flames are on!

[Scott Turner]

[Those interested in downloading TeX from Sandy's BBS may wish to skip
my counterflames and read the section of this article which describes
how long and how much it will cost to download TeX from Sandy's BBS]

In article <1930 at turnkey.TCC.COM> sandy at turnkey.TCC.COM (Sanford 'Sandy' Zelkovitz) writes:
[Bunch of garbage from Sandy, not clearly thought out or researched and quite
frankly, due to the very personal attacks, should have been sent via E-Mail
to clear this mess up before dragging the net into it.]

I think Sandy's message confirms my posting that he did indeed deliberately
split the X10R4 sources into 350,000 chunks so you could only get one chunk
a day. I have since researched this matter to find that most of the larger
items on his BBS follow this sizing policy.

Sandy also doesn't take the time to mention that I offered him access to
ANYTHING he wanted off uunet (which l5comp has a trailblazer connection
with) in exchange for X10R4.

Why no mention of that in your FLAME attack Sandy? Trying to distract people
away from yer policy? In fact why the personal attack saying I don't like
to share when I offered to do just that? I'm confused. :(

After logging in again and finding no message from Sandy in reply to my
postings (note, that's postings not posting) I wracked my brain and came up
with the uucp approach. It worked great.

And I still intended to send Sandy anything he wanted off uunet, I even
offered him a directory listing and several suggestions about items I thought
he might like.

And if he bothered to check the time on the USENET posting against his
uucp logs he would find that the USENET posting was made before the uucp
downloads! Using uucp really did come to me as a brain storm Sandy. Even
as I setup to try it I wasn't certain that the same restrictions weren't
in affect on uucp as well. And your system did hang up twice costing me
nearly an hour in wasted download time (it waited till byte count 290,00
to drop the line rather than in between files.)

I'm PLENTY willing to share, I've said so all along. I think you're just a
teensy bit sensitive about your draconian "BY GOD YOU WILL SHARE WITH ME!"
policy and probably thought I was such a sleeze that I'd grab the goods and
not honor my offer. (About the only reasoning I can come up with for your
line of attack)

I'm happy to say I'm not quite the tiny person you seem convinced I am.

Whatever the outcome of my conflict with Sandy, my posting about his system
is still 100% accurate. However, it can be extended by saying that if you
have as many bytes to upload as you want to download you can get the bytes
faster. Or is it if you upload 200K a day you can download 700K a day? I'd
ask Sandy but he seems too emotional on this topic. :(

----------Begin section on "How long and how much $$$ to get TeX?"---------

Here's what uunet has to say about TeX:

/usr/spool/ftp/TeX:
total 21899

That's 21.899Mb folks. Let's see, we'll assume 2400 baud login and the user
will upload 200K a day and download 700K a day (giving Sandy the benefit
of the doubt on his "sharing" policy), how long will it take?

His box gave 729KB per hour at 2400 baud so the user will JUST be able
to download/upload his daily 900K if the line stays clean and he moves
around quickly from the upload to download area. You'll note that uploading
more than 200K won't get you more than 700K per day since you'll run into
the 90 minute login limit.

So at 700K per day that will mean 32 days of downloading/uploading. Plus
you will have to come up with 6,200,000 bytes of trade goods. (Assuming
you can find things that come out to EXACTLY 200,000 bytes for 31 days, and
you have very few minutes per day to see if he already has what you intend
to upload)

What will the above cost? Well assuming $9 an hour for long distance that
works out to roughly $432 plus state/federal taxes above the $9 an hour
rate.

Now, if you don't upload anything to Sandy's BBS what are the figures?
Download time in days: 62 days (damn I was off by 1 day!)
Download cost: roughly $279

So, if you're willing to take an extra month doing it you can save yerself
around $153.

A potential downloader should also be aware that getting into Sandy's BBS
can take a LONG time. A demon dialer and about an hour should get you
through though. But you may need to set aside 2.5 hours a night for 31 to
62 days in order to grab TeX.

I don't think my original warning was all that far out of line now was it
Sandy?

After your ill-researched PUBLIC attack upon my character I don't know if
thanks are still in order for allowing me to download X10R4, but I'll extend
them anyway and hope I don't draw back a stump in the process.

Thank you!

<count fingers quick!>

Anyway, even if you aren't hunting for TeX I think most people may want to
give Sandy's BBS a call. It's one of the BEST unix BBS' I've ever run across.
His selection is MUCH richer than even that available on uunet. (Although uunet
does have several items he doesn't) Well worth the call if you're looking
for something less massive than TeX. (But also compounding the problems for
those poor souls trying to come up with 200,000 bytes a day for 31 days)

Scott Turner
scotty at l5comp -or- uunet!l5comp!scotty