At my company we have been having problems creating variable length records
to be read by an IBM system.
Below is two questions that are still unanswered:
 
 
1.  When putting a variable length record format to tape using FCOPY, the
HP3000 writes a 2-byte block serial number and a 2-byte record control word
(RCW).  In order to read these tapes on the IBM , the block serial number and
RCW must each be a 4 bytes.  Is there a way to override system defaults to
force the HP to write a 4-byte block serial number and a 4-byte RCW?
 
2.  When putting a variable length record format to tape using FCOPY with the
EBCDICOUT option, the HP3000 converts the RCW to EBCDIC.  The RCW is a binary
integer.  Doing character transliteration results in the RCW containing a bad
value and not the number of bytes in the record.  Is there a way t prevent
the conversion of the RCW and only convert the data bytes to EBCDIC?
 
If anyone can answer the above questions we would appreciate very much.
 
 
TIA
 
Dave Jennings