lin@sixmile.inel.gov (Linn Hower) (12/30/90)
I am in the process of buying a PC clone for home/business use. I have never used a PC before and most of my experience over the last 5 years has been with internet connected unix workstations. I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on my home computer. I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions/experiences/ suggestions as to how to do this. Is there uucp available for PC's? Will it run unattended? Are there other transport agents available? And what about email agents and user interfaces? As you might be able to see, I am quite uneducated about all this PC stuff. I will appreciate any input. PS The system I will purchase will be a 386DX system with >= 40 MB of hard disk... if that makes any difference. Linn Hower lin@INEL.GOV Phone: 208-526-9231 at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID ========== long legal disclaimer follows, press n to skip =========== ^L Neither the United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory or any of their employees, makes any warranty, whatsoever, implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility regarding any information, disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. No specific reference constitutes or implies endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Government or the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
DOUG@ysub.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) (12/30/90)
In article <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov>, lin@sixmile.inel.gov (Linn Hower) says: > > I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on >my home computer. I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions/experiences/ >suggestions as to how to do this. Is there uucp available for PC's? Will >it run unattended? Are there other transport agents available? And what >about email agents and user interfaces? > You have (at least) three options under MSDOS: 1. Waffle - this program can function as a single-user UUCP node, a dial-in BBS, supports usenet news, e-mail (with aliases), multiple users (i.e. Helen, Doug, Kent, and DougJr). The MSDOS version is shareware, registration is $30. Waffle is discussed in alt.bbs.waffle. I'm going to be setting up a Waffle system shortly. If you can FTP, you can retrieve it from /mirrors/msdos/bbs/waf163.zip at wuarchive. wustl.edu. V 1.64 is due real soon. A Unix version is also available. 2. FSUUCP/FSBBS - FSUUCP is a single-user UUCP node. It supports e-mail and usenet news. FSBBS is a bulletin-board system that will probably give Waffle serious competition, and I expect it will add better support for multiple users and e-mail aliases. I've only browsed the docs for FSUUCP, and I believe FSBBS is still in late beta test stage. FSUUCP can be retrieved from wuarchive, as well (I believe it's in /mirrors/msdos/uucp, but I'm not sure). FSUUCP and FSBBS are shareware, discussion follows in alt.bbs. 3. UUPC - this is either PD or freeware (copyrighted but freely distri- butable - maybe under GNU Copyleft ?) DOS UUCP implementation. Source is available. Usenet news-reader support is NOT implemented. FTP from wuarchive. I'm not sure if this is discussed very often (comp. mail.uucp ? alt.bbs ? I've not seen much about it). Hope this helps - Doug -- Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center, doug@ysub.bitnet Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH 44555 doug@ysub.ysu.edu "[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy." Joseph Campbell
lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) (12/31/90)
Doug Sewell <DOUG@ysub.ysu.edu> writes: >In article <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov>, lin@sixmile.inel.gov (Linn Hower) >says: >> >> I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on >>my home computer. I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions/experiences/ >>suggestions as to how to do this. Is there uucp available for PC's? Will >>it run unattended? Are there other transport agents available? And what >>about email agents and user interfaces? >> >You have (at least) three options under MSDOS: >1. Waffle - this program can function as a single-user UUCP node, a >2. FSUUCP/FSBBS - FSUUCP is a single-user UUCP node. It supports >3. UUPC - this is either PD or freeware (copyrighted but freely distri- >Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center, doug@ysub.bitnet Let me add one more way: SLIP. Serial Line Internet Protocol. SLIP is available for BSD Unix systems and Cisco routers. You can use either FTP Software's implementation of SLIP or a KA9Q derivative to create, effectively, your machine as an Internet node. (Using the modem as the high-speed *grin* connection) I'm currently doing this on a trial basis with G1EMM's version of KA9Q. You can get KA9Q as anon ftp from thumper.bellcore.com. You'll also need access to a machine that will let you go into SLIP mode on a dialup, whether that's a router (that's how I do it - a Cisco router), or the actual Unix machine itself. The beauty of SLIP is that you can do most things that a standard Internet-connected machine can do: Telnet, FTP, FINGER, NNTP, SMTP Mail, etc... -- David Lemson U of Illinois Computing Services Student Consultant Internet : lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu University of Illinois, Urbana
rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Rhys Weatherley) (12/31/90)
