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Archive-Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:11:56 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990203172442.382f10bc@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 17:24:42
To: AstroTek <imolnar@profis.hu>
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Free VMS project
CC: free-vms@lp.se
In-Reply-To: <36B86CE9.FC270356@profis.hu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Imre,
Quite a few people participate in the mailing list. However, at present, to
my knowledge, no one is doing any actual work.
I've been trying to get folks to start working on freeware versions of some
of the command programs. You can find a program list, pointers to
documentation and other info. at these URLs:
http://www.free-vms.org/
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/freevms/
At 04:36 PM 2/3/99 +0100, you wrote:
>Does anyone work on to carry out the
>Free VMS ?
>
>Imre Molnar
>
>
>
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 04:25:57 +0100
Message-ID: <36B91443.EAD0FBFB@erols.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 22:30:11 -0500
From: CT Chase <ctchase@erols.com>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Need help with hardware login on VS4000-60
References: <3.0.3.16.19990203172442.382f10bc@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
If anyone knows how to reset the hardware( boot login) password on a VaxStation
4000-60 I would appreciate heariung from them. I have media and Hobbyist
license so once I can get this up and running I can starting doing real
programming. I found a source for VS4000-60s with varying hardware for
$150-200(just the box, no monitor) and I also picked up a VAX 4000-300 which I
had intended to bring up after I had booted the VaxStation. So much for
starting with the easy things first.
Neil Chase
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 07:18:07 +0100
Message-ID: <8C090F40DD50D211B9C70000F8307F261D3CBD@FNOEXC1>
From: Teijo Forsell <Teijo.Forsell@digital.com>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: "'Free-VMS@lp.se'" <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: RE: Need help with hardware login on VS4000-60
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 06:17:59 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
This is from a public DSN-article:
If the password is lost or forgotten, it can be cleared by following =
this
procedure:
1. turn power off =09
2. locate two solder triangles near the TOY chip (alarm clock is =
painted on
the chip).
3. Using a screwdriver, briefly ground the two triangles together.
Front
=B7-------------------------=B7
|------------- |
|------------- |
|------------- |
|------------- |
| |
| =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D |
| [TOY] |
| [E38] |
| A A <-------- two triangle etch pads
| |
| |
=B7-----------II-IIIIII-IIII=B7
Rear
Regards,
Teijo
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 01:40:55 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990204182336.3f4701ce@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 18:23:36
To: free-vms@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Free VMS project
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Sender: imolnar@profis.hu
>Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 09:41:05 +0100
>From: AstroTek <imolnar@profis.hu>
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.35 i686)
>X-Accept-Language: en, hu
>To: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: Free VMS project
>
>"David J. Dachtera" wrote:
>
>> Imre,
>>
>> Quite a few people participate in the mailing list. However, at present, to
>> my knowledge, no one is doing any actual work.
>>
>> I've been trying to get folks to start working on freeware versions of some
>> of the command programs. You can find a program list, pointers to
>> documentation and other info. at these URLs:
>>
>> http://www.free-vms.org/
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/freevms/
>>
>
>I`ve seen that pages, but I don`t see any progress.
>I`d love to volunteer to develop the os. I`ve lack of
>knowledge programming in C, but I try to do of my best.
>I worked as amateur sysman for five years.
>
>Imre
>
>
>
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 03:58:27 +0100
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 21:57:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free VMS Group <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: Password Generator
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990208214313.1396A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hey, everyone:
I've written a small password generator, pwdgen. It does not try to
emulate the VMS password generator at all, just generate passwords.
It could be adapted to act like the VMS password generator -- (I would
do this if I had a VMS box or shell (*hint*) :) )
It generates passwords in this form:
<consonant> <vowel> <consonant> <number> <symbol>
<consonant> <vowel> <consonant>
Numbers will occasinoally (6.25% of the time) be replaced
by letters and vice versa (using numbers which look vaguely
like letters, 'o' --> 0, 'l' --> 1, 'a' ---> 4, etc)
Case is random.
A few examples:
fyt%5POp
bel1=FEt
FYM09ciq
Occasionally, parts of the end of the password are cut
off.
For best results, run generator several times and pick
the one that is
(a) most secure
and
(b) easiest to remember.
WARNING:
I take no responsibility if the generator
happens to spit out something vulgar.
[the BOFH* reads VMS BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL'S MANUAL -- perhaps
something Richard wrote? :-)] I'm reading the article I sent in about
getting rid of those trouble users... "... Modify the user's password
minimum from 6 to 32 letters, give the password a 1 day lifetime, set
it so that they HAVE to use the password generate utility when they
change their password (so their password will always be something that
looks like vaguely pronouncable line-noise) ... I like it.
You can download gzip'd C source code from:
ftp://146.115.234.58/pub/Misc/Passwords/pwdgen.c.gz
(470 bytes).
If this server is down, try again in 2 minutes. (Don't ask).
* ftp://146.115.234.58/pub/Text/Humor/bofh
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
*** REST IN PEACE KING HUSSEIN ***
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 18:27:02 +0100
Message-ID: <36C070C0.59A3B72E@srv.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 10:30:40 -0700
From: Kevin Handy <kth@srv.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Password Generator
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990208214313.1396A-100000@merlin>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Noah Paul wrote:
>
> Hey, everyone:
>
> I've written a small password generator, pwdgen. It does not try to
> emulate the VMS password generator at all, just generate passwords.
> It could be adapted to act like the VMS password generator -- (I would
> do this if I had a VMS box or shell (*hint*) :) )
>
> It generates passwords in this form:
>
> <consonant> <vowel> <consonant> <number> <symbol>
> <consonant> <vowel> <consonant>
>
> Numbers will occasinoally (6.25% of the time) be replaced
> by letters and vice versa (using numbers which look vaguely
> like letters, 'o' --> 0, 'l' --> 1, 'a' ---> 4, etc)
>
> Case is random.
>
> A few examples:
>
> fyt%5POp
> bel1=FEt
> FYM09ciq
Just for your notes, and maybe to give you something to play with:
VMS passwords are case insensitive, can contain letters/numbers
and the characters '$' and '_' (unless this has been changed
since version 5.5). (EgGbErT and eggBERT are considered the same)
The VMS password generator also makes passwords that are
pronounceable, and up to 12 characters long. It will look
at the minimum password length set for the system.
I believe that is has a 'dictionary' of
syllables that it combines to generate the password.
For example, running 'set pass/generate' om my system (twice)
gives me the following possibilities
osumytuk o-su-my-tuk
beekduaf beek-du-af
huawdnam hu-awd-nam
anirax a-ni-rax
gawsurp gaw-surp
asdrat as-drat
oymnohai oym-no-hai
auplab aup-lab
pacshi pac-shi
agnapkur ag-nap-kur
(Yes, it does gives the pronounciation key on the right)
The generated passwords are alphabetic, and pronouncable so
that they are easier to remember than random characters.
>
> Occasionally, parts of the end of the password are cut
> off.
>
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 19:01:31 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:37:56 -0600
Message-ID: <00005531.C21492@advocatehealth.com>
From: David.Dachtera@advocatehealth.com (David Dachtera)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Password Generator
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
Maybe this could be modified to not insert "illegal"
characters (per VMS rules for passwords and such). I
didn't find any specific documentation on what is legal
and what is not; however, the Guide To System Security
seems to suggest (by example) that passwords have the
same limitations as filenames: A thru Z, 0 through 9,
plus "$", "_" and "-". Characters such as "%" and "&"
return an error, "%SET-F-PWDSYNTAX, illegal password
syntax" when I try to use them on OpenVMS-VAX V6.2.
VMS Passwords are not case sensitive or case preserving.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Password Generator
Author: Free-VMS@lp.se at PO_EXTERNET
Date: 2/8/99 8:57 PM
Hey, everyone:
I've written a small password generator, pwdgen. It does not try to
emulate the VMS password generator at all, just generate passwords.
It could be adapted to act like the VMS password generator -- (I would
do this if I had a VMS box or shell (*hint*) :) )
It generates passwords in this form:
<consonant> <vowel> <consonant> <number> <symbol>
<consonant> <vowel> <consonant>
Numbers will occasinoally (6.25% of the time) be replaced
by letters and vice versa (using numbers which look vaguely
like letters, 'o' --> 0, 'l' --> 1, 'a' ---> 4, etc)
Case is random.
A few examples:
fyt%5POp
bel1=FEt
FYM09ciq
Occasionally, parts of the end of the password are cut
off.
For best results, run generator several times and pick
the one that is
(a) most secure
and
(b) easiest to remember.
WARNING:
I take no responsibility if the generator
happens to spit out something vulgar.
[the BOFH* reads VMS BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL'S MANUAL -- perhaps
something Richard wrote? :-)] I'm reading the article I sent in about
getting rid of those trouble users... "... Modify the user's password
minimum from 6 to 32 letters, give the password a 1 day lifetime, set
it so that they HAVE to use the password generate utility when they
change their password (so their password will always be something that
looks like vaguely pronouncable line-noise) ... I like it.
