Introduction

Many High Energy physics experiments use some or all of the following packages:

1. PATCHY or CMZ for code management
2. Zebra FZ and RZ packages for I/O
3. PAW, HBOOK for histogramming

   The transfer of the files used by these packages is often difficult, and network access impossible.

   For example, PATCHY PAM files have are normally transferred between different machines in a special interchange format, known as CETA. Network access to PAM files between different hardware platforms is not supported. The transfer of Zebra files also requires the use of an interchange format, Zebra binary (or even ASCII) exchange format. This requires a three step process to transfer a file:

   1. Convert to exchange format
   2. Transfer
   3. Convert back to native

      Trasnfer of such files to and from Unix machines is further complicated by the fact that that data records, when written by FORTRAN, contain control information which renders the file unreadable on the remote system and so a further step is required to add or remote these control words.

      CSPACK