====================== SSCC News, April, 1999 ====================== Inside this issue... VMS (EAGLE) Phase Out Deadlines Approaching SAS Upgraded to Version 7 A Simple Way to Convert VMS SAS Files for UNIX using SAS V.7 WordPerfect Available on NORMAN Additional Memory on MARIAH High-Powered PCs Available in 7413 Public Terminal Room New SSCC Publications ------------------------------------------- VMS (EAGLE) Phase Out Deadlines Approaching ------------------------------------------- VMS (EAGLE) is being Phased Out in 1999. Keep these important dates in mind: o August 24: E-mail services no longer available. Before this deadline you need to transfer your mail to UNIX and either learn a UNIX mailer or (preferably) learn a PC mailer. Schedule an appointment with Consultant to make this transfer. o October 31: Statistical software no longer available (SAS and SPSS system files must be transferred to UNIX in portable format or files will no longer be readable). Schedule an appointment with Nancy McDermott if you need assistance with this transfer. o December 30: VMS Operating System no longer available. Make sure all the VMS files you want to keep are transferred to your UNIX account, your space on SSCC's Microsoft network (U: drive), or a local drive on your PC. SSCC staff would like to help you with the transition off VMS. You can set up an appointment with Consultant and we will work through this transition with you. (Just don't wait until the last minute!) ------------------------- SAS Upgraded to Version 7 ------------------------- SAS has been upgraded to version 7 on GUY and EAGLE. The command "sas7" will invoke version 7. Version 7 of SAS cannot be installed on SSCC's other UNIX computers until this summer when we upgrade the operating system. There are too many new features in Version 7 to list them all here. A few noteworthy features include: o SAS data sets are now portable across operating systems (see related article below) o Direct referencing of permanent SAS data sets is now possible. LIBNAME statements are no longer required. o All SAS output is redirectable to SAS data sets and files (including HTML files) o PROC GENMOD, SAS's procedure for fitting generalized linear models has additional options for GEE methodology o Three new procedures are now available for selecting and analyzing survey sample data: SURVEYSELECT, SURVEYREG and SURVEYMEANS o PROC MEANS can now compute medians o Labels can now have up to 256 characters o Variable and data set names can now be up to 32 characters long Visit www.sas.com/service/doc/v7/whatsnew/ for a complete list of features new to version 7. Version 7 manuals will not be available from SAS until later this year. On-line documentation is available at http://shelf.doit.wisc.edu/SASOnLineDocs. ------------------------------------------------------------ A Simple Way to Convert VMS SAS Files for UNIX using SAS V.7 ------------------------------------------------------------ One of the major new features with Version 7 of SAS is that SAS data sets are now more portable. You can read Version 7 SAS data sets created in other operating systems without conversion. This provides a simple way for VMS users to transfer their SAS data sets to UNIX. You can resave your Version 5 and 6 SAS data sets using Version 7 of SAS and then ftp them to UNIX (using binary mode). This procedure is described in detail in How-to #22 available from the Public Terminal Rooms or on-line at https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Pubs/howto/22.pdf. Note that due to a bug in SAS, Version 7 of SAS cannot read Version 6 data sets created prior to 6.07. (It can read Version 5 and Versions greater than 6.06.) This bug effects SAS data sets created roughly between 1991-1993. ------------------------------- WordPerfect Available on NORMAN ------------------------------- WordPerfect 7.0 is now available on NORMAN. It has both an X-windows and character-based user interface. Preliminary testing and feedback from users indicates that although the program runs a bit slower than on a newer PC, the program is reliable. Accessing WordPerfect on NORMAN requires a few preliminary steps which are documented in SSCC How-to #21. This document is available from the Public Terminal Rooms or on-line at https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Pubs/howto/21.pdf. --------------------------- Additional Memory on MARIAH --------------------------- MARIAH had its RAM upgraded from 96MB to 320MB. This upgrade combined with its 7.4GB /tmp space, makes MARIAH a great choice for CDE users running large SAS and STATA jobs, especially since there are usually very few users logged into MARIAH. Below is the amount of RAM and size of /tmp on each of the UNIX computers: Computer RAM /tmp Space ------- ----- ---------- GUY 1280MB 2.8GB MARIAH 320MB 7.4GB NORMAN 320MB 3.5GB ELAINE 208MB 1.3GB WINGRA 160MB 1.7GB ------------------------------------------------------- High-Powered PCs Available in 7413 Public Terminal Room ------------------------------------------------------- Three new PCs are now available in the Public Terminal Room in 7413 Social Science. These computers were provided to SSCC by the Intel Corporation. The University of Wisconsin-Madison was recently awarded several million dollars worth of computing equipment by Intel to test the suitability of Windows NT as a platform for high volume data processing. The SSCC's portion of the equipment also includes seven workstations deployed in Ag Hall and a very powerful server. The three Windows NT machines in 7413 have a Pentium II Xeon, 400 MHz processor. There is 256 MB of RAM and a 4GB Ultra2 SCSI disk. Software includes ArcView 3.1 + extensions (GIS software), STATA 6.0, SPSS 9.0, Microsoft Office 7.0, Internet Explorer 4.01, Adobe Acrobat 3.02, and StatTransfer 5. Eventually, these PCs will become part of the Condor pool being developed in the Computer Science Department. Condor is a software system that runs on a cluster of workstations to harness wasted CPU cycles. A Condor pool consists of any number of machines, of possibly different architectures and operating systems, that are connected by a network. The goal of the Condor project is to develop, implement, deploy, and evaluate mechanisms and policies that support High Throughput Computing (HTC) on large collections of distributively owned computing resources. --------------------- New SSCC Publications --------------------- Following are new SSCC publications available from the Public Terminal Rooms, Consulting, or on-line at SSCC's web site (https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Pubs/pub.htm): How to Share a EUDORA Address Book Between Work and Home (#12) How to Access WordPerfect on UNIX (#21) How to Transfer SAS Data Sets from VMS to UNIX using SAS Version 7 (#22)