Richard Gambrell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>According to Marshall I. Medoff:
>
>> Help!
>>
 
<snip>
 
>As others have said, you should be able to use FCOPY. However, if the
>tape is written in blocks, then you will hae to tell FCOPY how to
>deblock it. Do you know if the tape has a multiple record block?
 
Generally when I receive tapes from a foreign system I insist that I be
informed about records legnths, blocking factors and so forth -- it saves my
time.  But if the tape provider gives me nothing else, he *must* give me
both a record length and a record count: with enough trial and error I'll be
able to figure out the blocking factor as long as I know those two pieces of
info (although all of the FCOPY attempts with different blocking factors
might wear out both the tape and the drive...)
 
I encourage everyone to be polite when sending tapes out to be read by
foreign systems:
 - Specify:
     - record length
     - blocking factor
     - number of records
 - Think about providing hash totals
 - Don't write tape blocks larger than 16K unless you're sure the destination
device can handle it.
 
 -- Evan