes you just can do nonsense, with PCs not even that."  \
From: userAKDU@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (Al Dunbar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: LAPLINK PRO and DECserver ports
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 17:31:12 GMT
Organization: MTS Univ of Alberta     

According to the documentation, Laplink Pro can transfer files
between two PC's via modem, in addition to the special serial and
parallel cables of earlier versions. I have tried, unsuccessfully
so far, to do this between two PC's through their connections to
DECserver ports. I defined a service provided by one port, and
defined the other port is defined to be dedicated to that
service. Other port characteristics are changed to remove the
"special" status of certain characters and line conditions (i.e.
no flow control, break remote, etc.). Our standard terminal
emulator indicates that the connection is made at the baud/parity
expected by Laplink, which I have tried to run with and without
its "three-wire" mode.
 
Any hints? Has anyone done this successfully?
 
Please reply by Email, and I will summarize later
 
thanks in advance
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------
 Al Dunbar                          - Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
From: lionel@quark.enet.dec.com (Steve Lionel)
Subject: Re: Why is demand-zero compression for shareable images unsupported?
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date:  4 OCT 92 22:01:52    


Lots of people have been asking about demand-zero compression in shareable
images and why one needs UNSUPPORTED=1 in the options file to turn it
on.  Here's the real story.

Prior to VMS V3.0, there was only one RTL shareable image, VMSRTL.  This
image contained support for the FORTRAN, BASIC and COBOL languages, plus
the LIB$, MTH$, OTS$ and STR$ facilities.  In 1982 (or thereabouts), I
had the task of implementing the "breakup" of VMSRTL into the five
shareable images LIBRTL, MTHRTL, BASRTL, COBRTL and FORRTL.  This was
made possible by a lot of work in the linker (done by Benn Schreiber, if
I recall), to allow a shareable image to reference other shareable images
it hadn't when the executable was originally linked.  (This is pretty much
beside the point, but it's part of the story.)

Anyway, none of these shareable images had demand-zero sections; they
did have read/write data, but they were initialized.  During the field
test of VMS V3, it was realized that LIBRTL's image activation was a
significant chunk othe total activation time for most images, and that
a lot of this came from the copy-on-reference read/write section.  So
LIBRTL was modified to not have any initialized data so that the
read/write section would be demand-zero, and the linker modified to
create demand-zero sections for shareable images (which it hadn't
before.)  This worked great and everyone was happy.  Until...

Until someone linked a shareable image with what was now a demand-zero
section and installed it /WRITE!  Perfectly reasonable thing to do,
except - what did this mean?  A big mess, that's what!  There was a
flurry of discussion, but time was tight (the change had been introduced
in the last field-test update), we didn't want to go back to
copy-on-reference for LIBRTL, so the chosen solution was to add an
undocumented and aptly named linker option to turn on the feature.  You
were to use it only if your read-write PSECTs were not SHR and GBL.
We only used it for LIBRTL and VMS V3 went out the door.

Ok, but now it's ten years later and we're still stuck with UNSUPPORTED=1.
This problem has not been forgotten, and a number of solutions have
been proposed, but it "works" now, even if it's undocumented, and fixing
this has always been rather low on the priority lists.  Still, the
discussion resurrects itself from time to time, and I think I will
bring it up again to the VMS devos to see if some sort of closure can
be reached.  A DECUS SIR (Software Improvement Request) would also be
helpful, as these get high visibility.

Please note that the opinions I expressed here are my own and do not
reflect an official position of my employer.  (I've always wanted to
write one of these disclaimers, and I think I had better this time.)

