Chaos Corner V02N02 06 March 1992 -------------------------------------------------- Bound copies of Chaos Corner Volume 1 available It's here! At LAST! The first printed, bound copies of volume 1 of Chaos Corner have come off the presses and Gary Buhrmaster has received his autographed copy (thanks, Mike). Many thanks go to the people who made it all possible, but especially deserving mention are Tom Boggess (who designed the covers and finally had to write PostScript to get the images to print properly); Pete Baker who suffered through many attempts to get the document printed properly; and Bill Turner who tirelessly (well, maybe tirelessly) forwarded each of our attempts through the miles of cable and alpha-test software. Thanks to you all! Now, all the rest of you have the opportunity to obtain your own printed version at a paltry $3 a copy (covers cost of printing, barely). If you are on the Cornell campus, they will be available at the Information Desk in CCC starting next week. Off-campus or on- campus-but-don't-want-to-have-to-walk readers can contact Billie Gabriel (bsg@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu) to arrange for payment (departmental charges are OK, not sure about American Express). -------------------------------------------------- Virus Happy Birthday to Michelangelo! Dr. Chaos hopes that you are all virus free today. Mailbag -------------------------------------------------- Chaos Corner feedback Dr. Chaos received this note in response to an item in the last issue: I don't mean to sound ungrateful...I appreciate your work and generosity, but I have a request. I am very sensitive to references to "Blonde Jokes" and was disturbed by your mention of such a file (whether it exists or not.) To me, the mention is a form of approval. I know people don't intend harm with their humor but I think your reference to the stereotype (blonde with the "e" is only for females and implies dumb blonde) is inappropriate. I ask that you refrain from including such a comment in your electronic publication. If you include a readers' comments section, you are welcome to use this. Cathie Burke Dager, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center -------------------------------------------------- Space - Lost city of Ubar Using the Shuttle imaging radar and other images from space of the Arabian Desert, the lost city of Ubar has been re-discovered. Analysis of the images (which showed ancient tracks to the city) led searchers to the site of a remote well where they uncovered towers, rooms and artifacts that appear to date back more than 4000 years. -------------------------------------------------- Catalog of Stars The full "Catalog of Stars within 25 parsecs of the Sun" is available via anonymous FTP from ames.arc.nasa.gov in the directory pub/SPACE/FAQ. "stars.doc" describes the format of the data and "stars.data" contains the actual coordinate information. -------------------------------------------------- GeoClock In the "small world" and "view of the world" department, Dr. Chaos got a copy of GeoClock from wuarchive.wustl.edu and as he was installing it, the documentation mentioned the Shareware author of the program (along with the address to send the shareware fees, of course). The name was familiar as someone that Dr. Chaos hadn't seen in 18 years. In less than 12 hours, the electronic mail had a response ... and Yes! it really was THE Joe Ahlgren ... 20 years and many miles from the old CDC computer system that we worked with at Fort Huachuca (it's in southern Arizona, for those of you not familiar with the locations of U. S. Army bases). All that aside, Joe has written a great program (he even got reviewed in the New York Times) that includes a number of world and area maps, and will show local time in various areas along with illustrating the parts of the world in sunlight vs. the parts in darkness. If you are interested in taking a look at this great program on your PC (Herc, CGA, EGA, VGA and SVGA displays are supported), get geoclk44.zip from mirrors/msdos/graphics on wuarchive.wustl.edu -- additional maps are available in geocity1.zip, geocity2.zip, geocitys.zip -- not all the features are available until you register, but Dr. Chaos is a happy registered user (GeoClock runs nicely in a background window under OS/2 2.0). -------------------------------------------------- Space images - orion nebula and others Another source for space-related gif files is vab02.larc.nasa.gov -- look down in the directory tree from gifs/space/ for a number of good pictures (please respect this guy's machine and don't do a lot of big transfers during work hours (EST)). Dr. Chaos has a screen background on pelican right now of orion.gif -- a picture of the Orion