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Vancouver Area Rainbow Users Group N e w s l e t t e r May and June, 1991; Volume 5, Number 3 Editor: David P. Maroun, 9395 Windsor Street, Chilliwack, BC, Canada V2P 6C5; telephone (604) 792-4071 Publisher: DECUS Canada, 505 University Avenue, 15th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X4; telephone (416) 597-3437 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This newsletter is provided free of charge to members of the Vancouver personal computer local users group (Vancouver PC LUG) also called the Vancouver Area Rainbow Users Group (VARUG). The group forms part of the Digital Equipment Computer Users Society (DECUS) of Canada. Membership in the local users group is free for anyone using a personal computer made by Digital Equipment Corporation or used with Digital products. Members need not live near Vancouver. Robert M. Slade retains the copyright to his articles. Otherwise, any part of this newsletter may be freely copied or distributed unaltered and with credit given to sources. While any information provided is believed accurate, the editor cannot take responsibility for contributions of other writers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table Of Contents Editorial: Language Problems--Again................... David P. Maroun ..... GST & LUGs ............................................ Marcus Schack ....... Wanted: A Representative At The Next Leadership Conference ........................ David P. Maroun ..... In The News ................................................................. New VARUG Software Catalogs Are Available ................................... Volunteers Wanted!! ......................................................... Viral Program Functions ............................... Robert M. Slade ..... From The Network ............................................................ A Review Of Software: SuperProject Expert ............ Gaetan Boucher ...... An Introduction To CDROM Technology ................... Larry Stone ......... Questions And Answers ....................................................... Buy, Sell, Or Swap .......................................................... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deadlines: For our July and August issue: June 30, 1991 For our September and October issue: August 31, 1991 Almost any legible format is acceptable for submissions, but the ideal is ASCII form on magnetic materials. Diskettes or tapes should be accompanied by covering letters describing the files and indicating disk or tape format. We prefer Rainbow CP/M or Rainbow MS-DOS but can handle most other CP/M and MS-DOS formats too (check about them) as well as Tandy Color Computer tapes and diskettes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial: Language Problems--Again by David P. Maroun It is bad enough when someone misunderstands or misuses a word. But I am especially disturbed by criticism for using a word correctly. Nevertheless, that is just what I have seen. As an editor, I have a responsibility to ensure clarity. So I am attempting once again to indicate what language should be used. Those thinking of submitting articles to this newsletter can take this editorial as a guide. If you break rules I give, you can expect me to correct you. Here is a list of troublesome terms with comments on them: (1) IBM. This acronym stands for International Business Machines Corporation, a large company which produces computer products. The term 'IBM' is correctly applied only to this company and its products. If someone tells you his Laser or Tandy computer is an IBM, he is wrong. (2) IBM compatible. I have given up trying to get meaning from this term. I have heard the same computer described as "not at all IBM compatible", a "close compatible", and "95% compatible". An AT&T 80286 computer I have seen is supposed to be an IBM compatible, but it will not run the BASICA program supplied with IBM PC DOS 2.10. An Apple Macintosh is supposed to be non-compatible, but I have seen MS-DOS software running on a Macintosh. Any computer I know of can communicate with IBM machines, but some machines made by IBM cannot share certain components and software with other IBM computers. For the greatest clarity, do not use the term 'IBM compatible' at all. (3) kilo. This prefix means exactly 1 000 (one thousand). A kilobyte is a thousand bytes (1 000 characters). The letter 'k', in lower case, means kilo and exactly 1 000. The use of 'kilo' and 'k' for 1 024 is an approximation. The use of 'K' (in upper case) instead of 'k' is a leftover from days when computers used only upper case. Note that 'kilo' is written entirely in lower case. (4) mega. This prefix means exactly 1 000 000 (one million). This is the meaning used by most computer manufacturers whose literature I have read. A megabyte is a million bytes. The use of 'mega' for 1 048 576 is an approximation. The symbol for mega is 'M', in upper case. Anyone needing more information on 'kilo', 'mega', and other international prefixes can consult the Canadian Standards Association "Canadian Metric Practice Guide" CAN3-Z234.1-79. (5) Attendee. I cannot find this word in dictionaries. The word is used to describe someone who attends a meeting. However, if we follow the usual pattern of adding 'er' and 'ee' suffixes (for example, in 'employer' and 'employee'), an attender is someone who attends, while an attendee is someone or something attended. I think the best procedure is to avoid 'attender' and 'attendee' altogether. If you want to refer to someone attending a meeting, say "a person attending a meeting". (6) PC. This is an acronym for 'personal computer', and describes any personal computer whether it is a Commodore 64, an Apple II, a Macintosh, an original IBM personal computer, a DECmate, a Toshiba laptop, or a Compaq 80486 machine. (7) Data. This is originally a Latin word meaning given things. Thus 'data' is a plural word. The singular 'datum' is rare in computer contexts. I often prefer to use 'information' rather than 'data'. (8) DOS. This is an acronym for disk operating system--any disk operating system. CP/M, VMS, Atari TOS, OS/9, and UNIX are all examples of DOS. MS-DOS (MicroSoft's Disk Operating System) is yet another example. Individual words are not the only causes of confusion. Deliberate falsification is another. I am referring to what sometimes pass for jokes and stories. A newsletter should contain news, not lies. I consider truth much more interesting and entertaining than fairy tales. When someone puts such tales in a computer publication, I suspect a lack of ability to tell the truth--or a deliberate attempt to withhold information. Our VARUG newsletter aims to provide information. