.! .RNO file to produce Cover Letter for VAX / L&T SIG Tapes .! .! Notes to Librarians -- Search for VV to find areas which may need .! changing every six months. .! Put this .RNO file on the tape, as well as .! the output document. .! If Right Margin < 72, some lines may need .! adjusting; proofread! .! .NO FLAGS ALL .AUTOPARAGRAPH .! Every blank line begins a paragraph! .SET PARAGRAPH 0 .! No indenting .PAGE SIZE 58,80 .RIGHT MARGIN 80 .FIGURE 2 .! VVVV VVVV .CENTER;VAX/L&T SIGs Fall 1994 Tapes Initial Documentation .CENTER;-------------------------------------------------- .FIGURE 2 .CENTER;** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** Due to publicity about Trojan horse programs, computer viruses, and similar hazards, there may be increased risk that such code may have been submitted for the symposium tapes. Neither your librarian, DECUS, nor DEC has detailed knowledge of the programs herein. The risk of using code here is YOURS and you should consider yourself WARNED that you should test programs yourself to determine what risks they may pose. The cataloging process consists of assembling documentation and files into usable formats, but does NOT involve testing the programs. Your librarian makes use of many programs from symposium tapes, however, and none of this code contains any known problems. We ask that if you notice something suspicious about any DECUS program you attempt to help by reporting the problem to the DECUS office immediately and by diagnosing it as well as you can. In using this code, please be aware that privileged code may contain operating system version dependencies whose effects should be assessed before running it. The system crashes you avoid may be your own. .P .! VVVVVVVVVVVVVV The DECUS library may be contacted at (508) 841-3564. Please ask that .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV Ann Foley and Glenn Everhart (your librarian) be informed of the problems. (If possible, leave a phone number.) .P .! VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV You can reach your librarians (Glenn Everhart and Ted Nieland) at the addresses given at the end of this document, if you wish faster contact or have questions. Thank you. Our greatest security against this kind of nonsense is watching out for each other. .CENTER ________________________________________________________________________ .P .! VVV Directory [94BVMSLT] contains general documentation for this and previous tapes and an index. It is intended to replace previous distributions of [*VAXLT...] but there may be some older files you want to keep. The tapes are combined VAX SIG and L&T SIG tapes, to reduce duplication between .! VVV the two collections. The [94BVMSLT] directory is the master index directory for the entire set. .P .! VVVV VVV The top level description summary to the Fall '94 VMS/LT SIG tapes is contained .! VVVVVVVVVVV in ABSTRACT.TXT and VMSLT94BTPE.DOC in this directory. For a longer description see AAAREADME.*, the concatenated AAAREADME.TXT files from all submissions. AAAREADME.TXTs back through Spring 1979 are in subdirectory [.OLD_AAAREADME]. The tapes are in VMS Backup format in four savesets -- one for each directory .! VVV VVV VVV structure [94BVMSLT...], [DECUSLIB...], [VAX94B...], and [LT94B...]. .! VVV VVVV The index saveset 94BVMSLT contains around 17500 blocks. .! VVVV The machine-readable DECUS Library catalog DECUSLIB contains about 6100 blocks. .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV The VMS and L&T collections for Fall 1994 each contain around 260,000 blocks. .P .! VVVV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV Distribution on TK50 requires four cartridges. The first pair contains savesets .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV 94BVMSLT, DECUSLIB, and VAX94B, and the second pair contains savesets 94BVMSLT .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV and LT94B. One 8mm or 4mm cartridge will hold all four savesets. .P .! VVV Distribution on nine-track tapes at 6250 BPI requires two reels. No reasonable .! VVV amount of compression would force a fit on one reel. Hence the material is .! VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV split into two parts, the first being primarily the "VAX" part of the set and .