orenalex@bimacs.BITNET (oren alex) (03/20/91)
> No the files are _not_ corrupted. Most of these complaints are a >result of the user's own failure to use the binary mode (tenex in >the case of Simtel20) in the transfer from the ftp site to his/her >own site, and/or his/her failure to transfer the files in the binary >mode from his/her mailframe to the PC. Excuse me, what is the difference between binary mode and tenex? Are they compatible? What ftp sites use them? (etc...) Thanx, Alex.
raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) (03/20/91)
In article <3067@bimacs.BITNET>, orenalex@bimacs (oren alex) writes: >Excuse me, what is the difference between binary mode and tenex? Tenex and binary are definitely different. You really don't want to know why, trust me. (The reason is technical and boring.)
twb@cbnewsh.att.com (thomas.w.beattie) (03/20/91)
In article <1991Mar19.203443.21165@agate.berkeley.edu> raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) writes: >In article <3067@bimacs.BITNET>, orenalex@bimacs (oren alex) writes: >>Excuse me, what is the difference between binary mode and tenex? > >Tenex and binary are definitely different. You really don't want to >know why, trust me. (The reason is technical and boring.) So how does the poor user know which to use? If only one works why is there a choice? --- Tom Beattie att!hoqaa!twb t.w.beattie@att.com
jin@spdcc.COM (Jerry Natowitz) (03/20/91)
In article <1991Mar19.203443.21165@agate.berkeley.edu> raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) writes: >Tenex and binary are definitely different. You really don't want to >know why, trust me. (The reason is technical and boring.) I would like to know. I have been using binary in place of tenex for transfers from TOPS-20 machines for years and have yet to have a problem. Luck? Or does it depend on what you are transferring to (IBM PC/RT running BSD Unix)? -- Jerry Natowitz Guest user on: ARPA jin@ursa-major.spdcc.com UUCP {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!jin
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (03/20/91)
BINARY means use "image" mode. That means trasfer the file as-is. This works when your host and the distant host have the same word-size and byte-order. TENEX mode is a synonym for these two commands: type binary quote "TYPE L 8" That sets the transfer to binary mode but makes FTP deal with the file as 8-bit binary with a known standard byte-order. Remember references to big indian versus little indian byte-order? Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of SIMTEL20's MSDOS, MISC & CP/M archives [IP address 26.2.0.74] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
rcotl@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Tim Liddelow [The Mad Monk]) (03/20/91)
jin@spdcc.COM (Jerry Natowitz) writes: >In article <1991Mar19.203443.21165@agate.berkeley.edu> raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) writes: >>Tenex and binary are definitely different. You really don't want to >>know why, trust me. (The reason is technical and boring.) >I would like to know. I have been using binary in place of tenex for transfers >from TOPS-20 machines for years and have yet to have a problem. >Luck? Or does it depend on what you are transferring to (IBM PC/RT running >BSD Unix)? >-- > Jerry Natowitz I'll second that. Transfers from simtel-20 in binary mode work fine here. What difference does it make then if you use tenex mode ? Do you have to use tenex on some machines with warped O/S's ? -- ! Tim Liddelow | <insert standard disclaimer> ! ! Computer Science & Com Eng | Jordan to Paxson...Paxson assists ! ! Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology | Pippen..JAM.."Scottie Piipppeenn!"! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (03/20/91)
In my previous posting I wrote: > Remember references to big indian versus little indian byte-order? In respose I received via email: ressler@cs.cornell.edu (Gene Ressler) writes: > I've always heard it referred to as big-Endian vs. little-Endian. > Machines where the most significant bits (big end) of a word occur in the > first byte are the former and conversely... Just another piece > of mindless trivia. raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) writes: > Unless this is a reference to something I'm not familiar with, perhaps > you meant `big-endian' and `little-endian'. The reference is to the > paper by Jonathan Swift about the two countries who fought a war over > whether one should places one's soft-boiled egg in the egg cup with > the little end or the big end pointed upwards. Gene, & Ray, thanks for correcting me. Endian it is! That's an interesting story about the soft-boiled egg. :-) I've seen some long and involved discussions on the net about big end versus little end. Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of SIMTEL20's MSDOS, MISC & CP/M archives [IP address 26.2.0.74] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (03/20/91)
In article <3067@bimacs.BITNET> orenalex@bimacs.UUCP (oren alex) writes: : >Excuse me, what is the difference between binary mode and tenex? Someone else can give a better technical description, but for for the time being here goes. Tenex is (I think) for systems using a 36 bit word lenght instead of 32 (or 64). Simtel20 is one of the 36 bit cases. >Are they compatible? Not as such. Therefore it is very important that the users set the ftp mode correctly before a file transfer. Failure to do this is the source of innumerable false alarms of allegedly corrupted files. This is very vasteful both on physical net resources, and the users' and the moderators' scarce time. >What ftp sites use them? Use tenex for Simtel20, binary for all the major Unix-based ftp sites (use the latter as your default when you don't know for sure). ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
mcc@WLV.IMSD.CONTEL.COM (Merton Campbell Crockett) (03/20/91)
