A transportable system for management and exchange of programs and other text

Computer software is usually exchanged between different computer facilities via punched cards or magnetic tape. For up to about 1000 images, cards are cheaper and probably easier to deal with than tape. The primary problem with cards is the variety of punch codes. Frequently, one also has the minor nuisance of repunching cards damaged in transit. For larger amounts of data, tape is cheaper, but there are so many tape formats in use that the recipient frequently has trouble reading a tape, even if the format is simple and well defined. Occasionally, one has the problem of parity errors, which make a tape essentially worthless. When test data, modules in several languages, computer output or documentation are included, the lack of organization in the material can cause a substantial amount of unnecessary human labor. This paper presents a system for exchanging information on tape, that allows information about the data to be included with the data. The system is designed for portability, but requires a few simple machine dependent modules. These modules are available for a variety of machines, and a bootstrapping procedure is provided. The system allows content selected reading of the tape, and a simple text editing facility is provided. Although the system recognizes 30 commands, information may be extracted from the tape by using as few as three commands. In addition to its use for information exchange, we expect the system to find use in maintaining large libraries of text.