Path: brl-tgr!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!mackay
From: mackay@uw-june (Pierre MacKay)
Newsgroups: net.sources
Subject: ansitar, read and write ANSI labeled tapes
Date: Sat, 19-May-84 13:13:23 EDT
Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci

Ansitar reads from or writes to a magnetic tape in ANSI labeled
tape format, which is a useful format for exchange of ASCII 
character files with a non-UNIX system. Eight-bit binary is 
also possible, using F-type blocking, but the results are 
likely to be unsatisfactory in most cases.

This program was forwarded to me in answer to a desperate request, and
has already proved very useful.  It appeared on net.sources earlier
with ANSI System level 1 capacities, and has now acquired System
level 3 capacities (i. e. everything but spanned records).  Spanned
records would not be very difficult, but they do not seem to be
very much in demand either.  

It reads and writes HDR2 labels as well as HDR1 labels, and is thus
capable of deblocking tapes without explicit declaration of block
or record sizes.  A large number of the more interesting features
are still marked off as VARIAN code because that is the way I received the
program.  The VARIAN code is basic to efficient operation, unlike the
PIP code, which is for a rather special environment.

I have not bothered to provide a makefile, since there is only one
program here.  ansitar.1 belongs ideally in /usr/man/man1 and
the executable program anywhere in a generally used path.

mackay@washington.ARPA                  (Computer Science, Univ of Washington)
