emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (02/25/90)
Here's a possible charter for the "comp.periphs" groups, comments etc welcome. I've directed followup to news.groups and to comp.periphs, but I'd welcome mail as well comp.periphs.* is a generally place for discussion of computer peripherals, generally things that you plug into or stick on top of a computer, like keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, memory modules, interface cards, modems, fax boards, disk drives, scanners, etc etc. What is "peripheral" to a system and what is essential is an open question. Some vendors lock you into proprietary peripheral equipment, so it's somewhat pointless to talk about peripherals that can't plug into two different vendor's computer lines in a generic newsgroup; better to discuss that topic in the relevant comp.sys system specific group. For instance comp.periphs.s-bus, for discussion of things which plug into the S-BUS on the Sun Sparc-1, isn't likely to work very well; it's too far away from the rest of the relevant discussion of the matter to make for easy cross-reference. Much better to put that group under comp.sys.sun.* or within comp.sys.sun or somewhere around alt.sys.sun. On the other hand, comp.periphs.scsi, for discussion of things which plug into the SCSI port on Suns, Decs, Macs, IBMs et al., is likely to work out rather nicely, since there's common interest between owners of the various SCSI peripherals. Proprietary equipment has little place for its own group in comp.periphs subgroups, though if you're trying to decode what's going on with an obscure object the general group (comp.periphs) is as good a place as any. Here's my assessment of existing newsgroups relevant to the comp.periphs.* groups that exist now, and how different topics are actually discussed now. keyboards. Keyboards for the input of text tend to be incompatible between systems, so discussion usually falls into the appropriate comp.sys or comp.sys.*.hardware group. General discussion appropriate across all systems, like how to repair keyboards, availability of used or third-party devices, standards for layout, termcap or 3270 mappings, etc. are scattered. Start a fight about how bad Dec keyboards are in alt.religion.computers. Bucky bits and alpha-meta-beta-bottlecap keys in alt.folklore.computers. Fixing keyboard layouts in comp.windows.x. MIDI keyboards in rec.music.synth. mice. Same comments apply as to keyboards, including Dec mice. printers. There are two "printers" groups on the net right now, comp.periphs.printers and comp.laser-printers. There's some overlap but no cross-posting, not a very good situation. All of the material in comp.laser-printers would be suitable for comp.periphs.printers, but maybe half of the discussion in comp.periphs.printers is totally non-laser. (comp.laser-printers is also Laser-Lovers, a mailing list run from Maryland.) For discussions of programming in Postscript, see the group comp.lang.postscript. For discussions of network printing protocols (like 'lpr'), go fish -- this one's talked about all over the place. Font discussions to comp.fonts. Printer drivers to the appropriate comp.sys group. comp.graphics for printing image data, comp.text groups for printing text. sci.environment for recycling of all that paper :-(. memory modules. Will SIMM modules for a Mac work in a Sun? What's the street price of 4MB SIMMs? If you want to find these things out ask your vendor or hunt in the appropriate comp.sys group. If you ask your vendor it'll probably cost more. interface cards. Vendor or system specific some times (see the S-BUS issue), look in the comp.sys.* or comp.sys.*.hardware group. For more generic buses, it's possible that it makes sense to break off a separate group, either in the comp.periphs area or a new comp.bus area. For comp.bus I could see c.b.ieee-488, c.b.eisa, c.b.microchannel, c.b.nubus, c.b.vmebus, c.b.futurebus etc. Some of this happens in comp.arch already, and the discussion has a lot of heavyweights; you'd do worse by just reading the bus-of-interest articles in comp.arch. (fuzzy here I know, this came up during the scsi vote). modems. These are arguably peripherals, though the discussion is in comp.dcom.modems. fax. By analogy with the modems group this would go in dcom; given an expected discussion of fax machines as peripheral to computers (rather than say a discussion of the social implications of faxing your lunch order) this could go in comp.periphs. Right now it's in alt.fax, the creator ducked the issue. disk drives. The proper comp.sys or comp.sys.*.hardware group, or a group like comp.periphs.scsi. scanners. Go fish, probably a comp.sys group. This is a pretty long list, use your imagination for others. I think a few of these would pass a vote without too much work given a stubborn group champion. --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept.