(in no particular order)
Conventions used in this file:
When you see an example such as:
world% ls
this means that you should type ls
In some command examples we offer informative remarks that are set
off with a '#' (pound, sharp, octathorpe, ...) as in:
world% ls # list names of files in current directory
If you are new to The World, we recommend reading the Beginner's
Guide, which you may access from the Help Desk area, for more
information about the basic usage needs you'll have with your World
account. The Beginner's Guide explores electronic mail, file
transfer, USENET news reading, basic UNIX commands, and using lynx to
explore the World Wide Web.
2. To get an answer to a question, send e-mail to staff, like this:
Your text here (as many lines as you like)
Don't be shy if you make mistakes while typing in the message, we're used to it!
If you want to start out immediately with a powerful but easy mail
program, type
3. To read USENET news groups type:
The programs have a help command, type the letter h when it prompts
for a command.
5. If you ever want to change which terminal type the
system thinks you are using, do the following:
Is there a way to change my account so that this question will not
always be asked?
In the file .login, modify the following line:
7. For file uploading and downloading we support Kermit, Xmodem, Ymodem and Zmodem.
In most cases you will be transferring a TEXT file (an e-mail message, for
example), so tell the transfer software on this end to do a text
transfer as there are some small differences between Unix and Macs or
MS/DOS (and other systems) which will be automatically corrected.
For transferring a text file with XMODEM:
world% sx -a file.name # send Xmodem, download FROM world
The second command assumes there is a file called "file.name"
(whatever you called it here) to send to you.
For YMODEM:
world% sb -a file.name
world% sz -a file.name
For KERMIT:
(file starts sending to you, start your end)
C-Kermit> quit
world%
world% kermit
C-Kermit> receive file.name
(kermit waits for you to start sending file)
C-Kermit> quit
XMODEM:
world% sb file.name
world% sz file.name
HINT:
If you're having a problem getting any of these to work there may be a
problem with flow control or passing control characters between the two
machines. We X/Y/ZMODEM you can try adding the '-e' flag to encode
all control characters passed between the two machines. For example:
MACINTOSH USERS...
If you are using a Mac which supports MacBinary transfers you may find
that the macput and macget commands work more smoothly:
SOME IMPORTANT GENERAL NOTES:
When transferring files with X/Y/ZMODEM both sides must be
using the same parity. The World uses 8 data bits, no parity, and 1
stop bit (though the stop bit rarely matters), and your communications
software must be set to 8 No Parity (8N1) also.
Some software, notably White Knight, can operate quite well as an
interactive terminal when in the wrong parity setting, so you might be
lulled into thinking everything is fine, but file transfers fail. The
solution is to be sure you are set to 8 bits, No Parity (8 None, 8N1) when
interacting with The World.
Similarly, you do NOT want software flow control enabled when
transferring files with X, Y or Z modem. Kermit is more resilient to
this but you might want to turn off software flow control anyhow, it
only tends to cause problems with file transfers.
This might be indicated in your software as either software flow
control or XON/XOFF or ^S/^Q (Control-S/Control-Q) or something
similar. Turn it OFF when transferring files.
Hardware flow control is fine and can be used in all cases.
Explanation:
Software flow control uses two characters, usually ^S/^Q, to stop (^S
also known as XOFF) and restart (^Q aka XON) the flow of data between
the two machines. Unix generally honors this. The problem is that the
way the file transfer protocols are defined ^S and ^Q might appear as
data characters rather than interpreted as a method of controlling data
flow. When this happens transfers go awry: a ^S will stop the data stream
and nothing more will transpire until you time out, an extraneous ^Q will
usually just get thrown away (if software flow control is enabled.)
Hardware flow control uses one of the wires to the modem to stop/start
the flow of data and, consequently, does not interfere or make any
assumptions about the actual data flowing between the machines.
This is actually the ideal set up (hardware flow control) as your end
can inform us if we are sending too fast without otherwise interfering
with the data stream. Most file transfer protocols will work well
enough without any flow control even if a packet of data occasionally
needs to be resent because the other side gets over-run (that's the
major function of file transfer protocol: "Here's some data, did you
get it? yes? good, here's some more, no? here it is again", and so on.)