You can download gzip'd C source code from:
ftp://146.115.234.58/pub/Misc/Passwords/pwdgen.c.gz
(470 bytes).
If this server is down, try again in 2 minutes. (Don't ask).
* ftp://146.115.234.58/pub/Text/Humor/bofh
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
*** REST IN PEACE KING HUSSEIN ***
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 19:30:31 +0100
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:30:14 -0500 (EST)
From: Jerrold Leichter <leichter@smarts.com>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
CC: Free VMS Group <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: Re: Password Generator
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990208214313.1396A-100000@merlin>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9902091310050.3992-100000@just>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sorry, but this is not a particularly useful code for any VMS system. It
*may* be just barely useful on some Linux systems.
If you look at the code, it uses one of two sources of random numbers: If
fopen("/dev/urandom","r") succeeds, it reads four bytes from the file and uses
them as a random seed. Otherwise, it uses the current time of day as a random
seed; uses random() to generate one random value; then uses that value as the
random seed.
There are many problems with this. Taking the latter approach first - since
it will be used on any VMS system, and even on most Unix systems, /dev/urandom
not being a standard "device": There is very little randomness in the Unix
time of day. The value is in seconds. Suppose I knew that you changed
selected your password within the last month using this program. There are
60*60*24*31 = 2,678,400 seconds in a month, hence time() returned one of those
values when you ran the program. I can easily compute those values, and use
them to drive the program to generate every password you could have selected.
For a human being, that's many passwords; for a program, it's a shorter list
than many programs have to deal with.
In practice, I may very well know you ran the program within a particular
10-minute interval - I might see its name in a SHOW SYSTEM output, for
example. Then I only have to try 600 starting points.
Beyond that, random() is a poor random number generator, and its bottom bits -
which the program relies on - are particulary bad.
Even on a system with a /dev/urandom that returns "good" random bits, there
only 2^32 possible starting values - hence only 2^32 possible passwords. This
again is a big number by human standards - but a manageable one by computer
standards. There are way more than that many 6-character legal VMS passwords!
Further, even if there's a /dev/urandom that's good as a source of random
numbers, that's not enough to guarantee it's good for this purpose: Perhaps
if I can arrange to sample /dev/urandom repeatedly while you are setting your
password I am likely to get a value highly correlated with the one you get.
Finally, if I can somehow create a /dev/urandom (or, on VMS, a [DEV]URANDOM)
file, I can *determine* what "random number" anyone running this program will
get. Then, of course, everything's really easy.
The VMS password generator algorithm goes to a great deal of trouble to avoid
these kinds of pitfalls. It gets random bits from a number of different
sources, including some that cannot be observed by a non-privileged user.
It gets enough random bits to make guessing them as hard as guessing the
passwords themselves. And it eliminates or hides any correlation between the
random passwords generated for multiple users running the password generator
at the same time.
Just because something looks simple on the surface doesn't mean it's not doing
something sophisticated underneath! This is *especially* true for software
that has something to do with security. Such software must be developed with
great care - and an understanding of the theory involved, not just the surface
appearance.
-- Jerry
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 20:27:36 +0100
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 20:26:55 CET
From: Jerzy Michal Pawlak <pawlak@hozavx.fuw.edu.pl>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
CC: pawlak@hozavx.fuw.edu.pl
Message-ID: <009D37F2.FF9D86A0.3@hozavx.fuw.edu.pl>
Subject: Re: Password Generator
> WARNING:
> I take no responsibility if the generator
> happens to spit out something vulgar.
I heard a legend, that VMS password generator checks generated
passwords against a list of abusive words in several languages...
Does anybody know if this is true? To my knowledge nobody has ever
found that list in the system (could be very interesting reading :-),
so it is there, it must be scrambled in some way...
Anyhow, I don't see that we need to emulate that behaviour, at least
not in the first version of Free-VMS :-)
JMP
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 20:32:35 +0100
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 14:32:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Jerrold Leichter <leichter@smarts.com>
CC: Free VMS Group <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: Re: Password Generator
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9902091310050.3992-100000@just>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990209142538.3645A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I'm just an amateur ...
This is mainly something to play wit, not a serious attempt ..
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Jerrold Leichter wrote:
>Sorry, but this is not a particularly useful code for any VMS system. It
>*may* be just barely useful on some Linux systems.
>
>If you look at the code, it uses one of two sources of random numbers: If
>fopen("/dev/urandom","r") succeeds, it reads four bytes from the file and uses
>them as a random seed. Otherwise, it uses the current time of day as a random
>seed; uses random() to generate one random value; then uses that value as the
>random seed.
>
>There are many problems with this. Taking the latter approach first - since
>it will be used on any VMS system, and even on most Unix systems, /dev/urandom
>not being a standard "device": There is very little randomness in the Unix
>time of day. The value is in seconds. Suppose I knew that you changed
>selected your password within the last month using this program. There are
>60*60*24*31 = 2,678,400 seconds in a month, hence time() returned one of those
>values when you ran the program. I can easily compute those values, and use
>them to drive the program to generate every password you could have selected.
>For a human being, that's many passwords; for a program, it's a shorter list
>than many programs have to deal with.
>
Yes. I know that. Perhaps you'd like to show me a better
portable way of a portable random number generator?
>
>In practice, I may very well know you ran the program within a particular
>10-minute interval - I might see its name in a SHOW SYSTEM output, for
>example. Then I only have to try 600 starting points.
>
>
>Beyond that, random() is a poor random number generator, and its bottom bits -
>which the program relies on - are particulary bad.
>
Perhaps you'd like to write your own ...
>
>Even on a system with a /dev/urandom that returns "good" random bits, there
>only 2^32 possible starting values - hence only 2^32 possible passwords. This
>again is a big number by human standards - but a manageable one by computer
>standards. There are way more than that many 6-character legal VMS
passwords.
Some statistics ...
Size of a file with all those keys is 32 gigabytes.
If a program could crack a key a millisecond, that's
4 years to crack an average password.
>
>Further, even if there's a /dev/urandom that's good as a source of random
>numbers, that's not enough to guarantee it's good for this purpose: Perhaps
>if I can arrange to sample /dev/urandom repeatedly while you are setting your
>password I am likely to get a value highly correlated with the one you get.
>
If you're so paranpoid, check & compile the kernel,
recreate the device.
>
>Finally, if I can somehow create a /dev/urandom (or, on VMS, a [DEV]URANDOM)
>file, I can *determine* what "random number" anyone running this program will
>get. Then, of course, everything's really easy.
>
>The VMS password generator algorithm goes to a great deal of trouble to avoid
>these kinds of pitfalls. It gets random bits from a number of different
>sources, including some that cannot be observed by a non-privileged user.
>It gets enough random bits to make guessing them as hard as guessing the
>passwords themselves. And it eliminates or hides any correlation between the
>random passwords generated for multiple users running the password generator
>at the same time.
>
>Just because something looks simple on the surface doesn't mean it's not doing
>something sophisticated underneath! This is *especially* true for software
>that has something to do with security. Such software must be developed with
>great care - and an understanding of the theory involved, not just the surface
>appearance.
> -- Jerry
>
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 20:51:20 +0100
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 11:51:00 -1300
From: "Fred W. Bach, TRIUMF Operations" <music@triumf.ca>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
CC: music@triumf.ca
Message-ID: <009D37AA.ED1290AE.56@triumf.ca>
Subject: Password characters
> Subject:
> Re: Password Generator
> Date:
> Tue, 9 Feb 1999 13:37:56 -0600
> From:
> David.Dachtera@advocatehealth.com (David Dachtera)
>Reply-To:
> Free-VMS@lp.se
> To:
> Free-VMS@lp.se
>
>
> Maybe this could be modified to not insert "illegal"
> characters (per VMS rules for passwords and such). I
> didn't find any specific documentation on what is legal
> and what is not; however, the Guide To System Security
> seems to suggest (by example) that passwords have the
> same limitations as filenames: A thru Z, 0 through 9,
> plus "$", "_" and "-". Characters such as "%" and "&"
> return an error, "%SET-F-PWDSYNTAX, illegal password
> syntax" when I try to use them on OpenVMS-VAX V6.2.
>
> VMS Passwords are not case sensitive or case preserving.
>
You didn't mention the space character. At one time I used VMS
passwords WITH SPACES.
This worked just fine at interactive login time, but it totally
confused the node"username password"::disk:[directory] construct.
Fred W. Bach , Operations Group | Internet: music@triumf.ca
TRIUMF (Canada's National Meson Lab.) | Voice: 604-222-1047 loc 6278/6327
4004 WESBROOK MALL, UBC CAMPUS | FAX: 604-222-1074
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., CANADA V6T 2A3
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 23:19:51 +0100
Message-ID: <36C0B71A.2D61EF49@srv.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 15:30:50 -0700
From: Kevin Handy <kth@srv.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
CC: music@triumf.ca
Subject: Re: Password characters
References: <009D37AA.ED1290AE.56@triumf.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Fred W. Bach, TRIUMF Operations wrote:
> You didn't mention the space character. At one time I used VMS
> passwords WITH SPACES.
