We used to do IBM tape conversions all the time - though it's been a couple
of years.

A very useful utility for determining block lengths is one called TAPESCAN
from the Interex contributed library.

That will indicate tape label information - as well as block lengths of
data contained therein.

Knowing the block length does not necessarily tell you the record size,
although sometimes you can make a pretty good guess absent any other
information. For example, a block length of 800 bytes often (though not
necessarily) indicates record length 80, 10 records per block.

TAPESCAN will also print the data in all formats (ASCII, EBCDIC, HEX, etc.)
which will assist you when doing the actual data conversion with FCOPY.

With FCOPY, you will probably require the EBCDICIN and DEBLOCK options.

If the tape is labelled, you will best precede the FCOPY command with a
FILE command, such as:

:FILE T;DEV=??;LABEL=123456;REC=-800,1,U,ASCII  (this is just an example)

The REC= should indicate a single-block record size that corresponds to the
largest blocksize encountered with TAPESCAN.

The DEBLOCK option of the FCOPY command will divvy up the block into proper
records in the TO device.


At 11:34 AM 2005-01-06, John Lee wrote:
>Is anybody reading IBM 3480 tapes into an HPUX or MPE box?  I have a need
>to do so and am wondering how you're doing it.
>
>Thanks,
>
>John Lee
>Vaske Computer Solutions
>
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