How can one import Sierra chart history data into Metastock? Thanks

Sorry I could not reply sooner. I have managed to get hold of Bracket Trader(free). Among many things it can convert Sierra charts history file to Ascii data. Then you can use the Downloader to pull it into MetaStock. The main problem is file size, my Sierra history files are a minimum five month of tick data, which is too large for Metastock and Downloader. Therefore, I have to manually cut them into segments of about 2 weeks (very difficult and time consuming). Is there anyway to increase the maximum record size MetaStock can handle (currently it is only 65000)? Bracket Trader also provides tick simulation for various softwares (Sierra, Tradestation and etc.) I have ask them if they can do one for MetaStock as well. I am also trying to program a simple routine to to the same (If I can do it without SDK).

What I envisage is that the program asks the user for : 1- Base security name 2- Target security name 3- Start date and time of simulation 4- How fast the simulation If item 4 above is selected as 1, then starting from 3 above (base security tick time stamp) every 1second (computer clock time) the program writes 1second of tick data in base security (from the time stamp) into the target file. You load the target file into Metatock and hopefully as the file is updated so is the waveform. Metastock is to be run in the offline mode. If item 4 is selected as 2 then 2seconds of tick data for 1 second of compute time is written to the target file. I just hope that you can update the target file while it is open by Metastock. And as the file is update so is the Metastock display. The limit on the maximum record number is a serious limitation (in my opinion) as far as the real time capabilities goes, as you would want to go over your previous trades and change your strategy or found out your weaknesses. I suppose it is not a problem of you are trading end of day data.

I thought MetaStock data format is well know and you should be able to write an external program (say Borland builder, visual C) to read and write from it quiet easily. I have just done a quick search and found Metalib, which allows you to do just that. The aim is to read a history file (MetaStock format) and send the data tick by tick (in a timely fashion) to a different Metastock file. So that I can do tick-replay allowing me to practice my real-time chart reading skills (I am a day trader). It is nothing to do with record limitation. The problem that I see is if either the windows or Metastock fall over, if two programs are trying to access the data at the same time and if not Metastock updates the display as more data is appended to the end of the file. Regards