8. How to include a file in an e-mail message:
Ok, you typed in a mail message on your local system, used the information
you found in Hint #7 to get it transferred over World, now how do you put
it into a mail message?
Easy:
~r file.name
.
world%
The tilde-r must start at the beginning of a line, and it instructs the
mail utility to read the message from the file specified (in this case
"file.name", but it can be called anything.)
9. How to post something to USENET:
To post a message in a newsgroup using tin, first select and open the
newsgroup of interest and move into the article selection level. Type
`w' to initiate a posting. You will be prompted with:
When you exit Pico, you must type `Control-x' to initiate the final
part of the posting process. Answer the "Save modified buffer" prompt
with `y'. Answer "File Name to write:..." with a
10. How do I stop tin from asking me to add all those new groups when I
start it up!
Use:
11. I have a friend who works at XYZ company, how
do I find out his or her e-mail address?
Pick up the telephone, call him or her, and ask "What's your e-mail
address?" (sorry, it really is the easiest way.)
Also, take a look at the topic "finding-someone" in 'help mail' for
some additional hints on this.
12. How do I change my login setup?
The process that is used at login is defined in the file named
".login". Each customer can modify this file to suit their own
desires for the login procedure. Use any text editor (such as "pico")
to modify the file.
Do not remove the terminal type setting information. This is required
by Unix to set a proper terminal mode. For information on modifying
the terminal information see questions number 4 and 5.
When you created your account you indicated a preference for
Backspace or Delete and now you are using the other key. You can control
whether the "<-" key sends Backspace or Delete in your software. If
you are seeing ^H, you need to be sending Delete, if it is ^? you need
to be sending Backspace.
Most commonly this becomes a problem when you are using more
than one communications package or more than one computer. You need
to get all of the communications packages to agree. We can change your
account to either Backspace or Delete if need be.
14. HELP! The World says I'm over my disk quota
limit! What does this mean? What do I do?
Everyone has a maximum amount of disk they can use, free, with their
basic World account. This is 1024 blocks (1 MB, several hundred pages
of text), with a temporary grace of half that again (750 blocks) for
basic ($5/mo+$2/hr) accounts and 5120 blocks (5MB) with 512 block
grace for 20/20 accounts.
When you're over 1024 but under 1536 (or 2048/2560), the system starts
nagging you to trim back down to under 1024. If you try to go over the
grace limit, 1536 (2560), the system just stops you.
To find out where you're using disk space there are two commands you
need to use:
Be careful of any file that starts with a ".", since these are system
configuration files. Some can be trimmed or removed: see hint #25 for
more information on these files before you do anything with them!
In this example it looks like mbox is a culprit, you need to clean out
some old mail messages!
Cleaning out an mbox is such a common request I'll take a moment's
tangent to explain it right here. To read mail messages from a file
other than your default spool directory, such as mbox, you type:
Note: If you use mm to read your mail then it always displays messages
in the mbox file, if there are any. If you use elm then start it with
"elm -f mbox". The rest of these instructions only apply to the mail
program.
You can go to a particular one by just typing its number into the
interactive mail program. To delete it type d (as in delete.) To
finish, saving your changes, type q (as in quit.) If you suspect you
made a terrible mistake and wish to start all over then leave mail
with x (as in eXit) and it will forget any deletions you made (you can
then type 'mail -f mbox' and start over.)
All of the files that start with . are system configuration files.
Be very careful about removing these! Most should stay right where
they are.
However, any file ending in a ~ is a backup file created by emacs, and
you can safely erase those. In fact, this is easily done by running
the command 'cleanup'.
If you have created any subdirectories, you will need a second command
to get the full picture:
To delete a file (and free up any space it is using):
Another good trick is to compress any files which you don't need
immediately. Say you saved a long message in the file "funny", you can
compress it down to about half its size with:
Another way to clean up disk space is to download any extra files to
your own system. After downloading you can use the "rm" command to
delete the file.
Finally, you can purchase additional diskspace for your World account.
Please see the information under "help rates".
We have some temporary space that we clean out periodically, but you
can certainly use it during a session for things like that.