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GST & LUGs By Marcus Schack Vice-President, Operations DECUS Canada (Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from a longer one written by Marcus Schack.) During our last executive meeting, I was asked to report back to the executive regarding how LUGs were going to handle the GST. I checked with the DECUS office, and here is the bottom line. We, LUGs, will not be required to charge GST or get a GST number. All we have to do is to pay GST for services we require. We can do this because we are covered under the "Small Business Threshold". Basically it means that we do not make more than $30 000 per year. So as it stands now, the GST impacts LUGs only in that they must pay it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wanted: A Representative At The Next Leadership Conference By David P. Maroun We are still looking for someone to represent our local users group at DECUS's next leadership conference. The conference is scheduled for Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the Fall of 1991. DECUS arranges details, and pays basic travel, lodging, and food expenses of everyone attending. Does anyone in the Vancouver PC local users group want an expenses-paid trip to Halifax, the opportunity of learning more about DECUS, and perhaps help guide DECUS Canada in its future development? If so, please contact me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In The News The US Federal Trade Commission Investigates Microsoft ------------------------------------------------------ The American Federal Trade Commission is considering allegations that Microsoft Corporation has monopolized operating systems for personal computers. This constitutes a broadening of a review of Microsoft begun by the FTC earlier. William Neukom, a Microsoft vice-president, indicated his company would continue co-operating with the FTC. IBM Has A Quarterly Loss ------------------------ As a result of a new method of accounting for benefits for retired personnel, International Business Machines Corporation has reported a deficit of 1.73 thousand million dollars in American funds for a quarter year. This deficit is the first loss ever posted by IBM. Without the new rule for post-retirement health benefits, IBM's profit would have been 93 cents per share, about half that of the first quarter in 1990. Hardware sales in early 1991 were down by more than 17 per cent. WordPerfect Supplies One Package In Place Of Two ------------------------------------------------ WordPerfect Corporation has stopped selling separate stand-alone and network- station packages of its WordPerfect 5.1 word processor. Dealers and resellers will now sell a multi-pack for use either on an isolated system or on a network. Microsoft Acquires Consumers Software ------------------------------------- Microsoft has acquired Consumers Software Incorporated of Vancouver, British Columbia, with the aim of providing an electronic mail package based on Consumers' Network Courier. Microsoft also intends opening a product center in Vancouver. Apple Continues Its Suit Against Microsoft And Hewlett-Packard -------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard failed having Apple Computer Incorporated's case against them dismissed. The case began three years ago when Apple claimed that Microsoft's Windows 2.03 and Hewlett-Packard's New Wave implementation of it violated Apple's copyright of the Macintosh interface. The recent development involved US District Judge Vaughan Walker, who ruled that parts of the interface were not licensed to Microsoft. Microsoft had obtained a license from Apple for Windows 1 but not for Windows 2.03. Microsoft and HP had claimed the Macintosh interface was not entirely Apple's but was derived from Xerox products. Judge Walker ruled on the contrary that the Mac interface was an original work entitled to copyright protection. SuperCalc For VAXes ------------------- Computer Associates of Canada Incorporated has introduced SuperCalc version 5.2 for VMS 5.0 or later on Digital Equipment Corporation VAX computers. This provides a familiar environment on VAXes for those used to SuperCalc on personal computers. SuperCalc 5.2 provides access to DB/VAX, Rdb, and RMS files on VAXes; imports and exports Lotus 1-2-3 release 3.0 spreadsheets; imports CGM files; creates Word graphs; places messages and legends anywhere in a graph; and imports graphs from SuperCalc for IBM mainframes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New VARUG Software Catalogs Are Available Catalogs of software in the Vancouver Personal Computer Local Users Group library have been updated recently, and are available on disk from the librarian Ken Alger 6001 Pine Park Place Nanaimo, British Columbia Canada V9T 3B6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Volunteers Wanted!! The Long Range Symposia Planning committee (LRSP) is currently undertaking a restructuring of itself. The objectives of the restructuring are: o To reduce the learning curve experienced by new symposia committees each year o To provide high quality symposia without draining office resources o To use symposia planning expertness to help LUGs with planning events o To provide a service to members not readily accessible to a LUG We are looking for people interested in getting involved in DECUS Canada and specifically planning the annual symposia as well as seminars throughout the country. Positions available range from Stream Coordinators whose responsibilites include finding and contacting speakers, attending the symposia to introduce the speakers to the audience and help to make the symposia a success, seminar committee members who will be responsible for arranging (in conjunction with the DECUS office and LUG committee) seminars away from the symposium. No experience is necessary. If interested please contact Anne Murakami or Marlene Arscott DECUS office LRSP Chairman (416) 597-3462 (604) 632-3030 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viral Program Functions By Robert M. Slade Part 1 -- The Price of Freedom ... ---------------------------------- The question that everyone wants to know, with respect to viri, is, how do I make absolutely sure that my system can't be infected? The answer is, you can't. Virus files attack in so many different ways that it would take an enormous program to defend against them. In addition, the massive defender program could only defend against the types of attacks that its author knew about at the time, and could find means of identifying. The advantage thus lies with the myriad attackers who can, at any time, come up with a completely new method. Does this mean we are helpless? By no means. It only means that one must be alert for the possibilities all the time, and knowledgeable about the functioning of computers in order to keep the system going. As soon as someone says he has an impregnable system, he is in grave danger. There are, however, a number of tools that can be used to protect your system. The operative words here are "tools" and "used". These programs will do you little good if they just sit on the disk. I have heard of a case of a protection program which was copied on to the disk in an "archived", or non-functioning, format, has never been run, and is not installed in such a way that it will be run without the operator taking specific action. The salesman made the statement to the purchaser that the system, because of the presence of this file, was protected. The salesman was wrong, and the purchaser was in greater danger because of that statement than if the file had not been "installed". Some of the most powerful anti-viral programs are utilities; that is, utility software which will allow you to know what is going on on your own disk. Be aware of the structure of your own disk. Have a detailed listing of the files, and file sizes, of all system and applications software. Know what software is being run "in the background", and the structure of your hard disk. The only certain way to know that something isn't happening without your knowledge, is to know what is happening at all times. Some of these utilities are "disk" utilities, which will give detailed information on the state of the disk. As well as allowing you to know