Chaos Corner V02 N10  24Nov92

Thanks to all who have written asking what has happened to Chaos
Corner... shall we just say that the past couple of months have been
hmmmm "interesting"  (you remember the old Chinese curse, right?).

------------------------------------------------------------
Correction of error on Address Resolver in N09

If you can still remember last issue, we managed to make an error in
entering the name of the address resolver available on the Internet.
The correct address is: resolve@cs.widener.edu

------------------------------------------------------------
Review/mention of pbm and sox

Paul Joslin suggests we mention the two utilities "pbm" - the "swiss
army knife" of Unix graphic utilities, and "sox" - a similar program but
for audio files (pun not intended, but we'll let it stand).  Of course,
to find the latest version of these programs ... check with your local
archie-server.  If you think you don't have a archie server, ask us
for the Internet Services List at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.


------------------------------------------------------------
On detecting VGA monitor type

Joe Ahlgren has the following to say about how a program detects the
type of monitor attached to the system on which it is running (PC):

There is a shareware program called "VGAKIT" which scans for the video
card type, and provides low level services such as read and write pixel
in 640x480x256 and higher video modes.  There is a sophisticated bank
switch routine included, which can be used to write higher level
graphics functions in a card-independent manner.  Your inquirer can get
a copy of VGAKIT50.ZIP from my BBS (703-241-7980) and many other
sources, or contact the author directly (John Bridges, CompuServe
75300,2137).

------------------------------------------------------------
Accessing the Mac software archive at U. Mich

Bob Blackmun had two comments on the item about accessing the Macintosh
software archive at the University of Michigan.

1) the *very best way* to access this wonderful mac archive is via AFS;
if you don't have AFS, you should! 2) I *did* experience some strange
problems retrieving the directory (that arrives in about 14
sub-sections) via my mac e-mail 'client' (Eudora); the problems appear
to be with the client rather than with the archive's mail-server.

------------------------------------------------------------
Any Lawyers out there?

Joe Morris was pleased when I told him of the popularity of his cheet
sheete ... and offers the following alternative (addition) to Dr. Chaos:

Speaking of Dr. Chaos, there's a similarly breeze column you might want
to read which covers the personal computer world...from the viewpoint of
the *user*, in a *law office*.  It's "Technology Update", which appears
in _Law_Office_Practice_, a publication of the American Bar Association.
The author is Burgess Allison, who is one of the engineers here at MITRE
(!).  You can get an idea of his attitude by noting that many of his
internal memos here are signed "Surly Ol' Burge (SOB)".  While it isn't
as technical in nature as Dr.  Chaos' column, it's a fun read with a
healthy dose of cynicism about the stupidities of the desktop system
vendors.

------------------------------------------------------------
PostScript program to plot Sierpinski's gasket

Have you ever wanted to plot Sierpinski's gasket on your local laser
printer (we certainly wouldn't recommend that you unleash this on
someone else's laser printer)?  Sierpinski's gasket, by the way, is the
fractal pattern built up out of successively smaller triangles, ...
maybe we will use it as the cover for this year's hardcopy version of
Chaos Corner ... in any case, we have a PostScript program that will
print the gasket on a PostScript (tm)-capable printer.  Let us know at
chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu if you would like a copy.

------------------------------------------------------------
PostScript printing of a Digital World

Patrick Dockhorn in Karlsruhe, Germany has contributed to the public
domain his C program to convert map files (MP1 format) from John
Allisons "The World Digitized" package into EPSF 2.0 PostScript files.
"The Digital World" data is evidently available from several servers
(check with archie for "worldmap") and the format of the data is
described in the header of the wmap2ps.c program.  Note, the program is
freeware (ask for it at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu) but the
data (if you find it valuable) is not ... but the shareware fee is $20
so it won't hurt you to repay someone for a lot of work.

------------------------------------------------------------
Keeping your Unix system intruder-free

The program Tripwire provides a framework to allow Unix Sysadmins the
ability to monitor changes to critical files and directories.  The
program was developed at Purdue University by Gene Kim as part of the
COAST Project (directed by Gene Spafford).  Copies of the program may be
found at ftp.cs.purdue.edu in the pub/spaf/COAST/Tripwire directory.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Looking for more TrueType fonts to add you your collection?

If you are looking for more TrueType fonts to add to your machine, look
no further than ftp.cica.indiana.edu ... in the directory with the path
of pub/pc/win3/fonts/truetype you will find fonts with such names as
GoodBadUgly, Barcode, Hebrew, Mapmaker, and many more.  Microsoft loves
this because it helps to make TrueType fonts more popular.

------------------------------------------------------------
Interested in the Windows API for Sockets?

A lot of information about Microsoft products is available on
CompuServe.  For those of you without CompuServe access, an alternative
for some of the information is to ftp to ftp.uu.net and look in the
vendor/microsoft directory for interesting information (for instance,
the compuserve-libs directory).  Apother directory contains a
Word-for-Windows document that describes the programming interface that
has been worked out to allow multiple Windows applications to use the
same TCP/IP stack.  Dr.  Chaos is eagerly awaiting software that
actually USES the interface and TCP/IP stacks that IMPLEMENT the calls.

