From:	CRDGW2::CRDGW2::MRGATE::"SMTP::CRVAX.SRI.COM::RELAY-INFO-VAX" 27-JUL-1989 18:25
To:	MRGATE::"ARISIA::EVERHART"
Subj:	VAX/LT Spring 1989 SIG Tape Reviews - Part 3

Message-Id:  <8907272218.AA00547@crdgw1.ge.com>
Received: From KL.SRI.COM by CRVAX.SRI.COM with TCP; Thu, 27 JUL 89 14:43:20 PDT
Received: from AAMRL.AF.MIL by KL.SRI.COM with TCP; Thu, 27 Jul 89 14:15:01 PDT
Received: from FALCON by AAMRL.AF.MIL; Thu, 27 Jul 89 17:10 EDT
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 89 17:12 EST
From: Ted Nieland <@AAMRL.AF.MIL:TNIELAND@FALCON>
Subject: VAX/LT Spring 1989 SIG Tape Reviews - Part 3
To: info-vax@kl.sri.COM
X-Vms-To: IN%"info-vax@kl.sri.com"


		The Spring 1989 L&T/VAX SIG Tape Reviews


Earle Ake
Science Applications Intl. Corp.

Todd Aven
Computer Associates International

Jack Davis
Phillips Consumer Electronics

Daniel Graham
Dynamics Research Corporation

Rand Hall
Merrimack College

David Hittner
Pioneer Standard Electronics

Ted Nieland
Control Data Corporation

Jon Pinkley
Westinghouse Electric Corporation


This is a review of the VAX89A1 section of Spring 1989 L&T/VAX SIG Tape.  
Due to the large amount of overlap between the L&T and VAX SIG tapes, the
Tape editors decided to combine the tapes into one large tape with no 
overlap.  This SIGs tape contains many useful items for people with VAX 
Computers and people interested in Languages and Tools.

The reviewers have scoured through most of the tape and have jotted down the
following notes on the material that is on the tape.  Not everything on the
tape is reviewed due to the shear volume of material, but it is hoped that
this review will help people in deciding what on the tape might be useful to
them.

The SIG tapes are a project started by the SIGs a while back as a method of 
distributing free software that might be helpful to others.  Not all of the 
material on the tapes are "finished" products.  

The encapsulated reviews are rated on a 1-5 scale with 5 being excellent.

Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.AEPSC.VDDRIVER]
Ease of installation: 		3
Documentation: 			4
Intended Audience: 		System Managers
Ease of use: 			4
Usefulness: 			4
Sources Included: 		Y (Macro)
Objects Supplied: 		Y

This directory includes a driver that implements a "virtual disk"
device using a contiguous container file residing on a real (or other
virtual) physical disk.

Works as advertised, as far as I dared to test. VPA (VAX Performance
Advisor) was confused by it but I think that's just because it didn't
know what it was.


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.AEPSC.CDDRIVER]
Ease of installation: 		2
Documentation: 			2
Intended Audience: 		System Managers
Ease of use: 			2
Usefulness: 			2
Sources Included: 		Y (Macro, Fortran)
Objects Supplied: 		Y

This directory includes a driver that implements a "fully-associative"
type of caching for data read from disk via a standard VMS disk device
driver. You can define caches for up to 8 `real' or `virtual' disks.

CDDRIVER is not as polished as VDDRIVER. The driver is documented well
but its actual use is not. I got it running, but it's not ready to go
straight out of the box.


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.ALLIED.DCL]
Ease of Installation:		5
Documentation:			4
Intended Audience:		System Managers
Ease of use:			5
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, DCL
Objects Supplied:		N/A

       Command procedures to
       		o Execute AUTOGEN and provide you with a complete list
       		  of changed SYSGEN params, with before and after values
       		o Submit an executable to run in batch without having
       		  to make a command procedure for it.
       		o Run VPA and send a MAIL message indicating if any
       		  `conclusions' were reached.
       		o Do $INSTALL REPLACE commands on every node in a cluster
       		  using SYSMAN.
       		o Optimize and rebuild indexed files.
       		o Display a number of VPA graphs for the previous day.


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.ALLIED.LOGIN]
Ease of Installation:		5
Documentation:			3
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of use:			5
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, MACRO
Objects Supplied:		No

       A Macro program (mostly Hunter Goatley's code from the VAX
       Professional Magazine) with some mods I added.  It should speed
       up logins considerably for anyone who is doing more than a few
       logical and symbol assignments via DCL in their current
       LOGIN.COM.

     This is a very easy MACRO program to use that speeds up login a lot.
It defines all your symbols for you using MACRO instead of DCL.  The time
savings is enormous.  If you are not already using something like this on
your system, then why not?


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.ALLIED.SEND_MAIL]
Ease of Installation:		5
Documentation:			3
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of use:			5
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, FORTRAN, BASIC
Objects Supplied:		Yes

       In this directory are a function and a subroutine which perform
       the same operation: one written in BASIC and the other in
       Fortran. What they both do is interface with DEC's unsupported
       (and undocumented) Callable MAIL Interface.  The Fortran version,
       written by Jim Geier of General Instrument, is the original work.
       The BASIC version, which I did, is a somewhat simpler paraphrase
       of Jim's work.  I've heard some rumors that the MAIL$_ functions
       were shipped with VMS V4.7, but really never looked or messed
       with it until V5.0-2.  My BASIC function (and Jim's subroutine)
       both worked under V5.0-2 and are working now under V5.1.

