I've been trying to familiarize myself with Grex over the last week and
now find that I have some specific questions. I hope these questions
aren't answered somewhere else, but I've tried to do my homework.
 
First of all, I haven't knowingly been connected to the Internet before
and now that I'm aware of this access I'd like to learn what I can do.
My hopes here are that I will have sufficient E-mail and file transfer
capability to electronically interact with the outside world. I've been
using Unix workstations for many years access Grex on a Mac using Zterm
(in case that helps direct a response).
 
I was hoping to find an introductory file which essentially outlines the
services and obligations for Grex users. But I didn't, so the questions
follow. For the most part they ask, How connected am I to the outside
world?
 
1) What outgoing E-mail capabilities are available to Grex users?
I know we can communicate with each other, but can I send any kind of
E-mail to any domain-style address? That is, can I do more than post to
Usenet newsgroups? Which Grex members can do which things?
 
2) My understanding is that Grex doesn't have ftp or telnet capability.
Correct?
 
3) What can we receive? I expect we can receive simple E-mail from the
rest of the world, but what about regular mail from LISTSERV servers,
or files via ftpmail or archie? If we can get piles of goodies, what
limits are there (disk quotas, filesize limits, etc.)?
 
4) How much of netnews can we really get? Do we get all of the Usenet
feeds and alternate groups? If not, is there a reference for what we do
(or can) receive posted somewhere?
 
5) Once I've managed to receive something on Grex and want it back on
my Mac, what's the best way to download? I'm aware of sz and will try
it out, but is it the best choice?
 
6) Which networks (if any) can't be reached? If I can get E-mail from a
network, any reason I can't get files (via an automated server, BinHex,
or somesuch thing) from it, too?
 
7) What other online services or BBS's do you use or recommend? I am
especially interested in MSen, M-Net, CompuServe, and AOL. Which ones
best complement a Grex account and why?
 
8) I created this message on my Mac and cat-ed it to a file. I saved the
file and included it into the default editor for 'Enter'. Was there an 
easier way? Are other editors available? I'd like to keep composing my
mail offline to avoid tying up a phone line.
 
I'm sorry to put so much in one posting, but I wasn't sure how to post
separate new threads or where each should go. The 'Info' conference
seemed the right place to start. Feel free to make suggestions if 
there are better ways of getting these questions out to users. Break
this up into separate items if it helps. I'm itching to get plugged in 
and use Grex well. 
 
Your comments are appreciated.

23 responses total.

I'll try to take your questions one by one.

1. You can send mail to any address reachable from the Internet.  This
includes regular Internet addresses, UUCP addresses, BITNET, CompuServe,
America OnLine, MCI Mail, Fidonet, AT&T Mail, and so forth.  The
only notable network I can think of that *isn't* reachable from the
Internet is Prodigy.  Note, however, that you can't post to Usenet
until you become a member; this is for authentication reasons, mostly.
In summary, then, all Grex users can send and receive e-mail to any
address reachable from the Internet.  All Grex users can read news.
However, only Grex members can post news.

2. Well, we do, but it gets fairly boring since the only place you can
FTP or telnet to is Grex.  We're not connected to the rest of the
Internet through a realtime IP connection, so you can't use FTP
or telnet to connect to Internet sites from here.

3. You can receive any kind of mail you want to; Grex staff does
not monitor mail content, so we're not going to look over your
shoulder and tell you what you can and can't get.  There are some
technical limitations, though; generally speaking you don't want
to send or receive more than 1MB of e-mail per day.  You should also
avoid keeping so much stuff in your home directory that the filesystem
it's on fills up; similarly, don't keep so much stuff in your mailbox
that the spool filesystem fills up.  There are no hard disk quotas
set up, and we hope that they'll never be necessary.  Just try to
be polite, and don't use up so much of our limited resources that the
other users don't have any left.  You can find out how much space the
current directory is occupying by typing "!du" from a PicoSpan prompt;
leave off the "!" if you're typing it from a shell prompt.  You can
find out how much space is free on the filesystem holding the current
directory by typing "!df .".