In <1990Dec30.233541.1853@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) writes: >Doug Sewell <DOUG@ysub.ysu.edu> writes: >>In article <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov>, lin@sixmile.inel.gov (Linn Hower) >>says: >>> >>> I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on >>>my home computer. >Let me add one more way: SLIP. Serial Line Internet Protocol. [...] You then have to write your own (or get somewhere) news and mail software to use SLIP and the other TCP/IP services. If you use Windows, the program WINVN apparently lets you do news reading over SLIP or ethernet, etc, but since I don't have access to a SLIP login, I haven't been able to test it. You aren't just limited to SLIP with KA9Q and its buddies. Any software that can use the Clarkson packet drivers can run on almost any type of network, connection or ethernet card, so this is another thing to keep in mind if you have PC's on an ethernet, PC-NFS system, etc (much faster than using SLIP over a modem!). PC-NFS and similar news readers do exist in some places already. There are quite a few people that I'm aware of (can't remember their names sorry) that are working on PC news readers, especially for NNTP connections, rather than the (very old) UUCP protocol, but not much has emerged yet. Rhys. +===============================+==================================+ || Rhys Weatherley | The University of Queensland, || || rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au | Australia. G'day!! || +===============================+==================================+
rjbeeth (Rick Beetham) (01/06/91)
In article <1990Dec30.022715.14429@inel.gov> (Linn Hower) writes: > I would like to be able to receive email and possibly some news on > my home computer. I would greatly appreciate anyone's opinions/experiences/ > suggestions as to how to do this. Is there uucp available for PC's? Will > it run unattended? Are there other transport agents available? And what > about email agents and user interfaces? > > As you might be able to see, I am quite uneducated about all this PC > stuff. I will appreciate any input. Linn, I have been helping Beta Test a product that you might be interested in. It is called DistNet and may give you a lot of the functionality that you have been looking for. I have just recently been allowed to start speaking publicly about it as they are now getting ready to make their first "shareware" release within a month. The person to talk to is Doug Thompson and he can be contacted via several routes: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: isishq!testsys!doug DNS: doug@isishq.fidonet.org Voice: 613-722-4724 Fido: Doug Thompson on 1:163/162 POST: P.0. Box 3041, Stn C., Ottawa, K1Y 4J3, CANADA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- They had two main goals in mind when DistNet was first envisioned. 1) give the users access to email and 2) make it simple to use. Suffice to say that both these goals have been met and exceeded! I originally ran their software on a clone 286 and am presently running on a 386SX. It will just as easily run on an XT if you want and yes it runs in DOS. Their original plan did not include a NEWS feature but with sufficient cajoling it has since been added. It will communicate with unix hosts (uucp) and dos hosts (waffle) alike. I have been running several versions (each one an improvement over the last) and each one is more powerful and easier to use than the last. It is menu driven, and can be used "as is" or if you are inclined you can modify it to suit your own tastes. One nice feature is that it will allow you to use the editor of your choice for mail/news creation. It comes with uucp, uudecode & uuencode, compaction facilities, another good feature is that it can be easily set up to dial up your host in unattended mode (for lower rates and/or ease of access). I have successfully requested several SIMTEL files via uuencode and am presently acquiring about 750K/night of news from my host. I have done this with a standard 2400 baud modem and will hopefully someday be able to acquire a telebit (their recommendation) in order to speed up the process. Your proposed configuration should be no problem. My only major complaint is that it depends heavily on having a large DOS environment set in order to operate properly. This is not a major issue for most people but I am also playing around with windows and several other bits and pieces and so have to be extremely careful to avoid running out of environment space. FYI it is not (yet) written for windows but will work as a DOS application under it (I usually put it into the backround where it runs successfully). I believe there are other packages available to you WAFFLE being one that comes to mind. But I don't think any will be as easy and straightforward to set up and use. Of course the software is only half of what you need. You will also need a host or sight that will allow you to transfer news and email to/from the network. I assume that as you posted a message and hope to receive answers that that is not a major concern for you. Hope the above helps you a bit. You might like to contact Doug for further information. He is also considering only releasing the email portion at this time (you might like to add your 2 cents worth to his releasing news as well) Good luck Rick --- {...}isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth | Nepean, Ontario rjbeeth@isishq.fidonet.org