nebula. -------------------------------------------------- CD-ROM - PC and MSDOS software archive from Simtel Bob Bruce has produced a CD-ROM containing the Simtel MSDOS archives. If you have a CD-ROM player and don't have convenient access to the incredible amount of software on Simtel, this is an inexpensive alternative. The cost is $25 + $5 shipping and handling, send it to Bob Bruce, 1547 Palos Verdes, Ste. 260, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. Cheap for 420 MB of data. X11R5/GNU source is available for $40. -------------------------------------------------- CD-ROM - street map of USA If you like maps, check out the CD that contains detailed street maps of the entire USA. The cost is $99 and the contact is DeLorme Mapping, P. O. Box 298, Lower Main Street, Freeport, ME 04032 ... phone: (207)- 865-1234 (and Dr. Chaos reminds me that they do take American Express). Requires Windows 3.x and is reported to have a nice user interface. -------------------------------------------------- PC Info If you use or are thinking about using the excellent COMMAND.COM replacement from J. P. Software called 4DOS, there is now a discussion list for you. Send mail to listserv@indycms.iupui.edu with the line: sub 4dos in the body of the mail file. Of course, CMS users on BITNET can issue the interactive command: tell listserv at indycms sub 4dos If you haven't experienced 4dos, with the ability to easily write macros, edit previous commands, and a whole host of other features ... get it from wuarchive.wustl.edu in the archive/mirrors/msdos/4dos directory. Your will want to version 4.0 and an update file for the latest fixes. -------------------------------------------------- Software archives in Europe (Germany) On the other side of the Atlantic from New York, it appears that some interesting archive collections are maintained at ftp.uni-koeln.de and, of course, we can't forget our friends at rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de. These archive collections take a lot of work to maintain ... Dr. Chaos encourages you to send some electronic mail to the people performing this work, thanking them for their efforts. -------------------------------------------------- Fractals If you like playing with fractals and their generating functions, version 17.1 of the Fractint fractal generating program is available. It exists in both DOS and Windows versions and source code is provided. Look for frain171.zip in the /archive/mirrors/msdos/graphics directory of wuarchive.wustl.edu (or in the pub/msdos/graphics directory of oak.oakland.edu). The Windows3 version of Fractint may be obtained from the archive/mirrors/msdos/windows3 directory. -------------------------------------------------- Kermit There is a new version of C-Kermit (5A, edit 179) available for beta- testing. New features for C-Kermit include sliding windows for up to 95% file transfer efficiencies, a script programming language, and TCP/IP network support. Systems supported include most Unix variants, VMS, and OS/2. (The Macintosh version has not reached Beta yet.) The source file in compressed tar format can be obtained from kermit/bin on watsun.cc.columbia.edu and the file name is cku179.tar.Z ... while you are there, the MSDOS test version was updated as of March 5 ... it is named mstibm.exe and is located in the same directory. -------------------------------------------------- Phones Anyone interested in a list (rather long) of the German 0130-prefix numbers (sorta like 800-numbers in North America) should send a mail file to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. We also have a list of the prefixes for toll-free or local-charge services in a number of countries. Again, write if you would like a copy. -------------------------------------------------- Humor We have a file containing the definitions for a number of units that you may have come across and THOUGHT you understood ... did you know that 10 rations were equal to a decoration? that 1,000,000 phones are equal to 1 megaphone is equal to 1,000,000,000,000 microphones? -------------------------------------------------- Macintosh and Humanities software If you are, know of, or think you know of academics in the Humanities or Social Sciences who use Macintosh computers but who don't have the time or inclination to wade through MacWorld, MacUser, etc. ... let them know about HMS. For $15/year or $35/lifetime membership you can receive a newsletter offering advice and commentary on the place of computers in the historical profession. If you are interested, send dues and a letter outlining your academic interests and Macintosh needs/concerns to: The History and Macintosh Society, 734 Elkus Walk #201, Goletta, CA 93117-4151, USA. No extra charge for overseas