4. We get a dynamic Usenet feed.  That means that while we are capable
of getting any or all of the Usenet groups, we are only actually being
fed the groups that people are subscribed to.  If you go into a group
and there don't seem to be any articles in it, stay subscribed for
24 hours or so, and some articles should appear automatically.  If
there's a newsgroup you're interested in that we don't have on Grex,
let me know and I'll see about getting it.  Note that due to space
limitations, the following groups are not available: *binaries*,
*sources*, *pictures*, bionet.*, and comp.mail.maps.  Also note that
due to space limitations, we run a rather aggressive expiration
period -- 2.5 days for groups people are subscribed to; 0.5 days
for groups people aren't subscribed to.  When we get more disk space
for Usenet, we should be able to keep more news around longer.

5. I don't know if sz is the best choice for a Mac.  I usually use
it when I'm sending stuff to my PC.  Some other users like Kermit, but
Kermit always struck me as ungodly slow and inefficient.

6. As I mentioned above, the only network I know of that we can't
get to is Prodigy.  (And that's Prodigy's fault, for refusing to install
an Internet<->Prodigy gateway, not any fault of ours.)  If you can
send e-mail to an address, you should be able to receive messages
from it; that includes mailserver and FTP-server replies.

7. Grex has always been enough for me, but then again I have
realtime Internet access through various other informal arrangements.
CompuServe and AOL have never struck me as all that interesting;
they can also get rather expensive rather fast.

8. There are various visual editors available; "vi" is the main one.
vi will most likely be very confusing for the first 6 months you
use it, if you're not familiar with it, but after that it gets very
easy and intuitive.  Some other users like Jove, a sort of mini-Emacs
editor.  When we get more disk space, I'd like to get GNU Emacs
installed.  There are also the standard Unix line editors (ed, ex)
and a homegrown line editor (ec), but I wouldn't wish a line editor
on anyone.  Your item seems to have turned out okay, so I wouldn't
worry too much about how you get the text to Grex.  Just use whatever
you're comfortable with.

You mentioned "obligations" in the third paragraph of your item.  I'd
just like to emphasize that there really aren't any "obligations" for
Grex use.  If you use the system a lot, and enjoy it, you are
encouraged to become a member.  But that isn't mandatory, your
account won't be removed if you don't pay, and we won't send you a
bill or even start harassing you.  In fact, a common complaint among
new Grex users seems to be that they want to support the system,
but can't find out how!  (If you do want to find out, type "support"
at any PicoSpan or shell prompt.)

Rather than cat, you might want to use rz (or rx or rb or kermit) to upload
files to grex.  If your files have carriage returns (as well as linefeeds)
there's a program called flip -- use flip -u to strip the CRs.

The only other thing Marc didn't say is that info was definitely a good
place for these questions.  Oh yes, and that a manual is in preparation
(but don't hold your breath).

Let's say by chance that you wanted to use Jove rather than vi for your
editing purposes when editing responses for picospan. This would be the case
if you are familiar with emacs, most likely. Then you should place the line
set editor jove
in your .cfonce file. .cfonce is the initialization file for picospan.  Then
whenever you were typing a response, you could say :e (that's one of the
'colon escapes' of picospan) to drop into the editor.  This is similar to
the ~e you can use when in input mode of the mail program.  Dropping into
the editor can also be automatic (I forgot the command) but the :e escape
makes it so easy when you need it, and this way you won't invoke the editor
for one-liners.

If you don't set the editor in .cfonce, I believe you get vi, which I know a
lot less about.

On another subject - Kermit file tranfer is indeed slower than sz. But
Kermit is free, and I haven't found a terminal emulator for the mac that can
do key bindings as well as Kermit, does Z modem protocol, and isn't too
expensive. ZTerm comes close - it does Z, costs $40 shareware, and doesn't
bind keys very well. (I think it's incompatible with something I'm running
too, but I never figured out what.)

That about sums it up - anythiing else, jsut ask. Oh, about the mail
limits per day. In a recent discussion with meg, she would prefer
someethiing arouund 100K rather than 1 Meg. And if you are expecting
something RealLarge - that is, "know in advance" - you can arrange 
something with her I'm pretty sure.

Prodigy is working on getting an internet gatways up soon... I'll let everyone
know when, becasue I would love to be able to send my prodigy mail from the 
internet (free) instead of prodigy (VERY expensive)

Golly, but the answers do come in fast!

Thank you, thank you for the rapid replies. Therefore, I have additional
questions (you see the logic, I hope)...

