Entries in this file are stored with the most recent ones first, and old items will be kept for at least one year.
If you have an item you would like to submit for publication here, send e-mail to webmaster@math.utah.edu.
Following this alphabetical listing, entries are stored in reverse time order, to you can simply scroll down to find newer announcements before older ones.
Major new release of the popular netscape WWW
browser, with
Java
beta-version support. This version is believed to have
fixed security problems that necessitated the disabling
of the
previous version.
GNU emacs 19.33 has been installed as
emacs-19.33 and nemacs. After a
suitable test period, it will become the default
emacs
editor. Previous versions remain available as
emacs, emacs-19.29, and
emacs-19.30, and emacs-19.31.
To find out what new features are available, type C-h
n in an emacs session.
The installed programs are: emacs-19.33,
b2m, ctags,
emacsclient,
etags,
nemacs, and rcs-checkin.
This is a new release of the GNU automake
utility for automatic generation of UNIX Makefiles.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU
autoconf
configuration tool for creating
configure
scripts to automate the adaptation of software to new UNIX
environments. It includes autoconf,
autoheader, autoreconf,
autoupdate, ifnames, and
autoscan.
This is a maintenance release of the Network Time Protocol
software for synchronizing clocks on distributed computers.
None of the installed programs (ntpdate,
ntpq, ntptrace, tickadj,
xntpd, and xntpdc) are
user callable.
This program helps a user create a rudimentary World Wide Web home page.
This program inserts a wrapper around an Encapsulated PostScript file to produce a modified file. Command line options provide for background color, BoundingBox adjustment and measurement, checking for non-EPS operators, clipping, framing, linewidth scaling, PostScript alteration, rotation, scaling, and translation.
This program converts UNIX manual page files named on the command line to strictly-conformant HTML 2.0. Manual pages that conform to Sun Microsystems guidelines should be handled properly, but others may be converted less successfully.
The fifth half-yearly release of LaTeX 2e has been installed, completely replacing the old tree, /usr/local/lib/tex/latex2e, and the latex2e.fmt format files have been regenerated to reflect the new release. The update should be transparent to users.
For a limited time, the previous version [19-Dec-1995] will
be retained in the directory tree
/usr/local/share/lib/tex/latex2e.old, in case
problems arise.
For a summary of what has changed at each release, visit the newsletter issues in Adobe Acrobat PDF format: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, or in TeX DVI format: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
This release changes the default netfind host,
since the previous one is no longer functional.
netfind is used to locate people on the
Internet when you know their personal names and geographic
locations, but not their login names or host names.
This is a major release of
matlab,
the on-line matrix laboratory. An extensive
bibliography
about Matlab is available, listing about 170 books, plus
other publications.
This is yet another development release of
kermit,
the serial and network communications and file transfer
program. A description of the changes can be found in a
local file
/usr/local/src/kermit/192-1996-06-13/ckcker.upd.
This is a maintenance update of
dired,
the standalone directory editor program, analogous to the
GNU Emacs M-x dired command.
This version adds two new commands: Ctl-W to show the window size, and X to prompt for deletion of marked files, then redisplay. The current (.) and parent (..) directories are now shown in the listing, and the display will automatically resize when the workstation window is resized.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU gettext
system, for supported of internationalized software.
The installed programs gettext,
gettextize, msgcmp, msgfmt,
msgmerge, msgunfmt, tupdate,
and xgettext are invoked by other
programs, but normally not by humans.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU mkid
tool, a simple, fast, high-capacity, language-independent
identifier database tool. It consists of the programs
aid, defid, eid,
fid, fnid, gid,
lid, mkid, pid, and
xtokid.
Detailed documentation can be found inside the GNU Emacs info system: in Emacs, type C-h i, then mmkid to read the documentation. Type q to return to editing.
This is a maintenance release of the Aladdin ghostscript
utilities for viewing and converting PostScript and PDF
files. It includes
gs,
bdftops, font2c, gsbj,
gsdj, gsdj500, gslj,
gslp, gsnd,
pdf2ps,
printafm,
ps2ascii,
ps2epsi,
ps2pdf,
and wftopfa.
pbmplus is a very large package of filters for
converting between various bitmap graphics file formats.
There are 176 different filters, so to avoid cluttering the
already very large /usr/local/bin directory,
they are installed in a separate directory,
/usr/local/pbmplus, which you should add to your
shell search path if you want to use these tools.
