From:	MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX"  6-MAY-1992 20:49:00.84
To:	info-vax@kl.sri.com
CC:	
Subj:	DECUS SIG Tape Review (L&T: FLIGHT through NCSA)

[LT91B.FLIGHT]

Ease of installation:	5
Documentation:		5
Ease of use:		5
Usefulness:		See comments...

Intended audience:	System Users
Sources included:	No
Objects included:	No

This submission has been provided by DEC to entertain those of us with
DECwindows.  It includes a multi-user flight simulator which had been developed
in-house for a number of years.

The package proves invaluable after working a hard week.  Just imagine flying
a Cherokee 140, F-16C Fighting Falcon, or even a Sopwith Camel around the
landscape, complete with targets (including other players) to shoot down from
the sky.  FLIGHT may not help you manage your system, but managing your system
can be a lot more enjoyable with FLIGHT.



[LT91B.GCE91B]

Ease of installation:	Varies
Documentation:		Varies
Ease of use:		Varies
Usefulness:		Varies

Intended audience:	System Programmers and others
Sources included:	Yes
Objects included:	No

This is a collection of various utilities to suit many users including the COPS
security package for Unix, ZIP for VMS, a Unix BASIC interpreter, an SNMP
program for CMU/Tek-IP, and UUCP packages for the PC, Amiga, and Macintosh
systems.  Take a look through here for more neat utilities.


[LT91B.GNUSOFTWARE]

Ease of installation:	Varies
Documentation:		3
Ease of use:		3
Usefulness:		4

Intended audience:	Programmers
Sources included:	Yes
Objects included:	No

The GNU Software collection is a regular feature of the SIG tapes.  It
includes most of the latest versions of the GNU programs at the time of the
submission.  Included here are Gawk (awk), GNU C++, GhostScript (a
PostScript interpreter/previewer), Bison (yacc), SmallTalk, sed, Perl, and
many, many others.

If you're looking for new programming software (languages and utilities), you
should definitely look here.  Anything you might want is probably here -- and
then some.



[LT91B.IPU]

Ease of installation:	Unable to determine
Documentation:		1
Ease of use:		Unable to determine
Usefulness:		Unable to determine

Intended audience:	System Programmers
Sources included:	Yes (VAXeln Pascal)
Objects included:	No

The I/O Page Utility (IPU) was developed to provide users with a utility to
access and analyze the Q-bus I/O Page of VAXELN target systems.  IPU is similar
to the console emulator Octal Debugging Technique (ODT) used on the LSI-11/23
and PDP-11/23 computers.  A set of commands, similar to DCL, allow the user to
configure the session work environment; to inspect and manipulate registers
in the Q-bus I/O Page; and to troubleshoot communications with I/O devices.



[LT91B.LATEX]

Ease of installation:	4
Documentation:		3
Ease of use:		Unable to determine
Usefulness:		4

Intended audience:	TeX document producers
Sources included:	Yes (all files are the sources themselves)
Objects included:	N/A

This is the latest LaTeX collection of formatters for TeX.  Various document
formats are included, such as Letter, Article, Report, TwoColumn and more.  No
separate documentation is included, but each file is well commented for those
who wish to delve into the art of TeX.  Books such as "LaTeX: A Document
Preparation System" provide most of the information one would ever need.



[LT91B.NCSA]

Ease of installation:	1
Documentation:		2
Ease of use:		Unable to determine
Usefulness:		5

Intended audience:	TCP/IP Users
Sources included:	Yes
Objects included:	No

This is a collection of TELNET and FTP programs for the PC and Macintosh.  This
is a must-have set of programs if your network has PCs or Macintoshes and you
are trying to get everything connected.

I was unable to determine how well the package worked as the documentation was
a bit rough and my systems already had TCP/IP installed.  This software has a
good reputation, so it's definitely worth your while to look at it.