(click for larger image ~87K)
>>> Please use the closest alternate download site. <<< Thanks to several people's gracious generosity, there are now several 'mirror' sites available where you can download these files from. Please use an alternate download site if one is available in your area. Thanks!
Fish's
primary site
(Europe)
SOFTDEVLABS.COM
Paris
France
(http)Sam Knutson's
mirror site
(North America)
CBTTAPE.ORG
North Potomac, MD
United States
(http)Volker Bandke's
mirror site
(Europe)
BSP-GMBH.COM
Seevetal
Germany
(http)Pedro Ramos's
mirror site
(Europe)
PEDRORAMOS-SI.COM
Entroncamento
Portugal
(http)
Note: when a new release is announced, the new version may not show up on the mirror sites until approximately 24 - 48 hours after the announcement. Once a new release has been out for at least 24 - 48 hours however, then all the mirrors should contain exactly the same information as the primary site. Please use a mirror if one is availble in your area. Thanks!
For my fellow Windows Herculeans, here are the links to download my latest version of HercGUI: the Windows GUI interface to Hercules.
This is the Windows GUI program itself that simply interfaces with the latest version of the Hercules emulator. In addition to the GUI, you'll also need the Hercules emulator itself in order to use my GUI.
NOTE: starting with version 1.11.0 of HercGUI you will also need my FishLib support DLL as well.
Please note: My GUI is not an emulator. It simply provides the graphical user interface to the Hercules emulator itself. The executables for the Hercules emulator itself are available elsewhere and must be downloaded and installed separately from my GUI.
Refer to the What's New web page for information on what was changed in this release,
These are the Microsoft MFC and C runtime dlls that all of my products now need in order to run. (MFC80.DLL, MSVCR80.DLL and MSVCP80.DLL (VC++ 2005) or MFC90.DLL, MSVCR90.DLL and MSVCP90.DLL (VC++ 2008), etc, depending on what the current version of Visual C++ happens to be) You will definitely need these dlls in order to use any of my products.
Simply download the Microsoft installation package and run it. It only takes a few seconds and does not require a reboot.
Each of the below Microsoft pages contain a download links for all supported platform architectures (32-bit x86, 64-bit x64, and 64-bit Itanium):
The new versions of all my products will come with their own installers which will automatically install everything
each products needs (including the above DLLs), but since they're not ready yet (I'm working on it) you'll have to
install them yourself manually for now.
Also note that you of course only need to install these C Runtime DLLs once, and not every time a new version of my products is released. (Until, that is, they (Microsoft) releases a new version of their redistributables of course!)
Also, if Windows complains about a missing DbgHelp.dll, you will then need to also install Microsoft's Debugging Tools for Windows package. The "Install Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Versions" (or "Install Debugging Tools for Windows 64-bit Versions") links are at the bottom of the page.
If you're still using a very old version of HercGUI and need the very old VC++ 6.0 MFC dlls (MFC42.DLL, MSVCRT.DLL, MSVCP60.DLL and DbgHelp.dll), they can still be downloaded by clicking here.
Follow this link to obtain the current version of the Hercules emulator executables. I'm no longer providing a download for any prebuilt version of the Hercules emulator itself from this web page since the Win32 version of Hercules now contains support for my GUI by default. Please visit the main Hercules home page for links to download prebuilt Win32 versions of the Hercules from. (Remember that my GUI is not the emulator itself; it simply interfaces with the Hercules emulator).
Official release versions of Hercules are distributed on both the main Hercules web site as well as by Volker Bandke. Both sites have pre-built, downloadable versions for Linux, OS X and Windows:
Pre-builts from the Official Hercules Site (the Official Distribution)
Volker Bandke's pre-built Windows versions (MSVC variety)
Volker Bandke's pre-built Windows versions (Cygwin variety)
The Cygwin variety requires the Cygwin package to be installed first in order to work on Windows. The MSVC version does not.
The MSVC Windows version is an ordinary Windows program and should under normal circumstances work "right out of the box" without any additional software needing to be installed. It is the currently recommended version for Windows users.
