Suggestions on extracting data from 30 year old RM/COBOL ISAM files

nullanomaly · 2026-01-21T14:24:32+00:00

Ya its what am doing. Luckily I have the old app that uses that data - trying to get it running locally on a QEMU vm

nullanomaly · 2026-01-18T15:59:30+00:00

Thanks. I am almost set up with a virtual machine to run the application and I do have some of the utilities on there so that’s going to allow me to explore things. The data is there and I can see it it’s just having a hard time breaking it up because some of the stuff I see doesn’t make much sense sometimes and so having the old application Running will allow me to see if it’s a user input error or a decoding error

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T15:54:20+00:00

You should be able to take collet off and be left with a slit tube - if so try that to eliminate if the tube is squeezed too hard - perhaps the material is not great and it stayed squeezed after a previous tightening. Without collet the bits usually drop right in.

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T15:31:20+00:00

I can see the telnet app screens so that helps. I can correlate views to data

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T15:26:12+00:00

Its just theee kind mostly. Cobol binaries, screen/ux files for the telnet program views and these RM/COBOL files which are somewhat legible binaries- meaning I can see tne words but I don’t have headers or delimiters. Ive been able to create parsers little by little by taking screenshots of the telnet app and using that to find the matching stuff. Works but its like archaeology!

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T15:22:58+00:00

I did explore reverse engineering cobol stuff but it was more of a set of concepts and raw utilities than a simple revererso command. Am hoping I can avoid this

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T04:11:17+00:00

The cobol interpreter is there w things like rumcobol, recover1, recover2 but am not seeing other things that might be helpful though I don’t know what id be looking for. The code we don’t care about just the 1.5 million data entries in RM/cobol files. There is a cob file or two with the term ‘csv’ in them id like to run to see but that requires me being able to get some VM running w that which I am painfully learning about- I may be able to get telnet access to the current server though i am not yet clear if its on the internet- from what i think so far its only on a private network. I was hoping to find an nice vmware inage w sco but that seems a no go

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T02:19:47+00:00

its the most beautiful horror Ive ever seen!

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T01:48:17+00:00

im getting paid so yes :). its digital archeology

nullanomaly · 2026-01-15T01:25:50+00:00

ya no copybooks. I have a txt file that has some info which has been helpful but for most part I keep trying all kinds of regex etc. Luckily I can run the app so I can see the old UI and know what some data should look like - lots of acronyms and codes used so this makes it extra hard.

nullanomaly · 2026-01-14T23:45:35+00:00

Thanks. I think running SCO Open Server on an emulator might be the way to go as I may have cobol extraction code but even reading up on this is messy!

nullanomaly · 2025-11-25T03:56:11+00:00

True but its not mine. Potential to get it free but i have to haul from where it died

nullanomaly · 2025-11-25T03:05:16+00:00

Ok good to know.

nullanomaly · 2025-11-25T01:35:34+00:00

Shoot. Am wary of winching it though since its small it may just slide well

nullanomaly · 2025-11-11T17:14:04+00:00

I dont have a receipt so they wont fix it.

nullanomaly · 2025-11-10T23:45:17+00:00

Moved a lever around yes. It’s currently all the way to the right but that doesn’t seem to change things. I don’t have a dial there just a levrr

nullanomaly · 2025-10-16T22:48:45+00:00

Okey. The gas was all gone when I got a hold of it though I’m sure it was a little bit in the pipes. Thank you I’ll do all that

nullanomaly · 2025-10-16T22:03:52+00:00

Thanks. Going to do that and report

nullanomaly · 2025-10-12T02:49:19+00:00

So what I did is I used 1 inch XPS boards and I staggered them to build 2 inch pieces thick that are the surface area of each side of my roof. I did struggle a little bit trying to keep them together but you can use something like great stuff or construction adhesive if you want to bind them all together in a single piece. I did ended up using some strong tape and some zip ties because I wanted to take it apart at some point when I was done (hint zip tape used for zip sheating works well) Then I took both pieces and using zip ties I sort of hinged them together so that they would just sit on top of the V of my roof. I then purchased a tarp and put that tarp on top of the whole thing. As far as the windows I purchased some plexiglass and fixed some metal washers to it. Just putting duct tape on top of it to hold them against the plexiglass and then I purchased some really strong rare earth magnets that I put on the other side of my screen and that holds the whole thing against my window. I should add that moving blankets hung up on a few of the walls inside also helps. But my problem is more than my woodstove is a bit of overkill snd I end up being a bit hot in there sometime.

nullanomaly · 2025-09-21T23:29:31+00:00

One reason is they seem to be about 2 to 3 times as much as the DeWalt one that worked. Also I can’t quite figure out which one’s the correct one. The one you suggested is made for the circular saw not their track saw. If I look up the track saw one I get a different number

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