[comp.mail.uucp] UUPC/UULINK questions and answers

thomas@mvac.UUCP (Thomas Lapp) (03/18/89)

I've received quite a few requests, both directly to me, and via the news-
group to discuss UUCP, UULINK and nodes in general.

To be honest, I am rather new at this myself, most of my experience being
on the BITNET side of things.  It has been only recently that I have joined
the net so I am sure there are others with more experiece than I.  However,
since there have been so many questions, it appears that there are also many
with less and who want to learn.  I will try to answer the specific questions
that I have received and then post another generic message about my 
experiences.  So let us dig in...

> A friend of mine just got a PC and wants to connect to the net, so would
> someone please e-mail me information on where to either anonymous ftp
> the [uupc] package, or a Snail Mail address to send a SASE and floppies to get
> the software.

  I also log into PC bulletin boards in my area and looked around on their
communications program areas for uupc.  Since I didn't find any, I left
messages for the sysops of these boards to let me know if they knew of where
the program could be loaded from.  Eventually, someone uploaded the programs
and I got them that way.  I would have your friend try that method.  It may
already be on a board near you.

>   What is UUPC?  I have(recently) started using UUCP quite extensively.

UUPC is a freeware/shareware program written for a number of different
machines and emulates the communications portion of *nix.  It allows a user
of a PC running DOS to execute certain programs which allow reading, writing
of mail and communicating between your machine and a *nix node.  It is written
in C (Turbo - C for IBM if memory serves), and sources are available with the
program distribution as well as binarys in case you don't have a C compiler.
If you want more info on the program, send me mail and I'll send the "intro"
portion of the documentation (Internet addressing works best).


>  And after I have it, how do I become hooked in to the net?

Best answer to this is the one that a *nix using friend told me: find a near-
by node who will put your node in his/her computers tables.  I should bring up
at this point that in many cases all you really want is access to the net, and
there are both public access computers out there as well as *nix nodes who will
give you an account to let you read netnews/mail.

> I would like to hear about your experiences with running uucp on a PC.
> I am considering buying UULINK for a PC here at work.  From what
> I understand, UUPC is public domain.

  You are correct.  UUPC is public domain.  UULINK is commercial software.

Thanks for all the inquiries.  Since questions came as both questions about
the two software packages specifically, and uucp programs in general, I thought
it best to split up the answer into two separate topics.

                         - tom
==============================================================================
(Nope, Reply will *not* work.  Choose one from below to use for replying to
 me).                                    -------------------------------------
uucp:     ...!udel!mvac!thomas          ! "..so when the machine truncates
Internet: mvac!thomas@udel.edu          !  excess bits, it throws them under
          or                            !  the raised floor." -- Fred Felber
          thomas%mvac.uucp@udel.edu     !  (so THAT's why there are raised
                                        !   floors in computer rooms...)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

skl@van-bc.UUCP (Samuel Lam) (03/19/89)

In article <5.UUL1.3#5131@mvac.UUCP>, mvac!thomas@udel.edu wrote:
>
>> From what I understand, UUPC is public domain.
>
> You are correct.  UUPC is public domain.

Incorrect.  UUPC is *NOT* "public domain" per se, rather, it's
copyrighted *for free distribution* (in a way similar to the
GNUware).

-- 
Samuel Lam     {alberta,watmath,uw-beaver,cs.ubc.ca}!ubc-cs!van-bc!skl