For details on pbmplus, consult the UNIX manual
pages: apropos pbm will get you started.
GNU emacs 19.31 has been installed as
emacs-19.31 and nemacs. After a
suitable test period, it will become the default
emacs
editor. Previous versions remain available as emacs,
emacs-19.30, and emacs-19.29;
older 19.xx versions have been removed. To find
out what new features are available, type C-h n
in an emacs session.
The installed programs are: emacs-19.31,
b2m, ctags,
emacsclient,
etags,
nemacs, and rcs-checkin.
This is a maintenance release of the AT&T
awk
program.
This is yet another development release of
kermit,
the serial and network communications and file transfer
program. A description of the changes can be found in a
local file
/usr/local/src/kermit/192-1996-05-18/ckcker.upd.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU
ispell
program for batch spelling checking, and interactive
spelling checking and correction.
This is a maintenance release of the Network Time Protocol
software for synchronizing clocks on distributed computers.
None of the installed programs (ntpdate,
ntpq, ntptrace, tickadj,
xntpd, and xntpdc) are
user callable.
This is an early release of the GNU automake
utility for automatic generation of UNIX Makefiles.
giftrans
is a utility for converting CompuServe GIF
bitmap graphics files into a GIF89a format
file, allowing the background color to be set to a solid
color, or made transparent.
This is the first public installation of the
python
language on local systems. python is an
extensible interpreted language, used, for example, to write
the grail Web browser.
This new release of
psposter,
a program for generating PostScript posters, adds support
for fonts built from Adobe Multiple Master fonts.
This is a maintenance release of
bibclean,
the
BibTeX
bibliography prettyprinter and syntax checker, with ports to
more compilers and platforms. The major new user-visible
feature is validation of checksums in CODEN values, which
are unique codes assigned by Chemical Abstracts to serials.
Most of the bibliographies at
ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/index.html
now contain both CODEN and ISSN data for article entries.
This is a maintenance release of the Princeton/AT&T
ANSI/ISO Standard C compiler,
lcc.
This is a very strict, fast, hand-coded recursive-descent C
compiler with excellent diagnostics, making it an excellent
compiler for portability testing and student code
development. However, because lcc is a strict
compiler, many older programs, and programs that require
extensive operating system or window system facilities,
cannot be compiled with it.
The installation consists of the programs
bprint
(expression profiler),
lburg
(code generator), and
lcc
(compiler).
lcc is available on DECstation (ULTRIX) NeXT
(Mach (old lcc 1.9 version only)), Silicon
Graphics (IRIX), and Sun (SunOS and Solaris) systems. It
can also be built for Intel platforms, but none of those are
available locally. However, the code generator in lcc
can produce .o files for any of the supported
architectures on all systems that lcc runs on, so you
can use it as a cross compiler. There is no lcc
support for DEC Alpha, HP PA-RISC, or IBM RS/6000 architectures.
For readers interested in compiler design, lcc
is written as a
literate program
which forms the text of a 564-page
book.
This is a build-from-source-code on all local architectures
of the
lynx
Web browser program, still the only one that can be used
without a window system.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU
autoconf
configuration tool for creating
configure
scripts to automate the adaptation of software to new UNIX
environments. It includes autoconf,
autoheader, autoreconf,
autoupdate, ifnames, and
autoscan.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU
gdb
debugger.
gcal
and tcal are GNU improvement on the UNIX
cal calendar utility.
genscript
and its helper program mkafmmap are new GNU
tools for converting ASCII text to PostScript. See also
enscript
and
lptops.
This is a new release of tcl, part of the
Tcl/Tk system. It includes tclsh7.5 and the
libtcl7.5.a library.
This is a maintenance release of the GNU text utilities:
cat,
cksum,
comm,
csplit,
cut,
expand,
fmt,
fold,
head,
join,
md5sum,
nl,
od,
paste,
pr,
sort,
split,
sum,
tac,
tail,
tr,
unexpand,
uniq,
and
wc.
This is a new release of tk, part of the Tcl/Tk
system. It includes wish4.1 and the
libtk4.1.a library.
This is a maintenance release of the HTML prettyprinter with one change: input HTML comments are now copied verbatim to the output stream, instead of being reformatted.
This is a major new release of the glimpse search engine,
with programs
agrep,
glimpse,
glimpseindex,
and
glimpseserver.
This is a new release of the BibTeX bibliography prettyprinter and syntax checker, with support for checksum validation of CODEN values.
