Getting Pick data onto the Web

Written 2011 by Will Johnson for Fast Forward Technologies Email Fast Forward Technologies at fft2001@aol.com or post your comments for public view far below. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

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"Getting Pick data onto the Web" on Knol, by Will Johnson
for Fast Forward Technologies fft2001@aol.com
URL: http://knol.google.com/k/fft2001/getting-pick-data-onto-the-web/mbasj7lzroyk/38
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

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Directory Project English Knol Project Computers Portal Computer Programming Portal Pick Operating System Portal pageview counts are as of 31 Jan 2011 Pick, Universe, Unidata resources 3414 views Companies that use Pick 1301 views MultiValue Community WebRing 1221 views Information flavor accounts for Pick flavor people 1194 views Companies that Used Pick 804 views Pick Dealers in California in 1988 and Today 692 views Richard A "Dick" Pick (d. 19 Oct 1994) 682 views Pick Hits 561 views The Ultimate Corp 33 views Books on the Pick Operating System

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If you are a Pick programmer invite me to connect to you through LinkedIn.  If you work for a company that uses Pick, even if you're not a programmer, please contact me to tell me about it wjhonson@aol.com

In my article Pick, Universe, Unidata resources I mentioned that there are several Pick vendors who offer free downloads.  In this article I'm going to explore what options Pick software developers have, for interactive applications on the web.  That is, web applications which interact with the Pick software in some fashion.

The first solution I'm going to review is Accuterm 2K2 Internet Edition  which claims to be the "... fastest way to web-enable your legacy Pick or Unix application." Well I was going to review it, but then realized hey first I need a Pick environment!  So poking around I found that Rocket Software has a free Personal Edition of Universe 11.1 for Windows available at this link So the first step is to install that.  The link takes me to a registration form.  They do ask you, for among other things, your phone number and email address.  After filling out the form, I'm taken to another page that just sits there looking at me....  After waiting, I realize that maybe they want me to actually click on the link that says Files: and then has this zip file.  Now I get a pop-up and choose Save File and it starts it's download.  The file is 28.7 Meg by the way.

Once the file was downloaded, the install only took maybe ten minutes at the most.  I chose all the default options it presents, including not to install the NLS option since the default is not to install it.  Oddly, when it's done, it doesn't actually seem to launch anything apparent, although the uvdlock process is launched as you can see if you check your Windows Task Manager.  Also the unirpcd and the uniservice process are launched.  These will now automatically launch every time you reboot your computer.  I looked in my Start > All Programs > IBM U2 and saw that the uvSH program was in there.  Launching that brings me to the system prompt in the UV account with no need to enter a username or password.  By the way, you can exit this shell by typing OFF and then hitting the Enter key.

The Personal Edition has only a two-user license, an eight-process limit, and a limit on filesize (modulo 10007 for those who know what that means).  Also the following add-ons do not function: Connection Pooling, EDA, NFA, RFS and UV/Net.  Not only don't they even explain what these are, but they don't give links either, so I'm going to explain them in brief.  Connection Pooling allows the development of applications that don't use persistent connections.  EDA = External Database Access this allows storing files on an external data server. NFA allows local access to data on remote servers. RFS provides recovery in case of media failures.  UV/Net allows transparent access of UV across multiple instances.

None of that is going to be necessary for us to get a demo environment up and running, so we can safely ignore it all and get back to the task at hand.


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