293 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
293 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
Chaos Corner V01 N09 29Nov91
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Those little nasty details ....
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--------------------------------------------------
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Correction on weather talk list
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In issue 8, we said that to subscribe to the weather-talk discussion
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list from a VM/CMS machine you could 'tell listserv@uiucvmd ...'. The
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proper command is:
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tell listserv at uiucvmd subscribe wx-talk <your-name>
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Note that the CMS tell command requires that you use the word 'at'
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rather than using the @ symbol. Thanks to Caroline Hecht at the Cornell
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Theory Center for catching this.
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Mailbag
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--------------------------------------------------
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Chaos Corner Feedback
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Gary Buhrmaster of CIT's Computer Resources, ever the watchdog for Dr.
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Chaos, observed the end result of the battle Dr. Chaos had with the word
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processor in the last issue. The word processor seemed very happy to
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put either 80 or 60 characters per line and to absolutely refuse to
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consider something like 72 characters per line. Out of frustration, Dr.
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Chaos finally resorted to using the fairly primitive 'para' macro under
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VM/CMS XEDIT to get the lines formatted the proper length.
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Unfortunately, the macro thinks that 'Dr.' ends a sentence and inserts
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two blanks rather than one. Thanks to Gary for catching this error.
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Gary has also observed that this issue is several days late and asks for
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a definition of "timely" from the good Dr. Chaos. In return, Dr. Chaos
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has suggested that Gary should occupy himself more with eating turkey
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(doesn't IBM provide a free one with each MVS release?) and giving
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thanks (das Erntedankfest) that this issue got out at all.
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Bill Turner, Cornell University Libraries, asks about the formatting of
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many documents he finds around the network. They seem to be in the
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worst possible format ("print to disk") and they have clearly never seen
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a spelling checker. He asks if there is some way to print these
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documents so that they don't look terrible. Dr. Chaos might initially
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suggest that Bill look at the 'man' pages on his system, but then, the
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'man' pages appear to be formatted in the same way. Does someone with a
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longer background in Unix want to jump in here? Is there some way for
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Bill to easily reprocess the text (removing the existing formatting
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information) thereby allowing him to run it through a spelling checker,
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pretty it up, and print it so it looks nice?
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--------------------------------------------------
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Info on recreational vehicles wanted
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Dave Gomberg at UCSF is desperate to find a LISTSERV or NetNews list
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that concentrates on recreational vehicles. (Surely something of this
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national importance cannot have been overlooked!) Dave asks Dr. Chaos
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to consult his readers for any information they can provide. Before you
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suggest it, Dr. Chaos already thought of 'rec.bicycles' but thinks that
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that might not be the kind of recreational vehicle that Dave was
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referring to.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Distributrion problems with long mail headers
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Rob Vaughn at Cornell's Materials Science Center thanks Dr. Chaos for
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Chaos Corner. "It is an invaluable collection of information, and a
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blast to read as well." Dr. Chaos and Rob were communicating because
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Rob's machine (and several others) seem to choke on the long mail header
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at the start of each Chaos Corner. We hope to reduce that down to a
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more reasonable size Real Soon Now.
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--------------------------------------------------
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OSF/Motif
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Reaching farther down in the mailbag, we find a letter from John
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Guckenheimer of the Cornell Mathematics Department (among other places),
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who asks for information about who on campus is using and/or programming
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in OSF/Motif today? Dr. Chaos is planning on ordering Motif 1.2 (the
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version that works with X11R5) as soon as its availability and pricing
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are announced. That will give Cornell a site license for the Motif
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source code. Contact Steve Lasala (lasala@trumpet.cit.cornell.edu) if
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you are interested in getting on the Motif mailing list.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Macintosh Editor
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Mark Bodenstein, of CIT's Computer Resources, pointed Dr. Chaos to an
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interesting editor for those of you with Macintosh computers. Called
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'prep', the editor:
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allows parallel columns of prose that are linked together.
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Using these columns as content plus annotation is a particularly
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common example use of the PREP editor. In addition, columns
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(which are the unit of exchange in the PREP editor) are movable,
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hideable, resizeable, and you can have as many columns as you
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want. This allows for multiple sets of annotations to be viewed
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together which leads to easier integration of group-wide changes.
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This editor has been in development for over a year, and is available
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for anonymous FTP from gnome.cs.cmu.edu. Look for file prepv39.sit.hqx
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in the /usr/chandhok/public/prep directory. Once you 'get' the file
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(ascii mode), use binhex or StuffIt to un-binhex it. The resulting
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application, when you double click on it, will unpack itself into the
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documentation and the application. Has anyone tried this editor? It
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sounds like it might be useful (combined with the QuickMail enclosure
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facility) for passing around comments that a group of people have made
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on a document. If you do get the editor, please send questions/comments
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to prep-project+@andrew.cmu.edu so that the authors get some feedback on
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their work.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Dr. Chaos and Science Fiction?
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Dick Crepeau from Cornell's Chemistry Department, says he enjoys reading
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Chaos Corner and finds similarities in style with Jerry Pournelle's
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Chaos Manor column in Byte Magazine. He asks if Dr. Chaos had ever
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considered writing Science Fiction. While Dr. Chaos attempts to NEVER
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write any kind of fiction (thanks to Gary Buhrmaster), he must admit
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that the inspiration for writing Chaos Corner came to him on a trans-
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Atlantic flight during which he read four back-issues of Byte.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Weather Maps
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John Balogh from Penn State asked for more information about getting the
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weather maps from vmd.cso.uiuc.edu. Dr. Chaos was remiss in not
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supplying the necessary information to 'cd phil.515' to access the
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minidisk (it's a VM/CMS system) to get the current weather map. Dr.
