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Chaos Corner v03 n03
Chaos Corner V03 N03 31 May 1993
Mailbag -- Chaos Corner now world readable?
Dr. Chaos wants to thank Hubert Roth in Grenoble for pointing out that
the PostScript version of Chaos Corner Volume 1 was protected and was
not available via anonymous FTP from pelican.cit.cornell.edu. The
problem has now been corrected and Dr. Chaos has verified that all
back issues and "annual issues" are world readable. Speaking of world
readable, Chaos Corner does have subscribers from all continents
except Antarctica. Does anyone know if the research stations there
are on the Internet?
-------------------------------------------------
Mailbag -- Earthquake Information
Ken Stuart at CIT's Helpdesk sends a note about an online US
Geological Service database of earthquake information. When Dr. Chaos
tried to check it out, the machine seemed to be taking a holiday (it
is a holiday in the USA today), but try to telnet to NEIS.CR.USGS.GOV
or 136.177.20.9 and respond to the 'Username:' prompt with 'QED'. You
should be connected to the USGS Branch of Global Seismology and
Geomagnetism.
-------------------------------------------------
New Job Titles
As Cornell University just winds up a multi-year job classification
review and attempts to re-rationalize job titles and salary ranges,
it seems appropriate to point out that new organizations often have
job titles that don't fit into the traditional mold. Dr. Chaos
received a subscription request from Creed Erickson at Taligent, Inc.
who claims to have a job title of Spurious Interrupt. When asked
about it, he responded that he was giving serious consideration to the
titles "Associate Rocket Scientist" and "IBM CEO in Training".
-------------------------------------------------
Amateur Radio Information available
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has the ARRL Information Mail
Server. This automated server lets you access many of information
files containing information about various facets of Amateur Radio.
You can retrieve any or all of these files by sending an email message
to info@arrl.org. Each file you request is mailed to you
automatically, usually within a few hours.
Each line of the message should contain a command as shown below. You
may place as many commands in a message as you want. Each file you
request will be sent to you in a separate message. Only ASCII text
files are supported at present.
Valid INFO commands:
help Sends this help file
index Sends an index of the files available
send file Sends "file" example: send email
quit Terminates transaction (use if you have
a signature at end of message.)
reply <address> Sends response to the address. Put this
at the BEGINNING of if your From: address
is not a valid Internet address.
-------------------------------------------------
Ham Radio CD-ROM Available and other CD-ROMs
The QRZ! Ham Radio CD-ROM contains the complete US CALLSIGN DATABASE
(March 1993 Edition), PC (MSDOS) compatible search and retrieval
software, and tons of ham related material totaling over 500
Megabytes! If you want more details, ftp the readme and index from
cdrom.com:/pub/cdroms/ham.
The price is $25. S&H is $5 for US/Canada/Mexico, and $10 for
overseas. (CA residents add sales tax)
1 800 786-9907
1 510 674-0821 FAX
orders@cdrom.com
Here is a list of some other CD-ROM titles published by Walnut Creek
CDROM:
CICA Microsoft Windows CD-ROM - Shareware collection $25
Simtel20 MSDOS CD-ROM - shareware/PD swr collection $25
GIFs Galore - Thousands of GIF images $25
Hobbes OS/2 CD-ROM - shareware & PD collection for OS/2 $25
Garbo MSDOS/MAC CD-ROM - shareware & PD for DOS and Mac $25
Sprite CDROM - Sprite Research Operating System $25
Nova CDROM - NeXT Workstation software $40
Source Code CD-ROM - Usenet source archives on CD-ROM $40
X11R5 and GNU CD-ROM - X11R5 Window System Source $40
C User's Group Library CDROM - C source code $50
Libris Britannia - British shareware $69
For a more detailed list, you can ftp the latest catalog from
cdrom.com, look for the file /pub/catalog.
-------------------------------------------------
Trying to locate files? - New version of Xarchie available
Xarchie is an X11 browser interface to the Archie Internet information
system. Archie provides information about files available for ftp
anywhere on the Internet; Xarchie displays this information using an
easy-to-use, point-and-click interface. Xarchie allows you to further
explore ftp sites by examining directories returned as query matches,
and allows you to retrieve files located this way.
