Re: O.T.: HP 9000, HP 9133 programs Message #7 Posted by Howard Owen on 27 June 2006, 7:57 p.m., in response to message #6 by Vassilis Prevelakis
If it's an HP 9000/200 or /300, and the files reside on a 9133, then it is very likely Rocky Mountain BASIC.
If he's getting asterisks on printouts on an HP 9000/200 then the programs may be marked private. This is implemented with a different file type in the file's LIF header on disk. I don't know the file types for RMB BASIC programs, but here's a sample from the HP-71B's file types: (from some Perl code I have, based on Tony Duell's lifutils toolkit)
0xE214 + 0 => "BASIC71",
0xE215 + 0 => "SBASIC71",
0xE216 + 0 => "PBASIC71",
0xE217 + 0 => "SPBASIC71",
So plain old BASIC files are type 0xE214, "secure" BASIC (meaning encrypted with a 16 bit key) are type 0xE215, "private" BASIC files are 0xE216 and "secure" and "private" BASIC files are type 0xE217.
The 16-bit encryption is trivial to crack with brute force, but the "private" files are unlistable merely as a matter of OS policy. That is, if you change the file type of a "private" file to that of a plain old file (0xE216 to 0xE214, in the above example) using a utility on another OS, you then can list the file's contents, print them out, convert them to LIF text format and so forth on the 9000 system itself. You could then transmit them to the 21st century via RS232 or through the listings, to name two possibilities.
Regards, Howard
Edited: 27 June 2006, 7:59 p.m.
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