RE: Remote Unconnected -- MIDRANGE-L

What's the difference between that and an EDI transaction?  It doesn't
mater where the file comes from VAN, FTP or data transfer from a PC. You
would need a PC screen for data entry (how's your VB?). Modify your 400
entry screen to user open and instead of opening the screen open the
input file.  

Piece of cake -- two men two weeks... 
 
Regards, 
 
Guy 

------------------------------

date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:47:28 -0600
from: Al Mac <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Remote Unconnected

What's Al's question?
What all is needed on PC end and on 400 end to do data entry to 400 
applications on a PC not connected to the 400?
I think it is doable, but I think it would be frightfully expensive to 
implement, unless I am missing something about existing readily
available 
resources.

I got an odd question from work.
"Al, is it possible to have a 400 session without having an AS/400"
I mumbled about in theory various AS/400 languages could also run on a
PC, 
and reminisced about my old punched card days, like "key to diskette",
with 
equipment that went off the market 40 years ago ... whatcha looking to
do 
on it?

Transpires they looking for data entry alternatives to sending a file
over 
e-mail or direct communications attachment, where a PC gets a 400
session 
like via VPN ... is it practical to key in a data batch on a PC, then
have 
the transaction batch arrive in person or snail mail on some media then 
stick it into the 400 as input, and what equipment and software needed
to 
do that?

There's already a CD Rom drive on the 400, intended for IBM OS upgrades,
I 
suppose there must be some way for normal 400 software to access normal 
data there, I just have never worked with any.  However, it probably
would 
be more efficient, from a performance perspective, to copy whatever is
on 
the CD to hard disk, then have 400 software process it there.

You can only put 1/2 a Gig on a CD.  You can put much more on a tape,
but 
CD drives are standard on PCs, and I seriously doubt PC tape drives are 
compatible with what the 400 needs for backup.

The PC application would have to know what layout is needed for the data
in 
the file.  There would have to be conversion of the data format from 
PC--ASCII to 400-EBCDIC, all the stuff taken care of thru Client Access
and 
Data Transfers ... Oh, say the data could go from PC-unconnected then 
PC-connected-to-400 data transfer, on PC media whether CD Rom or
Diskette, 
although I have had some troubles with CD formats can only be read by 
certain CD software.

The 400 application would have to be modified to be able to accept a
batch 
of transactions this way, simulating a real human being, where normally
the 
user keys in some vendor # or order #, and the data is accepted if it
meets 
certain valid combinations, and there is no provision for handling data 
entered that is not valid, which includes incomplete input where some 
mandatory field is not filled in with something valid, and the data to
the 
400 application results from a combination of what the user entered, and

what happened when the control #s are validated.

I did such a modification on the old System/36 where they wanted scrap 
transactions recorded, but felt they were too much trouble to key in.  I

got the scrap data from another application, cloned the data entry
program 
then simulated what it did with human keystrokes, only supplied the data

stream from my work file instead of a real human being.

-
Al Macintyre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlMac
http://www.ryze.com/go/Al9Mac
BPCS/400 Computer Janitor ... see
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html


------------------------------