what files exist, when they were created, or last modified, and what size they are, such utilities may also allow you to examine the contents of the disk in detail. For example, PC Tools, among others in the MS-DOS world, will allow you to read exactly what is in any sector of the disk, regardless of the type of file, or indeed the presence or absence of a file corresponding to that block in the file allocation table. The BRAIN virus performs its mischief by overwriting the "boot block", and redirecting the call for the system software to an area which is then marked as a "bad sector" or unusable area. This "bad sector" is, of course, nothing of the kind, and is the repository of the main part of the BRAIN program. PC Tools will allow you to read both the boot block and the bad sectors to look for tell-tale signs of infection, and, if you know machine language, to examine in detail what the program is attempting to do. Other utilities may perform functions which will provide information on other virus type activities. For example, a number of virus and/or trojan programs may be "memory resident". These programs run "in the background" without being visible to the user. Since they occupy a certain portion of memory, however, they will be displayed by utilities used to manage memory and memory resident programs. If you run a memory display, and find a program listed which you did not run, or which you had run once but "stopped" some time before, there may be an indication of a program doing something other than it is supposed to. Part 2 -- How can I attack thee? Let me count the ways ... ----------------------------------------------------------- Some utilities are written especially for trojan or virus programs. Be aware, however, that "anti-viral" software is not perfect. It can't be. There are too many ways to "attack" a system, and that includes ways that haven't been thought of yet. If it hasn't been written yet then a) no one knows about it yet and b) no one knows what the "tell tales" are on it. Some programs look for specific viri or trojans. The BRAIN virus, for example, has a characteristic phrase which shows up on directory listings and in the data contained in the boot block. The same type of "signature" is present for the nVIR and SCORES viri in the Mac world. However, these signatures can be altered with a little knowledge of the systems, and thus programs which only look for those signatures can fail to find a "modified" virus. Others look for a certain type of activity. The Lehigh University virus replaced COMMAND.COM on MS-DOS systems, but in doing so changed the date. Since the date on this file never should change, that was a major giveaway. Similarly, other viri have attached themselves to any file that was run, and increased the file size in doing so. Therefore, certain anti-viral programs record the size and date of all files, and, if run every time you start the system, will examine the disk, compare the current status with the recorded listings, and report any discrepancies. There are three problems with this. The first is that the programs can't tell whether the change was done by you or a virus. You can specify that only certain system and applications file are to be checked, but you may modify a program yourself when, for example, you tell it you have a new printer. Secondly, this only tells you that you have been infected, and does nothing to prevent the action. The last shortcoming with these systems is that it is possible, and reasonably easy, to "fool" these programs by not changing file dates, imbedding viri within a program so as not to increase the length or simply rewriting the "status" file to correspond with new conditions after an infection has occurred. One of the types of programs that were used against trojans would examine a program and "check for bombs". Files would be checked for the types of program code that could be used to erase files or format a disk. Again, it is possible to set up such functions without using the standard system calls, and, of course, many programs need to have a deletion capability to perform properly. One of the most successful classes of tools used against trojans was the programs that could be used to check for unauthorised write or delete attempts. The programs were, again, memory resident, and "guarded the gates". They could be set to trap any or all calls to read, write, delete, or format the disk. The user could then decide whether to allow the operation. If, for example, you were running a program which was supposed to show animation, and the system informed you that it wanted to format your disk, the chances were excellent that the program was a trojan. However, as before, you had to set these programs up yourself and "disable" them when you did want to delete a file, and, once again, it is possible, though more difficult, to "get past" even these programs. The latest word in anti-viral software is encryption systems. These programs modify all the programs and data that you might want to protect according to codes which you can assign. Depending upon the level of protection you buy, these systems advertise themselves as needing up to a hundred years of computer time to crack. These are the best, but they are not invulnerable. For one thing, the very best of them, DES, the one with the hundred year guarantee, has now been cracked in less than a year. (It took an international combined effort, but ... ) Another problem is that something in the system must remain in the clear, and this something must be an important part of the operating system. The last problem is that every time you open a file it must be decrypted before it can be run or read, and the better the encryption, the longer that takes. You think it takes a long time to run WordPerfect now ... Part 3 -- Or was it there when he started ... ? ----------------------------------------------- Having looked at a few of the ways that virus programs can work, and means of finding or defeating them, let's look at specific types of attacks in greater detail. The first type of attack we are going to examine is the "startup" or "boot block" program. In order to see how it works, and how to defend against it, one must first know the sequence of events that occur when the computer is started up. Most computers do not contain much programming stored in ROM. There are a number of reasons for this, the most important being that it is easier to send out new disks to upgrade the system or fix problems than to replace chips or boards. (Cheaper, too.) Therefore, many computers have almost no "resident" programming beyond that necessary to start the computer reading a disk. Most, indeed, have the "disk operating system" itself stored on the disk, so the instructions on what to do with the instructions being read in are contained in the instructions being read in. (Hence the term "booting"; it refers to the program that allows the computer to "lift itself by its own bootstraps.") Because the computer has very little "smarts" at this point, the programming must start in a pre-defined location so that the computer can find it. This "block" or address on the disk is known as the "boot block", and is always in the same place. That is not to say that the bootstrap program is always there; on a non-bootable disk this location may be empty, or even occupied by something else. Very little information may be contained in the boot block, but it can be used to point to data or programs in other locations. In MS-DOS computers, for instance, there are two "hidden" files, which contain the instructions for the operating system, a CONFIG.SYS file which contains information and instructions regarding the internal "environment" of the computer, a COMMAND.COM file which is a program that parses and translates operating system commands that the user types and turns them into system calls, and an AUTOEXEC.BAT file which allows the user to specify certain actions to be performed automatically. (An additional file used by the system is the hidden FAT or "file allocation table", unique to each disk, which specifies where files are located on the disk, and also unstable or unusable areas, referred to as "bad blocks".) The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files are optional, and are text files that can be easily modified, whereas the other files are all "program" or machine language files, as is the boot block itself. It is, therefore, unlikely that any normal user would notice if a change were made in the contents of the boot block or system files. If a virus program can replace the normal operating system at any point, it would, therefore, be run before any other program. Boot block viri most often "displace" rather than "replacing" the boot block itself. The BRAIN virus, for example, copies the existing boot block into another area of the disk, copies one block of its own code into the boot block, and the remainder into the block ahead of the original boot block. In order to hide what it has done, it lists the additional two blocks used as "bad blocks" in the file allocation table, thus ensuring that they will not appear on normal directory listings (and also ensuring that they will not be erased by other material.) Thus the BRAIN virus is the first code run in the system. It sets up certain activities within the computer, passes reading to the second block of its own code, and finally, when complete, passes control to the original boot program (which then directs the computer to the hidden system files and so forth.) The Lehigh virus let the system load proper boot blocks and system files, but then completely replaced the COMMAND.COM file. The instruction translation was rewritten so that when any disk command (even those involving a "read only" operation) was given, the existing COMMAND.COM file would be overwritten by the "infected" program. Once the virus is found, both of these problems can be dealt with easily. In the case of the BRAIN virus, nothing would happen unless the computer was booted from the infected disk. Files could be safely transferred to another disk, and then the infected disk could be reformatted. The Lehigh virus was potentially more dangerous, because COMMAND.COM is sometimes read at times other than startup, but the solution would be even simpler: Erase the infected COMMAND.COM file. Other systems have more opportunities for viri to hide. The Atari disk system reserves six blocks for the boot sector, but only one is ever used. Thus, even without replacing the original boot block, there is plenty of room for a boot block virus. On the Macintosh, any INIT or cdev type resource that is placed in the system folder will run at startup, even if it is attached to a data file (some restrictions are placed on this in later system versions.) Layered and "resource"- full types of operating systems provide excellent "breeding grounds" for viri. Any system that "hides" "unnecessary" information from the operator, or automates processes for him, risks additional areas that the operator cannot check, or is unfamiliar with. What you don't know can hurt you. Part 4 -- The best defense is a good offense/defense combination ---------------------------------------------------------------- Defenses against viri come in as many forms as viri do. The most effective defense is a good toolbox, and constant vigilance. Most standard protection plans, however, rely upon hardware, "alerting" software, or "disinfecting" software. Hardware is the simplest and most effective, but in a sense the least useful. All floppy disks have "write protect" tabs. If a disk cannot be written onto, no virus can invade it. Unfortunately, neither can anything else. The strength of the information technology is the ability to copy, collect and distribute information, and if a defense against an attack on the technology itself weakens the technology ... well, there must be a better way. In addition, while all floppy disks have write protection, almost no hard drives do. This seems, in the current climate, an almost criminal oversight. Certain systems can be used to give some protection. For example, there are now packages that act as "software write protection" for any disk, which supposedly will request confirmation anytime an attempt is made to write to disk. Trouble is, any protection a program can give you, another program can circumvent. There are also hardware solutions being devised which you can install between the computer and the disk. These systems are better but expensive. (And how hard can it be to install a switch in the "write enable" control circuitry?) The software solutions are far more common. As stated before, they generally fall into one of two categories. The first group harken back to the old "trojan" protection programs, and "vaccinate" your system by looking for new and unusual activities by programs, or actions specific to known viri. The second group "disinfect" your computer from known viral code or programs that may be there already. The vaccination type programs are generally "resident" programs that run all the time "in the background". They have to be running at all times to identify new threats. Depending upon their "intelligence", and your types of activities, they may be frustrating because of continual requests for confirmation of valid activities. Also, vaccination programs may not protect you against programs that are already resident on your machine. However, they do strengthen your defenses when trying out new files. Disinfectant programs will search through your disks (and, in some cases, RAM) looking for known viral programs or code. These programs do not stay resident, and will not interfere with normal operation. However, they must be run on all disks you may have, and only identify current viri. You may still become infected in the future. It is good practice to "disinfect" at regular intervals, in the same way that one does regular backups. (You do regular backups, don't you?) Both types of protection programs are subject to "novelty". In both cases, the programs were written at a certain time, to address known viri. New viri, which may attack in completely novel ways, may "slip by" either type. Disinfectant programs, however, are likely more susceptible to this type of problem since they must be more specific in their search for viral code. If you use disinfectant type programs, be sure to obtain regular upgrades. There is one other type of software, which is, in a sense, a hybrid of the hardware and disinfectant protection schemes. These are programs which apply security to programs rather than users. With these systems, one must "authorize" all programs which are allowed to run on the system, plus the type of activity they are allowed to perform (and perhaps the files and/or directories they are allowed to perform them in or on.) If a system is not used for many functions, these programs can be useful, but if you use a great many types of activities, the installation may be very time consuming. Care must be taken not to "lock out" programs you want to use, nor to leave loopholes. And, of course, if your "authorized" disk editor has been infected, and is permitted to write to anything in the system ... Sometimes these "program security" programs use the encryption schemes mentioned in an earlier article. The security programs themselves then use some of the resources of the computer, and even if you have "allowed" all the functions you want, they may slow operations. One thing to note: Be very careful when installing these programs. If there is a glitch during installation, they may not allow any unauthorized programs to run. Including the program used to modify the installation ... (Editor's note: Mr. Slade retains the copyright to his articles.