welty@sunup.UUCP (09/24/87)
My posting concerning a Symbolics News reader has struck a chord.
As I am quite busy right now, I am posting this article containing
general information while I try to find time for individual replies.
The News reader was written by Chris Connolly, who is no longer full
time here at GE CRD -- he has gone to UMass, and until the transition
is settled, not much will happen. In any case, he is out of the country
right now and many of the questions I was asked can't be answered until
his return.
The news reader corresponds to remote rn -- it uses nntp, and depends
on a usable server being available. No effort has been made to
build a version which spools news on a local disk drive.
The reader accepts both mouse oriented commands (click left on a group
to open, click left on an article header to read it, click right on
anything to get a menu of operations) and keyboard commands (which
are vaguely similar to rn commands).
Some who have Symbolics Machines wanted copies. This should be
no problem -- some copies have already been released. The software is
not perfect though, falling somewhere between alpha and beta quality
right now. As Chris is not getting paid to write the News reader,
bug fixes are perhaps of lower priority than real work.
Some who have TI Explorers want copies to convert to their
machines -- it would be worthwhile to coordinate such an effort,
rather than have much duplication of effort. In any case, UMass
has rather more Explorers than Slimes, so Chris may want to
write such a version anyway.
Some Sun users people want to see the code and possibly try to duplicate it.
One person may already have a suitable program. Again, some coordination
may be worthwhile.
I will be trying to send individual replies as soon as I have something
useful to report. Any others who might be interested should send email
to one of the addresses in my .signature below.
In any case, thanks for your interest.
-- Richard Welty Phone H: 518-237-6307 W: 518-387-6346
(some return paths are of questionable value -- use one of these addresses:)
Internet: welty@ge-crd.ARPA Usenet: uunet!steinmetz!crd!welty
``The men must see us today'' -- Who said it? What battle?