These utilities are used to process and manage the early
IBM software files available from Paul
Pierce's "Old IBM software project".
They are:-
-
BCD2IAS This program reads a 7094 BCD source tape and corrects most
gross errors, creating a properly formatted and readable ASCII text file.
It uses a file of "fix records" to tell it how to correct each error in
the source file. For the most part, it is able to generate the fix file
for itself, but some errors require manual intervention to create the fix
record.
-
IASMERGE The program above only corrects formatting errors, there could
be other kinds. Fortunately, there is some duplication of the source tapes.
This program reads multiple .IAS files (created by BCD2IAS above) and selects
the "best" records from the set of input files, and outputting an
optimal output file. This is an interactive process.
The above two programs are only used for the 7094 BCD (source) tape files.
-
FILEBROW displays all the file types (1401/7094, source/binary, card/tape)
in various ways as an aid to identifying the format, and thus how to process
the file.
All three programs use a control file imaginatively named "FileList.Txt",
to manage locating and selecting the files that they process. This file
must be located in the same directory as the programs.
The ZIP below also contains the compiled EXE's for convenience. To run
them, extract to a directory, and edit the "P" (path) records in FileList.Txt
to reflect the locations of retro software files downloaded from the above
site.
A suggested directory structure is:- |
|
