[Info-vax] terminal fallback tables

[jirkak737 at gmail.com]

> The TFF macros, needed to make your own fallback table, are not available in
> STARLET.MLB or LIB.MLB libraries.  You'd need a copy of the source listings
> to get the TFF$MACROS module or the TFF$STURCTURES.LIS (a listing containing
> the SDL describing the TFF structure).
> 

Mr. VAXman, Jan-Erik, Stephen, Craig, and JF, 
thank you for your answers. Unfortunately, my issue is still unresolved. :-(
Sometimes it make sense to leave files intact, and to process file data as they are, then just convert charset on the user interface. You can share data with windows, mac, unix or other clients or servers using samba or NFS(both directions) or have data stored on VMS in usupported charset because of aged multi-layer application. To be able to work with such files using VMS utilities, a charset conversion using tff seems to be a general-purpose solution. Why not to use available vms solution doing exactly what we need ?

Last week I restarted my project "8bit charsets support in VMS", it was ten years postponed in a bottom of a drawer. Now, it is the best time to make progress. The aim is to support any single-byte 8bit charset in terminal utilities and applications. That is why I need to make additional tff tables, and looking for an information how to build them.

BTW, UTF8, UCS2 and UCS2BE encodings are the next steps as so as support in rms and the file system. I'd like to be able to work using VMS utilities with any file encoding saved from windows notepad. Fortunately, a lot of work is already done in Asian VMS variants, but full unicode support, it still will be a very long travel. (see Supporting the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Languages in the OpenVMS Operating System http://www.dtjcd.vmsresource.org.uk/pdfs/dtj_v05-03_1993.pdf)

OK, let me see... I've already gotten a very specific (and correct) answer...
There are the only 35 items in the tff library... I'd bet a beer that these tables were made by a collection of dcl procedures or similar home-grown tool not able to be published (or may be lost). 
I'll try to do it the same way using TFF$MACROS or maybe I'll write my own compiler.
I'll post an outcome.
Thank you all.

Best Regards,
Jiri Kaspar
Czech Technical University in Prague
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Ask not what VMS can do for you, ask what you can do for VMS.