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Chaos Corner V02N02 06 March 1992
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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).
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Virus
Happy Birthday to Michelangelo! Dr. Chaos hopes that you are all
virus free today.
Mailbag
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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
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 <your name>
in the body of the mail file. Of course, CMS users on BITNET can issue
the interactive command:
tell listserv at indycms sub 4dos <your name>
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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