ODBCLINK/SE will be one of your better options. Their is a patch that will
install the driver on both 5.0 and 5.5, but their are more fixes and
enhancements on the 5.5 version. The patch will create an ODBCSE.SYS group on
your 3000, which contains the 16 and 32bit versions of the PC driver as well as
the ODBCJOB that listens for odbc requests. You then download the driver to the
PC, uncompress it (it is an executable) and then run setup. You can then use
packages such as Excel, Access, and Impromptu (+ many others) to access your
data without the need for major Cobol programming.

When testing the link you can use a test dbe available in SAMPLEDB.SYS. By
running SQLSETUP, PARTSDBE is setup. By making a corresponding entry on the PC
you can easily test the link. You will need the ODBCLINK/SE Reference Manual.
It is a very good manual, taking you step by step through the setup.

Richard Bayly

Steve Widmar wrote:

> Traditionally, our shop has written (copied/modified) COBOL to get an
> Image database to spit out required datasets to  text that an Access
> database can manipulate.
>
> I've gotten the impression from the list members that there's a better way:
> ODBCLink/SE.
>
> A new request has come down for read-only access to some Image
> data.   I Would like to explore ODBCLink/SE (or whatever) as an
> alternative to see which solution is more cost-effective: our old way, with
> image->COBOL->txt file->ftp->server->MSAccess->client, or (ideally)
> image->ODBCLink->MSAccess->client.
>
> What can you listers tell me about the products, FOS version, learning
> curve, costs etc. required to evaluate the ODBCLink/SE method?   Again,
> the current situation is read-only access.
>
> TIA, Steve