I know some people were poking around with rates.

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After digging extensivly, I discovered that you cannot have a rate for terminal time that is less than 3.6 cents per hour.

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In the W013 (Engler) code, RATEGEN claims that terminal time is represented in $/hr * 1000, so to specify $2/hr, I would enter 2000 (decimal) as the first rate element.

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However…. MTS has another idea when it uses those rates.

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Bottom line – it takes the value you specify and divides it by 36. If you specify less than 18 decimal, you always get zero.

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Anything over that? - it adjusts to the nearest 3.6 cents per hour.

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Relevant code from GETRATES#SA:

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repeat when Cvttbl(J) < 0;????????????????????????????

Cost := Ratefile_Rates(K) + Ratefile_Rates(K + 1) +???

???Ratefile_Rates(K + 2);?????????????????????????????

if Cost > 0???????????????????????????????????????????

then??????????????????????????????????????????????????

???variable Long_Cost is bit(64),??????????????? ??????

??????Remainder is bit(32);???????????????????????????

???Multiply_Long_Integer(Cost, Cvttbl(J), Long_Cost);?

???Divide_Long_Integer(Long_Cost, Cvttbl(J + 1), Cost,

??????Remainder);?????????????????????????????????????

???Remainder *:= 2;???????????????????????????????????

???if Remainder >= Cvttbl(J + 1)??????????????????????

???then???????????????????????????????????????????????

??????Cost +:= 1;??????????????? /* Round */??????????

???end if;????????????????????? ???????????????????????

end if;????????????

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The Cvttbl is an integer array – for each rate element, the first one is a Muliplication factor, the second one is what you divide the rate by.

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For TT (terminal time) – it multiplies by 1 and divides by 36.

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So, If I specify 10 (what I think should be a penny per hour), it:

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Takes 10 * 1 = 10

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Then 10 / 36 (integer divide) and gets 0 with a ?remainder of 10.

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If I multiply that by 2, it comes out to 20 which is less than 36 so the rate gets forced to 0.

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So, it converts the rate you gave it to that rate / 36 and then supposably later, multiplies it by 36 again, but it make the rate a multiple of $0.036 / hr

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Not sure what the meaning of this code is, but bottom line:

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No TT rate < ?$0.036 / hr AND

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All rates are forced to be a multiple of $0.036 / hr for terminal time.

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My next question is:? When I log on, Log off or say $DISPLAY COST, it says “No Charges”, which isn’t true since, if I? have rates and a MAXCHG > 0 on my ID, I get charged.

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What controls this “No Charge” message and what does it really mean. Rich accounts can always sign on, but ARE charged, that is, if they have a MAXCHG > $0.0.

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Probably too much deep geek for most people…. ?

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??????????????????????????????????

MTS requires special code because of how it interfaced with the internet. It used specialized hardware. ?Work is being done to add support into Hercules for this hardware. Other systems can already use networking with Hercules, MTS cannot yet do this.

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The work is being done as part of the release of the last MTS version that was in use before U of M shut it down. This is being called ‘d7.0’.

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The issue I had with Hercules 4.5 is that MTS would crash anywhere from 2 minutes to a week after IPL. It may be my combination of OS (Linux), gcc compiler, etc.

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My question was to determine if the networking changes were already checked in to the current (4.6?) version of Hercules.? If so, I was going to download that onto a CentOS 9 vm to see if it had the crash problem.

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In preparation for d7.0, I was wondering which version of Hercules has the mods to allow networking (FTP, Telnet, etc)??

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Mike, I know you mentioned that you had to check in changes.

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I still can’t get d6.0 to work with Hercules 4.5 – it super-dumps from 30 seconds to 1 week after IPL.

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I may upgrade to CentOs 9 and all of the latest utilities. My VM machine is CentOs 7.0.

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John

Does anyone know what tool can be used to look and edit the system rates in *RATEFILE?

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Is there a document that describes the format of the file?

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I would like to experiment with setting different rates. Is there anything else that I need to do to turn on real rates?

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I’m also not sure I understand the difference between IDR number , University Account Number and Unit code. Do any one of those provide a key value into rates? There isn’t much descriptive info on these in the ACCOUNTING documentation, other than that these three are apparently integers.? Also, when I create new ID’s, ACCMAINT sometimes barks at me about the “Account Number appears to be Invalid”.? I assume that ACCMAINT has some hard coded relationship between the 1^st letter of the ID and an allowable account number.

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Also, interesting that the BLOCK=xxxx parameter on ACCMAINT can only be used with IDs that start with certain letters. I assume this is some sort of U of M business office convention. ?

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Also, I know at WSU, they excluded all of the vowels as being allowed as the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th character of the IDs, whereas it looks like the U of M convention was to just exclude I’s and O’s (so as not to mix them up with the numerals 0 and 1).

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Thanks

John

Yup – just wanted to alert someone in case something was deleted by accident.

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Looks like the archive site is gone, unless I am using the wrong URL…

If you guys want anyone to test Confer out on 6.0, I can do so if someone can copy the files into an .AWS tape file.

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Thanks – found it. Works great – searching the system for documentation. I need to know how to call system subroutines from Pascal.

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I know that with *PascalVS, ?you declared them as “Fortran” instead of “External” to make it use the proper calling convention. Not sure what the syntax is for UBC Pascal.

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John

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