Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

IALER
The first bid( tact/ I ran straight into when I
first installed AmiTCP was that there is no pro.
sided way to actually dial up your Internet
provider. Typically, when you first use ArniTCP
you have to use a comms package such as
Term or NComm to log onto your account,
and then start AmiTCP. The problem here is
that you then normally have to quit the
comms package, and unless you have set up
your modem not to drop the carrier it will
immediately link down - not vely helpful.
To get around this you either how to use
one of the many ARea dialler scripts - a little
overwhelming to set up for my liking - or on
this month's coverdisk there is a tiny tool
called Dialer. This consists of the dialerdevice
which should be copied into your DEVS drawer,
and a text file called dialeraconfig that
needs to be edited to suit your own needs.
You will need to add the correct Baud rate for
your modem, your own Internet provider's
phone number, and your login name and
password The protocol you will be using will
be SLIP, and then you save the file to
ENVARC You should install dialler before
installing AmiTCP as you will need to choose
the dialerdevice part way through installing
AmiTCP i
SEARCH ENGINES
http://www.lyais.com - an excellent search engine that provides you with
lots of control over the search
Ildtp://wwwwebtrawler.com - one of the early search engines that is still
very useful
http://www.yahoo.com - provides the best way to quickly reach popular sites
http://www.altavista.ditital.com - Digital has decided it wants a search
engine and here it is
LINSTALLING AMITCP
This is where the fun begins. If you understand what
the various parts of your host name are and you have
your computer and your Internet provider's IP address,
actually installing AmiTCP should riot be a problem.
With all this information at hand, double-click the
AmiTCP installer icon and away you go. I am assuming
you are a home user connecting over your phone line
using a modem with the normal Amiga serial port to
your Internet provider.
For comparison the Amiga Computing details are as
follows:
user name
node name
domain name
host name
IP address
Demon IP address
You need to create an AmiTCP drawer, usually on the
root of you Work directory, where all the AmiTCP files
can live
update the Sono Il devices
install the new fonts, if you wont
edit
acomp
demon.co.uk
acomp.clemon.co.uk
158.151101.200
158.152.1.65
enter your user name - acomp
login name, anything you wont acomp
This is where things start to become a
little more trickier. The Internet started
off being run on Unix machines, and
the vast number of Internet providers
use Unix machines which are very
powerful and configurable but are
incredibly complex. Unfortunately, a
lot of the software for the Amiga has
simply been ported over from Unix
machines which means you have to
create a lot of the files and directories
found on Unix machines before you
can use these programs.
To receive mail you need to install
a 5MTPd service to AmiTCP. This
stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and was initially used lor transferring files from
Unix box to another remote one. It is, however, perfect for mail and news purposes.
People just using the standard AmiTCP installer need to add a few things to mak
using mail and newsgroup programs much simpler. Firstly, you need to create a num
of new directories in your AmiTCP drawer. Create a drawer called usr and in this dra
create four more drawers called mail, news, libs and spool. These will be used to stoN
related files. Next you need to edit the Stadnet script found in the AmiTCP:Bin drawer. It
this you need to add the following lines, but you could, alternatively, add them to youl
user-startup:
select root directory, why not the AmiTCP drawer
click proceed on shell
EMON USERS
Demon is one of the largest Internet
providers in the UK and provide support, if
limited, for Amiga users. This comes in two
forms -when you first join they give you a
single install disk that will set up AmigaNOS
so you can FTP, e-mail and use newsgroups.
Unfortunately, as AmigaNOS is not supported
by anyone else you are stuck with these original
programs and you really do need to
upgrade to AmiTCP. Unofficially, Demon
proceed post user and group id numbers
enter proper name, anything you want - Amiga
Computing
add your user, enter password - just hit return to leave
this blank
0 am assuming you do not have a dynamic connection
so select no)
enter the host name of your computer not including the
domain name.
(Our host name is acomp.clemon.co.uk, AmiTCP only
wants your computers node name so for us this is
'a-comp)
enter domain part of your address - ours is
'demon.co.uk'
enter alias, this allows shorter versions when fingering
acomp =
acomp.clemon.co.uk
select sliplcslip
select rhslip
enter slip IP address - this is your computer's IP
address, ours is 158.152.101.200
AMIGA COMPUTING
MAY 9 9 6
AIL AND NEWS
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don't bother starting AmiTCP
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n itista Toa l is a stra ight forwa rd M hos
consca tible molte r. wolf worth considoring
provide an AmiTCP installer that gives yo(
major advantages over the original AmiTa
installer. Even though the installer is aims
specifically for Demon users, I would advisi
anyone who is on the Internet, or is strut
gling to get AmiTCP to work properly but can
ftp, to get this installer.
You need to ITP to ftp.demon.cauk an
go into the ipubiamigaiinstaller/tcp direct.
ory and get the AmiTCP4_DIS95_v3.11ti
enter default gateway IP address - for us demon
158.152.1,65
skip netmosk - not necessary
select slip device
(if you have copied the dialeudevice select this from th
list, otherwise select the serial device)
pick unit 0
choose modem speed - for a fast machine this is up
57600, otherwise use 19200 or 38400. If you ha
problems when connecting you may have to reduce t
amount.
choose Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) - your Intemt
provider should tell you this otherwise stick with t
default value of 1006
select hardware handshaking
double check slip configuration
now you would normally re-enter default gateway
address then enter the IP address of any other nam
eservers that you could connect to, your Internet provide
will tell you
enter domain names to search - ours are demon.co
co.uk, and uk