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From The Network (Editor's note: The following messages were extracted from a file supplied to us by Pat Stroman. I have edited for clarity. Please note that 'SCSI' stands for small computer system interface. 'CRT' stands for cathode ray tube, the "picture tube" of a video display terminal or television set.) ---------------------------------- Subject: Re: SCSI max length From: pete@fidata.fi (Petri Helenius) Organization: Fimeko-Data Oy, Helsinki, Finland, Europe What is the maximum cable length for the SCSI bus? What is the recommended length? We've been using little over 3 meter cable and it works fine. I've heard of up to six meter cables being used and I think the official specification for SCSI-1 is 3 meters or 10 feet . . .. Petri Helenius, Fimeko-Data Oy ---------------------------------- Subject: Re: High-end Modem Speeds... From: tnixon@hayes.uucp Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA > I had an interesting conversation with an IBM telecomm guru about six years ago. > He told me that 9600 bps was about as high as normal phone lines can > handle due to their quality. Is this still generally true? I realize that he > had given me a number that was in a logical step (2400, 4800, 9600, . . .) so > is there a ceiling speed, minus compression and so on? I'm surprised! "Gurus" always used to say the limit was 2400, and that 9600 was a pipe dream. Now they're saying 9600. Oh, well. The truth is, 14 400 works very well on average, everyday US phone lines! It doesn't work nearly as well on international calls because of the 40 kbit ADPCM encoding used in the DCME/PCME equipment on transoceanic trunks. But even on long-distance calls in the USA, V.32bis works well. CCITT Study Group XVII is currently studying "V.fast", which is intended to be the "ultimate modem". It will provide the optimal performance on whatever the phone circuit has to offer. On a good circuit (80% or more of the circuits in the USA), it should be able to achieve 24 000 bps--raw throughput, without error control or compression. This uses multidimensional coding techniques, sophisticated line probing and measurement, and various other newfangled pieces of technology understood by very few people, it seems. But it has been demonstrated to work! It will be 1993, probably, before the standard is released, but prototypes are working today. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer, Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. ---------------------------------- Subject: Re: Workstation Radiation From: ROGER@GONZAGA.BITNET ("Roger Melvin, Academic Programmer/System Analyst") Our hardware technician here took some measurements, with the assistance of the School of Engineering, and the final result was that at a distance of 1 cm from the screen, if you could collect all the emitted radiation from a 13" screen, it would take several hundred thousand years to charge an AA battery! I would suspect if this user has ever stuck a 9 V radio battery to his/her tongue, s/he has already done more damage than could be accomplished by being surrounded by 4 CRTs! Now if this user is dumb enough to sit there and stare at the screen for hours on end . . . maybe s/he should consider a job measuring the radiated energy from the laser scanners in use at various grocery stores. Roger Melvin, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Review Of Software: SuperProject Expert By Gaetan Boucher Suppose you are in charge of a large project, such as erecting an office building. You must hire architects, buy materials, hire manual laborers, get licenses, arrange inspections, and pay salaries. Furthermore, you must do these things in proper order, and meet deadlines. For planning and following the progress of a project, you may use a certain type of computer program: The project manager. It is intended to help finish the project in the shortest possible time at minimal cost while meeting or surpassing stated requirements. Project managers do critical path calculations to satisfy these conditions. Months ago, I took advantage of an offer from Computer Associates to try out free of charge a demonstration version of its project manager SuperProject Expert for MS-DOS. Computer Associates provided the software on either 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch double-density diskettes. I chose 5.25-inch. An explanatory booklet, "SuperProject Expert 10-Minute Guide", was included. I followed the booklet and tried out SuperProject Expert on a Corona PC and a DEC Rainbow 100B. The Corona had just two floppy drives while the Rainbow had a 10-million-character hard disk besides its RX50 diskette drive (for two diskettes). The Corona had 524 000 characters (a nominal 512 k) of random access memory; the Rainbow had 918 000 (a nominal 896 k). The Corona had its original 8088 microprocessor; the Rainbow had a V20. On the Corona, I transferred the files from the original double-sided diskettes to single-sided diskettes which the Rainbow could read. The LHARC and PKZIP archivers helped compensate for the smaller capacities of the single-sided diskettes. When SuperProject Expert was loaded, it indicated that Print and Save were disabled. I found I could go through the motions of saving or printing a project, but no saving or printing would occur. As far as I could tell, this was the only limitation of the demonstration compared to the full commercial version of the program. SuperProject Expert ran on the Corona under IBM PC-DOS 2.10. On the Rainbow, MS-DOS 3,10b and Code Blue with its '/V' option were necessary. My old Code Blue version 1.05 was adequate for this task. SuperProject Expert's main files used some 859 000 characters of disk space. The demonstration package included a README file, two "macro" files of commands, and several sample project files. Including them, the total of all the file sizes was 1 009 568 characters. As a result, the Rainbow's hard disk was definitely more convenient than the Corona's two-floppy-only system. The Corona required occasional disk-swapping. SuperProject Expert uses a screen display somewhat like an Apple Macintosh's. A menu bar appears at the top of the screen. The start-up main menu looks like this: PERT Chart SuperProject Expert Proj-1.p View Edit Select File Output Help One way of giving commands is to press the forward slash key </> then the first letter of a menu item, so '/E' gives the 'Edit' command. As a result, a sub-menu appears under the main menu selection 'Edit'. Here is a sample Edit sub-menu: ========================== ||Create Task || ||Delete Task || ||Link Tasks || ||Unlink Tasks || ||Enlarge View || ||Reduce View || ||Arrange PERT Chart || ||Move Selected Tasks || ||Move Current Task Only|| ||Hide