Perhaps I am old fashioned, but could FCOPY help? (Just a shot in the dark....)

The relevent section starts with chapter 3 "copying files of various sizes". It suggests using REC=-16384,,U,ASCII;DEV=TAPE
along with the FILES parameter. It will take some playing with to get it right. In addition I might suggest you look at one of the
appendices for your tape drive manual so you have a clear of the *physical* layout of the tape. Between these two manuals you
should be able to cobble together an answer to your problem.

Paul Courry


On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 14:05:00 -0400, [log in to unmask] wrote:

>Hey Listers,
>
>Here's a real brain teaser for you.  I have to create a COBOL program that reads
>in an IBM mainframe tape which contains variable length records (in EBCDIC, of
>course) on a tape that has variable length blocks.  So far, the program only
>reads the first record of each block.  I've consulted the HP COBOL manual and I
>can't seem to get the right combination of statements.
>
>Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
>John Hornberger
>Sr. Systems Programmer
>General Signal Services (A subsidiary of SPX Corp.)
>[log in to unmask]
>