UBTYPW

Historically Correct Approach Includes Carrying Mistakes Forward In One Case

At DMAC we tend to make a big issue about being historically correct. That is, if the inherited ENTREX, NIXDORF, Tartan, and DCPA and look alikes tended to do something in one way, we tend to preserve this past way. Saves retraining time and helps everyone on the learning curve.

UBTYPW is a new environment variable in Unibase by DMAC 7.31i which allows the user to continue what we at DMAC think was a mistake.

Older people in the industry will remember the mistake. On the old ENTREX key-to disk systems two keyboards were available -- keypunch and typewriter. The exact same record format presented different keyboard mappings to the user depending upon whether the keypunch or typewriter keyboard was used.

User Motivated Use of Variable

We recently assisted a user who wrote everything for the typewriter keyboard but used the keypunch based record formats. The was a mistake. The manuals did not agree with what the typewriter keyboard produced for the particular record format.

Oh well, now there is an environment variable which allows the user to continue the "misuse." We believe in being historically correct. We hope that not too many mistakes are to be propagated. Historically correct is correct.