UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Per perderabo's instructions I already tried using conv=ascii and it seemed to help some. But I'm still getting binary data and it is all supposed to be converted to text.

The system is running HP-UX 11.0.

If you're getting binary data after the conversion, then you had binary data to start with. You can verify this by dumping the tape without the conv=ascii and then using od to see values the bytes have. Since you have binary data, the conversion to ebcdic may not be as useful as it seems. You need to discuss the tape format with whoever created the tape and figure out exactly how it should be decoded.

I have used dd on HP-UX with conv=ascii very often to dump ebcdic tapes. It works fine if you really have ebcdic data only. But a mixture of ebcidic and binary data will probably require a special purpose program.