>
> This worked just fine at interactive login time, but it totally
> confused the node"username password"::disk:[directory] construct.
Spaces (at least on my VMS 5.5 system) are ignored. I just logged into
my account by putting spaces between each letter of the password, and
it promptly logged me in.
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 23:29:11 +0100
Message-ID: <36C0B986.34BA78FD@srv.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 15:41:10 -0700
From: Kevin Handy <kth@srv.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
CC: pawlak@hozavx.fuw.edu.pl
Subject: Re: Password Generator
References: <009D37F2.FF9D86A0.3@hozavx.fuw.edu.pl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Jerzy Michal Pawlak wrote:
>
> > WARNING:
> > I take no responsibility if the generator
> > happens to spit out something vulgar.
>
> I heard a legend, that VMS password generator checks generated
> passwords against a list of abusive words in several languages...
> Does anybody know if this is true? To my knowledge nobody has ever
> found that list in the system (could be very interesting reading :-),
> so it is there, it must be scrambled in some way...
>
> Anyhow, I don't see that we need to emulate that behaviour, at least
> not in the first version of Free-VMS :-)
>
> JMP
On my system, there is a file
sys$library:vms$password_dictionary.data
that contains a lot of words, which I believe it matches against
(yes it even contains "dirty" words, as well as "clean" ones,
I just checked :-). This is used to eliminate common words from
the generated passwords (I think).
To emulate this behaviour under Linux/Unix, you could match
the possible password against the system "dictionaries"
in "/usr/dict".
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 23:51:10 +0100
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 14:51:02 -1300
From: "Fred W. Bach, TRIUMF Operations" <music@triumf.ca>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
CC: music@triumf.ca
Message-ID: <009D37C4.136D19FE.181@triumf.ca>
Subject: Re: Password characters
>Message-ID: <36C0B71A.2D61EF49@srv.net>
>Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 15:30:50 -0700
>From: Kevin Handy <kth@srv.net>
>To: Free-VMS@lp.se
>Subject: Re: Password characters
>References: <009D37AA.ED1290AE.56@triumf.ca>
>Fred W. Bach, TRIUMF Operations wrote:
>
>> You didn't mention the space character. At one time I used VMS
>> passwords WITH SPACES.
>>
>> This worked just fine at interactive login time, but it totally
>> confused the node"username password"::disk:[directory] construct.
>
>Spaces (at least on my VMS 5.5 system) are ignored. I just logged into
>my account by putting spaces between each letter of the password, and
>it promptly logged me in.
Regrettably, I don't have an old legacy system on which to test it.
It was pretty early - before 5.5 I think.
As I recall, I actually tested the password *without* the space
while trying to log on interactively. My recollection is that the
space was necessary and that the password without the space did not
work.
I suppose it doesn't matter any more.
Fred W. Bach , Operations Group | Internet: music@triumf.ca
TRIUMF (Canada's National Meson Lab.) | Voice: 604-222-1047 loc 6278/6327
4004 WESBROOK MALL, UBC CAMPUS | FAX: 604-222-1074
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., CANADA V6T 2A3
"Accuracy is important. Details can mean the difference between life & death."
These are my opinions, which should ONLY make you read, think, and question.
They do NOT necessarily reflect the views of my employer or fellow workers.
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 19:11:01 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 13:57:56 -0600
Message-ID: <0000843B.C21492@advocatehealth.com>
From: David.Dachtera@advocatehealth.com (David Dachtera)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Free VMS project plans
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
Hi, Folks...
Just sitting here wishing I was a kernel hacker. Most of
this is just thinking "out loud"(?) because this list has
fallen silent again.
Why do I wish to be a kernel hacker?
Well, remember when we had all that trouble with Jon
Powers of Sector/7? He made mention of having a project
plan - something we seem to lack. Here's the approach to
a kernel that I would take, lacking a more formal plan.
Many of us seem to be waiting for a kernel to appear
before we do anything substantial. I suppose if I knew
how to do it, I would take something (Mach, the Linux
kernel or whatever) and, after adding the appropriate
device support, begin modifying it and the necessary
bootstraps and loaders for ODS-2*. We already know we can
read ODS-2, so this shouldn't be a show-stopper. You
don't necessarily need RMS before you can read an ODS-2
volume, at least no RMS support beyond "sequential
variable" which is super-easy. This way, you could at
least find your loader, kernel and driver files. Loading
and linking them into a running system would, of course,
be another step in the process.
Then, of course, you're gonna need DCL support so you can
execute a STARTUP.COM file. That means figuring out how
to DEFINE (or ASSIGN, if you prefer - just remember to
reverse the operands) logical names in the appropriate
tables/modes, emulating or duplicating the function of
the image activator so you can RUN programs, etc.
*:
I would think that, regardless of what shape the o.s.
itself may take, we would want a BACKUP/IMAGE of a
Free-VMS disk to restore and be MOUNTable on a "real" VMS
system. So, this isn't as ridiculous as it may seem at
first thought. Even if our "T0.1" version only supports
RMS sequential (fixed, variable), that seems like
something which is at least within the realm of
possibility. Except for SYSUAF, RIGHTLIST and certain
functions of "real" VMS's STARTUP.COM, RMS indexed file
support is not vital to a running "real" VMS system. We
live with sequential support to start with (just like
UN*X's passwd and other files are not "indexed").
So, at the very least, we'll need to develop these two
items on some other o.s. (remember: VMS was developed on
another o.s., RSX-11 I believe):
1.
Write a freeware INIT utility with basic support for
ODS-2 disks. Don't worry about ODS-5 for now. The world
is round - we'll get there. This will need to run on
something that can write an IDE or SCSI disk (or even a
floppy! ...or even a super-floppy (Orb, LS-120 or Iomega
Zip)). You could even use the INIT in "real" VMS on an
Alpha with IDE support on the motherboard.
2.
Write or use something to allow us to write bootblocks,
bootstraps, loaders and the kernel code to the disk we
just INITialized. It would probably need to understand
ODS-2 and also be able to address specific disk blocks.
(*Wishful Sigh*)
I realize my ignorance and naivete may be anywhere from
disgusting to entertaining, possibly even inspiring (dare
I hope?).
What does anyone else think of this?
To me, Free-VMS seems very distant, yet it seems that the
distance is measured as the width of the gap of ignorance
for not knowing how to get from A to B. How can this
chasm best be breached?
Please send your best, most constructive comments to the
list.
Back around the first of the year, someone wrote "Why
don't we just start?" What can we do to get some momentum
started?
I know there's a wealth of talent lurking on this list.
If you're subscribed as a "lurker" and can't contribute
to the list, then write me directly. My e-mail address is
below, just take out the ".nospam" I use to reduce the
risk of spam.
Regards,
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
djesys.nospam@earthlink.net
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 13:27:59 +0100
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:31:45 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <99021010314539@star.zko.dec.com>
From: parke@star.zko.dec.com (Pati die.)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: FREE-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Password Generator
Kevin Handy wrote:
>Jerzy Michal Pawlak wrote:
>>
>
>On my system, there is a file
>
> sys$library:vms$password_dictionary.data
>
>that contains a lot of words, which I believe it matches against
>(yes it even contains "dirty" words, as well as "clean" ones,
>I just checked :-). This is used to eliminate common words from
>the generated passwords (I think).
Remember that words that are clean where you are might be "dirty"
in another language.
>
>To emulate this behaviour under Linux/Unix, you could match
>the possible password against the system "dictionaries"
>in "/usr/dict".
Bill Parke
COMPAQ Computer Corporation
The opinions expressed here are my own and not those of my employer
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 23:54:12 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 17:50:50 -0600
Message-ID: <0000A298.C21492@advocatehealth.com>
From: David.Dachtera@advocatehealth.com (David Dachtera)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Speculation
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
Folks,
While staring at some other (unrelated) papers this a.m.,
these thoughts occurred to me...
Given:
VAX CPUs are out of manufacture. The last chips have
already been built into CPU modules. (...according to
reliable sources on comp.os.vms.)
Given:
CPQ/DEC typically only provides support (albeit limited)
for the ;-2 version of VMS.
Is it logical to assume, therefore, that at some future
date (possibly as early as OVMS V7.5 (V8.2?)) OpenVMS-VAX
(V7.2 - reportedly the last OpenVMS-VAX version) will
become unsupported, save for "prior version support"?
Does one dare to dream that at some future date, CPQ/DEC
might be pursuaded to release completely all source code
for OpenVMS-VAX - except for LMF (given that OVMS-Alpha
will, by that time, have evolved well past the point
where this would pose a threat to their income stream)?
(Legend has it that this is already available - in
compiler/assembler listing form on the source CD, sans
LMF and certain other key pieces.)
It so fires the imagination...
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 01:25:17 +0100
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 19:24:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free VMS Group <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: Development Plan, Teams
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
waiting for something differernt, so we need
to get this thing going. We need to set up
teams.
ideas for teams
GNU SOFTWARE PORTING TEAM
Port GNU Software and improve existing
ports.
SYSTEM SOFTWARE WRITING TEAM
Write system administration tools and
user-mode drivers and daemons (what
is the VMS equivalent of a daemon?)
KERNEL TEAM
Write non-user-mode code for the
kernel and cooperate with the
system software people. The
kernel team will probably
split off into several subteams,
the networking team, filesystem
team, ...
DOCUMENTATION TEAM
Write documentation. Won't
come into play for a long time.
PROPAGANDA TEAM
Spread the word!
COMPATIBILITY TEAM
Ensure compatibility with the
real VMS.
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 02:11:31 +0100
Message-ID: <36C4D0E2.D1636F96@apex21.co.kr>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 10:09:54 +0900
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=C1=B6=BF=B5=C1=A4?= <yjcho@apex21.co.kr>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: telnetd
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Is thers any difference on between telnetd on UNIX and VMS.
I want port telnetd on o-vms with some useful logging functions. But I
can't find out
any resources(source code) for VMS.
Y. J. Cho
e-mail : yjcho@apex21.co.kr
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 10:12:11 +0100
Message-ID: <36C541B5.48F41EFA@triumf.ca>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 01:11:18 -0800
From: "Fred W. Bach" <music@triumf.ca>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Development Plan, Teams
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Noah,
Propaganda? What do you want us (the propaganda team) to say? :-)
... Fred Bach music@triumf.ca Opinions are my own.
Noah Paul wrote:
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
> development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
> generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
> GNU SOFTWARE PORTING TEAM
> Port GNU Software and improve existing
> ports.
> SYSTEM SOFTWARE WRITING TEAM
> Write system administration tools and
> user-mode drivers and daemons (what
> is the VMS equivalent of a daemon?)
> KERNEL TEAM
> Write non-user-mode code for the
> kernel and cooperate with the
> system software people. The
> kernel team will probably
> split off into several subteams,
> the networking team, filesystem
> team, ...
> DOCUMENTATION TEAM
> Write documentation. Won't
> come into play for a long time.
> PROPAGANDA TEAM
> Spread the word!
> COMPATIBILITY TEAM
> Ensure compatibility with the
> real VMS.
>
> --------------
> Regards,
> Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
>
> PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:46:44 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213105123.2a47826a@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 10:51:23
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: telnetd
In-Reply-To: <36C4D0E2.D1636F96@apex21.co.kr>
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I don't think you can find a direct VMS parallel to any kind of telnet
daemon. Most TCP/IP stacks for VMS provide a driver for terminal-class
network pseudo devices, so the normal VMS mechanisms for process creation
can work the same as if the login was from a physically attached terminal.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
At 10:09 AM 2/13/99 +0900, you wrote:
>
>Is thers any difference on between telnetd on UNIX and VMS.
>
>I want port telnetd on o-vms with some useful logging functions. But I
>can't find out
>any resources(source code) for VMS.
>
>Y. J. Cho
>e-mail : yjcho@apex21.co.kr
>
>
>
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:46:48 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213135945.2c4f8f5c@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:59:45
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Gnu Software Porting Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the first of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
> GNU SOFTWARE PORTING TEAM
> Port GNU Software and improve existing
> ports.
I would think that for this team:
Task number 1 would be to identify the parallels between the Gnu programs
available and the command programs needed for FVMS.
Task number 2 would be to identify those needs on the command program list
not satisfied by the available Gnu library, and develop (at the very least)
a functional outline for what each needed program should do.
Task number 3 might be to begin adapting the appropriate Gnu programs by,
among other things, adding the CLI$ interface - since that's how VMS
programs get their command line parameters, qualifiers ("switches"), etc. -
adding RMS interfaces where necessary, etc.
Task number 4, then, might be to develop the "missing" programs. Some of
these might fall under the "System Software Team". The program(s)
facilitating the bulk of the SET commands comes to mind.
We've already got a CREATE command. I haven't looked at it yet, but then I
don't read/write C (yet). So, I guess that will be my first foray into it.
Richard has been pretty busy lately, I assume. We'll need to verify where
source code should reside. I remember seeing something about a CVS
repository, but I know little or nothing about it. Hunter Goatley set aside
some space on ftp.wku.edu for freevms, also.
So - who's going to do what?
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:47:04 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213140706.2c4f27ea@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:07:06
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: System Software Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the second of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
[snip]
> SYSTEM SOFTWARE WRITING TEAM
> Write system administration tools and
> user-mode drivers and daemons (what
> is the VMS equivalent of a daemon?)
For the record, a "daemon" (on any o.s.) can be described as (my words) a
process which runs as a "detached" process (VMS terminololgy) or
"background" process (generic terminology). In IBM MVS, the equivalent
concept might be a "started task" (as opposed to a task which is never
started?).
The primary "daemon"s in "real" VMS are the SWAPPER process and the Job
Controller (JOB_CONTROL).
"daemon" - from the traditional English, and later "demon", meaning a
program which runs with some visible or perceptible effect, but is not
"attached" to a terminal (hence, "detached") and is not otherwise visible
without a deliberate search.
This is the team that should address the run-time libraries, the CLI and
just about everything between the kernel and the "user" layer programs. The
program(s) facilitating the SET command would likely come under the purview
of this team.
Please send your suggestions on how to proceed, even if simply that we
should analyze the importance of the run-time library rotuines, to see
which library should receive attention first.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:47:16 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213141842.2c4f2666@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:18:42
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Kernel Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the third of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
I really hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes with this one. Apologies in
advance if this is in anyway out of line...
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
[snip]
> KERNEL TEAM
> Write non-user-mode code for the
> kernel and cooperate with the
> system software people. The
> kernel team will probably
> split off into several subteams,
> the networking team, filesystem
> team, ...
Again, I'm not a "kernel hacker". All the same...
In another thread, I wrote that if I were a "kernel hacker", I would
probably start with Mach, the Linux kernel ro something else that already
exists as OSS and add support for ODS-2. This would lead to the beginnings
of a foundation for the rest of the system.
Much mention has been made in the past of a preference for using the Mach
kernel. I'm in no position to argue that point, but we *DO* need to start
*SOME*where!
John Brockelsby wrote about "trying to hack VMS pathnames into the Linux
kernel, but ... didn't get very far". That might be a place to start - and
maybe not, I just don't know.
If it was me, what I would do is take the first element of the UN*X path
and use that as the logical name which represents the device. Then, for
every element in the remainder of the path (except the last), I'd use that
as the directory specification.
For example: UN*X Syntax: /usr/bin/utils/tar
VMS-like Syntax: USR:[BIN.UTILS]TAR
So what would USR mean in that context? Well, there's no direct UN*X
equivalent, but the "physical device name" would equate to (for example)
USR = /dev/sd0s5
To "reverse translate" that, parse: the text before the ":" identifies the
mount point of the associated filesystem (that us, "USR" = "/usr"). The
exception to this is, of course, the "root" filesystem, which really gums
up the works unless there's an easy way to distinguish between an actual
directory of files off the root filesystem and a root-level directory which
is used as a mount point. The text within square brackets represents the
path from that point to the file's parent directory. The remaining text
identifies the file itself.
So, it may be better to use ODS-2 exclusively, and not try to translate the
UN*X stuff into something else. Comments?
On the subject of device names...
We should probably consider using similar device naming to "real" VMS. For
example (suggestions):
Type Description Examples
-------+---------------+-----------------------------------------------
DV Floppy Disk Diskette as 1st floppy device: DVA0
Diskette as 2nd floppy device: DVA1
Assumes support for one floppy controller. If
detected, 2nd would be DVB, 3rd = DVC, etc.
MV Floppy tape Tape as 1st floppy device: MVA0
Tape as 2nd floppy device: MVA1
Assumes support for one floppy controller. If
detected, 2nd would be MVBu, 3rd = MVCu, etc.
DU IDE, EIDE disk 1st hard disk: DUA0 thru DUA3
(exc. floppy) 2nd hard disk: DUA4 thru DUA7
Assumes 4 partitions (max.) per hard disk.
Assumes support for one [E]IDE controller. If
detected, 2nd would be DUBu, 3rd = DUCu, etc.
MU IDE, EIDE tape Tape as 1st [E]IDE device: MUA0
Tape as 2nd [E]IDE device: MUA1
Assumes support for one [E]IDE controller. If
detected, 2nd would be MUBu, 3rd = MUCu, etc.
DK SCSI disk 1st SCSI controller: DKA0 thru DKA600
2nd SCSI controller: DKB0 thru DKB600
Assumes one partition per SCSI disk. Subsequent
partitions could be assigned separate LUNs.
Example: DKc110, DKc630, etc.
MK SCSI tape 1st SCSI controller: MKA0 thru MKA600
2nd SCSI controller: MKB0 thru MKB600
TT CON Display + Keyboard = TTA0
COMx ports COM1 = TTA1, COM2 = TTA2
TX "Foreign" Multiport cards (Digi boards, etc.) where multiple
COMx ports devices share a common IRQ. For example, an 8-port
Digi board could represent TXA0 thru TXA7
OP CON Display + Keyboard = OPA0
COMx ports OPA1, OPA2
(Synonymous with their TT equivalents.)
