Software highlights & controller info

You'll find this suite of programs easy to use and  written with both the casual user and the power user in mind.   

You'll find powerful field selection features and record selection features that allow you to select only the fields and records you want from tape.  

Please check out our software in greater detail.  Go to our download software manual page by clicking here or on the 'manual download' link above.

After reading the manual, you'll see how our software excels. 

One of the best things about our software is its low price. It's only $298

Tape to Disk Software Highlights

• Conditionally import tape records. E.g., Import only a range of Zip codes or specific states from a tape containing a mailing list.

• Select only the fields you want from tape.

• Move tape fields to new positions on disk

• Force tape fields to match existing database structures.

• Print labels "4-up" directly from tape

• Conditionally terminate the data transfer when a user-defined criterion has been met. 

• Convert to ASCII from EBCDIC, Zoned Decimal, Packed Decimal, Packed Hex, Packed BCD.

• Delete trailing and / or leading spaces.  Delete leading zeros too.

• Change case to upper and / or lower case from selected fields.  Change case to all lower case with  initial upper case of each word.

• Read blocks as large as 65,535 bytes.

• No limit as to the size of files that may be read.

• Multiple files may be transferred in one session.

• Optionally discard the first 'n' bytes of each block.

• Change double quotes coming in from tape to single quotes.  This an example of the extensive secondary translation you can perform.

• Binary files may be read

• You may erase tapes.

• Create .dbf structures into which data can be imported.  Character, numeric, date, and logical field types are supported.
• Add literal text to tape data at any point.  e.g., Add decimal points to numeric data.   Add dashes to phone numbers.  
• Create dummy fields.
• Use powerful logical expressions to define conditional record acceptance.  You can use =, <>, <, <=, >, >=, $(found in), -$( not found in), [ ] (sliding match) AND, OR, and a unique Key List data file.
• In addition, a program may be run in disk to disk mode to perform processing on disk files.
• Change 8-bit ASCII to 7-bit ASCII.
• Change control characters (00-31 decimal) to spaces.
• Specify starting and ending blocks to transfer.
• Add the input record number to each record.
• Create a unique number for each imported record.
• Append data to existing text or .dbf files.
• Wildcard characters (* and ?) may be used to select multiple disk files to transfer.

Tape Analysis

• Easily determine data type and record length of data on tape.

• Add a carriage return and line feed every 'N' characters when displaying tape data to screen, thus making logical record length determination a snap.

• Input may be from tape or disk.

• Display tape data in columnar form.

• Column numbers, in an easy-to-read vertical format are generated by the program.  This makes figuring out field boundaries a snap.

• Data is displayed below column numbers as printed characters, Hex, or both.

• See the sample below.

• A full suite of functions to help analyze "mystery tapes".

• Display tape blocks to printer and screen.

• Display the contents of tape data in Hex, decimal, ASCII and EBCDIC.

• Output may be to printer, screen, or disk file.

• EBCDIC to ASCII conversion is supported.

• <CR> and <LF> are displayed as "c" and "l" respectively. Unprintable characters are displayed as decimal points, Not as their screen or graphic characters.

• Use the test routines to generate test data that is written to tape and then read back, thus testing the subsystem.

Sample columnar data display program run and output

Disk to Tape Software Highlights

• Convert from ASCII to EBCDIC, packed decimal, and zoned decimal

• Remove the carriage return & linefeed from the end of variable length record & pad them to a fixed length.

• Stack files on tape.

• Write any size block up to 65,535 (hardware permitting).

• Convert .DBF files directly to tape.

• Binary files may be transferred.

• Automatically generate a report for DBF files to send with the tape.  See the sample report below.

• Force upper case conversion.

• Specify any blocking factor (within hardware limits)

• Date fields may be converted to several common formats.

• Optionally stop the file transfer when encountering the PC's end of file character (Ctrl - Z).

• Append files to the end of an existing tape file.

• Run software in menu driven mode or batch mode.

• You decide whether or not to pad the last block.

• Truncate or expand records on disk when transferring to tape.

Sample tape layout documentation produced by D2T program