In addition to the official release versions we also offer daily development snapshots as well. Development snapshots are "bleeding edge" versions of current in progress development of Hercules and are not guaranteed to work properly or even necessarily build at all (although they usually do (both build fine and work fine as well)). If you're having a problem with Hercules you might consider trying one of the development snapshots to see if it fixes your problem:
Volker Bandke's daily development snapshots page (MSVC variety)
Volker Bandke's daily development snapshots page (Cygwin variety)
Ivan Warren's daily development SVN snapshots site. (Nice!)
Ivan Warren's daily development SVN change log page. (Nice!)
These are the Cygnus CygWin dlls that are required in order to run the Cygwin version of the Hercules emulator under Windows. I'm no longer providing a separate download for these dlls from this web page either since they too are available elsewhere.
You might want to obtain these dlls directly from Cygnus, but please refer to Volker Bandke's "Installing CYGWIN" web page first, as he explains quite clearly how to easily do it.
Note: If you're installing the Cygwin version of Hercules on your Windows system for the very first time, then you'll need these dlls. If you are installing the MSVC version of Hercules however, then you do not need these DLLs. See Volker's "Installing CYGWIN" web page for more details.
You will need this dll with all newer versions of my products.
Please refer to the README for important information regarding "Breaking Changes" in version 2.7.0.
Many of the programs I write end up needing to do the same types of things all over again as are being done in others programs I've already written.
Rather than "re-invent the wheel" each time (and/or copy & paste the same code into each new program I write), I've instead gathered most of the more common functions into one place: this library (dll).
That way if I need to fix a bug in a particular function and/or add support for new features/functionality to an already existing function or class, I only need to do it in one place and not all over again in each program individually.
Complete Visual Studio 2005 source code available further below.
This is a much improved and more powerful version of Rob Storey's existing 'awsbrows.exe' (note spelling) utility. Awsbrows.exe (withOUT the 'e') is Rob's program. AwsbrowsE.exe (WITH the 'e') is my own much more powerful version of the same thing.
Don't get me wrong! Rob's awsbrows is a handy utility (and until my AWSBrowse came along the only utility), but it was too lacking in features to be useful for my own purposes so I decided to write a better one.
At least I hope it's better. You tell me. :)
Among it's many features are:
This is a must-have utility for anyone that deals with lots of .aws/.het files.
Complete Visual Studio 2005 source code available further below.
This is a simple Win32 SCSI tape test utility I wrote during my efforts to try and get support for SCSI tape working on the Windows version of Hercules. It basically calls the same set of Windows APIs that Cygwin does to work with SCSI tape drives on Windows. It's only a simple command-line utility, but it allows you to easily test the proper functioning of your Windows SCSI attached tape drive to make sure it's working properly before trying to add it to your Hercules device configuration.
It allows you to do such simple things as read and write random or fixed-sized blocks of random data, fast-forward to the next or previous tapemark, back-space and forward-space block, write tapemarks, locate block, etc. It'll even display the data block it reads in either ascii or ebcdic too, so you can examine the data on an already existing tape you may already have.
It of course requires you to already have the tape drive properly installed on your Windows system so that Windows can 'see' it (i.e. you have to have the SCSI adapter and SCSI Tape device drivers already installed such that device 'Tape0' appears in your Windows device list), but as long as Windows can see it and ftape can access it, then the drive should be usable by Hercules.
Note: as far as I know pretty much any "true" (non-ASPI) SCSI Tape device driver can be used regardless of what model tape drive you have since all SCSI tape devices are required to support a minimum set of SCSI commands. The only exception I've found is, ironically, IBM's device drivers. They're purposely coded to ONLY work with their own tape drives unfortunately (the stinkers). For example, my own tape drive is a Fujitsu model M2488E SCSI attached 3480/3490E tape drive and right now I think I'm using one of Sony's device drivers with it and it works just fine.
Also note that while I say you need to use a non-ASPI driver in order for the drive to work with Hercules, please be aware that sometimes the "ASPI" software that comes with a tape drive also includes a device-driver for the tape drive itself, such that by installing whatever ASPI software may come with the tape drive, the needed non-ASPI device-driver also gets installed. That is to say, some "ASPI" software packages include not only a control DLL that allows their software to talk to the tape drive via ASPI, but which also includes the necessary device-driver for the tape drive itself (which the ASPI layer then simply talks directly to).