airmail. -------------------------------------------------- Fix for MacTCP available from Apple If you are trying to run MacTCP with System 7.0 on a MacPlus, you have to get a utility called "MacTCP+ Tool" or you will experience a large number of dropped packets. The utility can be obtained from the /ftp/dts/mac/netcom directory on ftp.apple.com. You only need this if you are trying to run System 7.0 with MacTCP 1.1 on a Macintosh Plus. -------------------------------------------------- GCC The long awaited version 2.0 of the GNU (GNU is Not Unix) C compiler is finally available. It reportedly generates better code for SPARC workstations than Sun's C compiler; it is the fastest known compiler for the Motorola 88000; and with version 2.0, AIX on IBM RS/6000 and RT/PC is supported. Support for both C++ and Objective C are included. Because of the heavy ftp load, the normal place to get GNU software (prep.ai.mit.edu) has been overloaded, so it may be better to get a copy from ftp.uu.net (in packages/gnu) or decwrl.dec.com (in pub/GNU). (In Europe, try ftp.funet.fi or sunic.sunet.se.) We have patches for making GCC 2.0 run under AIX 3.1; let us know if you need them. -------------------------------------------------- Windows archive closed during prime time (and FAQ) The Windows archive site at cica.cica.indiana.edu was starting to get too much traffic, so they have closed it down for anonymous FTP access during the workday (Eastern Time 8-1700). They still remain the best archive site for Windows-related software on the network. The most recent version of the Frequently-Asked-Questions file for Windows is dated Feb. 26. Send mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu if you don't have access to a copy. -------------------------------------------------- Disk Copy utility for Windows (no swapping) A utility called Disk Copy (get dc111.zip from puffin.cit.cornell.edu) allows one to copy and format disks in the background under Windows. It also uses the memory management features of Windows to allow disk copies to be made in a single swap. It is, of course, available from cica.cica.indiana.edu but we can't check on the directory the file is in since the ftp service is unavailable right now. (It's only a microVAX.) -------------------------------------------------- Word for Windows - additional macros As we write this, we just realized that we have not had a problem with "smart quotes" in Word for Windows. The reason is that we haven't installed them in version 2.0. On disk #3 of W4W, there is a file called newmacro.do$ that needs to be copies to the harddisk along with decomp.exe from disk #1. Run the command "decomp newmacro.do$" -- this creates "newmacro.doc" which you then open to install or demo the macros. I guess Dr. Chaos should have read the README file, eh? -------------------------------------------------- PC able to read Mac disks Has anyone used the utility (in the Simtel mirror sites under msdos/dskutl/mac-dos.zip that claims to allow one to read/write Macintosh 1.44MB floppy diskettes on a PC? Dr. Chaos wants to know if this REALLY works. -------------------------------------------------- Convert acsii files to PostScript In the msdos/postscript directory of the Simtel mirror sites look for pps213.zip if you are interested in a menu-driven (or command line driven) program that converts ASCII to PostScript. Options include font, font size, portrait/landscape, margin setting, and more. -------------------------------------------------- Security/AIX All of you with RS/6000s running AIX 3.1 or 3.2 should take heed of a recent advisory to disable "rexd" .... otherwise the world has write- access to your machine. Dr. Chaos thinks the best way to do this is to use SMIT since it will handle the necessary chores of doing the subsystem refresh. He is aware, however, that some of you don't like SMIT and the ODM, prefering to "roll your own" system (Dr. Chaos could never figure out where the different variants kept their different versions of all those parameter files, so he is happy to left SMIT keep track of things for him). At any rate, George Boyce of CIT Network Resources recommends that if you are the type to edit "inetd.conf" by hand, you also need to run the inetimp command to load the configuration file into the ODM where inetd will read it (you will need to do the "refresh -s inetd" command from root). Dr. chaos has asked me to plead with you ... don't get confused between "rexd" (the one that is causing the problems) and "rexecd" (other potential problems but not addressed by this advisory). If you stop "rexecd", you may find that a lot of stuff that used to work has stopped working. That's all for now. Remember! Dr. Chaos For your own copies write to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu