This is the RSX/IAS SIG Symposium Tape from the 1981 Fall DECUS meeting in Los Angeles. The tape contains material submitted by the user community to the SIG at the Fall DECUS meeting. The programs on this tape are from user submissions. The DECUS staff, the RSX/IAS SIG staff, and DEC are all in relative ignorance of the contents of the tapes. No warranty of any kind is implied in the distribution of these tapes. The programs may or may not be well documented, they may or may not work, they may even crash your system. If you have a problem with the contents of the tape, contact the author of the program. Do not contact DECUS, DEC, or the RSX/IAS SIG. The tape contains approximately 36,000 blocks of software in 1900 files. Since this will fit on a single 2400 foot tape in 800 bpi BRU format, it will be distributed as such, as an RK07 image, the smallest DEC disk on which it will fit. If you are a VAX site and, for whatever reason, cannot read the contents of this tape (so graciously submitted by the hard-working RSX/IAS SIG members), please contact Jim Neeland. UIC account [300,1] contains several files of interest. The file RSXF81.DIR contains a directory of the contents of the tape (BRU does not produce nice directories). The file RSXF81TPE.DOC contains an abstract of the contents of the tape by UIC. The file README.ALL contains a concatenated list of all the README files on the collection. The file SUBMIT.DOC contains the guidelines for submissions to the RSX/IAS sig tape collection. This is must reading for everyone who desires to submit a program to the SIG tape. A copy of this letter appears in the file BEGINF81.TXT in the same account. The file UICSETF81.CMD contains the UFD commands to create all the needed UIC's on device XX:. Edit it to match your needs before using BRU to extract the tape contents. Note that a partial extraction can be achieved by only creating the desired UIC's. The UIC account [300,2] contains the program that is used to copy this and other tapes, BIGTPC. This is a new version of TPC with various new features. See the .DOC file also in [300,2] for further information. The source for this version has been supplied courtesy of Glen Everhart, UIC [312,315] this tape. To use TPC with the distribution one needs a disk with at least 38,000 blocks of free space, not necessarily contiguous. To read in a copy of the master tape onto your disk, one enters the following command: RUN BIGTPC TPC>DN:RSXF81.BRU=MT: To make a copy of the tape for someone, one enters the following command line: RUN BIGTPC TPC>MT:=DN:RSXF81.BRU PAGE 2 The distribution is again being made through the SIG tree-structured distribution system. A geographically oriented distribution scheme is used, where each LUG makes a few copies of the tapes and sends them on to other LUGS, which in turn makes a few copies of the tape and sends them on to other LUGS, and so on. The SIG is relying on each node to contact the next higher node for necessary tape-transfer arrangements. Since this is a volunteer operation, sincere interest on the part of soon-to-be participants is very helpful in assuring a timely distribution. Remember since it is a volunteer operation, DECUS is NOT paying for postage or free copies of magnetic tapes. Make arrangements so that this does not cost anybody a lot of money or magnetic tapes. The Tape Copy tree will be mailed in advance to all the nodes with two post cards included. The first post card is to be mailed on receipt of the tree, to acknowledge continued willingness and ability to participate. If there is some reason why a node cannot participate in the distribution, please contact Jim Neeland IMMEDIATELY. The second post card is to be returned when the Tape Collection copy is received. Now for a new project, we are in the beginning stages of compiling a tape which contains the most popular programs on all past sig tapes. This tape "Best of the RSX/IAS Sig Tapes" will be kept updated. The problem is how do we determine the most popular programs. If you have taken a program off the SIG tape and used it, write me (Jim Neeland) a letter and let me know. This be a start anyway. Let me know about things that did not work also. Some programs to start with would be TECO, SRD (which one ???), RUNOFF (whose mods ? or no more mods ?), Ralph's INDEX, and Jim Downward's KMSKIT (includes CCL). Write and let me know what other programs are being used and WHERE YOU FOUND THEM. Tell me which tape and what uic. Speaking of writing letters, if you use a program off the SIG tape, take the time to write to the author and let him know. If you find a bug or make an enhancement, write and let him know. Don't call (we all get too many phone calls) and don't expect a bug fix, but a little positive feedback can go a long way. Just think, we have over 230,000 blocks and 13,500 files. With a little positive feedback we will all have to get 6250 bpi tape drives. Anyway, my thanks to all the people who have submitted to the sig tape. You are the ones who have made it the huge success it is. The following people burned the midnight oil to create the 1981 Fall RSX/IAS sig tape: Ken Radford, Steve Lazarus, Philip Cannon, Glen Everhart, Bob Denny, and myself. Jim Neeland RSX-IAS SIG Tape Copy Coordinator Hughes Research Labs 3011 Malibu Canyon Rd. Malibu, California 90265 (213) 456-6411 ext. 333