ET Network card(s) "ETcu" is suggested to avoid a possible conflict,
since "EW" could be taken as implying "Etherworks"
which name belongs to TCFKAD (The Company Formerly
Known As Digital).
In all cases, CD-ROM would be treated as it is on "real" VMS - a read-only
disk. CD-Recordable could be read/write as could CD-RW. Disk and tape
support should allow them to be intermixed on the same controller type,
just like "real" VMS.
Intel machines and their BIOS lack a "Console" in the sense of a VAX or
Alpha. We could boot up first to a "BIOS Extender" which could provide the
Console functions, including the "halt" action ("auto-start" (boot) or stop
at the console prompt), storing operating system boot flags ("root" number,
boot-time options), storing console "environment" variables, etc.
Again, purely my opinion, but I do hope there's something here that someone
who can is willing to use as a starting point.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:47:20 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213135457.2c4f09bc@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:54:57
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Propaganda (was Re: Development Plan, Teams)
In-Reply-To: <36C541B5.48F41EFA@triumf.ca>
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 01:11 AM 2/13/99 -0800, Fred Bach wrote:
> Noah,
>
> Propaganda? What do you want us (the propaganda team) to say? :-)
>
> ... Fred Bach music@triumf.ca Opinions are my own.
May I suggest putting the word out in other mailing lists, the newsgroups,
etc. that we are making a serious effort to do this. We need programmers,
writers, ... any talent we can get.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:47:30 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213142725.2c4f2d40@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:27:25
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the fourth of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
[snip]
> DOCUMENTATION TEAM
> Write documentation. Won't
> come into play for a long time.
Oh, I dunno. We could start right off based on how commands, etc. should
work, then revise the doc.'s later to reflect the actual behavior (since
some obstacles may not be surmounted for some time).
For anyone who doesn't know: a .PDF file is produced by preparing a
document in any program capable of producing PostScript output (on
MS-Windows, all you need is the PostScript driver provided by MS). You then
feed the PostScript into a commercial product from Adobe Systems called
"Distiller" which produces .PDF output. You can use Adobe's Exchange
program (commercial) to adjust the .PDf file in many ways. There are ways
to do this with freeware, also. I understand that Ghostscript has the
capability of producing .PDFs from .PSs.
I'd advise AGAINST keeping documentation source in [La]TeX form, unless the
first documentation you produce is a comprehensive library of what [La]TeX
is, how to read it, how to write it and how to convert it to/from .PS,
.RTF, .HTML, etc. *INCLUDING* a "LaTeX for Dummies" equivalent. Despite
what many folks may think, we are *NOT* born knowing LaTeX - it *MUST* be
learned!!!
If anyone has one of them, I'd recommend using either StarOffice or
Applixware on *BSD or Linux and saving the documents in .RTF or Word6
compatible format. Then, Print (in PostScript) to a file and use commercial
or free software to produce the .PDFs.
The "lowest common denominator" in the MS-Windows world would be the Win/3
Write applet and it's .WRI files which can be read by Word6. Everyone who
has Win/3 has Write, but WARNING: The Win/9x WordPad applet will read .WRI
files, but *CANNOT* save in that format. WRITE will run under Win/9x, but
you must copy it from your Win/3 system and manually create a shortcut (or
"Start Menu" item) for it. Here also, you can Print (in PostScript) to a
file and use commercial or free software to produce the .PDFs.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:48:12 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213143410.2c4f4bca@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:34:10
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Propaganda Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the fifth of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
[snip]
> PROPAGANDA TEAM
> Spread the word!
I'm doing what I can on my web site and on comp.os.vms - without being
intrusive or obnoxious. I even wrote about it to the newsletter editor for
the Dallas / Fort Worth (Texas, USA) DECUS LUG (DFWLUG), the folks who
pioneered the Hobbyist License for VMS. (http://www.montagar.com/dfwlug/)
What have *YOU* done lately?
What can we do as a team to spread the word? Please reply with your best,
most constructive comments.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:48:20 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990213143941.2c4f1a2c@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:39:41
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Compatibility Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990212191904.3614A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello, Noah, and everyone...
This is the sixth of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>
> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>
> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
> waiting for something differernt, so we need
> to get this thing going. We need to set up
> teams.
>
> ideas for teams
[snip]
> COMPATIBILITY TEAM
> Ensure compatibility with the
> real VMS.
>
I wonder if the current / former DECies (CPQ'ers?) on the list can do this
without a conflict of interest...
I guess the first order of business for this team should be to evaluate
Edward John M. Brocklesby's CREATE (create.c), then report their findings
back to the command program development team (Gnu Software Porting Team?).
The URL for the source code (as supplied by Edward):
(http://)www.klamath.demon.co.uk/free-vms/create.c
Edward notes: ".. you'll have to modify the #include's to point to your
copy of starlet."
Who wants to do this?
I don't (currently) read/write C, but I'll take a crack at it if no one
else will. I'd prefer to have a seasoned C coder look into it, though.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 07:33:40 +0100
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 01:33:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19990213142725.2c4f2d40@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214012858.367A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I would suggest HTML as a documentation format. It's cross-platform, it is
very easy to split up and crossreference documents (the entire point of
HTML) and there's a reader (and probably an authorer(*)) for nearly every
platform. If not HTML, then troff** or [La]TeX. (see my response below)
_______________________________________________
*Are there any HTML authoring tools for VMS?
**I'm gonna really get it for even suggesting that, right? :-)
On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>Hello, Noah, and everyone...
>
>This is the fourth of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
>them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
>
>At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>
>> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>>
>> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
>> waiting for something differernt, so we need
>> to get this thing going. We need to set up
>> teams.
>>
>> ideas for teams
>
> [snip]
>
>> DOCUMENTATION TEAM
>> Write documentation. Won't
>> come into play for a long time.
>
>Oh, I dunno. We could start right off based on how commands, etc. should
>work, then revise the doc.'s later to reflect the actual behavior (since
>some obstacles may not be surmounted for some time).
>
>For anyone who doesn't know: a .PDF file is produced by preparing a
>document in any program capable of producing PostScript output (on
>MS-Windows, all you need is the PostScript driver provided by MS). You then
>feed the PostScript into a commercial product from Adobe Systems called
>"Distiller" which produces .PDF output. You can use Adobe's Exchange
>program (commercial) to adjust the .PDf file in many ways. There are ways
>to do this with freeware, also. I understand that Ghostscript has the
>capability of producing .PDFs from .PSs.
>
>I'd advise AGAINST keeping documentation source in [La]TeX form, unless the
>first documentation you produce is a comprehensive library of what [La]TeX
>is, how to read it, how to write it and how to convert it to/from .PS,
>..RTF, .HTML, etc. *INCLUDING* a "LaTeX for Dummies" equivalent. Despite
>what many folks may think, we are *NOT* born knowing LaTeX - it *MUST* be
>learned!!!
>
Well, displaying LaTeX takes no knowledge except one command,
and several tools exist for either converting various formats
into LaTeX or WYSIWYG authoring of LaTeX.
>
>If anyone has one of them, I'd recommend using either StarOffice or
>Applixware on *BSD or Linux and saving the documents in .RTF or Word6
>compatible format. Then, Print (in PostScript) to a file and use commercial
>or free software to produce the .PDFs.
>
I'm a vi guy!
>
>The "lowest common denominator" in the MS-Windows world would be the Win/3
>Write applet and it's .WRI files which can be read by Word6. Everyone who
>has Win/3 has Write, but WARNING: The Win/9x WordPad applet will read .WRI
>files, but *CANNOT* save in that format. WRITE will run under Win/9x, but
>you must copy it from your Win/3 system and manually create a shortcut (or
>"Start Menu" item) for it. Here also, you can Print (in PostScript) to a
>file and use commercial or free software to produce the .PDFs.
>
>David J. Dachtera
>dba DJE Systems
>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 23:33:48 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990214164601.374f3a4e@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 16:46:01
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214012858.367A-100000@merlin>
References: <3.0.3.16.19990213142725.2c4f2d40@earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 01:33 AM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>I would suggest HTML as a documentation format. It's cross-platform, it is
>very easy to split up and crossreference documents (the entire point of
>HTML) and there's a reader (and probably an authorer(*)) for nearly every
>platform. If not HTML, then troff** or [La]TeX. (see my response below)
Of course, HTML has certain advantages - of this there is no doubt.
Equally without doubt are its shortcomings:
1. It is machine readable only - few hard copy options (see #2).
2. Printing an entire "volume" (however that concept gets translated to a
collection of HTML documents) is virtually impossible, except by some very
tedious and time consuming manual effort.
Similar arguments could made for/against .PDF; however, at least Acrobat
reader lets you print an entire "volume": ALT, F, P, ENTER (or click File,
click Print, click OK if you prefer - I find keyboarding *INFINITELY*
faster!) and walk away for a few hours. You can also print selected pages,
of course.
Given the way many documents refer you here, refer you to there, refer you
back to some other place, however, hard copy documentation remains
indispensable. HTML documentation is *RARELY* cross-indexed effectively.
...and yes, between Acrobat Reader and XPDF, virtually all common (and many
exotic) platforms and o.s.-es are supported.
