= --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- ======= -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- APRIL 1997 ========= ======= The iMatix Newsletter Volume II Issue 4 --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- = Copyright (c) 1997 iMatix - distribute freely Back issues at http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Finite State Machines - Programming - News and Views - Feedback - Reports == COMMENT ---...-.-...-.--...-.--...-.-...-.....---..-....--.--..-.-.---.-- A small company in the states, Global Link, is challenging the telecoms giants (AT&T, BT,...) by offering global phone calls through the Internet - at the cost of local phone calls. Internet phone calls are notoriously painful; slow to connect and with lousy quality. Global Link claim to have solved these problems - which may be true, or not. But the shape of the future is clear. Within a few years - maybe as soon as 1999 - the cost of a phone call to any point in the world will be much the same, and low. The implications of this could be huge. Most people still rely on the telephone and fax, even telex for telecommunications. The advent of low-cost calls to the billions of people without e-mail will give a gigantic kick to the ongoing process of globalisation. It's going to be a headache for the large telecoms companies, who now reap a rich profit from long-distance calls. They will have to make their margin on far more, far cheaper calls, while fighting-off scores of small and aggressively modern new competitors. But for the global consumer it is going to be a golden age where a precious, rich-person's resource becomes cheaper than water. The Internet has revolutionised business life in the rich countries. Now, it is set to do the same for the rest of the world. The global village is around the corner, and it's just a phone call away. Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen 1 April 1997 == LETTERS -..-.----.-.-...-.-.----.-.-.-...-.-----....-.--.-..-..-..--.-.-. >From: Ken Nicolson >To: info@imatix.com >Subject: Serious Problem with Xitami Web Server >Hi, >I downloaded your web server v1.0d, but unfortunately, it only works >when I am on-line. I have Win95 with Dial-up Networking, and since I >get charged for phone calls, I was wanting a webserver that I could >use off-line, so now I'll have to find another. >If you have an update or a workaround that fixes this problem, please >let me know. >Thanks! >Ken There are various ways around this -- it's the way Windows 95 works. These are some of the techniques we know: - Use the address 'http://127.0.0.1/' to refer to your own machine. The address '127.0.0.1' is a loop-back address that always connects to the local system. - You could create/modify the 'hosts' file in the Windows directory to define 'localhost' as '127.0.0.1', then use 'http://localhost'. This is a little cleaner. - When Windows pops-up the 'Connect' box, just select the 'Cancel' button. - Netscape Navigator reacts better than Internet Explorer. With IE, you need to actually connect, then disconnect. From then on -- until you reboot -- it accepts local TCP/IP connections. Netscape accepts them as soon as you cancel the connection dialogue. I think you'll find that this works with any server (though I suspect that Microsoft's Personal Web Server cheats when you use IE). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: Don Black >Send reply to: dBlack@top.monad.net >Subject: xios210d >Hi; >I just wanted to tell you that the link you have for the OS2 port of >xitami 1.0d returns error 404. I was able to find the zip file in >/pub/xitami . It would probably be more effacatious if you modified the >link, or move the file into /html/xitami. By the way, I really >appreciate the fact that you software is ported to OS2. I have been >running it for about 6 years now (v2.0 through v4.0) and have had mixed >luck finding ports of good software. Since I currently have MSWindows >3.1, Windows NT 3.51, OS2 v4.0, Solaris x86, SCO OpenServer 5.0.?, and >Linux on my machine, or ready to be loaded as soon as I find room, >finding software that is truly cross platform is very refreshing. >Thanks. >Don Black Ooops, a bug in the website. Well, such things happen. You should see the last version of Xitami when it runs (or, rather, takes a few steps, then falls down frothing at the mouth and screaming that the cars are talking too loudly again today) under OS/2. Ewen McNeill (honourable past winner of user of the month) has been acting as senior emergency room surgeon, and Xitami is more or less valid again under OS/2, only it's now got three and a half legs. More news at 10, but for now stay with version 1.0d, Don. