VAX / L&T SIGs Spring 1990 Tapes Initial Documentation ** 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. The DECUS library may be contacted at 508-480-3418. Please ask that Marilyn Rosenberg, Betty Cadieux, and Glenn Everhart (your librarian) be informed of the problems. (If possible, leave a phone number.) You can reach your librarian (Glenn Everhart) on Internet at the network address Everhart%Arisia.decnet@CRD.GE.Com You can reach your other librarian (Ted Nieland) on Internet at the address Ted@Nieland.dayton.oh.us if you wish faster contact or have questions. Thank you. Our greatest security against this kind of nonsense is watching out for each other. ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** This directory contains general documentation for this and previous tapes and an index. It is intended to replace previous distributions of [VAX000...] but there may be some older files you want to keep. The tapes this time are combined VAX SIG and L&T SIG tapes, to reduce duplications between the two collections. The 89BVAXLT directory is the master index directory for the entire set. The top level description summary to the Spring '90 VAX/LT SIG tapes is contained in ABSTRACT.TXT and VAXLT90ATPE.DOC in this directory. For a longer description see AAAREADME.*, the concatenated AAAREADME.TXT files from the respective submissions. AAAREADME.TXT's back through the Spring 1979 tape are in a sub-directory [.OLD_AAAREADME]. The tapes are in VMS Backup format in four save-sets - one each for [90AVAXLT...], [LT90A...], [VAX90A...], and [DECUSLIB...]. The first is the index saveset, comprising around 7400 blocks. The others are the DECUS library catalog in machine readable format ([DECUSLIB...]) and the two parts of the VAX/L&T collection for Fall 1989. These are each around 140,000 blocks long and will fit on TK50 or (barely) together on one reel of tape at 6250 BPI. They didn't break down well into 60K block pieces which would have been needed to make them fit one saveset per 1600 BPI tape, but due to the increasing prevalence of 6250 tape, the breakdown was changed this time. Distribution requires two TK50 cartridges. The first will contain the savesets: 90AVAXLT, DECUSLIB, VAX90A The second will contain saveset: LT90A The entire collection fits (with large block sizes, and barely) on a single reel of tape at 6250 BPI density. Because of the large volume of excellent submissions, it was impossible to fit the collection onto smaller media. Some files are compressed this time, due to the difficulty such compression created. However, the LZDCM and LZCMP files are located with their sources in the [90AVAXLT.TOOLS...] directory. This directory also contains VMS versions of the ARC and ZOO archiving programs (compatible with their PC counterparts), and TAR format reader/writer programs, so that all programs needed to decompose compressed programs are present. These require no privilege to run, and work fine on VMS 4.x. They are believed to work on VMS 5.x also, but some recompilation or relinking could be required. Any files of type .ARC or .ZOO can be read by ARC.EXE or ZOO.EXE respectively. The commands ARC -h or ZOO h will type built-in help messages for those programs (defined as foreign commands). See file Compressions.Txt and Decompress_all.com for further information on unpacking compressed files here. Wherever you find a file of type .*_LZW (usually THIS_DIR.BCK_LZW) it is compressed with LZCMP. Decompress it with LZDCM by a command like $ lzdcm:==${some directory and device}LZDCMP $ LZDCM this_dir.BCK_LZW this_dir.BCK The result will be a decompressed file, generally a VMS Backup saveset. Use Backup to pull this apart to original files. Some compression was necessary to make the 3 tape set fit on a TK50. LZDCMP.EXE may be found in [.TOOLS]. Some files are given extensions like .TAR_LZW or .TAR_Z or .TAZ. These are generally images of compressed TAR savesets from Unix systems. (That is, WE don't make these; they are made on unix systems.) Use the LZDCMP utility to convert to tar files, then use TARREAD23A to pull the tar files apart. The commands are something like $lzdcm -b file.tar_lzw file.tar $assign file.tar tape: $tarread23a xv to extract everything into the CURRENT directory. Define the tarread23a verb to run that image as a foreign command (e.g. tarread23a:==$tarread23a with tarread23a.exe in sys$system.) You will run accross .ARC or .ZOO 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. All areas have ONE AAAREADME.TXT (and possibly many something.DOC or something.1ST or something .MEM or something_else.TXT or *READ*.something). This is so the AAAREADME.TXT's will be 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 will follow this convention. Be sure and look through the tapes for all backup sets present. This tape was put together from submissions at the Fall 1989 DECUS Symposium, Anaheim, California, by Glenn C. Everhart VAX SIG librarian GE Aerospace Technology Operations GE Bldg. 100, Room U3040 230 Goddard Blvd. King of Prussia, PA 19406 215 354 7610 Everhart@Arisia.dnet.GE.com (Preferred mailing address: Glenn Everhart 25 Sleigh Ride Rd Glen Mills, PA 19342 215 358 3866) and Ted Nieland L&T SIG Librarian 4498 Stonecastle Drive #207 Dayton, Ohio 45440 513 427 6355 (work) 513 426 3235 (home) Ted@Nieland.Dayton.Oh.US with the able assistance of various volunteers. Al Zirkle, Dave Schmidt, Marilyn Fedele, Jim Neeland, Tony Scandora, and Barton Bruce deserve mention for this tape.