Eric Schubert posted earlier today that he had updated his NQTELNET package
on opus.admin.utc.edu, but the public HP3000-L posting I received seemed to
lack the flavor of an "announcement", it sounded a little more like the tone
of a clarification to an earlier post.  If that is the case, either I missed
it somehow, or perhaps the posting got lost in the ether somewhere.
 
For my $0.02 worth, I've known about his NQTELNET for quite some time, just
never investigated it thoroughly since the initial version had some implied
help from a Un*x box and the run-time required special XL specifications to
trap terminal I/O.  Maybe that's 180 degrees from the truth, but that was my
initial impression, and I never messed with it :-)  But...
 
The current version he sent requires no XL hooks, no Unix box, nothing.  It
simply runs stuff you tell it to run when someone connects to a given port
by telnet.  Looks really neat and I plan to give it a shot tomorrow.  I'll
leave him to supply details if he likes, but for me, it looks like it's the
answer to the "compleat (sic) idiot's dream of hot applications via telnet".
And it works on 4.0, provided you have NS/3000 of course (and any 5.0 sys).
 
Second point:  opus has been very fickle as a server.  Since loading the
httpd server on it, it had the nasty habit of disappearing into the ozone
at least every 2-3 days if not more frequently (and other earlier troubles).
My apologies to anyone that has had trouble with it, but similarly kudos to
the tech support folks at WRQ for investigating the problems.  Everything
was worked out except the random hang, and we're working on that problem as
I type.  Why am I mentioning this at all?
 
(1) opus is running with trace enabled and event logging right now; it may
    be a bit sluggish.  This will soon go away provided the problem is fixed
    as it appears to be as of today.
 
(2) our internet bandwidth is 448Kb; that is about to increase substantially
    depending on how many DS0s end up dedicated to video (the price we pay
    for high-tech distance-learning classrooms) but we are adding another T1.
 
(3) While opus has been available for http for some time, it was nothing
    fancy, just a pointer to the ftp directory.  I am finally finding some
    time to play with it a bit.  Some readable html pages and documentation
    will be available soon (I know, I said it before) and hopefully add some
    intelligence to the http means of access.  I say this because at least
    some of you (at least Stan on www.allegro.com) have pointed to the FTP
    directory directly by http://opus.admin.utc.edu/hp anchors, and these
    will likely break in the near future (well, not "break", but you won't
    ever see the html).  Please just point at the root page since it has a
    direct link to the HP dirs (to be replaced by html index soon).
 
(4) Finally, as I told Eric earlier, for anyone that has contributed any
    software to opus for distribution, if you want to create your own html
    index (within reason :-)  you'll have to fit my directory structure!)
    feel free to contribute a page to serve as documentation for your
    software.  That way you may save me some time, and you can't complain
    if you don't like the one I <eventually> produce :-)
 
Cheers...
 
[\] Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>