>_______________________________________________
>*Are there any HTML authoring tools for VMS?
Yes - Netscape Navigator Gold V3.03 for OpenVMS (requires DECwindows/MOTIF
V1.2-4 or later and a "newer" TCP/IP stack). It is a somewhat limited
WYSIWYG tool for authoring HTML (I use Navigator Gold V3.03 for MS-Windows
here at home).
>**I'm gonna really get it for even suggesting that, right? :-)
No, I just disagree *VERY* strongly (my opinion, however - your mileage may
vary).
> Well, displaying LaTeX takes no knowledge except one command,
> and several tools exist for either converting various formats
> into LaTeX or WYSIWYG authoring of LaTeX.
And those tools are...
Hint: Instead of offering simply "[fill in the blank] exist(s)", please
cite URLs where such items are available. Please include any information
you may have such as whether they are available in binary-only, binary
and/or source, or source-only, what platforms, o.s.-es and environments are
supported, whether the item(s) is(are) freeware, shareware, commercial
software, is any support available, the e-mail address of the author(s),
etc. ...
Remember - we are not born knowing such things. Remember what the teacher
always said when we were in school: "be specific, cite examples". I try to
do this where ever I can on my FreeVMS pages(*1), OpenVMS Hobbyist page(*2)
and other pages.
*1: http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/freevms/
*2: http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/hobbyist/
Question: Which LaTeX tools have been successfully ported to VMS? ...to
MS-Windows? Does the VMS port require DECwindows/MOTIF or any
Motif-compliant version of X11? Again, be specific, cite URLs and examples.
> I'm a vi guy!
My sympathies. I find EDT invaluable for character-cell terminals (VTs,
emulators) while I relegate TPU to the DECwindows environment. 99.9% of my
work is done using EDT and WRQ Reflection/4 for Win/9x.
I had to live with vi for nearly two years (1986/87) on a small, no-name
UNIX box. I can't tell you how ecstatic I was when I got back to EDT on VMS!
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 23:44:50 +0100
Message-ID: <8C090F40DD50D211B9C70000F8307F261D3CDD@FNOEXC1>
From: Teijo Forsell <Teijo.Forsell@digital.com>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: "'Free-VMS@lp.se'" <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: RE: Speculation
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:44:41 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
> (Legend has it that this is already available - in
> compiler/assembler listing form on the source CD, sans
> LMF and certain other key pieces.)
That should be no legend. The listings CD set is orderable. However, as once
said here, it is not wise to examine commercial source code before starting
to write FreeWare source code which is supposed to supersede the commercial
source code. That will make the legal issues more difficult to handle if
something turns up.
Regards,
Teijo (also expressing strictly personal opinions)
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:30:26 +0100
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 16:28:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19990214164601.374f3a4e@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214162701.252A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
There is LyX, a WYSIWYG LaTeX authoring tool which if I'm not mistaken
can convert various popular document formats to LaTeX. AFAIK it will
run under all Unices. I believe it can be found in Sunsite's Linux
archive.
On Sun, 14 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>At 01:33 AM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>I would suggest HTML as a documentation format. It's cross-platform, it is
>>very easy to split up and crossreference documents (the entire point of
>>HTML) and there's a reader (and probably an authorer(*)) for nearly every
>>platform. If not HTML, then troff** or [La]TeX. (see my response below)
>
>Of course, HTML has certain advantages - of this there is no doubt.
>
>Equally without doubt are its shortcomings:
>
>1. It is machine readable only - few hard copy options (see #2).
>
>2. Printing an entire "volume" (however that concept gets translated to a
>collection of HTML documents) is virtually impossible, except by some very
>tedious and time consuming manual effort.
>
>Similar arguments could made for/against .PDF; however, at least Acrobat
>reader lets you print an entire "volume": ALT, F, P, ENTER (or click File,
>click Print, click OK if you prefer - I find keyboarding *INFINITELY*
>faster!) and walk away for a few hours. You can also print selected pages,
>of course.
>
>Given the way many documents refer you here, refer you to there, refer you
>back to some other place, however, hard copy documentation remains
>indispensable. HTML documentation is *RARELY* cross-indexed effectively.
>
>....and yes, between Acrobat Reader and XPDF, virtually all common (and many
>exotic) platforms and o.s.-es are supported.
>
>>_______________________________________________
>>*Are there any HTML authoring tools for VMS?
>
>Yes - Netscape Navigator Gold V3.03 for OpenVMS (requires DECwindows/MOTIF
>V1.2-4 or later and a "newer" TCP/IP stack). It is a somewhat limited
>WYSIWYG tool for authoring HTML (I use Navigator Gold V3.03 for MS-Windows
>here at home).
>
>>**I'm gonna really get it for even suggesting that, right? :-)
>
>No, I just disagree *VERY* strongly (my opinion, however - your mileage may
>vary).
>
>> Well, displaying LaTeX takes no knowledge except one command,
>> and several tools exist for either converting various formats
>> into LaTeX or WYSIWYG authoring of LaTeX.
>
>And those tools are...
>
>Hint: Instead of offering simply "[fill in the blank] exist(s)", please
>cite URLs where such items are available. Please include any information
>you may have such as whether they are available in binary-only, binary
>and/or source, or source-only, what platforms, o.s.-es and environments are
>supported, whether the item(s) is(are) freeware, shareware, commercial
>software, is any support available, the e-mail address of the author(s),
>etc. ...
>
>Remember - we are not born knowing such things. Remember what the teacher
>always said when we were in school: "be specific, cite examples". I try to
>do this where ever I can on my FreeVMS pages(*1), OpenVMS Hobbyist page(*2)
>and other pages.
>
>*1: http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/freevms/
>*2: http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/hobbyist/
>
>Question: Which LaTeX tools have been successfully ported to VMS? ...to
>MS-Windows? Does the VMS port require DECwindows/MOTIF or any
>Motif-compliant version of X11? Again, be specific, cite URLs and examples.
>
>> I'm a vi guy!
>
>My sympathies. I find EDT invaluable for character-cell terminals (VTs,
>emulators) while I relegate TPU to the DECwindows environment. 99.9% of my
>work is done using EDT and WRQ Reflection/4 for Win/9x.
>
>I had to live with vi for nearly two years (1986/87) on a small, no-name
>UNIX box. I can't tell you how ecstatic I was when I got back to EDT on VMS!
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:32:23 +0100
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 16:30:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: "'Free-VMS@lp.se'" <Free-VMS@lp.se>
Subject: Compaq and VMS (was RE: Speculation)
In-Reply-To: <8C090F40DD50D211B9C70000F8307F261D3CDD@FNOEXC1>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214162908.252B-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
But does Compaq care anymore? It's fairly obvious that they intend to
do away with VMS and VAX in the near future. (Yet another reason why
FreeVMS is an important project)
On Sun, 14 Feb 1999, Teijo Forsell wrote:
> > (Legend has it that this is already available - in
> > compiler/assembler listing form on the source CD, sans
> > LMF and certain other key pieces.)
>
>That should be no legend. The listings CD set is orderable. However, as once
>said here, it is not wise to examine commercial source code before starting
>to write FreeWare source code which is supposed to supersede the commercial
>source code. That will make the legal issues more difficult to handle if
>something turns up.
>
>
>Regards,
>Teijo (also expressing strictly personal opinions)
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 02:56:44 +0100
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 20:56:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Gnu Software Porting Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19990213135945.2c4f8f5c@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214205531.934B-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>Hello, Noah, and everyone...
>
>This is the first of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
>them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
>
>At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>
>> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>>
>> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
>> waiting for something differernt, so we need
>> to get this thing going. We need to set up
>> teams.
>>
>> ideas for teams
>> GNU SOFTWARE PORTING TEAM
>> Port GNU Software and improve existing
>> ports.
>
>I would think that for this team:
>
>Task number 1 would be to identify the parallels between the Gnu programs
>available and the command programs needed for FVMS.
>
>Task number 2 would be to identify those needs on the command program list
>not satisfied by the available Gnu library, and develop (at the very least)
>a functional outline for what each needed program should do.
>
>Task number 3 might be to begin adapting the appropriate Gnu programs by,
>among other things, adding the CLI$ interface - since that's how VMS
>programs get their command line parameters, qualifiers ("switches"), etc. -
>adding RMS interfaces where necessary, etc.
>
>Task number 4, then, might be to develop the "missing" programs. Some of
>these might fall under the "System Software Team". The program(s)
>facilitating the bulk of the SET commands comes to mind.
>
>We've already got a CREATE command. I haven't looked at it yet, but then I
>don't read/write C (yet). So, I guess that will be my first foray into it.
>
>Richard has been pretty busy lately, I assume. We'll need to verify where
>source code should reside. I remember seeing something about a CVS
>repository, but I know little or nothing about it. Hunter Goatley set aside
>some space on ftp.wku.edu for freevms, also.
>
I can offer some space on my dinky little Linux 486 behind
it's 56k modem ... it should be up *ALMOST* 24/7.
>
>So - who's going to do what?