------------------------------------------------------------
Running multiple Unix sessions over one telephone line

There is a server you can run on a Unix system that allows you to run a
program on a Macintosh, or DOS, or Windows systems to run multiple Unix
sessions at the same time.  Rather than re-enter all the information,
Dr. Chaos recommends that we just republish the information posted by
Ted Richards:

Unix Windows consists of two programs.  One is a server that runs on a
Unix system that you dial into, and the other is a front end that runs
on your home computer.  The combination lets you run up to seven
separate shell sessions (on the Unix machine) with each session being
displayed in a separate window on your home computer.  The programs
take care of multiplexing the separate communications streams through a
single modem connection.

There are at least four different front ends, all of which talk to the
same Unix server.  One is for the Mac, one is for the Amiga (neither
of which I know anything about, but check your standard FTP sites),
one is for Windows, and one for DOS.

The Unix server supports many nice features, such as background
downloads in a window while other things are being done in other
windows, automatic resizing of windows, displaying of strings in
the title bars of the windows, etc.  The different front ends support
these features to varying degrees.  The Mac version was written by the
person who wrote the Unix server, and so probably supports all of the
features.

UW-WIN is available as uwwin103.zip in pub/pc/win3/util on
    ftp.cica.indiana.edu.  You need to run a server on the Unix machine,
    see uwserver.zip in the same directory.  As far as I know, it is the
    same server as used for the Mac, and presumably Atari versions.
    UW-WIN is the shareware Windows version (but only $15, I think).
    Unfortunately, it does not support file transfers.  It displays each
    shell session in a separate Windows window.  You can move and resize
    each window independently (but if you try to change the window
    width, it crashes - you can change the height OK).

    It runs quite well under WIN-OS2, with one exception (besides the
    window width change problem) - it hangs my entire WIN-OS2 session
    if I try to reinitialize the modem, but I also have similar (or
    worse) problems with other Windows comms programs that others have
    used without problems, so I may have some strange hardware or
    configuration problems.

UW-PC is available on SIMTEL20 as UWPC201.ZIP in PD1:<MSDOS.MODEM>, or
    equivalently as uwpc201.zip in /pub/msdos/modem on oak.oakland.edu.
    This is the released DOS version (freeware).  It is somewhat more
    complete than UW-WIN, but can only display one window at a time (a
    key switches between windows).  It does supports file transfers in
    one window while you are doing other things in a different window.
    Again, you need the uwserver.zip file.  I think it's in the same
    directory.

------------------------------------------------------------
Need some clues for the Minesweeper game under Windows?

If, before you click on any squares, you enter "xyzzy" <enter>
<shift-enter> then it is reported that the pixel in the upper left
corner will change whenever you are over a "safe" square.  Depending on
your monitor, it may be hard enough to see that you can ignore the pixel
until you get into one of theose situations where you have to guess
which square the mine is under -- Dr. Chaos claims an easier way to a
high score is just to edit the high score that the game keeps in its INI
file.

------------------------------------------------------------
Want to have a REALLY big Windows Desktop?

A utility called bigdesk allows you to create a desktop that is nine
times the size of your screen.  The icon for the program give a very
reduced picture of the desktop, and clicking on a part of that view will
shift the focus of the screen to the part that you clicked on.  It's
really nice to work with, very intuitive, and it reportedly even works
with seamless Windows under OS/2!  That particular utility happens to be
mixed in with one or two other utilities in a ZIP file called
'menudesk.zip' .... you can either look for it using archie, or get it
from puffin.cit.cornell.edu (don't forget to used 'binary' when you
transfer the file).

------------------------------------------------------------
Problems with transferring files from Puffin

We have been using the 2.x version of QVTNET software on
puffin.cit.cornell.edu and it is clear that a number of you have been
encountering problems when attempting to do file transfers ... it
appears that that particular version gets confused about ftp port
numbers ... so Dr.  Chaos has to restart it every once in a while when
he notices that there have been problems.  In the mail file that Dr.
Chaos sends to new subscribers, he has started recommending that they
get back issues from pelican.cit.cornell.edu rather than
puffin.cit.cornell.edu because of exactly those stability issues.
However, since a number of you still seem to be using puffin, you might
be glad to know that over the Thanksgiving break, we will be switching
to the newer version ov QVTNET (version 3.03) in hopes of getting more
stability.  Wish us luck!

------------------------------------------------------------
Free software for AIX on RS/6000 that is already patched for AIX 3.x

While Dr. Chaos assumes that you already know about the AIX 3.x software
archive at aixpdslib.seas.ucla.edu, you may not know about the
additional or more recently updated packages at such less well-known
sites as straylight.acs.ncsu.edu (look in pub/rs6000) and also (across
the pond) at iacrs1.unibe.ch (University of Berne).  These archives take
a lot of work to maintain, so if you find something useful or that saves
you some time, spend just a little bit of that time to drop a note to
Marin Schuetz (schuetz@iacrs2.unibe.edu) or David Joyner
(david_joyner@ncsu.edu) ... it means so much to know that someone is out
there (especially when your boss asks why you spend so much time doing
this stuff, instead of your REAL job).