I recently checked my filesystem's space with df and found only about
750 blocks free. If I want something larger sent to me, where can it
be put? Is the mail spool directory considerably more spacious? I'll be
happy to promptly download and remove things.

I have had fine success in downloading and uploading using sz/rz. If
another package offers something better (MicroPhone II?), I'd be
interested in checking it out.

I'm quite comfortable with vi, BTW. Unfortunately, when I used 'Enter'
to post my message I didn't get vi, but ed (I think). Is the .cfonce
setting srw recommends above going to make vi appear in Enter? Is the
the right/only way to post an item?

Thanks, again. Previous answers are VERY encouraging.

vi is the default editor.

Um, I think bbsed is the default editor - or maybe whatever is in your
editor environment variable (what you specified when you first logged in).
Which might be ed.

Yes, bbsed is indeed the default editor.  (And I apologize to Marcus;
his editor is called "es", not "ec".)  If you change the EDITOR=
line in your .profile, that will change the editor that PicoSpan
uses by default.

You can check for free space on the mail spool filesystem by typing
"df /usr/spool/mail".  It lives on the /h1a filesystem at the
moment, which usually has 10MB or more of free space.  I just
moved two largish home directories from /h1b (user directories,
PicoSpan) to /h1a, too, so there's almost 3MB of free space on /h1b
now.

   One nice thing about Jove, if you're interested in using an editor on here,
is that it has a tutorial program.  Type !teachjove at any Picospan prompt.

Never knew that.. I'll have to try it.

This response has been erased.

That's right.

Actually, Kermit is a VERY efficient program for file transfers for a few
reasons.  First, it does a negotiation process to figure out the best
settings for the transfer to take place.  Second, it dynamically adjusts
the size of the sent packets used for transfer (ie, whereas x/y modem use
a fixed size packet, kermit uses the largest size possible.  This is i
because if the transmission is error filled, the machine will be resending a
lot of packets, in kermit, they will be smaller packets, therefore using
less time to resend the same information, whereas in the other protocols,
each packet always takes the same amount of time)  Third, (I'm only at the
3rd point?  Wheew) Kermit is the most effective way to transfer files between
two dissimilar platforms.  That was the main purpose behind its creation,
to solve a major problem in cross platform file transfer.

Hmm... I haven't seen any kermits that dynamically adjust packet size.
Kermit gives you a wide choice of packet sizes, but I thought that
packet size was set by the receiver in advance and couldn't be changed
via negotiation.  I know that zmodem behaves as you describe.

I find that zmodem is faster than kermit on a non-noisy 8-bit connection,
but kermit will work when other protocols fail as it tends to make
worst-case assumptions.

My experience (& that of a lot of other people, apparently) is that some
common implementations of kermit are often much slower than x/y/zmodem
(that's **much** slower).  One advantage you didn't mention is that if
you only have a 7-bit data channel (for example, you're stuck with a true
7E parity line), kermit will (or can) work whereas others just can't be
used at all.  This situation is fortunately becoming rare.

That my experience also, davel.  A procol like y or z-modem is 
consistent 3-5X faster than Kermit.  Z-modem will dynamically adjust
packet size.  I only use Kermit if I absolutely must -- and that's
in those situations where it's the only common denominator between
systems.

Is there any plan to get a realtime internet connection in the future?
I log in dirctly from home, but when I'm in one of my school's comp
labs, I need to connect to merit directly, then dial out to grex to
login.  Its not a big deal, but I was just wondering if that was
in the plans, or if it is too cost prohibitive for us?

Re kermit:  Modern kermits can be a lot faster than older ones, if
the kermit at both ends of the transfer can do long packets and
sliding windows.  Not as fast as zmodem, though.

I think I've only run across a sliding windows version of Kermit
once, and that was on a BBS.  I tried it, it was interesting, but as
you say, not as fast as Zmodem.

Re #18: There are plans, but they're fairly long-range.  The problem is
that if we go through traditional channels, we will have to pay at
least $200/month for the connection.  That's more than Grex's bills
are now for electricity and phones, so we would be looking at a doubling
of monthly expenditures.  There are some possibilities of an "under-
the-table" type connection, which we are investigating.

Thanks for the info, Marc

Or, through the leaves ....

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