In article <5464@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) writes: >In my previous posting I wrote: >> Remember references to big indian versus little indian byte-order? >In respose I received via email: >ressler@cs.cornell.edu (Gene Ressler) writes: >> I've always heard it referred to as big-Endian vs. little-Endian. >> Machines where the most significant bits (big end) of a word occur in the >> first byte are the former and conversely... Just another piece >> of mindless trivia. >raymond@math.berkeley.edu (Raymond Chen) writes: >> Unless this is a reference to something I'm not familiar with, perhaps >> you meant `big-endian' and `little-endian'. The reference is to the >> paper by Jonathan Swift about the two countries who fought a war over >> whether one should places one's soft-boiled egg in the egg cup with >> the little end or the big end pointed upwards. >That's an interesting story about the soft-boiled egg. :-) >I've seen some long and involved discussions on the net about big end >versus little end. Ahh! It comes back to me. On DECSystem 10 and DECSystem 20, bit 0 references the most significant bit or sign bit of the 36 bit word. The following is from is a response to an earlier reply which was bounced because of an unknown host. References: <12011@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <1991Mar19.110958.17619@uwasa.fi> In article <3067@bimacs.BITNET> you write: >> No the files are _not_ corrupted. Most of these complaints are a >>result of the user's own failure to use the binary mode (tenex in >>the case of Simtel20) in the transfer from the ftp site to his/her >>own site, and/or his/her failure to transfer the files in the binary >>mode from his/her mailframe to the PC. >Excuse me, what is the difference between binary mode and tenex? >Are they compatible? >What ftp sites use them? >(etc...) Binary mode and tenex are NOT compatible. DECsystem 10s and DECsystem 20s require the use of TENEX (DECsystem 10 Exchange). These systems are based on 36 bit words. A "byte" is a variable length entity on these systems and can be 1 to 36 bits in length. "Bytes" are allocated starting from the least significant bit of a word. Multiple "bytes" can be stored in a single word. "Bytes" cannot span words. Any high-order bits that are not allocated to a "byte" are ignored. TENEX specifies an 8 bit "byte"--4 "bytes" to a word. In binary mode, you get all 36 bits of the word transmitted to you as a bit stream. The high order 4 bits which have an undefined value will be transmitted in the stream. Merton Campbell Crockett
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (03/21/91)
rcotl@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Tim Liddelow [The Mad Monk]) writes: > Transfers from simtel-20 in binary mode work fine here. That's because about six months ago SIMTEL20 modified the TOPS-20 FTP server so that when a user requests binary mode the server uses tenex mode for binary files and transfers text files as-is with CRLF end of lines. This means that if you use binary mode to get all files they will be received in a form that's MS-DOS compatible, whether they be ARCs, ZIPs, or text files. If you use tenex mode the binary files will transfer ok but the text files will be received as garbage. If you have questions about this, please send email to: Action@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of SIMTEL20's MSDOS, MISC & CP/M archives [IP address 26.2.0.74] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) (03/21/91)
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) writes: >rcotl@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Tim Liddelow [The Mad Monk]) writes: >> Transfers from simtel-20 in binary mode work fine here. >That's because about six months ago SIMTEL20 modified the TOPS-20 FTP >server so that when a user requests binary mode the server uses tenex >mode for binary files and transfers text files as-is with CRLF end of >lines. This means that if you use binary mode to get all files they >will be received in a form that's MS-DOS compatible, whether they be >ARCs, ZIPs, or text files. >If you use tenex mode the binary files will transfer ok but the text >files will be received as garbage. If you have questions about this, >please send email to: Action@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL So, the net result of this is that you should never user tenex, right? (I had noticed as well that binary seemed to work just fine. In fact, I set binary everywhere, and I just wish it were the default for FTP)
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (03/21/91)
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) writes: >So, the net result of this is that you should never user tenex, right? >(I had noticed as well that binary seemed to work just fine. In fact, I >set binary everywhere, and I just wish it were the default for FTP) The answer is that if your host has a byte-order compatible with SIMTEL20 you can use binary mode. If the files can't be read, try tenex mode. Big-Endian versus Little-Endian. (sigh) Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of SIMTEL20's MSDOS, MISC & CP/M archives [IP address 26.2.0.74] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
lisbon@vpnet.chi.il.us (Gerry Swetsky) (03/21/91)
In article <5472@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) writes: >If you use tenex mode the binary files will transfer ok but the text >files will be received as garbage. If you have questions about this, >please send email to: Action@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL Keith, The last (and only) time I used 'tenex' with simtel20, the response was that it didn't understand the word. I was ftp'ing by mail through Princeton, if it makes any difference. When I tried again using 'binary' everything was fine. -- ============================================================================ | Help stamp out stupid .signature files! Gerry Swetsky WB9EBO | | vpnet - Public access Unix and Usenet | | Home (708)833-8122 vpnet (708)833-8126 lisbon@vpnet.chi.il.us | ============================================================================
rice@willow23.cray.com (Jonathan Rice) (03/21/91)
In article <valley.669496793@gsbsun> valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) writes: >So, the net result of this is that you should never user tenex, right? >(I had noticed as well that binary seemed to work just fine. In fact, I >set binary everywhere, and I just wish it were the default for FTP) On UNIX systems, in your home directory, in a file called .netrc, place entries of the following format: machine wsmr-simtel20.army.mil login anonymous password me@here.com macdef init binary machine wuarchive.wustl.edu login anonymous password me@here.com macdef init binary cd /mirrors/msdos machine garbo.uwasa.fi login anonymous password me@here.com macdef init binary and so on. Replace "me@here.com" with your internet id. Ensure that there's a blank line after each entry. Ensure that .netrc is private (chmod 600). The "macdef init" is defining the following lines to be an automatically executed macro -- you can add whatever ftp commands you wish (note the cd in the wustl entry). Not quite a default to binary, but it gets the job done for the sites you commonly connect to. -- Jonathan C. Rice | Internet: rice@cray.com Cray Research, Inc. | UUCP: uunet!cray!rice 655F Lone Oak Drive | (612) 683 - 5370 Eagan, MN 55121 |