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ND-10188 — FOCUS Level 1 Screen Handling System

Status: IN-PROGRESS — real 4-disk floppy set decoded, no PD sheet located (only a real PI sheet)

Field Value
ND article number ND-10188 (later article: ND-210188)
Product name FOCUS Level 1, Screen Handling System For Transaction Processing
Functional category Graphics, Plotting & Screen Handling
Callable from FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL
Manual ND-60.137 (per the PI sheet's own citation; not present in this repo)
Related products A fourth real, concrete answer to "how do I build a UI on ND hardware" alongside VTM, PLANC-SCREEN-H, and NSHS — see the full comparison in PLANC-VTM-UI-CATALOG.md. Confirmed built in PLANC and sitting on VTM (see below) — resolves the earlier "no manual found for FOCUS" note in that catalog: a real PI sheet exists in this repo, it was just not yet cross-referenced.

What is known — from the real PI sheet

Source: Installation/Product-Info/ND-10188-A2-EN.md, verbatim.

FOCUS lets a user define screen forms interactively at display terminals with cursor control, and use those forms for data input/output from programs. Two modules, in the PI sheet's own words — almost identical phrasing to NSHS's PI sheet (ND-10013-A2-EN), see the open question this raises in the UI catalog:

  • ND FORMS Maintenance Program — interactive picture/form creation and modification (leading texts + data-entry fields, editing formats, fill characters). New form modifications create a new version; old versions remain until explicitly deleted.
  • ND FORMS Handling Library (called "FOCUS Runtime Library" elsewhere in the same sheet) — callable from FORTRAN, BASIC, or COBOL. Routines exist to retrieve forms, display leading text/fields, read operator-entered data, write to a field, edit a single field, and write messages to a specific screen line. Both reentrant and non-reentrant versions exist — "when many active programs are using the system, the reentrant version should be used."
  • A third listed component: FOCUS Auxiliary Subroutines.

"The program can be used from different types of terminals to input screen layouts and commands without user specification of terminal type" — consistent with sitting on VTM, and directly confirmed by the real floppy contents below.

What is known — real floppy, decoded (4 disks)

ND-10188E-PART1 through PART4 mount cleanly:

PART1: FOCUS-DEF-ENG-E:PROG      FOCUS-ENVIRON-EN:FORM   FOCUS-ENVIRON-NO:FORM   UE-ERMSG-ENG-A01:ERR
PART2: FOCUS-COMPILE-E:PROG      FOCUS-CONVERT:PROG
PART3: FC-MAIN-1CODE:BRF   FC-MAIN-1DATA:BRF   FC-MVTM-1CODE:BRF   FC-MVTM-1DATA:BRF
       VTM-R-D:BRF   VTM-DATA-D:BRF   VTM-CPOS-D:BRF   VTM-CPAR-D:BRF
       PLANC-1BANK-E:BRF
       FOCUS-1B-N:BUIL   FOCUS-1B-R:BUIL   MFOCUS-1B-N:BUIL   MFOCUS-1B-R:BUIL   FOCUS-TPS:BUIL
       VTM-1B-ARRAY-D-C:BRF   DDBTABLES-D-C:VTM
PART4: FC-MAIN-2CODE:BRF   FC-MAIN-2DATA:BRF   FC-MVTM-2CODE:BRF   FC-MVTM-2DATA:BRF
       VTM-2B-R-D:BRF   VTM-2B-DATA-D:BRF   VTM-2B-CPOS-D:BRF   VTM-2B-CPAR-D:BRF
       PLANC-2BANK-E:BRF
       FOCUS-2B-N:BUIL   FOCUS-2B-R:BUIL   MFOCUS-2B-N:BUIL   MFOCUS-2B-R:BUIL
       VTM-2B-ARRAY-D-C:BRF

Three real findings not in the PI sheet:

  1. FOCUS is itself built in PLANC — both PART3 and PART4 bundle PLANC-1BANK-E:BRF/PLANC-2BANK-E:BRF, the PLANC runtime, as a build dependency.
  2. FOCUS carries its own VTM bridge, FC-MVTM-1CODE:BRF/FC-MVTM-2CODE:BRF (+DATA counterparts) — the same "compiled bridge module spliced into the runtime" pattern already documented for COBOL's VTM-BRIDGE-*:MODE scripts on ND-10176H00, but here shipped pre-compiled rather than as a patch script.
  3. FOCUS ships its own private VTM terminal-table set (VTM-1B-ARRAY-D-C:BRF, DDBTABLES-D-C:VTM) rather than depending purely on the system-wide DDBTABLES:VTM — matching the "load the compounded tables together with the application itself" option documented in VTM-TERMINAL-INTERFACES.md §3.

FOCUS-COMPILE-E:PROG (Part 2) is a real form/picture compiler, name suggesting it plays the same role as PLANC-SCREEN-H's PLANC-GEN-A00:PROG — turning a form definition into something the runtime library loads — but its input/output file format has not been decoded. FOCUS-1B-N/FOCUS-1B-R/MFOCUS-1B-N/MFOCUS-1B-R (:BUIL files, likely build/link scripts) were not opened; N/R most likely mean non-reentrant/reentrant per the PI sheet's own terminology, not confirmed against file content.

Installation procedure — NOT established

No PD sheet located. The :BUIL files are plausibly build scripts but were not opened/decoded to confirm an install sequence.

Documentation

  • Product Information (PI-sheet): ../../Product-Info/ND-10188-A2-EN.md
  • Program Description (PD-sheet): not located
  • Manual: ND-60.137 FOCUS Screen Handling System — not present in this repo

Provenance & open items

  • Source: four real floppy images in the archive (nd-10188-e-d1 through -d4), confirmed by catalog listing.
  • TODO: FOCUS-DEF-ENG-E:PROG, FOCUS-COMPILE-E:PROG, FOCUS-CONVERT:PROG, and the :BUIL files are compiled/unopened — the actual form-definition syntax and build sequence are not decoded, only inferred by analogy to PLANC-SCREEN-H and NSHS.
  • Open: relationship to NSHS (ND-10013) — near-identical PI-sheet wording ("Maintenance Program" + "Handling Library", same caller-language set minus RPG II) but confirmed as a distinct product number. See PLANC-VTM-UI-CATALOG.md §8.

Parent: ../README.md (Software catalog)