[comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives] Searching archives

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/28/91)

In article <1991Jun27.170740.16710@midway.uchicago.edu> valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu (Doug Dougherty) writes:
:
>Also, how do you do the "search the archives yourself so you don't have
>to enter stupid 'help me' items like this one" thing?  I'm sure if I
>knew how, I'd be able to get quicker answers to these kinds of questions
>as well as save network bandwidth.
:

An extract from /pc/ts/tsfaq21.arc frequently asked questions
avilable by anonymous FTP and mail server from garbo.uwasa.fi and
simtel20 archives and their mirrors.  You should also see it for the
archie information system (very useful but lags always somewhat).

From: ts@uwasa.fi
Subject: Looking for particular programs
Date: Thu 20 Jun 00:00:14 1991

14. *****
 Q: I am interested to know if there exists a program for such and
such purpose.  Would you point me in the right direction.  (This
question also often occurs in the news postings.)

 A1: Most often the best answer is to look through file lists.  We
have several such lists which should together have quite a good
coverage of the PD programs in circulation.  These lists are
/pc/INDEX, /pc/ts/tsarc128.txt or later and /pc/ts/0dir-ts (these
are the MsDos file lists for our site, garbo.uwasa.fi),
/pc/filelist/cbbs_dos.zip, /pc/filelist/files-mm.zip (a good English
speaking Finnish BBS), and /pc/filelist/simibm.arc (Simtel20 list). 

A2: How to find MsDos files on garbo.uwasa.fi: If you are looking
for a particular program at uwasa.fi you should start by getting the
following files:
   /pc/INDEX
   /pc/ts/0dir-ts
   /pc/ts/tsarc128.txt (or whatever version number is latest)
 For seeing what is new in the /pc and /pc/ts directories, get
   /pc/pd2/0news-pd2  (selected news on all MsDos directories)
   /pc/ts/0news-ts    (all news on ts-programs)

A3: To save you the trouble of downloading all of those files if all
you want is to search for one or two programs, you can use an index
server maintained by Raymond Chen (rjc@math.princeton.edu).  To
obtain instructions, send email with any subject and containing the
single word "help" to the above address.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
...................................................................
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