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Chaos, thanks to Jeff Honig of CIT's Network Resources, now has the
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current weather map (updated hourly) as the background of his display
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on pelican (it also becomes the "screensaver"). The magic shell script
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one needs to run in a Unix system is as follows:
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#!/bin/sh
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KEY=0
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ONROOT=""
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while [ $# -ne 0 ]; do
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arg=$1; shift
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case ${arg} in
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-key)
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KEY=1
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;;
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-onroot)
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ONROOT="-onroot -fullscreen -border black"
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;;
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*)
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echo "Usage: wxmap [-key] [-onroot]"
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exit 1;
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;;
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esac
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done
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if [ ${KEY} -eq 1 ]; then
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files="wxkey.gif" ;
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else
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files=`date -u +"%m %d %H" | awk '{
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for (i = 0; i < 7; i++) {
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j = $3 -i; k = $2 - 0;
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if (j < 0)
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{j += 24; k -= 1;}
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printf "SA%s%02d%02d.GIF\n", $1, k, j;
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}
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}'`
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fi
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# Note: This code has problems on month boundaries. Due to holidays
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# and weekends, it shouldn't be a problem until April, 1992.
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# At that time, Dr. Chaos will be in France. C'est la vie!
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for file in ${files}; do
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ftp -i -n vmd.cso.uiuc.edu <<EOF
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user anonymous ${USER}@`hostname`
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binary
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cd phil.515
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get ${file} /tmp/wxmap.gif.$$
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quit
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EOF
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if [ -f /tmp/wxmap.gif.$$ ]; then
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xloadimage ${ONROOT} -quiet /tmp/wxmap.gif.$$
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rm -f /tmp/wxmap.gif.$$
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break;
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fi
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done
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Note that there may be some character translation problems that I didn't
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get straightened out. Also, if you happen to be running some versions
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of AIX (eg. 1.2 or 3.1), the 'date' command is broken and returns local
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time rather than CUT (GMT) even though the '-u' parameter is specified.
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Note that the script assumes you have access to a copy of the free
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program 'xloadimage' to display GIF files.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Need info on Metafile or Fund Master
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Keith Boncek of Cornell says he has been looking for commercial software
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programs for an IBM PC called "Metafile" and "Fund Master". Does anyone
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know what companies market these programs?
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--------------------------------------------------
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Recommendations for home computer
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Joan Winters at the Stanford Linear Accelerator asks if Dr. Chaos has a
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preferred home computer. Dr. Chaos tells me that his favorite is any
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computer that attaches to a 9600 baud modem. Seriously, he really likes
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the IBM RS/6000 model 320H with the 19 inch color display. Now, if only
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some vendor was willing to contribute one for his home use.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Audix voicemail information
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Finally, on the AUDIX voice mail front, Larry Fresinski of CIT's
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Workstation Resources has some additional information. If you get
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impatient with waiting through someone's long, boring message, just
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press the '1' key and you can start recording immediately. If you press
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'1' at the end of leaving the message, you can hear your message, add
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more to the end of the message, re-record the message, or delete the
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message. Dr. Chaos likes the idea of having a second chance to record
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something that is understandable and hopes that the quality of
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everyone's voice mail can now be improved.
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Random Bits of interesting and (un)timely things
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--------------------------------------------------
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VT-100 emulation on 3270s
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Loyal, long-time readers of Chaos Corner may remember that Bob Blackmun
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was interested in software that allowed 3270 terminals to emulate DEC
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VT-100s. IBM recently announced that they are marketing some software
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to do at least a partial emulation (for full screen applications). Bob
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promises to report back on his evaluation of the software once they have
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had a chance to try it out.
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--------------------------------------------------
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OS/2 Upgrade information
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It really is true that if you want to upgrade to OS/2 2.0 when it
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becomes available, all you have to do now is to call an 800-number, tell
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them you have PC-DOS, and give them an address and a credit card number.
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With that (and the $99 charge on your card) you will receive OS/2 1.3
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now, and OS/2 2.0 when it is available (April/May 1992). IF you are
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feeling generous, check your local computer store for the same deal (the
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local IBM sales team gets credit for local retail sales and they do not
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get credit for the 800-number sales).
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--------------------------------------------------
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Hello World
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In the 'sub.jokes' newsgroup, we recently saw the ultimate in
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programming -- the 0-byte version of the traditional Hello World!
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program (the purpose of such a program is to type 'Hello World', and
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often to introduce a new computer language):
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$ Hello_World!
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Hello_World!: not found
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$
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--------------------------------------------------
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BBS system liability on message traffic
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In a recent court case, CompuServe Information System was held to be a
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common carrier with regard to the messages posted on the system. By
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stating up front that they did not review the messages that subscribers
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posted they could not be held liable for what other people might find
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that was offensive on the CompuServe system. It is hoped that this
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decision will serve as a precedent that protects computer bulletin
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boards and systems carrying Usenet news traffic. It seems that the
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important thing was that they did very little or nothing to control the
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message traffic ... if someone tries to monitor and edit the traffic,
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then they might be held libel for what appears.
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--------------------------------------------------
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According to W4W, I have now exceeded 10,000 characters, so it is time
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to close for now. Due to Dr Chaos being on the road, and the
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approaching holidays, the Chaos Corner schedule will be erratic in
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December. This issue will get posted to the 'cornell.general'
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newsgroup; if you want to subscribe via electronic mail, send your
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request to: rdc@cornella.cit.cornell.edu
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Read Dr. Chaos! (I have a Masters Degree)
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