VAX to Mac Special Character Translation On The Fly (9/93)

Article Created: 30 September 1993

Is there a way to automatic translate text files created on a VAX with
edit/edt, characters like "çÄÆù£ûä", to be correctly read on a Macintosh?
The configuration is a VAX with PATHWORKS v 1.1, with file transfer being
done by copying the text files from a VAXshare volume mounted on the
Macintosh desktop.

I know that it can be done via a small program (HyperCard?) looking for the
special characters and replacing them for the Macintosh equivalent ones,
but this is not as automatic as I want or need. Also I have seen that
Mac340 emulation contains a Kermit based file transfer that allows this
automatic translation, but this is also not acceptable, because the file
transfer should be done via AppleTalk, and using Mac340 (or similar) means
extra costs.

Digital engineering told us that the only parts of PATHWORKS that currently
handle this are NetCopy and FAL in DECnet for Macintosh, and Mail for
Macintosh. DECnet allows you to select character translations for the
transfer of TEXT files, and Mail does for mail messages. Digital does not
have any specific plans to enhance this in the future.

We are also not aware of any other third party software that allows this
kind of translation on the fly.