Kopchik/Hieber Report on Pushkin Tapes

Barbara Hieber asked me to look at 9 mangetic tapes for you. I have now finished checking them all and can report the results:

• 5 were 7-track tapes and can not be read at all by any hardware here at Pitt. [tape numbers B8403, B8405, B8406, B8407, B8409]
• one was a labeled Univac tape with several files dated in 1978. The label was 9-bit ASCII and the data files were 6-bit Univac "fielddata" characters. Most of the files were Univac utility programs (various types of data editors, and so on) and there was an old game program (it looked sort of like an early Dungeons and Dragons game). [tape number B8408]
• three were unlabeled 8-bit ASCII. Each contained one large tape file, which is a collection of many smaller files. The large file has binary data added at the start of every tape block to specify things like file names of the smaller files. [tape numbers B8402, B8410, B8411]

I wrote a program to unpack these 3 "good" tape files and break them into the smaller files, using the original file names contained in the binary data. I think these are all related to the data you are seeking, although I'm not sure it really is what you wanted to find. The files mostly seem to be things like analysis of the usage of specific words, but there are a few odd things like a program.

Here's an example of what one of the files on the "good" tapes looks like. This is the beginning of a file named MS0001R1.SSS which is the first file on tape B8402.

{1}S{2}2255{3}2190{4}
{1}SAADI{2}2{3}2{4}
{5}[Lubili] Krym syny Sa|adi,{6}S3.83.9{7}
{5}[No gde Gafiza i Sa|adi]{6}S3.107.4{7}
{1}SABEL$I{2}2{3}2{4}
{5}Sabel$i vz$at$i tam ne x|udo; no uh verno ott|uda{6}S3.217.23{7}
{5}On vrezals$a; t$imy sabel$i molodc|a,{6}BG.19.14{7}
{1}SABLE{2}4{3}4{4}
{5}Mol$ibe i sable izmen|il.{6}S3.177.10{7}
{5}Krov$i po sable sveha$a stru|its$a{6}ZS.1.36{7}
{5}Mol$ibe i sable izmen|il.{6}PA.478.25{7}
{5}Kogda b ty byl pri sable, derzkij pl|ennik,{6}BG.18.45{7}
{1}SABLEJ{2}5{3}5{4}
{5}Tam sviqet sablej on zub$c|atoj,{6}S1.53.127{7}
{5}On s sablej--tut pritix moj tr|us.{6}S1.130.k.21{7}
{5}Umom i sablej rad byl sp|orit$i,{6}PO.1.439{7}
{5}I sablej mawet--i k Desn|e{6}PO.3.35{7}
{5}Vladet$i konem i sablej nau$c|ils$a;{6}BG.13.103{7}
{1}SABLE$U{2}3{3}3{4}
{5}Gusarskoj sable$u maxn|ul--{6}S1.99.11{7}

[Instructions for transferring files omitted. -djb]

Some of the file names exist more than once on a tape. For example, tape B8402 starts with a file named MS0001R1.SSS which is about 1.0 megabyte, and farther down on that same tape is another file with the same name but only 0.1 megabyte of data. The files in my VMS directory reflect this situation by having differing "version numbers". That is, the first file it encountered is named MS0001R1.SSS;1 and the second is named MS0001R1.SSS;2. If you do the FTP shown above without adding that ";*" at the end of the "mget" command, you will only get ONE version of each file - the one that happened to occur nearest the end of the tape file (which might not be the biggest or most complete).

Files with multiple "versions" on tape B8402 are

• FORM-$C2.OUT
• LATIN.SHW
• MS0001R1.OOO
• MS0001R1.PPP
• MS0001R1.SSS
• MS0001R1.TTT
• UNPRINT.SHW

Files with multiple "versions" on tape B8410 are

• FORM-I1.OUT
• FORM-I2.OUT
• FORM2B1.OUT
• FORM2Z.SHW

[More file transfer instructions deleted. -djb]

Eileen Kopchik