>
>
>David J. Dachtera
>dba DJE Systems
>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 03:00:55 +0100
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:00:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Compatibility Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19990213143941.2c4f1a2c@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214205836.948A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>Hello, Noah, and everyone...
>
>This is the sixth of several responses to Noah's message. I tried to break
>them up by team in the hope of starting individual relevant threads.
>
>At 07:24 PM 2/12/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>
>> About a year and a half ago I sent a message about creating
>>development teams -- a kernel team, a networking team, etc. It was
>>generally voted down (or something), so i'll bring it up again ...
>>
>> We aren't going anywhere. Everyone seems to be
>> waiting for something differernt, so we need
>> to get this thing going. We need to set up
>> teams.
>>
>> ideas for teams
>
> [snip]
>
>> COMPATIBILITY TEAM
>> Ensure compatibility with the
>> real VMS.
>>
>
>I wonder if the current / former DECies (CPQ'ers?) on the list can do this
>without a conflict of interest...
>
>I guess the first order of business for this team should be to evaluate
>Edward John M. Brocklesby's CREATE (create.c), then report their findings
>back to the command program development team (Gnu Software Porting Team?).
>
>The URL for the source code (as supplied by Edward):
>(http://)www.klamath.demon.co.uk/free-vms/create.c
>
>Edward notes: ".. you'll have to modify the #include's to point to your
>copy of starlet."
>
>Who wants to do this?
>
>I don't (currently) read/write C, but I'll take a crack at it if no one
>else will. I'd prefer to have a seasoned C coder look into it, though.
>
Okay ...:
* He uses my library for parsing arguments.
* Uses a LOT of VMS constructs which I, being a UNIX weenie :),
don't understand.
A VMSer will need to review it, I don't grok anything with a '$' in it. 8P
>
>David J. Dachtera
>dba DJE Systems
>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 04:37:11 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990214214257.2857f2be@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:42:57
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214162701.252A-100000@merlin>
References: <3.0.3.16.19990214164601.374f3a4e@earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 04:28 PM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>There is LyX, a WYSIWYG LaTeX authoring tool which if I'm not mistaken
>can convert various popular document formats to LaTeX. AFAIK it will
>run under all Unices. I believe it can be found in Sunsite's Linux
>archive.
Has this been ported to any non-UN*X platform? ...preferably MS-Windows? Is
the source available so someone could try to compile and run it on DOS/Win
using Exceed as the X-server? ...or at least VMS + DW/Motif? ...is it even
OSS (or some other form of "free"-ware)?
Do you happen to have a URL? ("Sunsite" may be meaningful to Solaris folks,
but has little meaning outside of that arena).
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
...but: if LyX is UN*X only, then in my book that's still "proprietary" and
I have to vote against it.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 04:37:14 +0100
Message-ID: <3.0.3.16.19990214215037.2857e47e@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:50:37
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
From: "David J. Dachtera" <djesys@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Compaq and VMS (was RE: Speculation)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990214162908.252B-100000@merlin>
References: <8C090F40DD50D211B9C70000F8307F261D3CDD@FNOEXC1>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 04:30 PM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>But does Compaq care anymore? It's fairly obvious that they intend to
>do away with VMS and VAX in the near future. (Yet another reason why
>FreeVMS is an important project)
Well, two points:
VAX is already history. Some one posted a note to comp.os.vms regarding a
message from Compaq found at the following URL:
http://www.openvms.digital.com/5years/index.html
...regarding the near-term future of OpenVMS.
...which underscores my dreamings about "VAX" VMS someday being OSS.
...and since i/x86 and VAX are both CISC (but may lack a number of common
instructions), well, let's wait and see.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:20:27 +0100
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 01:20:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19990214214257.2857f2be@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990215011932.3738A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
It's released under the GNU GPL.
"Sunsite" is "sunsite.unc.edu" (a.k.a "metalab.unc.edu"), the biggest
Linux archive.
On Sun, 14 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>At 04:28 PM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>There is LyX, a WYSIWYG LaTeX authoring tool which if I'm not mistaken
>>can convert various popular document formats to LaTeX. AFAIK it will
>>run under all Unices. I believe it can be found in Sunsite's Linux
>>archive.
>
>Has this been ported to any non-UN*X platform? ...preferably MS-Windows? Is
>the source available so someone could try to compile and run it on DOS/Win
>using Exceed as the X-server? ...or at least VMS + DW/Motif? ...is it even
>OSS (or some other form of "free"-ware)?
>
>Do you happen to have a URL? ("Sunsite" may be meaningful to Solaris folks,
>but has little meaning outside of that arena).
>
>Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
>
>....but: if LyX is UN*X only, then in my book that's still "proprietary" and
>I have to vote against it.
>
>David J. Dachtera
>dba DJE Systems
>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:21:58 +0100
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:15:25 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <99021510152510@star.zko.dec.com>
From: parke@star.zko.dec.com (Pati die.)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
To: FREE-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Compaq and VMS (was RE: Speculation)
>But does Compaq care anymore? It's fairly obvious that they intend to
>do away with VMS and VAX in the near future. (Yet another reason why
>FreeVMS is an important project)
Yes, COMPAQ does care. So far they seem to be talking nee VMS "stuff"
for at least 5 years. In case you haven't notices, there have even been
some major advertising campaigns that include VMS as a major focus.
As to VAX vs VMS. It ain't just VAX any more. If you have been watching,
the new features have been mostly coming out on Alpha. So, you don't
need a VAX to run VMS.
>
>That should be no legend. The listings CD set is orderable. However, as once
>said here, it is not wise to examine commercial source code before starting
>to write FreeWare source code which is supposed to supersede the commercial
>source code. That will make the legal issues more difficult to handle if
>something turns up.
>
>
>Regards,
>Teijo (also expressing strictly personal opinions)
>
Thinking back to the times of being "infected" by having seen AT&T code,
this comment has a familiar ring. If I were to participate, I would
tend to work from published documentation, not from the sources. There
are many patented algorithms and such that you would be exposing yourself
to if you worked from the sources.
Bill
COMPAQ COmputer corporation
The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my employer.
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:31:16 +0100
From: JayPed@aol.com
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Message-ID: <adedf257.36c874d5@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:26:13 EST
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: Development Plan, Teams
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In a message dated 2/12/99 6:28:55 PM Central Standard Time,
noahp@altavista.net writes:
<< KERNEL TEAM
Write non-user-mode code for the
kernel and cooperate with the
system software people. The
kernel team will probably
split off into several subteams,
the networking team, filesystem
team, ... >>
I guess I am interesting in working in this area. Presumably the 'file
system' area would include RMS. The various RTL routines (the only code we
currently have - str$, etc) ... would belong in a separate group? Where would
certain core routines like cli$ fit in? Is that more RTL-level?
There are some system routines, like the message routines (sys$getmsg,
sys$putmsg), which seem to me to be similar level to cli$ routines and should
probably be done by the group that does the cli$ routines.
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:53:53 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:33:21 -0600
Message-ID: <0000B903.C21492@advocatehealth.com>
From: David.Dachtera@advocatehealth.com (David Dachtera)
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re[2]: Documentation Team Development Plan
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
Re: LyX, "Sunsite"...
The "Sunsite" URL has changed. It is now
"metalab.unc.edu", and can be accessed by either of the
following:
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/
http://metalab.unc.edu/
The "Sunsite" search engine uses a non-standard TCP port,
and so may be blocked by many corporate firewalls:
http://search.metalab.unc.edu:8765/
For example, I cannot establish a link with this here at
work. I'll need to wait until this eve. at home to try the
search engine.
As a work-around, I downloaded the "ls-lR" listing (VMS
equivalent: DIRECTORY/SIZE/DATE/PROTECTION [...]), ALL 30
MB or so of it! I then SEARCHed it and found numerous
references to both "lyx" and "klyx" (LyX for KDE?). Then,
with EDT, I found:
./pub/Linux/apps/wp
[snip]
-rw-rw-r-- 1 gregh linux 1730837 Feb 16 1998 lyx-0.12.0.tar.gz
So, the complete URL for LyX, then, would be:
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/wp/lyx-0.12.0.tar.gz
The apparent version is V0.12-0 (in VMS-speak, were this
VMSINSTALlable, it would probably look like this:
LYXU20_001.A). So, this seems to be a pre-release (V0.)
beta.
If anyone has the wherewithal to try and compile this for
VMS + Dw/Motif, MS-Windows, or any other platform, I
would encourage you to do so. With the resulting program,
the foundation could be laid for a "Free-VMS
Documentation Project" (FVDP?).
I looked on the DECwindows archive at
http://www2.cenaath.cena.dgac.fr/ftp/ and didn't find a
reference to LyX. (Does anyone have a relationship with
Paul Moreau?)
I would think it is o.k. to do the doc. first, then do
the coding as I frequently write the README.TXT first,
then use that as the design doc. for how something
should work.
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
Author: Free-VMS@lp.se at PO_EXTERNET
Date: 2/15/99 12:20 AM
It's released under the GNU GPL.
"Sunsite" is "sunsite.unc.edu" (a.k.a "metalab.unc.edu"), the biggest
Linux archive.
