[comp.sys.handhelds] Bitftp

smithj@nyssa.cs.orst.edu (Jeremy Smith) (11/26/90)

> >It is available at wuarchive.wustl.edu in systems/hp48sx/coms
>
> Um, there's a lot of us w/o access to internet. How about posting this
> neato program to usenet?

How to ftp through BITftp:

Send the message

HELP

to BITFTP@PUCC (Bitnet) or to BITFTP@PUCC.Princeton.edu (Internet).  
It sends you everything you'll need.

Example:

        From the Internet site you might do the following to get the file 
GLBR in the pub subdirectory on HP's BBS - hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com:

ftp hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com            ; make connection from your site to HP's BBS
cd pub                           ; change to directory pub                        
ls -l                            ; list files (including filesize)
binary                           ; switch to binary mode, for transfer
get glbr                         ; get GLBR from HP's BBS to your site
close                            ; close connection

        From a Bitnet site send to bitftp@pucc (with any subject line - 
ignored) the following message:

ftp hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com uuencode   ; note the uuencode
cd pub
ls -l
binary
get glbr
close

        This results in two messages being returned (automatically to the
sender).  The first message is a transcript of the transaction between
PUCC and HPCVBBS, including the result of ls -l, list files including
size.  The second message is GLBR in an encoded format (see note below),
which then can be decoded to produce GLBR,which can be uploaded to your
48.

        I have found that the decoded result is padded with nulls to a
multiple of 128 characters (8576 bytes), and that after removing these 
with a text editor the resultant GLBR (8451 bytes) worked fine after 
uploading to the 48.  This is why I have emphasized checking the actual 
file size with ls -l.  I don't know why it does this; when I ftp it direct 
from an internet site by the above procedure the file comes across the 
correct and original size, without the padding?

        Note the uuencode in line one.  This will cause the file to be sent
in uuencoded format.  (The alternative is netdata format, which I know
nothing about, nor how to extract files from it.)  (uuencode & uudecode
are available in source, and compiled for most systems, from your local
computer expert or system administrator. :-)
--
Jeremy |-) Smith
smithj@jacobs.cs.orst.edu