Here's a good way to do that, the disk area is called (appropriately
enough) /usr/tmp:
Say your login name is bzs, make a temporary directory for yourself:
When you're done clean it up (or we will!) with:
They're compressed. If you want to uncompress them copy them to your
own directory and uncompress them:
You can also download a compressed file without copying it:
XMODEM:
17. Hey, what's that "mbox" file in my directory?
That file is holding mail messages you have read, but haven't deleted.
To review them (and delete them or whatever), use:
In fact, you can save messages to any file with the mail command,
while reading them, and re-reread or dispose of them later. Say you've
been getting these messages about a party you're setting up:
& 1
(read message 1)
& s party
(saves message to a file called 'party')
& d
(delete message 1 from mailbox)
& 2
(read message 2)
& s party
(adds message 2 to the end of the file 'party')
& d
(delete message 2 from mailbox)
& q
(all done, quit)
You can delete messages from party, but most likely what will happen
is the party will be over (all together, "The party's OOOOH-VVVERRRR")
and you'd just as soon forget all about it:
You are quitting out of "mail" with "x" (eXit) instead
of "q" (quit). Using x throws away all your changes and
should only be used if you think you made a terrible
mistake (like deleted a message you didn't want to delete)
and want to start all over again.
In general, use q to leave mail so any changes you made
are saved.
19. Someone gave me a mail address that looks
like "host!user", whenever I type:
The csh (the unix program you are typing that command to) uses the
exclamation mark specially, it means to look up a previously run
command or part of a command.
Unfortunately, this conflicts with those common UUCP (!) addresses.
Type it either like this:
or like this:
No, though it's a good suggestion...
Unix allows you to "suspend" a program and come back to it later.
Say you were typing in a mail message and suddenly realized you need
to look at a file you have called "agenda" to double-check some dates.
You can suspend the mail program by typing ^Z (control-Z, hold down
control and type a Z, as if control were a shift key):
Hi, I'll be able to visit you in Atlantis on
^Z
Stopped
world% more agenda
Ok, now to resume typing in the mail type just a percent, this looks
odd but I really mean "%":
Kindest regards.
.
world%
If you don't care about any stopped jobs, you just want out of here,
then either type exit (or logout) a second time with no commands in
between (and Unix will say "ok, I will kill your jobs for you and log
you out") or even just hang up the phone:
NO CARRIER # yer gone
Now, say you don't know about any "stopped jobs", hmm, maybe it's
something important?
You can use the "jobs" command to list any jobs waiting for you
(you can have more than one stopped job):
The stopped jobs are numbered as shown, mail is one (1), emacs is (2),
and nethack is (3).
You can resume any one of the jobs by typing %N where N is the job
number:
You can go through each of these programs and finish working in them
or exit from them properly:
world% %2 # go back to emacs
world% %3 # go back to nethack
One more thing, if you look back at the example the "mail" job had a
"+" in front of it and the nethack job had a "-".
These are for short-cuts in typing (experienced unix users will use
these "job control" commands with blazing speed!)
The job marked "+" is the one which will re-start if you just type "%"
with no number. The job marked "-" will re-start if you type "%-".
The + job is the most recent one you stopped, the - job is the next
most recent.
Using these two short cuts saves having to remember or look up which
job is which since usually you're just switching back and forth
between two jobs (like mail and reviewing your agenda file). This type
of activity is common enough that Unix added an easy way to do this
switching back and forth.
21. You said something about "history" before
(the ! character), what was that?
The csh (the program most of you type commands at, there really are
other choices, pronounced sea-shell) saves the last bunch of commands
you have typed so you can re-call them.
The number of commands csh saves can be set:
Say you wanted to FTP somewhere with a long complicated host name, get
some files, quit, look at them, and then FTP there again to get the
rest of the files:
(do the FTP thing)
world% more file.i.just.got
(and so on)
world% !ftp
This would save you having to re-type that very.long.name.
You can also call up the last file name you used (actually, the
previous last argument to a command), as in:
world% mail friend < !$
You can also list out your "history" (last bunch of commands you
typed):
Some think this is a blessing, others aren't so sure.
22. How do I download these help files for
off-line reading? Is it ok if I do this?
Yes, of course it's ok, help yourself (!)
All the help files are stored in plain text files under the directory
/help/ so for example this plain text file you're reading now is in
/help/HINTS.
