Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: ascii or not ascii
Message-ID: <7800@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 29 Apr 88 21:05:16 GMT
References: <533@zoot.lamont.Columbia.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 11
Keywords: ascii, prime

In article <533@zoot.lamont.Columbia.edu> hough@lamont.Columbia.edu (sue hough) writes:
>I am trying to read an ascii (Prime generated) 9-track tape on a Unix
> system.  The restored files look like ascii when I use MORE, CAT,
> HEAD, etc.  But when I try to edit them with vi, I get
> "not an ascii file".  Any suggestions appreciated.

As I recall, Prime typically stores text in 7-bit ASCII with the high
bit SET.  On the receiving end, do something like
	tr '[\201-\377]' '[\001-\0177]' < prime_data > unix_data
if your "tr" can handle it, or write a small C program to do the same
thing.