OT - swab and stuff -Re: xfer problems sco-sun

[Bill Vermillion]

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 11:19:31PM -0500, J. P. Radley thus spoke:
> Bill Vermillion propounded (on Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 08:18:23PM -0500):
> | On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 03:35:18PM -0500, Brian K. White thus spoke:
> | > Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> | > > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 02:17:07PM -0500, Brian K. White wrote:
> | > >> swapcpu? Just sounds like:
> | > >> dd conv=swab if=in.txt of=out.txt
> | 
> | And you said the 'swab' was SCO syntax, but not really.  It's been
> | around for years on others.
> | 
> | > >
> | > > *Ghod* no.
> | 
> | > > You only have to swap the *record headers*, where there is binary
> | > > data. Everything else is stored in ASCII; if you swap it, you'll
> | > > trash the data.
> | 
> | > Interesting, annoying too. Oh well, back to the original
> | > problem which is that xfer should have worked.

> | Just split the each record into two pieces, swap the heard, and add
> | the rest.  I did something similar a very long time ago before the
> | xfer program existed.  As I recall it's just the first 20 bytes
> | that need to be swapped.

> Would that it were that simple: it's the twenty byte header at the
> beginning *of each record* that needs bytes swapped.

It really os that simple.   Even though I dind't have to swap the
bytes I needed to convert out of a model III Profile into the new
on on a model 16.

There were no conversion tools available, but I took one from a
Model II/12 that combined the 3 dat files to one file.  And had a
separate key.  

By taking what I did and changing it slightly it would be no
problem.

Since the III had key and data I left that part that way.  I knew
the length of the records.  And the only tool I had - Xenix 1.?
on a Radio Shack 6000 - was a BASIC interpreter.

First step was to create 15,000 empty records so I could have the
headers in the new version, and give me room to stuff in the data.

After I created the 15,000 empty records then I just built a process
that did random access between the key and data files I had
created, and skipped in with a single statement executed one time
to take me to the first data records, then it was just seek 20
bytes, grab the next NN bytes from the key file I had, write the
data, grab the required number of bytes to match the data, and
write that, skip 20 bytes, and do it again.

Swapping the bytes would even be simpler as it would be reading
just one file and writing another.

Read in 20 bytes, swap them, write to new file, read in the length
of real data and write that, and get the next 20 bytes, swap them,
and get the data.

Random access file creation/access in BASIC is pretty simple.

What was interesting about this is that it took almost 3 hours to
create the 15,000 empty records with the required headers.

The old T6K's were not speedy, but they had the advantage of large
keyboard with a REPEAT key. I taped down the ESC key and the REPEAT
key and turned it loose.  WHen I had the 15,000 empty records I
then ran my programs in BASIC.  That took about 3 minutes to insert
real data into the empty holes.

Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem that hard at all.
You could do the byte swapping in BASIC too, with read a byte, read
next byte, write the second byte then write the first byte. Or read
them in and perform MID$ functions.  Really crude but whene there
are no other tools, you use the ones you have.

That saved a large sale at a local RS computer center.  Up until
then when I'd see the manager I'd say "Hi Jerry" and he'd just
mumble.  I was considered a byte-head, and he only like to talk to
people with white shirts and ties.

But since RS had a 30 day no question asked return policy, he was
looking at having about $10K to $!5K worht of equipment returned
and watch his commission disappear.

Prior to my getting involved the local RS people said they could
convert the data from the III to the 16.  After they could not a
salesman I knew there called me.

After I did that job and saved the sale I always got a nice "Hello
MISTER Vermiilon" from the manager.  Three weeks later I got
another call.

I gave the person a price quote and a time estimate and his next
words were "what if it doesn't work".  I said "That's easy, don't
pay me".  I was there the next day.

After about 1/2 hour at one machine I was walking down the hall and
said, it will be about 2 hours before I can do anyting more, as I
had kermit on both machines and was transfering data.  Previously
he had a couple of people from a town even further away than I was
and they spent 1 1/2 days and couldn't figure out how to get the
data from one machine to another.

I had bought an old 16 in an as-is where-is sale after all the
6000s were out, and had compiled kermit, built serial cables, and
had it hooked into my home system so it was a matter of just taking
my cables with me and adding an extension.

I did that job, and got a call to do something else.  And it was
at that point I became self employed.  When I got that first call I
was taking a short vacation after 10 years of being a recording
engineer and the last 6 typically 70-80 hour weeks.  John was a
recording engineer in New York about the time I was a recording
engineer in Florida if I recall the time frames correctly.

I figured I could get a job in a computer store but I was worn out.
The a friend called me and I got called in an electronic parts
catalog on video disk - where 5 of us threw it together in 11 days
- after the people who had been working on it for 6 months finally
'fessed up that they couldn't get it done - two weeks before
deadline.

It turned out to be the worlds first electronics parts catalog.
The guy subcontracted me and he did work it out where we got
time and a half for anything over 8 hours/day, and I was working
about 16-18 hours per day, and the last day was on the clock for 23
hours straight.  The person I'm partners with now got a couple of
patents out of that - as his crew rebuilt the video cards in the
PC's so we could mix computer output with realy video.  That was
October 1983 and there was nothing anywhere that could do that.

The RS job came during my 'vacation' I was taking after making more
money than I ever had in my life in such a short time.  Never came
close to that since then.

So I never planned to become self-employed - it just happened.
My life has been like that.   But it has been a very interesting
journey.

Bill


-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com