This is a simple shell script interface to make this Adobe
TranScript utility available on all local systems;
enscript
converts ASCII text to PostScript;
lptops
is an alternative.
This is a maintenance release of the
magic
utility for determining file types.
This is a maintenance release of the
magic
utility for determining file types.
This is a development test release of the kermit serial-line and network communications program. A description of the changes can be found in a local file /usr/local/src/kermit/192-1996-04-15/ckcker.upd.
This is a maintenance release of the Aladdin ghostscript
utilities for viewing and converting PostScript and PDF
files. It includes
gs,
bdftops, font2c, gsbj,
gsdj, gsdj500, gslj,
gslp, gsnd,
pdf2ps,
printafm,
ps2ascii,
ps2epsi,
ps2pdf,
and wftopfa.
This is a new release of the HTML 3.0
arena WWW browser.
New release of the Fortran syntax checker and declaration prettyprinter.
This is a maintenance release of
top,
a program to display process status dynamically.
This is a maintenance release of the MakeTeXPK
script used by TeX DVI drivers for dynamic font generation.
This is a maintenance update of the
noweb
system, which supports literate programming in almost any
programming language.
This is the latest version of AT&T awk from Brian
Kernighan. It matches
nawk
and
gawk
in the language supported.
This is a maintenance release of
gsftopk,
a utility that uses Aladdin ghostscript,
gs,
to rasterize Adobe Type 1 PostScript fonts, and then outputs
them as TeX PK-format font files. It is invoked
automatically by the MakeTeXPK script that
several TeX DVI drivers automatically launch when they
cannot find a required font.
New release of the Fortran syntax checker and declaration prettyprinter.
This is the latest release of the Sun Java Development
environment. To use it, you must be running on a Sun
Solaris 2.x system (the public ones are
slab01.math.utah.edu and slab02.math.utah.edu),
and you must add a directory to your search path, like
this (best put in your $HOME/.cshrc file):
set path=($path /usr/local/src/java/JDE/sparc-S2/bin) rehashThen you can invoke it as
jde.
This is a development release of Grant Gustafson's
pi screen editor.
This is a development release of
gnuplot,
a general plotting package, with supprot for many new output
devices.
These programs are part of the
xf
GUI builder for the Tcl/Tk system. Although they have been
installed, there seems to be a problem with the Tcl/Tk
interface that prevents correct operation. When a working
version is finally obtained, this package may provide a
quick way to build simple platform-independent windowing
interfaces to existing programs for the X Window System, the
Apple Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows (3.x, 95, NT).
This is a maintenance release of MakeTeXPK, a
script used by several TeX DVI drivers to dynamically
generate missing fonts. The changes remove the old special
handling of Lucida fonts, which are now handled with
gsftopk.
This is a maintenance release of these utilities, which
convert TeX PK fonts to X bitmaps ( pktobm )
and PostScript Type 1 fonts to TeX PK fonts
(ps2pk). The latter provides an alternative
to
gsftopk.
This is a maintenance release of x3270, an X
Window System emulator for an IBM 3270 terminal. The only
major local use of such terminals is for the University of
Utah Marriott library card catalog. The
tn3270
program provides an alternative non-windowing interface that
can be used over serial dialup lines.
This is a maintenance release of Aladdin ghostscript,
gs,
an implementation of a PostScript and PDF file viewer and
translator. Use the ghostview program if you
want a windowing interface to ghostscript ( ghostview
does not yet handle PDF files: use Adobe
acroread
instead).
GNU TeXinfo document to HTML converter. Thanks to this program, almost the entire local GNU documentation tree is now available in HTML form at http://www.math.utah.edu/docs/info/index.html.
New (and old-database-incompatible) release of the mg
(Managing Gigabytes) database query system. See the
book by Ian H. Witten, Alistair Moffat, and Timothy C. Bell,
Managing Gigabytes: Compressing and Indexing Documents
and Images, Van Nostrand Reinhold (1994), ISBN
0-442-01863-0, pp. xiv + 429.
New release of the Fortran syntax checker and declaration prettyprinter.
New improved versions of filters for printing PostScript
files on local HP 4siMX and 5siMX duplex printers, with
one-sided, or two-sided (separate from job header) printing.
These now support a -Pprintername command-line
option, and automatically convert TeX DVI, Tektronix, and
PLOT79 X79 files to PostScript.
