From: trashman@crud.mn.org (Barry Schwartz)
Newsgroups: mn.general
Subject: UUPC on an 8088?
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 21:28:37 GMT
Organization: TSAKC-TC
Reply-To: trashman@crud.mn.org


In article <1992Dec21.181154.2247@pwcs.stpaul.gov> derekt@pwcs.stpaul.gov writes:

 > 
 > Clayton Haapala (clay@haapi.mn.org) wrote:
 > : A prospective MN.Org member wants to know if he can run UUPC on an
 > : 8088 Compaq computer.  Any of you UUPC experts out there know if this
 > : can be done or not?
 > : clay@haapi.mn.org
 > 
 > Depending on the version of uupc and other unix-mail/news-under-dos
 > clones, it will probably run on an 8088.  I saw and worked with a
 > version that ran on the 8086.   However, it may not be very feature
 > rich, like some of the more powerful versions due to the limitations of
 > the 8088.

There's no reason (that I can think of) why UUPC/extended shouldn't
run on an 8088, so long as the serial communications works.  The MSDOS
versions are all written for the lowest common denominator in
computing.  (There are versions for OS/2 as well.)  The executables are
very small, by design.  Features are left out just to keep the
executables small.  On a very old machine, a more likely problem is
disk space.  You probably need a hard drive to work comfortably with
any mail system.

There is a problem with UUPC/extended in the mn.org domain, because of
the way mn.org identifies itself as "tcnet" in the Shere line but
does not put "tcnet" in the names of the working files.  Because of this,
run-of-the-mill UUPC/extended is not able to map the working files to
unique MSDOS file names.  You can live with this, but uupc/extended 1.11
will spew out lots of warning messages, and there is a (small) chance
that there will be a filename clash and therefore a loss of data.

There are at least three possible fixes for the problem.  One involves
using undocumented but apparently usable extensions to what makes up a
legal MSDOS file name.  The advantage to this method is that you don't
have to recompile UUPC.  You just define a new "CharSet" variable in a
configuration file.  Recently, though, I've found that some of the
utilities might not handle this fix properly, and have stopped using
it.  It does, however, have the advantage that, no matter what real
machine is calling itself "tcnet" at the moment, you won't get
filename truncation.  The other solutions break as soon as someone
changes the actual machine, with possible loss of data until you
manually adjust to the change.

Another fix, which I used for a short while when I first subscribed to
mn.org, requires that you modify uucico.exe.  What I did was to put
mn.org in my Systems file as "kksys", but put a hack into uucico so
that when the system it was calling was "kksys" it would look for
"Shere=tcnet".  Recently I have modified uucico 1.11q so that you can
put a field such as "VIRTUAL_NAME=tcnet" in the Permissn file to have
this effect, but I don't think it is good solution.

The solution I am working on right now (and have largely implemented,
with apparent success), is to modify the importpath() function so that
if, say, "tcnet" generates files that look like "D.kksysblahblah" then
uupc will look for a "kksys" substring rather than a "tcnet" substring.
I introduce a new configuration file, which contains lines that look like
"Host tcnet is really kksys".  For this fix you have to recompile every
part of uupc/extended that calls the importpath() function.

None of these modifications are ever likely to make it into an "official"
release of UUPC/extended, because Drew Derbyshire will not include
features that only affect a few users.  This is because of his rule that
the programs must be small, preferably .COM files.  And they are not
terribly important, anyway; I don't think the chance of a filename clash
is that great.  Off-the-shelf UUPC/extended ought to work alright,
though you will get lots of warning messages from newer versions.

Users of UUPC/extended may benefit from joining the mailing list.
Instructions on how to join are probably included in the .zip files.
I think the only .mn.org address in the list is mine, so we are
under-represented.

Users who are interested in Netnews will find that there isn't any
strong support for news in UUPC/extended, although it is currently
under development.  There is an add-on called Snews available, but it
is fragile.  (However, it doesn't eat as much disk space as the
built-in UUPC news support will.)  MSDOS users who want a plug-in news
system ought to check out Waffle and FSUUCP instead.  (These systems
may, however, do less to protect against filename clashes than does
late-model UUPC/extended.)


Newsgroups: mn.general