lower level (-) || ||Show next level (+) || ||Position [] || ========================== The border is only approximated in this diagram. Just pressing the </> key produces the sub-menu for the 'View' command. Once it appears, you can move left- and right-arrow keys to choose other items, like 'Edit', from the main menu. You can use the down-arrow key to move the cursor into a sub-menu, then either move the cursor with the up- and down-arrow keys to your selection and press the <Return> key, or press a key letter (usually the first letter) of the sub-menu selection. There are still other ways of choosing; some of them give sub-menu selections directly. Generally, SuperProject Expert allows more than one way of giving a command. I found that some ways would not function as intended on the Rainbow, while others would not function on the Corona, but I always found at least one way to give a command. Included with the program was a tutorial macro file TUTORIAL.XQT. If I started SuperProject Expert by typing SPJ /MTUTORIAL<Return> (SPJ.EXE is the main executable file), the tutorial would run. The choices available from the menus depended on whether the program was in beginner mode (which is the default), intermediate, or expert. I saw little point in having beginner or intermediate modes. Anyone who does not want the extra selections of the expert menus can just ignore them. The user can change the mode to expert (as I did) and can change other characteristics such as the format for dates, screen colors, whether costs are displayed, and whether calculations are done automatically. New settings, unlike project files, can be saved on disk. If I ended a session and started later, the program would read saved settings automatically. The recording of program settings was the one exception I noted to the rule that my demonstration copy would not save to disk. Four main View screens are available for building projects: (1) A PERT chart showing dependencies of one task on another; (2) An outline screen showing a summary of the project; (3) A task Gantt showing durations of various tasks; (4) A work breakdown chart showing project structure. The PERT chart showed tasks in little boxes joined by lines. When viewing the PERT chart, I had the option of enlarging the picture so I could concentrate on just part. I could scroll through the whole chart even if only part was visible at a time. Here is a sample PERT chart: _002_______________ |Interview Client | |David 5| |015||||||||||||||| _001________________ oo>|05-29-91 06-04-91|oo- |015| |Award | |Proposal |ooo |_________________| oooo|Awar |Begin >>05-20-91|----->|Marvin 15| |End ||||||||||||||||||| |05-20-91<<05-28-91|ooo _003_______________ -->||||| |P2|||||||||||||||| |P2___________________| oo>|Visit Site |--- |ELM_HIGH.PJ | |ELM_HIGH.PJ | |Oscar 1|----------- |Begin >>06-01-87| |End 08-29-91|<--------|05-29-91 05-30-91| ||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||| |_________________| The borders and connecting lines seen on the screen are only approximated in this diagram. The right end of the diagram shows just part of a box because the entire PERT chart was too big to fit onto the screen. ELM_HIGH.PJ is the name of the project. The instruction booklet advised using the PERT chart for setting up dependencies among tasks, so that the program knew which task must be completed before others. The Gantt chart was recommended for showing durations of tasks. Here is a sample Gantt chart: ================================================================================== || 1 Day Per Symbol ||June 87 |July || ||ID Heading/Task Resource |01 08 15 22 29| 06 13 || ||--------------------|---------||------|------|------|------|-|----|------|----|| ||P2 |ELM_HIGH.PJ |///////////////////////////////////////////////|| ||015 | Award |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|| ||001 | Proposal |\\\\\ \\\__ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____|| ||001 | Marvin |\\\\\ \\\__ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____|| ||001 | David |\\\\\ \\\__ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____|| ||002 | Interview Client |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||002 | David |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||002 | Larry |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||003 | Visit Site |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||003 | Oscar |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||003 | Larry |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||014 | Feasibilty |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||004 | Survey Site |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||004 | Oscar |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||005 | Concept Meeting |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ||005 | Marvin |..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....|| ================================================================================== As before, non-alphabetic characters in the diagram are approximations of those shown on screen. Other charts available give the work breakdown, details of the project, task details, resource details, histogram/resource Gantt, and calendars. Report-writing ability is built into SuperProject Expert. Although the demonstration did not allow printing, it allowed picking printers or plotters. The program offered a list of such devices, but I found no way to enter codes manually for an unlisted printer. As far as I could tell, SuperProject Expert allows printing only with supplied drivers. I consider that restriction severe. My experience with supplied printer drivers for other programs suggests that drivers may need adjustment even if they seem to match available printers. On a printer not listed by the program, printing may be difficult or impossible. The instruction booklet refers readers to the complete manual for more information. Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of the manual so I cannot tell whether it indicates ways of overcoming apparent limitations of SuperProject Manager. The program performed fairly quickly on both the Rainbow and the Corona. All in all, I thought SuperProject Expert is a competent program. However, to keep things in proper perspective, I made a quick comparison with the Milestone Project Manager version 1.14 for DEC Rainbow CP/M-86, a program I have had for years. Milestone's essential files are MILESTON.CMD, MILESTON.DAT, MILESTON.OVL, and MILESTON.WRK. Together they use 129 024 characters of disk space, which is about 15% of SuperProject Expert's total file size. I can easily keep the Milestone files and several project files on one diskette. Milestone has a few options for controlling printers, but does not use special printer drivers. Any printer will do. Milestone offers fewer options for displaying charts, but is still entirely adequate for project managing. The comparison makes me think of SuperProject Expert as being too big and too biased in favor of unnecessary cosmetics. Of course, if you have the needed disk space and memory, these problems may not bother you. For more information on SuperProject Expert, you can contact Computer Associates Canada Ltd. 1770 Burrard Street Vancouver, BC V6J 3G7 Telephone (604) 733-2343 or toll-free (800) 663-6904 Telex 04-508357 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An Introduction To CDROM Technology By Larry Stone TMS Inc. Stillwater, OK (Reprinted from the DECUS VAX special interest