Hercules/MVS (card image exceeds maximum 80)

Finally solved a nagging Hercules/MVS problem that has had me stumped for days (card image exceeds maximum 80). After watching the YouTube video…
“MVS 3.8 or z_OS – Installing and using the Assist Assembler – M17” which documents Jay Mosley’s Assist Assembler install procedure.
I decided I wanted to do the same with 1 exception…I wanted the output to go to tk4’s local Linux prt folder so I could view the output with a better Linux editor and nore easily view the whole file without shifting right/left like I need to do in the 3270 editor.
Easy enough I’d just change MSGCLASS=X to MSGCLASS=A. A one character change. So I edited it with VS Code like I always do. But when running this job on MVS…It failed and I got the Hercules error “card image exceeds maximum 80” as seen below

HHC01603I devinit 00c /home/bill/Downloads/Computers/Emulators/Mainframe/Hercules/MVS/Assist/jcl/assist$.jcl
HHC02245I 0:000C device initialized
12.14.22 JOB 2 $HASP100 ASSIST$ ON READER1 INSTALL ASSIST HHC01207E 0:000C Card: file /home/bill/Downloads/Computers/Emulators/Mainframe/Hercules/MVS/Assist/jcl/assist$.jcl: card image exceeds maximum 80
*IEA000A 00C,INT REQ,42,0E40,0800,,,JES2
herc =====>

Because this job has over 30,000 lines, I wrote a python program to print any line greater than 80…and nothing printed!

Solution
To make a long story short…the MS VS Code editor somehow corrupted the assist$.jcl file.
I wish I could say me keen deductive abilities solved the problem, but it was because I accidentally submitted the unedited job, because I had no interest in looking at output of a 30,000+ line job on a 3270 screen. How could a 1 byte (‘X’ to ‘A’) change cause this problem? It never entered my mind.
In the video, I saw the presenter change the file using ‘vi’. So after restoring my corrupted assist$.jcl I made my change using ‘vi’ and it ran with no problems! As can seen below

HHC01603I devinit 00c /home/bill/Mystuff/Mainframe/MVS/ASSIST/assist$.jcl
HHC02245I 0:000C device initialized
01.34.39 JOB 521 $HASP100 ASSIST$ ON READER1 INSTALL ASSIST
01.34.39 JOB 521 $HASP373 ASSIST$ STARTED – INIT 1 – CLASS A – SYS TK4-
01.34.39 JOB 521 IEF403I ASSIST$ – STARTED – TIME=01.34.39
01.34.42 JOB 521 $HASP375 ASSIST$ ESTIMATED LINES EXCEEDED
01.34.43 JOB 521 $HASP375 ASSIST$ ESTIMATED LINES EXCEEDED BY 5000
01.34.43 JOB 521 $HASP375 ASSIST$ ESTIMATED LINES EXCEEDED BY 10000
01.34.43 JOB 521 IEF404I ASSIST$ – ENDED – TIME=01.34.43
01.34.43 JOB 521 $HASP395 ASSIST$ ENDED
01.34.43 $HASP309 INIT 1 INACTIVE C=A
01.34.43 JOB 521 $HASP150 ASSIST$ ON PRINTER1 60,908 LINES
01.34.43 $HASP160 PRINTER1 INACTIVE – CLASS=A
01.34.43 JOB 521 $HASP250 ASSIST$ IS PURGED
herc =====>

Some more observations I’ve made concerning this problem.
If I open the original file using the default Linux Mint text editor…it complains about invalid characters.
If I open the file using the default Linux Mint text editor AFTER editing with VS Code…it DOESN’T complain about invalid characters.
If I edit the file with Notepadqq (which is also a Linux GUI editor) it also runs OK!
I can also edit the file with nano (another command line editor…like ‘vi’) and it runs without any problems.

Linux Academy…day 4!

Received Linux Academy reply (for yesterdays support ticket) @4:30PM 30+hours later. Of course it worked for them…still doesn’t for me so I sent a small video showing MY failure! So much for 7 day free trial…I’ve lost 3 days already!

My video shows the below (which I actually copied from the screen)…in action. I sent the video to either prove I did as they asked or maybe they could see something I did wrong. Because it works for me…doesn’t help me. A video shows the whole process. However I’ve been logging into Linux usually multiple times a day for over 10 years. I also log into my headless Ubuntu server from time to time. After I got Login incorrect in the video, I paste it into a text editor to prove I really do have the password.

billb2c.mylabserver.com login: cloud_user
Password:

Login incorrect
billb2c.mylabserver.com login:

I guess I could start another program however the feature where I can play on their cloud server is important and a deal breaker if I can’t use it. I can go to YouTube if I just want to watch videos.

Linux Academy…day 2

Spent time, trying to take “Essential Container Concepts” at Linux Academy and on the section “Lecture: Installing and Basic usage of LXC/LXD”. I was told to pause the video and spin up a server…like I should know how to do this. So I spent more time trying to learn their system as I did actually learning! But I guess that’s normal.

Linux Academy…sign up…day 1!

I regretted not taking advantage of last years Linux Academy Black Friday sale ($150 off). So this year I signed up just before 1AM Saturday, my time…I assume, 12AM Friday, their time, with the free 7 day trial. I’m a person that likes tangible stuff but I also have to make good decisions on how to spend my money. I was really tempted by the Pinebook Pro. But I decided instead to invest in something I could put in my head rather than something I could hold in my hand.

First real day with Linux Academy. Got Certificates of Completion concerning Linux Academy itself

Networking

I don’t know why…but I was thinking about my 1st adventure into PC Networking. It was many years ago when I first connected 2 MS-Windows computers together so I could play Duke Nukem with my son. Me on one computer he on another. He was very young and liked playing with me because I could enter scary environments first. It was pretty cool at the time.

C

Looking through an old S/370 Assembly book and found a C program I wrote a long time ago. One of the few I’ve written, I certainly don’t consider myself a C programmer. Don’t know why I didn’t get into it more. It’s certainly a great and important language. There’s no date on the listing but it’s printed on a dot matrix printer on fanfold paper…so pretty old.

NextCloud update…finally!

Finally got option to update NextCloud to 17 (actually 17.0.1)…and did. Version 17 has been out for a while but never offered to me. Was very concerned because of the NextCry Ransomware issue found in the wild. Seem to apply to NGINX web servers…still very annoying for my NextCloud to keep telling me that my software was current at 16…week after many weeks!