brant@manta.UUCP (Brant Cheikes) (11/10/87)
[It's been several months since I last announced the availability of Gnu Emacs for the AT&T UNIXpc. For the benefit of all new owners, here's a repost of that article. There are numerous changes, so this version supersedes all previous ones. -bc] As a service to AT&T UNIXpc (aka 3B1 or PC7300) users, I am distributing the source code and executables of Gnu Emacs 18.49 on UNIXpc floppies. I am distributing Gnu Emacs on UNIXpc floppies only due to the prodigious size of the files. In the interest of reducing disk storage requirements, a number of files from the complete distribution (available from the Free Software Foundation) have been removed: 1) all files that don't pertain to UNIX System V; 2) files pertaining to X windows (X doesn't run on UNIXpc's); 3) the "shortnames" and Gnu Emacs "cpp" preprocessors (UNIXpc software version 3.50+ supports flexnames); 4) the TeX manual sources (the manual is available for a nominal fee from the FSF, and the doc is all on-line anyway); 5) the GNU source level debugger "gdb" (only runs on Vaxen and Suns). You basically get everything you need to build and use Gnu Emacs on the UNIXpc only. If you want to build Gnu Emacs from the source code provided, you must have UNIXpc foundation kit and development kit version 3.5 (the C compiler must support flexnames) or later and approximately 7 Mb of free disk space. Although a lot of disk space is required to build Gnu Emacs from source, once you get it built you can trim things down to about 1-1.5 Mb by removing all source code, unused Emacs Lisp code, and extraneous on-line documentation. For those not interested in building Gnu Emacs from source, executables (compiled for the UNIXpc) of all the necessary routines are provided. The binaries have been tested under both versions 3.5 and 3.51 of the UNIXpc foundation kit. A number of supporting documents are included, such as the on-line tutorial and the Info documentation package, which provides detailed on-line information about Gnu Emacs. GETTING THE DISTRIBUTION In order to request the distribution kit from me, please do the following: 1. Write a note specifying: a) your US Mail address (where you want the disks sent back to) b) your electronic mail address. If UUCP, please make sure you give me a route from a registered site (preferably a backbone). 2. You will have to send me enough DSDD diskettes (with hub rings and labels) for me to put the distribution on. I currently need seven (7) diskettes. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE DISKETTES HAVE HUB RINGS. I've had too many problems formatting and transferring data to floppies that lack hub rings. 3. Make out a check to me (Brant Cheikes) in the amount of $15. This is to cover my distribution and administration costs. 4. Package all this up together in a sturdy, reusable mailer and send it to: Brant Cheikes 4048 Baltimore Avenue, #A-3 Philadelphia, PA 19104 5. After you've mailed the package, please send me e-mail so that I'll be on the lookout for it. The distribution kit will come as a cpio archive of compressed cpio archives. The public domain compress/uncompress routines will be included. You therefore don't need the development kit if all you want to do is run Gnu Emacs from the executables in the distribution kit. Instructions on unpacking/building will be provided. When I mail the diskettes back to you, I'll notify you by e-mail so you can watch out for them. NOTES This distribution contains some "personal touches." The most significant of these is the code that enables the use of the UNIXpc mouse. Another is the unixpc.el file that binds useful functions to the UNIXpc function keys. Also, this version has been compiled with the -F option to ld (magic number 413), dramatically improving paging performance and reducing load time. PERFORMANCE NOTE: You should be aware that I have only used Gnu Emacs on a system with 2Mb of memory. On such a system, it takes about 10 seconds to load Gnu Emacs, but after that performance is as good as or better than that on my research VAX. I have heard that this version of Gnu Emacs runs reasonably well on 10Mb x 1M 7300 configurations. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by e-mail. -- Brant Cheikes University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science ARPA: brant@linc.cis.upenn.edu, UUCP: ...drexel!manta!brant