group newsletter, Volume 3, Number 12.) CDROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory) technology is a dream come true for people and companies that have large amounts of information to distribute. Each CDROM disc can contain at least 550 million characters of information. In real world terms, each disc has the potential to hold the equivalent of 150 000 pages of printed text or the complete contents of 1200 standard 5.25-inch floppy discs. The enormous storage capacity and relatively inexpensive reproduction cost for CDROM make it an ideal medium for large scale data and information storage projects. Imagine a complete reference library including a dictionary, thesaurus, and book of quotations, or the entire body of the tax code for the United States on a single disc that you can slip in your pocket. These are some of the products that are already available on CDROM. The recent announcement from Digital Equipment Corporation that it would be distributing software on CDROM discs represents an introduction of CDROM to the VAX world. This article is a brief introduction to CDROM technology for anyone who is not familiar with CDROM and how it works. It includes information about the history of CDROM technology, the physical characteristics of a CDROM disc, advantages and disadvantages of CDROM as compared to magnetic media, and a short list of some of the current applications available on CDROM. A Brief History Of CDROM ------------------------ Compact discs have their roots in the 12 inch videodiscs that were used to record video sequences for home entertainment. Between 1972 and 1976, a controversy raged over which of several conflicting videodisc formats should become the industry standard. The Laser Vision format eventually won out, although it was never established as the official standard. Lack of a standard wasted enormous amounts of time, energy, and money, and the product was never particularly successful. When work to develop CD audio discs began, Philips Electronics, and later Sony, worked for world-wide agreement on a standard disc format before they ever released the first CD audio product. The specification for the CD audio standard that came out of this work resulted in a substantially united front among all the disc manufacturers. Today, CD audio discs represent the fastest growing segment of the consumer electronic market. People soon realized that compact discs were suitable for storing types of information other than music. Philips and Sony went to work again and in 1983 announced a standard for CDROM as an extension to the CD audio specification. All CDROM discs produced today comply with this standard, regardless of the manufacturer, and any manufacturer's CDROM can retrieve data from these discs. In 1984, several prototype CDROM drives were unveiled. The first commercially available drives and subsystems were released in 1985. Along with them came the first databases published on CDROM. Physical Characteristics Of The CDROM ------------------------------------- A CDROM disc is 120 mm (about 4.72 inches) across, 1.2 mm thick, and has a 15 mm hole in the center. Information is stored on the disc as a spiral track of pits molded into one surface. That surface is coated with a reflective metal layer which is in turn is covered with a protective layer of plastic. Data are recorded on the disc from the inside of the disc to the outer edge. The information is read from the disc by focusing a very small laser beam on the layer that contains the pits and then measuring the amount of light reflected back into the objective lens. The information on the disc is stored much more densely than on magnetic media. The track on a CDROM disc is almost three miles long and can contain almost two thousand million pits. The primary characteristic that differentiates a CDROM disc from an audio disc is that the CDROM has a special layer of error correction coding added to it. In fact, the quality of the information on the CDROM is as good as or better than on all other computer peripheral devices. Other than the error coding, the discs are identical. Many of the production CDROM drives come equipped to play CD audio discs. CDROM discs can hold at least 550 megabytes of data. This number is more a factor of the CDROM player than the disc itself. Some of the early drives have had trouble reading data that were recorded close to the edge of the CDROM. The newer drives have overcome this limitation and 660 megabytes is now accepted as the maximum amount of data that may be placed on the disc and still be read by a variety of disc players. Advantages Of CDROM ------------------- CDROM has several distinct advantages over magnetic media including durability, large storage capacities, and machine independence. Because a player reads the disc without any contact between a playing head and the disc, a CDROM cannot fall victim to a head crash. The data are physically pressed into the disc so that the information is non-volatile; it cannot be erased by accident. This is actually the optimal situation for data that need to be accurate and should never be changed, for example, statistical information or legal guidelines. The disc is extremely durable and is difficult to damage. It is not prone to bending or scratching as are most magnetic media. The extreme density of the information on the disc pays tremendous dividends for information brokers who have large amounts of data to distribute. For the mailing cost of a single floppy disc, the information broker can send out the equivalent of over 1200 floppy discs of data. Replication costs are very reasonable (about three dollars per disc), and as the technology becomes more available, this cost continues to decrease. Compact discs can store any kind of digitized information, and can be especially valuable for applications that involve digitized images or video. Such applications require large amounts of storage space, and CDROM may often prove to be the most cost effective medium for the job. The cost savings cannot be measured in terms of the CDROM disc alone. CDROM drives are also very reasonably priced. A good quality CDROM player costs from $600 to $1200. The price is much less than the cost of a magnetic disc drive from Digital, and the CDROM can easily contain up to 33% more data than the RA81. An important but often unrealized aspect of CDROM technology is that it is the only widely available medium that is completely hardware independent. It is possible to create discs that are accessible by a VAX, IBM PC, or Apple computer. The ability to address all these different hardware environments with a single distribution disc is one that data publishers are just beginning to deal with. The potential cost benefits for the consumer can be substantial. Disadvantages Of CDROM ---------------------- CDROM discs do have some drawbacks, specifically: Slower seek times and the inability to change the content of the disc. The same technology that makes it possible to have large amounts information on the CD also causes random access times to be much longer than on magnetic discs. The newer CDROM players provide dramatically improved seek times over the earlier drives, but the delay is sometimes still noticeable under interactive applications that require frequent seeking over the surface of the disc. A user's application cannot write directly to a CDROM. Once the data are mastered on the disc, the only way to change it is to master an entirely new CDROM. While many people view this as