The FR80-Tape Merging Utility (FR80MERGE) is designed primarily to reduce the number of magnetic tapes a user requires if he wishes to store FR80 jobs, for plotting at a later date, say. Normally, each job, when output by SMOG/SPROGS/GROATS/SCSIM (assuming #MT14 has been used to prevent the output from going to the spool), is stored on a separate magnetic tape. When a user has several such jobs that he wishes to keep for some time it is possible to use FR80MERGE to copy them all on to one tape, space permitting.
Each run of FR80MERGE will copy a job in FR80 format from one magnetic tape to another. The jobs must be complete FR80 jobs that have terminated correctly and they must not have any additional filemarks inserted by the user (a job normally has 5 filemarks). This is because FR80MERGE positions itself on the input and output tapes by counting filemarks. It is advisable when storing several jobs on a magnetic tape to ensure that they are all destined for the same camera/film. Of the eight camera/film types available to FR80 users there is one exception to this rule in that hardcopy 'many-up' and hardcopy 'single' may be regarded as the same film type.
When it is desired to plot any of the jobs stored on a tape it is necessary to copy them on to other tapes unless all of the jobs on the tape are to be plotted and they are all destined for the same film type (as defined above). See the section on information needed by the FR80 operators for the method of getting a tape plotted.
FR80MERGE can copy from 7-track tapes to 7-track tapes or from 9-track tapes to 9-track tapes but not from 7-track tapes to 9-track tapes or vice versa.
It only copies one FR80 job per run.
There is no continuation tape facility. Should the output tape become full the tape is rewound to the end of the previous job and an end of tape marker (as recognised by the FR80) is output to prevent the whole tape from being corrupted. Thus only the job that would not fit is lost. As a guide, a 7-track (2400 ft) tape will hold at least 8000 FR80 records and a 9-track (2400 ft) tape will hold at least 20,000 records.
It will cope with up to 99 jobs on the input or output tape.
FR80MERGE is a macro, it requires the following parameters:
INTAPE mtdescription
The mtdescription defines the magnetic tape that holds the FR80 job to be copied.
NUMIN n
n≥1 defines the position of the FR80 job on the input (INTAPE) tape. Note that n is usually 1.
OUTTAPE mtdescription
The mtdescription defines the magnetic tape onto which the FR80 job is to be copied.
NUMOUT m
m≥1 defines the position of the FR80 job on the output (OUTTAPE) tape. There must be at least m-1 FR80 jobs already on the tape. When the run has finished only m jobs will be accessible and thus if there were more than m-1 jobs on the tape the remainder will be rendered inaccessible if not completely overwritten.
The following jdparameters are also needed:
MS2(7T2) or MT2
This indicates that the job needs two 7-track or two 9-track tapes respectively.
JT15
All the tests, including copying an FR80 job of 9000 records have taken less than 10 seconds so give the job 15 seconds just to be sure.
To copy an FR.80 job from the 9-track tape, number 1234 say, to a new 9-track tape to be called STORE, one can use the following when logged in:
FR80MERGE INTAPE(l234),NUMIN 1,- OUTTAPE(?,STORE(PRTRACK9)),NUMOUT 1,MT2,JT15
To copy an FR80 job from the 7-track tape called FR80JOB17 onto a 7-track tape number 7001234 which already has two jobs on it, one can submit the following job on cards:
JOB COPYJOB3,:NTBE34,JD(JT15,MS2) FR80MERGE INTAPE(FR80JOB17),NUMIN 1, OUTTAPE(7001234),NUMOUT 3 ENDJOB ****
When a tape arrives at the FR80 to be plotted the operators require the following information:
If a tape is already at Atlas, for example, it is an 'owned tape' (in the GEORGE sense) then this information should be sent to the 1906A Program Advisory Office so that the advisor can match the tape and the information before passing it to the FR80. Any other special information, such as, retain the graphical output at Atlas should be clearly indicated.
If one of the four parameters is not passed to FR80MERGE (for example, NUMOUT is mispunched as NUMOU) then a message is output to the monitoring file and no attempt is made to copy the FR80 job.
If the job runs successfully the binary will delete with the message OK and a display in the monitoring file will state how many FR80 jobs are on the output tape. This should correspond with the value of m in the NUMOUT parameter.
If the end of the output tape is detected the binary will delete with the message ET and a message in the monitoring file will indicate that the new FR80 job has not been copied to the output tape.
If any other error occurs while the program is running, such as asking for the next job to be copied as the fifth job on the output tape when there are only two already there, the binary will delete EE and an appropriate error message will be displayed in the monitoring file. In this case it may be necessary to contact the Program Advisory Office to discover whether the output tape has been corrupted or not.
The utility is provided to aid those users who having received their FR80 output may wish to re-plot it again at a later date. By keeping the tape they will not have to rerun the job that produced the FR80 orders again. When a user has several of these tapes that are being used for long-term storage of FR80 jobs he can use FR80MERGE to put all of the jobs onto one magnetic tape. If the jobs are plotted at a later date they will produce separate pieces of FR80 output, for example, it is not possible to merge several microfiche jobs onto one fiche as each job will be output to separate fiche.
