koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) (09/21/90)
Submitted-by: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) Posting-number: Volume 4, Info 1 Archive-name: intro This is the first of two introductory articles about comp.sources.atari.st. This one describes how to submit source to the newsgroup, where the archive sites are, and how to contact them. The companion article lists all previously-published sources. I am always looking for suggestions on how to improve the usefulness of the newsgroup, and can be contacted as listed below. -- Steven Grimm koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com -------------------- Subject: Submitting source for publication Items intended for posting or queries and problem notes should be sent to atari-sources@panarthea.ebay.sun.com. If you are on a UUCP-only site, you can send them to sun!ebay!panarthea!atari-sources. In Europe, send your submissions to Jan-Hinrich Fessel, the European submoderator of the group, at unido!atari-sources (or, if you're a masochist, atari-sources@unido. informatik.uni-dortmund.de.) If you want verification of arrival, so say in a cover note, or at the beginning of your submission, if it is small. I try to verify that a program works, and if I can't get it to work, I may hold up posting it for a couple of days. Please note that, except in rare cases, source without documentation will not be published. The backlog from receipt to posting varies from one to four weeks depending mostly on the set of submissions currently in my queue. I prefer that you submit sources and binaries separately, as it's a pain to separate them, and such submissions are invariably placed on the back burner. Sources should be submitted in the same format as binaries -- uuencoded arc, zoo, or lzh files. Please use Pierre Dumas' "uue" program if possible, as it can correct some common transmission errors. Split long submissions up into reasonable (less than 50K) chunks. "uue" will do this for you, if you use "uue -700 file" to encode. Please inform me of any special system requirements, and what development environment was used, so that I can properly test your submission and label it when I post it. -------------------- Subject: The structure of comp.sources.atari.st articles Each posting in comp.sources.atari.st is called an "issue"; there are roughly 100 issues to a volume. The division is arbitrary and may vary. There are two types of articles in comp.sources.atari.st: sources and "information postings." They can be distinguished by the subject line: Subject: v04INF2: Index for Volume 1 and other info This first word in the title identifies this as the third info posting of volume one. Similarly, the subject line shown below: Subject: v04i081: godsrc -- Universe simulator identifies this as the 81st source article in Volume 4. Large sources are broken up into smaller pieces, and have subject lines that look like this: Subject: v04i088: decbustr -- VMS clone in ST-LOGO, Part03/08 Certain information about the system configuration required to use the program is given on the keywords line. Keywords: MWC, Megamax, 1meg, high This means that the program compiles with Mark Williams or Megamax C, requires at least one meg of RAM and only runs in high resolution. Following is a list of keywords; new ones may be added as needed. They are mostly self- explanatory. Alcyon - Alcyon C (included with Atari developer's kit) MWC - Mark Williams C Megamax - Megamax C Laser - Laser C Lattice - Lattice C C - Any C compiler OSI - OSI Personal Pascal BASIC - ST BASIC (this is not a joke!) uuencode - program is uuencoded (uudecode required to unpack) arc - program is archived (arc required to unpack) high - high resolution medium - medium resolution low - low resolution 1meg - needs 1 meg of RAM The first few lines of an article are auxiliary headers that look like this: Submitted-by: david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckmeyer) Posting-number: Volume 4, Issue 80 Archive-name: micro-rtx The "Submitted by" is the author of the program. If you have comments about the sources published in comp.sources.atari.st this is the person to contact. When possible, this address is in domain form, otherwise it is a UUCP bang path relative to some major (backbone) site. The second line repeats the volume/issue information for the aide of notes sites and automatic archiving programs. The Archive-name is the "official" name of this source in the archive. Large postings will have names that look like this: Archive-name: desktop/part01 Please try to use this name when requesting that sources be mailed to you. Also, note that the "part number" given in the title, and the archive name given in the auxiliary header need not be identical. Since most archive sites run UNIX, articles are given UNIX-style filenames rather than ST-style filenames. I do try to limit filenames to eight characters whenever possible, though. -------------------- Subject: Reporting and tracking bugs and patches to postings Most of the time, bugs and updates will be posted to comp.sys.atari.st. Sometimes, "official" updates from the author will be posted submitted to comp.sources.atari.st so that they are archived with the sources. Since there is no easy way to apply source code patches on the ST, changes to a program often result in a whole new version being posted. To report bugs, contact the person listed in the Submitted-to header. Often there is a contact address in a README file, too. I do not maintain the sources I moderate, so don't send your bug reports to me. -------------------- Subject: Listing of archive sites in no particular order 1. Site panarthea is running an archive server, which automatically answers mail requests. Send mail to archive-server@panarthea.ebay.sun.com with the word "help" in the message body for more information. Both the sources and binaries groups are archived on panarthea. 2. Unido is the European archive site. It's running an archive server similar to panarthea's; send "help" to unido!archive-server for more information. Unido archives both the sources and binaries groups. If you know of additional sites which reliably archive comp.sources.atari.st (or comp.binaries.atari.st, for that matter), please tell me so I can add them to the list.