Message-ID: <417@wlcrjs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Nov-84 02:25:46 EST
Article-I.D.: wlcrjs.417
Posted: Thu Nov 22 02:25:46 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Nov-84 06:46:09 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: chi-net, Public Access UN*X, Chicago IL
Lines: 64


By the process of consent by osmosis, the Venix Users Group is hereby
christened VUG.  I've heard from several people via usenet & several more have
left their names on the database at Unisource.  In cooperation with them I'm
going ahead to try to organize the group.  Pending some calamity I now plan to
be at UniForum where I will try to organize a B.O.F. session where we can get
together.  NOTE:  If you left your name on the uni3 machine at Unisource as
being interested in a VUG and are on Usenet, please send me your net address.
(uucp mail preferably.)  I've heard from several users of Venix on PDP-11ish
machines & we should probably form a single group, or else coordinate our
efforts.

/VUG/motd:

1.  Dorris at Unisource tells me that Unify is now available under Venix.
Leverage sounds like an interesting product but as I understand it it's not a
true relational DBMS, so those interested in running a DBMS under Venix should
be grateful for this.  Unisource *is* interested in marketing competing
applications in the same niche.  They'd love to market everything they can get
their hands on, but have had problems getting the vendors to port to Venix.
Any ideas on making this easier would be welcome.  Better memory models for
the C compiler would obviously help.  I believe 2.0 has a medium memory model;
some programs might need a large model to be ported.

2.  For those wanting an Xmodem program for Venix I have found the best of the
bunch to be uc, downloaded from /vaxsig/unix XA on CompuServe.  Believe it or
not it compiles on both 4.1 BSD and Venix with *no ifdefs*!  Let me know if
you need the code.

3.  Venturcom has *put out an appeal* to Unisource to come up with a wish list
for System V.  This is an offer we won't refuse!!  It might be difficult to
prioritize our wishes through usenet -- maybe we can do this at UniForum --
but for starters I will be delighted to pass on all requests for what we want
in the Sys. V. release.  My own personal wish list follows, in no particular
order:

A.  Clean up tty read() in raw mode to make it consistent with other flavors
of Unix & return when 1 char arrives from a multi-char. read.

B.  More full suite of Berkeley stuff, including:  Mail, ctags, strings, xstr,
mkstr, etc.

C.  4.2 BSD version of uucp utitilizing modemcap, if possible.  (This is not a
pipe dream.  This version of uucp is available under Sys. V on the Convergent
Mini-Frame.)  If that's not possible do *something* to uucico so that the
timeout does not abort the dial on Hayes-compatible modems.

D.  Korn shell if AT&T will release it.

E.  Better flexibility on FDISK partitions.  I've talked to at least two
people who paid for Venix & are not using it because they need a partition for
DOS and one for Concurrent.  As it comes off the shelf I think Venix can be
configured to run in only two partitions, by simply not mounting /tmp.  But
there's no documentation on this for those not familiar with Unix.

4.  We're going to try to coordinate a single unified bug list.  If you have a
bug list & haven't sent it to me I'd appreciate a copy.

Thanks to Randy Seuss at ihnp4!wlcrjs!randy for putting up his machine as a
bbs for net news.  It's easiest to get in touch with me by uucp mail at:

 Jim Rosenberg
 decvax!idis!pitt!amanuen!jr
 (412) 784 2806

Message-ID: <261@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 11:33:49 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.261
Posted: Tue Nov 27 11:33:49 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Nov-84 03:10:06 EST
References: <417@wlcrjs.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 27
Xref: godot net.unix:2011 net.micro.pc:1508

 >  3.  Venturcom has *put out an appeal* to Unisource to come up with a wish list
 >  for System V. ... My own personal wish list follows, in no particular
 >  order:
 >  
 >  A.  Clean up tty read() in raw mode to make it consistent with other flavors
 >  of Unix & return when 1 char arrives from a multi-char. read.

Not applicable to System V.  There's no such thing as "raw" mode in S5;
there's a bunch of modes you turn on and off.  In "~icanon" mode (which turns
off erase and kill processing), you can say how many characters should
complete a multi-character read, and can also say that the read should complete
in some number of 10ths of a second *if* at least one character has come in.
(NOTE: some people have thought that this is a read timeout, and that the
clock starts running at the time the "read" is issued.  It just ain't so.
In S5, if the minimum number of characters to complete the read is 0, the
clock does start when the "read" is issued, but only then; this is emphatically
*not* the case with S3, however.)

 >  B.  More full suite of Berkeley stuff, including:  Mail, ctags, strings, xstr,
 >  mkstr, etc.

Well, with S5 Release 2 you get "Mail", only Bell renamed it "mailx" and
changed it around a bit.  No credit given, from what I can tell, except in
the comments in the source code.  Humph.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy

Message-ID: <4700@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Nov-84 17:25:57 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4700
Posted: Thu Nov 29 17:25:57 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Nov-84 17:25:57 EST
References: <417@wlcrjs.UUCP>, <261@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 11

 >  Well, with S5 Release 2 you get "Mail", only Bell renamed it "mailx" and
 >  changed it around a bit.  No credit given, from what I can tell, except in
 >  the comments in the source code.  Humph.

Well, that's better than Berkeley usually does.  You won't even find
comments in the source to indicate that the original vtroff software
came from U of Toronto.  Which is an out-and-out violation of U of T's
software licence, which requires credit in all re-use.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

Message-ID: <533@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 16:21:37 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.533
Posted: Fri Nov 30 16:21:37 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Dec-84 20:20:11 EST
References: <417@wlcrjs.UUCP> <261@rlgvax.UUCP> <4700@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Columbus
Lines: 28
Summary: vtroff really originated at Toronto

In article <4700@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
 > Well, that's better than Berkeley usually does.  You won't even find
 > comments in the source to indicate that the original vtroff software
 > came from U of Toronto.  Which is an out-and-out violation of U of T's
 > software licence, which requires credit in all re-use.
 > -- 
 > 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
 > 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

This is probably my fault.  I wrote the Berkeley Font Catalog and did
a lot of the font work.  I probably should have credited Toronto as the
source of the original software and the Hershey fonts.  (I think in turn
the fonts came from the USA dept of something or other.)

What happened is that I never saw a license from Toronto for that stuff,
and until I read this netnews article I didn't know such a license existed.
I was not the original recipient of the stuff from Toronto - I'm not sure
who was.

In any case, it just never occurred to me to insert an acknowledgement to
Toronto, or to MIT and Stanford from whence most of the rest of the fonts
came.  Things were different back then, you just passed software around
and didn't worry too much about where it came from.

So I hereby publicly apologise to the University of Toronto for not
crediting them as the original source of the vtroff software.

	Mark Horton