First local installation of the
wish
(windowing shell) and
tclsh
(Tcl [Tool command language] shell) programs. See the book
by John K. Ousterhout, Tcl and the Tk Toolkit,
Addison-Wesley (1994), ISBN 0-201-63337-X, pp. xx + 458.
Because of serious security problems, the netscape
WWW browser has been temporarily disabled. These
problems exist in both the browser itself, and in the
underlying Java language development kit. Netscape and Sun
are working to repair these security holes, and as soon as
safe versions are released, netscape will be
made available again.
Because Java on the WWW is predicated on downloading `applets' (small programs) and executing them on-the-fly, the simple selection of a Java-compatible browser hypertext link can result in a program over which you have no control running on your computer.
Java was designed to make this safe, by validation of Java bytecodes before execution, by very stringent controls on memory accesses, and by strict limitations on operating system, file system, and network accesses.
Despite these precautions, malicious miscreants have found security holes which have been actively exploited to sneak behind Internet firewalls, and to do things like capture keystrokes (read: passwords, private documents, and WWW browsing history), even after the original browser application has exited.
Maintenance release of
bibclean,
the
BibTeX
bibliography prettyprinter, syntax checker, and lexical
analyzer. The new features are six new command-line options
for more control of formatting of @Preamble{...} and
@String{...} entries.
Shell script to support @include filename
statements in
awk
programs.
Maintenance release of GNU implementation of the
awk
language interpreter.
Maintenance release of
kermit,
the venerable communications utility. This release
continues the major overhaul and improvement of modem
handling, and many other areas. Further
details
are available elsewhere.
This is a major new release of the xmosaic WWW
browser, with a new look, many bug fixes, and some new
features. After launching it, pull down the Help
menu and select What's New for details.
There is no
Java
support yet in xmosaic.
Maintenance release of utilities for converting PostScript Type 1 fonts to TeX PK fonts, and TeX PK fonts to X11 bitmaps.
Maintenance release of GNU implementation of the UNIX
tar (tape/disk archive) utility.
Maintenance release of the X Window System clock showing worldwide day and night.
Maintenance update of JPEG lossy compression and decompression filters.
Maintenance update of SFTRAN3 and Fortran pretty printer and lexical analyzer.
First locally-installed release of an early version of a PDF
(Portable Document Format) file viewer. This is not yet
competitive with the Adobe Acrobat reader,
acroread.
ASCII WWW browser (now available on all local architectures).
Delimiter (parentheses, braces, braces, quotes, and dollar signs) balance checker.
This is an HTML to PostScript translator.
This is a maintenance release of
tcsh,
an improved
csh -compatible
UNIX shell.
This is a reversion to an older release of groff ,
the GNU implementation of the nroff/troff
typesetting and document formatting system, to fix a
problem that cropped up in version 1.10 with UNIX manual
page viewing.
Major new release of the popular netscape WWW
browser, with
Java
beta-version support.
This is a maintenance release of
octave,
a Matlab -like programming language for matrix
analysis. The
NEWS
file from the distribution describes recent changes.
This minor update of version 2.11 adds support for CODEN
, MRclass, MRnumber, xxISBN,
xxISSN, and xxLCCN keys. Version 2.11
also incorporates major changes to support use of the GNU
autoconf
package for simpler installation.
bibsort
is a utility for sorting
BibTeX
entries. This update adds support for a -byday
command-line option, so that bibliographies with year
, month, and day keys, such as ones
for technical reports, newspapers and magazines, can be
sorted into publication order.
biborder
is a utility for putting key/value strings inside
BibTeX
entries into a consistent standard order. This update adds
support for CODEN, day, MRclass,
and MRnumber keys. The day key will be
supported by BibTeX 1.0, eliminating the awkward, and
language-dependent, form
month = may # " 11",
required with BibTeX 0.99 styles.
This is a maintenance release of
bibjoin,
a utility for merging
BibTeX
entries for the same publication, incorporating a small
improvement in the handling of page number ranges.
This is a maintenance release of
perl,
the Practical Extraction and Report Language. If
you want to learn more about perl, there are
now at least 10
books
that describe the language.
Besides the usual UNIX man page, there is an
extensive online tutorial in the GNU Emacs
info
system; just type C-h i mperl inside an Emacs
session.
This is a new version of the delimiter checker utility with several new command-line options, support for multiple files on the command line, and checking of forward, backward, and double quotes.