On Sun, 14 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>At 04:28 PM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>There is LyX, a WYSIWYG LaTeX authoring tool which if I'm not mistaken
>>can convert various popular document formats to LaTeX. AFAIK it will
>>run under all Unices. I believe it can be found in Sunsite's Linux
>>archive.
>
>Has this been ported to any non-UN*X platform? ...preferably MS-Windows? Is
>the source available so someone could try to compile and run it on DOS/Win
>using Exceed as the X-server? ...or at least VMS + DW/Motif? ...is it even
>OSS (or some other form of "free"-ware)?
>
>Do you happen to have a URL? ("Sunsite" may be meaningful to Solaris folks,
>but has little meaning outside of that arena).
>
>Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
>
>....but: if LyX is UN*X only, then in my book that's still "proprietary" and
>I have to vote against it.
>
>David J. Dachtera
>dba DJE Systems
>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 00:54:07 +0100
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:51:37 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Documentation Team Development Plan
In-Reply-To: <0000B903.C21492@advocatehealth.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990215164647.259A-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> Re: LyX, "Sunsite"...
>
> The "Sunsite" URL has changed. It is now
> "metalab.unc.edu", and can be accessed by either of the
> following:
>
Sunsite still works, though.
>
> ftp://metalab.unc.edu/
> http://metalab.unc.edu/
>
> The "Sunsite" search engine uses a non-standard TCP port,
> and so may be blocked by many corporate firewalls:
>
> http://search.metalab.unc.edu:8765/
>
> For example, I cannot establish a link with this here at
> work. I'll need to wait until this eve. at home to try the
> search engine.
>
> As a work-around, I downloaded the "ls-lR" listing (VMS
> equivalent: DIRECTORY/SIZE/DATE/PROTECTION [...]), ALL 30
> MB or so of it! I then SEARCHed it and found numerous
> references to both "lyx" and "klyx" (LyX for KDE?). Then,
> with EDT, I found:
>
> ./pub/Linux/apps/wp
> [snip]
>-rw-rw-r-- 1 gregh linux 1730837 Feb 16 1998 lyx-0.12.0.tar.gz
>
> So, the complete URL for LyX, then, would be:
>
> ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/wp/lyx-0.12.0.tar.gz
>
> The apparent version is V0.12-0 (in VMS-speak, were this
> VMSINSTALlable, it would probably look like this:
> LYXU20_001.A). So, this seems to be a pre-release (V0.)
> beta.
>
I've seen a few screnshots and talked to a few people who
like LyX. It's about a year old, which would indicate
(a) it has moved, -- Possible but unliekly
(b) it has been given up, or -- Possible
(c) the listing is old -- Extremely unlikely
>
> If anyone has the wherewithal to try and compile this for
> VMS + Dw/Motif, MS-Windows, or any other platform, I
> would encourage you to do so. With the resulting program,
> the foundation could be laid for a "Free-VMS
> Documentation Project" (FVDP?).
>
There's very little hope of this ever running under MS-Windows,
unless there exists some sort of Xlib emulator. DJGPP, a free
version of GCC for MS-DOS(!) claims to have (archived somewhere)
an Xlib emulator for MS/DOS. (DJGPP site:
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp) If VMS Dw/Motif uses standard Xlib
and POSIX, it can probably be tweaked with little effort. I
have acccess to neither of these platforms, so I can't
help here.
>
> I looked on the DECwindows archive at
> http://www2.cenaath.cena.dgac.fr/ftp/ and didn't find a
> reference to LyX. (Does anyone have a relationship with
> Paul Moreau?)
>
> I would think it is o.k. to do the doc. first, then do
> the coding as I frequently write the README.TXT first,
> then use that as the design doc. for how something
> should work.
>
> David J. Dachtera
> dba DJE Systems
> http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
>Subject: Re: Documentation Team Development Plan
>Author: Free-VMS@lp.se at PO_EXTERNET
>Date: 2/15/99 12:20 AM
>
>
>It's released under the GNU GPL.
>
>"Sunsite" is "sunsite.unc.edu" (a.k.a "metalab.unc.edu"), the biggest
>Linux archive.
>
>On Sun, 14 Feb 1999, David J. Dachtera wrote:
>
>>At 04:28 PM 2/14/99 -0500, Noah Paul wrote:
>>>There is LyX, a WYSIWYG LaTeX authoring tool which if I'm not mistaken
>>>can convert various popular document formats to LaTeX. AFAIK it will
>>>run under all Unices. I believe it can be found in Sunsite's Linux
>>>archive.
>>
>>Has this been ported to any non-UN*X platform? ...preferably MS-Windows? Is
>>the source available so someone could try to compile and run it on DOS/Win
>>using Exceed as the X-server? ...or at least VMS + DW/Motif? ...is it even
>>OSS (or some other form of "free"-ware)?
>>
>>Do you happen to have a URL? ("Sunsite" may be meaningful to Solaris folks,
>>but has little meaning outside of that arena).
>>
>>Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>....but: if LyX is UN*X only, then in my book that's still "proprietary" and
>>I have to vote against it.
>>
>>David J. Dachtera
>>dba DJE Systems
>>http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/
>>
>
>--------------
>Regards,
>Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
>
>PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
>
>
>
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 01:13:28 +0100
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 19:13:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Sender: noahp@merlin
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Development Plan, Teams
In-Reply-To: <adedf257.36c874d5@aol.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990215165225.259B-100000@merlin>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 JayPed@aol.com wrote:
>I guess I am interesting in working in this area. Presumably the 'file
>system' area would include RMS. The various RTL routines (the only code we
>currently have - str$, etc) ... would belong in a separate group? Where would
>certain core routines like cli$ fit in? Is that more RTL-level?
>
Thank "God" SOMEONE is. I'm not a VMS expert, so I can't
really help you with the xxx$-in-what question.
>
>There are some system routines, like the message routines (sys$getmsg,
>sys$putmsg), which seem to me to be similar level to cli$ routines and should
>probably be done by the group that does the cli$ routines.
>
Will someone please explain to me all this VMS library stuff? :-)
I'm a UNIX weenie if there ever was one ...
--------------
Regards,
Noah Paul <noahp@altavista.net>
PGP Public Key: http://gandolf.lincnet.org/~noahp/Public_Key
================================================================================
Archive-Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 02:33:09 +0100
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 12:20:39 +1100
From: "Scott Hamilton, +61-2-9950 1693, NSW Dept Education and Training" <SHAMILTON1@dev.develop1.tafensw.edu.au>
Reply-To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Subject: Re: Development Plan, Teams
To: Free-VMS@lp.se
Message-ID: <01J7T7S5V12Q007IUW@hmgwy1.isd.tafensw.edu.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 JayPed@aol.com wrote:
>I guess I am interesting in working in this area. Presumably the 'file
>system' area would include RMS. The various RTL routines (the only code we
>currently have - str$, etc) ... would belong in a separate group? Where would
>certain core routines like cli$ fit in? Is that more RTL-level?
>
Thank "God" SOMEONE is. I'm not a VMS expert, so I can't
really help you with the xxx$-in-what question.
Apart from the obvious SYS$... and corresponding EXE$...
I guess Kernal should include;
Port and Class driver (NL MB, OP, DK devices)
I/O Sub-system (UCB, ADB, VCB, WCB, DDB IOC$xxx routines)
Ancillary Control Processors (NET$ACP, MTAA$ACP)
eXtended Qio Processors (Files-11B/ODS-2)
Error Logger (ERL$xxxx)
Security Subsystem (NSA$xxxx)
- EXE$CHECK_ACL
- EXE$CHECK_PRIVILEGE
- EXE$CHECK_PROT
- EXE$AUDIT_EVENT
- EXE$CREATE_ORB
- EXE$CREATE_ARB
Logical names and name tables (LNM$xxxX)
Event Flags and synchronisation (EXE$xxx)
Mailboxes (EXE$xxxX)
Global sections and pages (MMG$xxxx, EXE$xxxx)
Paged and Non-paged pool allocation (EXE$xxxx)
Process P1 page allocation (CTL$xxxxx)
Process creation (PCB, PHD, JIB, Virtual Address space)
Lock manager (what about cluster components??) (LCK$xxxx)
Image Activation and Fixup
Working set adjustments
Process scheduling (EXE$SCHED, SCH$xxxxx)
Job Controller (JBC$xxxx)
Record Management Service (RMS$xxxx, SYS$xxxx)
System Params (SGN$yy_xxxxx data locations)
>
>There are some system routines, like the message routines (sys$getmsg,
>sys$putmsg), which seem to me to be similar level to cli$ routines and should
>probably be done by the group that does the cli$ routines.
Well the question there is can you boot VMS with CLI$xxx
and can you boot VMS without SYS$GETMSG??? I'd say not....
>
Will someone please explain to me all this VMS library stuff? :-)
I'm a UNIX weenie if there ever was one ...
Think of a modular approach where a class
of routines for a resource exist in a library
(or in a funky execlet for the kernal)
Hope that helps
Scott, Esq.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I C more clearly now my N.S.W. Dept Education and Training
brain has go