The easiest way is to use FCOPY. Just do:

:file a;dev=tape
:fcopy from=*a;to=;char

This will dump the tape onto your screen. If it is a MPE Store, you will see
it
at the begining ot the tape. You will also see if it is a XL or a MPE/V
store.

If you only see data, it would not be a store, and you can read the data
directly.
If see a lot of "garbage" it may be written in EBCDIC by an IBM system. In
this case, you can translate to ascii by add the parameter ";EBCDICIN" into
your FCOPY statement.

I hope that this will help,

Richard Palmer            [log in to unmask]
International Development Research Centre
Ottawa, Canada

Insurance Recovery Specialists wrote:

> We received a dds-90 4mm tape with data on it.
> The problem is that we have no idea what format the file was saved with.
> Is there any easy (or even not so easy) way to figure out what the
> format
> of a tape is??
> Dont even know if its one or more files on it.
> thanks Mark