a limitation, it is often a strong point in favor of the medium. Most of the data stored on magnetic disc and tape are actually archival information, well suited for storing on CDROM where they cannot be erased or corrupted. Some Current Applications Of CDROM ---------------------------------- Digital Equipment Corporation announced recently that it will be distributing software on CDROM. This is an ideal application of the technology. It will be less expensive for DEC to produce and distribute the executables on CDROM, and the person receiving the software no longer has to be concerned that the tape or floppy has been damaged or erased during shipping. Storing the media after software installation is complete will require less space and no longer requires a controlled environment to guarantee the integrity of the data. New databases are appearing on CDROM each month. In particular, relatively static, full-text applications are ideally suited to distribution on CDROM. Most of these applications have been created for the MS-DOS market, but both Apple and Digital have announced their support for CDROM and the ISO CDROM file system standard, and we can expect to see offerings for their machine environments soon. Traditionally on-line databases that have begun to appear on CDROM include the offerings from Lotus, Dialog, and UMI. A number of applications including maps and demographic information, telephone information, and legal and statistical data have also begun to appear. For the home market, the potential is enormous. Grolier's has already published its first edition of an encyclopedia on CD and has announced that a second edition will be available soon. Computer game manufacturers are beginning to see the value in CDROM as a means to store video, graphics, and sound for increasingly complex computer adventure games. Other applications involve a combination of text, video, and audio capabilities to produce an exciting learning environment for the home. Conclusions ----------- CDROM is a medium that has finally come of age. More and more manufacturers are beginning to realize the potential of a 500 to 600 million character medium that only costs a few dollars per unit to produce. Never before has the small computer user had such inexpensive access to such large amounts of data. In the next year we can expect to see many new products released on CDROM. The potential applications of this new medium are limited only by your own imaginations. For Further Information ----------------------- Buddine, Laura and Young, Elizabeth. The Brady Guide to CD-ROM. New York, New York: Prentice-Hall press, 1987. Lambert, Steve and Ropiequet, Suzanne, editors. The New Papyrus. Redmont, Washington: Microsoft Press, 1986. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions And Answers Do you have a computer-related problem? Send it to us. We can publish it, and if we do not know a solution, perhaps someone else in our users group can provide one. QUESTION: I often use KERMIT for transfer files between a MicroVAX and an MS-DOS computer. I can do a binary transfer from the MicroVAX to MS-DOS, but when I try a binary transfer in the other direction, I get the message File rejected by host: File type and the transfer is aborted. How can I correct this situation? ANSWER: Give your MS-DOS KERMIT program the command SET ATTRIBUTES TYPE OFF . QUESTION: When I try printing from WordPerfect, nothing goes to the printer. Instead, a disk file TEST.DOC is created. What is wrong? How can I print? ANSWER: WordPerfect allows choosing a file rather than the printer as the destination for a print job. Someone has probably chosen this option. To change the destination back to your printer, press the WordPerfect print key, which is <Print Screen> for Rainbow WordPerfect 4.1 and <Shift> <F7> for many versions of WordPerfect for other MS-DOS machines. On a Rainbow, next press <4> for Printer Control, then <3> for Select Printer. Choose the printer and definition you prefer, and pick LPT1 to make the printer port the destination. Press <Shift> <Exit> (that is, <Shift> <F10>) to save changes. For recent versions of WordPerfect on many other MS-DOS machines, after you press <Shift> <F7>, press <S> for Select, then <E> for Edit, and choose the desired destination. Press WordPerfect's <Exit> key <F7> to save changes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buy, Sell, Or Swap This section is presented as a service to members. There is no charge for advertizements placed here, though donations will be accepted. Only items related to computing will be advertized; if you wish to sell an old car, we respectfully suggest that you publicize elsewhere. Advertizements are not accepted from suppliers. In accordance with DECUS policy on commercialism, we do not print prices. Ads should preferably be submitted to the editor in writing or as ASCII computer files, but may also be phoned in. ---------------------------------- AVAILABLE: Kwantlen College is clearing out a stock of DEC Rainbow and DECmate accessories, including graphics packages, floor stands, and cables, as well as Rainbow and DECmate software such as Select-86, Multiplan-86, Multiplan-80, MBASIC-80, CP/M-86/80 version 2.0, MS-DOS 2.05, Peachtree List Manager, and Poly-Com communications. Some items are in the original unopened packages. Contact Randy Bruce at (604) 599-2068. AVAILABLE: Intergraph 785, which is an augmented VAX 11/785. Telephone (604) 664-4452 during business hours. FOR SALE: Rainbow 100 with 256 k of memory, Multiplan, WPS-80 word processor, accounting programs, and other software. Contact Doug Nicol at (604) 792-0025. FOR SALE: Poly-XFR CP/M communications software for Rainbow 100. The software is in the original package with all documentation. Three 65 536-character DRAM (memory) chips. One serial-to-parallel interface. These items are just taking up space now, so all offers will be considered. Telephone David P. Maroun at (604) 792-4071. WANTED: A PC380--just the system (cards, hard drive, and motherboard). No peripherals required. Telephone Dido Diseko at (204) 284-8100 during business hours, (204) 261-4671 after office hours. FOR SALE: Peachtree business modules for MS-DOS: PeachCalc spreadsheet, personal calendar, job cost system, and inventory control. Any offer will be seriously considered. Note: These modules require Code Blue and maximum memory to run on Rainbows. Contact David P. Maroun at (604) 792-4071. FOR SALE: One memory expansion board, nominally 192 k, for a DEC Rainbow. Contact Ken Alger at (604) 390-4482. WANTED: Read-only memory (ROM) chips to allow a DEC LA100 printer to print 8-bit characters and to print near-letter-quality text at twelve characters per inch. Telephone David P. Maroun at (604) 792-4071. FOR SALE: DEC Rainbow and DECmate computers. Accessories and software for these computers. PERLE PDS 350/525 protocol converter for communication with IBM SYSTEM/34, SYSTEM/36, and SYSTEM/38. Tektronix 4114 terminal. Intergraph workstations. During business hours contact Shayne Dunlop at (604) 664-3194 or Cheryle Baker at (604) 664-5936. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What Do You Think Of This Issue? Please tell us what you liked or did not like. The best articles were:__________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ The worst articles were:_________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ Comments or suggestions: Send your opinions to The Editor, VARUG Newsletter, 9395 Windsor Street, Chilliwack, BC, Canada V2P 6C5.