Abstract
			========

ETAPE is a general-purpose program for handling EBCDIC, ASCII, and Honeywell
GCOS BCD tapes. It allows the user to move around at will within the tape,
send output to different files, specify different blocksizes and record
lengths for different files on the tape, and combine multiple tape files
into a single output file.
The capability of writing an EBCDIC tape from an ASCII file is also
included.

ETAPE removes all trailing blanks from tape records after reading them.
On output, records will be blank padded and blocked to create fixed length
tape blocks. A switch can be set to turn off the EBCDIC translation and
allow the translation (or writing) of ASCII tapes.


This version of ETAPE is a major revision of the program of the same name
on the VAX87E submission.  Improvements include automatic volume and character
set recognition for labelled tapes, a full-screen, keypad-driven interface
inclusion of translation routines for Honeywell GCOS BCD tapes and, the most
useful, the ability to automatically translate labeled tapes based on the
parameters in the tape label.

			Installation
			============

ETAPE is comprised of the following files:

	ETAPE.FOR	source program & subroutines
	ETAPE.HLP	help file for the program
	ETAPE.DOC	this file

The following procedure is used to build ETAPE:

	$ fort etape
	$ link etape
	$ copy etape.exe SYS$common:[sysexe]etape.exe
	$ lib/help/repl/log SYS$HELP:helplib etape

			Known Errors / Limitations
			==========================

There is a bug in the positioning algorithm for backspacing files that I
discovered too late to fix for this submission.  Mabye next time.

Automatically translated tapes must have file names that are valid under
VMS (e.g. ABC.DAT will work, but ABC.DFE.GHI won't).  Also to be fixed
in a future release.

Documentation is minimal.

Please direct all comments, criticisms, and especially praise to:

Dale Miller
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Data Center
2801 S. University Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72204-1099
(501) 569-3220
CIS: 72405,202