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
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 ...) .