Alex Whites solution to end of tape recognition in UNIX

[david at varian.UUCP]

Guy Harris (rlgvax!guy) writes:
>It might be useful, however, to have a program which understands the
>ANSI *record* format as well; this could be used to transfer files (source-type
>files, anyway) between various machines, including machines running UNIX.
>I agree that OS support of labelled tapes might not be useful; however, the
>cheap answer to the question of "who needs records and labels" is "people
>who have to read or write tapes which are compatible with systems which
>use ANSI labelled tapes".  UNIX doesn't exist in a vacuum; there *are* other
>systems out there and UNIX *does* have to deal with them.

I just wanted to point out that such a program does exist: ansitar was
posted to net.sources by uiucuxc!root on Jul  1 23:55:00 1983.
This is a program to read and write ANSI labelled tapes on UNIX. We found it
immediately useful, as soon after we received the Kermit distribution
from Columbia University which was written on a DEC 20 (I believe)in
ANSI format.
We've made a few minor changes:
*
* 10/28/83 DRB: new option 'D': read variable length records (D format)
* 10/29/83 FGH: 1. wildcard ability added to filenames.
* 		2. when output filename isn't valid for Unix (as it's perhaps
*		   taken from a foreign tape), this program now just skips that
*		   file rather than exiting the whole job.

Perhaps the author wishes to post ansitar again, or I'm willing to post
our current version if enough folks are interested.

	David Brown	 (415) 945-2199
	Varian Instruments 2700 Mitchell Dr.  Walnut Creek, Ca. 94598
	{zehntel,amd70,fortune}!varian!david