230 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
230 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Chaos Corner V03 N07 20 October 1993
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Copyright 1993 by Robert D. Cowles; Ithaca, NY 14850. Permission is
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hereby granted to republish complete issues in unaltered form.
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Republication of partial issues must reference the source and state
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that subscriptions to Chaos Corner are available (free) by sending
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electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Welcome to 112 New Subscribers
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Thanks to a mention in the Bits and Bytes online newsletter, we've
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processed over 112 new subscriptions in the 12 days since the last
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issue; including the addition of what appears to be a list exploder in
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the Ukrainian city of Kiev, 8 other subscribers in Europe, 2 in Africa,
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and one each in South America and Australia.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailbag - ANI and CID
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Thanks to all of you (and believe me, there were too many to mention)
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who corrected Dr. Chaos's misstatement concerning CallerID features.
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When you call a toll-free 800 number in North America, the called party
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is billed for the call, and receives a coded message identifying the
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caller (Automatic Number Identification or ANI). CallerID services
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attempt to provide somewhat the same service to all customers receiving
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a call if the call originates within the caller's area (Local Access
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Transport Area or LATA). Again, thanks to all who responded so quickly
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and with such patient explanations of the true situation!
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailbag - Correction concerning Microsoft
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As Al Williams at Penn State (and other eagle-eyed readers) were quick
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to point out, the line in V03 N06 that stated Microsoft is not on the
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Internet was supposed to read Microsoft is NOW on the Internet.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailbag - Dr. Chaos has finally made it .. an honorary Ph.D.
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"I like your little publication. I don't think you should worry about
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not having a Ph.D and calling yourself doctor chaos. ... Ph.Ds can
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traditionally be conferred by anyone who has a Ph.D. Since you are
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doing mankind (at least the computer literate ones) a service of
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immeasurable worth I hearby with the authority invested in me confer
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upon you an honorary doctorate degree. No longer do you have to say you
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are merely a master because you are not an honorary member of the elite,
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for whatever that is worth."
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Kent Palmer, Ph.D.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailbag - Musical notes - not that simple
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Concerning the file with the chart of musical notes frequencies offered
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in the last issue, Edward Stuebing writes, "This is a little simple-
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minded. These are the "average" frequencies of a compromise system. I
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suppose a computer can be used for this but it is menial compared to
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providing a correct calculation. The frequencies of the notes actually
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depend on the key you are in, which is an important adjustment made by
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professional musicians. For us amateurs & beginners it would be nice to
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have a computer program to calculate the adjustments for us."
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Does anyone have such a chart or know of the adjustments?
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--------------------------------------------------
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US Government information available online
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The huge FedWorld bulletin board system is now accessible through the
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Internet. Just 'telnet fedworld.doc.gov' or 'telnet 192.239.92.201' and
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answer a few questions to register on the system ... you will then have
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direct access to a wealth of information but that's not all. FedWorld
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is a gateway to over 100 other bulletin board systems run by various
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federal agencies. Try it out; you will be amazed at the amount of
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information available.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Cliff Stoll's speaking engagements - online
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Would you like to be present at a lecture given by Cliff Stoll, author
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of Cuckoo's Egg? Well, if you missed his speech at Harper College last
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night, plan on making it to the dedication of the Kensington Library
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(just north of Berkeley, California) on November 4th. In general, you
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can keep up with Cliff's speaking engagements by issuing the command:
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finger stoll@ocf.berkeley.edu
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and also to find out about last minute updates and/or changes.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Ig Nobel winners announced
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As we were writing our last issue, the winners of the Ig Nobel prizes
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were being feted at MIT in Cambridge, MA. The award we enjoyed the most
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was the Peace prize awarded to Pepsico in the Phillipines for announcing
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the wrong winning number in a lottery ... a number that was evidently
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held by about 800,000 people. It united a lot of warring factions.
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Close behind was the Chemistry award to the Campbells for inventing sent
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strips; thereby allowing publishers to supply us with fragrance-filled
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magazines. For a complete list of the winners, just send some mail off
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to Dr. Chaos at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Public accessible NetNews sites
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Did you ever want to grab an article that just expired at you local news
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site? Or look at a group that is not carried my you local news source?
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Arnold Lesikar has produced a compilation of publicly addressable news
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sources, annotated with comments like whether or not they allow posting,
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etc. Before you get too excited and go looking for a site carrying
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alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, forget it ... the administrators at these
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sites know that their systems are going to be on the list, so it's
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unlikely this list will provide you with that kind of source. You can
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get the latest version of the list from nctuccca.edu.tw (Taiwan) located
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in Lesikar.NNTP-Servers in the documents/Internet/MaasInfo/Other
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directory. Alternatively, 'finger lesikar@tigger.stcloud.msus.edu'.
