RE: recommend tape conversion services

<<Then there's always those RPGII internally defined files...>>

Anybody here remember the first versions of the JD Edwards package? It had
field names like F0001, F0002, ad infinitum. Don't forget to mention the
programs that were generated by other programs.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rob
Berendt
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2018 12:25 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: recommend tape conversion services

<snip>
There's still the problem of finding someone from 10 years ago who knows
how to make the programs run...
</snip>
And that is one of the biggest issues I have with "retain forever". Like
someone is really going to be able to get that copy of BPCS 2.1 which ran
on their V2R3 machine to load up and run on their 7.3 P9? With half the
source gone, no valid key, all programs in need of "object conversion" and
someone had removed all observability to save space? No way no how. And
since then they've altered the layout of every file, for example, changed
the size of the item number, throughout the entire system.

And I've had other software packages in which column names were really
obfuscated, with no text or headers. Like simply a file prefix and a
column sequence, you just had to know that the column you wanted was the
third column.
Then there's always those RPGII internally defined files...


Rob Berendt