Thus even though I say you "must" use non-ASPI device-driver, that doesn't necessarily mean you cannot also install whatever ASPI software may have come with the drive. The two are not mutually exclusive from one another. They may both be installed if so desired, as long as by doing so the necessary non-ASPI device-driver for the tape drive also gets installed. The only time ASPI software cannot be used is when the software provides no other means to talk to the tape drive other than via ASPI. If your ASPI software requires that only ASPI be used to talk to the tape drive, then that would be the one situation where your ASPI software (drivers) would thus be incompatible with ftape/Hercules thereby requiring you to shop for a different non-ASPI device-driver for your tape drive.
(Further note: ftape does NOT currently support (and neither does Cygwin nor Hercules yet) doing any type of i/o to the medium changer device unfortunately (i.e. the cartridge loader), but it's okay if the drive has one; it just can't be directly accessed by ftape nor Hercules, that's all; it'll still work though; you'll just have to do all that stuff manually yourself using the buttons on your tape drive's front panel).
Complete Visual Studio 2005 source code is included (since it's such a simple program).
This is a small text file containing the MD5 checksums for all of the .zip files on any of my web pages. Download this file and run it through an MD5 validator program to verify the integrity of all of the file(s) that you download.
One such MD5 utility program for Windows which I personally recommend (and which happens to be the same program I used to create the above MD5 checksum file with) is MD5summer (http://www.md5summer.org/). It's only a small 341K download, only takes up 646K of disk space expanded, is very easy to use and quite pretty (and fast!) too. If you don't have an MD5 checksum validating utility yet, this is the one I personally recommend getting.
The source code for HercGUI is no longer available due to the current ongoing effort to try and turn it into a full-fledged commercial product. (Besides, it was never "Open Source" to begin with anyway.)
In the mean time, since the GUI was and still is copyrighted intellectual property, I would remind everyone who has already downloaded their own copy of it that you do not have permission to share it with anyone. Doing so would be contrary to the meaning of "copyright". Copyright means that I (and not you) hold the right to distribute copies of my work as I see fit, and at the moment, I do not wish for copies of my work to be distributed to others without my prior express written permission.
Thanks for understanding.
(Sorry it's taking me so long to get it written, but I promise you, it will get written!)
(eventually anyway)
- Why Make a Donation? (Help me out folks! I'm unemployed and need the income! Pretty please?)
- HercGUI "What's New" (important information pertaining to this new release)
- HercGUI Brief Operating Instructions. (how to use HercGUI (approx. 950K of images; may take a while to load))
- HercGUI Frequently Asked Questions. (where to go if you're having trouble)
- MSVC Hercules Build Instructions (How to build the new MSVC version of Hercules)
- Maximizing Hercules Available Memory (How to recover hundreds of megabytes of valuable virtual memory!)
- CTCI-W32 (Hercules Channel-to-Channel link to Win32 TCP/IP stack)
- Volker Bandke's "Installing CYGWIN" web page (help on installing Cygwin, a Windows Hercules required component)
- Volker Bandke's "MVS 3.8 Tur(n)key System" (a complete, pre-built MVS 3.8 system, ready to run!)
- The main Hercules emulator home page. (How to configure your 'mainframe')
- Hercules workshop - Enschede, NL - December 2001 (Pictures of the gang!)
That's it. Enjoy your Windows GUI 'front panel' interface to Hercules! :)
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
fishsoftdevlabs.com
"Programming today is a race between
software engineers striving to build bigger
and better idiot-proof programs, and the
Universe trying to produce bigger and better
idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
- Rich Cook
(I need a job!)
If you like what you see here and think you might be interested in hiring me as a programmer (or know of someone that might be interested in hiring me), please check out my resumé and then give me a call or shoot me an e-mail. Thanks!
Note, however, that I'm not interested in permanently relocating. I am, however, open to accepting contract positions (long or short term). It all depends on what I'd be doing, who I'd be doing it for, where I'd be doing it, how long I'd be doing it and, of course, how much I'd actually be paid to do it.)