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From: hoffman@pitt.CSNET.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100
Subject: SIMTEL20 vs. VMS   ...or SIMTEL 1, VAX none
Message-ID: <8712041003.AA11052@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 14:05:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8712041003.AA11052
Posted: Thu Dec  3 14:05:13 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Dec-87 07:13:40 EST
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 36

> From: "Kenneth R. van Wyk" 
> 
> QUOTE TYPE L 8
> RECEIVE PD:file.ARC file.ARC
> 
> This worked!  ...or at least I thought it did.  I was able to FTP back
> a small binary file, and then unarc it.  Note the keyword - small.  I
> then, thinking that I'd beaten the system, tried a larger file.  After
> a while, VMS gagged because the record length was too long.  That was
> as far as I got.  Anyone know how to get a longer (unlimited) record
> length in a  file on VMS.

Although I am FAR from being a knowledgeable VMesS user, I can offer
this one observation:  When you did the QUOTE TYPE L 8, you only told
Simtel20 what mode you wanted.  VMS needs to know what mode the output
file should be created with, e.g. Variable-CRLF, Fixed-512, etc.  It
probably assumes Variable-CRLF, which is ASCII..  I'm sure VMS ASCII
files have a record-length limit.  This is surely one of the "joys" of
RMS.  :-(

I just looked at the CMU/TEK TCP/IP on one of our comp center's machines
and I'm quite surprised.  I was about to suggest that you tell VMS that
you're going to do an IMAGE transfer, then tell Simtel20 to go to
TYPE L 8.  I now see that there's no way to do this, since the only
place you can set the file transfer type is in the RECEIVE or TRANSFER
command with a /TYPE= switch.  No doubt this sends a TYPE command to
the FTP server, thus overriding any previous TYPE command.  Sheesh.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at CMU for not including TENEX style
file transfers.  After all, C.CS.CMU.EDU is still a DEC-20.  Would
they really cut off one of their own?  True, the 10s and 20s probably
have a short life remaining, but it seems like such an easy feature to
implement.  [I do not know this for a fact -- I have not seen the
CMU/TEK source code.]

	---Bob.