Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!netcom!avery
From: avery@netcom.UUCP (Avery Colter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: info for the masses
Message-ID: <22709@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 3 Feb 91 21:57:45 GMT
Organization: Netcom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 73


Unknown writes:

>>* A modem
>>* An AOL account
	>Oh comon! This guy is already on USENET and has INTERNET access
>(either direct FTP or to some that have mail "servers" or whatever they're
>called).

There are not very many public access Unix sites which have full Internet
access. Most of these sites operate on UUCP, and one has to go through
a long tortuous procedure in order to even ATTEMPT to locate and download
files from another machine than one's own.

Netcom's one of the lucky ones, we will be getting full Internet access
soon. But in general only people working at companies possessed of 
such machines will have the full access.

Mail servers can be done, but it takes days sometimes to find a listing
of the programs on the target machine, it takes a few more days to
actually get it to mail the things to you, it has to be done uuencoded
more than likely... the whole thing is a bloody mess.

	>Wasting money on one of those pay services seems dumb! I will
>admit that I haven't used any of those services for more than a minute or
>two on demos, but I can't IMAGINE how anything can be better than
>InterNet/UseNet! (UNIX too!) Either FREE (Univ students/employees of big 
>companies) or VERY cheap ($10/month Portal accounts! If portal isn't 
>countrywide, there are probably other systems or even "regular" BBSes that 
>have InterNet access).

Portal DOES NOT have full Internet access, and the way they are set up
they never will, because they do not allow shell access and they set
up like a BBS. As for a regular BBS having Internet access, that's
like asking a Timex Sinclair to run Fido! Only a Unix system could
hope to handle full status. There are micros which can do this, but
these are the top of their respective lines (386sx and up, Amiga 3000,
second generation Macintosh, NeXT, Sun Workstation, etc).

AOL is about $5 an hour. Yes, it's not as cheap as Internet, but for
someone not so fortunate as to know where an Internet Pubnet is,
there's precious little choice. And even if you do know where it is,
it might be long distance for you, which adds up to the exact same
cost. Unless the site is reachable by PC Pursuit and you have a Telenet
node near you, in which case you can add either $30 or $50 a month
to that cheap little $10 you speculate.

>* A subscription to 8/16-Central
	Well this one is probably pretty good.. GS+ would be good too.

I have GS+, I haven't checked out 8/16 yet.

>* A GEnie account if you still have some money left.

	SAME reply as for AOL.

Except, of course, for the fact that AOL is not owned by the nation's
premiere advocate of nuclear overarmament.

In regard to using the tools, it would seem to me that one could very
easily make hybrid programs with Orca/C or other compilers, using the
toolbox where it does its best work, requesting space from the Memory
Manager (either by direct call or by malloc) in which to load metal code
routines, and then run the metal code routines when they are needed.
This puts the metal code in a nice safe place compatible with the rest
of a tool-using program, while that piece of code itself can operate
without any use of tools whatever. All you'd really need to do is
pass whatever critical locations you need as parameters to the metal code.

-- 
Avery Ray Colter    {apple|claris}!netcom!avery  {decwrl|mips|sgi}!btr!elfcat
(415) 839-4567   "I feel love has got to come on and I want it:
                  Something big and lovely!"         - The B-52s, "Channel Z"