IBM PC ASCII data

This information applies to data supplied on CD-ROMS which have been formatted for use on IBM compatible PCs running MS-DOS.

The Data Format

All files within this release are standard ASCII files with variable length records terminated by a carriage return/line feed pair <CR><LF> (ASCII decimal values 13 and 10). If you intend to use the data on an IBM compatible PC running MS-DOS or MS Windows, then you will be able to use them as they are.

If you are using a Unix workstation or a Mac, then you will need to strip off either the <CR> or the <LF> to convert them to standard Unix or Mac ASCII files. There are commercially available packages such as dos2unix and Apple File Exchange which will do this job for you. An alternative approach is to mount the data on a networked IBM PC and use ftp to transfer the data you want.

VMS users should mount the disks using the STREAM record formats.

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