ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (12/22/90)
A few months ago I posted a note announcing the availability of a book on Amoeba. I figured I might get 100 responses, so to be safe, I had 200 printed. Within 3 days I had over 1000 responses :-) + :-( I won't make that mistake again. We have now put together a PRELIMINARY version of the Amoeba User Guide and Amoeba Programmer Guide. I am not going to offer to send out paper copies this time. Instead printable PostScript versions of the manuals are available by anonymous FTP, both in Europe and the U.S. (courtesy of Darrell Long). These are only rough drafts, but together they are about 700 pages, and give a good idea of what to expect when Amoeba rolls around early in the Spring. Another 300 pages of published papers (what I advertised earlier) are also on line. Summary information about Amoeba and its availability are in the file Intro, on the FTP machines. In short, there will be a call for beta testers in February and a real release after that. PLEASE DO NOT volunteer now. We will need fairly specific kinds of testers, which I will describe in February (I will be in Japan most of January.) The FTP addresses are: Place Site Name Internet address Directory ----- ---- ---- ---------------- --------- Europe VU ftp.cs.vu.nl 192.31.231.42 pub/amoeba U.S. UCSC midgard.ucsc.edu 128.114.134.15 pub/amoeba In the amoeba directory, there is the 'Intro' file mentioned above, a READ_ME file, and directories 'papers' and 'manuals', containing the published papers and manuals, respectively. PLEASE FTP OUTSIDE NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS (Monday - Friday, 9 to 5)!!! There are many files and they are very large. Ftp crushes the machines. The midgard machine is in California; the cs.vu.nl machine is in Europe. Please take time zones into account. When it is 12 noon in New York, it is 9 a.m. in California and 6 p.m. in Europe. For people who do not have FTP access or who can't handle PostScript, please try to find someone else who can help you. If you can't find anyone, you can buy printed copies from a Dutch company we are working with, and which will provide full commercial support for corporate Amoeba customers. To contact them, send mail to amoeba@ace.nl BUT NOT BEFORE MONDAY 24 DEC. However, going this route will require that you buy the manuals (i.e. pay for them), and will also result in a delay of quite a few weeks, since Holland is closed for the holidays for the next few weeks. In short, you are definitely encouraged to use FTP. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)