An autoconvergence unit has been installed in the Electrohome projection system in JWB335; this should substantially improve the image quality. An Electrohome technician will work on the system in the first week of January to fine tune the astigmatism corrections.
A new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5siMX printer has been installed in the graduate lab, JWB120, replacing the old and heavily overloaded Laser 4siMX. The new printer is capable of 22 pages/minute printing, and an additional 16MB of memory has been installed to support printing of very complicated, or large, PostScript files.
The printer is set to print in duplex mode by default, in order to conserve paper.
The scripts print-ps-oneside and print-ps-twoside have been updated to support printing on this printer, as well as on the two B129 undergraduate lab duplex printers, in such a way as to ensure that the job header is printed on a separate page; this is particularly useful for two-sided TeX output.
The fourth half-yearly release of LaTeX 2e has been installed, completely replacing the old tree, /usr/local/lib/tex/latex2e, and the latex2e.fmt format files have been regenerated to reflect the new release. The update should be transparent to users.
For a summary of what has changed at each release, visit the newsletter issues in Acrobat PDF format: 1, 2, 3, and 4, or in TeX DVI format: 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Aladdin ghostscript 3.61 ( gs ) has been installed; because this is a beta test release, one or more previous versions remain available. Do ls /usr/local/bin/gs* for a list.
groff 1.10 has been installed, replacing the old 1.09 version. groff is the Free Software Foundation's replacement for the UNIX nroff / troff document formatting system. For example, you can convert UNIX manual pages (typically found in /usr/local/man/man*/* ) to PostScript with groff -man, to TeX DVI files with groff -man -Tdvi, to ASCII with groff -man -Tascii, and view them in an X window with groff -man -X. [NB: the X window display is broken in this release, and a bug report has been submitted.]
These BibTeX utilities provide for substitution of string definitions in bibliographic entries, which may be useful for mailing short extracts of a database, or for providing an online bibliographic search and display facility.
This release of the SGML Parser package replaces the old 0.4 version. It provides four utilities, nsgmls , sgmlnorm, spent, and spam for SGML parsing, tag normalization, and stream editing.
Most users will not employ these tools directly, but HTML (i.e. WorldWideWeb pages) authors are strongly advised to make regular use of the interface scripts html-check and html-ncheck for validating HTML files, and html-pretty for prettyprinting and converting simple ASCII files to correct HTML files.
GNU emacs 19.30 has been installed; the previous
version remains available as emacs-19.29, and
older 19.xx versions have been removed. To find out what
new features are available, type C-h n in an
emacs
session.
This new release of the GNU C and C++ compilers replaces the previous version, 2.7.1.
grail is a new WWW browser developed at CNRI (Corporation for National Research Initiatives). Unlike other WWW browsers, grail is based on the Tcl/Tk system, so that it can be extended by users.
Other WWW browsers available locally include arena, hotjava, lynx, netscape, netscape-203b, and xmosaic. Apart from xmosaic, most of these are available on only a few of our local architectures, usually at least Sun SunOS and Solaris.
There is an 11-month gap here, because nobody has had time to write news items. We are trying to do better for the future. However, it is almost Christmas eve, and this reporter would like to go home.
A new entry, People, meaning faculty, staff, visitors, and students, has been added to the Mathematics Department Home Page. It points to a list of people who have constructed their own web documents.
To set up your own home page, make a directory public_html at the root level of your directory. In this directory put a file index.html and use it as the root of your web tree.
Make sure that all files have world read permission and that all subdirectories have world execute permission. One way to do this is issue the command umask 022 before making any changes to your public_html directory. If you do, don't forget to reset it afterwards. This won't work, however for editors started from X Window System menus. A better choice is chmod -R a+r $HOME/public_html to give world read permissions to that entire file tree. You also need to do chmod a+x dirname for all new directories (dirname) in that tree. Be extremely careful with chmod commands, so that you don't change file permissions where you don't intend to! It can be extremely difficult to undo such a mistaken change.
Once you have your public_html directory set up and an index.html file installed, send an e-mail message to webmaster@math.utah.edu. The Webmaster (one of several different people) will put a link to your home page in the Mathematics Department Web pages.
At long last the department has a decent data projection system. It is installed in JWB 335 and includes an Indigo II workstation, a high-tech substitute for an overhead projector with a somewhat low-res display, and various other goodies. Pat or Marilyn or whoever is at the front desk has a key for the console, as does the computing staff. If you need help with the system, contact the staff.