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: vances@vambo.telco.on.ca (Vance Shipley) >To: ph@imatix.com >Subject: Initialize vs Initialise > >According to Websters it's "initialize". >I noticed it today because I couldn't find something but it turned >out to be a conflict with our spellings of the word. > -Vance >[ I've been coding with SMT for three days solid, 12 hours a day. > It's amazing how much I've been able to accomplish! Using this > was definitely a good decision for us. Thanks again. ] I say, chap, this is rather strong. Actually, it's not really cricket at all, what! The fact of the matter is that Al. McGregor, who invented SMT together with head techno at iMatix, Mr. Hinches, is a Scot, and respects no authority except Robert Burns (you have to really roll the 'R's there). Glad you like SMT. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: Claudio Menetti >To: ph@imatix.com >Subject: From Italian Students > >Hello, we are two students of Computer Science in Italy, in Bologna. >This is our last year, we will do the exam 3 mounths in the future. >We have a lot of thing to study, and our teacher gives us a work about >socket in unix. >If you want to give us an help, we must only do an example of a >connection between two computer using unix socket. >We will be very happy if you will send us a complete program, finished >and working correctly, but everything is well accepted. >Sorry for our english, and sorry for the time you used for read this >letter. >Thenk you. >Goodbye > Claudio Menetti , Luca Bendoni. Hehehe! As the old man said to me in Ouagadougou, 'you can ask a mango tree to give you fruit, but it only works four times a year'. Find the University Library, find any decent book on TCP/IP, copy the examples. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: Brooks David Smith >Organization: University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee >To: info@imatix.com >Subject: liberetto mailing list > >Please, oh please, add me to the liberetto mailing list. I like what >you are doing and I like how you are doing it. I've been in this >business a long time so it may take me longer than the 5-year-old >to use libero effectively but I see the light. :-) >From: Paul Pomerleau >Subject: unsubscribe >To: maelstrom@imatix.com > >Unsubscribe > >Weary with email, I haste me to my bed, >The dear respose for fingers with travel tired, >But then begins a journey in my head >To work my mind, when body's work's expired. >For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) >Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, >And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, >Looking on darkness which the blind do see. >Save that my soul's imaginary sight >Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, >Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night) >Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. >Lo thus by day my fingers, by night my mind, >For thee, and for my self, no quiet find. > >Until now. >Date sent: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 13:46:33 +0200 >To: news@imatix.com >From: Andreas Dinkelacker >Subject: Subscription to Liberretto > >I would like to subscribe to Liberretto. >Thanks in anticipation >Andreas Dinkelacker >Johannesburg >South Africa >To: editors@imatix.com >Subject: Re: Liberetto II/3 >From: "James R. Larus" > >Please take me off the mailing list. >Thanks, >/Jim Such is the ebb and flow of life in Liberland. == GRATUITOUS STORY SECTION .--.---...-..---.--...-....---.--..---.--.....- Mr Hengens, recently back from a trip to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, produced this 'report' of the state of Finite Machines in that city... Read on, but be warned: this has almost exactly nothing at all to do with Libero. "It was late in the afternoon when Issa, my friend who worked for the cargo section of an airline, and who was helping me to organise a shipment of djembes, came to Dramane's house to pick us up. Dramane is a Griot; he and his seven brothers are helping me to build the drums. Griots are a caste of musician artisans. When Dramane plays the djembe you feel the power of a people who work with their hands and heart against an unforgiving environment. When he plays the Kora (a twenty-one stringed lyre), you understand that this culture is ancient, complex, profound. Issa has come in his Peugeot 205, a small blue car, built like most French cars from carton and chewing gum. When new, this car was as robust as a tin can. After a decade of hard roads, his car barely holds together. In the car economy of Ouaga, this is a new car. Dramane and I climb in, and we set off