Steve Lionel                    lionel@quark.enet.dec.com
SDT Languages Group
Digital Equipment Corporation
110 Spit Brook Road
Nashua, NH 03062
From: TKENNETT@BENTLEY.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: How can one pass command line parameters to an image with Run?
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:03:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

>Someone which did NOT suply a email-address asked:
>
>> I have a minor problem. I`m doing a program in VAX C and I need to pass a
>> name of some directory to the program in the command line.
>>
>> But the HELP RUN IMAGE doesn`t really help and "RUN my_prog.exe somedir"
>> doesn`t work either.
>
>Try:
>
>MY_PROG:==$disk:[dir]MY_PROG.EXE
>MY_PROG somedir
>
>The keyword is "foreign command".
>
        How about:

        $ Run My_prog.exe
        $ deck
        somedir
        $ eod

This seems to work for me :-)

****************************************************************************
* Ted Kennette             Bitnet: tkennett@Bentley.Bitnet                 *
* Systems Manager                                                          *
* Bentley College           "Hey waiter, there's a bug in my soup!"        *
* 175 Forest St.                 "That's not a bug, It's a feature!"       *
* Waltham Ma. 02154                                                        *
****************************************************************************
From: DEREK@U.WASHINGTON.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Strange OPCOM dump
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:47:00 GMT
Organization: The Internet

Regarding the OPCOM "dump_log_file" log entries, of the form...

>%%%%%%%%%%%  OPCOM   4-OCT-1992 15:16:09.70  %%%%%%%%%%%  DUMP_LOG_FILE
>OPCOM has noticed a condition which might be due to an internal error.
>It might also be explained by normal events, especially if nodes have just
>crashed or rebooted in a VAXcluster.  Please bring this message to Digital's
>attention only if you are having problems with operator communications.
>Buffer is   295 (%X0127) bytes -- "reply request not found"

Yes, we get these "all the time".  (6000-440, 6000-530)  I looked into it
a couple of years ago, and determined that it wasn't an issue/problem for
us, so I've since ignored it.

(By the way, there are a few OPC$xxxxx logical names which, if defined
"properly" change the output from OPCOM.)

As I recall, I was looking into producing the effects of the command

	$ REPLY /ENABLE /TEMPORARY

from a program.  (This can be done, it's just that DEC has never bothered
to document the (what was it, V3?) change to the operator logging system.
($SNDOPR, etc.)

Anyway, as the log entry indicates, you can ignore it unless you are having
troubles.

-Derek S. Haining
 University Computing Services
 University of Washington
 Seattle, Washington  98195 
 (206) 543-5579

 DEREK@MAX.BITNET
 DEREK@MAX.U.WASHINGTON.EDU
From: rbr4@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Roland Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Logicals: concealed deviced names and search lists
Date: 1 Oct 92 01:36:20 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)


We have recently come near to running out of space on one of our disks
that houses a lot of local code.  Rather than defining a new logical
name to point to a new disk, we thought we'd try the following:

$ define/trans=concealed user$site1 dka0:[usersite1.],dka1:[usersite1.]

For most purposes, this works fine.  Users who want to run code from
the user$site1 "disk" can do so fine.  Directory command and SET
DEFAULT work fine too.  However, I discovered a problem when I tried
to trap output from a command:

$ set default user$site1:[ug]
$ directory
[... list of files, looks fine ...]
$ define sys$output foo.bar
%DCL-E-OPENOUT, error opening USER$SITE1:[UG]FOO.BAR; as output
-RMS-E-DNF, directory not found
-SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHFILE, no such file

I haven't figured out why the inconsistent behavior, that is some
commands work fine (e.g. DIRECTORY) and other fail (EDT, and friends
are similarly unhappy).  So there are two questions:

(1) Why this behavior?
(2) Is there another way to get what I want?  In particular, to have a
    logical device point to more than one physical device in a
    transparent fashion for the user.

roland
--
Roland Blaine Roberts
University of Rochester                     roberts@uornsrl.bitnet
Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory       roberts@nsrl31.nsrl.rocester.edu
271 East River Road                         rbr4@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Rochester, NY 14627                         (716) 275-8962
--
Fight `Look and Feel' copyrights and Software Patents.
Join the League for Programming Freedom, info from league@prep.ai.mit.edu