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV the second being primarily the "L&T" part of the set. They are a single large collection, but are split for convenience in ordering from the DECUS Library. .! VVVVVVVVVVV TK70 distribution is also on two cartridges. Some files have been compressed. Tools for decompressing files are found in .!VV [94BVMSLT.TOOLS...]; the AAAREADME files in that area tell how to use them. .! VVV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV Also, procedure [94BVMSLT]DECOMPRESS_ALL.COM contains commands to decompress all compressed parts of the entire collection. Compression was done using Gnu COMPRESS, ZIP, ZOO, and LHARC, all of which function also on other machines than VAXen (including Unix boxes, PCs, and Amigas). Where VMS Backup savesets were compressed, the filenames encode the block sizes so that a file xx.BCK_8192_Z needs to be decompressed via .FIGURE 1 .INDENT 8;$ COMPRESS -D xx.BCK_8192 .FIGURE 1 and subsequently be turned into fixed record length 8192 bytes per record with a command to the FILE utility like: .FIGURE 1 .INDENT 8;$ FILE /TYPE=FIXED /RECORD=8192 /ATTR=NOIMPLIEDCC xx.BCK_8192 .FIGURE 1 At this point, xx.BCK_8192 is a normal VMS Backup saveset. See the files COMPRESSIONS.TXT and DECOMPRESS_ALL.COM for further information on decompressing files. Some files are given extensions like .TAR_LZW or .TAR_Z or .TAZ. These are gen- erally images of compressed TAR savesets from Unix systems. (That is, WE don't make these; they are made on unix systems.) Use the COMPRESS utility to convert to tar files, then use TARREAD23A to pull the tar files apart. The commands are something like .FIGURE 1 .LITERAL $ COMPRESS -D xx.TAR ! where filename must originally be xx.TAR_Z; ! rename it to this if necessary. $ ASSIGN xx.TAR TAPE: $ TARREAD23A XV .END LITERAL .FIGURE 1 to extract everything into the CURRENT directory, Define the TARREAD23A verb to run that image as a foreign command (e.g. $ tarread23a:==$tarread23a if TARREAD23A.EXE is in SYS$SYSTEM.) You will run accross .ZIP, .ARC or .ZOO or .LZH files on some directories. For those of you not familiar with these, they are excellent file compression and archiving programs that are widely used in the microcomputer world for distributing programs via floppy and bulletin boards. You can use [.TOOLS]VMSSWEEP (or ARC in the same directory) to read ARC files on a VAX, or ZOO to read ZOO files on a VAX. ZOO files MUST be in STREAM_LF format to be read by VMS ZOO, but should be converted to fixed 512 bytes, no carriage control to transfer to a PC. Your librarians leave the ZOO files in format suitable for extraction on VMS. The .LZH files are produced and decoded by the LHARC utility, which is similar to ZOO but does a better job of compression. LHARC files produced on VMS are left in a suitable form for decompression on VMS; like ZOO files, they need to be in STREAM_LF format for this to be done. In the Fall 1991 time, a "high performance" compression was added to ZOO, so that it again has better compression than .! VVVV VVVV LHARC. The Fall 1994 tape contains sources and executables for the new ZOO. All areas have ONE AAAREADME.TXT (and possibly many *.DOC or *.1ST or *.MEM or *.TXT or *READ*.*). The AAAREADME.TXT's are usually short enough to help you find a program without being cluttered up with how to install or how to use the software. If you are making up a submission for the next tape you can make it easier for us to put the tape together if you follow this convention. Most compressed files are in ZIP format, and you use the UNZIP image to decompress them. This will restore file attributes correctly as well as decompress. A REQUEST: We have gone to considerable effort to put this software collection together and to have its indices refer to the collection. Partial copies or added-to copies create confusion and extra work for us when we get calls asking about a part of the tape, and they diminish the integrity of the path of the collection from the submitters to the ultimate users. Therefore we ask that you distribute the collection whole and not split it up in ways that would encourage partial copies. This will make our lives easier and preserve the value of these software collections. Thank you. The librarians responsible for the creation of this tape are: .FIGURE 1 .!VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV TO END OF DOCUMENT VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV .LITERAL Glenn C. Everhart VAX SIG librarian [ Preferred mailing address: Glenn Everhart Everhart@Arisia.GCE.Com 25 Sleigh Ride Rd Glen Mills, PA 19342 (610)358-5875 and: (610) 358-3866 ] Ted Nieland L&T SIG Librarian HCST, INC. NIELAND@TED.HCST.COM PO BOX 31767 (513) 476-4639 (work) (513) 426-3235 (home) Dayton, Ohio 45431-0767 .END LITERAL