downtown to Issa's house. He has about twenty drum forms there; Dramane and I will take them back by taxi to Dramane's place. A few miles on, the car starts to overheat. We pull into a garage, and negotiate with the owner for a bucket of water. Opening the car hood, Issa peers inside, finds the water bottle and opens it. Steaming water boils out, and Issa drops the bottle quickly. He lets it cool off, then looks at the motor. "I think there is an air bubble in the cooling system he says." Then he unscrews a small cap on the water pipe. The cap pops off under the pressure of the hot water, and falls into the motor. "Merde!" Issa says. Dramane and I, not dressed as finely as Issa, kneel down and peer under the car but see nothing. The cap is lost somewhere in the motor. Issa looks inside the motor hood, but the heat of the engine make it hard to look very closely. He pours the bucket of water over the engine, but all that falls down to the ground is water. We shake the car, three of us shoving and pulling the already-battered Peugeot. Amazingly it does not fall apart. But no cap falls down either. It's dark now - and in Ouaga, there is little or no street lighting - and without the cap, we cannot drive, since whatever water there is in the cooling circuit just comes out again. I suggest that we put the car over the work pit at the back of the garage, to look at the car from underneath. We push the car over the pit, then I go to negotiate with the garage owner for light. Amazingly the pit lights work, so Dramane and I climb into the pit and crawl under the car to look. We're covered in old oil, dirt, sweat. The bottom of the car is covered with a thick plate, to protect against the rocks and bumps of African country driving. We call to Issa for a spanner to undo the plate, but at this he balks and we push the car down back off the pit. Dramane bends down, picks-up a small twig, pushes it into the nozzle normally covered by the vanished cap, and water stops bubbling out. A miracle! As if one great idea was not enough, Issa takes one of the caps off a tyre, and amazingly, it too fits the nozzle perfectly, screwing into place exactly as the original cap did! We dance and clap in joy. Issa is still not satisfied. "There are is still air in the circuit", he says. "I have to get them out". "Careful!" I warn. He fiddles with the new cap, and 'POP', it jumps out of his fingers, and falls into the motor. We jump and shove and pour buckets of water, but to no avail. This cap is lost too. All the other tyres are capless. Somewhere deep inside the motor lies a cap graveyard, filled with the decomposing caps of a thousand amateur mechanics. Despondent, Issa plugs in Dramane's twig, and we drive to Issa's house. When we get there, the twig has of course popped out, and the car is overheating again. Issa finds a taxi - a Renault 4 that would be rejected by any junkyard in the West - and Dramane sets off with the first load of about fifteen drum forms. Issa and I design a range of possible wooden plugs, finally settling for a nice Y-shaped combination that can be tied-down with a piece of cloth. Then the old man that guards Issa's house comes out with a new cap, taken from a spare tire. Issa tries it, it fits. Still, we want to perfect our wooden plug. I take off the cap, fit-in a plug. At that moment the taxi returns, and Issa and I load in the remaining drum forms. I leave with the taxi, and we bounce and rattle back to the Griots' house. Some hours later, I'm walking back to the hostel, after spending a pleasant evening telling the story to Dramane's brothers Fantoma, Ibrahim, and Adamus. Suddenly I see Issa's small blue car pull-up in front of me, and Issa gets out. "What are you doing driving in that death-trap?" I ask. No sane person would want to drive around in a car that overheats faster than a Belgian tourist. "My cap, my cap!" Issa says, "you've still got my cap!". He's been driving around for two hours, trying to find me. The cap is in my shirt pocket, where I put it when I tried the wooden plug. I pass it back to him, and we're both laughing like idiots. I buy him a beer, a large Brakina, and we toast the African night, the stars shining clearly through the rustling mango leaves above us." == TERMINATE THE PROGRAM -...---...-..----....-.---..---...-...---.-...---. No protocol, no formalities. Unsubscriptions are free, a public service offered by the communications department of iMatix at precisely no cost. Simply collect twenty-five engine-cooling caps, and send to Issa, care of iMatix HQ (we'd prefer Peugeot but anything will do). All sales are final and subject to local taxes where unavoidable without undue legal expenses.