June 1996

• In This Issue -
• Letters -
• Year 2000 Reality Check - Preparing your system to handle the year 2000 is a challenge, but it's not insurmountable. Roger Pence says that with a rational plan, you can be ready when the clock strikes 12 a.m., January 1, 2000.
• The AS/400 as Unix Server Extraordinaire - Robert Tipton reports that Rochester has provided a powerful, compliant Unix application environment -- robust enough to support SAP R/3 application code with almost no changes.
• Newswatch -
• International Update -
• Update -
• ILE in Action -
• ILE Exception Handling with RPG IV -
• ILE at Work: Creating ILE Service Programs - In this second installment to his "ILE at Work" series, Bryan Meyers explains how and when to use ILE service programs, which bind procedures by reference to the calling program.
• Nine New APIs - API creation need not be IBM's monopoly. Here's a batch brewed up by our own test kitchen.
• 11 Tried and True Performance Tips and Techniques - High paging activity, disk I/O, and CPU utilization are symptoms of common performance ills. These 11 tips and techniques from performance expert Rick Turner will help you make a diagnosis and return your AS/400 to peak performance.
• SMP -- The AS/400 Speed Demon - IBM's new Symmetric Multiprocessing dramatically speeds database queries on N-way machines by putting more than one processor to work on them. Kent Milligan explains SMP's optimizing strategies and how to use system value QQRYDEGREE and the DEGREE parameter of the CHGQRYA (Change Query Attributes) command to enable and disable SMP.
• Running NetWare 4.1 on the FSIOP - Ian Jarman, an IBM file server developer, explains how to install and configure NetWare 4.1 on the AS/400 File Server I/O Processor.
• Three Ways to Connect Windows NT and the AS/400 - John Enck explains the three methods for connecting a Windows NT client system to an AS/400: the MSDLC protocol, TCP/IP and TN5250 emulation, or Microsoft's SNA Server software.
• How to Merge AS/400 Data with MS Word Documents - Michael Otey steps through the process of using ODBC to import AS/400 data into a Microsoft Word document. He describes creating a Word mail merge document, connecting to an AS/400 ODBC data source, building a Microsoft Query query and returning the results, inserting the appropriate result columns into the merge document, and running the mail merge.
• ASCII vs. EBCDIC: Sort of a Problem - Joe Winchester explains how to use AS/400 translation tables in client/server applications that use remote SQL or Distributed Data Management.
• Quick Query Converter - Ernie Malaga shows you how to convert Query/400 queries in batch mode with command CVTQRYQMQ into Query Management (QM) source code.
• Sort Those API Lists - Greg LaForge's utility SRTUSRSPC uses the power of sort APIs QLGSORT and QLGSRTIO to let you specify an API list's sorting order in a program.
• Tech Corner -
• NEWSMART/400 -
• A Buyers Guide to Source Code Debuggers - Today's AS/400 source code debuggers provide many useful features. Use this guide to find the right tool for you.
• New Products & Services -
• IBM Announcements -
• Street Talk -