pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (05/07/90)
Greetings!
We are extremely pleased at the response you've all given
TidBITS. Over 250 people in 11 countries have requested to be on
the temporary mailing list. Thank you, but please, only
suggestions and comments from now on since we can no longer handle
distribution via mailing list!
To answer the most common question, yes, we do encourage re-
distribution of TidBITS each week. Please don't re-distribute a
copy that you have modified for your own use.
In the same vein, we are looking for volunteers to upload
TidBITS to Compuserve, Delphi, Genie, and Prodigy (none of which
we have access to currently). If you would like to help spread
TidBITS to one of these services and can do so fairly reliably
each week, please send mail and we will pick someone (to avoid
duplication of effort). Again, thanks! (see below for index and
availability information)
Index of TidBITS 4/30/90
4/30/90 - Reviews
Lasers in the Jungle...
Flipper Color Monitor
Double Your Pleasure
Radio Free Macintosh
J-Key Mouse
Moving Up in the World
PageBrush Hand Scanner
A Hardware Triple
TidBITS Changes
TidBITS availability
Unfortunately, we can no longer afford the time to send each of
you TidBITS through conventional email, so this will be (probably)
the last mail to go to the entire list. TidBITS is now available
at a number of sites as well as the Usenet group
comp.sys.mac.digest, so everyone should be able to find TidBITS in
the future. The Usenet group comp.sys.mac.digest will probably be
the fastest way of getting TidBITS each week, but at least four
sites archive TidBITS for access via anonymous FTP. They are (in
order of least time delay in making TidBITS available to the
public):
** rascal.ics.utexas.edu - in the mac/TidBITS-digests
directory. Make sure to use binary transfer in both FTP and
MacBinary for your downloading program for files from rascal.
Also, case counts in using the command "cd mac/TidBITS-digests".
** simtel20.army.mil - in the directory PD3:<MACINTOSH.TECH>
but I'm not sure what format it will be in since simtel20 has
always told me there are too many anonymous users when I FTP
there. If it is binary, make sure to use the command "tenex",
since simtel20 is a DEC20 system.
** sumex-aim.stanford.edu - in the info-mac/digest directory in
binhex format so you can use ASCII transfers in FTP and down to
your Mac.
** wuarchive.wustl.edu - in the mirrors/info-mac/digest
directory. wuarchive is a shadow of sumex so files appear a day or
so later there, but in the same format and with the same name.
In addition to the FTP sites, four Bitnet servers shadow
sumex. Although the Bitnet servers may maintain a directory
hierarchy, they do not use it when requesting files, so you do not
have specify the file path as well as the file name. Also be
aware that the TELL command is specific to IBM CMS mainframes, but
there may be ways of sending interactive messages from other
machines. Check the HELP on your machine for commands like SEND,
especially on Vaxen running VMS. If you are using an IBM CMS
machine and prefer not to type out these long commands, we have
simple EXECs to do it for you. If you would like to use these
EXECs, send mail and we will forward the appropriate ones to you.
These servers are (in no particular order since the files
should appear at about the same time):
** LISTSERV@RICEVM1 - this site accepts interactive message of
the form:
TELL LISTSERV@RICEVM1 $MAC GET TIDBITS-1.HQX to get a file.
Other commands include:
TELL LISTSERV@RICEVM1 $MAC HELP to get brief help.
TELL LISTSERV@RICEVM1 $MAC DIR to get a list of all files
stored. This server also accepts mail requests with commands in
the same format (one command per line and the subject line is
ignored). If your site does not understand Bitnet addresses for
mail, the Internet address for this machine is
listserv@ricevm1.rice.edu. The contents of a sample mail file to
get a directory listing and to request the first issue of TidBITS
would look like this (the TELL LISTSERV@RICEVM1 is not needed):
$MAC DIR
$MAC GET TIDBITS-1.HQX
** MACSERVE@PUCC - this site only accepts interactive messages
from users in the US. European users should instead use
MACSERVE@IRLEARN. The messages must be in the format:
TELL MACSERVE@PUCC GET TIDBITS-1.HQX to get a file. Other
commands are:
TELL MACSERVE@PUCC HELP to get brief help.
TELL MACSERVE@PUCC DIR to get a list of recent files. To
get a list of all files, append the modifier ALL to the end of the
directory command.
** MACSERVE@IRLEARN - this site only accepts interactive
messages from European users. Users in North America should use
MACSERVE@PUCC or LISTSERV@RICEVM1. I could not test this server
myself, but the following format messages should work:
TELL MACSERVE@IRLEARN GET TIDBITS-1.HQX to get a file.
Other commands are:
TELL MACSERVE@IRLEARN HELP to get brief help.
TELL MACSERVE@IRLEARN DIR to get a list of files.
**FILESERV@IRLEARN - this site only accepts mail messages from
European users. I could not test it myself, but I suspect that
the commands must be in the same format (without the TELL command
of course) as for MACSERVE@IRLEARN and must be one per line in the
mail file.
Again, thanks for your support and please send us any
suggestions, comments, or offers to upload TidBITS to online
services other than America Online.
Adam C. Engst - pv9y@cornella.cit.cornell.edu
Tonya Byard
--
Adam C. Engst pv9y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
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"I ain't worried and I ain't scurried and I'm having a good time"
-Paul Simon