     This provides a good example on how to interface with DEC's MAIL utility
from an application program.  Source is provided in both FORTRAN and BASIC.


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.APPLIEDRES]
Ease of Installation:  		3
Documentation:  		2
Intended Audience:  		General users
Ease of Use:  			3
Usefulness:  			2 - 4 depending on your needs
Sources/objects Included:  	sources & objects, in various languages

This directory contains several useful programs, all get the same ratings, 
but separate descriptions.

Description:
- Address Database Management

The address database management system provides a set of software for
automating  address/telephone  lists.   This  system  supports private
address databases, group-wide databases and corporate-wide databases.  As
well as two standalone programs that implement the system, there are two
separate callable interfaces to make it easy to incorporate address
database management into larger menu driven systems. 

- Documentation Utilities

Included are two routines which can be used to assist in maintaining
programming documentation. 

CLEANMEM is a simple program that reads a ".MEM" file produced by Digital
Standard Runoff and strips off the imbedded <CR><LF> characters that DSR
leaves in the file. 

DOCUMENT is a routine that searches an entire directory and extracts the
comment header blocks from all of the source code files in that directory,
formatting them as a DSR input file.  This routine assists in maintaining
programming  documentation.  This  requires that the programmer use a
standardized comment block in each program module. Each source code module in
this submission contains such a block and several templates are provided.

- Forms And Menus

The Applied Research Corporation Forms Management System is the major part of
this submission. The ARC FMS consists of a suite of subroutines and a set of
FORTRAN include files contained in a text library. It is designed to assist
in the coding of programs that are menu driven and/or rely on forms
manipulation for data entry and editing.  ARC FMS is based on the SMG 
routines.

- The Form/Menu Demonstration Program

The Form/ Menu Demonstration Program is an example of how the ARC FMS can be
used to provide a completely menu-driven system to non-technical users of a
VAX. 

- The Make Facility

This is yet another implementation of a Unix-like MAKE facility.  It is
provided here mainly because it was used to build all of the executables
in this submission and is the easiest way for you to rebuild them if you wish
to modify them. 

- Portwatch V2.0

Portwatch V2.0 is yet another idle terminal killer. This version is a total
rewrite of an idle terminal killer that appeared on an earlier SIG tape
submitted by J. B. Fischer. This version maintains a database of each
terminal port on the system. For each port, you may specify whether processes
running at that terminal are eligible for deletion and at which hours of the
day.  In addition, you may specify whether or not warning messages are
broadcast to the terminal before process deletion.

- QMS Kiss Driver

This is a laser printer driving routine that may or may not be useful 
depending on the users environment.

- Show Purge

There are three small programs that make up this set.  First, there is the
SHOWPURGE program itself which has a command line interface and which takes
most of the same parameters and qualifiers as does the DCL PURGE command.
However, it does not actually delete anything; rather it informs you, how
many files would be deleted by a PURGE and, optionally, which files. 

The second and third programs work together as a gentle way of reminding users
to purge old versions. 

- Telephone

TELEPHONE is a autodial routine that dials a modem without the user having to
know anything about which port the modem is on or even about what kind of
modem it is. 

- Time Management System

TMSV41 is a time management system that allows you to keep track of what you
should do and when you must do it. It also can keep track of what you have
done and when you did it. The Time Management System is based on the ARC FMS
and has both a command-line interface and a fully menu-driven interface.

- Utilities

There are a collection of utility routines. 

   o CLI routines for parsing the command line. These routines make it
     easy to determine what the user wants your program to do.

   o Lexical functions. Included are callable implementations of the
     following DCL lexicals:  F$EDIT, F$FILE_ATTRIBUTES, F$GETGPI,
     F$INTEGER, F$LENGTH, F$MODE, F$PARSE, F$PID, F$SEARCH, F$USER.

   o Various functions. A small collection of functions that perform a
     variety of tasks such as declaring exit and AST handlers. Some of
     these routines have been modified from routines that others have put
     on previous SIG tapes.


Comments:
The programs in this directory are pretty nice and useful. One problem, 
they are not segregated by subdirectory. The subdirectories have all the 
executables in one, all the sources in another, etc. This makes figuring 
out which programs are which a bit difficult, but not too bad.

The true usefulness of many of these programs will vary widely with user 
needs, however, they are well written and work as advertised.


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.CVLUG]
Ease Of Installation:		2-4
Documentation:			2-4
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of Use:			2-5
Usefulness:			1-5 
Sources Included:		Yes, BASIC, DCL, FORTRAN
Objects Supplied:		No

Various Items from the Connecticut Valley Local Users Group.  Included are 
some BANNER programs, Posters and other terminal/printer items, Calendar 
material, an UNTAB utility, an UNQUEUE command to delete items by Job Name, 
and other general tools and command procedures.



Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.DOWN]
Ease Of Installation:		5
Documentation:			5
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of Use:			5
Usefulness:			2 
Sources Included:		Yes, BASIC
Objects Supplied:		Yes

The [.DOWN] submission consists of one program, DOWN. This program allows
one to type "$ DOWN subdirectory" and have the program set your default
to the subdirectory, regardless of where the subdirectory is in your
current directory tree. A screen mode is supported for those who forget
the names of their subdirectories. Usefulness of the software depends on
how flat your disk structure is.



Submission subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.DTRSIG]
Ease of Installation:  		2-4
Documentation:  		3-4
Intended Audience:  		Parts to interest all
Ease of Use:  			3-5
Usefulness:  			4-5
Sources/objects Included:  	yes, various languages

This is material from the Datatrieve SIG:  It is always a pleasure to see 
their material, it is neatly organized and most always works the first 
time.  The ratings are for the entire set, but descriptions are included 
for each subdirectory.

Description:

[.ACCOUNTING]   Programs to convert System Accounting and PSI Accounting
                data to a normalized form readable by Datatrieve (and
                other languages) with record definitions.  Also has a
                procedure to measure terminal usage (an Erlang traffic
                study on terminal sessions).

[.ALLIN1]       Contains DTR definitions to work AI1 logging and data
                files. The document database also works with
                WPS-PLUS/VMS. (Note: this is ALL-IN-1 V2.0 through 2.2)

[.CORPHONE]     DTR replacement for the AI1 corporate phone directory,
                which also works quite well on it's own.

[.FUNCTIONS]    Many user defined functions including many string
                functions, Datatrieve procedures for cataloging,
                defining, and generating functions.

[.MAGIC]        Some procedures from Wombat Magic sessions which didn't
                fit anywhere else.  Build an FMS form from a record
                definition, and calculate mortgages.

[.PLOTS]        Additional PLOTS and articles on adding your own plots.

[.RALLY]        For the first time, some RALLY examples.
                [.DATE_FORMATTING] shows how to accommodate a wide
                variety of date formats as input to Rally.
                [.EXTERNAL_LINK] shows how to link to system Run Time
                Library routines LIB$GETJPI and LIB$SPAWN.

[.RSX_ACCOUNTING] Process RSX-11M-Plus system accounting with DTR, also
                RSX console logs, and a routine for all 11s to convert
                the DTR (and VMS) DATE types to/from ASCII (without DTR).

[.SYSMGR]       Datatrieve definitions for Disk Quotas, SYSUAF,
                rightslist, network proxy logins, etc.  Plus a method
                of processing an INSTALL/LIST/FULL listing to find out
                which are the most used images, shared images, etc.

Comments:
If you have Datatrieve, there are invaluable items here.  The accounting 
and All-in-1 item descriptions and procedures are especially helpful for 
those products.  This is yet another example of the fine material produced 
by the DTR SIG folks.





Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.GCE.ANALYBIG]
Ease of Installation:		3
Documentation:			4
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of use:			3
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, FORTRAN
Objects Supplied:		Yes, In a Library

This is Glenn Everhart's Analyticalc, one of the most powerful spreadsheet 
programs for the VAX.  And he has made it more powerful by removing some of the
previous limitations on cell size.  The only complaint I have ever heard about 
Analyticalc is that it isn't 1-2-3 compatible (but if you start with 
Analyticalc, then you are biased to 1-2-3).


Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.GCE.NETS89]
Ease of Installation:		1-5
Documentation:			1-5
Intended Audience:		General
Ease of use:			1-5
Usefulness:			1-5
Sources included:		Yes, Various
Objects Supplied:		No

This is Glenn Everhart's usual submission of material off the Internet.  As 
usual, there is a lot of material here including a number of messages about 
DECWindows.  Other items include GNU items, the MAILSERV channel for PMDF, 
VAX_SHARE, source to a BACKUP reader for UNIX, several different patches to 
VMS, LIBSEARCH (a program to search libraries), and much more.  This is one 
directory you just have to go through yourself. (If you are interested in 
getting this material yourself, then start going through the DECUS UUCP 
submission.  DECUS UUCP will allow you to get all of this material through the 
NEWS Software.)



Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.GCE.TARRDWRT]
Ease of Installation:		3
Documentation:			2
Intended Audience:		System Managers, Tape Users
Ease of use:			3
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, FORTRAN, C
Objects Supplied:		No

Here are several programs to Read and/or Write TAR tapes under VMS.  With the 
popularity of UNIX boxes these days, you should have these programs available 
on your system.




Submission Subdirectory:	[VAX89A1.GCE.VMSVD]
Ease of Installation:		3
Documentation:			2
Intended Audience:		System Managers
Ease of use:			4
Usefulness:			5
Sources included:		Yes, FORTRAN, MACRO
Objects Supplied:		Some

This is a virtual disk driver and several associated programs that allow you 
to set remote disks across DECNet or Crypto-Disks.  If you have many VAXen 
through your shop with people wanting to look at the material on one disk on 
one specific machine the FD Driver can be used to set up a remote disk to all 
the remote hosts.  