Some topics have enough sub-topics that we make them into their own
subdirectories, for example /help/mail is a directory with files
in it like /help/mail/elm and /help/mail/reading and so forth,
just use "help" or regular unix commands to get at them. So far we
haven't gone any deeper than this, everything in the help directory is
either a plain file or a sub-directory with plain files.
To download a file, such as this one, you need to use regular file
transfer software:
XMODEM:
23. Using XYZmodem or Kermit directly from FTP.
Typically, when using FTP to another site, you transfer the file you
want to your own directory or /usr/tmp and then fire up xmodem or
zmodem or kermit (or similar) to download the file.
But did you know that you can skip the intermediate step and just
transfer that file from the remote site directly to your system at
home?
The secret is that you can tell FTP to send the remote file to a
PROGRAM rather than a local (world) file.
Usually you would do this:
world% sz neat.file # or whatever you use
The syntax is "|world-command ...". You have to quote so you can embed
spaces or other characters. The first character must be the
vertical-bar, |, which tells FTP to "pipe" (think of the bar as a
pipe) the file it is retrieving to the Unix command rather than
storing it in a file on World.
Similarly, for Kermit you would use:
(turn on capture on your end)
While we're at it, we can look at a text file via FTP without
transfering it using the same method:
When you type
The other regular files or directories are ones you placed there.
Now the tricky part - the "dot files".
First, ignore "." and ".." - you can't do anything with these, and you
don't want to.
.cshrc = the configuration file that sets your system environment for
locating programs to run and special individual aliases
.login = this is executed each time you log in to the system, and sets
your terminal type, sets your delete/backspace key, runs any
intro programs (like fortune, msgs, lists your mail messages,
and shows you who is logged in to the system). Feel free to
modify this file to your liking.
.mailrc = the configuration file to customize the program 'mail'
.msgsrc = this keeps track of which system messages you've seen so it
will only show you the new ones.
.pinerc = the configuration file for the mail program 'pine'
The more complex your environment is, the more "dot files" you will
have.
You also might have the following files in your root directory:
These are configuration files used by your newsreader to keep track of
what groups you are subscribed to, what order you read them in, and
what articles you've read in each group.
2. How did they get there?
The .newsrc file, the primary file, was copied into your directory
automatically when you created your account. '.newsrc.bak' is the
backup copy of .newsrc created by running "nn", and '.oldnewsrc' is
the backup of .newsrc created by "rn". These are created in case
something happens and the newsreader needs to recover itself. Only
.newsrc is needed if you successfully exit the program.
3. What are the consequences of deleting each of them to free up space?
If you delete your .newsrc, you will have to start all over again with
all the available articles in all newsgroups the next time you start
the newsreader. Therefore, do not erase this. You are allowed to
edit it, however, but if you remove the groups you do not want and
then change newsreading programs, you'll be asked if you want to add
them all back in.
.newsrc.bak and .oldnewsrc may be deleted if you wish to free up the
space, but the newsreader will re-create them the next time you use
the program and successfully quit. Then, if you want, delete them
again.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
world% mail staff
(that is, end with a line that has only a period on it and the message
will be sent and you will be returned to the world% prompt.)
Subject: HELP!
.
world% pine
and follow the menu.
world% tin
or
world% nn
(two different programs with different styles, but they access the
same exact discussion groups.)
Terminal (vt100)? vt102
You will find that the screen will re-display faster as the higher
numbered models have fancier commands which the software here will
know it's ok to use. The models above VT102 really don't add anything
of much interest (though if you're using VT220 or higher you can
enter vt220 instead of vt102, though it likely won't offer much difference
over vt102).
world% cd # go back to your home directory
world% source .login # remember the dot
This reruns your login script and will ask you for the terminal type
all over again. It doesn't really log you in again, it just will look
like you are doing this (all the same messages will appear)
set noglob; eval `tset -s -m ':?vt100'`
to read:
set noglob; eval `tset -s vt100`
This will set your terminal type to the "vt100" mode everytime that
you login. You can replace the vt100 with any other supported
terminal type.
