IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 6 lines Here's some questions for fellow IDM-ers: Where and HOW did you get your fat

> > Here's some questions for fellow IDM-ers: Where and HOW did you get your fat > pipe to the Internet to support the bandwidth WWW and multimedia access you > seem to be enjoying? And I'm particularly interested in those of us that > *don't* use the resources of the university they attend. Some of us cannot > remain students all of our lives.

I'd like to readdress this Q. to people in the UK. I use university facilities at the mo., but i am leaving (4 good) in a month's time. Can anyone recommend ways to get accounts etc.. I will be starting a day job where theyy have a large comp. network, suns vax etc.. but this is not linked to the internet, it seems. Someone mentioned it was on a 'uucp' network or something .. what is this? Cheers Chris.

Michael King wrote:

quoted 6 lines If I download Mosaic for Windoze, what else do I need to do to use it? Do

> >If I download Mosaic for Windoze, what else do I need to do to use it? Do >I need to find a SLIP connection to the net at that point? I heard I need >TCP/IP services for Mosaic (i.e. get a TCP/IP DLL). I guess I'm heading >towards either becoming a provider myself or helping others get access to >these services.

I too would like to know these things! Chris wrote:

quoted 5 lines Can anyone recommend ways to get accounts etc.. I will be starting a day

> >Can anyone recommend ways to get accounts etc.. I will be starting a day >job where theyy have a large comp. network, suns vax etc.. but this is not > linked to the internet, it seems. Someone mentioned it was on a >'uucp' network or something .. what is this?

uucp means unix-to-unix-copy. It's a news and email gateway...not sure whatelse it handles. For example, many free access BBS's have this where you have an email address and can send email, but must wait until like in the middle of the night when the BBS calls up it's SLIP service and transfers everything (up & down). That is, there are no real-time connections or services. -djkc

Sorry about the kinda off-topic post. If you don't want to read about UUCP stuff, press 'd'(delete) and skip to the next message. Unfortunately, djkc didn't include the e-address of Chris and I didn't save the original message to get it. Otherwise I would have sent this privately. From the cyberdesk of djkc:

quoted 11 lines Chris wrote:

>Chris wrote: >>Someone mentioned it was on a 'uucp' network or something .. what is this? > >uucp means unix-to-unix-copy. > >It's a news and email gateway...not sure whatelse it handles. >For example, many free access BBS's have this where you have an email address >and can send email, but must wait until like in the middle of the night when >the BBS calls up it's SLIP service and transfers everything (up & down). >That is, there are no real-time connections or services. >-djkc

Err, not exactly. UUCP is the whole mechanism for performing a copy of a file from one unix-based machine to another. (unix-to-unix-copy, as you said). The unix copy command is "cp", hence the name is not quite an acronym. This also refers to the protocol that is actually used in the transfer, similar to other protocols like ymodem, zmodem, etc. However, because it originated in unix-land, all machines have names and permissions can be controlled based on who is calling (and it can transfer full paths and permissions for the file, it is error-correcting, and many other features) There's a package called "UUPC" that is available on the net that allows a common MessDOS-based PC to sort of pretend it is a unix machine long enough for this transfer process to happen. You'll probably want to get ahold of uuencode and uudecode as well (it's a way of mangling/demangling binary files into alphanumeric only characters for transfer). So, the next step is whomever you are connecting with must give you permission to talk to their machine (i.e. contact the sysadm) and what you can do on it (request files, send files and transfer mail and transfer news only in the public directories are the usuals). Obviously the machine you want to connect to is on the net. Then, if your address looks like mine, you're what's known as "one hop away" from the net. Example: mike%delta1@rex.cs.tulane.edu This tells everyone and their dog to send the mail to rex.cs.tulane.edu. We've had a long relationship with their sysadm and he has graciously allowed an entry in their Systems file for us (meaning he lets their machine know about and talk to ours). Because the way the address is structured, the mailer "at" rex says 'okey-dokey send this stuff to "delta1"'. If it didn't know about "delta1", then the mail would be rejected (bounced) with 'I don't know this machine "delta1"'. But, it does, and so the mail goes to our machine, which knows about "mike" (or me) and I get my mail. Our machine, on the other hand, for outgoing mail knows that if it ain't connected (not in the Systems file) to the address in question, it just sends it along to rex to figure out. Get on a unix machine and try "man uucp" for the on-line docs (or read the docs for UUPC (<- note the spelling difference). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael King mike%delta1@rex.cs.tulane.edu Delta Systems New Orleans, LA 70002-4938 Voice: 504.837.9835 Fax: 504.837.9838 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- One in twelve people is mentally unstable. Think of your eleven closest friends; if they seem ok . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------