Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

64
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until they can be sent,
As a rule, you shouldn't need to investigate
these directories in your everyday use
of AmiTCP. The only time you might want to
visit the Spool directory is if you have written
a piece of mail or news you think you
shouldn't send. For every piece of mail you
will find three similarly-named tiles. You
must delete all three otherwise your sendmail
daemon will get confused.
Now it's time to get online. The first thing
to do is actually connect to Demon. By
now you should have installed AmiTCP
from the installer, setting your IP address,
password, host name and modem settings,
etc. You should also have copied the later
versions of some of the files from the LHA
archives I suggested previously. If you
haven't done this because you haven't
been able to use FTP, it doesn't matter -
we will do it now.
In preparation for full-on, shell-based.
techie-type Internet access (we'll deal with
the easier stuff later), you should edit your
shell-startup script. This can be found in S
-and you should add the following line to the
end of it:
nth nitcp:bin sweent on
This will prevent you cd'ing to the AmiTCP
directory all the time because it will make
AmigaDOS automatically search those
directories for any commands you might
type. Next, open a Shell window and only
type the following command if you don't
1have Startnet in your user-startup script:
storm
Easy so far. Now we want to connect, so
Don't despair it your mall goes astray at first or you can't
post articles to newsgroups. It happens to everyone. Try
to send mail to the technical guys at Demon, succinctly
explaining your config and problems and I have no doubt
they will be able to at least help you on your way to finding
a solution, if not giving you the fix there and then.
FTP and Mail are without doubt the most important
(legitimate) uses for the Internet, but if that isn't enough
you can try Mosaic which gives you access to the World
Wide Web. - make sure your modem goes at at least
14.4k for this as it can be very time-consuming. Even
more time-consuming can be IRC or Internet Relay
Chat, a sort of global 0891 chatline,
As far as neliquette is concerned, try to be polite on
the Internet. If you aren't very good at spelling, there are
going to be people who pedantically pick on your every
point of grammar if
-
they
c a n ' t
t h i n k
o f
a
-
Note we go again,
connecting to Demon's rip
server. It you haven't
downloaded Gui-FTP yet,
see how nic• Eli.
compared to ncttp?
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In control
Amiga Computing
MAY 1995
make sure your modem is switched on and
ready to roll. Type:
Two windows should now appear on your
Workbench screen, one claiming to be
'AmiTCPIP Log' and the other 'Dialling...
The dial window will show what is happening
as you try to connect. If you get an
engaged tone, then the dialscript will retry
for as many attempts as you have set. If the
modem seems to have connected, but the
dialscript times out, you have two choices.
You can either reboot your machine (pretty
drastic and not very nice to have to do if
you are seriously multitasking) or wait
until the dialscript has run through all its
iterations and then type link down.
However, this probably won't happen.
What will probably happen is you will connect
to Demon, your 'Dialling,: window will
disappear and the 'AmiTCPIP Log' window
will say that Mailkick has been started.
Mailkick is the program that sends any mail
you have written, You are now on the net,
Right, we are now going to download
heaps of files. You don't have to download
all of these programs, indeed you don't
actually have to download any of them -
they just make life a lot easier, and in some
cases, more interesting. Here's my list of
the best ones to get, and why:
Very important
Gui-FTP.tha
- easier than using nottp, this gives you a file-
amitcp
manager-type window for downloading and
lutils uploading files from filp sites and takes care
-
of logging on, etc.
uuxt20.1ha
4 0
- you util/ want to send files in mail, or decode
K b
arc people's news articles, etc.
.
compress.lzh: -
util/arc - 56Kb_ If you see
M
files 1 4that
are labelled filename,Z, they are
compressed.
u
K b . Use this program to decompress
c
Y them, Especially useful for INDEX
files. h
o
u
Fairly important
n
e
mui23usr.the aminet/devigui - 678Kb.
Magic e User Interface. This is needed for a
lot
d
of programs most importantly, in this
t
h
the points you
i
raise. Try to ignore this and don't get into
what are known as llamewars' over petty matters (leave
s
it for important ones).
i
Don't make your signature more than six lines long it
f
you can help it and don't leave all the text in a reply to an
article or item of e-mail. Also, it is important to remember
that ASCII text isn't a very good conductor of emotion,
so be very careful what you type. You might type something
'in a sarcastic voice', but the person at the other
end is going to be unlikely to realise this unless she is
psychic - in which case, why are you bothering with
e-mail?
Use smileys (otherwise known as emotocons) or
abbreviations such as for grin, etc. In case you are one
of the four or so people who don't know what a smiley
it's a set of ASCII characters that look like a face when
viewed from the side, i.e. :-) or 8(.
context, AMosaic,
Mosaic_12 AmiTCP.lha. amitcp/extras -
194Kb. The only World Wide Web browser
available for the Amiga at the moment
There is a newer, beta version al the
AMosaic home page. Needs MUI
AMHotlistV1.50.1ha amitcp/extras - 15Kb
Hotlist for AMosaic, also needs MUI to
work,
plink21.11w amitcptutils - 33Kb, Plink is a
replacement script for linking up and has
many extra options,
Not necessary but handy
AutoSig121he amitcp/utils - 30Kb. Adds
random signatures to your news postings.
SynCrol 3.1he. amitcp/utils - 8Kb
A system clock synchroniser.
To get these files we are going to have to
use ftp or file transfer protocol I'm not
going to explain what file transfer protocol
actually is. it's beyond the scope of this article
and there are numerous books on the
Internet so you should find literature galore
on it. My recommendations are Ed Krol's
The Whole Internet, which is available
direct from Demon, or any of the FAOs you
find online.
You should still have your shell window
open, so type:
Workbench:3 nettle
ftp.demon,to.ok
pefte ito.denn.co.vk
into it, ncttp is the nearest thing to a userfriendly,
keyboard-based lip client on the
Amiga, but I still suggest one of the first
things you get is GUI-FTP in the list above.
You should end up with an 'hp>
and . psome r o mtext p saying t welcome to Demon's
hp server, You should then 'cd', just like
normal, to the publamiga directory from
where you can cd to the directories listed
above for the files you want to download.
FTP uses a command called get to
download the files and Unix (which is what
nearly all ftp servers are running as an
operating system) is case-dependant,
so you will have to get the exact
spelling for your files. An
ideal situation would look
like this:
Welcome to Demon
Internet's ttp archive.
Guest login ok, access
restrictions apply,
Logged into disabuse.
demon.co.uk. 1.5.6
(September 20, 1993),
Amiga version 1.2
(May 3 1994)
ntitp3cd putdoeighlositcp
Non lu. 25 OA:00:DO GAT 199t
For Demon users to install
AmiTCP, please download
the AmiTCP-DiSrl 0 archive
from the installer directory.
Other people are welcome to
download it, but the installer