AT&T UNIXpc/3B1/7300 Archives at Ohio State Univ. -- Monthly Posting

[Lenny Tropiano]

[Last modified on 30 August 1990]

This message briefly describes the UNIXpc software archive on osu-cis.
It is posted (with a suitably extended expiration date) to newsgroups
unix-pc.general and comp.sys.att.

As of August 1, 1990, Lenny Tropiano <lenny at icus.ICUS.COM> is now the 
maintainer of these famed archives.  Over the past few weeks I have
been bringing the archives up-to-date with several software updates,
several postings from unix-pc.sources, and other miscellaneous bits
of information from the UNIXpc world.  Notably there have been some
other additions that haven't been posted to USENET, because of their
size, as well as, being binary distribution only [ie. TeX/LaTeX, 
AKCL (Kyoto-Lisp), net (KA9Q)].

Users of the AT&T UNIXpc (aka 3b1, PC7300) are invited to peruse the
contents of the UNIXpc software archives maintained on uucp site
'osu-cis' (also known on the Internet as cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu).  
This archive contains various software packages that either have been
designed specifically for the UNIXpc or can be compiled on it with
only routine configuration tweaks.  The occasional pearl-of-wisdom
file can be found there as well.  The archive is updated as often as
necessary, though at least once per month.  NB: this is NOT an archive
of all unix-pc.* newsgroup articles.  Rather, it is a collection of
interesting, useful, or otherwise valuable programs or information
files, many pulled from the unix-pc.* groups.

ACCESS TO THE ARCHIVES VIA DIALUP ANONYMOUS UUCP

Uucp-only sites should add the appropriate L.sys and Systems entry:

# Direct Trailblazer
osu-cis Any ACU 19200 1-614-292-5112 in:--in:--in: Uanon

# Direct V.32 (MNP 4)
osu-cis Any ACU 9600 1-614-292-1153 in:--in:--in: Uanon

# Micom port selector, at 1200, 2400, or 9600 bps.
# Replace ##'s below with 12, 24, or 96 (both speed and phone number).
# NOTE: 9600 bps Micom access may not yet be operational, or may be flaky.

osu-cis Any ACU ##00 161429231## "" \r\c Name? osu-cis nected \c GO \d\r\d\r in:--in:--in: Uanon

Access is provided 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, by the good
graces of the folks at Ohio State Computer & Information Science.  We
all owe a large debt of gratitude to Karl Kleinpaste for making this
archive possible.  Although the lines are available 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week it has been noted, because of the university environment, that 
access is easiest if called on non-peak times (ie. late evening or weekends).
Calling in using the Micom port selector some users have noticed 
frequent failures because of busy ports.  If you get the message 
"QUEUE: ###" then that's the case ...

All files are in the att7300/* area.  The file README.Z will contain
the latest list of software available for retrieval.  To get the
README file, you would execute a uucp request such as:

$ uucp osu-cis!~/att7300/README.Z /usr/spool/uucppublic/README.Z
$ uucp osu-cis!~/att7300/STORE/README.Z /usr/spool/uucppublic/S_README.Z

This command will cause README.Z to be copied to your public spool
area.  The file ~/att7300/STORE/README.Z contains the software available
that was on the now defunct "THE STORE!" system;  all that software is
in the ~/att7300/STORE directory.

Users with FTP access may simply connect to cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu 
(IP address [128.146.8.62]), chdir to /pub/att7300, and snarf 'till the
cows come home.

All files in the archive are compressed (and thus the filenames end in
".Z").  The compress/uncompress utility is provided with the UNIXpc
development kit, but the (uncompressed!) "compress.cpio" file in the
osu-cis archive contains source AND executable of compress/uncompress
for those otherwise without it.

In addition to the UNIXpc archives, osu-cis maintains a complete
archive of GNU software.  For more information, you should uucp the
file osu-cis!~/GNU.how-to-get.  IMPORTANT NOTE FOR INTERNET FTP USERS:
if you want to peruse the non-UNIXpc archives at Ohio State, you
should connect to host 'tut.cis.ohio-state.edu' rather than just
'cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu.'  The NFS mounts are different.  In 
particular, on tut the Gnu software can be found in pub/gnu (there is no
corresponding directory on cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu).

Since I maintain the UNIXpc archive, related comments, questions, or
suggestions should be sent by e-mail to me.  Please make absolutely
sure to provide me with a valid return address if you expect a reply.

I am always happy to accept contributions.  If you notice that
something you consider useful is missing from the archive, please send
me mail about it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO ACCESS CHEOPS.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU FTP (aka OSU-CIS) via EMAIL SERVER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been asked several times if the access to Ohio State will be upgraded
from ftp and uucp only to ftp, uucp and e-mail.  My response has been, no,
since I don't have access to login to cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu and set
things up like that.  Basically Karl Kleinpaste has been generous enough to
let us use a small portion of OSU-CIS' disk space for retrieval of these
archives.  The other thing is that sending anything large over mail is
a bit of a waste of net-bandwidth and it does cost the intervening neighbors
dollars ...

Well, I did a little research, and sure enough there is something out there
that is call BITFTP at Princeton University.  BITFTP resides on PUCC.BITNET
and is a mail-type server to Internet FTP sites.  It works well, I tried it.
Depending on the load of the machine, the network, and how many other jobs
ahead of you, your return "item" gets sent back to you via e-mail rather
promptly.   Note what I'm about to show you is something that could be 
generalized and used for *any* ftp-able site.  

**** PLEASE DON'T ABUSE THIS ****  Since the network is mostly a collection
of people working together and offering their machine as a site on the network,
unnecessary (excessive) stress on non-leaf nodes won't be appreciated --
by anyone.  What I'm getting down to is use your own judgement when grabbing
items that are excessive in size.  The archive-server does split them up
into smaller chunks (uuencoded) for transport over mail but it still has
an impact.  (ie.  Don't grab things like FIXDISK2.0, TeXbin, akcl, gnu-emacs, 
or g++, etc..  use your own common sense ...)

The procedure is fairly simple.  All you need to do is compose a message
with the appropriate FTP commands enclosed, and mail it to BITFTP at PUCC.BITNET.
The message should be in the form (for the cheops archives):

FTP cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu UUENCODE
USER anonymous
BINARY
cd pub/att7300

Then you should include commands like:
(for current directories)

ls -l	-or-
ls -lt

And to snarf files ...

get README.Z		(this will grab README.Z and return it to you 
			 uuencoded by e-mail)


If all goes well within 12 to 24 hours you should receive at least part1
of any of your requests.  Don't keep sending requests if you don't receive
it right away, otherwise you'll be in jeopardy of receiving multiple copies 
of something, again a big waste.

Once the mail arrives, you process it with the 'uudecode' program and you'll
be on your way.  Since it's coming from a non-UNIX machine, filename 
conversions take place.  (eg. xxxxxxx.cpio.Z --> XXXXXXX.CPIOZ)  Rename
them as needed after they are uudecoded.

For more information on the BITFTP at PUCC.BITNET service, send a message to
that address with the word "HELP" in the subject.  You should receive 
information regarding how to use BITFTP, other command and other miscellaneous
items.

---
| Lenny Tropiano           ICUS Software Systems        lenny at icus.ICUS.COM |
| {ames,pacbell,decuac,sbcs,hombre,rayssd}!icus!lenny   attmail!icus!lenny  |
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