NEWS 5.8
The main contents of this directory are ANU NEWS Version 5.8, from
Geoff Huston, Australian National University. This gives a fairly
complete Usenet News reader and NNTP package that allows a VMS site
to receive or send Usenet news (provided he has a feed) and also use
the News package as an electronic conferencing system along the lines
of VAX NOTES, but allowing more layers in the topics trees. A somewhat
NOTES style keypad interface exists. Documentation is extensive.


This is from the University of Kansas Anonymous FTP directory. (Pulled
by your VAX tape editor [GCE]).

The following files are available:

File Name	 Size in Bytes	Description

000_readme.ascii;1        1526	This file
autologout.bck_z        128579  AUTOLOGOUT Source and Executables
lzdcmp.exe;1             69632	LZW decompression program ( new version )
lzw.bck_z;1             137635	LZW source ( new version )
news_v58_dist.bck_z;    587525	NEWS executables and minimum documentation
news_v58_doc.bck_z;1    464853 	NEWS detailed documentation
news_v58_obj.bck_z;1   1689071	NEWS object files
news_v58_src.bck_z;1    516001	NEWS source

Most of the files here have been compressed to save file space and
transmission time.  Each of these files is an LZW compressed Backup
Save set.  To get a file you must use a binary transfer.  First, get
the LZDCMP.EXE file, so that you can decompress the save set after you
get it, and then get the xxx.BCK_Z file.  For example, LZW.BCK_Z is a
compressed backup save set of the LZW compression/decompression
routines.  Using Wollongong TCP/IP on a VMS system you would do the
following:

    $ ftp kuhub.cc.ukans.edu		! (129.237.1.10)
    ... (you already know how to do this, or you wouldn't be reading this :-)
    *binary
    *get lzdcmp.exe
    *get lzw.bck_z
    *quit
    $ LZDCMP:==$disk:[dir]LZDCMP
    $ LZDCMP lzw.bck_z lzw.bck
    $ BACKUP lzw.bck/save/sel=[*...]*.* []*.*

These commands would copy the LZDCMP program into the current directory,
copy the compressed save set to the current directory, define the LZDCMP
command, decompress the backup save set, and finally, extract the source
files from the backup save set.

There are two different versions of the LZW compression version.  The new
version works fine for decompressing the files found on this directory, but
will not correctly decompress UNIX compressed files.  The old version will
handle UNIX files correctly, but will not decompress some of the files made
with the newer version.  I did not realize there was a problem with the new
version until after I had deleted the source files for the old version, and
I didn't want to distribute the program without source, hence the two versions.
If all you want to do is decompress the files you get here or compress and
decompress files using only the LZW package, the new version works fine. If
you have a file from a UNIX system, you will need to get the old version.

[Tape editor's note:
  The new version of LZDCMP can indeed read Unix compressed files. However
it is necessary to give a command of the form

$lzdcmp -b -x 1  inputfile.type_z outputfile.type

since the -x 1 switch is REQUIRED for handling Unix files. A spurious
error message is usually generated at end of file claiming that
some error occurred. However, this has only to do with end of file
boundary conditions. The data comes out OK. The unknown VMS error
number 0 is just unix-ese for "success".

Glenn Everhart
]


Direct any questions to:
+-------------------+-------------------------------------+------------------+
|  Bob Sloane        \Internet: SLOANE@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU/Anything I said is |
|  Computer Center    \ BITNET: SLOANE@UKANVAX.BITNET   / my opinion, not my |
|  University of Kansas\  AT&T: (913) 864-0444         /  employer's.        |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------+----------------------+