Xarchie 2.0 has been extensively tested on R4, R5, and a variety of
other flavors of X, and on a wide range of systems. The completely
revamped version is now available at export.lcs.mit.edu as file
/contrib/xarchie-2.0.tar.Z
While you are there, Dr. Chaos recommends that you also take a look at
the recently released version 2.0 of Xminesweep in file
/contrib/xminesweep2.1.tar.Z. Of course, don't forget to specify
'binary' before transferring these files.
-------------------------------------------------
Sound Blaster support and Internet Talk Radio archives
Always wanted to use the Microchannel version of the Sound Blaster
with AIX on the RS/6000? A device driver is available that is
dynamically loadable and comes with ODM auto-config (Object Database
Manager) programs to configure/unconfigure. It also has a SMIT
interface and installation of the package conforms to AIX "installp"
guidelines.
The package includes several X/Motif applications for digital
sampling, FM synthesis, MIDI music files, editing custom FM sounds,
audio mixing, text-to-speech and X-Windows games with FM sound.
To obtain this package, ftp (anonymous) to: ftp.uwp.edu and look in
the pub/rs6000/soundblaster directory for the files sbp.tar and
sbp.README. In Europe, use site ftp.funet.fi and locate the files in
the pub/unix/aix/rs6000 directory.
For further information, contact the author, Dev Mazumdar, at
dev@hollywood.acsc.com
For information about the archive site locations for Internet Talk
Radio, send electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
-------------------------------------------------
WUARCHIVE ftp Server is available - version 2.1
The Washington University Office of the Network Coordinator has
announced the release of a new version of the wuarchive FTP server.
This release includes full documentation for installation and
configuration, and reportedly is very easy to compile and install.
See wu-ftpd-2.1/INSTALL and wu-ftpd-2.1/NOTES for more information on
how to install and operate this ftp server.
The server may be retrieved via anonymous FTP from wuarchive.wustl.edu
in the directory /packages/wuarchive-ftpd. There are two distribution
formats, a tar file and a shar file. Fetch one of the files, and use
the appropriate method to extract it -- the individual files will be
stored in a new subdirectory called "wu-ftpd-2.1".
-------------------------------------------------
THE - a free clone of Xedit or Kedit
Has "downsizing" got you down because you lost your favorite editor
and you feel like you will never learn vi or emacs? Eric Giguere at
the University of Waterloo reports that Mark Hessling's THE editor, an
XEDIT clone for OS/2, DOS and UNIX, is available on rexx.uwaterloo.ca
in directory /pub/editors/the. The DOS and OS/2 executables are in
the file theexe11.zip, and source is in thesrc11.zip and pdcurs21.zip.
(To use THE under UNIX, you will need to get thesrc11.zip and compile
it yourself.)
-------------------------------------------------
Maps of the Internet and other places
Although they are mostly over a year old, there are a number of
PostScript maps of the Internet available for anonymous ftp from
nsinic.gsfc.nasa.gov (128.183.112.71) ... look in the /maps directory.
If you want to get a file describing how to get access via gopher to
US Geological Survey maps, utilities, and information ... send your
request to Dr. Chaos at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
-------------------------------------------------
Want to know more about Fractals? -- get the Fractal FAQ
Like most lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), the most recent
copy of this FAQ is archived at places such as pit-manager.mit.edu
(18.72.1.58) in the file /pub/usenet/news.answers/fractal-faq and on
ftp.uu.net (137.39.1.9 or 192.48.96.9) in the compressed file
/usenet/news.answers/fractal-faq.Z (don't forget to specify binary
file transfers when retrieving compressed files).
If you have trouble remembering 'pit-manager.mit.edu' you can always
try 'rtfm.mit.edu', since that is an alternate name for the same
machine.
-------------------------------------------------
IBM MONITOR REPAIR: Models 8512, 8513, 5154, 5175 and 3192
Ask Dr. Chaos at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu if you would
like information on failure modes and repair instructions for IBM
monitors, models 8512, 8513, 5154, 5175 and 3192
-------------------------------------------------
Would you like to visit an Electronic Art Gallery?
