Download instructions

You may want to print this page if you aren't familiar with XMIT files.

I deliver standalone programs and REXX execs as regular text files (which may or may not have translation problems). You can view these files on your PC and upload them to MVS/TSO with normal ASCII->EBCDIC translation. These instructions are not needed for the name.TXT files.

When I have a collection of related items such as an ISPF application, they are delivered as "packages" in TSO XMIT format compressed with PKZIP. You must have a program on your PC or MVS mainframe that can process PKZIP 2.04g files.

Typically you would:

Once you've done this a few times, it will come naturally. For more information on XMIT files, see my UnXMIT page.
In-Frequently Asked Questions:


Why XMIT format?

You may be wondering why these files are in TSO XMIT format:

Pros:
  • Easy packaging of a Partitioned Dataset.
  • No EBCDIC->ASCII->EBCDIC translation problems.
  • ISPF stats are preserved.
  • Load libraries can be downloaded to a PC
  • Variable Blocked files can be downloaded to a PC
Cons:


The XMIT datasets were created in TSO via this command:

XMIT userid DA(input.pds) OUTDATASET(name.XMI)



What about other methods?

Another way for easy packaging of a PDS is to use a program that creates a IEBUPDTE-compatible sequential version of a PDS. This file consist of add control cards followed by each member. The control cards have more ISPF stats (if any) added on the add control card, for example:
./ ADD NAME=$$README 1000-97137-97137-1819-00012-00012-00000-DAVE
There are two utilites that I know of that create this IEBUPDTE-compatible sequential version of a PDS with the ISPF stats: IBM's IEBUPDTE ignores the ISPF stats that these programs place on the add cards so you can still use IEBUPDTE to process them. If the IEBUPDTE format was used:

Pros:
  • Easy packaging of a Partitioned Dataset.
  • Can view on a PC.
  • ISPF stats are preserved.
Cons:
  • EBCDIC->ASCII->EBCDIC translation problems.
  • Load libraries can't be downloaded to a PC
  • Variable blocked files can't be downloaded to a PC


On a collection of items like an ISPF application, I'd personally would rather not have to edit a bunch of members to fix all of the translation problems one at a time when problems arose. These are MVS datasets and that's where they belong.



Why not provide both?

I am limited to 20 megs of web space although I may provide this in the future.
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Last Updated: 2000-05-27
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