------------------------------------------------------------
It's now officially available - C-Kermit 5A

C-Kermit 5A is now avilable for Unix, VMS, OS/2, Amiga, Atari, and
others.  Lots of new features ... Dr. Chaos thinks that it basically
brings C-Kermit up to approximately the same feature set as PC-Kermit.
(It even works on OpenVMS running on the DEC Alpha chip.)  If you don't
want to mess with compiling it yourself (some do, some don't), the Unix
binaries for many systems are available from watsun.cc.columbia.edu
in the kermit/binary directory -- look for file names of the form
wermit.<system-name> (e.g. wermit.next).  The OS/2 version can be found
in the same place, with a name of ckoker32.exe for the 32-bit version
requiring OS/2 2.0, and ckoker16.exe for the 16-bit version that will
run on all releases of OS/2.  Dr Chaos did point out ot me that it might
be a good idea just to mention that kermit is the nearly "universal"
terminal emulator / file transfer package because (1) the price is right
and (2) it has implementations for almost every type of computer (see
(1)).

------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting X-Windows packages updated or recently available

Generally speaking, the packages mentioned below are available on
export.lcs.mit.edu in the contrib directory.

xtpanel

xtpanel provides a quick and easy way of producing a panel
containing interactive objects such as buttons, sliders, and text
fields, either from the command line or from an xtpanel script file.
Each panel object maintains a string representation of its value. When
the object is modified it updates its value and it can also perform an
action such as printing its value or calling a system command. Objects
can make use of the values of other objects in constructing their
actions, and they can set the values of other objects as the result of
an action. The result is an interactive X windows program, without the
need for conventional programming.

Xloadimage version 3.03 containing the following fixes/enhancements:

* JFIF-style JPEG images are now supported.
* Color PCX files are now supported.
* -zoom now works with 24-bit images.
* -rotate now works on all systems at all multiples of 90 degrees.
* A bug in root window handling for DEC and NCD servers has been
  fixed.
* A bug in -normalize has been fixed.
* Several bugs in -smooth have been fixed.
* Several bugs in -merge have been fixed.
* The man page now gives correct information on slideshows.

xfishtank has lots or pretty fish swim around on the background of your
screen (it's not just a screensaver -- there are bubbles and swimming
fish all the time -- a total of 29!).

A Motif-based ftp client named nxftp -- look for it on osl.csc.ncsu.edu
in the pub/ncsu_motif directory under the file name of nxftp.1.0.tar.Z.

Last but not least is the Pie Window Manager.  PieWM is built around the
fact that menus are much easier to use if they appear as "pies" that
pop-up around the cursor rather than dropping down -- each item
corresponds to a large slice shaped target area and the farther you move
the cursor, the larger target you have to hit.  Several study papers are
referenced.  All features of tvtwm are supported.  Get it from the
machine bongo.garnet.cs.cmu.edu in the pub directory stored as the file
piewm.tar.Z.

------------------------------------------------------------
From the Bookshelf

We recently completed reading _The Fifth Discipline_ (The Art and
Practice of The Learning Organization) by Peter M. Senge -- highly
recommended.  A two-page summary of the book was written by Dr. Chaos,
he liked it so much (if anyone would like to fund the lecture series...)
Another book you might find likeable is: _The Best of The Journal of
Irreproducible Results_ edited by Dr. George H. Scherr (it covers issues
from 1955 to 1983).  As a part of another project, we have been looking
for sources of cartoon-type lineart having to do with computers.  Dr.
Chaos finds it amazing that search as he might, he cannot find any such
books on the topic in the USA but managed to find many such books in
Germany (many of the pictures are good enough that it's not necessary to
translate the caption).  Any speculations about what that says about
German sense of humor (or sense of the absurd) as opposed to Americans?

------------------------------------------------------------
Needed: Single (inexpensive) console for multiple servers

Does anyone have a solution for the problem of how to have a single
ascii console (say, a VT-100) shared between a bunch of servers (say,
RS/6000s) so that the single console can be used for sysadmin tasks on
all the servers?  We have seen a configuration from BlackBox, that
almost allows such a configuration ... except that it is too smart and
"interprets" some of the VT-100 control codes which means that it is
impossible to run SMIT (the system management tool) throught that
interface.  Anyone know of another vendor/solution?

------------------------------------------------------------
Product of the month  IBM ThinkPad 700C

Looks like a wonderful laptop; 486, 10.5 inch active matrix COLOR
display; reasonable sized disk.  Now, if it only cost half as much...

To subscribe ... drop a note to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu

Dr. Chaos (I have a Master's Degree .... )