AT\N3
then dial as usual (ATDT....) But check your manual if there's any
question.
world% rx -a file.name # recieve Xmodem, upload TO World
or
world% rx # sometimes this works better
For the first command (Receive Xmodem), the file is stored on World
in "file.name" (any file name you like.)
world% rb -a file.name
For ZMODEM:
world% rz -a
see the XMODEM discussion as the explanation is the same.
world% kermit
Kermit is interactive, and has a help command (type ? to the prompt),
but here's the basics:
world% kermit
C-Kermit> send file.name
BINARY FILES:
world% rx file.name # Receive Xmodem, upload TO World
world% sx file.name # Send Xmodem, download FROM World
YMODEM:
world% rb file.name
ZMODEM:
world% rz file.name
Kermit:
world% kermit
C-Kermit> set file type binary
C-Kermit> send file.name
(or)
C-Kermit> receive file.name
world% rx -e file.name # add the -e flag
world% sx -e file.name
world% macput -u file.name # send to you FROM World
world% macget -u file.name # send from you TO World
world% mail user@some.where
Subject: Hi, here's my itinerary...
That's tilde then "r", tilde is the squiggly character that unfortunately
may be located anywhere on your keyboard. Most often the upper right or
left corner of the main key area, however it wanders from keyboard to
keyboard.
Post subject [ ]>
Enter the subject of your article and press
world% tin -q
This works, but you'll never see the new newsgroups and you might want
to add some of them to your list. So one day you might want to go thru
all these and get caught up.
world% pico .login
Each command in the .login file has a comment line that describes the
funtion. The comment character is "#". To modify actions, you can
either remove the commands that you no longer wish to have or you can
add a "#" at the beginning of each command to disable it.
world% ls -as
(that's minus a as in all, minus s as in size) types a listing of your
files and how much space they are using, the output will look like:
20 funny 250 mbox 50 old.mail
and so forth. The number is the number of blocks the file is using.
world% mail -f mbox
and all the old messages will be available from the interactive mail
program.
world% du
(short for Disk-Usage), this will give you a report of how much space
is being used in each directory you have (if you don't know what this
means then you probably don't have any sub-directories and just typing
"ls -s" is enough to figure out where the problem is.)
world% rm file.name
Remember that when a file is deleted (rm is short for ReMove) it's
gone forever (well, we keep some backups, but be careful, for example,
we won't have a backup of a file you just saved a few minutes ago.)
world% compress funny
and decompress it if you want to look at it again or send it to someone
or download it or whatever with:
world% uncompress funny
The compressed files all have a .Z at the end, so "funny" will be
called "funny.Z" when it is compressed. Uncompressing automatically
removes the .Z suffix. Don't try to read or use a compressed file
without uncompressing it first unless you know what you are doing,
it's full of binary characters which can mess up your session.
world% mkdir /usr/tmp/bzs
and change over to it to work in:
world% cd /usr/tmp/bzs
Now do your thing, FTP that file or whatever, and just download right
from there.
world% cd # go back to your regular directory
world% rm -rf /usr/tmp/bzs # and blow the temp space away!
16. I looked in your source area, what are those
files with .Z at the end of their names?
world% cp file.Z ~
that second 'file name' is a tilde (squiggle) and means to put a copy of
the file in your own area.
world% cd # go back to your area
world% uncompress file # uncompress it
If you just want to look at a compressed file then you can do that
without copying it:
world% zmore file
will type it to your screen, stopping at every page.
world% zcat file | sx # that's a vertical bar
ZMODEM:
world% zcat file | sz
KERMIT:
world% zcat file | kermit -s
Finally, if you don't have enough space to uncompress a file, see hint
#15 about using temporary scratch space on The World.
world% mail -f mbox
and it will treat the file just like your regular (new) mail spool.
world% mail
N> 1 clinton@whitehouse.gov Sat Aug 10 16:00 We'll be there!
N 2 yeltsin@krem.lin.su Sun Sep 30 19:17 Not my kind of party
Ok, you now have two messages in the file "party". Later you want
to re-read them:
world% mail -f party
and you will be put into mail as if your mailbox contained the same
messages as in the file 'party'.
world% rm party
Gone! (too bad it's not so easy to forget a party in real life!) And
the disk space is freed up for you to use for other parties
world% mail host!user
I get the error:
user; Event not found.