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Included in the file are the Gopher bookmark entries to access these
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sites.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Computerized fun on Halloween?
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Turn your computer into a Halloween sound machine. There are a number
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of appropriate WAV files (a popular format for sound files) that are
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available on virginia.edu in the public_access/sounds directory ...
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courtesy of John Crocker at North Carolina State University:
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Send questions/comments to jbcrocke@eos.ncsu.edu
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_/\== ==/\_
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__/###// ( ) \\###\_
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___/#####// |\/| \\####\____
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__/########// (@::@) \\########\__
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/##########(( \ / ))##########\
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/############\\ (oo) //############\
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|##############\\ / ** \ //##############|
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/################\\/ \//################\
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/##############/\##( /\ )##/\##############\
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\/\##/\###|\##/ \/\ | | /\/ \##/\###|\##/\/
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V V \#/ V V /| | | |\ V \#/ V V
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V ( | | | | ) V
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__\| | | |/__
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(vvv(VVV)(VVV)vvv)
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--------------------------------------------------
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Files available from Dr. Chaos
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List of Internet accessible electronic newsletters of magazines;
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Annotated list of sites with OS/2 software available via anonymous ftp;
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Benchmark results comparing 386 and 486 chips from various manufacturers
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and a file exploring the compatibility issues around the Cyrix 486DLC
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chip (written by Norbert Juffa in Karlsruhe, Germany).
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--------------------------------------------------
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Still not comfortable with looking around the Internet?
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There is a project underway to aid people in becoming acquainted with
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the resources available on the Internet. Named "The Big Dummy's Guide
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to the Internet," there is also a list of questions and answers:
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This posting tells you everything you ought to know about an
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exciting project that helps so-called Newbies to survive their
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first year on The Net. It gets you softly into most of the often
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severe details of mindboggling complexity that pop up when you're
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hooked into The Net. It is also intended to help you get around
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the trap doors, avoid pitfalls and other non-funny things (e.g.
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local gurus that laugh at you), you'll encounter during life as a
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Netizen in Cyberspace. It is styled after a FAQ list, ie.
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"Frequently Asked Questions and their respective Answers".
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Just ask Dr. Chaos at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu for the FAQ
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about the Big Dummy's Guide.
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--------------------------------------------------
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AIX 3.2 software, compiled and ready
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When you're getting started as a Unix system administrator, it is
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sometimes hard to get all the packages together, make sure they are
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ported for the platform you are working on (and the particular release
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of the operating system), make sure you have all the necessary other
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packages to get things to build properly (gcc, GNU make, patch, etc) or
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to run properly (perl, etc). For popular architectures, current
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versions of popular software that is ready-to-run may be found at
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info2.rus.uni-stuttgart.de in the /afs/rus/sw/ directories (hp700_ux90,
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pmax_ul43, rs_aix32, sun4_411, and vax_ul4). Another -source- of
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compiled binaries for IBM RS/6000s (Rios), Sun and HP boxes is found at
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the machine ftp-aix.polytechnique.fr (129.104.3.60) in the /pub/bin
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directories.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Information on the PowerPC is available
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Dr. Chaos ran across the following in a recent AIXTIPS release:
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"When IBM first released the Risc System/6000 a Technology Book
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detailing various aspects of the project was released. This included
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H/W and S/W details for the POWER chipset, AIX, new compiler and
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simulation technology, etc. In the almost four years since then many
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new developments have appeared, including PPC, POWER2, better graphics
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options and more compiler enhancements. To cover all this new
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technology IBM has produced a second volume of the Technology Book. It
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includes 4 papers on the PPC and IBM's PPC-based workstations as well as
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many other papers on the POWER2 architecture.
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"A draft of this book can be found on the anonymous ftp server,
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ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com in the directory /pub/rs6kpapers as techbook.ps.
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There are also UNIX and GNU compressed versions there, too."
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Marc Pawliger
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Dr. Chaos points out that if you visit that machine, you might also take
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a look at the latest IBM AIX, RS/6000, PS/2 and OS/2 related product
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announcements are now available for anonymous ftp in the directory
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/pub/announcements. The file 00INDEX describes the contents of all the
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files for this year, (the file names are just the announcement numbers,
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(i.e. "191-026"). Previous indices are stored as 00INDEXnnnn where nnnn
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is the year.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Get your Free Subscription Here!
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Just send a message to Dr. Chaos - chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
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and ask to be put on the subscription list. It's that easy. Don't
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delay ---- act now!
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Dr. Chaos (I have a Master's degree ....)
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