Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!towson@Amsaa.ARPA From: towson@Amsaa.ARPA Newsgroups: net.micro.cpm Subject: Re: GET20 (~3750 chars) Message-ID: <2054@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Jul-84 13:54:10 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.2054 Posted: Mon Jul 16 13:54:10 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jul-84 03:20:11 EDT Lines: 96 From: David Towson (CSD) Giving credit where credit is due, I must emphatically state that I was only a clerk (and occasional needler) in the development of the automatic FTP programs for UNIX systems. The mastermind was Ferd Brundick of the Army Ballistic Research Labs. HE wrote the programs that automatically run FTP. All I did was write some shell scripts that use Ferd's programs, and I also wrote the documentation file, part of which is appended below. So since it was Ferd who wrote the programs, I can safely agree wholeheartedly with Rick Conn: These programs are REALLY NEAT! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTOMATIC FTP PROGRAMS FOR UNIX SYSTEMS These automatic FTP programs for UNIX systems provide a nearly effortless way to transfer files from the public-domain archives on SIMTEL20 using the InterNet File Transfer Protocol, FTP. The principal "worker" in this collection is the program GET20, a Bourne shell script written by Ferd Brundick of the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory. GET20 accepts inputs from the keyboard, or more conveniently from another shell script, and then calls the FTP program on the user's system and provides all needed inputs. Three file transfer modes are supported, ASCII, binary image, and binary in 8-bit bytes. SIMTEL20 is a 36-bit word-size PDP-20 running the TOPS-20 operating system. Therefore, only the ASCII and 8-bit-byte transfer modes will be useful for obtaining files from the public domain archives, as the data in these files must be unpacked from the 36-bit SIMTEL20 words and repacked for storage in 16 or 32-bit UNIX words. The binary image transfer mode is provided only for special applications. GET20 can be (and has been) easily edited to allow automatic retrieval of files from other machines that honor an anonymous FTP login. Once GET20 has been set in action, all aspects of the FTP process happen automatically. There are currently five archives on SIMTEL20: MICRO: MICRO: MICRO: MICRO: MICRO: All files in are in ASCII. Some files in , , and are in ASCII, while others are in ITS binary. The general file-name format for all archive files is: MICRO:PROGRAM_NAME GET20 has the device-name MICRO: built-in, but the other three parts of the path-name must be supplied by the user. Thus, a typical command-line for GET20 looks like this: get20 -a sigm.vol007 james.bond or alternately, get20 -a sigm.vol007 james.bond new_name The first form will transfer the file keeping the same name (in this case, james.bond), and the second form will give the transferred file a new name on the local system. If you give the command "get20" (with no arguments), GET20 will display a usage statement. The REAL convenience of GET20 comes from driving it with one-liner shell scripts that accept user input in VERY abbreviated form. For example, the one-liner "siga" , which obtains ASCII files from the archive, contains: get20 -a sigm.vol$* To obtain the file of the previous example, a user need only type: siga 007 james.bond If a user wants to do frequent ASCII transfers from the directory, the one-liner "m7a" (or some such name) having the form: get20 -a cpm.modem7 $* can be used. The user will then type only: m7a mdm730.asm The possibilities are endless. NOTE: The above is just a piece of the documentation file. For the full story, FTP the file MICRO:AUTOFTP.DOC from SIMTEL20. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave towson@amsaa.arpa