Press Release
 

Mr. Chuck Arney
Arney Computer Systems
PO Box 382511
Duncanville, TX 75138

Telephone: 214-296-6166
Fax: 214-296-5468
Internet: arney@metronet.com

*** SOFTWARE PRODUCT UPDATE ***

Dallas, Texas, September 1, 1996 -- Today Arney Computer Systems announces the availability of an enhanced release of its CMSACCess/VSE and CMSACCess/MVS software products.

The CMSACCess family of products provide direct access to data stored in the VM/CMS file system from native VSE and MVS operating systems. The standard operating system access methods do not support the reading of data which resides on VM minidisks that are managed by the CMS file system. The CMSACCess software provides this long needed support to computer installations which store data under CMS and need access to the data from VSE or MVS.

Release 1.2 of CMSACCess/VSE and CMSACCess/MVS provides an interface to the REXX programming language, the ability to copy CMS files directly into a VSE library, support to allow a user written program to process the output of a batch file copy command and a new ISPF application for MVS users.

The new CMSACC host command environment may be used by REXX programs to issue commands to CMSACCess for processing. Commands are provided to define the CMS minidisks that are to be processed as well as commands to obtain information about files stored on the accessed minidisks and commands to read data records from the CMS files. Special REXX variables are used to provide information about the CMS files and directories to the REXX program. CMS file records may be returned to the REXX program in variables or on the program stack depending upon how the READ command is requested. This facility provides complete support for the reading and processing of CMS data, from the REXX language running under VSE or MVS.

The CMSACCess batch utility program now supports the VSE library as an output option. One or more CMS files may be copied to a single library member or each CMS file may become an individual library member. Specific CMS files may be copied, or generic file names and file types may be specified. An overriding VSE library member type may be defined for the CMS files. For example, all CMS files with a file type of MACRO may be copied to a VSE library with a member type of "A".

The batch utility program also allows a user written program to process the output records of CMS files that are being copied to VSE or MVS. The user program is given each output record to process. This facility can be used to load CMS data records into a database management system, VSAM files, or any other user desired output.

This release of CMSACCess/MVS also includes a TSO ISPF application. The application, which is written in REXX, uses the REXX programming language interface to allow ISPF users to define a CMSACCess environment under TSO, list CMS files stored on accessed minidisks, and browse or edit CMS files directly from their ISPF sessions. Edited CMS files may be stored in MVS datasets for additional processing. This new ISPF application allows on-line TSO users to view or edit CMS data without leaving the MVS environment.