An electronic art gallery named OTIS now spans the length and breadth
of the computer networks of the world. OTIS exists: "...to distribute
original creative images over computer networks for public perusal,
scrutiny and retransmission; to facilitate communication, inspiration,
critique; and to set the foundations for digital immortality." The
OTIS creators claim, "The basic idea behind "digital immortality" is
that computer networks are here to stay and that anything interesting
you deposit on them will be around near-forever." As of May 1993,
OTIS has two FTP sites:
141.214.4.135 (projects/otis), the UWI site
sunsite.unc.edu (/pub/multimedia/pictures/OTIS),
(you can GOPHER to this site for OTIS as well)
For more details, including guidelines for contributors, send mail to
chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
-------------------------------------------------
List of Bulletin Board Systems accessible from the Internet
Bill Schwartz at aug3.augsburg.edu has the following advice on getting
the latest information on BB Systems that you can telnet to while
connected to the Internet:
send email to bbslist@aug3.augsburg.edu and the computer
will reply with the lists, subject and contents of your
message don't matter.
anonymous ftp to aug3.augsburg.edu look in files/bbs_lists
-------------------------------------------------
The Official Word from the White House
At random intervals, the White House makes available summaries of
events generated by the White House staff (e. g. news conferences,
radio interviews, etc.) To subscribe to this summary service, send
electronic mail to:
almanac@esusda.gov
In the body of the message, type
subscribe wh-summary
To request a specific document from a summary (e. g. the full
transcript of the news conference), send a message to:
almanac@esusda.gov
and in the body of the message
send white-house number
where number is the request number for the document (the summary will
tell you which document to request). Dr. Chaos notes that this
service was active and useful BEFORE the firing of the White House
travel staff ... there hasn't been much activity recently and it will
be interesting to see the changes wrought by the newly appointed Press
Secretary.
-------------------------------------------------
Answer to the question, "What is the Internet?"
Ever need a ready cocktail party answer to this question? While Dr.
Chaos doesn't guarantee that this is THE answer, it just might help
you understand what kind of answer to give. This INTERNET DRAFT is
produced by the User Services Working Group of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). Containing a modified chapter from Ed
Krol's 1992 book, "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog," the
paper covers the Internet's definition, history, administration,
protocols, financing, and current issues such as growth,
commercialization, and privatization.
Internet-Drafts are available by anonymous ftp from the sites listed
below. After logging in:
Type "cd internet-drafts".
"get draft-ietf-uswg-fyi-00.txt".
Internet-Drafts directories are located at:
o East Coast (US)
Address: ds.internic.net (198.49.45.10)
o West Coast (US)
Address: ftp.nisc.sri.com (192.33.33.22)
o Pacific Rim
Address: munnari.oz.au (128.250.1.21)
o Europe
Address: nic.nordu.net (192.36.148.17)
-------------------------------------------------
Special until July 1! Quality PC Utilities
These are packages which they have developed and added to their
"software toolbox" during 12 years of computer consulting. Many of
them came into existence because they needed a specific tool and could
not find an existing one for the PC which (1) worked, and (2) met
their professional standards. The packages run the gamut from low-
level PC utilities to high-level applications of general interest.
Because this process is automated, requests to their Mail Server must
conform to the following conventions or else the server software won't
recognize your request:
1) Email must be addressed to "joan@grebyn.com".
NOTE: CompuServe users should send through CompuServe's Internet
gateway by addressing it to ">INTERNET:joan@grebyn.com".
2) The "Subject:" line must contain "Mail Server, Please", although
case is not significant.
3) The body must cinsist of a limited set of commands but for now
suffice it to say that you should use HELP or CATALOG to get
started.
While Dr. Chaos has yet to personally use any of these utilities, he
thinks it is an interesting concept for software distribution. Note
that until July 1,1993, the fully set of PC utilities is available for
only $30.
-------------------------------------------------
Wrapup of V03 N03
Apologies for the length of this edition ... sometimes it is really
hard to stop once we get on a roll. Will we get the next issue out
before IBM ships the non-beta version of OS/2 2.1? Only time will
tell. Remember, for your own *free* subscription to Chaos Corner,
send electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
Dr. Chaos (I have a master's degree ...)
.
