[comp.sys.ibm.pc] downloading from anonymous

murphy@pur-phy (William J. Murphy) (01/30/88)

Today I was trying to use an anonymous login at CUVMA (can't remember
the address) to get the kermit docs.  I found that their OS is not a unix
system or so it seemed, and consequently I couldn't do a thing.  I assume
it is non-unix since the remote help at CUVMA is different than the unix
help screen at Purdue.  I tried ftp with a number of our local machines 
using anonymous, and had no trouble. So my question is what to do if the
OS is not the same flavor or even the same dish i.e. VAX/VMS ?
TIA.
William J. Murphy
Physics Dept.
Purdue Univ.
murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu

tr@wind.bellcore.com (tom reingold) (02/05/88)

In article <979@pur-phy> murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (William J. Murphy) writes:
$ 
$ Today I was trying to use an anonymous login at CUVMA (can't remember
$ the address) to get the kermit docs.  I found that their OS is not a unix
$ system or so it seemed, and consequently I couldn't do a thing.  I assume
$ it is non-unix since the remote help at CUVMA is different than the unix
$ help screen at Purdue.  I tried ftp with a number of our local machines 
$ using anonymous, and had no trouble. So my question is what to do if the
$ OS is not the same flavor or even the same dish i.e. VAX/VMS ?
$ TIA.
$ William J. Murphy
$ Physics Dept.
$ Purdue Univ.
$ murphy@newton.physics.purdue.edu

The problem lies mostly in the fact that CUVMA's *character set*
is different, not its operating system.  CUVMA, being an IBM machine,
uses EBCDIC instead of ASCII.  The translation tables between the
two character sets has never been totally standardized.  Following,
however, is some info that should help.

CUVMA is a name that breaks down as follows:  CU = Columbia
University; VM = IBM's VM (virtual machine operating system); A =
A in a list of {A, B, C, ... who knows where it ends.}

So it's a VM machine.  You can download Kermit from a non-IBM
machine and probably save headaches.  I'm the one who seems to have
rekindled the Kermit craze in comp.sys.ibm.pc and comp.binaries.ibm.pc
and I got all of the files from cu20b.columbia.edu, which is a
DECsystem 20, which runs the TOPS20 operating system.  The name,
I am sure, breaks down the same way: Columbia University's DEC-20
number 'B'.  I didn't have to do "tenex" or "type" or anything
because all of the files were text.  I am on a DEC VAX 8700 running
Unix.  The files transferred just fine.

Tom Reingold                    INTERNET:       tr@bellcore.bellcore.com
Bell Communications Research    UUCP:           rutgers!bellcore!tr
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