The following is a copy of the faculty-wide email to announce the completion of the project.
Faculty of Informatics University of Wollongong Dear all, Dec. 8, 1994 Hope this is a right time to bother you all with this moderately long EMail. My apologies if you are happy with your current computer setup (local and network) and hence have no interest in the following. BTW, best of luck and all good wishes for the Festive season. LAST YEAR --------- A year ago, I posted a faculty-wide mail announcing a complete installation (and user support and maintenance) of a fully integrated typesetting(TeX/LaTeX)/database/graphics/font-generator/ drivers/viewers/utilities/....... All programs used were freeware with desired features such as 32-bit codes, cross-platform, programmable, portable, ... The main items of the system in general and the typesetting program in particular has become a lingua franca of the scientific world. It is widely used to communicate information electronically around the world. Since then, I've upgraded few codes and added new features. If you interested, or if you are not quite happy with your current setup (IBM-PC/MAC, commercial or otherwise), please feel free to come along and see how the system may accommodate your needs. THIS YEAR --------- The so called "WWW" seems to be a new glamour in Internet. Being disappointed to see a working MOSAIC client for UNIX, (under XWin environment) I decided to switch to MS-Windows. We are using PC-NFS software (allows us to use resources on the network ) along with XVISION program that allows to run XWin-based programs on IBM-PC. The bad news for MS-DOS applications users is that these two programs need about 200kbyte of conventional memory. This leaves a PC in virtual dead zone. To run MOSAIC on MS_Windows I needed "Winsock.DLL" not existent in my old PC-NFS program. I used our newly purchased PC-NFS Ver5.1, to make the MOSAIC up and running. However, it seems that the new version of NFS doesn't like the old version of XVISION!! The choice was pushing for purchase of an upgraded XVISION or giving them up altogether. I went for the latter, decided to try available shareware ($10 to $20) winsock products. The set up uses Trumpet_Winsock: a quality networking software, developed in Australia (Univ of Tasmania) and a packet driver that provides a standard interface which many programs can use. Having interface program installed, then a wide variety of winsock products (all shareware) can be used with no headache. I am pleased to inform all of you that so far I've installed and operated the following programs on my PC-486, using just about 17k of conventional memory. 1) Standard NCSA-MOSAIC and NETSCAPE: both allowing to sample the intrigues of the WWW, 2) XWin program: let you to emulate XWindows environment on your IBM-PC monitor, 3) WINTEL program: a terminal emulation protocol that allows you to log into other computers (say wumpus, and so forth) 4) WSFTP program: a menu driven (excellent!!) file transfer program. 5) USENET and EMAIL: old stuff ..... As you might have already experienced, a proper use of W cubed (Web) would require a properly installed set of drivers, viewers, etc. 5) WinGif, Lview and VPIC programs: for viewing almost every thing, 6) WinGS: for viewing and manipulating Postscript files, 7) Wham: a sound driver, 8) Mpegplay: a movie driver, 9) Wlprspl: a Postscript Printer spooling program, 10) ......................... Perhaps the most difficult part of tackling a freeware/sahreware package is its installation and putting together its documentation. I maintain an archive of their relevant documentations (hard and/or soft copy) for local use. If you are interested in seeing how a noncommercial, working set of winsock products is operating please don't hesitate to come along and see it for yourself. Meanwhile, any queries on the programs mentioned here are most welcome. ======================== Parviz Doulai Dept of Elec & Comp Eng Room 35 G32 (EXT: 3404) parviz@elec.uow.edu.au =========================
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