What does that mean???
world% mail host\!user
(that's BACKslash, not to be confused with / which is forward slash)
world% mail user@host.uucp
and we'll automatically do the right thing with it.
world% mail friend@some.where
Subject: My visit
(the file is displayed, you note that you will be there on 8/12/91)
world% %
(continue)
August 12, 1991.
If you tried to logout while that mail message was still waiting for
you to come back to it Unix would warn you by not letting you logout
and telling you that you have "Stopped jobs".
world% logout
You have stopped jobs
world% logout
world% jobs
[1] + Stopped mail
[2] Stopped emacs
[3] - Stopped nethack
OK, from this we can see we've stopped three jobs (you can also run
jobs in the background, another topic, and they'd list as "Running"
instead of "Stopped".)
world% %3
would re-start nethack where you left off. You can then quit the
program normally and it will go away.
world% %1 # go back to the mail
If you just want to wipe them out (say you have no idea how to
properly clean up) you can use "kill":
world% kill %3 # kill the nethack job
and so forth (kill %1, kill %2).
world% set history=100
will tell it to save the last 100 commands (don't laugh, they go by
fast!)
world% ftp host.with.very.long.name.com
the "!ftp" says to re-run the last "ftp" command I typed, exactly.
world% emacs file.name
(edit it)
the shorthand "!$" means use the last word (csh doesn't really care if
it's a file name, a host name or what) from the previous command right
here, as if I typed it.
world% history
Each one has a number, you can re-run a specific one by it's number
instead of the name of the command:
world% !23 # re-run the command numbered 23
# from the history list
The history list is normally thrown away when you logout. But you
can type (or add to your .login file):
world% set savehist=100 # or whatever number you want
# but a big number will slow
# you down and use up your disk space
and when you logout (and periodically while you're logged in) it will
save your last so-many commands to a file. When you log back in your
history will be there with the last commands from the previous login.
world% sx -a /help/HINTS
ZMODEM:
world% sz -a /help/HINTS
KERMIT:
world% kermit -s /help/HINTS
or
world% kermit
C-Kermit> send /help/HINTS
If you just want to use text capture to grab a help file and (to make
the capture cleaner) you should probably turn off "stopping at each
page", use this:
world% help hints | cat
It's a little subtle to explain exactly what this does, but "help"
notices that its output is not going directly to a terminal so shuts
off the pagination. The program cat (short for concatenate) just
copies whatever it reads to its output (in this case your terminal) so
we've sort of fooled "help" into doing what we want. The | (vertical
bar) character is used to create a "pipe" between the two commands,
"help" and "cat". Don't worry if you don't understand how it works,
trust me, it works.
ftp> get neat.file
...neat.file transfers to world...
ftp> quit
Instead use this:
ftp> get neat.file "|sz -"
and immediately go back to your system and issue the Zmodem receive
command or menu choice.
ftp> get neat.file "|kermit -s -"
You can also use other options for the commands, remember that if the
file is binary (for example, a .zip or .arc file) you will need the
usual arguments to the transfer program and be sure that you've told
FTP you are transferring a binary file:
ftp> binary # tell FTP the file will be binary
ftp> get neat.zip "|sz -b -" # transfer to your system as binary
If you want to use a simple text capture you can do that also, you
don't even need a Unix command:
ftp> get neat.file -
The "-" instead of a file name means to just send the file to the
terminal with no pauses.
ftp> get README -
will just list the file to your screen. If you want it to pause at
each screenful use the Unix "more" command just like above:
ftp> get README "|more"
25. Dealing with hidden files in your directory
world% ls
this will display the main files of your directory. However, this
will not display everything that exists there! The hidden files are
called "dot files" because they all start with ".", and you can see
everything in the directory with
world% ls -a
You will see files that look like this:
.
.. .pinerc
.cshrc .rnlast
.emacs .rnsoft
.login README
.mailrc News
.msgsrc bin
.newsrc mail
.oldnewsrc mbox
The directory News is created automatically by reading news, so don't
worry about it. The directory Mail or mail is created by your mail
program, so that's okay, too. mbox is a file of old mail messages -
if you want to go through them, use
mail -f mbox
and delete what you don't want. Use 'q' to exit.
.newsrc
.newsrc.bak
.oldnewsrc
1. What are they?
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